Elven Sorceror
Half-Orc Berserker
Human Monk
Human Swashbuckler (10)/Cleric
I realize that this is a very powergaming party, but I had a blast playing through SoA with it, so I took them to ToB. I hit the 8 million XP cap just before abazagail, though there isn't much diffirence between levels. I realized that the beginning of the Xpac (and many parts of it) were easy for this reason (as two pointed out) 50 mobs that can't hit you are just as easy as 1 mob that can't hit you. Both my zerker and my monk had an AC aroung -15, same with my cleric, my sorc had -7, but was constantly stonskinned, mirror imaged, and invized. Entirely too my monks fists/flail of ages +5, but for noteworthy battles:
Just entering the Fire Giant lair was my 1st reload in ToB... I left AI on and got swarmed by 10+ of these buggers. Now I realize this all could have been fixed with a timestop, but my fighters ate it, and it was 4 in the morning. I just quit.
The fire giant priest, not because he was hard, but because I discovered the joys of improved alacrity, and the robe of vecna. he died to 8 cones of cold hitting him at the same time =)
After yaga-shur (pushover) I went to watchers keep. By far, this was the hardest, and most interesting part of ToB. A little annoying because restoration is actually fatigueing my cleric, and as such he was bitching about rest the entire dungeon (I slept 3 times only through the entire thing, once simply because I wanted to be ready for the demogorgon). I can think of no particularly noteworthy challenges in watchers keep, but I liked the feel of it. I died once trying to take on the final guardians with no level 8-10 spells on my mage and no heals/true sighs/dispels/level 7/quest spells on my cleric. another rest came just before this fight. With a few more spells they fell easily. The colored orbs test was fun if only because I got bored and set off all of the purple and green monsters at once, some of the red too I believe. I was rather scared to see a hive mother and an elemental lich staring at me with half my spellpower and rather hurt fighters, but timestop+AE spells took care of most of this.
The demogorgon was by far the most enjoyable fight of the game. I had already installed the difficulty increasing patch, and decided to try my hand. Buffed out as well as I could I ran in.... met with a swarm of demons, and got waxed REALLY fast. My fighters simply couldn't keep alive from the initial demon summoning. A few went for my mage/cleric too. 2nd try I split my party, in hopes of keeping my mage unhindered. Timestop killed my monk (DG is immune), my warrior couldn't keep himself alive, and the cleric couldnt' heal him.... Improved alacrity worked well, but I had a bad choice of spells while on it and didn't get much use out of it. #3, I once again split my party, had a simulacruim fighter and mage, and charged my now 3 fighters in, with the cleric close behind. No timestop this time, but when the demon hosts showed up my mage alacritied, malaised, and landed at least two fingers of death on each of the demons (big fat evil grin here) a dragons head (cast instantly with alacrity) spellstrike and breach on DG himself, at leave 5 skull traps, (all my tanks took no damage from it) and as it ran out, 1 AD's wilting. The result: A slightly hurt demigorgon, but more importantly, only 1 demon left. Somehow, I managed to lose my cleric though. This gave time for my warrior to start in on DG himself, and my sorc to use the ressurection rod on the cleric. Unfortunatly, the 2nd round of demon summoning began (thankfully this was nowhere near as bad as the 1st), it did, however, managed to kill both my berzerker. Ressurection rod again, my cleric, who had kept the monk alive via heal, was now the target of 1 nasty and persistant demon, who after chasing him around the prison, maanged to wax him. Another ressurection. With my zerker re-equiped (but naked) I had a little more time to beat on DG. More demon summoning, but not in time. DG goes down like a bad habit, and the remaining demons get killed by the 7'th or 8'th whirlwhid of my monk and and warrior with improved haste. (both with 10 attacks ::evil smile:
No loot, but it was the greatest fight of the game.Sendai and company crumpeled. ANything that didnt' die in melee met up with AD's wilting, dragons breath, a deva, or more dispells than you could ever hope to see. Abagazail's lair was more intersting. Amazingly draconis managed to land a stun on TWO of my characters before he dragonized the 1st time through (neither was stunned any other time during ToB) My monk fought valiantly, but noone lived through that attempt. #2 I simply let my fighters trade off tanking duty, while the other got healed by clerico. Good fight, but dead dragonis. More mobs, more dead creature. I refrained from dragonizing Abazagail until I had killed all his salamanders. He died 15 seconds later to 2 berzerkers (simmy helment) a juggernaught golem, a deva, and my monk. hello kickass flail of ages. =)
The ravager went down to a whole lot of melee, while my -20 AC cleric (thanks to that statue) tanked all 4 swords. Melissan died similarly, except that she did it 4 times. Spells seemed very useless against her, but with 11 improved WW"s on my monk and 7 on my zerker, that wasn't much of a problem.
Easy as it did prove, I somewhat liked the feel of having a godlike character, not because I 0Wn3D everything, but because level 35 DnD characters are godlike. THe improved demogorgon script made for a great fight. Watchers keep proved interesting. Unfortunatly Balthazar (even with the improved scripts which hosed the game, making it so I could not progress (no solar appeared)) was a total pushover, along with each of the Five. Draconis was IMO harder than all of them. Melissan simply a fight designed for a LOT of melee it seems. My party provided that so I didnt' have much of a problem. Oh well, good game.
oh one question:
Does the chromatic demon's drop change depending on what form it's in when you kill it? I was hoping for the circlet of neandrathal the whole game, and I found out after finishing it, and looking at the walkthorugh that he should have dropped it, but I cannot remember that happening.