Awkward party advice

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Yeah, those disabling area spells can be pretty brutal. I'm especially afraid of Hold Person and Symbol, Stun. Hold Person is very common, and almost nothing protects against stun (only Berserk and Chaotic Commands, from what I remember.) Even a hobgoblin encounter can be problematic if the shaman manages to fire off Hold Person.

No, I used it, but it only protects a single dude for 5 rounds. Either he didn't kill all the level drainers in time by himself, or I had to send some others along and they took a stray hit. A mess either way.

I now prefer to just risk the stupid level drain and then use Scrolls of Restoration. Saves my spell slots for Chaotic Commands and Mass Cure, too.

 

NPP is a level 4 slot - both Chaotic Commands and Mass Cure are Level 5 IIRC. Although there are quite a few worthwhile Lvl4 spells, like cure serious wounds (at least in the early part of the game) and PfE15' radius.

 

Of course, my mistake.

Interestingly enough, I'd say the biggest advantage of Cure Serious Wounds is that it only takes up a cheap level 4 slot, whereas Cure Medium Wounds takes up an expensive level 3 slot.

 

Cheap level 4 slot? I found levels 4 to be quite useful. Defensive Harmony is one of the best ac-bonus buffs, Protection from Evil 10' Radius is another vital buff, often even more important than Defensive Harmony. That's a -6 AC bonus with those two spells.
Cloak of Fear is an excellent choice if you want your cleric or druid to go tanking (love having Cernd cast this, then transforming). It's not as useful against a couple of powerful foes, but excellent to keep them from getting mobbed.

Negative Plane Protection and Death Ward are situational buffs, but useful at certain points in the game. I wouldn't use them without metagaming, although if you know you are going to be facing something (like when you attack Bodhi in chapter 3) you might memorize it.

I don't usually memorize the cure spells, preferring to rely on potions in battle as they can't be interupted and are quicker. I use the regeneration items (ring of regeneration, Ring of Gaxx, ioun stone, blackrazor, dragon slayer longsword, and I think one other item) outside of battle. Oh, and the Bhaalspawn powers until chapter 4.
I do usually memorize a cure light wounds for emergencies.

 

I actually created a mod a couple of years ago that gave monks that ability. There were two versions, one gave a 5% chance per level, so by level 20 you had a 99% chance. The other just gave them 99% at level 1.

Sadly, I never did get around to learning to use WeiDu, but if Tal wants me to I can upload the modified CLABMO.2DA files and the .spl file.
All you have to do is drop the files in your override folder.

 

Nifty though I have to say unless you make a ton of monks (or use mods that give you monk npcs a lot) it is about as easy to just use SK and just set your detect illusions score to 100. I did this once and it did increase my enjoyment of the monk (which was already high). I also removed their immunity to haste via SK and that was fun too...

 

So... awkward party is awkward. Slightly less awkward now that they leveled up a bit.

True to form, Haer'Dalis continues to underperform in a variety of roles. He can only Knock four chests per day, and his Minor Spell Deflection fails to stop half of the traps.

Xi-Xi the Monk, Minsc and Mazzy are still lackluster. They hit stuff, that's about it. Xi-Xi occasionally does some scouting, Minsc might charm something, Mazzy provides immunity to fear.

Cernd is decent. His spells are good and he can shapeshift into Greater Werewolf now.

Keldorn is a star. Like the other tanks he just hits stuff, but his immunities and Dispel Magic are fantastic, even more so because of the combination. His starting equipment is still very good, though the other tanks are catching up now.

Raided Watcher's Keep Level 1. Absolutely no level draining undead whatsoever this time, though I did skip a few rooms. Just a golem, some orogs and a few mephits. Must be a level-dependent thing. I got the Tome of Golems (but Haer'Dalis is not intelligent enough to use it!), the Crimson Dart (but I think Xi-Xi will stick with the Sling of Seeking), the Case of Plenty (but Keldorn has more Bolts of Lightning than he knows what to do with), the Quiver of Plenty (which is very much appreciated, since Mazzy chews through ammo like crazy), and the Ammo Belt (freeing up a dozen inventory slots.)

Tried to take on the Shadow Dragon. A breath weapon that drains 10 levels turned out to be rather brutal against a level 10 party, so I decided to come back later. If it weren't for the breath weapon... I dunno. A few summons, Haste, some good footwork and liberal use of the Rod of Resurrection (before anyone dies) seem to go a long way, but then the thing spits whatever it is that it spits, and people get chunked. I'll be back! It's just that I need to complete this quest for the Ranger stronghold (Multiple Strongholds mod) and I'm not leaving without killing a dragon.

They're useful, but they're no Holy Smite or Animate Dead.

Doesn't that take forever? Do you rest? Or use Ctrl+T?

What good is Cure Light Wounds in an emergency? I use the Rod of Resurrection. One in Mekrath's lair and one for sale in the Adventure Mart (and another one somewhere in Throne of Bhaal.) Costs about 500 gold per use if you occasionally recharge them.

 

The shadow dragon will cast death spell for the first summon but will ignore any other summons after that (or at least it does in my game) so cast a SM1 spell and let the dragon kill it and then get your other summons.

Of course if you lack a real thief that makes the fight a lot harder what with no traps...

 

Yes, the shadow dragon will cast Death Spell on the first summon (Kitthix has that honor) and then goes back to ignoring me until I attack.

By the way, what's with Minsc? It seems like every time he goes berserk he attacks a party member! I thought it was a random thing that only rarely happened, but it seems to happen every time. It wears off after a round or so, but still. If this keeps up, the only use I see for his Berserk ability is sending him in alone against Kangaxx.

"Boo says fight hard, so I fight hard."

I wish Boo would remind him who his friends are.

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Tried the shadow dragon again (party's level 11 now), went smoothly this time, just clobbered the thing until it fell. It never even used its breath weapon. Looking at the script it seems it'll only use its breath weapon if nobody is near it, so if you keep it tied up in melee at all times (wing buffet makes that awkward) then it'll never have the opportunity.

 

I'm not sure how to do nested quotes here on SP without a lot of manual copying, pasting, and editing of tags. I'll have to see if I can find an appropriate place to ask. Bear with me for this one post.

People are always talking about how they haste their summons, well, defensive harmony and protection from evil 10' radius make those summons even better. You use them to supplement animate dead, not replace it.

Depends on the situation. I never used CTRL-T, I didn't know it worked on regeneration.

Not all the regeneration items give the same rate. The Ring of Gaxx and the Cloak of the Sewers troll transformation gives some of the best healing, followed by the Ring of Regeneration. The Cure LIght Wounds spell is for when a party member is really beaten up. I'll cast CLW on them and give them one of the two best regeneration items.

I rarely rest unless my party is fatigued. I tend to try to clear out the enemies right away while my buffs are still up (although I try to hold off on the buffs until I need them), and if some party members get badly injured, I'll stop and go back to collect the loot while passing the best regeneration items around to get everyone back to full strength ASAP.

CLW is used to give an emergency boost to HP. Generally after the battle is over as I'll make a critically injured party member retreat (though once he's out of sight and out of danger, he may return and use his ranged weapon from behind the mage. I make a point to give everyone a ranged weapon, even a kensai or cavalier can use a throwing dagger or throwing axe). It's generally to give a quick boost to HP in case I encounter anything. See my earlier note on how I heal outside of battle without wasting time.

 

Awkward party continues to be awkward, save for one loltastic moment where Xi-Xi the Monk killed Faldorn on the first swing with Quivering Palm and another where Minsc killed Kangaxx the Demi-Lich on the first swing with the Improved Mace of Disruption.

Cernd's pretty awesome as a Greater Werewolf, but since he can only transform once per day I am now finally confronted with the duality of his nature; either he tanks or he casts spells. When he was still a "lesser" Werewolf he could shapeshift often enough for it not to matter much.

The multiple strongholds are a right bother. Lots of legwork with various area transitions, often just to hear that I should come back some other time. Paladin and Druid in particular have you start on the opposite end of the map even though there's an area transition right outside. The payoff is also extremely underwhelming in most cases, though I did get some cool goodies from the Ranger and Druid quest lines.

The Ranger's Moon Dog Figurine is a rather poor fighter, but still useful in other areas. Its script was horribly flawed (spends three rounds casting redundant Mirror Images before attacking), so I immediately rewrote it.

The Druid quests resulted in some particularly nice equipment including a lion figurine that I have yet to play with.

There was a problem with the Multiple Stronghold mod in that the Paladin quest to defend Imnesvale from Ogrons seems to auto-fail the Ranger quest to do the same. I couldn't fix it with console commands either, so I just cut to the chase and gave myself the Moon Dog Figurine anyway since I don't think I'll get another chance.

 

have the moon dog howl while evil is about. It will deal damage and often make the enemies run scared giving you some breathing room.

 

I know, but that howl is seriously weird. It causes fear, yet applies the visuals of Hold Person. Cerebus howls immediately when he is summoned, but due to the way it is scripted it does not affect enemies (but does protect the party from fear and evil) and does not use up his memorized copy, so he can actually howl twice in a row.

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All in all it seems as if the stronghold quests have received a bit less playtesting love than the rest of the game. This is perhaps understandable, since most players never get to see all of them (with the possible exception of the Fighter stronghold due to the distribution of classes and player preference.)

With the exception of the Cleric stronghold, all of the strongholds require way too much boring walking about. I bet if this had been playtested more (and I mean actually playing through them, not jumping around with cheat keys and console commands), something would have been done to cut back on the walking. For instance, the De'Arnise Hold has a chest right beside the door where you enter, but could we pick up the taxes there? Nooo... second floor for that, for absolutely no apparent reason.

The Moon Dog Figurine is particularly messed up. The mismatching in its script suggest that it underwent some last minute changes.