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[Helmaroc]

quote:Originally posted by McDoomhammer:
<STRONG>Isn't there a limit to your "party" size, too, including summoned/raised stuff?</STRONG>

Yep.

[Kagus]

I've had a few incidents where one minion attempts to throw a javelin through one of my other guys, but the cool thing is that they don't get angry at each other (which would result in one hell of a brawl).  And even if one of them does get killed, I can just raise another one.  Possibly even off of the previous one's corpse, although I doubt that.

I've started a human warrior who I intend to turn into a blackguard.  I found an altar of the multitude, and I've just been sacrificing every corpse I come across.  I can just imagine what I must look like, with one body in my ready hand, one over each shoulder, and a few small corpses strapped to my belt.  When I sacrifice, I sacrifice in bulk.  

It works, too.  I've gotten a few spells for free, and from time to time when I'm adventuring I'll have a big group of manes, quasits, and rutterkins spawn around me to be my flesh shields.  I don't know what they'll summon for me later on when I get more favor and levels, but it should be interesting.  I haven't actually asked for any aid, I wonder what all they might grant me...

I also started a druid who had a cursed ring of polymorphing in his starting equipment.  MAJOR pain in the arse.  I'm walking around, casting spells and having a good old time, when all of a sudden I turn into a tiny air elemental and all my equipment drops to the ground and I can't cast spells anymore since I no longer have any hands.  Hrrmph.

I'm planning on trying out a dwarven stonesinger sometime soon.  The stone calls to my dwarvenly aspects...

EDIT:  Actually, that druid's doing pretty well...  He's lost all his special starting equipment (blessed darkwood light lance +3, ironwood scythe, blessed bark armor, blessed robes...), which is due to first wearing the things, then being polymorphed into a non-humanoid form (elven cat), and then watching in horror as some damned aranea pops in from nowhere, transforms into a human, picks up all my stuff, and disappears into a chasm.  I went in after him, but I didn't find him anywhere.  I have no idea where my stuff is, so it's probably lost for eternity.  At least I've still got my blessed backpack.

You can still hold onto your backpack when you transform into something which normally wouldn't be able to use items, just like you get to keep your light source.  I've decided to just go with the flow, and I've been transforming into several interesting creatures (including a "protectar", hence the blessed items).  In order to survive as a druid under these conditions, I picked up the Wild Shape Mastery feat, which allows me to access shapeshifting forms two levels higher than I would normally be able to access, which has the side-effect of granting me shapeshifting before I normally would get it.  

This feat is an absolute gem.  I've been wandering around as a brown bear, and insta-killing almost everything that comes into my path with a single swipe of my massive paw.  When a trap appears, I turn into a bat or eagle or something and simply fly over it.

This not only grants me stable access to powerful and useful forms, it also allows me to force myself back into human form after getting polymorphed.  When the ring activates and turns me into, say, a cave cricket, I can change myself into another animal, and then cancel the shapeshifting effect.  Voila, I am now human again, and can cast those nifty spells thanks to my opposable thumbs.  I also have an easier time breaking down doors as a human than I do as a bear, because -as the game informs me- bears cannot kick.

EDIT2:  Gods can be incredibly helpful at times...

     

EDIT3:  Okay, scratch one rogue, three dwarven priests, a druid, a cleric, a mulitude-aligned warrior, a monk, and two orcish barbarians.  I now feel drawn towards the smaller creatures (as I tend to be, for some reason), and I'm trying to find a good way of getting kobolds to work.  I've never really been much of a stealthy type, so I'd like something that can stand its own in a fight without having to constantly duck back into the shadows.  I'm currently thinking of a kobold druid, who will align himself with fungi and insects.  The prospect pleases me...

Perhaps we should start a kobold community, where we each make a kobold character (can be as expected or unexpected as you choose.  Neutral-evil rogues and lawful-good paladins, it makes no difference so long as it's a kobold), and then we talk about our various deaths, heroic exploits, and number of kobold warrens found/claimed.

EDIT4:  More useful advice.

 

EDIT5: This is gettin' looooong....  Anyways, I just realized that it is currently impossible to get the really cool abilities of the prestige classes.  Some of the prestige classes (alienist, shadowdancer and earthsinger to name a few) have some awesome boosts at levels 8-10, which are unnatainable due to the level cap.  

He really just needs to set up certain things so that it automatically calculates how much of a skill/spell/feat increase you get for the levels above the "preset" levels, so that you essentially have no level cap.  You could, potentially, get to top level in every class there is.  However, the Exp. costs for leveling up at that point would be insane, so things would work out.  I hate these hard caps...

[ April 19, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

[Kagus]

Bumping/Doubleposting this.

Anyways, I recently started a gnomish warrior after learning about their unusual benefits.  I as quite surprised to find out that I love the little bugger!

Gnomes get a great backpack, a lantern (best light source), some wands, the ability to reload crossbows quickly, and good weapons.  I ended up with a cranquin+2 (mini-ballista, crossbow's big brother) and a mercurial broadsword of frost+1, along with an exceptionally useful wand of shards+2, which has saved my life several times.

He's currently level four, and marching right along to level five.  The highest single-class character I've ever made (the highest total level was the alienist, who had to start out as a simple mage).  He's wearing a slew of blessed or enchanted items, and has buffed (using fountains) his previous weapons to a +3 cranquin and a +2 mercurial broadsword.  

My main problem right now is that he decided to try out dungeon level four, and promptly found himself fending off an undead somethin-or-other, which proceeded to ignore everything I shot at him, all the while landing hits on me and spewing poison.  I hit the emergency button and used a potion of dimension door to get him out of there, which plopped him in the lap of a few more nasties.  Pop the next cork.  Now I'm in the middle of an ooze or two and a giant.  What lies behind dimension door number three?  *glup!*

Okay, nothing overtly hostile...  Just a myconid.  But, I'm in an orcish barracks.  Peek through a door, and get a good look at an orcish druid who summons a winged snake to shoot me with electricity (I'm sure it somehow made sense to the devs when they made it do that).  I get a plateful of lightning and one very frizzy moustache, and the orc gets a faceful of cranquin bolts.  I pop into his area, and find an orcish priest of the multitude along with a barbarian.  Things continue in this manner for some time, and I have only recently semi-stabilized my position.  I'm currently waiting for the most recent poison to pass so I can take a nap.

While sitting there, I find myself in a dilemma.  While it is blatantly obvious I'm not yet supposed to be here, I can't make my way back to the infinitely-safer level three (seriously, major difficulty change), due to the somewhat random effects of three consecutive dimension door potions.

I'm not exploring anymore.  I'm trying to find a way out.  Trying to find my way out of a very unfriendly place.

All I need is one upward staircase, and I'm gold.  But I have no idea where I might find one...  The tension right now is just brilliant.  I've got to work hard and try to make my way out of this hellhole before one of the nastier denizens (say, that wraith who's wandering around.  The wraith who is somehow immune to my blessed +2 keen mercurial broadsword of frost) decides to devour my soul and crap out my thoughts five hours later.  But first, I need a rest...  This guy is goin' nowhere in his current state.  I need to rest, and then try to patch up my strength and dexterity damage using healing.  Then, I've gotta make my way through that wooden door over there, and see what lies beyond.

[McDoomhammer]

Oh, I've been there.  Although sometimes going down a level can help instead.  I like your kobold idea, and am rolling up another monk for the purpose now.

[Kagus]

The druid, Viska, is having a few problems of his own.  Namely, the dreadful lack of cool vermin-and-fungus related spells at his level.

I've got puffball (stunning mushroom missile, whee!) and swarm, which are both actually quite good, but the vermin summoning spell is a level four spell, which means poor little Viska (I've really gotta change his name to something more kobold-ish, right now it sounds Finnish) won't be able to summon them until level seven.  I guess I'll just have to make do with the summoning of flaming boulders of death for the moment (wtching one fireball make its way around and kill off thirty patches of id moss is a beautiful thing).  

As for the gnome, I'd like to say a couple things.  Firstly, level six.  Second, scratch one wraith (when you manage to scare away an evil incorporeal being from the netherworld, you know you're badass).

[Torak]

If you're really good at this game: Be a Chaotic Monk who worships The Multitude, then piss them off, THEN renounce them. Kick demon ass.

[Kagus]

I have no idea why, but my enchanted and blessed sword does absolutely nothing to ethereal creatures.  I've come across three shadows recently, including an ancient slow shadow and right now an elder slow shadow (haven't killed him yet).  In all cases (also that of the wraith previously), it has been utterly useless.  The ancient slow shadow was killed after I used a potion of faerie I found earlier, which allowed me to attack it on its own plane.  The wraith I defeated by shooting bolts at it.  Not enchanted, not blessed, just bolts.  The launcher was blessed though, but I don't know how that would help.

The third shadow I defeated by screaming like a little girl and running away after my custom-made sunrods proved utterly ineffective.

So now I'm stuck with this elder slow shadow, which I'm currently having a difficult time with.  I don't have any wands that affect it (except for one that supposedly prevents it from slowing things with its attack), and the game won't let me smack it with my blessed cranquin.  I have no backup weapon, since I figured that a blessed and +2 enchanted weapon would probably do the trick.

I really don't know why this isn't working, but there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it.  Guess I'll just run, sleep, and try to make some more sunrods.

Oh, by the way.  A summoned goblin bard (thank you, wands of goblinoid summoning) cast a spell which made a huge wall of doors nearby.  I proceeded to lockpick, close, and then kick down each door to boost my experience and strength.  I was surprised that it actually worked, but it most certainly did.

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>So now I'm stuck with this elder slow shadow, which I'm currently having a difficult time with.  I don't have any wands that affect it (except for one that supposedly prevents it from slowing things with its attack), and the game won't let me smack it with my blessed cranquin.  I have no backup weapon, since I figured that a blessed and +2 enchanted weapon would probably do the trick.</STRONG>

I think you need +3 to Hit elder ethreals.

[Kagus]

Yippee.  My cranquin is the only +3 thing I've got, and the game insists I can't smack stuff with it.  Bloody git...

Guess I've gotta find a fountain somewhere...

EDIT:  Can't even do that right.  I drank a bottle of fine mead recently, so I'm confused.  Picture the scene; the last of my goblinoid allies are gone, there's a pulsatingly evil entity trying desperately to poke a spider that's sitting perfectly still (phase spider) but missing desperately, and in the background there's a gnome wearing a brown fedora and holding a miniature siege weapon running around in circles with extreme determination.

[ April 20, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

EDIT2:  !@$%?$#@*%!#.  Popped into a summoning room that held a "juvenile tojanda".  As such, I now have three diseases that are eating away at my already-damaged strength (thanks a bundle, fourth shadow) and other attributes, and my +3 cranquin has turned into a -3 cranquin.  Just like that.  Did I mention that because of this I can't change from a ranged weapon, since it's now stuck to my hands?  Did I also mention that I currently have no way of removing curses?

And, to add things on top of that, because of my obviously evil actions of ending the lives of scum like that thing (which I got no xp for, since it was summoned) and attacking some grippli earlier on who were throwing chakrams at me, I have gone from devotedly good to true neutral.

This guy's 16 luck stat means nothin'.

[ April 20, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

EDIT3:  He's dead.  There's nothing I can do to save him.

I've reverted to previous saves, previous backups, tried everything I could.  The slimy doom he was cursed with by that vile fiend cannot be stopped.  

I now have three autosaves (damned things) the instant that he dies, due to "crash recovery".  "Welcome back to Incursion, Zook!  You die."

Rest in peace, little fellow.  You will be dearly missed.

...

"Requiscant in Pace"?  What the hell kind of en epitaph is that?  Damn...  I really liked that little bugger...  And he was only a thousand or so points from level seven.

[ April 20, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

[Helmaroc]

That's why you always carry something to cause a Dimension Door, for escaping.  

[Kagus]

I had nine or so left.  But I'd never encountered such a creature before, and didn't know what it could do to me.  The autosave kicked in after I'd already been infected, and during the attempts to heal it it just kept bumping my progress...

EDIT: Oh, by the way, the kobold druid is currently a baboon swimming through rock. I don't expect great things from him at the moment.

[ April 20, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

[Helmaroc]

'Tis always refreshing to be a swimming baboon for a while.

[McDoomhammer]

Well, after some false starts, my Kobold monk, Righteous Serpent, is underway.  Level 2, following the path of Mara (the goddess of beauty, love and death.  So far, still on level 1, and armed with an uncursed frost nunchaku +1 which was disarmed from a blasphemous goblin monk (It's his own fault, I tried talking to him first). Also a fighting stick in the offhand, with some acid and tangle bags created with judicious use of the alchemy skill for emergencies.
Now, off to hunt for some evil undead to slay for Mara.

Uodate: I now have something of a conundrum.  A wight just used a wand to polymorph me into a boa constrictor.  I don't know whether to take it on or run like frightened child.

[ April 20, 2008: Message edited by: McDoomhammer ]

[Kagus]

Meld into stone is a fun spell, but it's not really that great.  You can't see where you're going, so you're moving along, happily churning through dirt when all of a sudden you've popped out into a rather unhappy group of multitude cultists.

Speaking of the gods, how the hell do they expect anyone to deal with Xel's demands?  Live sacrifice every day?  Heh, right.  That would be so much easier if we could actually tie folks up and carry them around, but you can't do that, now can you?

Well, I'll see if I can get Viska into a good place, but I'm afraid I'll have to dump him for some other kobold character.  Druids just aren't made for fungus and vermin specializing.

I'm open to suggestions.  With my dearly-departed gnome, I learned the joys of resetting traps all over the place (trap goes snap, you get exp), so rogues aren't entirely out of the question now.  I'd still prefer something else though...

I think it's time for a darkelf character soon...  Or maybe I'll just try a little harder on my orcish barbarian so that he stops dying all over the place (c'mon, they're supposed to be hardy.  The blighters drop like flies!) so he can get to using that nifty devouring trait of his.

Heh heh...  I just got an image of a kobold paladin riding around on a lizard.  I think I'll try a larger creature when I finally do give pallies a go, as kobolds do not really emphasize brute force.

I briefly considered a drow priestess, but what god would suit her?  Sure, she gets the spider domain for free, but you still need to pick one of the other gods.  The multitude might work, I suppose...  Plus, it's damned easy to keep in favor with those gits.  Just bring them a few rotting corpses that you find lying around in these various rooms and they're as happy as can be.

I've also been thinking about a dedicated blindfighter.  You know those nightelf dudes from Warcraft 3 with the blindfold and two blades?  Yeah, I'm thinkin' that.

Useless as heck, but think of the style.

[McDoomhammer]

Actually, there IS a 'tie up' command under 'yuse' (ctrl-y using the roguelike key setup).  No idea if it actually works, though.

Also, there are items and feats that would make a blindfighter, if not practical, at least feasible.  

The boa constrictor actually took the wight down without problem; I didn't even need the flawless dodge (temporary untouchability FTW).  Now, to rest and recover my stuff.  I wouldn't normally be so materialistic, but a magical nunchuk is a major windfall.

[ April 20, 2008: Message edited by: McDoomhammer ]