Nydh

He does, doesn't he? I must have Improved Final Irenicus on the brain to have forgotten that. That's fine though, Chloe will be at +4/+3 at that point anyway, no balance worries as long as he's immune to stun. ( Chloe stayed far away in my last game while Aerie and Imoen unpeeled Irenicus...she can't handle double hit Abi-Dalzim's very well )

( Arctangent: Mislead/Spell Immunity Abjuration/Spell Immunity Divination isn't a spot on stacking Staff of the Magi style unremovable Spell Traps and illegally stacked weapon immunities - Sendai is going to make me cry, isn't she? Don't answer that, please. )


Good folks around here Thanks for reading.

Does anyone in Ascension use Absolute Immunity? I can't remember ever seeing the Mantle line used in game. I'm hoping to see it from Improved Sendai

I was sort of hoping to emphasize that Breachable spell protections already don't make a compelling case against +3 Celestial Fury and that ancillary abilities can be more significant - not mention that anything added to the game still has to make sense contextually in Faerun. Perhaps I drowned that in blather though

Just finished a Shadows of Amn game - haven't played in probably two years - modded with Chloe, a full install of Tactics, Rogue rebalancing, and a few other WeiDu knickknacks. Monk PC, Chloe, Imoen, Jaheira, Aerie, and Haer'Dalis.

Without Aerie to hide behind, Chloe never would have made it out of Chapter Two Kensai inabilites to equip important protective items ( e.g. Helm of Charm Protection, ugh... ) keep them out of many battles until they have a slew of protection spells on them - and then have them tactically retreating again after Remove Magic.

I'll third Kish's opinion that a +3 weapon at the end of Chateau Irenicus is not at all out of place. Offhand, the only opponents immune to +2 or lower weapons that you'll encounter early in the game are Iron and Adamantium Golems, which Minsc and Lilarcor or Korgan and Stonefire dispatch with far less risk and suffering. ( Why, by the way, can Lathlandar's Flame cast Flame Arrow once per day? Was there some reason I've overlooked that implies she should be flouting the Kensai prohibition from ranged attacks? )

Saying that NPCs can't dream of having magical weapons in Chapter Three is quite a stretch, considering that there are magical weapons in Chapter One designed to be suited to your party's proficiences. But anyway....

By level fifteen or so Chloe was durable enough to stay at the front lines, due mostly to improved saving throws and better hitpoints. Even with Barkskin or charges from the Shield Amulet, a single Giant Troll was more than a match for her in straight melee ( at level fifteen! ) , which is why she got the first Boots of Speed we'd found, so that she could avoid ever engaging her opponents directly and flit to creatures that were already focused on someone else.

By the final battle with Irenicus Chloe had hit level twenty-five and had her +4/+3 setup...certainly a model of restraint compared to Solafein, though if someone thinks a +4 weapon is inherently game breaking, I'm sure they'll chime in In offence, Rage of Akadia doesn't come close to the Flail of Ages - it's the nice resistances her weapons provide that make them useful. By "useful" I mean mean worth equipping for other than roleplaying considerations - although I never tampered with her kit, Chloe would have been better off most of the time with Belm or Kundane. On the Thone of Bhaal upgrades I'll reserve judgement; it may be that there's too many innate, undispellable powers on the later incarnations, but the proof of that is in the playing

In any case, she's going to overcap her Thaco by the end of the game: a Kensai with a twig and no strength bonus is going to have a -16 Thaco eventually. Like Archers, they don't miss, it's all they do, and +4 or +6 won't change that. +6 is probably excessive for reasons of game fiction, but it's just one number after all.

Chloe's one aspect I did find genuinely unbalancing was her banter with other NPCs - but that's probably not germane and certainly not broachable without spoilers, so I shut up now.

/begin peevish hijack mandated by my longsword studies
As an aside, I'll poke around to see if I can't find the MPEG an armorcrafter of my distant acquaintance has made, with her backflipping down the length of a gymnasium in a full suit of plate It's gotten a bad rap from history professors who read Mark Twain's satire of knights needing cranes to be lifted into saddle, rather than the primary sources which state that if you couldn't vault into your saddle fully armored, you were no kind of knight at all. Plate is amazing stuff and not particularly restrictive
/end peevish hijack mandated by my longsword studies



For what it's worth