Helpless!

What I want to know is, if the Spinner of Shadows could “hold person” everyone in the party instantly, with no saving throw, for as long as she wanted, anytime she wanted — how did we win the fight?

Not to say that it wasn’t a fun fight — it was. The whole Web of Chaos arc was a lot of fun, for all that the last adventure turned into an extended advertisement for the expansion, giving some reason for the sudden merger of the world of Eberron and the world of Forgotten Realms.

The Spinner of Shadows adventure was, in particular, pretty fun. The adventure had a raid-like complexity. We split the party in two, with Gleek and Ulan keeping the Spinner busy while Spode and I raced around killing spiders for shards with which to rebuild the Spinner’s prison.

Spoiler alert, we fail, and Lolth is summoned from the Underdark into the plane of Khyber (if I am remembering this right). Well, we succeeded in the adventure, and failed.

With Lolth freed, we were treated to the trailer for the next expansion, and were then ejected back into Stormreach Harbor to report our failure to the Silver Flame guardians who did not welcome our news.

Ophiga

Fact is, I play a drow, and I’m not sure why I would not welcome Lolth into this plane of existence. We spent the entire night killing Drow, and I felt a little uncomfortable about that. Why couldn’t we have killed something that really deserved it, like gnomes?

Sometimes it’s hard playing a good drow. I guess that’s why my fellow drow and driders usually try to kill me when they see me. Still, I struggle on. Far from Vulkoor’s solace, driven from the Underdark.

At least I can meet my ex-drowfriends as a more skillful rogue. While working through the Web of Chaos arc, I reached level 17 at long last. I got a new rank of sneak attack, and Rogue Sneak Attack Training IV. I just need one more point for Rogue Sneak Attack Accuracy Training IV, and then it’s just a hop, skip and jump to level 18 and Assassin III. Then I get two levels where I can choose levels in some complementary class. Since my last lesser reincarnation, I have become a strength-based rogue, which will allow me a little more leeway in choosing other classes. I’m thinking Fighter (for the weapon skills), Ranger (for ranged skills natch) or Bard (because… just because).

The glowy weapons I am wielding in the picture above come from the Web of Chaos arc. I didn’t get all the ones I wanted, but if we run the arc twice more, I’ll be able to select from all the options available, which is rather cool. That’s something just added with the most recent update.

Exciting times. Spode and Gleek have already maxed out their experience. Ulan and I are the laggers-behind, both now at 17. I really do want to get to 20 before we leave for Diablo 3, but levels come so slowly that I am not sure that’s realistic.

I’ve said it many times — I would enjoy DDO more if I didn’t have to spend real money to form a group to play on non-group nights. On the other hand, I like playing a MMO which was intended for group play. It doesn’t make any sense, I know. I guess I could join pickup-groups, but then there’s the fear that I am a terrible player and would enrage the members of any group I joined, since I care little for having the best armor, weapons or enhancements.

Back in EverQuest, the designers had this concept of camps. When you first came to a new dungeon (or even outdoor zone), there would be the “easy” camps for people with lesser equipment, levels, or ability. As you gained confidence, you’d move through the zone to harder camps, and as you gained a reputation, increasingly you’d be asked to come to a camp. That social web thing.

Now it’s all whirlwind speeding through a dungeon with people you will never see again. WoW, EQ2, Rift, DDO — all the same.

I treasure my static group :)

I have a bad feeling about that floor

After last week’s mass dragon death in Gianthold Tor, we were back in the Cornfields of Catastrophe Greenhouse of Gore Tidepools of Terror Orchard of the Macabre. These civic leaders really need to work on coming up with better names for their neighborhoods or nobody’s gonna want to move there.

The module failed to impress last time we went and this time was no different. We had our choice of beholders or vampires. Spode really wanted to get his vorpal freak on with vampires because, the problem with beholders is you can’t really cut off their heads! But after dispatching some nameds in the Orchard, it was at Doomsphere’s doors we found ourselves.

I think I remember the instance clearly. We go in, kill trash, fall through a floor, split the party to kill two guys at the same time, fall through a floor, find the boss, fall through a floor several times each time fighting a more difficult version of the boss and waves of trash.

The beholder, Doomsphere, eventually started walloping people with anti-magic rays. We wiped three times. Each wipe meant all but one of us had to release, heal, then fight back to the instance. The second time I didn’t even get a chance to get rezzed before the party wiped again.

No loot to speak of, experience was crappy, no traps, monsters for the entire module are thick with incorporeal spooky types, only got three kills in the entire instance (really??? how is that possible?). I spent most of the night dead. I should have brought a book.

I’ll be glad when we’re done with this module. Ruins of Gianthold and Harbinger of Madness were way more fun.

I dinged a rank, I’m on the last rank before level 16. Ulan dinged sometime during the week, so I’m the last one… I should probably buy some hirelings and farm some xp this week.

Go ask Alice, when the white dragons fall

None of us was happy about the way we left Gianthold Tor; expert at getting through the dungeon and killing the Gatekeeper, unable to kill the three dragons at the end. We’d all gained a level since we left the Tor, though, and the Harbingers of Madness gear was a literal game changer for most of us.

The rewards for grinding Gianthold Tor for rare dragon scales are not that great, given the effort involved. I estimate it would take killing a dragon thirty times in order to get enough scales to make a piece of armor. We were never going to spend half a year farming this instance.

But the dragons had to die. Last night we returned to Gianthold Tor and we killed the dragons.

The Death of the Black Dragon

All the dragons have a giant protector, and both dragon and giant have to die within seconds of each other. For this, we split the group. Spode tanked the dragon, Ulan the giant, and Gleek and I would switch from one to the other to keep their health balanced as we took them down.

We’d all acquired special cold resist gear when we were here before. We suited up, potioned up and buffed up, went in, and died pretty fast. Came back, changed our positioning a little — dead dragon. Between the four of us, no dragon scales.

Next up: the blue dragon, whose power was lightning. Since this was said to be the easiest of the three dragons, we’d tried this one a few times before. The room gradually becomes more electrified as the fight drags on. If you can’t kill everything in two minutes, the room itself will kill you.

Again, first time failure. Second time we kept the clerics near to the wall, outside the worst of the electricity, and won. One blue dragon scale between the four of us.

Gleek challenged us to kill the black dragon in his room full of acid pools the first time. This trick requires keeping the clerics and everyone else on one of the islands floating in the acid pools. And we did it — first try. Two black dragon scales among the four of us.

Three dragon scales out of twelve chances = 25% chance at a scale. If I’d need 20 black dragon scales for some decent light armor, I could expect to kill the dragon 80 times (on normal mode). I’d get some scales from other people in the group in trade for the ones I wouldn’t need, of course, but that’s still going to be a significant number of kills required.

We’re happy we killed the dragons, but I don’t think any of us see any reason to go back.

Is something ... missing?

Having spent the last month or so running errands for lazy journalists in the Harbingers of Madness module, we all felt it was time for a little change. Thus we were soon returning to our old haunts (heh heh) in the Necropolis, looking for a little adventure in the Orchards of the Macabre.

I can just imagine what the Stormreach zoning board thought when they got the property proposal for review. “So, you wish to build an orchard along the northern border of the city? Well, I see no reason to object… Hold on. An orchard of the _macabre_?” “Well, yes. Don’t you think apple trees look really scary? I know I do.”

We should totally do this in real life. My apartment complex? My apartment complex will now be known as “The Demesne of the Damned”. My car? “Hellwagon of Oblivion!”. My CAT? “Apocalypse Demonspawn”. It’s like the Stormreach city leadership doesn’t even care any more. They aren’t even trying. “Orchard of the Macabre, sir? Very good sir.” (Sound of rubber stamp hitting parchment). “There you go. Please exit through the Gate of Garrotting and give this deed to the Clerk from the Nether Planes.”

I originally wrote “clerk from the nether regions”, but that might have been misinterpreted, and I imagine the guardians of the Inferno of the Damned feel really sensitive about jokes about their smooth, featureless “nether regions”.

As usual when we first reach a new adventure area, we just wandered about killing creeps and looking for exploration points until we reach something interesting. The dungeon known as the Inferno of the Damned. The first dungeon we’ve done, as far as any of us could recall, with a woman narrator.

The dungeon exists in two planes; the normal plane and the “inferno” plane. We quickly started calling these the “ice and fire dimensions”. Stuff killed in the ice dimension is resurrected in the fire dimension, so each of the four guardians (North, East, South and West) has to be killed in ice and then killed again in fire.

Travel between the dimensions is accomplished by destroying an altar of damnation (to be transported to the Inferno) or by destroying an altar of benediction (to be transported back to the prime material plane). The guardians are summoned by setting torches aflame with fire spells in the normal world, then travelling to the inferno and extinguishing them with ice spells. The quest tracker helpfully tells you in which dimension your next objective is.

The dungeon is mostly the same in both dimensions. Mostly. Some paths are blocked off by fire or ruin, and it is necessary to pop between dimensions frequently in order to progress. This split of the dungeon into parallel realities left behind some quirks like a shrine with the resurrection stone in one dimension and the rest stone in the other.

We stumbled through the maze and eventually managed to kill all the guardians and return to the center room in the normal dimension all at the same time to confront and kill the final boss in what turned out to be a really trivial fight. The gear from Harbingers of Madness makes a real difference. Plus, Gleek has been grinding out the House of Cannith challenge dungeons for even more uber items.

No loot of real note dropped for anyone. I received two parts to a Sigil Frame somewhere along the way; I don’t know what this is for. If past experience is any use, the pieces will be difficult to complete an entire set, and in the end result in gear nobody will need by the time we have done these dungeons enough to get them. I’ve dragged a lot of quest items to the trash just because why bother?

Dinged rank 74 (level 15.3) on slayer rewards during our romp in the Orchards of Madness. By the time we returned to the Necropolis, I was about 3/4 through the rank. Closing in on level 16. The Inferno of the Damned had traps, but I was ready: I’d bid on and won some Clever Goggles of the Eagle +11 — +3 INT and +11 Spot. Not one trap got past me. Hello 15% intuition experience bonus!

The trash mobs in the orchard proper often immediately resurrect as undead, sometimes ghosts which require ghost touch weapons. Additionally, some were skeletons requiring blunt weapons. I was switching weapons madly until I got bored with that, and just stuck with my short swords for trash mobs.

For the final quest reward, I chose +5 DEX boots of tumbling +3. These replaced my +3 DEX boots of jumping +5. I jump more than I tumble, but I need the extra DEX more than both. I also got a +1 Tome of Constitution in a random chest. My first tome! I “ate” it and my hit points jumped from 226 to 261.

My original build prior to any respecs had me at about 90 hit points. By way of comparison. I never even really noticed (nor did anyone else) until a patch had the UI start showing real numbers for health and mana. Everyone was just as shocked as I was at how poorly I compared.

Not blaming the game, just blaming me. Every other modern MMO takes you by the hand on all important choices, leaving you free to screw things up only in things that are easily changed. DDO is happy to let you fail. That might be one of the most notable things ABOUT the game, actually.