Tigranes

Not linked yet? Not sure... RPS on DX3

You got a smart kid, would be a waste to put him through the British meat grinder.

The fight goes relatively well. The mage went down quickly, but I forgot that only magical weapons can damage the imbued wights: most of my loot was unidentified, due to a low-level numbers (low lore). I equipped some anyway, hoping I didn't miss any cursed, and eventually got them down. The rest of the level is cleared without trouble, and we are now ready for the final level of the tomb... still without ammo, but at least we've got quite a few levels between us now. Monty is a fiersome tank sporting over fourty-something HP, and I rested readying some new spells for our casters. The 3rd level is horrible because there are so many of the undead, and it's really hard to make sure you don't attract more while fighting. I stuck Wals on permanent Turn Undead duty, which mostly involves him making faces at them. Here we have numbers using geometry to his advantage with Aganazzar's Scorcher. Knowledge is power kids. The side areas are trouble, as well. Purkake remains true to his adventuring roots by proceeding to miss a mummy. Then we come to the final fight in the tomb, against several powerful spectral knights, and yet another mage. I rushed in without scouting (again) and had to run back out - we managed to lure some spectral knights away and not the mage, but a well aimed lightning bolt claims our good friend numbers. We get back in there - this time I cast 2 Silences, one from a scroll, but the mage makes the save. Monty decides to take one for the team and rush in, with his superior HP - but he's charmed. To the right you see the rest of the party running away like hell... you'd expect the skellies to take the chance to molest poor Monty and turn his brain into mush, but I guess a friend is a friend, even a temporary one. As charm wears off we rush back in, and just manage to carry the day. Purkake redeems himself (again) with a nice little stab into the undead vitals. Of course, in doing so, he entered the LOS of the final spectral knight - and just before that one falls, it takes out mkreku with a big swing. Thiefless and Swedeless, our battered Obsidianites finally make it to an audience with the haunted storyteller. He does some boo-boos about how his punishment of eternal condemnation has been disturbed by Aurilites. Seriously, you're stuck forever in icewind dale, and you're bothered about the cold? If that's a good plot mechanism I'm looking for my dad, middle aged guy. In any case, we ain't tackling any ice queen till we got some booze in the system. The resurrection fees have jumped with the levels, but I suppose our recently deceased can join us, too. We finish the day with a lot of shopping and resting and identifying. Purk picks up a nice ring which adds to his stealth and gives non-detection, increasing his recon capabilities. The yeti armour is a disappointment in terms of AC and surely not worth the 2.5k - after a lengthy debate the party votes to present it to Purkake, arguing that yeti fur is an essential part of stealth in the Dale. To finish off here are the combat stats so far: Monte Carlo: 157 kills (39%), strongest: Mummy Volourn: 107 kills (26%), strongest: Imbued Wight. Favourite spell: Lay on Hands. Mkreku: 74 kills (18%), strongest: Ghast. Walsingham: 23 kills (5%), strongest: Yeti. Purkake: 31 kills (7%), strongest: Spectral Guard. Numbers: 7 kills (1%), strongest: Carrion Crawler.

As he pulls out he carefully lobs our only flaming oil. We're lucky here and catch two with their pants down (no saves), burning through most of their HP in the process. In fact we're even luckier that he makes his saves against Hold Person - or he would probably have died. Finally, Walsingham casts Silence 15" Radius on the undead cleric-thing. This is very important because not only can he silence your party, he can cast static charge which would probably kill any of our party members in one shot. He doesn't make the save, and the dice save the day again. After a bitter fight (with no ranged ammunition, remember) he is finally down. The silence wore off near the end, but he decided to cast a silence of his own, and we got him down before anything else. After some more skellies and traps, we also take care of Myrkul's Sending. After some hairy moments the entire level is clear... but it was a close call. Next we journey down to the second level of this tomb. I'm eager to get some living enemies back in our repertoire, though, Wals has a Hold Person that's burning a big hole in the pants and, you know, Stinking Cloud... But first there's more undead to deal with. We lure the first set of skeletons into a chokepoint and burn the hell out of them. Next is more difficult - when I used to play IWD I woudl always, always, need to reload a lot after here. But this time it's ironman, baby. Purkake scopes out the battlefield, and identifies the primary danger, the skeletal mage: We lure as many skellies in as we can and dispose of them first. Then, from just out of LOS, the tried and true Silence 15" Radius kicks in. We're ready to charge.

As the point man Monty deals with the talky skeleton. Really, if they'd just stop talking he could get on with fighting in tunnels, amirite? Numbers levels up here. He has now officially surpassed the great heights of power reached by his predecessor. Not only can he cast sleep once a day, we shall see the glorious magic missile added to our collective arsenal. (It does less damage than a Purkstab.) Purkake's levelled up too, and can spot traps better. Sometimes it feels like everything that can be trapped in IWD is trapped.... By this point we've gone through every tomb in the Vale, and we're actually running out of ammunition. That's everyone. This is going to make things more difficult, as I really don't want to see Numbers or someone trying to cause minor bleeding in skeletons close up. The Obsidianites do not know the meaning of fear, however, and decide to see this through. They do take a rest before the big, gaudy tomb: thankfully the Yeti is not hard to take care of. The tomb of Kresselack. I think? I always confuse IWD1 & 2. Purkake once again scopes out the place: with various levels ups our party is stronger, though, and just normal undead shouldn't cause too much trouble. After a few minutes of hacking, slashing and trap disarming we are ready for the big baddie. Numbers goes up to level 3, which has me ecstatic: later he'll be able to cast.... Stinking Cloud! His powerful magicks will cause the undead to be slightly perturbed by the billowing yellow fumes. After 2 deaths I'm on my guard against the servant of Myrkul. First we pull our party back out of LOS, then send in a Purkstab...

Don't tell me, we're going to have an argument about the definition of FedEx quests.

I'm guessing this has stalled?

Given that his burning hands has contributed a great deal to the party so far, they decide to trot back and revive him. The fact that it only costs 100 for him was probably a major issue, too. We back in ze tombs, the pretty tombs. With Wals' turning it's not that bad, and Purkake is free to loot the place... Though his trap skills still leave something to be desired. Nicest bit of loot so far, a +1 halberd with chance of lightning damage. Monty gets the big swoosher, and that extra damage does come in useful later on - he can one-shot enemies sometimes. MC also levels up. With a low AC and over 5 times the HP of numbers (and 8 times Llyranor) he is shaping up to be a real tunnelmeister. Curiously, Volourn has the lower AC at zero with a shield but gets hit all the time - I wonder why. Purkake scopes out some yetis. If shadows could be backstabbed.... So can yetis. Of course, they have even more HP than shadows. Purkake lives on the edge, but is probably the most useful member after Monty so far. Recon is the king of ironman. We loot and loot and loot, and do get some decent scrolls for numbers and mkreku to learn. Second half of this coming tomorrow.

It's the weekend, so we might as well plug on. Having determined that the expenditure of two hundred gold for the resurrection of Llyranor did not represent good return on investment, the party decided to pick up another mage present in Kuldahar... I wish we could do half-orcs, or I'd have Gromnir. But next replacement will reflect your votes, this time I had like one. Hyped up with the addition of their newest party member, who is possibly not so pleased with the suspicious bestowal of mage's equipment upon his arrival, they move to the Vale of MacGuffin Pie. The party assure him that the last guy only had 4 HP, whereas he has 6, so he should be absolutely fine. We put Purkake's newfound stealth skills to use and- oh, hey, you can backstab shadows. He still can't kill anything with this, but anything helps, right? Inside we find lots of skeletons, probably low hit die. You know what that means... Shazam Boom Turn Undead, courtesy de Walsingham. Things get a little hairier here with a carrion crawler though, Mkreku bravely trots up to the front lines for some burning hands. Unfortunately, he then gets shoved to the wrong side and tries to run away, only to be paralysed. Actually, later on, he kept getting paralysed by ghasts as well - seems like as a Fighter/Mage he has the lowest saving throws, along with numbers. This is bad. Surrounded by skellies the prone Swede hemmorhages blood like it's a heavy metal concert. Volourn desperately lays some hands... But bang, he's dead. I'm pretty embarrassed we've got two deaths already, actually, I'll have to shape up.

I feel resting often is really really abusive in D&D CRPGs. It's a magic press of the button that really takes the challenge and fun out of it. I try only to rest when sensible or when really necessary (i.e. front of mill), I did underestimate the goblins and thought I could keep him away. Yeah, I wanted to enable the console and use Ctrl+J to teleport in towns, Kuldahar is really badly designed in that you have to walk up and down the tree trunks to get anywhere. But I couldn't remember it, so it's all for the best, I guess. I'll throw in Llyl's replacement and continue soon.

Yeah, i think I will go ahead and test his bluster. If I have to pay a fine for breaking the rules I will, but only fines that he can legally give, and then I will see him pulled up for harrassment at least. Don't like abuse of 'authority'. If I set the place on fire I'll give you a call, Shryke.

We rest before going inside, and that probably saved the Obsidianites, though the price is possibly several frozen reproductive organs. An Orc Elite charges towards us and we have just enough time to get him down with, yep, Command. Strange how Walsingham manages to be more useful than both our arcane spellcasters so far. Hold that thought as mkreku follows up with a nice burning hands. This is not so good for the party, as a judicious use of the spell might have helped with the said state of reproductive organs. It's probably for the best... And lo and behold, we are triumphant. Monty had to gulp a potion down, although Volourn had Lay on Hands available again. It's his money, I guess. In the cellars Mkreku finds a little boy, and sets him free. Who'd have thought he'd have a soft spot for kiddies? I mean, really, who would have? In the end, we arrive at Kuldahar, carrying Llyranor's wet corpse after them. Of course, some extremely important business has just come to their attention, and must be prioritised even before resurrection of their fellow adventurers. It's good to know that the local market has the common man's interests at heart. We settle for a couple of potions. On our way we meet Arundel, the guy who will soon send us on a round robin tour of the most disgusting and deadly places in Icewind Dale. We don't even have to pay him, we just have to find some gem he lost or something. Monty agrees to the deal, his eyes already misty at the thought of tunnels. Kuldahar looks nice, but Wals suspects that this statue betrays a heavy-handed fascist rule underneath, a regime so powerful and evil that none of its citizens dare speak of their discontent. Perhaps we can set them free... On our way to the temple we meet some Yetis. Pleasant folk, it's very nice of them to shed their fur into nice easily packagible lumps when they die. Purkake levels up again, putting him at level 3; Monty & Volo are at 2. Pretty nice going. Llyranor... well. What? Elves don't get raise dead? Screw this, I'm effectively paying 50 gold piece per HP! What do you think people, is it time for a new Obsidianite, or shoudl we give Llyl another chance?

It's been so long since IWD I've forgotten a huge number of things - hell, I only remember the cats in Targos! Mkrekru, anybody in my party with access to AOE spells is, well, a Marcus with a minigun. However, your Burning Hands might not even kill Llyranor, if he makes a save... we will see. It might be pushing it to fanfictionland make up fake banter between you guys, anyway. The party manages to arrive in Kuldahar without any deaths. They are mostly so surprised by these turn of events that they decide they are not so bad after all. The host of goblins in their path only serve to reinforce this feeling. I mean come on, we actually climbed the ladder to an Ogre in the introductory chapter, why are we back smacking mutated dwarves? We're above this crap now. Of course, Llyranor still has 4hp, and decided to impale himself on a stray arrow to go down to 1hp. Oh well, we'll keep him at the back. He only has one spell anyway. Thankfully, a nearby tower provides us with a big delicious Ogre. Purkake tries reasoning with him, but he doesn't take it well. Must be that time of the month. Command spell is awesome... but Volourn missed the next swing and he got up anyway. I guess sometimes you really can miss stuff right in front of you. The Mighty Ogre #2 is dispatched with little trouble. Boo-yah. Kuldahar is to the East, but we go up beyond the tower to see what's there - I actually never bothered before. We come across some sort of goblinoid mass orgy. This gets Mkreku a little excited, but sadly they don't like the gatecrashers. Here Llyranor dies his first noble death to Goblin Orgygoer #6. I guess we're not so above this crap after all... at least I got the death animation. Look at that, it's like the Matrix! 2001 had the best graphics. There are even more goblins than we had anticipated, and Volo is forced to lay hands on Monte Carlo. The rest of the party makes sure they are a safe distance away. With this, the menace of the goblin orgy is banished from the realms. Moving on, we meet an insane blabbering goblin. Purkake is not fond of blabbering goblins. Thankfully, blue circled goblins can still be backstabbed and killed. This was a popular bug before Bioware introduced a fix around 2005.

He's starting to get the hang of this sneaking business. The orcs were generally little trouble, but our entire party has less HP than a single troll, so we're pretty nutsed by this point. Thankfully, Wals can heal, and Volo can lay hands... on himself. I guess that will happen just about every day for the rest of the campaign. And we are ready to tackle the last room with the Ogre & Orcs Party. Having used our only crowd control spell in Sleep we go up front, guys with most HP jamming the corridor. Mkreku hits out with a nice burning hands spell. Volourn does not miss an opportunity to smite evil, but sadly it is even less effective than a Purkstab. After a bit of frantic fleeing and Mkreku a shaved fingernail away from death, we are victorious. Monty celebrates his first fight in a tunnel with a hearty chunking of the Ogre. The Obsidianites return triumphant. Purkake gets the first level up: I guess thieves are so nerfed they get lower XP thresholds in return. We put all the points into Stealth. We also give him an item from the cave, a Boots of Quietness. This should increase our chance of survival by a few hundred %. Volourn, being the Herald of Goodness and Justice, decides to visit the fishmonger's boy from earlier, and gives the dad some valuable lesson in a disciplined upbringing. Finally we stop by the cleric and get some healing potions - we couldn't afford any before. This building looks brilliant, by the way. No deaths against the Ogre wasn't bad, I thought. Next up is Kuldahar.

The rolls are a result of about 20-30 rerolls, years of replays means it only takes me a fraction of a second to see whether a roll is good. I guess it would have been funnier to have more dump stats, but it is Ironman and I fully intend to munchkin. Anyway, I need to disable my second monitor to get scrolling working, but I'll do it for you all, my lovely, lovely Obsidianites. Let me know what you'd like for screens - I tested, but even as small as 640x480 they get thumbnail'd, and it's really hard to read the text at any smaller than 800x600. Or maybe I can play at a lower resolution, so I can get small pictures & big text? Anyway, onto it. Now we might have munchkin stats but at level 1 we're all a sad bunch of losers. Llyranor has 4 bloody hp, meaning he could be killed if an effeminate goblin playfully slapped him in the cheek. So first stop is Pomab's Emporium to get equipment. Volourn begins his quest by smiting the ugly and stupid. Having spend literally our last penny on basic equipment, we are surely well qualified to solve the village's troubles... Actually, our first opponent cops it in about half a second: Ranged Attack Squad is as useful as ever in early level IE. Thus emboldened, we set out for our first real quest, to track down the missing caravan. A little boy alerts us to goblins ahead. Purkake volunteers to scout ahead, but it takes him about half a minute to hide himself. We assume that he was trying to disguise himself as pink foliage, and we all know botany is not something that can be rushed. It's not all in vain, however, as he is able to direct Llyranor's sleep spell... which has a shorter AOE than I thought, and gets only half the goblins. I can tell we're off to a wonderful start with this bunch. Nevertheless, the goblins are easily disposed of, and then the three wolves here, and we still haven't taken any damage. Still cautious, Purkake once again takes 30 and decides to sneak ahead into the caves. He sees orcs... ...and backstabs, and succeeds! Maybe he's not so useless after all! Of course, the only thing that would die from 6 points of damage is Llyranor. Purkake tries again and finds a room full of Orcs: however, he decides to then get caught in the middle of them. A judicious use of the Command spell neutralises the mage, though, and we get through them alright.

Damn, keyboard scrolling won't work, and with my dualscreen set up mouse scrolling left won't work - windowed or full. Anyone got a clue? Hopefully I can work this out.

Ten images per post? Are you kidding me? Llyranor The brains of the party. The party begins their adventure. Great care has been made to colour-code everyone for easy recognition - it saves lives! I'll look into making screens better, not sure what size can avoid the forum's autothumbnailing...

Let us begin the Obsidian IWD Ironman LP, featuring the rag-tag group of Obsidianites out to save the world and bag the chicks in the frozen North. Core Rules, resurrection possible, chunking means new Obsidianite joins the fray and party death means end of game. Mods are some parts of IWD Tweak Pack, Item Upgrades and Unfinished Business, which probably make it a bit easier, we will see. I skipped obvious munchkin addons. Now introducing the party (whose respective ability scores and alignment are in no way representative of the persons caricature'd:) Monte Carlo: Strong contender for Most Buckets of Blood Spilled. Volourn: Sorry Volo, you never have an avatar. Mkreku Swedish Representation (wait, you're Swedish, right?) Walsingham I wish clerics could have familiars - then we could have theslug the animal companion. Purkake I hope pure thieves aren't completely useless in IWD.

Hey, guys! Something interesting happened in my life, too! I was threatened with eviction today. Long story short I live in a boarding house kind of deal where you get communal kitchens, but they ban ALL cooking instruments, including electric jugs. You're allowed a rice cooker but got to take it out to cook. I thought fair enough, but electric jugs are not a fire hazard or any kind of hazard, so I had one. Last year the manager comes in while I'm not there to fix the toilet, takes the jug, leaves a short note 'come and get it'. When I go he acts like an angry power-trip headmaster talking to a kindergarten boy, refusing to give it up and saying he will take my stuff whenever it's not meant to be there. After an argument I do get it back, then get rid of it. So last month someone gives me a jug and some other stuff, and after having it around the room I figure what the hell, it's convenient - pretty much having forgotten about last year. Of course today he comes in to repair my lock, and I remember and think OSHI- and hide it, but that's hard when your room is tiny. Problem is this guy's a very angry guy - he goes on a big tirade accusing me of cooking my lunch in the room and that he can smell cooking (except my lunch was on a FRYING PAN right in front of him, I guess he thinks I can conjure fire with my hands), using the rice cooker (which was unplugged and empty), and covering up the smoke alarm. Which was a big surprise, so I looked up and lo and behold, the alarm was covered with a bag! I had only moved in a couple weeks ago to this particular room, so I never noticed (who checks that, anyway?). I removed the bag and it was broken, too. So now he thinks I've broken it, goes purple and yells and yells, threatens with eviction and police, and so forth. I told him I'll get rid of the jug but he can get lost, and now he's trying to pin the alarm on me, fine me $500 (NZD) for keeping the jug, and threatening with eviction otherwise. Interesting thing is, a lawyer tells me, a landlord (in NZ, anyway) cannot legally demand punitive fines; only fines for damages or services rendered based on a professional estimate. Obviously the jug never damaged anything, and if it was the alarm - they say they checked the room before I moved in and never noticed it, but in my mind, you can't prove it either way. You can't prove that they simply didn't miss it, or that I didn't do it - how can you fine me based on that? Anyway, I'm now thinking of refusing to pay the fine based on that advice, and see how it goes - I'm fine with apologising for the jug, getting warned, getting rid, hell, mutual termination of contract. But something tells me he's intent on getting some $ out of me or evicitng me then trying to eat up my bond. We'll see how it goes. What do you guys think? I *was* an idiot to keep the jug twice, but does that justify verbal abuse, theft, threatening eviction, 500 fine (uh... ~300USD)? The upside is, I guess this is good training in life before I move overseas, yeah?

You'd think they'd be desperate to get some preorders... damnit.

You can use explosives only for Darcy. I stealth most of the time anyway - maybe if I go back for... uh, 7th playthrough, I'll try and ghost as much of the game is possible. (I still haven't seen half the endings).

We're all trained by the market, don't beat yourself up. I'm just not sure what there is to enjoy in DAO if you don't like the combat, it'll probably still be a fair experience but with nothing that really excites.

I think it's pretty impossible to enjoy DAO if you hate its combat... unless you're one of those scary people that have been trained by the market to enjoy badly written self-indulgent Disney-romance-meets-fantasy-with-an-epic-complex. I mean, I thought the setting was pretty nice and there were a lot of things to do in the world, but ultimately for me it's a hearty fighting-in-tunnels affair. Which is why the possible removal of topdownview sucks so much. Press Release + Awkward 'Cool' = Games Journalism! It's like real journalism but better because it's not stuffy.

Whoa, I didn't even know we had two different perspectives, or forgot it, at least. Anyone? When you save manually you are saving the last checkpoint you passed. So effectively, the only reason to use it is to create backups... which is a good idea, as otherwise you only have 2 autosaves.

It runs well from what I've heard, get it. Still ain't a game to beat it at what it does.