Having sent off Alianna and Milkbottom, is was up to the party to find new recruits to fill their ranks, so they made their way to Neverwinter Square, the bustling center of activity in the city. Augustar, the wizard, felt it would be wise to add some magical firepower to the group. Scanning the crowd, he noticed a lot of would be heroes and ne'er do wells milling about, but no one struck him as talented in the arts of wizardry. All except one that is, a young woman with a black robe and inky-black hair. She sat near a fountain, studying a large tome. Augustar approached, she looked up, "I judge by your study of cantrips that you are new to the art, perhaps I can show you a few things," he said. "I am, but that does not mean I need your help, sir," was her response. Augustar quickly replied, "I meant none-such thing, only that you might enjoy a companion to study with. I travel with a group of adventurers to hone my skills, and we are recruiting new members."
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| A grove of ancient trees in Neverwinter Square, most older than the city itself. (Some imagination required.) |
After talking a bit more, and some demonstration of Augustar's mastery of illusory cantrips, the woman admitted that she was hoping to sign on with an adventuring company. She introduced herself as Autumn. When the pair returned to the group, they saw a heavily armored yet swift dwarf demonstrating his fencing skills, impressing the other party members, who applauded as he finished with a flourish of his long sword. "This is Dirk Flamestrike," Kylie introduced him,"He is quite the warrior as you can see, and also has some skill as a... scout you say?" Dirk answered,"Yes, a scout. I was trained well by my clansmen in survival and stealth." Augustar then introduced Autumn, all members nodded approvingly, and the new companions headed out for adventure.
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| The new companions in battle with a cloud giant. My wizards are crack shots when it comes to helpless foes. Bam! In your face giant! |
I had decided to go with a single-class thief for two reasons this play through: so I didn't have to split up the experience between two classes, and also to use a halfling for the first time. However, my switch back to my usual F/Th dwarf has proven immediately to be an upgrade. He not only has higher strength, but I found he can backstab with heavy armor and a shield! Backstabbing in armor is one of those rules that has been inconsistently implemented in the gold box games, but I prefer this way, I think these games are difficult enough. I'm a little worried about only having one cleric now, as if my cleric is debilitated by stone, poison or the like, it now means a guaranteed trip to a temple. My triple class C/F/M-U was just advancing way to slow to keep around, though.
Since my last post, I've managed to play quite a bit, and must admit I'm feeling a lot better about the game, as I've found a good "groove". I was having a rough time in Windy Cliffs, but after I started to fully explore the map I found I could defeat more and more encounters, and started finding decent treasure caches which helped a lot with funds and XP. As most people reading are probably familiar with, the AD&D game is heavily weighted toward finding treasure to get the XP needed to advance your characters. Advancement had so far been very slow in NWN, but like I said, started to pick up as I explored the many secret doors of Windy Cliffs.
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| I was so excited about finding my first gem, finally, that I screen capped it! |
Even though the areas didn't make too much sense, it was rewarding to uncover them. For example, there were a number of secret doors that had trees on one side and a door on the other. I guess you have to imagine they are doors that are concealed by undergrowth on the tree side? To top off my exploration, I actually won some of the battles! I looked doomed when I explored an area in the SW again at night, running into a troll, 2 ogres, and a... purple worm! However, I lucked out with stinking clouds, and was able to win. Unfortunately Ahriman my paladin was poisoned, this time by the purple worm's stinger. I hate to have to depend on making strong creatures "helpless" with stinking clouds to defeat them, but this has been an unfortunate staple of the Gold Box games. The battles are, thankfully, still rewarding though.
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| Luck is on our side! (Although Ahriman, the poisoned body, might disagree.) |
Despite my earlier complaints, by going into the battle with a full complement of spells, I was able to defeat the minotaurs and snakes relatively handily. The minotaurs each carried a magical battle axe +1, which helped my funds out very much. I was worried I might be getting cocky as I decided to take on the greenhag and her owlbears again, but handily defeated them as well! I was starting to get the hang of this. Following the defeat of the greenhag (who was resistant to the stinking clouds, she went down thanks to backtabs) I ran into this...
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| Oh cool, carrion crawlers are always a good fight, just have to hope I don't get paralyzed. |
Only to lead to a battle that looked like this...
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| Oh shit... Sure the crawler is in front, but it was bit of a misnomer having that be the pre-combat pic, right? Obviously three basilisks is about ten times the threat. |
Which, not surprisingly, led to this...
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| Three party members being stoned. I took this pick to show that you can stand in the spaces of the statues, I wasn't sure about that. |
I tried to hoof it back to Neverwinter even with three of my members turned to stone. (I guess we rigged a cart or something to haul them?) However, two encounters involving an umber hulk and a cloud giant took care of that. So, I reloaded, got mirrors, and the basilisks went down easily now that I was reflecting their gazes. I learned a valuable lesson; to pick up mirrors as soon as possible. Even though mirrors are usually available at the start of every GB game, I usually wait until I need them until I buy them. I now realize the error of this, as I would have saved myself a half-hour or more if I just got those mirrors ahead of time.
The party gathered around their table at the Inn at Windy Cliffs as the sun rose, it's rays peeking though the glass. They studied a parchment laid out on table, marked as "Windy Cliffs." "Well," Kylie said, "We've pretty much covered this ground, so where to next?" Will the party continue on to Luskan, the rumoured source of Windy Cliff's troubles, or set out elsewhere? To find out, return soon... to This Bard's Tales!
Play Time to Post: 6h 45m
Total Play Time: 21h 10m
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