Tasty Ham!

Hey, I won the Tasty Ham Lotto! I thought an auction had sold, and checked my mail and found 10 Tasty Ham instead!

Shadows of Undrentide

Well, last night I finished the first expansion for Neverwinter Nights 1, Shadows of Undrentide. Yes, it took me a very long time to get around to actually finishing it. Apparently, the last time I had played was back in 2008, and even then, just briefly.

I remember it being my game of choice for a short time when I was home and Mr Bebop was napping. So that would have been late 2007 and early 2008. Nowadays, I'm usually too tired to do anything other than nap when Gabe is napping too, so I hadn't been playing too much. That, and the fact that it is on my external hard drive makes it very unportable to play on the mac laptop, which is the version I have.

Anyways, enough excuses for it taking so long to finish. Overall, it was an enjoyable expansion. I think I was a little spoiled though. I had played through the original campaign with both expansions installed, so I had access to all the prestige classes, spells, crafting, and cloaks, so there was nothing new for me there.

I had a character concept in mind, a halfling rogue/ranger who took advantage of two weapon fighting and sneak attack to deal more damage. Unfortunately, this didn't work out well on several fronts:

1. Because NWN 1 is based on the D&D 3.0 rules, weapons have size categories and using two weapon fighting as a small character meant using a small weapon in the main hand, and a tiny weapon in the off hand. This meant short sword and dagger for most practical reasons. But all the cool weapons are either longswords or double swords, all of which are two big for a small character to use.
   
2. The interlude and chapter 2 have tons of undead or creatures otherwise immune to sneak attacks. Add on top of that the interlude has a door that can only be opened by a Paladin as far as I could tell, and ranger is looking like a poor choice.
   
3. The skill implementation is poor, meaning keeping certain skills trained can't be done, even per the 3.0 rules. So I found myself wanting in certain skills that I would have wanted in my character concept.
   

Deekin the henchmen was the best of all of those available, as I didn't much care for the dwarf or the half-orc. If I were to play through it again, I would try it with one of them instead, but after experiencing their AI in Chapter 1, I was eager for a change in the interlude and chapter 2. But considering I've got plenty of other games available, I don't think I would play through this module again.

As has been said before, the ending was quite anticlimactic. After watching the end game cinematic for Final Fantasy IX, the end video for Shadows was horrible. Perhaps not a fair comparison, but considering the time frame, and that Final Fantasy came out in 2000, and SoU came out in 2003, it was a little sad. Also, even though I had the graphics turned up to the max, the game seems to be showing its age.

I'm thinking of skipping Hordes of the Underdark, which just seems to be an excuse for a high level campaign, and move on to Neverwinter Nights 2. Luckily I have the Mac version which is supposed to have fixed some of the major bugs from the PC version.

Can't post as character?

Hmm, I'm having trouble posting as a character. I was able to before, but when I choose it in the list, it doesn't seem to care!

Sorrowdusk 4th time through

So, I've been trying to level up and catch up with my regular group, and am still short by quite a bit. I just finished my third time through Sorrowdusk..well sort of.

The first time was on hard with the group all the way through the 10 quests. Except for the last one, which they completed without me. With no way to unlock it on hard, I was forced to finish the last quest on normal. I then went through a second time, completely solo. I did it on hard for the first 8 quests, and then on normal for the last two.

Most recently. I ran just cult of the six, the last 6 quests, again on hard with the last two quests on normal.

So now, I'm going to run all 10 quests, this time on normal, and the very last quest on hard.

I've got enough xp to level to 11, but am banking it so I get more xp on this run through. The only thing that might give me some difficulty is the very last quest with the fire reavers, but I plan to retrain my enhancements and take Knight of the Chalice by then.

After that, I'll be good to go on elite with the group once again.

Bodak and Beholder

April 9th, 2010.

I'll just give a brief description of the battles, and then a small discussion.

Luckily, these weren't encountered together. Without a cleric, the undead Bodak seemed to pose a real challenge, even if it was alone. With damage reduction and energy resistance and immunity, it was quite an interesting monster. The save or die effect caused everyone to try to avert their eyes to circumvent the gaze attack, which nobody succumbed to. This was a random encounter that followed (Kobold, Desert), which actually made things interesting. They had camped near the nomadic kobolds, and it was their dying in the middle of the night that alerted the PCs to the Bodak's presence.

Once they got to the ruins, the next big battle was against a beholder. They had never fought a beholder before, and it was interesting how things turned out. When it came down to it, Kascannia the elf fighter made all 10 saving throws vs the eye stalks, which I'm certain she was thankful for. The arcane trickster was able to get two lightning bolts cast, which hurt the beholder the most.

So, my question to you is: what do you think of save or die effects? In this case, it was all save and no die. It could have gone the other way around, but for a group of level 12 PCs, I think a beholder in some ways doesn't pose much of a threat. And the damage reduction of the bodak was easily overcome by brute force. A group of either of them would have posed a more serious challange I think.

Hirelings for the Win!

So,  a couple of months ago my group decided to try Gladewatch Outpost Defense. With just the 3 of us at low to mid level (around 6 to 8 I think), I think we crashed and burned.

With more money to our name, we each got a hireling and went into it. Level 9 cleric, level something or other fighter, and a level 7 wizard. I had the wizard, the rogue had the fighter, and the ranger had the cleric.

We kind of muddled through on normal, but did okay. The wizard was really weak, which was too bad, but the cleric was able to raise him without much problem during lulls in the battle. It took me a little while to get used to wall of fire, and how to best use it with my henchmen, but I think it went well overall.

Feeling quite good about it, we immediately went back in on hard, and even though it was supposed to be tougher, we all managed to handle our hirelings a bit better, and in some ways did better the 2nd time around.

And then, we went into archer point defense on elite, before our hireling timers expired. That also went really well. The wizard died even more, as it wasn't really a defensive situation, and I was prepared for his actions. I ended up putting him completely on passive just to try to keep him from getting himself killed.

But I think getting three quests in an hour was sweet, and getting the favor was nice too. We might have to rethink our strategy on elite for gladewatch, and might need more PCs rather than hirelings.

Muck's Doom

Ran through The Pit for the first time with my regular group.

It did take a long time for us, but I think everyone had a blast.

We even lucked out and got a Muck Doom, which I traded my loot for (+2 Adamantine Plate), plus an additional 25,000 plat.

I plan to keep it for a while. I'd give my muckbane to my other character, but he already has one =). If we end up pulling another one at a later date, we might sell it in the Auction House and split the money.