JUPP question

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Have not updated my JUPP party for some time, so just thought I would provide an update.

First, I would like to say that Jukka is a genius! The JUPP arcane party is so great that the game has been a breeze so far. Actually, the hardest fight for me has been the Beholder in the magma chambers. Losing all my buff spells to the Beholder's dispelling ray left my party very vulnerable since the rely so much on the buffing spells for protection. It took three reloads before I managed to defeat that monstrosity!

Compared to the Beholder, those Slayer Knights of Xvim have been walkovers. I just have the decoy run well ahead of the party and attract their attention. Then have the Sorcerer pelt the decoy with skulltraps while the decoy throws skulltraps at himself also. Those Slayer Knights go down super fast.

In that regard, I have found the Shroud of Bankao to be the best magic item I have found to date. The immunity to skulltrap is just so awesome for a decoy. Before finding the Shroud, I would have the decoy cast mirror images and then pelt him with DBFB, Horrid Wiltings, etc. but I always had to keep careful watch on how many images were left. With the Shroud, I just have every spellcaster around throw skulltraps at the decoy and watch the bad guys vaporize while my decoy blissfully ignores the free fire zone he is sitting in.

My party is in the Severed Hand and at the start of chapter six were at the following levels:

Decoy -- Deep Gnome Rogue (1) / Monk (1) / Dreadmaster (1) / Illusionist (17). This guy is awesome. With just Mage Armor and Cat's Grace cast (all day spells), he is at AC 52! I have not yet found a normal mode opponent who can hit him with anything other than a natural 20. I emerge from many fights without having taken any damage: this party killed Saablic Tan and his group without anyone having taken a single point of damage.

Tank -- Deep Gnome Dreadmaster (13). I changed the JUPP with regards to this character. I found that taking equal levels of Druid and Cleric just left this character struggling with his access to only low level spells. I advanced this character to level 13 as that gave me Ressurection and am planning on squatting twelve Druid levels so that when I take them this character will not face any multiclass penalties. I have not found that leaving him at level 13 has hurt very much. He only enters melee against foes that are either magic immune (golems) or are vulnerable to the Club of Disruption. Otherwise, he throws some support spells and then starts tossing Big Death (I *really* love this axe). Using Big Death combined with Rapid Shot compensates for his lower number of attacks due to his staying at level 13.

Bombardier -- Drow Sorcerer (20). What a powerhouse! Having Wail of the Banshee in normal mode is just unfair. This guy just walks up behind the decoy (who will sometimes help by casting Malison) and casts a Wail -- fight over!

Between level squatting and muling, these three characters have accumulated between 285,000 and 290,000 XP by the start of chapter 6.

The remaining three characters are all permanent mules. Each is a Paladin (1) / Monk (1) and will take all squatted levels as sorcerer. In another change from the JUPP, I have made all these Paladins of Ilmater rather than of Helm. There is no benefit from being a Helm Paladin and a Paladin of Ilmater can get some XP for cleansing the statute in Hrothgar's Glen. Not much of a difference, but why not optimize for max XP when it brings no downside?

I can hardly wait to get to HoF to see how these guys do.

 

Looking good, that party of yours..

Just beware, you may wish to leave your guys at their current levels (except for the Dreadmaster/Druid tank) for the rest of the game - bringing them up to level 30 will make it all too easy for you, even in HOF.

In my test run, I reached level 30 with all characters by the beginning of Chapter 2 in HOF mode.. and lost interest in that party pretty much at once. It's nice being powerfull and all that, but it gets boring really fast.

I just started over with a "no muling" rule, but starting the game with just the tank character and adding others when the EXP gain dries out completely. We'll see what happens. Currently entering the Warrens, and tank has reached level 11 already due to playing solo all the way to the bridge.

 

@Jukka

Are you using the Melee Party for your no-muling game?

After I finish with this group, I want to start again with an Arcane Party but with no mules, just some level squatting. I want to run with a party of four and am wondering about the fourth character. I was thinking of possibly taking a tank/bombardier like the DG Fighter4/Paladin3/Rogue3/Illusionist20 from the melee party to add a character who can do some melee early while still being a respectable arcane caster later on in HoF. The other choice would be to turn the current tank into a cleric/mage, perhaps a DG Dreadmaster25/Illusionist4/Monk1 and then making the fourth character a druid/mage, such as a Drow/DG Druid12/Transmuter or Illusionist18. That would give me a more powerful cleric who could protect himself with lots of Mirror Images and a druid who would still become a useful bombardier in HoF.

Any suggestions on which would be better? Perhaps I will just try both and see how they compare.

Jukka, let us know how the no-muling party works out, I am very curious to know.

 

I often play with the approach that Jukka is currently following, adding a new character each chapter. It usually means starting with your tank as he is best suited to soloing the Prologue with his hitpoints and armour.

 

I'm using a variant of the Melee party.

I started the game with the Dreadmaster/Druid, using the INT3 build with maxed STR, DEX and WIS.

I added the Paladin3/Fighter4/Rogue3/Illusionist20 melee tank (WIS5) just as I was heading for the Horde Fortress, since I wasn't getting any EXP anymore with the first tank and I wanted someone to disarm traps.

The first tank almost single-handedly slaughtered the whole fort yard with three drums, summons and all the other monsters in the area.

Next character (beginning of chapter 2 or so) is most likely a drow bard/cleric tank or a sorcerer, depending on my needs further on. Bard/cleric would boost the two tanks considerably and provide a second healer, while sorcerer would provide faster access to the Mass Haste spell. I don't think it matters that much which one I choose, as I'll take the other one before I get to the Underdark with all those lovely Iron/Mind Golems (read: gazillions of EXP) down there..

I just wanted to see how a single tank would fare through the first portions of the game, and it did just fine. I'm not planning to play this game all the way through - not yet at least. I'm starting on Baldur's Gate 2.

[ August 04, 2004, 09:35: Message edited by: Jukka Mikkonen ]

 

Finshed the game in normal mode the other night and had the wierdest experience.

I forgot to free the slaves and speak to Orrick about Mythals before heading into the final battles, so I am not sure if what happened next was due to one of these or if it was a bug of some kind. During the final fight, I sent three characters after the summoner, but they went after the wrong guy and I soon had nasty undead coming after me in droves. My main characters quickly dispatched the twins to the radiant pool room, but it took me quite some time to kill all the undead, loot the corpses, heal and prepare for the final fight. When I opened the door, the game went to the cut sequence where the twins talk about the pool being tainted. However, instead of teleporting me into the room with them, they came out and fought me in the central corridor. I could not kill them. I had a level 20 sorcerer and wizard and used every spell they had. I did, literally, over a thousand points of damage to each one of the twins, but still they would not die and Orrick would not show up. They stayed at "Almost Dead" forever and finally killed everyone when I ran out of spells. This ever happen to anyone else?

I then went back to an earlier save and finished all the quests properly. Then, in the final battle I had three characters attack the right guy who died without summoning more than one undead. The twins went down super fast and it was just a matter of picking up the loot. I did not even need to heal anyone. This time I was teleported into the radiant pool room like I should have been and the fight was over within a couple of rounds. Amazing what a couple of Horrid Wiltings will accomplish. Orrick showed up on cue and we were out of there without having suffered a single point of damage.

Have just finished the prologue in HoF and the final fight was even easier than in normal. That Goblin Hunter dagger is just too much. In normal, the fight with Caballus was always tricky and even though I always won, it lasted for some time. In HoF it was over before it began. The tank just ran, hasted with boots of speed, up to Caballus and, boom, one dead sorcerer. He did not even get a spell off. Too easy. The only damage I took during the whole prologue was in the smuggler's cave when one goblin got around my decoy and hit my tank. It will be interesting to see how much tougher the orcs are.

On a JUPP note, I found that, for me at least, the Arcane party, even with all its spell blasting, really needs just a little more muscle than the Dreadmaster/Druid can provide. I will now add the Rogue(3)/Palading(3)/Fighter(4)/Illusionist(20) to the Arcane party as a standard fourth character. This will add a rogue who can max Open Locks and Pick Pockets, can fight fairly well while still having lots of Mirror Images, can really make use of the Holy Avenger, can get a decent AC that will stand up to many HoF monsters, and who can still end up as quite a useful bombardier.

[ August 06, 2004, 15:15: Message edited by: Khemsa ]

 

I know this is offtopic but:
How did you manage to do thousands of damage to the Twins? They were both pretty much immune to anything I did to them... I eventually managed to hurt Madae, but I don't really know how, because I couldn't follow the battle text as there were so many creatures hitting each other.

***** SPOILERS ******
I just finished the game and I must say: the last fight was really an anti-climax. Especially that the fight ends when you get one of the Twins to near death. I didn't even get to enjoy the feeling that I was winning, it was over before I knew it. I would have liked it much better if it was a real battle to the death. The end of the fight also wasn't challenging. Isair went invisible and did nothing and Madae was casting some stupid spells.

Anyway, that last character Khemsa is mentioning is my decoy. Well, he doesn't have the three levels of paladin, but otherwise it's the same. He isn't much of a tank though in my game...

BTW are there any people in IWD2 worth pickpocketing?

 

@Menion Leah

Racking up huge damage against Madae is easy, she is going to take at least half damage from all the Sunfires and Meteor Swarms I hit them with. Isair cannot evade Horrid Wiltings since it lacks a reflex save, so when they both got hit with about 10 Horrid Wiltings, that is 200 dice of damage to each of them, but figure they would take just half that as they would make their Fortitude save.

I agree that the final battle is a bit disappointing, not being able to kill them was frustrating. To make it worse, it was not even close to being the hardest battle in the game.

As to your question on pickpocketing, in normal mode you can get a few good things in Targos at the time you need them. In addition to some much needed gold, you can get a scroll of Mage Armor from Elytherra(sp?) and a Ring of Protection +1 from Ulbric. That worker in Galloway's Trading has the Lucky Nucky (+1 to all saves). Oswald has some nice things to pickpocket, the potion of explosions being the most useful. In HoF, if you have the requisite levels, that worker who had the Lucky Nucky now has Young Ned's Lucky Nucky which gives +2 to all saves, but even more important gives +2 Luck. Well worth the effort of getting. Other than those, I have not found anything worthy of pickpocketing.

 

The problem with Horrid Wilthing is that my party would also be taking 200 dice damage and they probably wouldn't like that.

I already pickpocketed the Lucky Knucky and now also Young Ned's Knucky which is a really great item. But it seems almost impossible in HoF to pickpocket, even a level 30 rogue with 30 DEX and al points in pickpocket fails almost always!
But it was well worth the annoying reloading sequence. The luck bonus from YNK seems to stack with that of the Tymora ring and now my character lands critical after critical after critical. The screen doesn't stop shaking when he fights.

 

Xvim, Madae and Isair take bonus electrical damage.
In my game the monks keep the twins occupied while my party gets rids of the drows.
By the time I finish with the drow Isair's protections run out. Then I use the Axe of Shocking Burst, Cloudkiss, Shock Bolts and Chain Lightenings on Isair till the twins run away.
Rinse n repeat at the radient pool.

 

You don't need to pickpocket the "Lucky Nucky" - using brute force to acquire the item is also possible *ahem*

 

Errm, question about HoF. When you summon things, are they boosted as the HoF enemies or are they just like in normal mode?

 

Yup they get the same insane boosts to HP and BAB. Thats how people like Gothmog (scroll a third of the way up) survive.

 

Summons are cheesily uber-powerful in HoF mode.

 

Does *ahem* mean you don't mean that? Because I don't think you can. If you attack him, that Gallaway person will attack you and she's a plot-important character, so it's game over when you kill her. If you try to avoid her, the guy standing outside with the broken wood-machine-thing also attacks you and killing him means game over too.

 

There is a dialog option in the prologue that allows you to fight the trio in the bar. Thus you can get it that way too.

 

When did Deidrie let the help go out long enough to loose the Nucky at the bar?
I think you have things mixed up.
'Neds Lucky Nucky' can be stolen off one of the staff in the Galloway Trading Depot in Targos town.
The 3 drunk in the Salty Dog Tavern have nothing to do with it.

 

DOH! got my places mixed up. I was thinking the name of the bar was Galloway.

 

@Menion Leah: Why would *you* use brute force? After you've done all vital quests in Targos you may accidentally ( ) summon a fierce fiend in that little shoppe - bad for the customers methinks.

 

Hehehehe. That's smart .

But don't the locals still blame you? I seem to remember that in BG2 the villagers attack you if your Balor attacks them...

Well, I guess that isn't the case in IWD2 or you wouldn't have mentioned it.