Surprises in HoW!

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Now I had HoW and re-started a game.

I also had Auril's Bane so there was a mage guy in Easthaven, which was realy nice for buying scrolls!

Anywya, I decided to play on insane, as it would be more fun and rewarding (double amount of XP!)

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Did the first few non-battle quests and leveled up to 2-3. Then entered orc cave.

WTF! There were 3-4 ogres instead of only 1! WHY? I love a challenge but this was just too extreme! Ogres are so tough, one hit does 24+ damage on insane, instant kill for my PCs! All other orcs&archers do not help the situation as well.

Solution:My all-new and spiffy bard casted a sleep spell, orcs fell asleep and blocked the tight corridor, ogres tried to reach us but could not pass the orc bodies. So we all shot our arrows, bolts, bullets to the ogres for quick and easy and painless kills!

It was fun though, just my type of playing. I like it hard!

Anyway, other suprises. Well, Final Dungeon of Vale of Shadows has never been so hard..and fun. There were so many 'Reinforced' skeletons (I have never seen them in normal game) that it was INDEED fun. Oh then archers were happily using arrows of acid and fire for extra +15 damage per shot. The mage skeleton was also SO SMART, he casted special spells like Larloch's orb which paralyzed 2 of my crew, it was fun!

But the biggest suprise was:

Another, lone archer shot a weird looking arrow. I paused the game and looked at his attack roll. It had +24 attack modifier! +24! And this is even 2E! WTF! Then as the arrow hit my poor bard, a massive explosion occured, and 4 of my party were crisped and dead. That damned skeleton had just shot an arrow of detonation!

Solution:Reload, have my bard cast Mirror Image, approach, no scratch. Luckily it only had one such arrow.

I am really impressed so far. My question is:

What is the cause of this extreme fun?

-HoW?
-ToTLM?
-me playing on insane difficulty?
-I don't have HoF enabled, mind you!

Also, will there be such beautiful suprises in the future if I continue playing on insane?

Don'T give me spoilers, but please say yes!
Ooh it is so exciting! I love this game!

[ March 08, 2006, 16:26: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

The 4 ogres also appear when you replay with HoW installed but the other surprises must be Auril's Bane related.

 

Are you sure it is AB related? I thought it was due to HoW and me playing on insane. AB readme did not cover these changes and suprises.

Anyway, ı really love it. It is hard, thrilling and rewarding, in terms of XP!

But the archers used to have arrows of flame for loot, now they only have sucky arrows of dispelling. Why? Oh well...

In Kuldahar's tankard tree, there are two drows, one female and other male, and male's name is Solaufein. They say they are awaiting for someone's destiny in the future. (bhaalspawn?) This is nice suprise, though it makes any sense, I wonder if they have any use in game. AB is a nice enough mod I guess.

 

Yes, I'm sure.

 

Yup, AB add a lot of features to the game like new items, NPCs and much harder encounters. The first time I played the game I used this mod, and some of the encounters were too hard for my party (*), so I just uninstalled it and didn't looked back, maybe I should try it again sometimes.

(*):

Spoiler

I had to fight a death knight in the tomb of Kresselack (sp?) that required a 20 to hit, and could kill my best fighter in 2 hits .

 

I may be evil, but i found these two to be one of the best fights in the game. The limited manouverability in the tavern means everyone feels the pain from the high level spells that get tossed around. And believe me, these two toss a lot of such spells. The sword that you get from big S is also another plus , especially if you manage to kill them before the end of the game.

 

@Greystar

NO! I did not encounter a Death Knight in the tomb, I am already in Dragon's Eye. Why I did not see it? Were you playing on HoF difficulty? Where was it exactly? Can I come back and fight?

@Celesialraven

So the two are nothing but for an optional and challenging battle? I like the idea, kinda Imp. Asylum party in Spellhold of BG2. Are you sure they don'T have a special plot and/or quest, or will killing them net a rep drop and loss of paladinhood?

If not I will really really want to try to kill them. Hmm starting with two good backstabs should be fun! I have a Thief9 dualled into a most evil cleric, and a good F/M/T.

 

That's odd. The last time I played the game I had HoW installed (and ToTL for that matter), as well as AB, and I was playing on Insane. There were no 4 ogres, only one, and I don't remember that death knight in Kresselack's tomb. Unless these only appear if you REplay the game, something I've never done out of the same installation.

 

Hmm, that is strange INDEED, you know, I had copied my character files from old IWD folder to my new game, they were the couple who had finished IWD before. And as such, the game warned me that I had finished the game and that I can start HoW areas with them. Strange isn't it? So is this the cause? Can you tell me?

I am not complaining mind you. I was actually afraid I was going to get bored. Now I am having fricking fun! And I am in Dragon's EYe.

WTF! THere are soo many trolls in DE, soo many! They do quite a damage on insane! This is fun as they have evil priest allies as well. Reloaded the whole battle 3-4 times: Multiple webs+entangles then hasted ranged attacks AND fireballs really did the trick:MAJOR XP gain!

I love this game!

 

@Silverstar: I don't know, they probably remove it in later version, or because my levels were higher than normal (5 IIRC). But I'm pretty sure that death knight wasn't in the unmodded game.

 

Game continues to amaze me!

I encountered tougher or crowdier enemies!

Presio had an apprentice and a warrior! Wow!

Dragon's eye had deadly and wicked pure bloods. A fighter, a thief, an archer, a cleric and a mage. Archer kept killing my guys with her acidic arrows, which did additional +20 or more damage per shot! I reloaded a few times and had to try different strategies! I LOVE IT!

I was praying to find an Elven Chain for my bard in Severed Hand. I killed different shadowed elves and they each had a set of elven chain!

Then I slaughtered a different guy.

He dropped a most useful Helmet of Defene (from BG2), a suprisinlgy potent Elven Chain+4 and a cool, cool, cool MOONBLADE! Wow! Just the things I was looking for my bard! Immediately equipped them! My bard is awesome! His AC is best, and his Moonblade grant +%50 Fire R, and +2d3 fire damage.

Needless to say, I am overjoyed. I think these goodies are from AB too, right?

I love this game. Really do!

 

The extra elven chainmail and the moonblade are definitely from AB. I'm pretty sure Presio's helpers are from HoF, but since you mentionned you're not playing in HoF... I have no idea where they're from. Definitely NOT HoW or AB.

 

^Hmm, a little bit mystery is always great to have anyway!

 

Maybe AB does auto-enable the HoF or replay extras.

 

The multiple sets of elven chain in Severed Hand, is a bug in the current version of AB. Its been fixed for v1.7

 

^Huh? But I had downloaded the AB recently, a month ago or so. Is it updated again? Does it do any other new things? Should I get it?

 

@kmonster: I don't think it does, or at least that it's supposed to, because I played through the game with AB (and apparently with the same version Silverstar has) and never got any of these extras. About the only thing I can think of is that Silverstar's installation somehow messed something up and and auto-enabled these features.

Not that matters, as long as you're having fun with the game...

 

Well. I think I have found the cause. I have made a fresh install, but put my two former characters (which have already finished the vanilla game in my former installation) to characters folder. I guess the game recognised these characters and, somehow, understood I have already finished the game before, and as such enabled the extras for me to have fun?

 

I believe that I will try Aurils Bane later too. Sounds cool. Some extra monsters sounds very interesting when you know every monster and locations where they are.

Silver, I will come with some questions later

 

^I will be of help if I can. (now where did I remember this quote?)