Longest time without dying?

[Legacy_philty_]

               I was very surprised that one of my characters did not die once, until checking out an area full of cultists close to those creator ruins in chapter 3.

He's a rapier-wielding Elven Illusionist 6 / Fighter 4 / CoT 5 or 6, and is so raf doing horror-show with a Rapíer of High Road that gets Greater Magic Weapon (+2) and Flame Weapon, besides other buffs.

Also, as Elf, he stays with a Con of 06.... Pretty challenigng, counting a few times he ended with 1 hp.


So...? I am always playing on very difficult, with tony k AI and I never use summons, familiar or henches
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_cds13]

               That is how I test a character: the longer it goes without dying the better I think it has been built. I tried with a pure mage once, a gnome I tried to level up until I was good enough at multiclassing as Harper Scout. Never did it, unfortunately the computer crashed and was not able to save that character. I remember being overwhelmed in Luskan sewers by stag beetles next to the contrapulator, that's how he died the first time
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_philty_]

               Death by crash to desktop is the most tragic...

To my big surprise, the character that died the easiest so far was my Hlaf-orc Barbarian / RDD. Amazing how it is easy to think that much higher HP's at cost of lower AC will last you longer than the other way.

Which does not mean that AC-based rule - my elven Monk is the opposite of this Orc and died very fast too.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               The vanilla OC is not much of a test, TBH. 

About the only time it is challenging is in Ch 1 before your toon finds/affords some decent equipment, gains adequate HPs and is forced into combat beyond their "official" level for the sake of just getting leveled ASAP.  A few of the encounters that seem to test a low-level PC is (not in any particular order): the Gauntlet series, the tower Minogon (w/o using the plot items) and any Bloated Dire Spider.  Belial is a nice challenge in Ch 2, but can't recall any other combat encounters worthy of mention.

The thing is... once you've played the campaign once, any further games provide no mysteries unless you are trying some of the class-specific quests for the first time (the druid circle was challenging initially but there is no official "death" in that encounter anyway).  One knows where all the traps are, how to lure out digestible numbers of hostiles and all their weaknesses when they are engaged.

So, to answer this question concisely, since the first run-through, my toons have NEVER died.  I play with no-reload permadeath as an incentive to keep me paying full attention to the mission and would start over from scratch if death ever occurred, but it hasn't in the OC. I always play all SP modules on the same difficulty (very difficult) just to max what challenge it poses and to compare apple-to-apples.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_philty_]

               I agree that once you know how things work you can antecipate critical event areas. The first time I faced Desther I was surprised by the fact that you could not rest or recall  - actually, you can rest after cleaning  up the two rooms b4 the main battle, if you are lucky to find a very far corner away from the main area.

btw, by 'vanila OC' do you mean withou hacks installed like Tony K AI? coz this sure spices thing a bit up...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_jmlzemaggo]

               I remember Desther being my very personal nightmare. To the point I still remember the name today.
With TK's AI on.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

philty  wrote...
btw, by 'vanila OC' do you mean withou hacks installed like Tony K AI? coz this sure spices thing a bit up...

Yup.  Improved AI forces the player to pay closer attention to the full repertoire of attacks possible.  Mostly, this boosts caster pre-buffing and spell choice, but even foes who have special combat modes available, like disarm or called shot, will attempt to use them more and randomly.  However, it doesn't change the blueprint or skin of any hostiles, so the AB, AC, HPs, DCs, equipment, etc. are all the same as running it without a hak.

Vanilla AI is extremely predictable, not only in the plague campaign but in all expansions.

I was never able to rest on Desther's level... anywhere, and believe me, I've tried every possible tile in that load area. Even when Desther resigns my PC cannot rest. '>  I am fairly certain the no-rest is scripted on area load but could check it out at some point.  Essentially, it just gives a brief taste to the same situation in Ch 4.

Btw, Desther has zero discipline so can be easily spammed with KD.  His AC is horrible as well.  Once those ritual creatures are dead, he is easier.  It's just knocking him down a percentage of his over 1000 HPs (IIRC it is like 10% or thereabouts) that is tedious.  He has a few moderate heals slotted and once he uses them up he is no match for a PC with a few stacks of heals in inventory.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par HipMaestro, 08 octobre 2011 - 10:01 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               I played OC when there wasnt expansions, in that time it was really much more challenging. Now with all the goodies from expansions its easy...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

ShaDoOoW wrote...
I played OC when there wasnt expansions, in that time it was really much more challenging. Now with all the goodies from expansions its easy...

You're right on there, ShaDoOoW.  It was never rebalanced for all the new prestige classes and uber spells.  I guess they had their hands full attending to all the new bugs in the expansions.  Now THERE is a mammoth project for some bored designer... rebalance the entire OC!   I'd even have to give it another crack if that was done. '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par HipMaestro, 08 octobre 2011 - 10:05 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               Regarding resting in the final map of Helm's Hold, as far as I can tell in the toolset, the area isn't initially defined to be no-resting nor is it later scripted to be a no-rest area.

I just found an old saved game for the end of Chapter 1 and I played through Helm's Hold. I was able to rest on Desther's level, before and after he was defeated. However, I noticed that (with TonyK's AI enabled) the mobs are either positioned such that or stroll around so much that I basically had to kill almost everyone (and then use an invisbility potion so that the leftovers didn't chase me when I ran off into a corner) in order to be far enough away from everyone to avoid the "you cannot rest with enemies nearby" notice. But, I never got the "no resting is allowed in this area.

In practical terms, it is very difficult to rest at that point in the module until Desther is defeated because there is no leaving the area (even via Stone of Recall) and it is such a trick to get far enough away from the baddies to rest. Even the ritual creatures (who don't move around) are hostile and they may be positioned so that they are too close to allow resting until you take at least some of them out. At that point, Desther is on your tail...

With regard to difficulty, I agree it would be interesting to see the OC rebalanced for the classes and spells of SoU and HotU. Of course, even just having the spellcasting baddies using the newer spells would make them much harder. For example, having Morag using Isaac's or Bigby's would make the final battle very difficult, and almost impossible for many SP gamers without henchmen (as many spells such as those are far more effective against single opponents). I remember what I shock SoU was when I first encountered a spellcaster (J'Nah, I think) who used ILMS against me.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MrZork, 09 octobre 2011 - 12:04 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_philty_]

               

MrZork wrote...

I noticed that (with TonyK's AI enabled) the mobs are either positioned such that or stroll around so much that I basically had to kill almost everyone (and then use an invisbility potion so that the leftovers didn't chase me when I ran off into a corner) in order to be far enough away from everyone to avoid the "you cannot rest with enemies nearby" notice.

This is what I suspected. I remember clearly that once - and only once - in a gameplay I managed to sleep in the southeast-most corner, having killed only the foes in the  first two rooms. All this with Tony K's AI.