Completed Modded Pathfinder Kingmaker Ironman run

[Bloodeyes]

Last time...

Spoiler

While hunting for the trolls' hideout, Duncan visited the house of a hermit wizard. There he learned the source of the trolls' fire resistance; a simple spell of protection from fire, applied with a brand. The brand looks like the symbol of the dwarven god Torag, only surrounded by thorns.

Duncan and friends also came across a group of trolls and kobolds cooperating. Strange. By eavesdropping on the group they learned the name of their leader. Hargrulka.

Episode 5 - I don't waste words on beasts

Spoiler

After killing the strange group of kobolds and trolls, the party continued down the trail, hunting for clues on the trolls. After a time they came across a kobold camp and decided to investigate.

Duncan was about to kill them all but something held them back. One of them looked... intelligent?

It turns out these kobolds are servants of Tartucchio! They want the party's help in finding him. The group seems harmless enough. Duncan cuts them a break.

Continuing their search, the party stake out a clearing with obvious signs of troll activity. But it's a bust. All they find is a deer. At least dinner is sorted.

At last, after days of searching! The dwarven ruins. Time to end this troll menace.

Jubilost is thrilled to be here.

Though he won't let gratitude influence his "review" of Arx Duncanis. Duncan never thought that it would, and while he's slightly irritated that the gnome judges his new barony so harshly, he understands duty.

Just then, a troll comes out to greet them... in common! "Hail borba!" says the beast. Duncan doesn't know what borba means, but that's what the other troll called him. The one that insane wizard was torturing. He figures it must just be their word for "human." The beast welcomes him to "Trobold."

As novel as it would be to talk with a troll, these beasts have been eating Duncan's subjects. He's personally witnessed their attacks on travelers, heard Ekundayo's harrowing tale of his family being eaten before his eyes. Duncan isn't here to politely ask them to stop eating people. He's not here to ask them anything.

And so begins the cleansing of "Trobold".

Further up the hill, Ekundayo smells a familiar stench. It is Kargadd, the rock troll who ate his family. He's here, or has been recently.

The next fight can be a little challenging, so the party rest to recover health and buffs. But they get attacked.

Twice.

Yes, in retrospect that was a stupid place to try and camp. Rather than making it three times the party back off to the world map to camp there instead.

Having rested until evening, the party decide against a frontal assault. They find a side way in over a broken wall.

They still have to kill all the trolls, but they aren't in range of the rock throwers on the walls. They easily clear out the fortress' courtyard.

They also find a nice bit of kit. A +2 mithral breastplate that gives +4 morale bonus to fear saves. Amiri will be wearing that for quite a while. Maybe even for the rest of her life.

With the courtyard clear it's safe to camp. Right on the Hargrulka's doorstep.

Next time they go inside. Don't worry! I won't leave you hanging. The next is already done, it's just that my Internet was playing up so I couldn't upload the screens. If it's not already up when you read this come back in half an hour or so!

 

[Bloodeyes]

Last time...

Spoiler

The party ran into some intelligent kobolds who were looking for their king... Tartuk. Tartucchio. The gnome who framed them, and who Amiri turned into paste beneath her ginormous sword. If Duncan hadn't seen it himself he wouldn't believe he was back. But he is, and he's playing games with kobolds again, and trolls too it seems. Somehow he's behind Duncan's citizens being eaten, and this time Duncan aims to make damn sure he dies for good.

After a long and largely fruitless search they arrived at some dwarven ruins. There they were greeted by a troll... greeted by a troll. It introduced itself, and welcomed the "borba" to "Trobold." Duncan just killed it, then slaughtered his way to the gates of the fortress.

Episode 6: Gulb means eat, and borba means...

Spoiler

Inside the fortress the party is met with a fearsome sight. It's Hargrulka himself, surrounded by trolls, and not too happy with Duncan.

Ekundayo isn't in a mood to chat with maneating beasts. Him and Duncan are birds of a feather it seems.

Hargrulka flees into the fortress, smashing a statue of Torag behind him so that the rubble blocks the party from pursuing him.

The party easily dispatch the remaining trolls (I was a bit worried about coming here at lower level than normal, but these trolls are nothing. They're hitting Duncan on 20s only, and they do shit all damage to him).

After the fight Harrim goes over to the broken Torag statue to gloat. He doesn't really seem happy though. He seems more... sad. Sadder than usual that is. Duncan doesn't do heart to hears though. He tells Harrim to stop whining.

Entering the second room of the fortress the party comes across some troll children... rock troll children. The rock troll Kargadd killed Ekundayo's family before his eyes. Now he has the chance to repay him in kind...

He takes it, and Duncan lets him. Why let trolls escape? They'll just grow up and eat more families.

His children dead at his feet, Kargadd attacks without so much as a word...

...and Ekundayo gets his justice. Will he begin to cheer up now? Or will we be goaded into neglecting our more important duties to act as his personal grief counselor and dating guru, because his emotions are bafflingly important to us? Only time will tell!

A brief investigation of Kargadd's house tells us what trolls are all about. They ate his legs while he was still alive. This is why we are killing them. This is why even their children can't live. Ekundayo is right.

Deeper into the fortress, the party come across a kobold painting on the wall in what appears to be his own shit.

The horror of Kargadd's larder doused any embers of mercy he might have had within him today. He just kills the little creep.

And so the party battles on, deeper into the fortress.

They find a damn good weapon for Ekundayo. This bow, combined with his level 1 spell "Hurricane Bow", does serious damage. Especially when you combine rapid shot with haste. Enkundayo often kills more than 1 enemy per turn now.

A level up. Duncan gets estoc focus. Then when I go to level up Linzi I realize my fuckup.

The feat I wanted to give her, share spells. She can't take it. It wasn't that you needed bonded mind OR a familiar to be able to take it, you need bonded mind AND a familiar. So neither Brogan nor Linzi will be able to take share spells. I get so fucking mad about this mistake that I forget to take screens of the other characters' levelups. I don't even remember what feats I gave them. Nothing to exciting.

We don't need to respec though. This can still be salvaged. Regongar's new class has a familiar. I remember because I thought it was pretty stupid giving a character like him a pet lizard. Give Regongar a lizard and he'd probably eat it or try to fuck it. But a lizard he has! He also has access to mirror image, and the empower spell feat. So Duncan having empowered mirror image may still be within my grasp!

Just picture it... An needs a nat 20 to hit Duncan. They roll one, but then he's got empowered mirror image. So they only get a 1/8 chance to hit him even on a 20. If I can get him mirror imaged I may actually have a shot at beating the game! We'll see. There's probably some other reason it won't work.

Anyway, sorry about that tangent. While I was ranting about feats and spells the party made their way to the lower level of the fortress. There they find a glowing rune on the wall, which triggers a memory in Harrim. That was the family crest of a proud dwarven clan. Now gone.

Anyway back to looting. Oh no! It's a mimic!

In a large hall at the center of the lower floor, the party discovers why the trolls are speaking common now. The kobolds are educating them!

Borba is meat! Every troll we've spoken to has called us borba, even the one being tortured and begging for our help. Even to him we were nothing but meat.

We show them who is meat. There's also a hidden chest with armor in this room. We do the puzzle and get it, but it's for good characters only so we're just going to sell it.

Next time, we face Hargrulka.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Last time...

Spoiler

The party fought their way into the dwarven ruins, discovering grotesque horrors within. The trolls call it "Trobold" and claim it is their kingdom. They call the people they eat "borba". Meat. Duncan knows otherwise. These lands are his barony, Arx Duncanis. Those "borba" are his people. Trobold is no kingdom. It will be their tomb.

Episode 7 - Hargrulka

Spoiler

After hours of exploring and fighting in the murky depths, the party pop outside for a spot of lunch. Why not? There's no law against it. Sadly, Gozreh has other ideas and ruins their picnic with a thunderstorm.

They'd better get back in there anyhow. Hargrulka is waiting for them.

And indeed he is. Down in the depths of the fortress they find the troll king. Accompanying him, somewhat unsurprisingly, is their old nemesis Tartucchio.

The beast whine about how Duncan has been killing them. Are they seriously playing the victim? While still calling him borba? This can only end one way. Lets get on with it already...

Hargrulka dies. We have haste now btw.

Seeing the "troll king" fall like the sack of shit he is demoralizes Tartucchio. He gives up the fight.

Linzi threatens him into spilling the beans. She can be scary when she wants to, apparently.

It's no good though. He doesn't remember who raised him or why.

Stay dead this time, you troublesome gnome!

Job done.

The sight of the anvil seems to trigger something in Harrim...

Hmm... Harrim's kinda messed up. Maybe we should take the whole "worships the god of the end times" thing a bit more seriously...

Oh well, at least the anvil dropped loot!

The party scours the dungeon of any surviving trolls and kobolds, as well as any loot that remains, before making their way to the surface.

Emerging from a tunnel into the world above, they are greeted by a group of kobolds making sad faces at them.

"So, there was this dwarf we met. His legs were eaten off while he was still alive. He was mad from infection and too far gone for our magics to save him. The only mercy I could give him was a painless death. Go sell you guilt trip to him, because I'm not buying it."

Barony = saved

So we've killed the troll king. True to my word, if Duncan dies there's no restarting now.

But the more we level up the better chance there is that he won't die, at least not for a really long time. So I'm thinking I'll try to do this properly, see how far I can get. To do that, I'll need to play the DLC, Varnham's Lot, and import this save. That way my choices in the DLC should show up in this game. I'd like to see that.

So this seems like a good place to leave Duncan, temporarily, to start a spinoff series. I've never played Varnham's Lot before. I don't know anything about what to expect from it.

But I'm open to input from readers. Would you like to see the DLC content now, with a new main? Or skip the DLC and continue with Duncan's story?

 

[Kalarion]

I've never played Varnhold's Lot either. How long is it?

 

[Bloodeyes]

I've never played Varnhold's Lot either. How long is it?

A random reddit thread says 5 - 7 hours. Very doable. No clue how hard it is though. I think I'd just treat it as true ironman (no restarting). If I die then that's the end of the VL story and we cut back to Duncan.

 

[baud]

Go sell you guilt trip to him, because I'm not buying it.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Varnhold's Lot spinoff series -


Episode 1: Yes. He shit on a corpse.

Spoiler

So this is a miniseries. I'm playing it because I need to have it completed before the Varnhold chapter of the main quest for my choices to appear in the story. Apparently it's only like 7 hours long, so we should be back with Duncan soon enough. Maybe very soon, seeing as I don't know what's coming (if we die this miniseries ends and it's back to Duncan for the next chapter).

We begin our story with a familiar scene. The coronation of Baron Duncan I! If coronation is what it's called for barons...

But this is not a story of Duncan, heroic baron of Arx Duncanis. The land this story takes place in has a different ruler. Maegar Varn, mercenary leader turned baron, as luck would have it.

There he goes. Hail Baron Maegar! Hurrah!

But this isn't Maegar's story either. The hero of this tale is no nobleman...

That's our hero there! This tale is that of a mercenary turned man at arms, the magnificent Corpse Shitter!

His real name is just a bunch of guttural grunts that humans have a hard time pronouncing. His nickname comes from his brothers in arms, who were shocked when they witnessed his tribe's ritual of dominance over defeated foes. Some orc tribes eat their enemy dead, his tribe shits on them. It's cultural.

Corpse shitter is a Maegar's right hand man and his fiercest fighter. What he lacks in wit and charm he makes up for in ferocity, strength and, above all, confidence!

After the ceremony, our hero mingles with the guests. His reputation precedes him...

Corpse shitter doesn't know what ingenuity is, but if anyone questions his courage he'll shit on their corpse!

Corpse Shitter doesn't like this Surtova woman. He may care nothing for the laws of men, but the Varnling Host are loyal to their brothers. If Maegar doesn't want an envoy then he's not getting one.

Already sick of high society, Corpse Shitter goes in search of his brothers. He finds Maegar and Cephal Lorentus engaged in a heated quarrel. It seems Surtova isn't the only one who wants Maegar to accept an envoy...

So an evil old wizard is questioning our ruler. No way he ends up betraying us...

Anyway, damn politics. To Varnhold!

And here we are, in Varnhold. Our baron is giving a rousing speech.

Hurrah! Glory to the Varnling Host! Glory to Varnhold! Glory to Baron Varn!

The festivities over, the Baron gets to work assigning our duties. A general. Good. Anything less would have been a grave dishonor to the Host's fiercest warrior!

Corpse Shitter can hire any warriors he pleases... Very well. Meet our new recruits! Hand picked by the general himself, only the finest warriors may stand a his side...

Apparently the baron and the wizard are coming too...

And so we have a party. I'll buy their gear between episodes. Next time... I don't know what happens next time. I've never played this before!

 

[Bloodeyes]

Last time...

Spoiler

We arrived in Varnhold's Lot and met our heroes.

Offscreen I bought everyone +1 armor and weapons. Corpse Shitter got a falchion, like in his picture. Celestine Chastefanny got a fouchard. Bertha Bustberth got a glaive. Clarissa Honeybust got a rapier. Corpse shitter, Celestine and Bertha got heavy armor.

There wasn't much money left over for health pots. I could only buy two cure moderate wounds and two or three cure light wounds.

Varnhold's Lot Miniseries - Episode 2: I can't ironman this

Spoiler

We start the episode in Baron Maegar's court. Him and Corpse Shitter and reminiscing about their mercenary days...

The baron says we should go look into a dungeon. Says there might be monsters or loot (that's basically the adventure hook, it's just "lets go check this place out, something might be happening there")

Corpse Shitter really isn't in charge... and neither am I, the player. Maegar Varn decides where we travel to on the map, and when we rest. I have no control over this, it's effectively a cutscene. I like that detail. They could have still railroaded us to the dungeon by just fading to black. This is clever.

Baron Varn decides we should explore another dungeon on our way to our main objective. I'm still not in control of this.

Ok here we are. Let's see what's about.

It's goblins. I don't bother buffing yet. It's been a long day IRL I'm not taking this seriously. The Screen doesn't adequately show this, but this fight wakes me up. These goblins aren't pushovers like in the base game. This DLC isn't playing games.

The party hits level 6 after our first goblin fight. Okay so this is a harder, but faster paced game than the campaign. This is, for want of a better term, a one shot. So anything goes. I give Corpse Shitter this modded ability and everyone else gets boring stuff.

I sort out my buffs and abilities and rest to memorize spells. But I get attacked.

Twice. These fights are challenging for a level 6 party with no buffs. I mean that's what you expect from challenging difficulty, but the base game just isn't that hard if you have some idea what you're doing. This is. I already know this run is doomed. It's not if but when.

So we finally rest, then we buff up with everything we've got. We have a wizard, a cleric and a bard in the party. We're pretty buffed up.

We find a cave entrance and head inside. There's a group of goblins inside. One claims to be a baron. Everyone's a baron. Except Corpse Shitter.

I'm awake now. I throw everything I've got at them Goblins or not, If this DLC is killing my character it's going to be to something respectable.

We won. It wasn't hard. But it was a warning, I could tell. This was nonverbal communication from the devs to me, that this DLC is a lot harder than the base game. That's the purpose of this goblin fight. To wake you up before the real shit start.... and look I can't carry on making this episode. I'm too pissed off.

Let me just summarise what happened. Maegar took us to the next area, we talked to some minotaurs about some BS then they attacked us. It was a reasonably tough but winnable fight. The very next enemy was a primal manticore. That wasn't bad. Then... look I'm just going to post the screens. I knew how it would end so I made sure to capture every moment.

This seemed like the prudent choice that would lead to not fighting it. I'd already given up on RPing and just wanted to get as far as I could. This was only my third encounter in this area.

No you stupid motherfucker I mean we should walk away! Corpse Shitter tell him to walk away!

For fuck's sake

First round we don't even manage to hit his touch AC. Fully buffed. I start trying desperate shit. The thing about turn based mode is it gives you a lot of time to think about what you'll do next. Sometimes the only thing to think about is how fucked you are, how there's nothing to do except fight til the last and hope for a miracle.

Ouch. He's got an AOE shock attack that really smarts.

Also an aura of fear. So we needed to be casting remove fear every round. I had cast it before the fight (It's a walking around buff when I don't know what to expect, like delay poison communal) but I had some many buffs on I didn't notice it had been dispelled. Our wizard goes running. Thankfully he didn't run into that manticore.

For a while it seems like we're getting it together. We get a hit on him. Celestine Chastefanny smites evil and can hit him sometimes. The wizard stops running long enough to get off a magic missile. He's immune. K.

I never talked about their builds. I made celestine as a reach using intimidate paladin. She showed her worth in this fight.

Natural motherfuckin 20! Can we do this? Can we actually kill this unhittable dragon? Between smite evil and intimidate Celestine seems to be doing it herself! Paladins are fucking awesome. I need to play more paladins.

Look at his health in the turn order at the top. Clarissa Honeybust has true strike as a swift action somehow. We've got the bastard!

Nope. She doesn't do enough damage and he kills Maeagar Varn on his next turn. Game over.

Well that fucking sucks. At least Corpse Shitter and his harem had an epic death... well he's technically not dead. The baron died.

Celestine Chastefanny was a goddamn hero. She almost killed that dragon by herself. If Varn hadn't died she would have killed it. I'm going to make her as a mercenary for Duncan as a memento to this epic battle.

I did actually make a new mercenary that I was going to introduce in the next episode, but I'm going to respec her into Celestine (don't have the money to hire another). It's fitting, she is a mercenary. They all were.

Next time it's back to the main series. I freaking love Varnhold's Lot but no way am I good enough at this to ironman it on challenging on my first attempt. Every fight felt like a boss fight in the main story. It's fucking awesome. Can't wait to play it on my own time, after I'm done with this LP.

 

[baud]

well, at least your naming game was on point

 

[Kalarion]

No you stupid motherfucker I mean we should walk away! Corpse Shitter tell him to walk away!

I wish I could brofist so bad right now, I laughed so loud and long my wife started yelling at me :D

 

[Bloodeyes]

Last time...

Spoiler

Duncan confronted Tartucchio and Hargulka, the "troll king" and killed them. Both were too stupid to get that eating humans tends to make other humans pretty mad. Even as he was killing them they seemed outraged that he would attack them unprovoked. Their foolishness isn't Duncan's fault. Blame Lamashtu, mother of monsters, for birthing such idiotic creatures.

Season 4 Episode 1 - Duncan's day off

Spoiler

After slaying the Troll King and all his followers, Duncan and party made their way back to town. It had been a long, bloody journey and they were all beyond exhaustion by the time they arrived in Tuskdale. Tuskdale, capital of Arx Duncanis, their home. It was beginning to feel like home too. Duncan couldn't wait to lay down his weary bones in that comically giant bed of his.

But a baron's work is never done. He'd been gone a long time, and there were duties to attend to first. Fine. Meetings, then sleep.

First in line for Duncan's attention was a noble from Pitax. Duncan didn't like the look of the man, but he reminded himself to keep his temper. He needs to get better at that.

The fool starts the meeting by signing his own death warrant. Duncan is furious, he'd like to drag this smarmy fop outside and drown him in a well. But killing a noble guest to his court would harm his reputation with his neighbors. He warns him instead.

The bastard keeps goading him. He's pyre-fodder, he just doesn't know it yet.

Duncan sends the noble on his way. Be seeing you, Stefano Moskoni.

Next on the agenda is a peasant woman with a missing child. Duncan agrees to search for him. Personally. Duncan cares about his subjects. They are his highest responsibility. Despite what some may think of him, Duncan isn't evil. Not a bit. He does what duty demands, and what he thinks is right. He just doesn't take shit while he does it.

His clerics come by and warn him that the curse of the Bald Hilltop has not been dispelled. They estimate six months until another attack. Fine. So why did they need to tell him about it tonight? Duncan yawns. He's starting to drift off.

Next up is Bokken. He's brought a present for Duncan! A ring that improves alchemy... That would be like if Duncan gave the old man a tower shield, but fine. He accepts it and makes a mental note to give it to Jubilost. Then the old chap has a request for him, he wants Duncan to find him a collection of rare books. Duncan realizes Bokken may be an alembic short of a laboratory... who approaches a baron at court to ask him to go book shopping? Like an assistant....

Half out of pity (everyone gets old) and half out of amusement, Duncan agrees to find the books. He actually thinks he has two of them in his chest already. He usually sells books, he's not a reader. He'd just forgotten these until now.

Court over. Duncan assigns his advisors to take care of problems that have arisen in his absence. There's a few, but nothing his people can't handle. Wolves, a mermaid sinking ships on the river. That kind of thing. Then he drops a bit more of his personal funds into the bottomless pit that is his barony's finances, commissioning a few new buildings in Tradeguard.

And then, at last, sleep.

The next day, Duncan decides to head to town. He's only been back one night and he's already sick of court. He held back a little funds from his last adventure, and a bit of new gear for him and his men always lifts his spirits.

He decides to take a look at the magic shop, maybe get something for Linzi... he regrets it. The tiefling merchant assails him with a dizzying array of new metamagic rods (modded content) and he hasn't the patience to listen to what they all do. Too much choice... he backs away from the merchant in silence, buying nothing.

Instead he pops over to Hassuf, whose selection is a lot more comprehensible. A metamagic rod isn't a bad idea. Regongar could use one of those. Maximize huh? That sounds powerful.

After shopping, he pops in to see his girlfriend.

Her sister asks him if he'll send her tiefling friends out of town for a bit. They've been nosing around and risk discovering her secret pact with Nethys. Sure.

Stopping by the tavern he runs into a... rather comely young mercenary called Celestine. She's a cleric. He really needs a good cleric in his party so he decided to hire her.

Yes I realize this isn't Celestine Chastefanny like I promised it would be. I decided against crossovers and just renamed the mercenary I already made Celestine as a tribute to her. I didn't need another paladin and I did need a cleric of Erastil. It took almost all my GP to hire her so I wanted her to be useful. She's got buffs up the wazoo, a reach weapon, heavy armor and a pet smilodon.

Then Duncan remembered the nymph had wanted to show him her "verdant chambers." Why not? It's his day off. It's been a while since he travelled alone. It could be fun. He heads out to visit her, alone as requested...

But he's attacked on the journey!

It's just kobolds lol. The ones with magic missile can hit him, the rest cant. Nothing to worry about.

He camps after the battle and has the rations he brought for dinner, washed down with a few cure light wounds potions

The next morning he reaches his goal. They nymph's verdant chambers.

But it's a trap! The nymph lured him here alone to kill him!

Suddenly monsters appear from portals and Duncan must fight for his life!

The first beast, a hydra, falls easily.

As does the second beast, a manticore...

But then Duncan is set upon by three redcaps (fey, they look like lanky garden gnomes with scythes. I forgot to take a screen of this fight). They aren't so tough, but he can only hit them on a 14 or better, and they heal every round. So he can't damage them enough to kill them.

The fight drags on and on. They can't hit him, he can't kill them. Eventually Duncan sees the futility in this. They might take hours to kill him, only hitting on 20s, but eventually he'll run out of potions. So he runs for the walls And jumps to freedom!

... and he lands flat on his face. If you look closely at the center of this screen you can see him lying there. Not the most graceful escape but at least he's alive.

So Duncan has lived through his "holiday" and made it back to Tuskdale. He's got six months until the curse strikes again. That's six months for questing, building and exploring his barony. Time to train his advisors (thanks to that brilliant mod), conquer new lands and most importantly, find lots and lots of loot. Celestine was expensive. We're alive, but we're broke.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Last time...

Spoiler

Duncan had a day off and did a bit of shopping. He then went to pay a visit to the nyph from the prologue, at her request. The meeting was a trap and she tried to kill him, forcing him to flee for his life.

Episode 2 - When too many buffs are not enough

Spoiler

So I forgot I hadn't sold my collectables last time. Doing that netted a bit more gold to drop into the barony. Duncan spent it on finishing building tradeguard and researching the nature of curses. I kept some in reserve to buy resources.

The barony taken care of for now, the party head out to look for that missing child they learned about last time.

They decide to make a few stops on the way. First up the visit an old "friend". They buff up first.

This guy seems to pride himself on being lawful. Duncan doesn't care, he's a dangerous psychopath and he doesn't want him in his barony. Or anywhere on Golarion.

Jubilost gets a new hat.

While travelling they run into a fey creature being attacked by trollhounds. They kill the hounds and make a friend.

Then they find a Hodag lair. Amiri wants to kill it by herself and Duncan indulges her. She's stronger now, and more buffed so she does fine.

They're all getting pretty strong at this point. The addition of Celestine to the party really upped their power level.

Next up they decide to explore a monster den.

Wyverns aren't that tough. Kind of hard to hit, but not too bad. It's main thing is its poison, and the party has delay poison communal on at all times.

Regongar's a nice addition to the party now that he's levelled a bit. I don't think the Eldrich Scion is as strong as the Sword Saint, but magus is a strong class anyway.

They explore the swamp where the witch lives, the one the woman thinks is responsible for her missing child.

They kills lots of monsters there. Nothing can hit them. They feel quite over levelled for this area.

As they walk through the mist, they hear fey taunting them.

They come upon an undead. He isn't hostile, and asks for their help. A quest!

The dude's bride was stolen by the fey and something something he ended up cursed. Break the curse. Ok.

After a few more easy fights I decide to try the optional fights in this area. The party are handling everything so easily, I figure I can do it.

First up is four venomhodags. This one's kind of a test fight. Challenging normally, but winnable. I figure if we struggle with this I won't do the owlbear fight. We don't struggle. They die easily.

We've got a good system going. Duncan and mirror imaged Regongar out in front. Behind them enlarged Amiri and Celestine, attacking from behind cover. Behind them, Linzi and Jubilost. We walk around fully buffed, so all Linzi has to do in round 1 is sing as a move action and caste haste, then she's just attacking with her light crossbow for the rest of the fight. It's a solid system.

Next up we chat with some fey about a lesbian wedding and agree to kill a monster for them.

Then I decide to try the toughest fight in this area. We aced the venomhodags and I'm feeling invincible. We're fully buffed and ready to fight some owlbears.

We weren't high level enough. They can hit Duncan with ease. One owlbear can take more than half his health bar per round. The smilo doesn't last long.

We get one of them, but Duncan goes down. He has to stay down and hope he doesn't get attacked on the ground. The attack of opportunity would kill him for certain. Celestine is out of channel energy so we can't heal him enough to stand.

We get two of them down. This is going to be close.

We lose Amiri, but Reg still has mirror image. If he can stay up and killing, between him Celestine and Jubilost we can kill the last one.

He goes down. We have no front line. But we still have Jubilost and Celestine. We're probably fucked at this point. He deals good damage but not enough to kill it before it kills her, and she doesn't even have power attack yet. It doesn't matter anyway....

It doesn't go for her. It goes for Duncan on the ground and kills him. I didn't take a screen. I'm sorry about that. After all this I missed the end.

If we are fortunate,
we are given a warning.

Life is a fragile affair.
We are all dancing
on the edge of a precipice,
a dizzying cliff so high
we can't see the bottom.

One by one,
we lose those we love most
into the dark ravine.

In Memoriam

Thank you to the people who took the time to read this. I ended up really enjoying making it. I'm sorry about the abrupt end. This was always a possibility but we'd started to get so strong I had actually begun to think I'd beat the game. I probably could have, in theory.

But I think in reality I was always eventually going to get cocky and take on something too tough for my level. I just wish I'd got another chapter done before it happened. Oh well.

I really enjoyed the creative side of making this LP. Early on I found it pretty tedious, but I eventually got into a rhythm of taking a bunch of screens, then putting them together into a narrative as I posted it. It definitely got easier and I think the later episodes were improving in quality. Except this one because I was too bummed to RP, knowing the ending as I did.

Anyway thanks for joining me on my adventures. Sorry again about the crap ending.

 

[Kalarion]

I enjoyed it. I'll be waiting if you start another

 

[gurugeorge]

Enjoyed it too, it was well presented and fun to follow.

 

[baud]

I enjoyed following it too

 

[Bigg Boss]

This LP has let me know not to use IMGUR for my LP.

 

[Bloodeyes]

This LP has let me know not to use IMGUR for my LP.

Are the images not displaying? I can still see them.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I can too. I'm not sure why I said that since the post I recall saying that is not easily visible and it is late. Anyway you are good.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Epilogue: Duncan reborn, Corpse Shitter ascendant

So I've been playing the shit out of the roguelike DLC. I'm not gonna restart this LP, this is just a little snapshot of what I've been doing.

For the past few days I've been doing a last Azlanti (unaltered challenging diff) run of Beneath the Stolen Lands. What I've done is make a party of all my favorite barons, playing my favorite classes and built the best I can make them. Every character is a main character to me. Here is my party:

Spoiler

Lematte

Lematte has been my main more than any other character in the story. He's a chaotic neutral devotee of Calistria, a deviant and a lunatic. He's been an inquisitor, a magus, a cleric, a fighter and probably other things too. He's also always been a lot of fun to play as, mainly because of the excellent voice acting for the male "madman" voice.

This time he's a bard. With a pet dog because you can do that in the modded game. The dog lets him get the share spells feat. Mirror images for everyone! The dog has outflank and bonded mind. Everyone has outflank and bonded mind (blade tutor for the dog even, it works). He's been brilliantly powerful, and finding a +5 version of Calistria's favored weapon really made his character.

Here's his dog:

The dog has been steadfast and a good tank and damage dealer. The only time he's let us down was when prismatic spray polymorphed him into a dog and he couldn't attack... but he was a dog to begin with so wtf? Ironically, he's the only one to get turned into a dog so far.


Moric

Moric is a character that has worn a lot of faces in various games. He's not really a character, I just got that name from a list of Celtic baby names in the mid 2000s and have been using it in various RPGs ever since. When I don't know what to call a character and can't be fucked spending time on it "Yeah, he looks like a Moric." There have been a couple Morics in Kingmaker.

This one is an abyssal bloodline magus and a Tiefling of the same heritage. He's been impressively powerful, and his centipede familiar not only compensates for his dumped WIS but gives him access to the share spell feat (which gives the party some amazing buffs. Like blade tutor and locate weakness).

Linnorn

Another name I've used a couple of times. This time he's become a proper character so I won't reuse it unless I feel like playing Linnorn again. He's a grenadier and a competent archer as well. I only had to add one more feat (manyshot) to what he was already getting for his bombs to give him another string to his bow. It's great because he now deals almost as much damage with his bow as his bombs so he can help out when things are fascinated without waking everything up with splash damage.

I've banned myself from using alchemists in the story because they are OP, but they are warranted in this mode, particularly for the deeper levels. He's amazing and probably my top damage dealer.

Tobias

Tobias has been baron a few times, and always a cleric. He's been amazing in this run as a cleric of Gorum.

His feats (channel smite + guided hand) allow him to run his AB off his WIS rather than STR so STR is just damage. This means I have him with 24 base WIS at level 20 with no loss of AB! He fights enlarged with a greasword, dealing massive damage from the second line with either maximised fire storm or just by hitting things.

Oh yeah and he can rage and has the reckless stance rage power. That's thanks to his domain (rage subdomain) The cord of stubborn fury prevents any negative from doing that. He's effectively a Cleric 20 barbarian 10 and he's amazing at everything. Ray spells, DC spells and melee.

So that's who I started with. They steamrolled the dungeon until level 26 or 27 when all the enemies started being greater Autumn golems or wild hunts. They were level 17 at that stage and could stand to share their XP a bit and still keep up with difficulty progression so I hired a couple of dudes...

Duncan

The hero of my old LP (this thread!). In this life he's an Aasimar paladin and an absolute chad. He makes his saves. He tanks the hits. He hits back hard. When everything has complete immunity to magic and hits so hard AC doesn't matter he's who you rely on. When people go crazy around him to mind effecting fey, he stops kicking ass for a moment to lay on hands or channel healing. His utility and power in this mode are off the charts. They'd all be dead without him.

He can walk up to anything this game has to offer, shrug off whatever it throws at him and then make it swallow teeth.

Corpse Shitter

A similar function to Duncan, just more focused. No utility, no healing, just point and shoot. He has excellent saves when raging and between his rage powers and items he's immune to basically everything anyway. He tanks with CON and DR, not AC. Both of them do, because in the late game AC doesn't exist. Everything has too much AB for it to matter at all. Like Duncan he can kill anything, whether it bleeds or not. Golems don't bleed and he's killed scores of those (after a while the game is nothing but high level golems occasionally with a wild hunt level to break up the monotony).

There's not much else to say about Corpse shitter. He's a straightforward, steadfast damage dealer.

Their story

I hired these two in the high 20s dungeon level, at character level 17. I'd absolutely do that again. We couldn't have faced what we faced had I started with a 6 man party. Only active companions receive XP so the party would have been under levelled. Had I waited any longer they would have all died for certain.

Three out of four did die at level 16 to frost giants, but I had scrolls of raise dead so Tobias ran like hell, resurrected them, rested, rebuffed and returned for revenge. The 6 R's as I call them.

They went through some insane bullshit after that that definitely would have killed everyone with a 4 man party. I'm a competent player. Not highly skilled, but I know the game. Challenging difficulty is a downgrade from hard difficulty in the story, but this is ironman and after a while it really stops fucking around.

Duncan and Corpse Shitter have carried the party through prismatic spray, packs of wild hunts and golems, golems and more golems... and then the Captor. He had golems that spammed prismatic spray. Either him or the Captive hit us with icy prison communal. It didn't matter. Everyone except Linnorn saved. They didn't just kill him they kicked his ass. Duncan smote evil and turned the Captive to paste. It was easy.

I could have retired them then. Job done, time to start another run and kill the next boss. But I didn't. They were level 18 and I wanted them to hit 20. So I levelled them to 20. I got used to fighting the golems and wild hunts. It's pretty easy now with the rights buffs (all the buffs) and cautious tactics.

They're at dungeon level 36 or something. There's an achievement for getting to 50. I think I can do it. It's been nothing but golems for the last few levels and they are nothing to me now. So Duncan's story of triumph continues...

Edit: Here they are in battle. Dungeon level 38. Rather a lot of wild hunts don't you think? I don't think about clearing levels at this point. It's about clearing rooms. Every one is a battle like this. Wild hunt monarchs changed things. There are actually only four of them in this room. But these regular wild hunts like to pick targets and gang up on them and they have more arrows than we have mirror images. Last room they killed Corpse Shitter. It's a battle of inches now. 12 more levels is starting to seem impossible.

Spoiler