Gwendellwyn´s Tale - solo play in IWD with a Thief/Mage

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Hehheh, good reading. Keep up it! I wonder how you will manage to beat all those giant verbeegs in the temple, they hit and hit hard. Idea:Chromatic orbs/ghoul touchs are good to paralyse/stun them.

 

Nice story - Looking forward to hear some more Tales from Gwendellwyn -

 

Makes me toy with the idea of soloing, something I've never done. I'd probably go with a fighter/mage/thief, though, accepting the slower leveling up for a wider choice of weaponry.
Hope we hear more from young Gwen soon.

 

Looks like I needed a break of half a year or so, but now I am enjoying the ride again. A lot.

(Note: since it was many months since I played the parts I talk about in this post, details often get blurry, few remain and may even be plain wrong on occasion.

I know I should have taken more screenshots...)




Gwendellwyn entered the Temple of the Forgotten God, not really knowing what to expect.
She had a very tough time with the Verbeeg at first. It seemed like they could call each other for help. But that wasn´t the worst part. The worst part was that they hit like trucks! Also, Gwen almost got cornered a few times when she tried to use the trusty 'backstab-coming-from-entrance' tactics. Thankfully, the Verbeeg seem to have really bad saving throws against Chromatic Orb. Orb saved the day, along with fighting in Webbed areas. The monks were less hard to deal with. Gwen is a much better archer than she is melee fighter. Arrows and occasional Melf´s Acid Arrows pretty much shut up the monks as a threat. The major discovery in this area was a scroll of Skull Trap. Yay! One of my all-time favourite spells; sometimes awkward to use but it never stops growing with the mage level. Great for a solo mage.

New lead to the mystery (a snake bite), and a reason to travel to Dragon´s Eye. This started a new chapter. Immediately (well, maybe there were a few ice trolls to kill, I don´t remember if that was here...) she travelled back to Orrick the Mage to see if he had any spells for her. He had! Among other things, Gwen was pleased to see that she could get some company for the first time (Monster Summoning II).

First floor had beetles and lizard men. Lots and LOTS of lizard men. I must have travelled in and out at least 15 times (to rest, and sometimes to sell off stuff, buy potions and arrows). I came up to the 'Lizards King´s throne place' in shadows and noted to my surprise that all his 'underlings' had a green circle, i.e. I could control them! Wtf? OK, I moved them all away to a quiet place, and bunched them up in a super-tight pack, except for two of the green ones that I kept with me. Now it was execution time. Launch a Skull Trap in the middle of them, they take heavy damage and turn red, send in my two buddies to tank them, then a second Skull Trap. All dead, except for my (now hostile) buddies that I could easily kill in melee.
The throne had a scoll of Fireball. Very nice!

Second floor was a beetle, troll and spider level. I remember that I thought the trolls were tough buggers (usually surviving a backstab) and annoying. Bombardier Beetles were also annoying, unless I could trick them into releasing the gas when I had just left what would be the area of effect.
This floor also reinforced the fact that in this game you should read the description of pretty much every item you find. I found a sword that had the graphics of an ordinary +1 Long Sword, but it was in fact a +2 Long Sword of Confusion! The Confusion part was not so useful, but it was nonetheless the best weapon Gwen had seen up to this point.

Third floor was swarming with undead. There were the reallly annoying (I could never get XP for any of them) and somewhat dangerous Blast Skeletons, there were 'Chosen' zombies (just a little sturdier than basic zombies, but gave 15x the XP!) and there was something I actually rememeber from last time, an army of cold wights. This was XP heaven. Cold Wights give 1400 XP each, and they don´t seem to have any special powers beyond a cold touch. Quite wimpy, too. My SOP for effective killing was:
* Cast Mirror Image somewhere I am not seen.
* Approach in shadows and summon monsters right in the middle of the wights.
* Cast Invisibility. All wights will now gang up on my monsters.
* When I think my monsters are about to die, cast Fireball so it covers as many wights as possible
* Run in among the wights, but do not get completely surrounded
* Cast Invisiblity before the last mirror image is destroyed by the wights (scary!)
* Back off and target the tight wight pack with a 'from-off-screen' Fireball
* If there are survivors, hide and backstab (if more than two, Mirror Image first, then backstab the first, Burning Hands + melee the rest)
Satisfactory result.
Yes, this used up almost the entire memorized spellbook, but was well worth it.

Fourth level had some friendly people for a change. I even got to buy some cool spells, and could rest. But I figured something fishy was up with all the locked doors, and a little 'reading between the lines' as I was asking nosey questions. Then I did something that really pissed them off (forgot what) and it all became totally chaotic. I had a bunch of angry monks to deal with. Using 'Chameleon Power' at that. I also got several messages like:

The High Summoner: summons monsters (or something like that).

Hmm, better do something about that asap, otherwise the whole level will be swarming with monsters. I hid in shadows and tried to find the High Summoner. This search led me to areas with a lot of Yuan-Ti Elite. There was no place I could start some sort of backstab camp. Eventually, I found the summoner´s room, but the opening of the door would soon have me out of the shadows, so I found the exit and hoped I could use that as base camp.

Odd Little Girl: ("weird phycho rantings")
I remember you! You are really the Big Evil Snake Goddess/Queen!

Well, can´t stay here, I have a summoner to deal with. I figured this would be as good time as any to use my remaining Oil of Speed. Cast Mirror Image, Hide in shadows, got back to level 4 and there was now a CRAPLOAD of lizard men and trolls in the Summoner´s room. They were so many, they kept pouring out into the hallway. Summoner had nobody covering his back, so I got in there and stabbed him. Good roll and quadruple damage. He was still only Hurt, and now I was visible in a room with many, many enemies! OK, gogo Vampiric Touch. Crap, he´s still standing, 'Almost Dead', and I have no Invisibility spells left, just a potion. I had planned to use that for my escape. Gotta do something, my last image just got depleted. Crap, I was so close! Wait a minute, I have another Mirror Image. Get that up! Good, it worked. I am hasted, maybe I can smack away the summoner´s last bit of life...come on...please?!

Whiff
Whiff
Whiff
Gwendellwyn - Critical Hit
The High Summoner: Damage Taken: 20
The High Summoner: Death
!!!

Only one image left, but since I hadn´t used a 'spell equivalent action' for at least two rounds now, the invisibilty potion worked right away. Now if I could only squeeze out of this mass of monsters...yep, found an opening, and could get up to level 3.

Man, this was exhilerating stuff!

But now I could take the snakes, lizards, trolls and monks at my own pace. Sure, the monks screw me over a few times, but I did not need any heavy reloading to wipe out the place now.

If I remember correctly, the last floor is a lot tougher than this one. Oh my...


to be continued...

 

Sometimes taking a break is the best thing one can do. Nice to see you haven't lost interest in that game.

 

Good to see an update (at long last ).

That is some pretty odd lizardmen behaviour though.

 

Yeah, I figured it was set up so the King should see a character, give some Evil Rant™ and all the lizards should attack. Creatures generally have a blue circle in that case (which the King had).

EDIT: Found an old thread that discusses this.