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Post by TJ on Jan 17, 2017 13:03:04 GMT
Just watched the whole thing, and it was quite awesome. Do you think it's psooible to take a level of cleric instead of the ranger level? It would mean 2x points on animal empathy I believe. Or if you are human can you go one cleric and one ranger, rest wizard without an XP pen?
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Post by condude on Jan 17, 2017 17:18:32 GMT
Just watched the whole thing, and it was quite awesome. Do you think it's psooible to take a level of cleric instead of the ranger level? It would mean 2x points on animal empathy I believe. Or if you are human can you go one cleric and one ranger, rest wizard without an XP pen? AE is one of the skills that can only be taken by certain classes. It's not even CC for clerics. As such, you need 1 level of druid/ranger to pickup oltum. |
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Post by TJ on Jan 17, 2017 20:35:10 GMT
Just watched the whole thing, and it was quite awesome. Do you think it's psooible to take a level of cleric instead of the ranger level? It would mean 2x points on animal empathy I believe. Or if you are human can you go one cleric and one ranger, rest wizard without an XP pen? AE is one of the skills that can only be taken by certain classes. It's not even CC for clerics. As such, you need 1 level of druid/ranger to pickup oltum. Well in that case could you do one ranger, one cleric, and rest wizard as a human rad gen without penalty? I know this is slightly off topic, and I'm sorry for that. |
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Post by condude on Jan 17, 2017 21:39:13 GMT
He's using just open subraces for this, so rad gen would be off the table. This is also a theurge, so he takes quite a few levels of cleric throughout. It's probably doable as a pure wizard with ranger splash, but then you lose destruction etc. for bosses.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 18, 2017 5:53:20 GMT
This is split into two builds.
The starting build is Wiz 29 / Ranger 1 for leveling to 30. Cleric wouldn't help here, it would just put Timestop and Weird off a level, slowing the leveling process. At level 30, I reincarnate.
The endgame build is Wiz 26 / Cleric 13 / Monk 1. Wiz gets epics and two bonus feats, Cleric gets level 7 spells for Creeping Doom and Aura of Vitality from domains, and Monk gives full Tumble AC and Discipline for Lolth. Epics are Starfire, Missile Barrage, Transmute Barrier, and Bigby Swarm, and I take Autostill 3, meaning the build hits 95-98 AC without any random items. Tack on 10 virtual AC versus any boss vulnerable to Bigby 5.
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Post by sabregirl on Jan 19, 2017 0:00:25 GMT
Isn't reincarnating kind of breaking your rules? I'll admit it might be impossible to do without it though.
-S
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 19, 2017 6:39:33 GMT
Reincarnating does not require server hopping, you come back on the same server.
It's not impossible, my initial routing just started with the Theurge build. The reason I am allowing reincarnation is because it saves such a huge amount of time to have an Oltum / Wizard based leveling build, and makes the first half of the run much more interesting. The old Theurge leveling involved stuff like the Rift Canyon and Umber Maze grinds, which took forever and were very boring - just whack stuff with a weapon for hours and hours. Not a good watch, not fun to do.
Allowing server hopping would make the run more boring, and probably also more awkward. You would need to come back to the same server anyway to turn in quest items, it would just add in mindless POW and Zhent grinds rather than mixing things up with interesting stuff like early Razhid and possibly Moor. The time savings would also not be significant, if any at all.
TL;DR - There's really no good reason server hopping should be a thing, but same-server reincarnation has all kinds of great reasons. In the end, it comes down to what makes this the most interesting run possible with the simplest, most internally consistent rules possible.
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Post by chirality on Jan 19, 2017 12:47:33 GMT
I think the reinc question line was less about changing server than about exiting the game and re-entering with a different toon. Of course it's your run and your rules to interpret as you wish. As you responded above, the "single segment" concept in speedrunning supposedly involved "never returning to the title screen" and keeping it all in "one session", but you're "taking it to mean" staying on the same server, and not the rest. I'm not sure what the point was of giving us a definition of "single segment" if you choose to assign a different meaning? I certainly would never have said anything, if not for the fact that you included phrases like those in the first place  It seemed odd to mention a set of generally consistent rules that speedrunners use and choose to define your experience by what actually looks like splitting the "run" into 2 sessions or segments (one login pre-reinc, then a second where you exit NWN, create a new toon, relog, and then start running again). After all, if one of your speedrunner fans was watching your stream and you re-opened the game and made a new toon, wouldn't it kinda look as if you had started a second segment? I suppose you will create the reinc toon after the first is deleted and keep the clock running through the creation screens? |
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Post by condude on Jan 19, 2017 16:14:50 GMT
Here's the thing, the only reason reinc sends you back to character creation is because of engine limitations. It is supposed to represent the same character. I see it as similar to, in an attempt to speedrun HOTU, returning to the title screen after finishing part 1 because you need to access part 2, and the end of part 1 boots you (IIRC).
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 19, 2017 17:04:58 GMT
Rules are different for every game as the community around that game defines how they want to play the game. Single Segment has also become something of a dinosaur lately with RTA (real time attack) taking over, which just lifts the restriction of Single Segment but is otherwise the same. So while I took the Single Segment concept and adapted it to how I think it should work in Higher Ground, it's not something I'm married to in the general speedrun sense - it just made sense to stick to one server here for reasons I mentioned above. Back at the grind... Doing a large survey of xp per kill at each relevant level for the upcoming areas where xp gains will be meaningful: Lava King, Formians, Renders, Strange Tower dungeon, Frost Orcs, Trolls, Razhid, Blood Moor, and the trip to Zerya. I want to minmax these gains and may end up visiting some areas early to capitalize on higher xp gains from them. The goal of Phase 2 is to go from level 18 to level 28. At 28, I use one book, drop two quests, reincarnate, then use second book to hit 31.5. As soon as I ding 28, then, phase 2 xp route is finished. Also doing surveys of the stats of the enemies in these areas to form a solid kill plan. Looking at Mino Maze, I found the Berserkers' HP is 90... this is barely out of reach of a Max Ice Storm strategy. It needs to not depend on Identify to work, since that's two spells per group and then COD would be better overall. I want to run with just Legend Lore and maybe a +5 ring. At 19 with LL and ring, I deal 89 damage to a Berserker, but I'm one Lore point off. I think I have a solution, though. If I can knock out Hendron at 19 efficiently, his tag gives one Lore point, nailing the 90 damage exactly. Strange Tower is also fairly good xp at that level. A neat trick I haven't hammered out yet for Mino Maze: Gate backtrack skipping. Unfortunately, I can't do the tag at level 21, or I'd have CL20 Wall of Fire for door skipping. |
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Post by sabregirl on Jan 19, 2017 22:52:10 GMT
Reincarnating does not require server hopping, you come back on the same server. It's not impossible, my initial routing just started with the Theurge build. The reason I am allowing reincarnation is because it saves such a huge amount of time to have an Oltum / Wizard based leveling build, and makes the first half of the run much more interesting. The old Theurge leveling involved stuff like the Rift Canyon and Umber Maze grinds, which took forever and were very boring - just whack stuff with a weapon for hours and hours. Not a good watch, not fun to do. Allowing server hopping would make the run more boring, and probably also more awkward. You would need to come back to the same server anyway to turn in quest items, it would just add in mindless POW and Zhent grinds rather than mixing things up with interesting stuff like early Razhid and possibly Moor. The time savings would also not be significant, if any at all. TL;DR - There's really no good reason server hopping should be a thing, but same-server reincarnation has all kinds of great reasons. In the end, it comes down to what makes this the most interesting run possible with the simplest, most internally consistent rules possible. Okay I just wondered about your reasoning. It sounds pretty solid to me. -S |
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 21, 2017 8:41:57 GMT
Alright, time to talk about Ice Storm for a little bit. It's an amazing spell for early levels in this speedrun because it has no save, no touch attack, and can be maximized, and the damage is pretty high and can be boosted by Lore somewhat. No other spell can boast all of those attributes in the same place, I think. Unless the target is immune to the spell, the damage, or boasts high spell resistance or strong cold or bludgeoning resistance, it's going to deal high damage and have the same effect every time when maximized. This makes it better than mass death spells in many places. It's sort of like an area of effect IGMS. It even breaks obstacles - it's the Swiss army knife of early game spells. I haven't tried cleaning my kitchen counters with it yet, but I bet it can do that too. So far, it works perfectly in the Beholder Prison and can potentially work in the Minotaur Maze. I may also be able to get it to work on the Grey Renders - at level 22 with capped Lore, it will oneshot everything but the Queens. Was stuck away from my computer with nothing to do today for a bit, so I drew up a handy chart of Ice Storm damage based on certain skill factors. I put it in my notes doc tonight, it's the new tab at the bottom of the page: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XYwcLgvGhuMZ42MUCy8g-7CRFfuIr50UeNupcDfaaE0/edit#gid=1156182549Please note that this will not function for everyone. It assumes one non-Wizard level, and the Skill Focus (Lore) feat, which I decided to take instead of Toughness at level 15, allowing me more slots and less time buffing in the Beholder Prison and saving me a rest. I might decide to change this out at some point, maybe for evocation focus if Sunburst needs help later on; although without that boost, Ice Storm can never oneshot the Berserkers in the Minotaur Maze, so we'll see. Thus you cannot just use this chart for your own pure build without Skill Focus, but it will be a nice reference for me. I may draw up a duplicate chart without Skill Focus in case I abandon the feat later on. It also has info about what happens to the damage when I have Hendron or Razhid tags or both, these tags give +1 Lore and are realistic to kill early enough to matter. The remaining three bosses that give Lore are Elanna, Axilar, and the Drow Headmaster, and only Elanna might remotely be practical to kill before reincarnation here. I'll be in Zhent anyway for grinding, but it is a VERY slim chance that her extra point would ever matter for anything. |
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Post by condude on Jan 21, 2017 17:34:55 GMT
As a note, Elanna is vulnerable to heals. I forget what her Touch AC is, but I seem to recall her being relatively easy to two-shot.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 21, 2017 18:30:26 GMT
Oh, nice. With a Bigby spell on her, I imagine it's really easy. Even if I don't use that before reincarnation, I'll certainly use it after, thanks.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Jan 22, 2017 12:43:44 GMT
Ice Storm guarantees kills in so many places. Keep in mind all of this assumes Skill Focus Lore. I've made a chart without Skill Focus but haven't put it in the notes doc yet.
- Mino Maze at 19 with capped Lore
- Grey Renders at 22 with Identify, and either Legend Lore or ring
- Enemies on the way to Kardkildontar at 19 with no buffs
- All orcs in Frost Orc Caverns at 19 with Legend Lore, these aren't resistant to Cold as you might expect
- Possibly Rogue Spectres in various places, haven't tested but their HP is low enough
I need to go back and test Rat King and Ice Kobolds with this spell, Ice Kobolds probably also test with some other elemental spell. This is the only place so far I've used any Necromancy spells, so if I can eliminate enough places where I'd otherwise want to use COD or U2D, I can drop Necro focus for maybe Evo, keep Skill Focus Lore, and if I don't use FOD damage either, consider barring Necromancy instead of Divination so I'll keep access to Legend Lore and Premonition.
...Oh, and Power Word Kill too. Can't forget that spell, especially with as much enemy HP data as I'm collecting.
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