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Welp, time to reinstall this. I've been kinda thinking of playing through HotU again and this LP pushed me over the edge. Assuming I can get it working properly. If I may echo MechaCrash with some general observations - you really aren't leaning on your cleric buffs enough. Cleric buffs aren't the best individually but, especially with a warrior multiclass, cleric buffing most certainly is. Even just Bless, Aid, Bull's Strength, Endurance and Stone Bones will give +3-5 AB, +1-3 damage , +30-52 HP and +3 AC. That's effectively a 4 level boost for combat that will last, at your level, for the next 17 minutes (that's basically forever) for a bunch of level 1 and 2 spells that won't be used for anything else anyway. What I'd always do for buffs with a duration measured in turns/minutes/hours per level is shove them all on the shift hotkeys and just cast them all after every rest since they'd last so long and remembering they exist otherwise is hard, so you might want to try that. I'm also going to go against the grain and say that Defensive Casting is bad because only one modal ability can be active so you can't use both it and Defensive Stance at the same time. It might be useful if you've used your quota of Stances and can't rest but otherwise it's not really worth it. The bonuses from Defensive Stance are so much better. Combat Casting does get an improved version at 21 ranks of Concentration and a feat though, so it's not a complete waste, as the improved version is automatic and does not interfere with Defensive Stance. If you still haven't done that particular fight I'd suggest grabbing a Swordsmen's Belt and the biggest Amulet of Natural Armor you can get your hands on. It looked like most of the damage you were taking was from physical attacks so those should work wonders. EDIT: Also Extend Spell is the best thing ever for clerics. All those round/level spells lasting twice as long makes them so much more viable and less annoying to use. Rotoru fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Mar 26, 2016 |
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Mar 26, 2016 07:32
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The fact that Defensive Casting and Defensive Stance are mutually exclusive is not something I had previously taken into consideration. That being the case, I still wouldn't call Defensive Casting a waste of time, but I do think Defensive Stance is better. After all, if you don't cast defensively, they get a swing, but there should be enough AC to hopefully not get hit and drop too many spells. Technically, Defensive Stance locks you in place and Defensive Casting doesn't, but in this engine moving shuts off Defensive Casting, so blargh, that's a wash. The Amulet of Natural Armor is, at best, redundant with Barkskin, and at worst gives up a Wisdom-boosting item in the neck slot, and as a Cleric you can always use more of that. The Swordsman's Belt is a fantastic idea, though, but encumbrance will need to be managed, since I think without the belt, Lefur is carrying too much stuff. But gently caress it, that's what flunkies and bags of holding are for, right? Extend Spell is nice if you can spare the feats for it, and I'm not sure Lefur can at this point. Besides, I think Extend is mostly good for Persistent Spell, which is not in this game (but is in Neverwinter Nights 2, and yes, it's absurd). And to save people the trouble of looking it up, Extend Spell is "spell is one level higher but lasts twice as long," Persistent is "spell is six levels higher but lasts 24 hours." And some of the spells you can Persist were balanced around the assumption that you'd have them for two minutes (20 rounds) at most. But time scaling in regards to rounds/level and minutes/level is pretty fucky, so who the hell knows.
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Mar 27, 2016 05:49
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Rotoru posted:Welp, time to reinstall this. I've been kinda thinking of playing through HotU again and this LP pushed me over the edge. Assuming I can get it working properly. I've never had a single issue with it on any of my machines, go for it
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Mar 27, 2016 06:53
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Defensive Casting isn't a waste because of Defensive stance, but because NWN emulates a turn-based combat into real-time, making it completely worthless as consequence. In Pen and Paper, a spellcasting action is a standard action, which means on your own turn you aren't in any danger of being interrupted. They added Attacks of Opportunity as a counter to this, so casting spells in melee became dangerous. Defensive casting was implemented as a way out assuming you could concentrate(roll) well enough. In NWN, however, while defensive casting gives you no attacks of opportunity, you can still lose the spell simply because it takes a few seconds of standing in place casting the spell, during which the enemy can attack you and it is even worse if he has more than one attack per round. And worse off, you'll just have passed one concentration check to be forced to make an even harder check. That is why Defensive casting is useless. Luckily Combat Casting was implemented into NWN before Defensive casting was an ability and just straight up gives you +4 to concentration checks, unless they changed it later. It used to be that only counter-spelling was an ability, but counterspelling was rendered useless after they disabled it from being quick-slotted, as there was a bug with it where you could stack spells and use counterspell to fire the spells instantly, so Bioware just deemed it "fixed" by disabling the ability to quickslot it. You can still sort of use it to buff yourself at least. Also, I concur with earlier posters, buffing as a cleric is key, albeit a tad boring to watch perhaps. Consider getting a sequester robe to store your buffs on and switch in and out of it to do some quick buffing.
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Mar 29, 2016 08:17
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Hey everyone, thanks for the advice! I'm going to try to take your suggestions and record a new batch of episodes tomorrow night. I've been busy with a charity livestream event for the last while (And finishing Dark Souls 2) but I'm going to get back to this now!
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Mar 30, 2016 17:12
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Okay only got one episode recorded tonight but I should be getting more done tomorrow. Thanks for your suggestions, they helped a lot! Episode 34
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Apr 1, 2016 18:31
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I think if you give your minions potions they'll use them when approptiate.
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Apr 1, 2016 20:31
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Technowolf posted:I think if you give your minions potions they'll use them when approptiate. Cool I'll try that.
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Apr 2, 2016 12:05
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Piling on all those buffs were a big help, but how much help they provide is variable. Using a buff is 1d4+1, so you're always going to get at least a +1 modifier for the relevant stat. More than that, though, and who knows? That's part of why they're a flat +4 in 3.5. Also, you can Maximize and/or Empower them, and making it a flat +4 removes the ability to do that. Anduvir isn't too bad for a two bladed sword, if you overlook that double weapons suck, and it could be used decently well by Sharwyn if you overlook that her build is lovely. Daelan is built for double axes, not double swords, so he wouldn't be able to use it very well. Being able to throw a free Chain Lightning once per day at caster level 15 is pretty nice, but not nice enough to carry around a lovely fifteen pound weapon. The Cloak of Resistance +3 is very generic and boring, but useful if you don't have much use for the other things you can wear as a cloak and you really want to free up your rings and/or amulet slots for other things. I'm pretty sure you have a chance to find stuff that gives better bonuses to saves in those slots by this point, though, but without extensively going over what you can and can't have by this point, I can't say which is better, so gently caress it. I think you've got better stuff for everybody, so the Cloak of Resistance +3 is basically useless for you, although at least it'll fetch a good price. The Dragon Armor is okay, I guess. It's +5 chain mail, which already means only barbarians and druids give a poo poo, and the only reason druids give a poo poo is because the limitations on what druids can wear doesn't work here, since in tabletop they can't wear anything made of metal (but can use metal scimitars so who the gently caress knows), and barbarians only care because the completely better breastplate was given the same sucky stats. Bards and rangers can wear medium armor, but bards have arcane failure and rangers lose their dual wielding, so they're punished for doing it (which is why they no longer have that proficiency in 3.5), while everybody else either goes all the way up to heavy armor or can only wear light or less. Anyway, digressions aside, the fact that it has the +3 to all saves is pretty nice, but renders the Cloak of Resistance you just got pointless if you're wearing the Dragon Armor, because those don't stack. And...that's all there is to say, really, it's just +5 chain that gives +3 to all saves, and I guess if you haven't found anything better somehow, or you're super desperate to free up some equipment slots, there you go. The daily casting of Battletide is pretty nice, but not nearly nice enough. And none of this matters to you anyway, because you're a cleric, you can just cast the drat spell yourself while wearing way better armor. Nathyrra was killed in the opening volley of the fight, before you turned tail and ran. Given how many buffs you had piled up, I think you could've just charged them, but then you would've been in the middle of that guy and his wizardy backup crew, so maybe not. I don't know specifically what killed her, but I suspect it's the fact that she's a badly built wizard/rogue/assassin who suddenly found herself alone and surrounded. It's too bad, her sneak attacking would've done a number on all those casters, if she didn't kill herself on their damage shields first. When fighting the Beholders, all those buffs were useful, but Nathyrra's sneak attacks were also pretty nice. It would've been nicer if the Beholders held still, though. When I dealt with the "pop in and out of combat" assholes like that, I found it was way easier to just equip a bow and shoot them as they appeared instead of chasing them all over. Sure, you won't do nearly as much damage, but gently caress it, it's not like they hold still long enough for it to be a big deal anyway. You can drag your axe and shield to a hotbar slot so you can press it to equip both, and the same with a bow (not a crossbow, arguments could be made on longbow vs light crossbow at Level poo poo, you're now into epic levels, longbows are better), so you can swap weapons around freely. Not that you'd find much use for ranged combat, but y'know. It's a thing you can do if you have to. When you went into the spider tunnels, you got poisoned. You can tell because of the muffled boom sound followed by a sizzling hiss. The combat log probably said what happened, but it only shows four lines, so all I saw was that you're encumbered and can't run or walk at normal speed. I think I had my combat log showing eight or ten lines, which is enough to easily see what's going on without having to spend ages scrolling for that one loving line that says what happened, but not covering up the actual screen. It's a good example of why you should immediately mouse over any debuffs, though, because that will tell you what got you. I don't know what's causing the spell failure, exactly, nor do I know how to fix it, but there it is. Maybe you're in an anti-magic field or something? If that's the case, buddy are you in for a world of poo poo. This entire segment just seems kind of tedious and sucky. As for potions, if your minions are capable of using them (and I think they are), remember that they'll also use them when it isn't appropriate, because they are all very, very stupid. Don't give them anything important or expensive, just assume they'll waste it like the dumbasses they are and give them stuff you don't care about or can easily replace. On the other hand, don't give them super low tier stuff like Cure Light Wounds, because they will try to get those 1d8+1 HP back instead of finishing the fight with the guy that does triple that per hit. It's kind of a pain in the rear end balancing act, I guess.
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Apr 2, 2016 14:49
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Okay well I got the next two episodes up as promised, but things took a bad turn in the second one. Looking for suggestions for how to get out of this mess, otherwise I'm afraid the LP will be ending here  Episode 35 Episode 36
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Apr 3, 2016 04:23
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Wow, the spider zone is some cast-iron bullshit. But I get ahead of myself! Rolling into the room full of drow and handing everyone their asses like a finely tuned rear end-handing machine was pretty cool. I'm pretty sure you can target any party member via the portraits on the right. So you can target yourself, queue up all the buffs, and they will be cast on you just fine. Much faster and easier than "cast, target, cast, target." The way I would ideally handle that fight against the Beholder Tyrant is to tell the elemental to go distract it and make sure it faces away from us while sweeping around the room killing the little one. Of course, any AI sophisticated enough to follow that plan is probably also in play on the Tyrant, which wouldn't fall for it, but oh well! Lacking that, "charge the tyrant, kill the mid-tier schmucks near him, ignore the trash while you beat him to death" works too. The way I see it, you got a few noteworthy items, with the relevant ones being Spellsmasher, the Mantle of Greath Stealth, the Amulet of Divine Radiance, and the Ironskin Ring. The Spellsmasher is okay, I guess, but by this point you've sunk enough money into your current axe that it's going to run rings around Spellsmasher. Spellsmasher's intelligence hit isn't relevant, and the chance to proc silence is so incredibly low as to be worthless. Starting from a blank slate, I'd say it's worth upgrading Spellsmasher, but since you're not working from a blank slate, Spellsmasher is basically worthless. The Mantle of Great Stealth is absolutely fantastic, but it's not very likely to let you hide from anything that you'd want to sneak by, Deekin needs the Cloak of Charisma, and Nathyrra's cloak has enough other bonuses that aren't worth giving up for a net gain of +20 Hide/Move Silently. The Amulet of Divine Radiance will be useful if you know you're going to be running into six assloads of undead and need to turn them, but otherwise not worth wearing, so I'd keep that one in your back pocket for later. The Ironskin Ring is fantastic in theory, because it will reduce any attack made with a +4 weapon or less by ten damage, and that's really nice! In practice, it's still pretty good, but how many +4 or lower weapons do you think you'll run into by this point? Anything dangerous will have heavily enchanted weapons. Still, I'd take it over the Ring of Spell Battle, because the ring boosts Spellcraft and gives you 1/day dispel, but that only matters if you remember to use it, and it's not like you do a lot of counterspelling. Do not get rid of that Ring of Protection +5, because the +5 armor it gives is super useful. Now for the spider zone. Holy poo poo, that loving spider zone looks terrible. From the looks of things, the point of that door is to make sure that primary casters (who are completely hosed) don't have to do the boss fight, because that lets you skip a big chunk of the dungeon, which just pisses me off because you'd think in the one zone that tells casters to go gently caress themselves, they'd have a hard time and it'd be the fighty dudes ruling the roost, right? Wrong! Have a boss that knocks away your weapons and armor. So casters just need to struggle through the initial wad of spiders (or rather, make whichever two minions you brought with you deal with it), and then they can bypass the rest of the dungeon, while everybody else has to struggle through a boss that slaps away the one thing they have going for you. I guess if you're a Monk you can do okay, because you can just punch the fucker and don't need your gear, but if you're a fighter or barbarian (or, as the case may be, a cleric without enough Spellcraft or Lore), you get to deal with a big mean boss without the benefit of any buffs or magic items, and that includes potions, so gently caress you. As for advice, gently caress, I haven't got much. The most important thing is that you are encumbered because you're carrying too much because you lost your strength boosts, so put your heavy poo poo in the Bag of Holding or offload some of it to minions or something. You need to drop a hundred pounds worth of stuff, and if you still have the large shield, use that instead of the heavily enchanted small shield, because magical bonuses don't work here because gently caress you, I guess. It's very important that you do this because you're walking at half speed, and even that little bit extra will matter in the fight. Nathyrra's dual-wield shanking should come in handy, in theory, but here's the super awesome thing I just learned. Normally I wouldn't dig into the files to give advice, because it strikes me as being against the spirit of things, but bullshit times call for bullshit measures: I have no idea how you're supposed to beat this legitimately, because that loving spider has DR 30/+3, which means that any physical damage that is dealt by a weapon without a big enough magical bonus will be reduced by 30, and oh hey remember how all the magical bonuses got shut off? Haha, gently caress you, because that axe of yours is just masterwork (not that "masterwork" is implemented in this engine either) and good luck dealing damage, chump. It's also packing a pair of 2d6 claws that each slap your armor off and a bite that deals 4d4 damage and poisons you. Of course, while writing all that, it turns out that there is apparently a way to turn off the anti-magic field, and you do that by going back to that obelisk with the stuff you couldn't decipher and mashing buttons until it opens, because you know what they say about monkeys and typewriters. I think if you get in there, you can turn magic back on? Alternately, sniff around in the room before the big spider, I think that's also where the "turn the loving magic back on" switch is located, but there's a hidden door to it or something. Do that and the Bebilith will not just fall over for you, but at least it won't be a one-sided slaughter. But the point is, you can turn the magic back on, but make sure you shed some weight before you go searching for it. It's bad enough you have to walk, you should not be walking at half speed on top of that.
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Apr 3, 2016 09:39
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This thing isn't over yet! I didn't want to split this episode up so it runs 20 minutes longer than usual, but I had a lot of fun with it so I think you'll enjoy! Episode 37
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Apr 4, 2016 16:05
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Hooray, I saved the LP!  I didn't know that the thing would give random effects and might take save scumming to get through. Oh well. Although I did say that there was another way in, and also that you were going so slow because you were carrying too much poo poo because you lost your strength boost and also apparently the weight reduction for your armor fell off. Oh well, given that you fixed it right at the start of the video and we didn't have to see you crawling along, I guess it doesn't matter now!  At least if I ever get around to my "Chaotic Stupid puppykicker sorcerer" run, I can be spared some of the pain.There's not a whole lot for me to say about the actual fight, other than "Cleave really kicked in here but even in this situation, Great Cleave didn't do a bunch" and "the writers for this game must have been a lot of engineers because of all the railroading." Here's where we find out if the "fire Deekin, rehire Deekin" thing dodged the bug, since I am operating on the assumption you'll want to bring him along when we find him. We'll have to reform our party, too, because our henchmen didn't come with us. Since it's the third and final chapter, I'm pretty sure, but not positive, that all of the henchmen are available now, and you can choose. I will pre-emptively vote Linu and Deekin until such time as you meet the new party member, at which point Linu gets the boot.
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Apr 5, 2016 16:49
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This batch of episodes is very talky and much less  If you like Planescape you might be into it though! Episode 38 Episode 39
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Apr 7, 2016 17:37
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This one was a lot of  , but it's vital for context of what the gently caress is even going on around here. Like I said, it's Neverwinter Nights, not Diablo.The first video is mostly exposition, but it comes down to "we're in Cania, Mephistopholes knows the True Name of the Reaper (True Names basically give you root access to someone, in case the fact that I capitalized it like that wasn't a clue that it's important), and now he's eating the souls of the dead in Cania to make an undead army to take over Toril." We can get Deekin and Nathyyra back, and while we got Deekin back, we did not get Nathyyra. I think we should at least bring her back long enough to get our stuff, but we can drop her like the lodestone she is once we get that last party member. Speaking of which, that pool that lets you get back the stuff the Act 1 helpers were carrying? That's a pretty hefty piece of evidence that we can't get Linu back.  Oh well, not a huge loss since we'd have to drop Deekin for her, and that sure as hell isn't going to happen. (Ha! Sure as hell! It's funny because of where we are.  )That dude that runs the quarry has some nice gear, like really high end Rings of Protection and neat helmets, so I think it was worth feeding that imp through the grinder to get at it. There might have been a way to dismantle the machine well enough to free him, either via digging in the dialogue trees to find out who you need to go to for help or just buffing up your own dexterity (surely you have a Cat's Grace potion or two), but you have enough alignment that a five point hit won't be a big deal, and also it was funny. As for that puzzle you were stuck on, while I am assuming it's too late, the spoiler-free version is that you have to go to the relevant stone, click on it to interact with it, and then talk to the Scrivener. The puzzle is supposed to be "which stones do I to," not "how do I actually interact with the drat things."
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Apr 8, 2016 19:52
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After a Dark Souls 3 bender I'm back with a new episode! This one went well so I'm hoping to push through to the end of the game!
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May 7, 2016 18:10
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The deal with Aribeth, or at least the bits that are relevant to us here, is that she was a paladin of Tyr, the god of duty. So you can understand why she was a little pissed when the dudes in charge of Neverwinter threw Fenthick to the wolves by staging a kangaroo court and hanging him based on "he didn't realize his buddy was behind the horrible plague infecting Neverwinter." She turns on Neverwinter and starts working for the real big bad of the original campaign. Her ultimate fate in that game depends on if you, as a male PC, get her ring by talking to her. If you do, you can talk her down. If you don't have it, either because you didn't follow the right trees or they weren't made available because she doesn't swing that way, you have to kill her. But of course, she's in the wrong here because she felt betrayed just because her liege betrayed her by executing an innocent man. That thing about "I never actually loved him" just doesn't pass the smell test to me. I think it's mostly there to clear the decks so a male PC can romance her, or at the very least make her look worse. It's a crock of poo poo, is what it is. I'm pretty sure that no matter what you do in that frozen cave, Aribeth is going to become one of your followers. I am also pretty sure that it's impossible to gently caress up getting Paladin Aribeth or Blackguard Aribeth, because it's pretty loving clear which one you're going to get. And yes, they do have different dialogue when they talk, because one is Good and one is Evil. I'm not sure if/how the game handles taking away Blackguard abilities. Fortunately, Aribeth was only a level 6 Blackguard, so most of what she's losing won't sting too much. It's mostly the opportunity cost of the Paladin levels, which aren't that much of a loss, because you need 14 base Charisma to cast the best Paladin spells, and she has 13. Of course, the best Paladin spells are still just Paladin spells, so no great loss. Even so, I just don't understand the incredibly lovely builds going around. This isn't some obscure stuff like "if you take this feat and that feat and combine it with this weapon while under the effect of that spell you get 2% more DPS," this is "your stats aren't high enough to use a core feature of your class." And then there's that nine dexterity and she's wearing leather armor? Slap some full plate on her clumsy rear end, I'm pretty sure you have a spare set. (Bonus points: the accident-prone Linu has a Dexterity of 12.) Oh well, at least it's not as bad as "let's put all the armor proficiency feats on a monk whose equipment you can't modify anyway." As for her being a half elf, yeah, that's kind of poo poo in the Neverwinter engine. It gives you sleep immunity and a handful of nearly useless skill bonuses. She gets the Elven Weapon Proficiencies, but she's not supposed to because only full elves get those, and they're basically useless anyway because they're either weapons your class lets you use anyway or you aren't supposed to be stabbing fuckers. The only class that can really make decent use of it is the Cleric, because it grants them longswords, and while they're only working with 3/4 BAB, so are Rogues. It's also maybe useful for Bards in NWN, but that's because the devs only gave them Simple weapons and not the proper array. Not that bards are frontline fighters themselves, but eh, they can contribute. Anyway, you may as well turn her magic back on. It's not great, but I'm reasonably sure that she won't spend all her time casting crappy spells, and I don't know if it shuts off Turn Undead or Divine Might or Lay On Hands or whatever, and those are things you want her using. She may also retain her summoning abilities from being a Blackguard, but who knows? If you see a skeleton or succubus in your entourage, then that's where they came from.
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May 8, 2016 03:14
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Oh hey, this is back. Yay! This is probably my least favourite part of the game. So many puzzles, so few demons. This is hell, why does hell involve solving puzzles and not lopping heads off demons?  I don't think I've seen any of the stuff with Aribeth at all, so that was new and different. In my current playthrough (which I should get back to) I don't think she's even been mentioned at all. I got the answer for the fifth mystery from the Reaper instead so I completely missed everything with Aribeth, up to and including even noticing her existence. IIRC, and that's a big if, in 3E returned Paladins could convert their Blackguard levels. Everyone else that changed alignment from Lawful Evil got to keep those levels though, which is quite a bit worse than converting to Fighter levels since they'd lose all their abilities without gaining anything. It's been ages and ages since I've played D&D3E though so I could be completely wrong about that and of course NWN places it's own spin on the rules as well. I'm pretty sure the NWN spin is to let the character use all the abilities of both, such as Aribeth getting the benefits of both Divine Grace and Dark Blessing for twice her Charisma bonus to saving throws. Honestly the only thing I can think of with the NPC builds on display is that they were deliberately hobbled so that poor PCs don't have the spotlight stolen by good NPCs. For Aribeth one less point of Dexterity changes exactly nothing while one more point of Wisdom enables fourth level spells and adds a second level spell slot. In a system that stresses even ability totals this sticks out. Elven Weapon Proficiency is an Aribeth thing, not a Half-Elf one. Half-Elves don't normally get it but Aribeth is a special unique snowflake or something so she does. It's quite a boon for classes that don't get Martial Weapon Proficiency though. Longswords, Rapiers and Longbows are three of the staple weapons and enough to make Martial Weapon Proficiency unnecessary and Longbows in particular are something every class can use. Especially with the dex bonus Elves get.
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May 8, 2016 13:10
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MechaCrash posted:The deal with Aribeth, or at least the bits that are relevant to us here, is that she was a paladin of Tyr, the god of duty. So you can understand why she was a little pissed when the dudes in charge of Neverwinter threw Fenthick to the wolves by staging a kangaroo court and hanging him based on "he didn't realize his buddy was behind the horrible plague infecting Neverwinter." She turns on Neverwinter and starts working for the real big bad of the original campaign. Her ultimate fate in that game depends on if you, as a male PC, get her ring by talking to her. If you do, you can talk her down. If you don't have it, either because you didn't follow the right trees or they weren't made available because she doesn't swing that way, you have to kill her. But of course, she's in the wrong here because she felt betrayed just because her liege betrayed her by executing an innocent man. Wow that is lovely, I was thinking it was a decent hook for a Paladin character but now that I know the backstory it seems weak. Rotoru posted:Oh hey, this is back. Yay! I actually don't mind this section because it reminds me of Planescape, which was my first AD&D setting. There was so much hack and slash in the Underdark section that I guess I got my fill.
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May 8, 2016 14:35
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That's the thing: the crowds were pissed, they wanted blood, and Nasher gave them Fenthick. And Aribeth was understandably furious, and figured duty was a crock of poo poo and turned on him, joining the bad guys. So far, so good. Where I take issue is that I don't think it really addresses that Nasher basically got scared and shoved a sacrificial lamb in front of the crowds to keep the peace. And that is super, super lovely. If I have this wrong, someone who's actually played the campaign some time this decade feel free to chime in, because I played Neverwinter Nights when it was brand new, and that was it. The way Paladin levels and Blackguard levels interact in tabletop is kind of neat, because the more Paladin levels you have the stronger a Blackguard you are, but this has the problem that Blackguard requires five ranks in Hide, and Hide is cross-class for paladins. None of that applies here, because that's way more complexity than this game seems able to handle, and also blackguards kind of suck. quote:Honestly the only thing I can think of with the NPC builds on display is that they were deliberately hobbled so that poor PCs don't have the spotlight stolen by good NPCs. For Aribeth one less point of Dexterity changes exactly nothing while one more point of Wisdom enables fourth level spells and adds a second level spell slot. In a system that stresses even ability totals this sticks out. On the one hand, sabotaging the NPCs means they won't upstage a poorly built PC, but on the other hand, they also can't prop up a poorly built PC. Ah, well, I guess that's what easy mode is for.
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May 8, 2016 15:01
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MechaCrash posted:That's the thing: the crowds were pissed, they wanted blood, and Nasher gave them Fenthick. And Aribeth was understandably furious, and figured duty was a crock of poo poo and turned on him, joining the bad guys. So far, so good. Where I take issue is that I don't think it really addresses that Nasher basically got scared and shoved a sacrificial lamb in front of the crowds to keep the peace. And that is super, super lovely. Nasher accepts the blame for what he's done in the final chapter even going to so far as to say that the people of Neverwinter might deserve what's happening to them because of what they did to Fenthick. Apparently, he does does some lovely things (including trying to take the credit for winning) after the story's events that causes the PC to leave Neverwinter. I think you can access this conversation immediately in the final chapter so if you have the game installed you can just load up the last module and check for yourself.
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May 8, 2016 15:51
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Started recording late again tonight so only one episode for today. I'm guessing we're on to a big dungeon next.
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May 8, 2016 16:34
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Just a quick correction. Tyr is the God of Justice not duty. (Duty is the portfolio of his subordinate god Torm.)
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May 9, 2016 01:31
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MonsterEnvy posted:Just a quick correction. Tyr is the God of Justice not duty. (Duty is the portfolio of his subordinate god Torm.) loving bloated Astral bureaucracy if you ask me. If you made me Overgod, I'd have the whole thing running smoothly with 12 gods or less. Maybe 15.
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May 9, 2016 04:36
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MonsterEnvy posted:Just a quick correction. Tyr is the God of Justice not duty. (Duty is the portfolio of his subordinate god Torm.) I thought this was the case and honestly it makes the story even more weird, because a Paladin of Tyr should have probably gone after Nasher for the injustice of what he was doing...
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May 9, 2016 09:03
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The "intelligent weapon" thing on Enserric just means that it's going to yell a lot in combat, like when it was complaining about the essence of the undead while you were fighting off the skeleton swarm. For Aribeth's gear, the bracers, boots, and ring are all good choices. Nothing exciting, but they're good things to shove in those slots until you get other ideas. I don't know what her cloak was, you neglected to show that one. The Amulet is fantastic, because it gives her extra Turn Undead attempts that she can turn into other things thanks to her feats that give her stuff to do with Turn attempts, and the +6 Charisma is fantastic on a paladin because of all their stuff that keys off Charisma. If the Blackguard's "charisma bonus to saves" thing works, then that would help explain her saving throws. I only saw her Fortitude save of 41, but that's kind of ludicrous. As for the armor, I'd definitely say that the Chainmail of Speed is better. Her personal armor retaliates on attackers with a slow that can be prevented with a Fort save of 20, but most of the stuff that's going to be hitting her can make that trivially. Permahaste, however, is one of the most stupidly broken things in the game. There's a reason adding it to your weapon is so godawful expensive. Now, I will admit that the Chainmail of Speed has a higher armor check penalty, but who gives a poo poo? Aribeth is a Paladin, her class skill list isn't overflowing with stuff where that matters. Sure, she has Hide, but that's just because Blackguard requires five ranks in it for some reason (note that Hide is not a class skill for Paladins). Anyway, I did notice she has over 440 hit points. Between a pretty good AC and saves, an enormous quantity of hit points, and a vampiric sword, she should hardly ever need to use Lay On Hands on herself. If things get really dire, then you can always tag her with a Heal. And yes, it has to be a Heal, anything less is wasting your time. I'd advise giving her potions of Heal too if you can find and afford them, but I don't know if anybody sells them around here. (Fun fact: potions in tabletop cap out at third level, Heal is sixth; so Heal potions shouldn't exist.) Her drat near immortality was especially helped by the Greater Swordsman's Belt you gave her, because that reduces incoming slashing damage by 20, and slashing is all those skeletons dealt. Lawful Good characters, if I remember correctly, try to work within the system to fix lovely laws. So a Lawful Good character does have a recourse in the situation that Aribeth was in, but she didn't take it. Her actions, while understandable (as long as you don't factor in that lovely retcon), were certainly not paladiny. Speaking of paladiny things, I noticed Aribeth try to Smite Good in that fight against the skeletons. So the good news is that she has her Blackguard abilities too! The bad news is that she's very bad at deciding what to use when, because I don't think Neverwinter Nights includes the Deathless type. When you were looking through the list of abilities on Aribeth, that wasn't "hey Aribeth, use this ability," it was "use this ability of mine on Aribeth." You don't have direct control over your henchmen here, and even what you have is a huge step up from the original campaign, because in that all you had was telling them to use ranged or use melee, and they never swapped on their own. To the best of my knowledge, Neverwinter Nights 1 and expansions are unique among D&D CRPGs and games which are heavily influenced by them in that you can't control your companions. Neverwinter Nights 2 will let you, but Neverwinter Nights 2 sucks. You think this writing is bad? You ain't seen nothin' yet. Bull's Strength and other such Animal Stat buffs can be cast on others. It's up to you if you want to take the time to use it on Aribeth. 18 strength isn't the best score, but Aribeth's job here, at least in my opinion, is to take hits all day. She can deal them out well enough, she has a heavily enchanted sword and a bunch of levels in full-BAB classes, but that's kind of secondary to her "wade in, don't die" stuff. Unfortunately, tanking isn't something the AI is really built around, but she's a fantastic meat shield if nothing else. Now that you have that 19 Wisdom, you can start throwing around level 9 spells, and they're pretty sorely needed. As you can see, they're all really drat good. The Storm of Vengeance is a long lasting AOE, so be careful with that one, because I don't think it can hurt your allies due to your difficulty level setting, but I'm pretty sure that you can gently caress yourself up with it. So don't cast it on dudes next to you. Energy Drain is a good one for ruining the day of enemy casters, because it will drain a bunch of their levels and make them lose spells, which is nice. You can theoretically hit anything with it, but it's Fort negates, so tossing it at fighty types won't get you very far. On a related note, any spell slots you have below fifth level are basically garbage now. If you can't put a utility spell or a buff in it, it's not going to do much, because if you're in a situation where you want to bust out a spell, you're going to want the big spells. So you may as well load them up with Knock, Animal Stats, Identify, poo poo like that. Maybe Haste, but I think all three of you have permahaste now (you from your axe, Deekin from boots, soon Aribeth from armor). You can use Empower to squeeze more life out of older spells, but as for how good they are, I'll leave that to someone more qualified. I will tell you, however, that Quicken Spell is worthless in Neverwinter Nights, because its "cast spells faster" functionality is replicated by Haste.
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May 10, 2016 12:33
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Cool, thanks for the feedback. I've got another episode today. Just pushing these out one at a time before bed but I'll try to record more on the weekend.
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May 10, 2016 16:47
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An important thing I forgot to mention last episode is that there is a hard level cap of thirty. You have to decide soon if you're going to get any more levels of Dwarven Defender, because you have enough room to be a level 20 cleric/10 Dwarven Defender, but that's it. You're a level 20 cleric. Every level in Cleric you take from now on is a level in Defender you can never take. I'd say good stopping points are five (flank immunity) or six (DR 3). Or go all the way to ten (DR 6, you also get +1 to reflex saves against traps but who gives a poo poo). Just keep in mind that going further in Dwarven Defender cuts into your ability to get Epic Spells, although quite frankly I don't think you have the Spellcraft for them, and because of prior skill point allocation and the fact that it took you so long to get 19 Wisdom, you aren't going to be able to get any. Oh well. Your spells were getting interrupted in the fight against the Guardian. Your armor class is no longer high enough that you can just ignore enemies taking swings at you, so you're going to have to use defensive casting again. Unfortunately, "defensive casting" and "defensive stance" are mutually exclusive, so that's kind of a problem. The Astral Blade +8 is a really good weapon, because what the hell resists Sonic? But I think you're better off sinking more money into Enserric, unless its constant yammering is distracting. Either way, hold on to both swords, and also hold on to some of your money. You're going to want money. Like, lots of money. Protection Against Evil and Magic Circle Against Evil are both the same effect, so Protection is redundant here. I think there's a few reasons Aribeth can deal out better damage than Nathyrra could. The big one is that Nathyrra's a dual wielding rogue, and you spent a lot of time fighting stuff that was immune to sneak attacks, and on those occasions she was fighting shankable foes, flanks weren't being set up so she couldn't sneak attack. Aribeth, on the other hand, has two classes built around "hit things in the face with a sword" and her feats are bent towards that. (Speaking of, we need to see her feats too, those are very important.) The other, of course, is that Aribeth has way better weapons. Aribeth also has some sneak attack: 2d6, to go along with the 1d8+12 slashing and 2d6 sonic she's dealing with her sword (and another +5 if she's power attacking, which I think she usually is). So basically Nathyrra had a higher theoretical DPS but she needed setup, whereas Aribeth can just wade in and lay down the hurt. She has a few tricks to increase damage, but unlike Nathyrra, they aren't required. Plus she didn't waste levels on a class that she can't use for poo poo. There was some sort of loot outside the Mimic's Nest. I don't know if it was anything important or not. If this were just a terrible BioWare romance, that'd be one thing. But it's a terrible BioWare romance with a dead woman who had some pretty dubious retcons applied to the man she betrayed and burned a city for, so that's some extra problems on top. I'm reasonably sure you shut down the romance, but not positive it's actually stopped. One way to handle this would be to go back to a save before coming in here, taking off your armor (or putting on something expendable), and then going in and seeing what happens. If all else fails, Aribeth is carrying that Chainmail of Speed, so you can wear that. It's better than nothing, although I still think Aribeth should be wearing that instead of her unique leather armor, because that slow isn't going to get through nearly often enough to matter.
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May 11, 2016 15:41
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Okay I did a bunch of recording today so we've got another 3 episodes down! Episode 43 Episode 44 Episode 45
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May 14, 2016 17:16
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On the one hand, it looks like I hosed up and the hard cap on levels is 40, not 30. On the other hand, I seriously doubt there's enough XP between here and the end of the game to get that far anyway. Still, I'd probably stop Dwarven Defender at 6 for the damage reduction and sink the rest into Cleric. Spellcraft doesn't mention epic level spells because they weren't a thing when the description was first written, and it wasn't updated to reflect changes in the game. Unfortunately, the ugly moral here is "if you're a caster, don't multiclass out of it." (There are exceptions. They do not exist in NWN.) Speaking of stuff you can sell for cash, you might want to go through all of your scrolls. A bunch of them are scrolls you either can't use (wrong class) or wouldn't want to use (too weak). It's not going to be relevant much longer, but when you use your level, you get a full heal. So if you're in a fight, have a level ready to go, and your health is down, you can level up in the middle of the fight to get all your HP back. That "lure the mimic into the fire thing" is an interesting puzzle, but the execution is horrible. Spellcraft is not a Dwarven Defender class skill, and you aren't going to be able to get enough to do anything. Even if you were, you can't take the feat that lets you cast epic spells with a Dwarven Defender level, so raising that is basically wasting skill points. You may have rewatched the video to already see, but at the start of 45, when you put your dragon armor back on, you dropped the chainmail, because you didn't have room. You're carrying way too much bulky garbage and need to dump a bunch at the next shop. Or offload a bunch of your scrolls. Plus a bunch of traps and books and notes and wands and other trash that isn't really relevant, but is incredibly bulky. You also have a bunch of wands and spare weapons, like that light crossbow, that you can afford to dump. In the original Neverwinter Nights, you had six possible companions. You met four of them in chapter 1. Grimgnaw here is the fifth, a LE dwarf monk (with a fantastically sabotaged build; this is the monk who blew four feats on armor and shield proficiencies I complained about). The sixth was Boddyknock Glinkle, LN gnome sorcerer. He was of dubious utility because he was a moron who used his spells badly. There was a mod that upgraded everyone's brains in addition to letting you change their gear, so he'd stop doing stupid poo poo like "throw Sleep spells at zombies, which are immune to sleep," at least. The Maugrim fight does highlight one of the big advantages that clerics have over arcane casters. He cast a bunch of stuff to basically make himself spell-proof, but you just hit him in the face with your axe. Pity he wasn't smart enough to take precautions against that. (Of course precautions against "axe in the face" exist. What, you expect a 3E caster to have an actual weakness? Perish the thought.) Holy crap, these guys have a TON of sweet loot. Do keep in mind, though, that you should still have that bottle that summons a genie merchant, and you can use that to unload some of the lower ticket stuff, like the low level scrolls (and maybe all the wizard scrolls; I'd say give them to Deekin but I don't know if he'll use them). For the sweet loot, the summary is that most of it is stuff you can't or don't use, so you may as well sell it. The things worth keeping are the Blood Plate and Ring of Power. I think you should wear the Blood Plate yourself. It's a little heavier than your current armor (nine pounds, because it gets 60% weight reduction compared to the 80% of the Red Dragon Armor), but nine pounds is hardly back-breaking, especially once you clear out your old garbage. You will also be giving up Fire Resist 20 (which I don't think matters down here) and 25 hit points. I think this is more than offset by the extra point of armor class and regenerating three hit points per round. You can then pass your red dragon armor to Aribeth. You'll need some way to give her Haste, but since she's there to tank it up, I don't think it's as critical. The Ring of Power is mostly because you have six ring slots among your party, surely someone has something outdated that they can trade for a ring that gives some elemental resists, regeneration, and Freedom. The Cape of the Fire Bath was noted, but that's the kind of thing that's nice to find if you're level 10 or so. It's way outdated by now. Plus there was some ring that makes you immune to cold in the lot; I didn't mention it because I'm not sure if it's from this pile of loot. If it was, definitely keep it. Granting complete immunity to an element is pretty handy. There was also some dagger in there you didn't show off, but it's a dagger, who gives a poo poo? MechaCrash fucked around with this message at 20:58 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 20:26
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We get more weird puzzling in this next episode! I'll have another batch out this weekend if all goes well. We're closing in on the endgame, I can feel it!
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May 19, 2016 16:35
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I'm pretty sure Aribeth won't equip arrows on her own. You might as well throw a stack of them into her arrow ammo slot, and do the same for yourself. I don't know if you have any longbows left, but as I've hammered on in the past: crossbows are poo poo compared to actual bows just due to fire rate. Not to the point that it's worth buying arrows, mind you, but you may as well smoke it if you got it, you know? Speaking of looting, I know you're getting tight on space, but never leave behind potions. You can always find a use for a portion. If nothing else, you can sell the things. That Robe of Leathers looks pretty nice for Deekin. The 10% chance for his spells to fail is worth the giant armor bonus, plus a dexterity bonus (which may be overwritten by his bracers, I forget how much they give), and the on-hit is pretty nice. The usable abilities won't help him because he won't use them, but there you go. You had plenty of room for that bastard sword, you just need to do some Inventory Tetris to compress stuff down so you can carry it. The Bloodsucker is actually a pretty solid dagger. Just, y'know. Dagger. The only reason to use it is if you're a Small dual wielder and going for things you can finesse. (And if you aren't, you're probably dual wielding wrong -- double weapons are unavailable to Small characters in NWN.) Souldrinker being only +5 means you'd need to drag it off for upgrades. The on-hit level drain is pretty awesome, though. The fact that it's DC 16 means it's going to be resisted a lot, but there's no opportunity cost involved and the payoff is pretty fantastic. Okay, no opportunity cost as long as you aren't counting "I'm not using some other weapon," which is a perfectly valid issue. The vampiric regeneration is just a bonus. Aribeth's sword deals Sonic damage, and objects that resist that are pretty rare. A good sonic weapon is a universal lockpick, which is one of the many reasons that Neverwinter Nights 2 and Knights of the Old Republic 2 implemented "if you bash open a locked thing, you ruin some of the poo poo inside." Otherwise, why ever invest points in picking locks when you can just break everything using skills you're going to have anyway? You're leaving a lot of loot lying around. On the one hand, it's probably just gold...but then again, remember when I said you're going to want a lot of gold? Seriously. A lot of gold.
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May 20, 2016 03:06
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MechaCrash posted:I'm pretty sure Aribeth won't equip arrows on her own. You might as well throw a stack of them into her arrow ammo slot, and do the same for yourself. I don't know if you have any longbows left, but as I've hammered on in the past: crossbows are poo poo compared to actual bows just due to fire rate. Not to the point that it's worth buying arrows, mind you, but you may as well smoke it if you got it, you know? I don't think it matters if he gets a ton of gold.
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May 20, 2016 04:51
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I'll try to be more diligent about looting. I'm playing New Vegas off camera and trying to get better about NOT picking up everything in that game because of the restrictive weight system.
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May 20, 2016 10:14
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Nah, if you want to go for the, let's say more impressive ending, you need poo poo tons of gold.
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May 20, 2016 17:50
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There is a thing coming. You're going to want a shitload of gold for it because it costs a shitload of gold. I won't say what it is, because that'd spoil the surprise. I mean, technically I shouldn't even be saying "hey there's a thing you're going to want a shitload of gold for," but at least now it's possible to make a semi-informed decision instead of blowing all the money on turning everyone's weapons into permahaste-granting flaming critical hit machines or whatever. Because even if you ultimately decide to not do the thing what takes all the money, there's always upgrading everyone's weapons to a ludicrous degree.
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May 21, 2016 07:05
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MechaCrash posted:There is a thing coming. You're going to want a shitload of gold for it because it costs a shitload of gold. I won't say what it is, because that'd spoil the surprise. I mean, technically I shouldn't even be saying "hey there's a thing you're going to want a shitload of gold for," but at least now it's possible to make a semi-informed decision instead of blowing all the money on turning everyone's weapons into permahaste-granting flaming critical hit machines or whatever. Because even if you ultimately decide to not do the thing what takes all the money, there's always upgrading everyone's weapons to a ludicrous degree. Okay yeah I"m just going to try to build up the largest stock of gold that I can.
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May 22, 2016 11:22
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Okay I hunkered down this evening and polished off the game! Thanks for all the advice and other comments! It has been a much longer haul than I expected out of an expansion pack, but I did enjoy the experience and I hope you all did as well! Look for a new LP from me in the near future, probably Front Mission for the NDS, which will follow up on my Front Mission 5 LP. Episode 47 Episode 48 Episode 49 - FINAL Bonus Conclusion Episode
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May 22, 2016 18:06
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MaterialConceptual posted:Okay I hunkered down this evening and polished off the game! Thanks for all the advice and other comments! It has been a much longer haul than I expected out of an expansion pack, but I did enjoy the experience and I hope you all did as well!  Wow, I hardly remember any of that. I know that Aribeth's title card said that "the true responsibility lay with Mephistopheles" but I mean c'mon. She really needs to get out of the paladin business if she's going to get repurposed by some demon every storyline she's in.
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May 22, 2016 18:56
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Cathode Raymond posted:
No kidding. You have to wonder why Tyr would keep her as one of his champions when made a blunder like that...
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May 23, 2016 01:53
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