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Also, check out the glowing chest on the table we could see at the end of the video. The one with the sfx around it that obscure the "interactable item" glow. 
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Jan 15, 2016 11:01
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And I'm back with another couple episodes! Episode 11 Episode 12
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Jan 19, 2016 16:53
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The bottle lets you whistle up a merchant with consumables, which is okay, I guess, but mostly it's for unloading heavy loot that you know you won't use. Like if you find a nice suit of plate armor, maybe someone can use that, because plate is fairly generic. But if you find a named halberd? Hell no, that's worthless unless you've made the character to use it, you may as well sell it. Speaking of things that may or may not be useful, the sickle Renewal might be worth picking up. It's kind of crappy as a weapon, sure, but it deals 2d6 fire damage. That'll gently caress up a door or chest nicely, since you're having a hard time overcoming the hardness of the door. (Hardness is like damage resistance for objects, but it's not damage resistance because reasons shut up.) It's pretty light, but also expensive, so who knows. There's always Knock, right? Bards are indeed Charisma-based casters. Boosting intelligence doesn't do a lot to help most of your team members. It boosts a handful of skills, and you'll probably want to wear it before dealing with merchants because Appraise controls prices and it's an Intelligence-based skill, but that's about it. Speaking of bards, you may want to hit Deekin with Haste when you tell him to get to buffing. Haste is one of the most absurd buffs in the game, to the point that you might want to load up more of them. Haste is available to Bards, but I don't know if you have control over what spells Deekin can pick up, so I don't know if you can make him learn it, or its bigger version Mass Haste. Which is basically what you'd expect from the name. I think there's items that give you permanent Haste, and they're as wackily overpowered as you'd imagine, but gently caress if I know for sure if they exist in Hordes of the Underdark. The double sword you found is actually not a half bad weapon, it's just that there aren't any NPCs who can use it. See, Sharwyn has Two Bladed Sword proficiency, but she is a bard. And bards, by definition, cannot be Lawful. And you must be Lawful to use the thing. On the bright side, at least you can sell it for a nice chunk of change. You got most of the NPCs. I don't know how long it will be before you find them, but I know one of them you can safely jettison as trash, one has a lovely build that puts a big-rear end dent in their effectiveness, and the last one...eh, we'll see when we get there.
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Jan 20, 2016 06:26
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Thanks for the tips! Here are another couple episodes, I should be recording on a more regular basis for the next few weeks. Episode 13 Episode 14
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Jan 22, 2016 18:12
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Usually, when a corpse doesn't immediately disappear/turn into "remains", the corpse has something important on it.
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Jan 22, 2016 22:30
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Technowolf posted:Usually, when a corpse doesn't immediately disappear/turn into "remains", the corpse has something important on it. Good to know! I was just used to the corpse being highlighted when you press tab.
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Jan 23, 2016 09:51
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The gear rundown at the start of the video was super handy, because gear is super important in this kind of game, and it lets us know what kind of stuff you've got on your characters. The Mirror Shield isn't a bad piece of equipment, but Spell Resist 12 isn't going to do much to help you at this point. Still, it's a +3 Large Shield, and better to have a +3 Large Shield with SR12 than a +3 Large Shield, right? For the belts, I give the ones that are always active to my NPCs, and keep a full set of the damage reduction belts on me and hotkeyed. That way I can swap over to being practically immune to slashing, stabbing, or crushing as needed. It's pretty funny when a dragon is going full ham on you and only doing two or three damage per hit. For the rest of the gear, I don't know what Deekin's got, but the fire sickle on the summonable merchant should be a very good weapon for him. It's a +3 Sickle that deals 1d6 slashing damage and 2d6 fire damage, and as a bonus, also gives some fire resist. For comparison, a flaming greatsword would deal 2d6 slashing damage and 1d6 fire damage, so this thing can really ruin someone's day (and, as previously stated, makes a hell of an improvised lockpick). I'd also hook Linu up with that Armor of Freedom, since the +2 Wisdom it provides is overwritten by the +3 Wisdom from the Periapt, and the Freedom effect is more important than some light and +2 saves against certain effects. (I am pretty sure they don't stack, go ahead and test it; and if they do stack, keep her robe.) If you can't get that magic sword from the Tomb Room, then I'd get her a regular +3 longsword, because maces aren't good weapons. All it has going for it is that it deals bludgeoning damage, which is great if you fight skeletons, but I think the better damage die and crit range of the longsword is more important right now. You might be able to use a rapier if Power Attack is compatible with it. I'm reasonably sure that it isn't in tabletop, but who knows here. I don't think Great Cleave is that great, unfortunately. It's pretty sweet when you chop down three guys in one attack, but most of the time you'll chop a guy down, get Cleave and hit another guy, and it's not nearly enough to finish the job. I guess if you're fighting absurd swarms of crappo dudes, it'll be okay, but since the only thing I know about this module are the NPCs, I couldn't say. Speaking of which, you have met the NPC that I was thinking of when I said "lovely build." See, she's a Wizard/Rogue/Assassin, the problem being that she never boosts her Intelligence. This means she is limited to level 4 spells, and I doubt she's using them on buffing and utility, which is all they'd be remotely good for at this point. But it's largely academic, because I doubt you're going to to kick out Deekin or Linu for her. When getting buffs, throw a Haste on the buffer so they can crank out spells twice as fast. I'd also only go for the long-duration buffs unless the enemy you're going to fight is right there, because the short duration stuff will probably run out first otherwise.
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Jan 23, 2016 10:37
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Here we are with another couple episodes, and with these two we're wrapping up Chapter 1 of the game! Episode 15 Episode 16
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Jan 25, 2016 16:18
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Linu getting that sword is a nice boost to her combat ability, because it deals more damage than her mace and is also vampiric, but alas, she is no longer one of our possible goons. I hope you can get the original crew of flunkies back, because Nathyrra's build makes her suck, and Valen is the guy I said was trash. See, the problem with him is that he's using the Weapon Master prestige class, which in theory isn't too bad, or at least no more so than a regular fighter. The problem is that his weapon of choice is the heavy flail. In tabeltop, the heavy flail is a two handed weapon that deals 1d10 bludgeoning damage, and deals double damage when it crits on a natural 19 or 20. To make up for the fact that it has worse straight up combat performance than other two handed weapons like the greatsword and greataxe, you get a +2 on rolls to disarm enemies, and you can use it for Trip attacks and drop it to avoid being tripped yourself if you blow it. Neither of these properties made it to Neverwinter Nights, so the heavy flail is just a sub-par weapon. So I'd bring along Nathyrra, because at least her roguery will let her deal out a crapload of damage via sneak attacks, because the conditions for getting sneak attacks in NWN are super easy: just be attacking a thing that's already in a fight. As long as she focuses on your target, she'll do a crapload of damage. Another reason you can safely ignore Valen is because summoning spells are supposed to have a finite duration. For some reason, they don't here, so you can just load up a summoning spell of whatever the highest level you won't miss is and make that one of the first things you cast after resting. That Hound Archon was kicking rear end, so a Planar Ally ought to do the job nicely. The Talisman of Pure Good is a fantastic find, and thanks to it, you can now wear a different cloak if you find it, since it doesn't stack with your current cloak. I guess you can give it to Nathyrra if you bring her with you (which you might as well, Valen sucks and just from our first meeting I don't like him), and while she doesn't use Charisma, gently caress it, may as well give her something. It also renders the Spell Resistance on your shield redundant, but Valen uses a two handed weapon (and loses all of his Weapon Master features if he isn't using a heavy flail), and Nathyrra and Deekin should not be using shields, so there you go on that front. The deflection bonus from the Commander's Ring is useless to you since you have the Ring of Deflection +5, but the +2 to all saving throws is pretty great, so it's worth wearing just for that. The belt is also nice, because it grants a +4 Strength bonus, but I think your gloves are also strength boosting items, so they don't help you any. If they do something else, well, there you go then, but I don't think you ever showed us what they do. Or if you did, it was in one of the earlier videos and I can't remember it. Speaking of non-stacking things, Deekin needs his gear adjusted: the cloak, helmet, and ring don't stack (or aren't supposed to). The +5 Charisma from the cloak overwrites the +3 from the ring and the helmet. The helmet doesn't do anything, so you can dump it, but the regeneration from the ring might be nice. It's not much, but it'll let you top up after a fight without having to spend any resources. As before, if they test it out, and if they do stack, by all means keep all that on him. Speaking of which, due to a bug, you're going to want to fire and rehire Deekin. And due to strength limitations, take some of the gear off him, the poor little guy is overloaded.  I really like that there's a nice big WARNING, BOSS BEYOND THIS POINT door, and you're given a room where you can buff up in whatever manner you see fit in peace. Pity it's to save that railroading jackass Halaster who straight up cheated with his insta-cast Geas, that poo poo's supposed to take ten minutes. This LP is making me want to reinstall this and go right to Hordes of the Underdark. In theory, the player character went through the Shadows of Undrentide campaign first, but you get boosted to 15 right away so gently caress it.
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Jan 26, 2016 09:41
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Long rambly nerd post on 30 hours of no sleep  Clerics and Druids are stupidly powerful in 3rd edition D&D by design, because players felt forced to have a healer and more often than not so one felt like they got stuck playing a role they didn't want to. This is partly due to action economy, if you cast a spell that's your turn gone. Once a fight gets going and healing needs doing, the healer ends up having his actions dictated to him, rather than actively participating. The solution was to reward the healers for playing the role with some extra goodies and power, and since they had to match that power to high level wizards... Here's the thing though, the main problem was one of perception and player expectations vs system intentions and the fact that arcane casters were over powered. D&D, up until 4th edition was designed with high lethality baked in. They changed the Orc in the 3.0 monster manual from a greataxe (d12+4, x3), to a falchion in 3.5 (2d4+4, 19-20) because a CR 1/2 monster considered sword fodder by popular opinion dealt enough damage on an average roll (10.5) to drop a full health level 1 fighter into dying. An average critical would instantly kill (-10 hp) any level 1 character, full-stop, and classes with lesser HD weren't out of the "Orc gib zone" for quite some time. A wizard with a +1 con and Max hp at 1st level and 2.5/lvl afterwards is only safe from instant death from and AVERAGE critical with a greataxe from an Orc (31.5) at level 6 with an average of 22.5 hp, and can only weather two perfectly average blows before being at risk of dying. In such a scenario, which is actually pretty likely, what use is a healing spell? It is far more efficient for a cleric to prevent damage by killing or disabling his foes before they deal damage, and it is far less dangerous than artificially extending a fight, due to the extremely random nature of D&D combat. Healing in combat in one of the worst uses of your action unless you are otherwise unable to affect the enemy. With combat being so risky, the best strategy is to avoid it. Indeed, until 3rd edition, an Orc was worth 5xp when killed; a pittance! Most of your experience was awarded from finding treasure (1gp value = 1 xp) or awarded by the GM for roleplaying and accomplishing goals. Why fight 20 orcs if you can get past them without combat? The treasure they guard is worth 5000 gp total. 3rd edition did away with xp for treasure, meaning you absolutely wanted to fight everything you met, running counter to the core lethality of the system. In fact, the system got more lethal in some ways with more granular stat bonuses and "strength and a half" for two-handed weapons and the like. Adventure and module designs changed over time from sandbox exploration zones to tightly scripted narratives, while the mechanics didn't change to meet the new expectations. So a horror filled dungeon in D&D Basic that contained things your characters should wisely flee from and never speak of again, might become a guided tour through carefully tuned encounters where the damage output of the monsters is crunched against several mock party setups to expend x% of their overall resources on average so the PCs can get to the back and hear the wight lord's grand speech while having enough juice to win the day. This was further reinforced , IMHO, by the fact that narrative experiences are probably easier to set up for video games than sandboxes. The cool thing about all of this is that 5th edition D&D is really cool and finally hits a good level of "not a mook" at low levels that their audience has sort of expected since mid/late 1st edition AD&D or so and that the older Basic/Expert/etc style is experiencing its own renaissance through indie publishers doing OSR stuff. 5th edition also does the smart thing, and like in 4th edition, there are spells that a cleric/etc can cast fast enough to heal and still attack or do other stuff in a round. There's a lot of interesting offshoots of D&D active right now, from Pathfinder and 13th age, to Lamentations of the Flame Princess, White Star and Silent Legions.
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Jan 26, 2016 18:02
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Monte Cook had kind of a "caster supremacy" thing going on during development of 3E and 3.5, and it shows through with how a team of casters can do pretty much anything. There was also a thing for "system mastery," which is why there's a lot of lovely feats. They are deliberately lovely to be newbie traps, and I wouldn't be surprised if the fact that dual wielding in 3E takes two feats is one of these traps (and a way of saying "if you want two swords, be a ranger" without explicitly restricting it to rangers). I know he's changed course on the newbie trap feats, I do not know if his caster boner has subsided. I can't speak for most of those RPGs, but Pathfinder has been called D&D 3.75, and if you take this as a compliment or insult depends on how you feel about the d20 system. Lamentations of the Flame Princess is going back to AD&D, and some of the worse ideas of the day like the adversarial GM, with a dose of woman issues on top.
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Jan 26, 2016 23:10
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I guess that would explain things like the feat that lets you fire a crossbow while prone without a penalty. There is no penalty in the first place. Also this: quote:Blessed by Tem-Et-Nu 
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Jan 27, 2016 11:37
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MechaCrash posted:Plenty o' pro tips Thanks! That's some useful info. I'm kinda bummed out that we're not going to have Linu around anymore, but we'll make do. As for the wild world of D&D rulesets, I'm not an expert by any means but I did always find that the rules worked in CRPGs differed quite a bit from my experience with the tabletop. So far I like D&D 5th ed., can't say much more than that about it.
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Jan 27, 2016 12:10
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And for the first time in quite a while we do a lot of town exploration! Episode 17 Episode 18
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Jan 28, 2016 02:40
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We just got into a new chapter and the game has to tell us what's going on. Sure, you could dash out and get right to kicking asses, but you may as well see about upgrading your gear first (and seeing what's going on, this ain't Diablo). I am pretty sure that firing and rehiring Deekin like you did is what's needed. I honestly don't know, I've been digging around the wiki for mechanics information so I could back-seat game more effectively and that's where I found it. Combat Casting is a fine feat if you actually cast defensively, which is a modal thing. gently caress if I remember how to do it, though, it's been dog's ages since I played the original NWN1 (although I did reinstall so I can play Hordes, and I will never understand why you have to fiddle with .ini files to run the fucker full-screen). I do remember that you can get more hotbars with the Shift, Control, and Alt keys, though, so hold one of those for a fresh set of bars, for a total of 48 hotkeyed abilities. I think. Maybe you can't use them all? gently caress if I know, we'll find out. Deekin's items stacking surprises me (obviously, or I wouldn't have told you they're redundant). They aren't supposed to stack, but if they all give different bonus types, there you go. Or maybe someone hosed up? But no matter, they all work, so pile them on Deekin and be in awe of his amazing THIRTY CHARISMA, which he can use to cast, uh...bard spells. Oh well. They can't all be winners, I guess. Speaking of Deekin, upgrading his crossbow a little bit is nice, but I wouldn't put it too high on the priority list, on account of the fact that he's mostly throwing buff spells and rocking the gently caress out. The crossbow lets him do a little something, at least. Maybe put a branding on it so it actually hurts? Just keep in mind that a crossbow only fires once per round. The "infinite ammo" thing is potentially neat, but you can buy a mighty fuckload of bolts for 100k. I think this gives you infinite +5 bolts, but I am still pretty meh on that particular upgrade. Speaking of upgrades, setting yourself up with a +5 axe is pretty solid. I have no advice on what energy type to stick on there (other than to note that there is no +2d6 energy brand in tabletop), so just go with whatever floats your boat. You may even be able to stick on multiple, and if you can, you can really gently caress a dude up with that. If you stick Haste on your axe, then the bad news is that you have to use that axe or no Haste, but since the only other weapon you own is a crossbow you never use, who cares? The good news is that this will free up your Boots slot, so you can give your Haste boots to Deekin and grab some of those Boots of Striding for yourself. Also, I would like to point out that the price for straight enhancement has gone up, from 50k per point to 70k per point. This is because under normal rules, weapons only go up to +5 enhancement bonus (with +10 enhancement bonus total, using systems that got thrown out and rewritten for NWN so who cares). Once you go Epic, though, the sky's the limit, so have at it. Speaking of which, Keen is indeed a good thing to have, as it doubles your weapon's threat rating. So your axe, which normally threatens on a 20 for triple damage, now threatens on a 19-20 for triple damage. A sword would go from 19-20/x2 to 17-20/x2, and scimitars and rapiers go from 18-20/x2 to the mildly absurd 16-20/x2. I know that Keen and Improved Critical don't stack in later editions of the game, but I think they do here? It's been a while. I think I had a crit-fisher build that used a keen rapier with improved critical back in the day that could crit on a 12 or better, but since she was using a branded rapier and had a ton of sneak attack dice, I think I was wasting my time. As for Nathyrra, well. I know she has those nine wizard levels, so you'd think she's a wizard. But you can talk to your flunkies to guide where they put their levels (you didn't do this for Deekin, so he's splitting his levels between Bard and Red Dragon Disciple), and you should guide her into Assassin, because her base Intelligence is 14, and she never increases it. When you want to prep a spell, you need a base casting stat of 10 + that spell's level, so her 14 only lets her prep level 4 spells, and Wizard 9 gives her two level 4 slots, the best she can cast (and a single fifth level slot that could be used, but I doubt the AI knows what to do with it). Giving her the +6 Int ring gives her another fourth level spell slot, so I guess that's something. Fourth level wizard spells can be fine if they're backing up your sneaking and shanking, but as I'm sure has become abundantly clear by now, I don't trust her to know her rear end from a hole in the ground. Speaking of which, dual classing and multiclassing are concepts from AD&D that don't really apply here anymore. The way dual classing worked was that if you were a human, once you got to a point, you could decide to change your class to something else that you met the stat requirements for, and all of the experience you earned went to the new class. You lost all of the abilities of your old class until the new level exceeded the old one, at which point you get all your old class abilities back, but it's basically frozen at that level, and if that sounds kind of silly and complicated, welcome to AD&D. Multiclassing was only available to non-humans, and the way that worked was very straightforward: you were multiple classes at the same time, experience was divided among them evenly, and they all went up at their own rates. You got all of their abilities, although you worked with their restrictions (so a fighter/mage/thief could use all weapons and armor because of Fighter, but couldn't sneak or backstab with any gear a Thief couldn't use, and couldn't cast spells in any armor at all). Which combinations of class you could take were dictated by your race, so if you wanted to be a dwarven thief/cleric, haha gently caress you no. Contrast to how it works now, which is "gently caress it, you gained a level, take it in whatever class, I don't care anymore." There is, of course, a wrinkle, and that is the Favored Class. The way that works is that if your classes get too far out of step with each other, you start taking experience penalties, because gently caress you, that's why. If you're rolling around as an elven Fighter 5/Cleric 10, you're taking penalties. Add a level of Rogue? Oh poo poo, even more penalties! But Nathyrra has Rogue 3, Wizard 9, Assassin 6, how is she not getting completely boned by experience penalties? There's two reasons in play here. One is that she is an Elf, and as such her favored class is Wizard (okay she's actually a female drow so her favored class should be Cleric, but we work with the engine we have). When looking at your levels to see if you take a penalty, it doesn't look at your favored class. And Assassin is a prestige class, which is also not factored into experience penalties. So when the game looks at your levels to determine if you get a penalty, it sees someone with three levels of Rogue and doesn't penalize her. It looks at you and sees fifteen (I think?) levels of Cleric, so it lets you off the hook too. The favored class of Dwarf is Fighter, so if you took a level in Fighter (which you shouldn't, but for the sake of example), the game sees fifteen levels of Cleric and ignores Fighter and Dwarven Defender. Now, if you added a level of wizard to this (which haha holy poo poo that's a horrible idea with your stats), it'd see fifteen levels of Cleric, one level of Wizard, bellow LEVELS OUT OF ALIGNMENT and hit you with a 10% experience penalty, because gently caress you, that's why. (The favored class for humans and half elves is "whatever's highest," so a Fighter 10/Rogue 5/Wizard 5 wouldn't be hit, but Fighter 9/Rogue 9/Wizard 2 would.) But none of this actually matters because you have very limited control over the leveling of your goons, and you are presumably not going to take any levels that aren't Cleric or Dwarven Defender. Anyway, for the rest of Nathyrra's gear, her leather armor is fine, since a 10% fail chance isn't too bad. I might go as heavy as studded leather for something really good, but probably not. Giving her the bracers is a good call, although I think Deekin's carrying a set of Bracers of Dexterity +3 already, isn't he? I think her rings are fine, and her amulet is just an Amulet of Natural Armor. That cloak is loving awesome, though, and it'll be a while before you find a better one. For her weapons, since she can dual wield, stick that rapier in her main hand and the short sword in her off hand. Sure, it's just a +1 shocking shortsword, but you can get it upgraded. She should also be able to use that nice bow you found but didn't really show, because she's an elf, and elves have proficiency with all bows. She has to be within 30 feet to get her sneak attacks that way, but it's not that big a deal, and she's better off dual wielding. Also, for that spell with "Fortitude partial," the "partial" means that even if they make the save, bad things still happen to them. So with Destruction, the target makes a Fortitude save. If they blow it, they die on the spot. And even if they make it, they take 10d6 damage. For the +20 Spell Resist on your axe, it might be useful. The way that works is "if the target has Spell Resistance, roll 1d20, add your caster level (and any applicable feats), and if that number is higher than their SR the spell works, otherwise it doesn't." SR 12 will only stop casters that aren't a threat to you anyway, SR 20 is so unreliable as to not be worth the expense. But maybe if you can get two doses of it, it'll be worth a poo poo? I don't know if you can get a second stack of it on there. If you can get SR 30, that'd be good. SR 40 would be fantastic but is not happening. I like that they have "my furnace burns gold" as a way to explain why you aren't being given deals in the face of destruction. It's not the cleanest answer I've seen, since it's pretty clear they pulled it out of their rear end (especially because it explains why he can't give you upgrades, doesn't say anything about why he can't cut you some slack on the gear he has ready to go), but gently caress it, gotta keep the economy churning, such as it is. MechaCrash fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 09:27
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MechaCrash posted:
Defensive casting is just casting within melee range of an enemy, like Lefur does a lot. quote:gently caress if I remember how to do it, though, it's been dog's ages since I played the original NWN1 (although I did reinstall so I can play Hordes, and I will never understand why you have to fiddle with .ini files to run the fucker full-screen). I do remember that you can get more hotbars with the Shift, Control, and Alt keys, though, so hold one of those for a fresh set of bars, for a total of 48 hotkeyed abilities. I think. Maybe you can't use them all? gently caress if I know, we'll find out. I remember using Shift and Control, but I don't remember if Alt did it too.
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Jan 28, 2016 19:04
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No, defensive casting is a specific thing. If you attack within melee range of an enemy, they get a free attack of opportunity on you. If they hit you, they get a chance to disrupt your spell. If you cast defensively, they don't get the free attack, but you have to make a Concentration check with a DC of 15 plus the level of the spell you're casting to not gently caress it up anyway. The idea being that you can focus on the proper finger twiddling to tell the laws of physics who runs Barter Town or you can focus on the people currently trying to introduce some sunlight to your insides, but you can't give full concentration to both.
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Jan 28, 2016 22:34
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MechaCrash posted:No, defensive casting is a specific thing. If you attack within melee range of an enemy, they get a free attack of opportunity on you. If they hit you, they get a chance to disrupt your spell. If you cast defensively, they don't get the free attack, but you have to make a Concentration check with a DC of 15 plus the level of the spell you're casting to not gently caress it up anyway. The idea being that you can focus on the proper finger twiddling to tell the laws of physics who runs Barter Town or you can focus on the people currently trying to introduce some sunlight to your insides, but you can't give full concentration to both. On tabletop, yes, but in NWN I think they simplified it so that all casting in melee was defensive (I could be totally wrong; it's been ages since I even had my NWN discs, much less played them).
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Jan 29, 2016 01:04
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When you right click your character, there's a menu for spellcasting. Most of the nodes take you to the casting menus for your various classes, but one of them is Spell Special Abilities. One puts you into Counterspell mode, and the other puts you into Defensive Casting mode.
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Jan 29, 2016 02:14
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MechaCrash posted:There was also a thing for "system mastery," which is why there's a lot of lovely feats. They are deliberately lovely to be newbie traps This makes me kinda mad. Who is helped by this? Veteran players generally want to expand the player base of their game, while newbs want to learn the game as quickly and painlessly as possible. What kind of rear end in a top hat is excited at the possibility of demonstrating his "system mastery"? Especially when it comes at the expense of people learning to play?
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Jan 29, 2016 02:37
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Anyway the villain has an Archdevil serving her. So this is why she is a threat. Archdevils are very powerful and have very little limits on their resources and minions. I will assume that it's one of the lords of the Nine and not one of the minor dukes. So she is served at the time this game would take place and was made by ether Bel Lord of the 1st and General of the Blood War, Dispater Lord of the 2nd and the Iron Duke of Dis, Mammon Lord of the 3rd and Lord of Greed, Beliel Lord of the 4th or his Daughter Fierna co ruler of the 4th, Prince Levistus Lord of the 5th (Unlikely as the guy is frozen in a glacier.) Malagarde the Hag Countess Lady of the 6th (Not actully a Devil so unlikely.) Baalzebul Lord of the 7th and Lord of the Flies, Mephistopheles Lord of the 8th and Master of Hellfire, or Asmodeus Lord of the 9th and King of the Nine Hells (Unlikely as there is no anyone could bind this guy.)
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Jan 29, 2016 09:03
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Cathode Raymond posted:This makes me kinda mad. Who is helped by this? Veteran players generally want to expand the player base of their game, while newbs want to learn the game as quickly and painlessly as possible. What kind of rear end in a top hat is excited at the possibility of demonstrating his "system mastery"? Especially when it comes at the expense of people learning to play? Not to defend it, but I wanted to point out that this is a significant part of the design of the Binding of Isaac and it actually works pretty well there. On the other hand D&D isn't about quick iteration and learning so I don't think it works as well for that... MonsterEnvy posted:Anyway the villain has an Archdevil serving her. So this is why she is a threat. Oh okay I missed that! Well she certainly seems a lot more scary now. We'll have to see which one of them it is! Anyhow here are the next couple episodes. We're out of the city and back to adventuring: Episode 19 Episode 20
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Jan 31, 2016 16:10
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It's a shame I found this thread after a class had been decided. You can go monk/Druid/shifter to literally play an iron golem monk, yes it's as hilarious as it sounds. Works great because if I remember right you retain your mental stats, but your physical stats (str/dex/con) change to match your form. Not to mention the SLAs you get.
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Feb 1, 2016 00:01
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Deekin: Hey boss. Boss! BOSS! You are rudely awaken by Deekin's voice as he runs into your tent. You instintively reach for your trusty axe. Deekin: Boss! There's a goblin here to see you... [Deekin sees you reaching for your axe] But I don't think he's for fighting A yellowish hand reaches towards your tent flap and holds it open. Topknob: Hello? Hello in there? I'm looking for a "Lee-for Smaarrr". I mean you no harm. Deekin: Boss! That's him! I told him you were sleeping but he said it's urgent that he meets with youse Grumbling, you drain the nearby goblet containing last night's wine and walk outside your tent. A peaceful goblin, eh? You've seen stranger things on your journey so far In front of you stands an overwieght, bookish, bespectacled goblin in fine robes. He hands you a sturdy, rectangular piece of paper, about half the size of the goblin's palm Topknob: Hello! I'm Topknob Copperstein, from the accounting department of Halaster, Inc.™ You recently entered into an, um, contractual arrangement with Mr. Blackcloak. Topknob: As part of the Halaster, Inc.™ accounting team, I'm responsible for auditing our external contractors to ensure they can deliver upon the terms of the agreement. Pursuant to this task I reviewed your expense receipts the other day and became quite concerned The goblin snaps his fingers and an easel and chart appear right beside you. A graph bearing your name has a thick gold line drawn on it which curves sharply down  Topknob: Mother wanted me to be a shaman but the only spell I ever got down was summoning inconsequential items. [He nervously chuckles] At least it's handy for when I forget my presentation materials Topknob: If you see here, your liquidity suffers a sharp decline around "Episode 18". It's as if the gold pieces are literally burning a hole in your bag of holding! Topknob: Of course Halaster, Inc.™ respects your right to conduct your affairs in any fashion you desire as long as you fulfill the contract. I'm simply here to express our concern about your level of funding. After analyzing hundreds of adventure campaigns spanning decades we have concluded that adventuring outfits that fail to maintain a minimum of 1,000gp per CL have a much greater likelihood of failure. To this end, I was dispatched here to express our concern and remind you of your contractual obligations. Topknob: Now, you have my card should you have any further questions or wish to contact me later. As he pulls his cloak over his head, Topknob disappears from your sight. You hear a soft shuffling of footsteps as he walks away...
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Feb 1, 2016 05:43
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It's too bad you don't have finer control over what Nathyyra does with her levels, but then again, if you did, you wouldn't be in the fix you're in with her crappy leveling choices. Say what you will about Neverwinter Nights 2, but the fact that you had total control over your companions once you got them made them a lot more useful. There's still problems with them taking lovely feat choices before you met (dammit Elanee why'd you have to waste your first feat on Dodge when you could've had a loving dinosaur companion), but usually there's time to correct course. As for the videos where nobody gets stabbed, I think they're okay. Not as a "change of pace" thing, although they are, but because they're a part of the game. And since this is an RPG, an important part of the game. Where the problem comes in, I think, is that it's interesting to do, but not always interesting to watch, so I guess you could give a plot dump warning and summarize at the start of the next set of videos where the horrible violence resumes. Deekin's crossbow isn't doing a whole hell of a lot in combat. It's too bad he can't use that electric shortbow you found, because bards are supposed to be able to use them, I don't know why they were given Simple proficiencies and that's that. But I think that sticking the sickle in Deekin's hand would be a pretty good idea, because it's a very nice sickle that does very good damage. Leave the crossbow in Deekin's inventory so he can use it if he has to, but the sickle should be his first choice, especially since he's going to be getting strength bonuses from being a Red Dragon Disicple. The Heal skill is kind of a waste in the best of circumstances, unfortunately, and doubly so for clerics. If you're playing from level 1, having a few kits around early so you don't have to burn your precious few castings of Cure Light Wounds can be a godsend, but by this point you have spells to burn, and you can trivially turn all your level 1 and 2 spells into Cure Light and Cure Moderate to top people up, because what the hell else are you going to do with spells that low level? Plus there's the fact that healing spells are an infinitely renewable resource, and even if you run out, you can just rest pretty much at will, which refills your hit points. In tabletop, resting restores some number of hit points that I don't recall because it's a tiny useless bullshit amount, and the smart thing was "have anybody with healing spells burn them all before crashing for the night." (This was one of the behaviors in Baldur's Gate 2, you could say "burn all the healing spells, then rest until they're back, repeat until everybody is at full health.") But then, you're a cleric, there's only so many useful skills to get in the first place. Maybe if someone gets diseased or poisoned, and you don't have the spell to fix it prepped, and are unable or unwilling to get it prepped? But that's kind of a niche use when potions and scrolls to fix disease and poison exist too. As you've noticed, yes, the winged elves are Avariel, and Aerie the mage/cleric from Baldur's Gate 2 was one of them. You kind of zip through the dialogue, and that's fine because there's always the pause button, but when you use the number keys to pick your response, there's only a brief flash to indicate which one you did. Maybe expand the dialogue box a little bit? Just drag the black bar on top of it to expand it. Clicking it will toggle between "completely collapsed" and "whatever the hell the last size was," I think. The strength damage you took at one point was probably because of a drow poison. Fuckers love to poison. Fortunately, being a dwarf, you get a bonus on saves against poison, and as a cleric, Fort is one of your good saves! So you shouldn't have to worry about it too often. The fights you had just brought home how bad the AI is. If you had finer control, then you could fill up Nathyrra's spell slots with utility stuff and tell her to not waste time with loving Magic Missile, just get in there and start loving shanking people. See, getting off Sneak Attacks requires certain conditions to be met (Nathyrra's levels in Assassin give her Death Attack, there are differences but for these purposes they don't matter), and the relevant one is "if multiple people are attacking a person, you can get your Sneak Attack damage on them." So if she just joins in the fight and dogpiles whatever it is you're hitting, she'll be dealing loads of damage thanks to her dual wielding. Unfortunately, she'd rather hang in the back and crap out the occasional Magic Missile than get in there and ruin faces. At least, I assume that's what she's doing, because when you zoom in really tight, I can't tell what anybody else is doing. You were popping Cure Critical Wounds potions when you were injured. That'll do up to a point, but you're a cleric. If you fire a Heal (while casting defensively; Combat Casting does nothing if you aren't casting defensively) then you get all of your hit points back. I don't know what your HP total is off the top of my head, but the potions look to do maybe a quarter of your life on average. Another consideration is Harm, which reduces whatever it hits to 1d4, but it has to overcome spell resistance and also hit. The spell resistance is the bigger problem thanks to those levels of Dwarven Defender, so turning yourself into a face-wrecking machine that won't die is the slower but safer bet. Speaking of spells, because of the duration of summons, you should cast Planar Ally as soon as you're done resting. Just keep in mind that the Hound Archon is starting to fall behind, but it can still distract things, do some damage, and absorb hits that would have otherwise landed on less expendable party members. You can summon bigger, meaner things, but that obviously requires using higher level spell slots, so it's your call if it's worth the trade-off. Speaking of trade-offs, I'm going to go off on two small tangents. One is Why Haste Is Awesome, the other is How To Dual Wield. For Haste, the reason it's so awesome is that, in tabletop terms, it gives you an extra standard action. Most spells have a casting time of one standard action, so you can get off two spells per round (three if you use a Quickened spell). This is, of course, on top of all the other benefits it provides. In Neverwinter Nights, that's not quite how it works, but the relevant bit is "you can crank out twice the spells." Combine that with the caster boner mentioned much earlier and you can see how this turns into problems. Haste was changed in 3.5, granting an extra attack instead of an extra action, and made AOE to compensate. So it's still a pretty good buff, but not at "get this and win forever" levels. For dual wielding, there's three ways to do it: using a dual weapon like the Two Bladed Sword, using a one handed weapon and a light weapon such as a long sword and a short sword, or using two matched light weapons such as two short swords. They all have their ups and downs. If you use a double weapon, then that gives you a little more flexibility and hitting power, because a double sword is basically two long swords glued together, and they get 1d8 damage. So you have 1d8 in each hand, compared to the 1d8/1d6 pair for 1h/light combo, and the paired 1d6 for matching lights. In addition, you can use it in two hands to get 1.5x your strength mod to damage if you need to punch through damage reduction, but that's just in tabletop, you always use it as a dual weapon here (just like you can't enchant the two heads separately here, in tabletop you can). You have to spend a feat for this, of course, but that's not as big a deal as you'd think for reasons we'll get to. There is also the problem that going far in the Two Weapon Fighting tree requires either a lot of dexterity or being a ranger who gets it all automatically, and if your dex is going to be that high, why not just use something that works with Weapon Finesse? The alternative is a one handed/light combo. The advantage to this is that it does not require you to use a feat on Exotic Weapon Proficiency, which means you can spend that feat on other stuff. If you're using a long sword or something in your main hand, well there you go, but if you're using a rapier instead (which would be the smart way to do it if you're taking this path), you can get Weapon Finesse, and apply your monstrous Dexterity to attack rolls. The benefit of doing it this way is that either you save a feat on Exotic Weapon Proficiency, or leverage your crazy huge dex for a rapier and crit all day, every day. The downside to this is that if you take Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, and other stuff like that, it applies only to one of your two weapons. Taking Weapon Focus: Rapier doesn't do poo poo for your off-hand short sword, after all. If you aren't taking any weapon specific feats (and Nathyrra probably isn't, I'd dig in the toolkit if I knew how; I don't know any story stuff and don't want to but "which party member is the least sucky choad in a sea of sucky choads" is kind of important), then you might as well do it this way. The third way, and what I'm going for, is matching light weapons. You can use anything you want as long as it's light. Short swords are the classic, but you can use hand axes or light picks or whatever (light picks aren't in Neverwinter Nights, before you go poking). You get the "any feats apply to both hands" benefit of the dual weapon, and the "can use Weapon Finesse" benefit of the mixed style. The downside is that light weapons are generally less impressive than one handed weapons. A short sword is, strictly speaking, not as good as a rapier. And while that's true, the reason I picked this style is because who gives a poo poo? I'm a rogue, the bulk of my damage isn't from the 1d6 my sword deals, it's from the 5d6 I get for stabbing you while you're distracted, and that part isn't multiplied by criticals. The dual wielding infodump has no bearing whatsoever on a dwarven cleric/Dwarven Defender, but I'd been thinking about it lately so there you go. Maybe next time I'll bitch about why the Arcane Archer is so loving awful and how the Pathfinder version is so much better (and still sucks compared to the Eldritch Knight). As for the money, the reason it's been going out so fast is because the game isn't that generous with cash, but that million from character creation is lasting a long time. I don't know how much you were expected to have if you imported a character from Shadows of Undrentide, which is what you're "supposed" to do, but even so, there's a whole new tier of stuff to blow money on, and not nearly as many ways to get it as there are to spend it.
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Feb 1, 2016 09:28
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When I went through all three campaigns on same character (talk about a faceroll with Shadows), I had maybe a few million by endgame. Which boiled down to how I wanted to approach the finale, since it was basically two choices.
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Feb 1, 2016 11:58
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Shadows was pretty faceroll because you're supposed to start that with a new character, as you no doubt figured out pretty fast. I think that Shadows and the original campaign take place around the same time, so the Hero of Neverwinter and whatever grandiose title they give you in Shadows so they can refer to you specifically without using a name can't possibly be the same person. Also, unrelated to anything, but that intelligent sword Enserric? He can change shape. If you say "sorry, I don't need a longsword," he says that he can change into a dagger, short sword, or great sword, but I think you need to pick him up during that conversation. So you need to do any pre-battle buffing before you get within conversational range. Fortunately, a long sword is what was needed anyway, so there you go.
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Feb 1, 2016 12:36
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Perpetual Notion posted:It's a shame I found this thread after a class had been decided. You can go monk/Druid/shifter to literally play an iron golem monk, yes it's as hilarious as it sounds. Works great because if I remember right you retain your mental stats, but your physical stats (str/dex/con) change to match your form. Not to mention the SLAs you get. This sounds amazing. Oh well, so it goes. Anyhow here are the next couple episodes! I missed some of your suggestions in this set just because there were so many, but I think I should be able to respond to more of them in the next set. Episode 21 Episode 22
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Feb 5, 2016 17:51
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I won't be doing my usual giant essay. If that's good or bad will be up to you. As you noticed, Heal restores all of your HP, but that's all it does. If you're diseased or poisoned, that's Remove Disease (level 3) or Neutralize Poison (level 4) to fix it. Greater Restoration fixes everything, but it's overkill. I'd keep a Remove Disease and Neutralize Poison prepped just in case, because by this point, level 3 and 4 spells are just not going to cut the mustard, so you may as well have those in your back pocket for emergencies. That's a hell of an "ambush" you laid for the drow.  Although I notice you still aren't casting a summon right away. I know I've harped on it before, but unless they fixed the duration for Hordes of the Underdark (and I am pretty sure they didn't), those spells are permanent, so summons should be one of the first spells you cast. You have Summon Creature VII prepped, which I think gets you a random elemental (but not an Earth elemental, they caused pathfinding issues). That'll put out plenty of extra damage and absorb plenty of hits for you.Speaking of swings, you also still aren't in Defensive Casting mode. The way it works is that if you cast a spell, and someone is close enough to you, they get to take a free swing. If they hit you, then you have to make a Concentration check to avoid loving up the spell. If you cast defensively, then you have to make a Concentration check anyway at a DC of 15 + spell level. If you've been putting points into Concentration, then especially combined with Combat Casting, you should have no trouble making the roll. The benefit is that they don't get a free attack. You activate it by right clicking on your character, then...I think it's in one of the special options on the bottom left? I covered it in a prior post, and it's a toggle, so you can set it and forget it (I think). That's one of the things NWN2 did right with the interface, they put that poo poo on a dedicated button in the corner. Anyway, the point is that unless you do this, Combat Casting was a completely wasted feat. Scoring that Destruction kill on Sabal was super lucky. She needed a three or better to not die, and got a one. She died on a 10% chance, and that's not even taking her spell resistance into account, which you also managed to beat. Still, a win's a win, and given just your sheer numbers and the fact that you've got a few Dwarven Defender levels, you could've just rolled up to her and killed her with your axe eventually. Changing gears entirely, I said I was going to bitch about Arcane Archers, so now I'm gonna do it. The short version of why the Arcane Archer sucks is because it requires arcane casting to get in, but it does not advance your casting at all. None of the Neverwinter Nights prestige classes do, so taking them as a caster is actually not a great idea (unless you're doing crazy poo poo like monk/druid/shifter). All you get as an Arcane Archer, at least at even numbered levels, are some abilities that don't do a whole lot. Imbue Arrow at 2 lets you use your bow's range and targeting for a spell instead of the spell's native stats (in NWN, this translates to "cast a better Fireball 3/day"), Seeker Arrow at 4 lets you ignore cover and concealment once per day (NWN version is "1/day, arrow that doesn't miss"), Phase Arrow at 6 lets you ignore cover, concealment, and armor modifiers once per day that unlike Seeker Arrow, does not need any path to the target (and in NWN, is "the arrow that doesn't miss is now 2/day), Hail of Arrows at 8 lets you shoot at one target per AA level once per day (the NWN version actually acts exactly like this), and the capstone ability Arrow of Death lets you spend a day to make a super arrow that makes anything it hits roll a Fortitude save, DC 20, or die (NWN version is actually better because you can just bust the arrow out once per day). So those abilities are very limited in utility because of how rarely they can be used, but the odd level ability is basically poo poo: arrows you fire automatically get an enhancement bonus. The reason this is such poo poo is because when this class was first made, enhancement bonuses on bows and arrows stacked, so a +5 arrow fired from a +5 bow gets +10 on attack and damage rolls. But that got nerfed in 3.5, mostly because of archer cleric builds, so now you only get the higher of the two bonuses. NWN still runs on third edition rules, so I am pretty sure the stacking applies, but that change kicked Arcane Archers down a notch in tabletop. The advantage, at least in theory, is that now instead of having to worry about a +5 bow, you can just make it +1, and load up the rest with various other bullshit. Want a +1 flaming frost shock distance seeking longbow? Go nuts, you've still got the +5 on attack and damage rolls thanks to your arrows! Of course, "free magic arrows" isn't good enough to make up for the other issues, but oh well. Pathfinder, as previously mentioned, is basically D&D 3.75, and that means it used a lot of the Open Gaming License content, and that includes the Arcane Archer. Here is the Arcane Archer for D&D, and here is the Pathfinder version. I would invite you to compare them, but that's a pain in the rear end so I'll go over the differences. There aren't a lot, but they're pretty big. One that you could count is the change to skills. Pathfinder combined Hide and Move Silently into Stealth, and Spot and Listen got combined into Perception. The D&D AA had all four of those skills, so the PF AA has the two combined ones. But that's a system-wide thing, and not class specific, so for these purposes I don't count it. Same with the saves: they crunch the numbers differently, so this is system wide, not class specific. No, there's only a few actual changes to the class itself, some of which are huge. The little ones are that you don't have to be an elf or half elf to become one, which doesn't matter much to the final performance of the class, and you get a d10 hit die instead of a d8 hit die. Seeker Arrow and Phase Arrow gain an additional use per day for every two levels beyond the one where you get them, for a maximum of four Seeker Arrows and three Phase Arrows per day. Hail of Arrows is unchanged, and Arrow of Death got a minor tweak in that now the DC is 20 + the AA's Charisma modifier instead of a flat 20, which may be worse if Charisma was your dump stat (but it's fantastic if you used a charisma caster like Sorcerer as your arcane class). The change that's way better mechanically than effectiveness-wise is the change to the stuff you get at odd levels. At first level, your arrows become magic just like the D&D AA, but instead of just going up in enhancement bonus, now they get useful brandings. At third level, every arrow is Flaming, Frost, or Shock (I assume you pick at the time you fire the arrow), at 5th level they all get Distance so you can shoot twice as far, at 7th level the branding gets upgraded to elemental burst (so you deal an extra 2d10 energy damage on a critical, since bows have x3 crit), and at 9th level all of your arrows become aligned, as long as it doesn't oppose yours (so a LN AA could fire Good arrows, Evil arrows, or Lawful arrows, but not Chaotic arrows). Now, on paper, this isn't that big a change, since what's it matter if I have a +1 lawful flaming burst distance bow firing +5 arrows or a +5 bow firing +1 lawful flaming burst distance arrows? But in practice, the difference is that you're going to find a hell of a lot more weapons with straight enhancement bonuses and maybe one modifier than you are weapons with low enhancement bonuses and a fuckload of utility enhancements. If you can make magic weapons, then either bow is easily within your grasp (although straight pluses would be easier to pull off, since that just requires enough caster level and not specific spells), but if you can't, then a +5 bow just needs a good roll on a loot table, a bow with a fuckload of random upgrades is not happening in the wild unless your GM throws you a bone. But the real huge change is that the PF AA advances casting. All levels except 1, 5, and 9 give you another level of casting as if you'd taken a level in the appropriate arcane class. And given how super important casting levels are, that makes sure that the arcane archer can actually do some poo poo, and as a bonus, it means that Imbue Arrow is no longer basically pointless, because if you can only cast first level spells, what the gently caress are you going to put on an arrow that made it worth jumping through all these hoops? And with just that one change, the class is largely unfucked. The funny thing is that the very first time I tried playing Shadows of Undrentide way back when, I thought I'd make an arcane archer because I thought it advanced casting in addition to its tricks, but fortunately I found the error of my ways before I did very much. I just really like Arcane Archers which is why I'm going off on this tangential rant in a game where there's only an Arcane Archer if you make it. And speaking of advancing casting, here's where the ugly reality of Arcane Archers crops up: the Eldritch Knight is better, because both the D&D version and the Pathfinder version increase casting by nine levels instead of seven, and the two extra caster levels are worth way more than the handful of extra abilities that Arcane Archers get from 5 to 10 in Pathfinder, and in D&D? It's not even a contest. I just want this cool class to actually be good. Oops, looks like I essayed anyway, just that most of it doesn't have much bearing on the current playthrough. Well, good to know if you ever decide to do an Arcane Archer, I guess. (Don't do an Arcane Archer, I just spent five paragraphs on why they suck.)
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Feb 6, 2016 18:23
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Ok so the Archdevil she has bound is Mephistopheles. For some details about the guy. He widely considered to be the second most powerful Devil of the Nine Hells after it's King Asmodeus and only rivaled by Baalzebul. He is the Archduke of Cania the 8th Layer of Hell a frozen wasteland. He is the creator of Hellfire a flaming energy so potent nothing is immune to it. Even fire elementals would be burned by it. Above all things Mephistopheles desires to usurp Asmodeus and rule hell instead. This is not a well kept secret as Mephistopheles has told this to Asmodeus' face. Asmodeus along with Mephistopheles's rival Baalzebul are the believed to be the only ones who have ever managed to one up him. As a result I don't believe for a second the Valsharress truly has him under her thrall. The guy is one of the most powerful beings in the universe and is worthy of being a campaign end boss. But his power alone could easily allow a minor Drow like the Valsharess to dominate the entire underdark.
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Feb 6, 2016 20:53
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If you want to be an Arcane Archer in anything derived from 3e, play a wizard and pretend to cast your offensive spells with your bow. Bonus points for being an elf and getting free short/long bow proficiency to display good archer form and maybe occasionally shoot at peasants. You can even take the magical crafting feats and make all kinds of wacky arrows and cool bows, and then make sure you hit by figuring out how to cast True Strike (+20 to hit) as a swift action after you've use Tenser's Transformation (fight as if your wizard levels were fighter levels) on yourself. The answer to any complicated build is just: "sure, that looks neat and is broken as hell, but making a pure wizard or cleric would be much simpler and almost as effective." E: and nobody is going to stop your wizard from calling himself an arcane archer or sorcerer or witch, etc. Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 7, 2016 10:18
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I'm definitely going to try to be more consistent about doing combat casting and having a summon up in the next recording session. There are a lot of little things to keep track of in such a sprawling game system.MonsterEnvy posted:Ok so the Archdevil she has bound is Mephistopheles. For some details about the guy. He widely considered to be the second most powerful Devil of the Nine Hells after it's King Asmodeus and only rivaled by Baalzebul. He is the Archduke of Cania the 8th Layer of Hell a frozen wasteland. He is the creator of Hellfire a flaming energy so potent nothing is immune to it. Even fire elementals would be burned by it. Above all things Mephistopheles desires to usurp Asmodeus and rule hell instead. This is not a well kept secret as Mephistopheles has told this to Asmodeus' face. I'm looking forward to the point where he says "I'm not trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with me!" Edit: Also I think that 3rd Edition casters are kind of like the Turing Machines of the D&D world. You can make more complex classes but they can just emulate them anyway so it's all just kind of sugar.
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Feb 7, 2016 15:02
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You can make characters that do things that straight up casters can't do. The problem is that those things may not actually be worth the hassle.
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Feb 7, 2016 15:09
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I'd rather play a fighter or a rogue or even a weird limited caster class like warlock in tabletop play. Sometimes, not being able to do everything after level six or so is fun. Pathfinder made the non-caster classes more powerful/interesting in a lot of little ways. I was happy that the fighter got some love. A pure fighter will have the highest ac, highest attack bonus and highest raw damage with weapons out of any of the martial classes, without spending a single feat. They'll eventually treat heavy armor as a second skin, and they essentially get weapon focus/specialization/greater focus etc for whole categories of weapons. You are free to actually then specialize through feats, which they still have tons of, as they still have bonus fighter feats at the same levels as in 3.5 in addition to more feats overall, since everyone gets feats every odd level, rather than every third level. I've been playing a lot of OSR games lately, though, so your class options are more, fighter, magic user, elf, etc. Yes, elf is a class. There aren't usually skill points or skills in these games, and if there are, they are way more abstract than anything in 3e. The most you have to deal with when you level is your hp roll, new saves, spells if you are a caster and if your attack bonus went up. It's, like, a game of imagination, maaaaaan. E: a lot of games only have four classes, fighter, magic-user, cleric and thief. Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Feb 9, 2016 |
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Feb 9, 2016 12:22
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MaterialConceptual posted:I understand that she got looted, I was just questioning the level design of having the player go back to the shop right after coming from the shop. I'll have another look at Sharwyn and Deekin's armor. I am going through the videos for the first time, and I am at this point in the set. To explain the game design logic in this, as I have played Hordes of the Underdark, you are supposed to descend into the Underdark first, before going outside. Compare the fact that the first combat you engage in in the Underdark is one skeleton warrior, while outside your first combat handed you your backside. Additionally, they give you a "merchant" of sorts right there at the entrance of the well. She is supposed to tide you over until you can go outside and access the better shops. Basically you did things in the wrong order and that is why it didn't make sense.
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Feb 10, 2016 18:55
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The game expected you to rush off into the dungeon with whatever garbage you could scrounge, instead of exploring around the (presumably safe) town to buy better equipment?
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Feb 10, 2016 20:43
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It's been a while since I played; however, I believe people tell you that the town is under attack and enemies swarm the streets. It's why there all those refugees in the inn. So I have no idea why a player would assume the town is safe. Nothing Durnam tells you suggests you should head out there either. He tells you to head down after stocking up with the whatsherface there in the room with him. Also what leads the player to think there is even anything out there to purchase when you have a merchant right there in front of you? When did +2 gear become garbage? The other part of it is human psychology. Your group just went without you and may be in trouble. There is a feeling of rush there rather than "Hey, let's screw around town a bit." I'm not saying it's good game design. It probably would have been smarter to emphasize the rush or even bar the player from going outside first. Cartheon fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Feb 10, 2016 |
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Feb 10, 2016 22:16
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+2 is turning into garbage at HotU levels, and endgame is about +8. I don't know if it's for the boss or general "you should have gear this powerful at late 20s".
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Feb 11, 2016 18:09
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After a bit of a delay, here are the next two episodes! Episode 23 Episode 24
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Feb 14, 2016 01:39
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 17:22 |
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Nathyrra is one of the romance options, I think. So tread carefully or you'll wind up in a Bioware Romance, and nobody wants that. That flail you found actually has some nice enchantments on it. +5, bonus 2d6 damage, and it can cast Flame Lash (short range, 4d6 3/day, Reflex for half) is pretty nice, but flails are kind of poo poo so who cares? Risktaker is also a pretty nice dagger, being +8 and granting permanent Haste and stealth bonuses, but unless you make an assassin yourself, only Nathyrra can use it. And the hit to Intelligence means that's a no-go. She would become completely unable to cast. Although given what a lovely caster she is, maybe it'll be worth it to make sure she stops chucking magic missiles around and starts stabbing people. The Planar Mace is nice in theory, but why use a bad weapon that gets +4 against specific enemies when you have a good weapon that gets +5 on everything? Speaking of weapons, upgrading Nathyrra's weapons to have more elemental brandings would be good. I posted a big long thing about dual wielding, I think, but the relevant bit is "to see benefits, you want bonus dice of damage, either from sneak attacks or weapon brands." Sneak attacks won't help you against golems, unfortunately. The ioun stone you sold is actually pretty great. The way it works in tabletop is that when you use it, it starts floating around your head, and it just gives you its bonus without taking a slot. Handy if you want a little extra strength or whatever but your belt and bracers are being used for other things. The way it works here is that you use it from inventory, and there's an effect, and the stat goes up. I think that it provides an Enhancement bonus that won't stack with the rest of your stuff, though. I organized my stuff by putting consumables of all kinds on the last page. If I couldn't fit them all, then potions and scrolls went on the last page, ammunition and wands went on the next to last page. That will help you find stuff and keep your inventory a little cleaner, especially that merchant bottle. Speaking of the merchant, I have nothing to back this up, but I suspect that the stuff you were selling was worth more than ten grand, but ten grand is the max he could give you. The way Damage Resistance works is that first it lists how much it reduces it by, then what breaks it. So Electricity Resist 30/- means "this stops 30 points of electrical damage, nothing overcomes it." 10/+2 means "reduces physical damage by 10, unless struck by a +2 weapon." 30/+3, which is what iron golems have, technically means "damage reduction 30, unless you have a +3 weapon." What it means in practice is "have a +3 weapon or don't bother." That's one of the things that 3.5 changed. See, when it comes to damage reduction, it's a linear progression. A werewolf, for example, has 5/silver (I think 5, anyway), which meant that unless you used a silver weapon, its damage was reduced by 5, but a +1 weapon could overcome it too. At the bottom rank were material types, then +1 weapons, then +2 weapons, and up the line. So having DR whatever/silver didn't matter, just get a +5 Sword of Hit loving Everything and it's a complete non-factor. 3.5 changed damage reduction in two ways. The first was that damage reduction was drastically reduced across the board, so that it was "bring the right weapon or this fight will be super hard," rather than "bring the right weapon or don't waste your time." A damage reduction of 15 is incredibly hard, but doable, a damage reduction of 50? Nope. The other change was to not make it linear. If something has DR 5/cold iron, it doesn't matter if you swing at it with a +20 Sword of Godwrecking, it will take five less damage every time unless your sword is cold iron. The major DRs off the top of my head I know are cold iron for chaotic-type stuff, silver for lawful-type stuff, adamantine for constructs and golems and junk, plus alignment-based stuff, and it could stack. So like a crappy devil could have nothing, a mid-tier could need silver or good aligned, a higher tier one could need silver and good aligned. There was whining about "golf bag of weapons," but eh, gently caress 'em if they're angry that they actually have to think about what kind of weapon they're packing instead of "more pluses and call it a day." The wand of fire is honestly not worth using. Even overlooking that it's throwing around fireballs that only deal 5d6, Reflex 13 for half, there's the bigger problem that I don't think the AI is capable of operating items this way. And even if they were, do you trust them not to be complete fuckups with it? I sure as hell don't. For your rings, its a toss-up. The Commander's Ring is +2 to all saving throws. I know there's cloaks that give saving throw bonuses, but I don't know where you'd get one, so you may as well hang on to that ring for now, unless you're going to give it to one of your flunkies. And I still think you should give Deekin a melee weapon of some kind, because he can only fire the crossbow once per round. I think he'd be up to at least two attacks per round with a melee weapon, or at least three, with the benefit of not provoking an attack of opportunity every time he attacks. You know how casting spells brings in attacks of opportunity? So does firing a ranged weapon. Pity you sold the sickle, I think it would've been a much better weapon for him. The deurgar lady was not impressed by your massive charisma, because by this level, +5 or +6 due to that isn't going to be enough. It can help, but if you haven't been investing in the relevant social skill, you're probably wasting your time. Charging in to grab or fight the golden suit of armor and then getting wrecked by the traps was fantastic. I know dwarven clerics aren't going to have great Search or Spot scores, but "untouched valuable thing surrounded by corpses" is kind of a red flag. Speaking of which, you might want to compare the armor and helmet you got to what you're wearing. The armor you have on reduces incoming fire damage by 20 and is super light, but the Searing Armor will automatically blast anybody who hits you with a retaliatory casting of Searing Light at caster level 5. It has to make an attack roll (no idea what numbers it would be using), but it'll deal 2d6 to constructs, 2d8 to most things, and 5d6 to undead. It should be 5d8 to undead but the spell is implemented incorrectly. The helmet boosts Concentration by 6, and also lets you cast Firebrand once per day, which could be described as a "smart fireball." (You didn't look at them during the video so I took the liberty of using Google.)You should prep a Heal or two. That way, the next time Deekin is getting his rear end kicked (because it'll probably be Deekin, since he keeps trying to cast in combat without doing it defensively and doesn't have the AC to get away with it like you do), you can just drop one spell on him and have it done, instead of having to keep burning Cure Critical after Cure Critical on him. It's too bad you don't have finer control over what the AI does. It'd be nice if you could smack Deekin and Nathyrra upside the head and say HEY, PULL OUT YOUR MEAT SHIELDS YA DINGUSES, WE NEED MORE BETWEEN US AND THEM.
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Feb 15, 2016 04:28
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