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Forgotten Realms CollectionA few notes about Dungeon Hack(168 posts)(168 posts)
(168 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 01, 2015
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stryx: Why should a cleric have armor limitations? They can wear anything. They are limited to blunt weapons.
Oh you are right on that one, I played too many non-D&D games where Clerics aren't allowed to wear plate, so it made common sense to me.
Posted September 01, 2015
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dtgreene: You only need to sacrifice your shield when casting spells. Once you have your spells up, you can put your shield back. Also, you can click on the holy symbol to open the spell window and then unequip your shield (this makes it possible, for example, to dual wield Flame Blades).
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Sarisio: Spell slots are taken by healing spells and Flame Blade. Don't forget that Paladins get much less spells than Clerics, and that they aren't Clerics, but a melee character. Also Shield of Keign provides Magic Resistance, while 2nd Flame Blade is tricky to click when you kite fast opponents. Flame Blade isn't the good weapon at all and it denies you the use of item in the hand which holds it (and makes identifying items impossible). It is only good for Living Mucks, because it doesn't get consumed.

Thing is, until D&D 3rd Ed., Paladins are much better than Fighters in all ways. I took it playing it as fighter, sword-n-board style, and holy symbol is there when things turn bad and fight demands some versatility from you (e.g., long sleep with healing spells after, Flame Blade to not have weapon consumed). But they aren't caster class.

Also apart from inconvenience of always having shield with you, no need to forget about caps as melee character. As Paladin you get access to many Cleric spells quite late, when they aren't needed. Aid, Prayer, Bless are useless and take valuable healing spell slots, as it isn't hard to get to -10 AC, you hit most of the time because of low THAC0 of your class and you have high enough HP pool, so that additional 1d8 HP won't make difference.

Cleric on other hand needs it, because he isn't made for melee (despite various opinions), and as such he can't equip most of armor and has quite high THAC0. Thus all Aid, Bless, Prayer and other spells are useful to Cleric to help him in fight, he also gets more spell slots and learns spells much earlier on.

Though I still need to confirm that AC is actually capped at -10 and it isn't just visual cap. Makes me also question if THAC0 is capped at 1...
Spiritual Hammer has two major advantages (and one minor one) over Flame Blade: 1. Spiritual Hammers are thrown weapons that return to you. 2. You can unequip the Spiritual Hammer, allowing you to temporarily put something else in that hand (which makes identifying items possible). 3 (the minor one). Spiritual Hammer can be cast underwater.

Aid and Prayer don't take up healing spell slots. Furthermore, the bonuses, while small, last quite a while and the save bonus can save you from status ailments and instant death. Also, Prayer and Protection from Evil provide hidden AC bonuses that don't show up on the status screen at all.

Also, just to be nitpicky about identifying items; if you have the mage spell Improved Identify, you can equip the spell book, click it, replace the spellbook with the item you want to identify, and then cast the spell. (You can identify 2 items with 1 spell this way.)

Also, what do you put in your third level spell slots anyway?
Posted September 01, 2015
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dtgreene: Aid and Prayer don't take up healing spell slots. Furthermore, the bonuses, while small, last quite a while and the save bonus can save you from status ailments and instant death. Also, Prayer and Protection from Evil provide hidden AC bonuses that don't show up on the status screen at all.
There is no proof that AC isn't hard capped or that there are saving throws in this game at all. Later tonight I will do some savegame investigation for that matter. Don't adhere to normal AD&D rules as if they are implemented 1:1 in this game, as I have already seen examples of it being wrong.
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dtgreene: Also, what do you put in your third level spell slots anyway?
I put Prayer, but I never use it. I didn't use holy symbol at all until Living Mucks. Thankfully casting spells while resting doesn't require symbol to be equipped.

In fact, I hate when game makes me change equipment for various gimmicks. I don't like constantly switching equipment depending on situation (I had to step over myself to use Flame Blade), so holy symbol collects dust. And rephrasing what I wrote before, even if monster has 9999 HP, -999 AC, -999 THAC0 and 100% chance of instant death, it is still killable as long as there is some place to kite. In fact, game engine heavily discourages you from taking direct hits even if you are melee.
Posted September 01, 2015
Gwenno has finished her dungeon. The final boss this time was a Balor tanar'ri, that proved to be immune to lightning, so Drums of Distant Thunder were totally useless and it came down to hacking and slashing again. Still, one of the easiest bosses, since all he could do was physical damage and he wasn't very good at that either (to identify the boss I always let my character be killed by him first and even though Gwenno wasn't wearing any armor he still needed almost half a minute to kill her.)

Here is a screenshot of the final score, the final boss and the list of vanquished foes: http://i.imgur.com/CGjTMPi.jpg

Gwenno experienced a lot of magical zones this time. One that drained the food bar quickly, one that reduced HP with every step, slow areas (try fighting a bunch of death knights in there), areas of total darkness (try finding a keyhole in there) and areas that prevented the casting of magic.

She has finished the dungeon with those spells:

Level 1
Armor
Burning Hands
Magic Missile
Shocking Grasp
Detect Undead

Level 2
Detect Invisibility
Improved Identify
Melf's Acid Arrow
Aganazzer's Scorcher

Level 3
Dispel Magic
Hold Person
Water Breathing

Level 4
Fear
Ice Storm
Improved Invisibility

Level 5
-

Level 6
Death Spell

Level 7 (can't be cast by a bard in Dungeon Hack)
Finger of Death
Morden.'s Sword

But the only spells that she actually used were Improved Invisibility and Improved Identify.
Attachments:
dh.jpg (379 Kb)
Post edited September 01, 2015 by stryx
Posted September 01, 2015
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stryx: Gwenno has finished her dungeon. The final boss this time was a Balor tanar'ri, that proved to be immune to lightning, so Drums of Distant Thunder were totally useless and it came down to hacking and slashing again.
Final boss is random too? I thought it was Elemental Lord, as it was the boss when I played DH first time.

Can those final bosses be met as normal enemies on the floor?
Posted September 01, 2015
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Sarisio: I put Prayer, but I never use it. I didn't use holy symbol at all until Living Mucks. Thankfully casting spells while resting doesn't require symbol to be equipped.

In fact, I hate when game makes me change equipment for various gimmicks. I don't like constantly switching equipment depending on situation (I had to step over myself to use Flame Blade), so holy symbol collects dust. And rephrasing what I wrote before, even if monster has 9999 HP, -999 AC, -999 THAC0 and 100% chance of instant death, it is still killable as long as there is some place to kite. In fact, game engine heavily discourages you from taking direct hits even if you are melee.
Prayer can at least be cast when you are not in combat. (I like to put the holy symbol in the pouch to the right of the hands.)

If you don't like it when a game makes you change equipment, you are not going to like Final Fantasy 3 DS's bard class, even though it is one of the best classes in the game.

(Also, in Elminage Gothic, I find that mages and bishops need to switch Talismans frequently, and my Cleric needs a separate weapon to attack God type enemies.)
Posted September 01, 2015
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stryx: Gwenno has finished her dungeon. The final boss this time was a Balor tanar'ri, that proved to be immune to lightning, so Drums of Distant Thunder were totally useless and it came down to hacking and slashing again.
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Sarisio: Final boss is random too? I thought it was Elemental Lord, as it was the boss when I played DH first time.
The elemental lord is one of the available final bosses. The game chooses one from a pool of bosses. So far I've seen the elemental lord, a balor tanar'ri, a lich and a dragon

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Sarisio: Can those final bosses be met as normal enemies on the floor?
No.
Posted September 01, 2015
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stryx: The elemental lord is one of the available final bosses. The game chooses one from a pool of bosses. So far I've seen the elemental lord, a balor tanar'ri, a lich and a dragon

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Sarisio: Can those final bosses be met as normal enemies on the floor?
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stryx: No.
Considering there are 2 Liches in game files, one of them might be very well met as standard monster. There are 54 uniquely named monsters in DH (55 if to count 2 different Liches).
Posted September 02, 2015
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Sarisio: Considering there are 2 Liches in game files, one of them might be very well met as standard monster. There are 54 uniquely named monsters in DH (55 if to count 2 different Liches).
If there are 2 liches in the game, one may very well be a regular enemy.
Posted September 02, 2015
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stryx: Gwenno has finished her dungeon. The final boss this time was a Balor tanar'ri, that proved to be immune to lightning, so Drums of Distant Thunder were totally useless and it came down to hacking and slashing again. Still, one of the easiest bosses, since all he could do was physical damage and he wasn't very good at that either (to identify the boss I always let my character be killed by him first and even though Gwenno wasn't wearing any armor he still needed almost half a minute to kill her.)
A Balor has a THAC0 of 7, and is supposed to wield a Vorpal Sword which will auto-kill a human sized target on a to-hit roll of 17+. That's a 20% chance. And every Balor is able to gate in another Balor (once per hour) or other True Tanar'ri.

I guess the devs felt like it would be an unwinnable fight if they implemented those two things.The basic stat line of the Balor is not amazingly threatening. It's the combination of the abilities, weapons and the stats that make the Balor one of the highest xp enemies in AD&D.
Posted September 02, 2015
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WingedKagouti: A Balor has a THAC0 of 7, and is supposed to wield a Vorpal Sword which will auto-kill a human sized target on a to-hit roll of 17+. That's a 20% chance. And every Balor is able to gate in another Balor (once per hour) or other True Tanar'ri.

I guess the devs felt like it would be an unwinnable fight if they implemented those two things.The basic stat line of the Balor is not amazingly threatening. It's the combination of the abilities, weapons and the stats that make the Balor one of the highest xp enemies in AD&D.
AC, THAC0 and even attacks are different in DH in comparison to Monster Manual. This alone makes deciphering monster stats in game files quite tricky. Even EXP-wise Balor Tanar'ri differs from MM, as it gives 46000 EXP in contrast to 26000 in MM.

Later I might make list of monsters with their stats in DH, together with item list (trickier to decipher that one). That's if Agarest, Daggerfall and Morrowind will spare me some time for that :)
Posted September 02, 2015
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stryx: Gwenno has finished her dungeon. The final boss this time was a Balor tanar'ri, that proved to be immune to lightning, so Drums of Distant Thunder were totally useless and it came down to hacking and slashing again. Still, one of the easiest bosses, since all he could do was physical damage and he wasn't very good at that either (to identify the boss I always let my character be killed by him first and even though Gwenno wasn't wearing any armor he still needed almost half a minute to kill her.)
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WingedKagouti: A Balor has a THAC0 of 7, and is supposed to wield a Vorpal Sword which will auto-kill a human sized target on a to-hit roll of 17+. That's a 20% chance. And every Balor is able to gate in another Balor (once per hour) or other True Tanar'ri.

I guess the devs felt like it would be an unwinnable fight if they implemented those two things.The basic stat line of the Balor is not amazingly threatening. It's the combination of the abilities, weapons and the stats that make the Balor one of the highest xp enemies in AD&D.
In Dungeon Hack he is just clawing at the player character with his bare hands. Certainly not wielding a sword. You can see him in action here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gO3uF4xdSY at 20:19.

PS: Can the Balor, that has been gated in by the first Balor, also gate in another Balor? Because things can get out of hand quickly that way.

PPS: You see the blue dragon here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FpzZX8Uv1Y at 32:07 and the elemental lord here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsirNzyIZ6k at 8:14
Post edited September 02, 2015 by stryx
Posted September 02, 2015
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stryx: PS: Can the Balor, that has been gated in by the first Balor, also gate in another Balor? Because things can get out of hand quickly that way.
Yes, there's no special restrictions on the newly gated Balor.

But a Balor that only uses fists is really going to be a pushover compared to a lich casting spells or any kind of dragon.
Posted September 02, 2015
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stryx: PS: Can the Balor, that has been gated in by the first Balor, also gate in another Balor? Because things can get out of hand quickly that way.
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WingedKagouti: Yes, there's no special restrictions on the newly gated Balor.

But a Balor that only uses fists is really going to be a pushover compared to a lich casting spells or any kind of dragon.
If the dragon is a Red Dragon and you have the Protection from Fire spell, it shouldn't be too bad.

Also, there are Protection from Magic and Protection from Dragon Breath scrolls in this game.
Posted September 03, 2015
Floor 11: One of the enemies is the flesh golem, which doesn't take damage from magic (which is annoying as I am trying to make use of attack magic).

Potions of Resist Fire (Gold Potions in this dungeon) don't autoidentify when used, and the game lacks an option to call/name potions, since I know what the potion is from reading the message when I drink it.

Slay Living works well against the other enemy on this floor.

Fire Storm is much easier to use if you cast Protection from Fire first.

Boss was a Hag (normal enemy on previous floor) and it somehow didn't take damage from Fire Storm. (I know it's not immune because I've hit multiple Hags with one Fire Storm on the other floor).

Level 16/16 now. Even with the extra 440k Ranger experience, my character will still cap Cleric well before Ranger. (Remember, Half-Elf Rangers can reach level 19.)

I will likely finish this run, and my next playthrough will likely be a Cleric/Mage with my "hack one extra spell per level" houserule. But first, I want to play something else. (I am actually thinking of Arena (which I've played before) even though I have many shiny games I haven't yet played (Including Morrowind and Secret of the Silver Blades).
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This is my favourite topic
Community
Forgotten Realms CollectionA few notes about Dungeon Hack(168 posts)(168 posts)
(168 posts)