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[NJW2000]

Hostage!

+1

Make sure they stay away from alarm buttons, and tell us if there’s a dead man’s switch or similar. Never can tell with alchemists.

[Devastator]

You didn't come expecting hostages, so you don't have restraint gear.  A knife to his throat does just fine for now, though, and you can always Shadow Servant to Waris to get some rope or something in your inventory.

The hostage is extremely scared but seems more self-controlled than you expected.  There's plenty of fear, but there's no blubbering or begging.

"What do you want?  I'll do whatever you want, there's no need to kill me."

[IronyOwl]

Demand access to and an explanation for the layout of their records.

But first, an explanation as to their security measures and protocols. Like whether he got an alarm off.

[Devastator]

"Records are right over there, the alchemical book on the desk over there."

You've never heard of an alchemical book, but you don't see why one couldn't exist.  The guy is too scared to flee and you can get it without turning your back.

"We use check-ins on night watch.  I'll be noted as missing in about fifteen minutes.  Alarms are on secure storage."

You put the book down on the guy's desk.  It's odd, like an open book but the piles of pages are like solid blocks of sheets, opening to 'a page', but it's not a real page, just like images on two white sheets of paper.  You flip pages just by trying to flip pages, but the order is all out of sorts and it doesn't make sense.

"Look, I'm the night site manager.  I can answer your questions.  It'd be easier that way.  The book's restricted to authourized personnel."

[IronyOwl]

Hrm. We really don't want to leave tracks, but this is looking complicated.

Demand he summarize major projects or proposals they've had, starting from the present and working back. Pick a few at random to demand specific details about, including Valterre if it shows up.

[Devastator]

Demand he summarize major projects or proposals they've had, starting from the present and working back. Pick a few at random to demand specific details about, including Valterre if it shows up.

"Well, right now we got ... "

It's a pretty long list.  They work on several projects at once and dozens a year.  Valterre was over a decade ago.  This isn't gonna work.

Just cut to the chase and ask about Valterre directly?

[IronyOwl]

Cut to the big projects. The BIG projects. Like 30 upgrades big.

This is mostly for curiosity's sake. Get all the details on Valterre even if it means revealing our interest in it.

[Devastator]

As soon as you say "Really big projects", a light dawns in the eyes of the hostage.

"It's about Valterre, isn't it?"

..."Yes."

"Oh.  Well, you should have asked.  We didn't do that.  You want to find Sky Sanders, retired.  She lead the enchanting team.  Just.. try to be a bit more polite?"

.."Why tell me?"

"Well, the only reason to push this hard to find out about Valterre is you're taking a shot at Spar.  People who go after Spar lose.  She kicked all kinds of ass for years before she ever had the sword."

"..Yeah, I didn't really think that way.  And you keep it fairly secret to keep idiots from trying?"

"Pretty much, yeah.  But you seem dangerous.  I'll stay out of it.. Spar can handle herself."

"Huh."

To be continued.

[Devastator]

Sky Sanders is married, and lives in a relatively unremarkable apartment.  A nice apartment, but one of thousands.  There's no real need to infiltrate, just knock on the door.

"So you want to find out about Valterre so you don't get instakilled when you fight Spar."

"That's pretty much all of it."

"I'm going to make this quite clear.  You're going to die if you do that.  She will kill you, protected or not, either at her hand or the hands of her team.  You have to know that, right?"

"I've been made aware.  I'm going to fight them anyway.  It's too important."

"Alright.  Now, how technical do you want it to be...."


In summary..

Valterre has a guaranteed instakill effect.  This can be blocked with the Death Ward spell, or an accessory that gives the same effect.  You probably want the accessory, as Death Ward is removed when someone is knocked out.  KO + revive = vulnerable once more.

Valterre also introduces no less than a four-times elemental weakness at the time of striking, to a random major element.  One of the six main elements.  Four times.  If you are triple-weak to an element, and hit by the element, you are killed, regardless of hit points.  Double-weak is double damage.  Single weak is 50% more.  Triple-weak is Death.  With a four times elemental weakness, you must be ++ or better in that resistance to survive.

This effect is repeated twice more, hitting the person with three different elements at once.  If you aren't double-resistant to all the six primary elements, it will find the one that kills you very quickly.

..

..If you are not killed, it simply hits you with relatively extreme damage.  It doesn't ignore armour, despite looking like an energy blade, but it still does a lot of base damage.  Enough that even if the elemental instakill doesn't happen, you're likely to get hit with the strongest blows you've ever faced.  Still, it should be survivable.. for you, assuming you aren't at a buff disadvantage.  Trence should have a chance.  Willis will probably want some bonus HP.  Alice is about as tough as Trence, with the barding making up for no dragonscales.

mmm.  And magic resistance should help, given that even if you double resist it, magic damage is going to be doubled, making points on armour count twice as much.  And the big weakness remains.. the sword can only do this once per turn.

[IronyOwl]

If you are triple-weak to an element, and hit by the element, you are killed, regardless of hit points.

I knew it. Obscure mechanics shenanigans!


Okay, so now we know how to beat the sword. We just need... uh... a Death Ward effect plus enough elemental resistance to literally everything to tank three heavy ---- resist blows a round. Every round. Plus anything they're able to do to lower resists.

Damn it.

"Elemental resists are pretty easy, unless you're talking about Void.  Can even do some materials choices to leave the rest open for enchantment."

"Resist All.. well, the easiest way to get that is to get armour that has an Elemental Armour spell as its enchantment, then do a plain suit.  That's fairly tricky, but it'll free up an accessory slot if you use a ring, because they won't stack."

"If you do want them to stack, that's.. well, it's hard and tricky, but possible.  It'd be best to pick all save element X, which is weak, and then you cover that with a gold-or-better Emblem.
And yeah, that's assuming you don't want Void Resistance too.  That's probably too much."

"Outside of Death, there really isn't a status immunity thing.  But you're high level adventurers and you probably have good saves.  Get yourself a 20 or 30% bonus and it'll be just as good."


"Counter/Reflect..
Something to grant a skill or boost the power of a skill is workable.  Do you have a skill in mind?"

To make matters worse, Resist All is tricky to get on armor. We might need to get everyone an accessory with both Death Ward and Elemental Armour on it, but that probably won't be enough.


Head back to the accessory guys and ask about Death Ward + Elemental Armour on the same item. We are willing to quest for this and pay through the nose, but we need multiple items.

Ask somebody about completely canceling out one attack per round. I assume this won't work and Spar's team could break it even if it did, but it's worth asking about, since that's Valterre's only other weakness.

Ask an armor guy for specifics on Resist All on armor.

[Devastator]

It's not technically three blows.  It's one attack per round.  It's just that it applies damage from three elements.

[Egan_BW]

Is there a way to turn a party fight into a set of 1v1s? Hall of mirrors spell?

[King Zultan]

Head back to the accessory guys and ask about Death Ward + Elemental Armour on the same item. We are willing to quest for this and pay through the nose, but we need multiple items.

Ask somebody about completely canceling out one attack per round. I assume this won't work and Spar's team could break it even if it did, but it's worth asking about, since that's Valterre's only other weakness.

Ask an armor guy for specifics on Resist All on armor.

+1 All these things sound good.

[NJW2000]

Hm…

Also, ask about the possibility of converting the damage type of incoming damage. Is there armour, accessories or magic that can make fire damage count as normal physical damage, or as ice damage, for example?

[IronyOwl]

Hm…

Also, ask about the possibility of converting the damage type of incoming damage. Is there armour, accessories or magic that can make fire damage count as normal physical damage, or as ice damage, for example?

+1, though I suspect if it exists it'll only work for->to one type which only helps us a little. Though Resist All Except Weak + Weak->Strong might be an interesting workaround.