Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: Bodhi's Lair, Part 1
At the time of my last update the plan had been to fight Samia. It didn't take me long to change my mind. I wasn't feeling it. I needed a change of scenery. We headed to Athkatla and progressed down the Shadow Thieves quest line instead.
On our way to the Docks to rendezvous with Mook there were a few dialogue related developments worth mentioning. I saw this Steinbeck reference for the first time. Fourth wallish, but cool.
Also, Yoshimo called Nalia "young lovely" and HR didn’t approve. We let him go. We may pick him up again, we may not.
The Lassal interaction at the dock raised an eyebrow. I'm pretty sure he wasn't rolling to save against Azuredge. Maybe that was an intentional change, to prevent the encounter from ending with a single axe toss. I don't know. In any case, Minsc took him down with slashing damage. CC allowed him to wield Saving Grace instead of Harmony. Interestingly, Minsc was Con drained, so now we know that’s back.
Onto the Guild Contact. His name is Gravy. Remember that. Never call him anything else.
Oh, and don't forget to check out the Elvis painting before you go. Enjoy it with some spiced wine, like Minsc and Jaheira. Alena, Nalia and Aerie prefer Miles Davis and cups of tea.
Onto the Graveyard District. We let Alena's aerial servant and Jaheira's fire elemental handle the first wave of spiders. They were immune to attack, with the exception of the phase spider weapon. Here we see Alena using her Bhaalspawn power Slow Poison on the aerial servant, saving him for another encounter.
The summons took care of the next wave of spiders, too, albeit with some assistance from Aerie. As per usual we prioritized the wraith spider.
Against Pai'na we pre-buffed against disablers and then prioritized disrupting any Dispel attempt. A Death Fog from Nalia got the party started.
That was paired with a Silence from Alena and a Holy Smite from Aerie. The Silence took. Aerie should have gone with Breach on Pai'Na instead of that Holy Smite.
The Silenced Pai'Na approaches. Alena engages her at the edge of the AoE.
Minsc finishes Pai'Na while Nalia takes care of the remaining spiders with a Cone of Cold. The look like they're still alive but they're frozen. No damage here.
Upon exiting Pai'Na's hidey hole were were greated by our summons. The aerial servant succumbed to phase spider poison, but the fire elemental marched on, immune to all attacks. We let him clear the way in preparation for a rest. We needed to reorganize our book for the upcoming vampire fights.
Moving on to Bodhi's kin, we expected Minsc to lead the charge, equipped with the AoP, running Chaotic Commands. That worked at first.
But then things went flooey. The call for help ranges were larger than I expected. That became a problem. Note the clay golem to the southeast. He shouldn't be there, or at least I didn't expect him to be here. With the old call for help ranges he wouldn't have been.
So far I'm inclined to give the v35 vamps and golems a thumbs up. The vamps were threatening, but manageable, well balanced. The clay golem, with his exceptional movement rate and cursed wounds, was a legitimate threat to our invisibility potion supply, if not the party.
Here we see the party in full retreat. At this very moment our destination was the Five Flagons. We wanted out of there, as in all the way out. We weren't afraid of the clay golem, and we weren't afraid of the fledgling vampire. We're afraid of where the fledgling vampire came from: the
east.
If Tanova joined the fray, with a clay golem on the field, cursed wounds already active, and the party unprepared for arcane magic, things could have gotten ugly. We only stopped and stood our ground when I was sure Tanova wasn't en route. Jaheira is using Haz's staff mace here. I don't use the SCS component that removes unrealistically helpful items. I wonder if Haz's staff mace qualifies.
Once the clay golem was down, we cured our cursed wounds and moved on. Minsc finished off Durst. We claimed the MoD and then visited Cromwell for our upgrade, in advance of the basement ambush.
Here we are, buffed and ready for the ambush. We're all protected from domination. All of us except Nalia are protected from level drain, via items or NPP. We've summoned a fire elemental because our fire elemental is immune to domination and also not undead. Note that Aerie is running True Sight, Alena Repulse Undead. Let's do this.
Minsc and Aerie lead the way with Azuredege and the iMoD respectively. Alena is casting a False Dawn. Nalia is tossing a Haste. Jaheira and her fire elemental are on grimwarder duty. We're looking good so far. We just need that Repulse + False Dawn combo to kick in before someone gets hurt.
Minsc takes a nick, losing 5hp of health. Our False Dawn kicks in, confusing the vampires. They'll soon be confused and pinned to the back wall thanks to Repulse.
Minsc pursues the confused vampires. Aerie will join him soon. As usual, Aerie is our best tank in this encounter. She and Minsc are both sporting NPP and charm protection, but Aerie has MI, Stoneskins, a lower AC, and a higher con thanks to Girdle of Fortitude->DUHM. Two errors are evident here. Minsc is running II via RoAC but not his Ilbratha MI. Also, we should have made room for Defensive Harmony.
One of the confused vamps charges. Alena preps another False Dawn. Minsc and Aerie engage. Jaheira and Nalia are clearing away the warders.
There's only one vamp left now, confused and pinned to the wall. Aerie and Minsc close with their vorpal weapons. Nalia tosses Melf's. The Ironskined Jaheira and her normal weapon immune elemental finish off the warders.
We did ok here, but Minsc shouldn't have lost that 5HP. If we had buffed correctly, with Defensive Harmony and Ilbratha MI we would have emerged unscathed. I still feel shaky and sloppy in this run but I'm starting to find my grove.
Tanova is next. TBH, I'm a little nervous about this one, but Nalia and Aerie are on the case and I trust them.
Best,
A.
