Awkward party advice

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I'm currently playing with the multiple strongholds mod and kept the thieves guild in spite of siding with Bodhi, but I lost it since I didn't return every 5 days.
Visit the bard and fighter stronghold regularly if you want to finish the game in time, don't wait for a messenger from D'arnise Hold, none ever appeared.

 

My previous party had Edwin, and he has so many spells to burn that I stopped bothering with lesser summons when he got to level 18. Now he just casts Project Image and his image summons a couple of Planetars.

For fun, cast Project Image and let the image spam the Wand of Monster Summoning. You'll get so many monsters that pathfinding becomes a real issue.

Near the end of Chapter 6 I tend to camp out in the open just outside the De'Arnise Hold a lot... waiting for various messengers and Terminsel (also using CLUAConsole:AdvanceRealTime(9999999) if needed). They won't show up in some area types, but outside the keep is fine.

 

The problem seems to be rather that only one messenger will appear when there are supposed to be several of them (one for each stronghold).
So you can wait for centuries outside the the keep without knowing about updates if the messenger from there was overruled by another one.

 

Well, for that purpose, sure it works. But the comment I was replying to was specifically about summoning a hoard of low level monsters to overrun your enemies.

Of course - and your numbers are right. But we were discussing the total amount of experience points gained through the game from disarming all traps and picking all locks - the cumulative total if you will - not what you get for each individual trap. While it's true that this is linked to character level, we just did rough estimates for how much you'd get on average.

For example, with the pick locks, I discounted the first tier of 250 XPs, because you're already past that, even for a multi-classed character, at character creation. So I look at 400, 950, and 1550, and said that's about 1000 XPs per lock. Technically, it's 967, but multiplication by 1000 is just so much easier to do in one's head. Same thing with remove traps - I just say it's about 2500 per trap on average (again discounting the first tier of experience that you're past at character creation). I'm not saying you get 1000 or 2500 for an individual trap, but how much you'd get on average.

 

There is a wonderful mod out there that gives you another option of siding with the good guys....

 

I don't think the dynamic behind lockpicking/trap disarming can be truly appreciated that way (total cumulative XP) rather I think it has more to do with how, at low-mid levels, it gives your group one, two extra levels that can mean all the difference between a smooth, rampage/rushdown kind of run and a stuttering/reloading-much-more-often-than-you're-comfortable-with kind of run. Give me time and a high level party and I'll kill anything it, the sheer amount of tactical possibilities intrinsic to a high level party makes just about anything possible (besides, we all know someone has already soloed Improved Tactics/Ascension with a pure fighter - as experienced players it would be downright shameful for us to fail in the vanilla game or even the SCS-modded one with a high level party).

Progressing through the game at low-mid levels is trickier, especially if you do most sidequests before Brynnlaw.

 

Speaking of which... do you know what Death Spell does to a level 8 party? Damn Mekrath! And he was fully covered in bugs, too, so he was cheating pretty badly. Even managed to summon several skeletons while he was at it.

I had Cernd (who is two levels higher than the rest) solo Mekrath. I couldn't very well come back when I'm level 9. That would have required me to earn half again as much Experience as I currently have. I needed Haerry now, as I had three cases full of scrolls that need scribing.

So far it's proven difficult. This party has little in the way of additional resources to draw on when the going gets tough. I can summon some nymphs, and Mazzy can Haste herself, and that's about it. Every time I find a level 7+ scroll, the thought that I'll never be able to memorize it nearly brings a tear to my eyes.

The good news is that there's no shortage of healers. I was kind of worried about this because I have no Cleric, but Cernd handles it well enough, and the Monk, Minsc and Mazzy can all pitch in. Keldorn has not disappointed either, despite not being able to heal. I have already used his Dispel Magic to get out of a few tight spots. It's annoying when it dispels Mazzy's Haste, though.

Time to scribe some scrolls...

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Scribing the scrolls bumped Cernd to level 11, so he can now summon a Fire Elemental. That should help. Minsc, Keldorn and Mazzy are still level 8, life isn't fair.

 

Tease.

How about giving more information to go on?

 

Meh... I'm not a huge fan of mods, unless they be fixes or minor cosmetic tweaks. I still haven't even played Ascension yet, and that has some of my own work in it.

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Apparently, Mazzy can also only use Lay On Hands on herself! So now I have a Monk, a Paladin and a wannabe Paladin in my party, yet nobody can use Lay On Hands to heal anyone else.

 

It is the saerilith(sp?) mod. She is a very young aasimar cavalier paladin that you can adventure with (and romance). The mod also gives you the ability to side with the order of the radiant heart to defeat Bodhi rather than the shadow thieves. Honestly I did not find that particular set of quests all that exciting (except having the cloak of Balduran drop that was nice) but some might find it amusing.

The mod is very much love/hate and there is some controversy to some due to the very young age of the NPC and that you can romance her. Talking about that mod can lead to heated debates. It was not my favorite mod by any means but I have played worse and I recall that she was not overpowered (but her personal quests were kind of wonky and there are some very strict restrictions on how you can interact with her especially with the romance). For insance they make it so that she cannot wield any of the classic ranged weapons for cavaliers like azuredge. There are some weapons they missed but it can be annoying for some.

 

Got the famous talking sword, but... there seems to be an error in its dialogue. When Lilarcor begins about wanting to kill a dragon and Minsc agrees, Lilarcor is supposed to say this, but he never does:

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Hmm... I seem to be caught in a rather awkward position. On the one hand Haer'Dalis can cast Minor Spell Deflection to take care of traps, on the other hand he has such a poor hit point total that traps that don't throw spells can kill him instantly. Maybe Stoneskin will help, but I've yet to find a scroll and I'm a little wary of entering Waukeen's Promenade with Cernd in the party. I have enough people whining about their little errands already.

Awkward party is awkward.

 

Cleared the Planar Prison. Wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Haerry now has Kundane, the Melodic Chain and Stoneskin, so he's slightly less awkward now. I should probably stop treating him like a bad Wizard, but I'm still not sure what role he should play; he's still a bit fragile for a tank, and switching between dual-wielding and missile weapons is a total bother.

Xi-Xi the Monk has also made an important advancement with the purchase of the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength. I found her extremely underwhelming before, but now she can actually hurt stuff.

Traps are still annoying. It's strange that Monks can find traps but not remove them. Isn't that supposed to be the same skill? Haerry's Spell Deflection helps, but he still takes loads of damage on occasion. I'd also cast Mirror Image, but I need those slots for Knock. After having had a rather low opinion of Thieves for so long, I never thought the day would come when I'd miss having one in my party... but here it is at last (though I still think single-classed Thieves suck.)

What's up with Minsc? His Berserk seems to be different from that of Korgan. Minsc got out of control several times now, attacking Mazzy and Keldorn and who knows what else (including probably two of my Fire Elementals that I then had to put down.) The point of Berserk is to become immune to confusion, not to become confused... Does he only do this when there are no enemies in sight? Without a proper Berserk ability, Minsc is just a bad Korgan or Keldorn.

Cernd hasn't disappointed, at least. He's a way better spellcaster than Jaheira, and he's a decent tank in Werewolf form. I've not had issues with his dual nature yet, though admittedly my script handles most of his transformations.

Keldorn continues to be great. I can see why people like him so much. The fact that he comes with decent starting gear doesn't hurt either, though I should probably pass Lilarcor to him once Minsc specializes in Axes.

Mazzy fails to impress. Her Strength is mediocre and her buffs are short-lived, so she's forced to waste a lot of time buffing herself after combat has started. So far she's not that much better an archer than Minsc or even what Immy would have been.

 

Mazzy is about as useful as any archer so if you were expecting anything other than that you were mislead. Notice that her "mediocre" str is not an issue. Bows aren't getting str bonuses in this game generally and even if you put her in melee she is going to then get a str girdle (or gloves of ogre power etc) so that the str is not an issue. She starts with great dex and adequate con so she is nice to have around. One nice use of here is that with the tuigan bow you can easily interrupt spellcasters just so long as your bard or the like casts breach. Also remove fear is always nice to hav in a pinch.

Minsc has the same berserk as he did in BG1 which is NOT the same as korgan. It is nowhere near as good (though there is a mod for this but it is not weidu if I recall correctly it takes away is spells for the berserker berserk).

Sadly they are not the same skill as you will notice in the description it says find traps but thieves say find/remove traps. This was a loss from the original monk in 1e to the dragon article that changed them in 1e (where the monk lost access to some key thieves skills like open locks and removing traps). Personally I would have thought it thematic to allow them to see illusions and it would give a real reason to have the find traps toggle.

As I said before bards are all micro management (at least until you get crossbows with pulse ammo in which case it is easy).

 

Well... I read some claims of "Mazzy is great!", and I just don't see that.

I don't think Viconia or Cernd are great either, but they at least fill their niches. I don't think Korgan or Minsc are great, but Korgan tanks hard and Minsc... well, is comic relief.

I suppose the problem is that they're all tanks, and tanks are easily compared. Mazzy's assets are "not needing Gauntlets of Dexterity" and "Remove Fear". Probably still better than Minsc, though.

She might, if I didn't also have to give one to Xi-Xi the Monk, Keldorn, and quite possibly Haer'Dalis first.

Can't argue with that! I don't have a Cleric, and Haerry needs his spell slots for Knock.

I don't get the thematic aspect of D&D Monks at all. The class in general looks like someone randomly threw together a bunch of resistances, immunities and unarmed bonuses. They remind me of Shaolin monks, but Hide In Shadows suggests some sort of ninja theme... but they can't backstab.

Well, it's either Find Traps mode or Hide In Shadows mode, so the toggle is still required, and Detect Illusions would be part of Find Traps mode.

Can't wait for him to get Enhanced Bardsong so I can just set his script to "sing, sing, sing" and forget about him.

 

What buffs? Remove fear? I guess if you're fighting a dragon, but seeing as how there's like 3 in SoA, and maybe 5 or so in ToB, that's not constantly buffing... I'm trying to figure out what buffs she needs to cast regularly before combat gets started?

As for being about the same as Imoen, well, if you consider 4 (or potentially 5 depending on weapon selection) attacks per round as compared to Imoen's 2 attacks per round to be the same, well then yeah... they're identical.

Now the comparison to Minsc is more apt. The main differences between those two are 1) Mazzy is a grand master in short bows, and so she gets all the associated bonuses as compared to Minsc being specialized. 2) Her dexterity gives her an additional +1 to hit. 3) As a fighter, she'll level faster, so better THAC0 (she needs 50K less for each new level), more HLAs, etc.

That said, you are right that the difference between her and Minsc is not immense. The main allure with her is being able to equip her with the Tuigan bow, basically immediately upon starting the game. A quick trip over to Watcher's Keep can get you the quiver of plenty (and the Crimson Dart for Edwin), at the only thing you'll have to fight are a couple of golems, and a vampiric mist or three. So you'll be firing 5 +1 arrows per round - that adds up.

 

The monks "theme" is from a book series that came out near the time of 1e D&D and it was about some detective or something that trained to be a monk and those were the type of powers and abilities he possessed. Hence the random seeming abilities compared to what we now think of as being the monk. Note this is similar to why mages "memorize" spell slots in that it can from another book series (which gave us the term vancian casting).

 

No, Remove Fear can actually be cast in advance. It's the Haste and Strength that don't last long enough, meaning Mazzy has to spend some time buffing instead of swinging/shooting once hell breaks loose.

Don't forget all those mages throwing Symbol, Fear. That happens rather a lot. And then there's the occasional Horror, Cloak of Fear, or non-dragon beastie that also causes fear, but those aren't reason enough to pre-buff.

Mazzy is still only level 9, so the difference is Immy's 3 arrows plus Magic Missile versus Mazzy's 4 arrows (both with the Tuigan Bow.) Mazzy is better at it, but the difference is not yet as huge as that between "wears heavy armor" and "deals with locks and traps, has Stoneskin and can Haste the entire party."

Of course it depends on the party. Immy would have been a godsend in this party, whereas Mazzy is just a tank that doesn't tank much.

If you replace "couple of golems" with "hordes of level draining undead", sure. I went in too soon with another party, no Amulet of Power or Improved Mace of Disruption yet. It was worth it, but I hated every second of it.

The golems don't have to be fought if you're just there for a quick raid. The next bit of good loot doesn't come until after the Chromatic Demon anyway. The most important items on level 1 are probably the Ammo Belt and the Tome of Golems, not even the quiver and the dart.

I love Vance's earlier work! Wait... what's this... Cugel's Saga, released 2007? Gotta get me one.

 

What did you do? Walk through the front door? If you enter and proceed clockwise to the character's left, you'll run into a stone golem first, and then when you proceed north, there's the room with some level draining undead. But not hoards - like 3 or so. Yes, it's nice to have the amulet of power, but any character that can go berserk can clear them all out. There's also negative plane protection, although granted, it has a short duration, so after a few rounds, you'll have to pre-emptively recast it.

 

There were also several level draining undead in the main hall, but may have been different for my other party. There's probably a level-dependent spawn there.

 

I guess I've got my perception of the horror spell colored by the first game. I still remember the horror of that first mage you meet at the Friendly Arms Inn who promptly scares the entire party to death with a single horror spell and then magic missiles CHARNAME to death.

Have you forgotten about Negative Plane Protection? It gives the same protection as the Amulet of Power.