Ironman: Icewind Dale

[Oner]

There's probably a lot of verbal abuse, Tigranes just doesn't screencap that.

[Azure79]

Highly entertaining

[Tigranes]

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.

[Tigranes]

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?

[Oner]

Hmmm.. he's dead, and there's a lot of 'Sidianites to go through.

Also, Wals FTW!

 

BTW, after dispatching the goblin orgygoers, did you go into the northern little room where they keep the kinky bestiality victims (the bugs)?

[Shryke]

poor Llyr

 

i vote adding GD to the party

only, he would refuse to attack any dogs/wolves etc

[Tale]

Llyr's dead. And he would want it that way.

[Gorth]

You could replace him with Nick-i-am

[greylord]

Maybe I misunderstand Hardcore, but with him wounded, why the frick didn't you rest in the Tower when you had the chance before going to explore?

 

Resurrect the poor lad, he shouldn't have to suffer because he was part of the no resting gang...

[Hassat Hunter]

DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!

But seriously, so early on it's probably better to make a new char and buy some good stuff from the 200 GP.

 

Also, very nice LP .

 

EDIT: Also, what's that screen with the 'nice try cheater'?

Edited August 21, 2010 by Hassat Hunter

[Gorth]

DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!

But seriously, so early on it's probably better to make a new char and buy some good stuff from the 200 GP.

The party had too many elves anyway (said the human racist)

[mr insomniac]

This is very cool. Nice work. I'm getting all nostalgic for the IE games.

[mrmud]

This is great, keep it going.

[Tigranes]

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.

 

EDIT: Also, what's that screen with the 'nice try cheater'?

 

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.

[Tigranes]

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.

[Tigranes]

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.

[Monte Carlo]

I am pleased with my progress thusfar, please post that stats screen so we can see more forensic evidence of my awesomeness.

[HoonDing]

Kresselack Tomb is so much fun.

 

"Yo guys, you just killed 5,000 undead to get to me, now kindly walk through three levels of dungeons again to some cave you probably already entered to kill some chick, then come back please."

[mkreku]

The fact that it only costs 100 for him was probably a major issue, too.

I hope you paid 50% tax on that!!

[I want teh kotor 3]

This is epic.

[Monte Carlo]

If my character dies then I want him raised from the dead irrespective of cost or operational efficacy.

[Nightshape]

I'm enjoying this...

[Raithe]

It's been about 10 years since i last played ID... this is bringing back some fuzzy memories...

[Tigranes]

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...

[Tigranes]

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.