Pussycat669
Liturgist
Here we are ladies and gentleman, this update and we can call the LP as officially done. Since the last entry was rather heavy on the narrative part, we should now return to what is the most important thing about RPGs: statistics and character sheets. My memory considering the death count of the PCs might be a little messy so be advised to add a +/- 2 aberration to each of them.
Character Rehearsal
Stats increase: Constitution (+1), Wisdom (+1)
Favourite Line: 'I'm going to a better place.'
Summary: To tell the truth, I didn't like Screamer at all when we first met. Not only do I dislike bards in general but her stats were also hopelessly broken or at least so I thought. However, after picking some perks that greatly improved her chance of survival (Lightning Reflexes!) it got a lot better. Once she started to learn spells, she actually became one of the most resourceful characters in the party. Her sorcery, while poor for dealing physical harm, had a real devastating effect on the minds of her enemies. Only thing I regret in retrospect is picking the Persuasive perk as the gained skill bonuses are pretty minor at later levels.
Occupation: Apparently deceased team leader
Death count: 5
Achievements:
The most talkative PC of the group (Most Uses of Diplomacy (15), Most Uses of Bluff (26), Most Uses of Gather Information (9))
After the book also the PC that died the most (2 times)
Equipment
Head: Circlet of Persuasion (Grants a +2 bonus for every Charisma based skill check and saving throw)
Shoulders: Cloak of Charisma +6
Arms: Bracers of armor +5
Hands: Gloves of Dexterity +6
Torso: Green villager garb
Feet: Padded Boots
Weapon: Wonnilon's repeating crossbow +3
Rings: Ring of protection +2, Ring of freedom of movement (always useful if you don't want to trap your PCs in your own web)
Spells
Level 1:
Charm Person (not that important unless your best fighter suddenly gets possessed by evil forces. There are not a great lot of person enemies in the temple)
Cause Fear (or the anti giants spell as I like to call it)
Sleep
Tasha's Hideous Laughter
Level 2:
Daze Monster (for those dramatic exits)
Delay Poison
Silence (never worked when I tried it)
Heroism (effective in combination with a very angry dwarf)
Level 3:
Good Hope
Slow (was good when it hit. Some of the worst melee enemies (like Ettins) get a lot of attacks)
Charm Monster (hey, you've seen the results)
Dispel Magic
Level 4:
Break Enchantment (never really needed that one)
Hold Monster (Screamer once killed a Giabrezu with that. Most fatal 1 HP damage that I've ever seen)
Stats increase: Strength (+1), Dexterity (+1)
Favourite Line: 'Yes sir!'
Summary: Great stats + determined weapon specialization make Johnny a very happy little man. I'll let the statistics speak for themselves.
Occupation: Greedy action hero
Death count: 4
Achievements:
Has the biggest body count of all (472)
Dealt the most consecutive hits (78)
Dealt the most critical hits (269)
Hit a fire salamander and the record for the most brutal single attack in history (worth 71 HP of damage)
Was hit by a hill giant for 41 HP and survived to tell the tale.
Lost 31 HP to the magic abilities of the Balor Guardian and survived to tell the tale
Was, understandably, the most intimidating PC in the group (Most Uses of Intimidate (5))
Equipment
Head: Hedrack's plate helmet (+2 on all Will saving throws)
Shoulders: Cloak of resistance +3 (Increases Fortitude saving throws)
Arms: None
Hands: Hedrack's plate gloves (Strength +6)
Torso: Hedrack's fullplate armor +3 (AC +11)
Shield: Hedrack's shield +3 (AC +5)
Feet: Hedrack's plate boots (+2 on all Reflex saving throws)
Weapon: Longsword of Legends (+3 attack modifier, Frost, Shock, Icy Burst, Shocking Burst. I'm not sure if all those enchantments can stack but they nevertheless did a hell lot of damage)
Rings: Ring of protection +1, Ring of minor fire resistance (absorbs the first 15 HP of fire damage)
Stats increase: Constitution (+1), Intelligence (+1)
Favourite Line: 'I'm encumbered!'
Summary: What is there to say about Magedue? For one that his offensive spells were, for the most part, surprisingly useless to me. There were a few ice storm + fireball combos that were cast but otherwise those spells became rather pointless unless you wanted to risk friendly fire. Magedude's role was more of a control officer to make sure that a given situation would not get out of hand. Web, Cloud of Sickness and Suggestion were probably the most beneficial spells he ever learned (maybe Teleport too). You can also see a lot of perks above that include the word crafting. While crafting is really one of the best inventions since sliced bread, I'm afraid that I might have overchallenged Magedude a bit. I should at least have split the work for crafting wondrous items between him and Punkaid to better allocate the loss of XP. Crafting wands was also unneeded for my part but I preferred it to all the fancy empower/enlarge/enlighten spell perks (which I believe are not worth it as all the spells that would benefit from them would automatically fall out of Magedude's spell level reach). It's also worth mentioning that he was frighteningly good with that bow of his, often dealing the last critical blow in boss fights.
Occupation: Smarty-pants
Death count: 3
Achievements:
Electrocuted a Violet Fungi with 47 HP magical damage
Equipment
Head: Headband of Intellect +6 (that's for Intelligence if you don't know)
Shoulders: Cloak of resistance +3 (Increases Fortitude saving throws)
Robe: Senshock's robes (AC +5. The only robe in the game I know of which gives your character an AC bonus)
Arms: Bracers of armor +5
Hands: Gloves of Dexterity +6
Torso: Black farmer garb
Feet: Leather boots
Weapon: Magedude's Longbow (Attack modifier +3, Frost)
Rings: Ring of protection +2, Ring of freedom of movement (always useful if you don't want to trap your PCs in your own web)
Spells
(I will shorten this quiet a bit and only go through the memorized spells since the lineup there seldom changed)
Level 1:
Burning Hands
Magic Missile (for sentimental reasons)
Cause Fear
Color Spray
Mage Armor
Level 2:
Mirror Image (later replaced by stoneskin)
See Invisibility
Web (sticked to it through almost the entire game)
Scorching Ray
Melf's Acid Arrow
Level 3:
Stinking Cloud (good when it not affects your own PCs)
Fireball ('nuff said)
Suggestion
Lightning Bolt (learned to love it although I was skeptical in the beginning)
Level 4:
Ice Storm
Stoneskin
Fire Shield
Haste (Extended)
Level 5:
Hold Monster (in case Screamer fails)
Teleport
Honorable mentions are Read Magic and Daze, the first for obvious reasons and the second for saving Magedude's skin in the most unexpected times.
Stats increase: Dexterity (+1), Wisdom (+1)
Favourite Line: 'Gods!'
Summary: Punkaid was a pitiful whipping boy during the early stages of the game. His improper combat abilities and his position on the front line combined did not bode well for his well being. He took the beatings like a man however and once they reached the temple and all the magical loot started to pile up, his situation improved dramatically. Although this didn't make him perfect, at least he became an appreciable support character.
Occupation: Involuntary martyr
Death count: 11
Achievements:
Record for the longest time a PC remained encumbered (must have been for at least a month)
Dealt the most consecutive misses (21)
Highest death toll
Equipment
Head: Leather helmet
Shoulders: Cloak of resistance +3 (Increases Fortitude saving throws)
Arms: None
Hands: Gloves of Giant Strength +6
Torso: Blue elven chain (AC +8)
Shield: Shield +3 (AC +5)
Feet: Boots of speed (can cast Haste once per day)
Weapon: Holy Mace +3 (also included: Frost, Icy Burst, Shocking Burst)
Necklace: Amulet of Wisdom +4
Rings: Ring of protection +1, Lareth's ring of freedom of movement (same deal as with the others only that this one has a fancier name)
Spells
(Didn't bother to list the domain category as it primarily consists out of cause x wound spells)
Level 1:
Divine Favor
Doom
Bless
Endure Element
Protection from Chaos
Level 2:
Cure Moderate Wound
Cure Moderate Wound (never needed anything else)
Hold Person
Eagle's Splendor
Resist Energy
Level 3:
Blindness/Deafness (didn't work when it would have been important)
Prayer
Bestow Curse
Protection from Energy
Level 4:
Dismissal (more handy in scroll form but this isn't bad either)
Poison
Divine Power
Level 5:
Righteous Might (!)
Flame Strike
Stats increase: Strength (+1), Dexterity (+1)
Favourite Line: 'Hargh?'
Summary: There were a lot of conceptual errors that I made with good old Tumblefingers, mostly because I falsely remembered ToEE to contain a lot of traps and therefore wanted another support character rather than a fighter. She should have been geared up for melee combat from the very start. Not necessarily because this would have made her more effective but because there are no masterwork shortbows around which means that she was forced to fight with a regular one throughout the entire game (which is especially bad once you reach the lower levels). There was a bug that I could've exploited to give her a longbow but I didn't want to rely on such tactics. Another problem was when she was trying to flank enemies for sneak attacks since they would usually be surrounded by their buddies, making such maneuvers too risky for me to bother. Thanks to that however, Tumblefingers not only turned out to be the most dispensable PC but also the one to die less times than the rest (if you can overlook the first fight against Terjon and the initial guard tower battle, which were both practically unwinnable from my point of view, you could actually claim that she never died at all). Things started to pick considerably with the dust of disappearance. In fact, she turned into an absolute killing machine, especially when she got the Crippling Strike perk so I was able to reconcile with her at the end of the day.
Occupation: The woman who wasn't really there
Death count: 2
Achievements:
Disarmed a bunch of traps (10)
Also set some of them off (2)
Equipment
Head: None
Shoulders: Cloak of resistance +3 (Increases Fortitude saving throws)
Arms: Bracers of armor +5
Hands: Gloves of Dexterity +6
Torso: Leather Armor +3 (AC +5)
Feet: Leather boots
Weapon: Shortbow
Rings: Ring of protection +1, Ring of Invisibility (a rogue's best friend)
The strongest creature the group killed was the Hezrou Guradian, the weakest a Goblin Leader.
The most experienced gained in one combat session were 127970 XP total (against the Hezrou Guardian).
Madame Zlut was slain on the 318th day since the start of the adventure.
And there you have all the data in a nutshell.
Now I wanna bathe in my short-lived fame for a sec.
Dedication
This LP was originally meant to be dedicated to the Nicolai Liberation Front but since this is kind of an old hat by now, I guess there is nothing left but to thank all the passionate developers from Troika Games (and eventual external associates) who made this great experience possible.
I would also like to send my special thanks to Jasede and Locue who I mercilessly ripped off on every opportunity I've got.
Last but not least of course thanks to all the people who anticipated in this thread and shared their knowledge and experience. This was a fun and educational LP (at least for me) and I'm very grateful for that.
That's basically it but since you should not have read all of this for nothing, here is a secret ending that you'll get if you beat the game with an S rank. To achieve an S rank, you must finish the campaign in less than 35 minutes and there must be at least one dwarf and also one spellcaster in the party (the spellcaster thereby may not have Strength, Constitution or Dexterity above a value of 12). Once Madame Zlut is destroyed, you will be teleported into the 'evil node' area, in which your spellcaster will have to face 5 elite bugbears with no memorized spells and an empty inventory. If he/she really survives, you'll get the following secret ending.
Now, who wants to start an ironman challenge? I certainly would like to join.
Character Rehearsal
Stats increase: Constitution (+1), Wisdom (+1)
Favourite Line: 'I'm going to a better place.'
Summary: To tell the truth, I didn't like Screamer at all when we first met. Not only do I dislike bards in general but her stats were also hopelessly broken or at least so I thought. However, after picking some perks that greatly improved her chance of survival (Lightning Reflexes!) it got a lot better. Once she started to learn spells, she actually became one of the most resourceful characters in the party. Her sorcery, while poor for dealing physical harm, had a real devastating effect on the minds of her enemies. Only thing I regret in retrospect is picking the Persuasive perk as the gained skill bonuses are pretty minor at later levels.
Occupation: Apparently deceased team leader
Death count: 5
Achievements:
The most talkative PC of the group (Most Uses of Diplomacy (15), Most Uses of Bluff (26), Most Uses of Gather Information (9))
After the book also the PC that died the most (2 times)
Equipment
Head: Circlet of Persuasion (Grants a +2 bonus for every Charisma based skill check and saving throw)
Shoulders: Cloak of Charisma +6
Arms: Bracers of armor +5
Hands: Gloves of Dexterity +6
Torso: Green villager garb
Feet: Padded Boots
Weapon: Wonnilon's repeating crossbow +3
Rings: Ring of protection +2, Ring of freedom of movement (always useful if you don't want to trap your PCs in your own web)
Spells
Level 1:
Charm Person (not that important unless your best fighter suddenly gets possessed by evil forces. There are not a great lot of person enemies in the temple)
Cause Fear (or the anti giants spell as I like to call it)
Sleep
Tasha's Hideous Laughter
Level 2:
Daze Monster (for those dramatic exits)
Delay Poison
Silence (never worked when I tried it)
Heroism (effective in combination with a very angry dwarf)
Level 3:
Good Hope
Slow (was good when it hit. Some of the worst melee enemies (like Ettins) get a lot of attacks)
Charm Monster (hey, you've seen the results)
Dispel Magic
Level 4:
Break Enchantment (never really needed that one)
Hold Monster (Screamer once killed a Giabrezu with that. Most fatal 1 HP damage that I've ever seen)
Stats increase: Strength (+1), Dexterity (+1)
Favourite Line: 'Yes sir!'
Summary: Great stats + determined weapon specialization make Johnny a very happy little man. I'll let the statistics speak for themselves.
Occupation: Greedy action hero
Death count: 4
Achievements:
Has the biggest body count of all (472)
Dealt the most consecutive hits (78)
Dealt the most critical hits (269)
Hit a fire salamander and the record for the most brutal single attack in history (worth 71 HP of damage)
Was hit by a hill giant for 41 HP and survived to tell the tale.
Lost 31 HP to the magic abilities of the Balor Guardian and survived to tell the tale
Was, understandably, the most intimidating PC in the group (Most Uses of Intimidate (5))
Equipment
Head: Hedrack's plate helmet (+2 on all Will saving throws)
Shoulders: Cloak of resistance +3 (Increases Fortitude saving throws)
Arms: None
Hands: Hedrack's plate gloves (Strength +6)
Torso: Hedrack's fullplate armor +3 (AC +11)
Shield: Hedrack's shield +3 (AC +5)
Feet: Hedrack's plate boots (+2 on all Reflex saving throws)
Weapon: Longsword of Legends (+3 attack modifier, Frost, Shock, Icy Burst, Shocking Burst. I'm not sure if all those enchantments can stack but they nevertheless did a hell lot of damage)
Rings: Ring of protection +1, Ring of minor fire resistance (absorbs the first 15 HP of fire damage)
Stats increase: Constitution (+1), Intelligence (+1)
Favourite Line: 'I'm encumbered!'
Summary: What is there to say about Magedue? For one that his offensive spells were, for the most part, surprisingly useless to me. There were a few ice storm + fireball combos that were cast but otherwise those spells became rather pointless unless you wanted to risk friendly fire. Magedude's role was more of a control officer to make sure that a given situation would not get out of hand. Web, Cloud of Sickness and Suggestion were probably the most beneficial spells he ever learned (maybe Teleport too). You can also see a lot of perks above that include the word crafting. While crafting is really one of the best inventions since sliced bread, I'm afraid that I might have overchallenged Magedude a bit. I should at least have split the work for crafting wondrous items between him and Punkaid to better allocate the loss of XP. Crafting wands was also unneeded for my part but I preferred it to all the fancy empower/enlarge/enlighten spell perks (which I believe are not worth it as all the spells that would benefit from them would automatically fall out of Magedude's spell level reach). It's also worth mentioning that he was frighteningly good with that bow of his, often dealing the last critical blow in boss fights.
Occupation: Smarty-pants
Death count: 3
Achievements:
Electrocuted a Violet Fungi with 47 HP magical damage
Equipment
Head: Headband of Intellect +6 (that's for Intelligence if you don't know)
Shoulders: Cloak of resistance +3 (Increases Fortitude saving throws)
Robe: Senshock's robes (AC +5. The only robe in the game I know of which gives your character an AC bonus)
Arms: Bracers of armor +5
Hands: Gloves of Dexterity +6
Torso: Black farmer garb
Feet: Leather boots
Weapon: Magedude's Longbow (Attack modifier +3, Frost)
Rings: Ring of protection +2, Ring of freedom of movement (always useful if you don't want to trap your PCs in your own web)
Spells
(I will shorten this quiet a bit and only go through the memorized spells since the lineup there seldom changed)
Level 1:
Burning Hands
Magic Missile (for sentimental reasons)
Cause Fear
Color Spray
Mage Armor
Level 2:
Mirror Image (later replaced by stoneskin)
See Invisibility
Web (sticked to it through almost the entire game)
Scorching Ray
Melf's Acid Arrow
Level 3:
Stinking Cloud (good when it not affects your own PCs)
Fireball ('nuff said)
Suggestion
Lightning Bolt (learned to love it although I was skeptical in the beginning)
Level 4:
Ice Storm
Stoneskin
Fire Shield
Haste (Extended)
Level 5:
Hold Monster (in case Screamer fails)
Teleport
Honorable mentions are Read Magic and Daze, the first for obvious reasons and the second for saving Magedude's skin in the most unexpected times.
Stats increase: Dexterity (+1), Wisdom (+1)
Favourite Line: 'Gods!'
Summary: Punkaid was a pitiful whipping boy during the early stages of the game. His improper combat abilities and his position on the front line combined did not bode well for his well being. He took the beatings like a man however and once they reached the temple and all the magical loot started to pile up, his situation improved dramatically. Although this didn't make him perfect, at least he became an appreciable support character.
Occupation: Involuntary martyr
Death count: 11
Achievements:
Record for the longest time a PC remained encumbered (must have been for at least a month)
Dealt the most consecutive misses (21)
Highest death toll
Equipment
Head: Leather helmet
Shoulders: Cloak of resistance +3 (Increases Fortitude saving throws)
Arms: None
Hands: Gloves of Giant Strength +6
Torso: Blue elven chain (AC +8)
Shield: Shield +3 (AC +5)
Feet: Boots of speed (can cast Haste once per day)
Weapon: Holy Mace +3 (also included: Frost, Icy Burst, Shocking Burst)
Necklace: Amulet of Wisdom +4
Rings: Ring of protection +1, Lareth's ring of freedom of movement (same deal as with the others only that this one has a fancier name)
Spells
(Didn't bother to list the domain category as it primarily consists out of cause x wound spells)
Level 1:
Divine Favor
Doom
Bless
Endure Element
Protection from Chaos
Level 2:
Cure Moderate Wound
Cure Moderate Wound (never needed anything else)
Hold Person
Eagle's Splendor
Resist Energy
Level 3:
Blindness/Deafness (didn't work when it would have been important)
Prayer
Bestow Curse
Protection from Energy
Level 4:
Dismissal (more handy in scroll form but this isn't bad either)
Poison
Divine Power
Level 5:
Righteous Might (!)
Flame Strike
Stats increase: Strength (+1), Dexterity (+1)
Favourite Line: 'Hargh?'
Summary: There were a lot of conceptual errors that I made with good old Tumblefingers, mostly because I falsely remembered ToEE to contain a lot of traps and therefore wanted another support character rather than a fighter. She should have been geared up for melee combat from the very start. Not necessarily because this would have made her more effective but because there are no masterwork shortbows around which means that she was forced to fight with a regular one throughout the entire game (which is especially bad once you reach the lower levels). There was a bug that I could've exploited to give her a longbow but I didn't want to rely on such tactics. Another problem was when she was trying to flank enemies for sneak attacks since they would usually be surrounded by their buddies, making such maneuvers too risky for me to bother. Thanks to that however, Tumblefingers not only turned out to be the most dispensable PC but also the one to die less times than the rest (if you can overlook the first fight against Terjon and the initial guard tower battle, which were both practically unwinnable from my point of view, you could actually claim that she never died at all). Things started to pick considerably with the dust of disappearance. In fact, she turned into an absolute killing machine, especially when she got the Crippling Strike perk so I was able to reconcile with her at the end of the day.
Occupation: The woman who wasn't really there
Death count: 2
Achievements:
Disarmed a bunch of traps (10)
Also set some of them off (2)
Equipment
Head: None
Shoulders: Cloak of resistance +3 (Increases Fortitude saving throws)
Arms: Bracers of armor +5
Hands: Gloves of Dexterity +6
Torso: Leather Armor +3 (AC +5)
Feet: Leather boots
Weapon: Shortbow
Rings: Ring of protection +1, Ring of Invisibility (a rogue's best friend)
The strongest creature the group killed was the Hezrou Guradian, the weakest a Goblin Leader.
The most experienced gained in one combat session were 127970 XP total (against the Hezrou Guardian).
Madame Zlut was slain on the 318th day since the start of the adventure.
And there you have all the data in a nutshell.
Now I wanna bathe in my short-lived fame for a sec.
Dedication
This LP was originally meant to be dedicated to the Nicolai Liberation Front but since this is kind of an old hat by now, I guess there is nothing left but to thank all the passionate developers from Troika Games (and eventual external associates) who made this great experience possible.
I would also like to send my special thanks to Jasede and Locue who I mercilessly ripped off on every opportunity I've got.
Last but not least of course thanks to all the people who anticipated in this thread and shared their knowledge and experience. This was a fun and educational LP (at least for me) and I'm very grateful for that.
That's basically it but since you should not have read all of this for nothing, here is a secret ending that you'll get if you beat the game with an S rank. To achieve an S rank, you must finish the campaign in less than 35 minutes and there must be at least one dwarf and also one spellcaster in the party (the spellcaster thereby may not have Strength, Constitution or Dexterity above a value of 12). Once Madame Zlut is destroyed, you will be teleported into the 'evil node' area, in which your spellcaster will have to face 5 elite bugbears with no memorized spells and an empty inventory. If he/she really survives, you'll get the following secret ending.
Now, who wants to start an ironman challenge? I certainly would like to join.
