Chipping through the Ice

My recollection of the ice crevasses was that it was a boring section of the game, with long treks full of random encounters that can be avoided if one wants to trek a bit more in the crevasses. Turns out, I'd misremembered because the crevasses were actually a bit interesting.

The starting point is finding the Black Circle with some members of the Dread Legion. The legionnaires finally provide some challenge with their 157 HP, -7 AC, and some actual combat skills. I cannot really compare the legion wizards with the BC ones, since I never let them cast any spells that would show a significant difference. They have a few more HP, though, so maybe they are a bit more powerful, too.

Chasing the Phlan clerk and then following her isn't that much fun but I figured I'd get the teleporter there. Of course, that teleporter is somewhat out of the way and it would probably be more expedient to just head directly to the frost giant village. But at least it provides some XP and gems (the latter of which I don't really need; I currently have almost four thousand of them).

The frost giant village I didn't remember that well. I had thought it was pretty much enter, talk to the leader, fight Black Circle, get free access. But it took a long walk to get to the leader and there was combat and thrown ice blocks all through it. I figured it wouldn't be possible to rest so I saved up my spells and mostly hacked my way through the frost giant guards. I have never attacked the frost giant leader so I don't know what would have happened then. Still, the village was a positive surprise for me.

As were the crevasses after that. There's much less trekking between the battles and the random encounters aren't avoidable any more. The first time I got attacked by frost giants, my reaction was pretty much "Crap, they have dragons too!" And then right after got attacked by a few ancient dragons. Luckily, the white dragons have so few HP that killing them isn't hard and even if they manage to breathe, it's not that bad. Now, the couple red dragon fights, ...

And after the village I also encountered the dread guards. They seem somewhat less tough than the legionnaires, though. I'm not sure but I think the castle is just them and not legionnaires. The fights in the north-south direction where the crevasses turned were pretty interesting because the enemy was in two straight lines and fireballs couldn't hit very many without hitting my own party (once Vala went stupidly to hack at the distant enemies; I had to hit her with a few fireballs that I was using to take out the wizards). The battles are getting tougher: there have now been a few where I've lost a member of the party, usually the one who gets to be in the point, with five enemies around her or him.

Having delayed blast fireball is nice because of its zero casting time: it's possible to take out enemy wizards for certain when Daenerys or Ardhiel get a turn instead of hoping that they don't manage to do enough during the regular fireball casting time. And of course, the extra point of damage per die is useful too; the only problem is that there is only one of them per magic user in this game. I have a few of them on scrolls but I tried casting a fireball from a scroll and it didn't do even as much damage as a fireball from a wand, so I doubt I'll be using the scrolls.

It looks like there's a bug in this game. Andreas is now a 14th level paladin but still getting only three attacks per two rounds instead of the two per round that he's supposed to. It might be that his low fighter level is interfering and the game isn't seeing his paladin level. I don't remember this being a problem before, but I'm not absolutely sure I've done a fighter dual-classing into another fighter-type class.

But anyway, clearing out the castle gates wasn't very tough because I'd been saving fireballs and stuff, so now it's on to the final leg of the game:

Up the Stairs We Go

Time to head back up, from the lowest level of the mines through the dungeon into the ice crevasses. The dungeon is at least somewhat interesting but I was a bit disappointed at how few battles there turned out to be. And it looked like it was possible to rest pretty much anywhere, so even discounting the teleports that happen to be there, it's not too much of a challenge.

As has become my habit, I didn't bother to answer the riddles but instead just fought against the iron golems. To be honest, I'm not sure which is the better strategy XP-wise because I think you get XP for answering the riddles correctly too, and I haven't yet bothered to measure the amounts.

The new monsters, hydras, iron golems, and purple worms, that start appearing in the dungeon are at least some upgrade to monster difficulty. Mostly, though, a couple of fireballs followed by hack-and-slash finishes up combats well enough. Except, of course, against iron golems where I usually blasted as many of them as I could with wands of lightning to slow them down and then hacked.

So now I'm at the crevasses, of which I have bothered to draw only an approximate map showing the road forks and battles because mostly it's just long corridors without the chance to turn anywhere. There doesn't seem to be anything very interesting there before the frost giant village.

Mining Expedition

Time to head underground:
Actually, there's not much to say about the mine. The battles are few and far between. I have sufficient maps of all the levels that I can head directly to the pieces of the staff of Oswulf, or any other treasure I care to pick up. And the fights that happen are not very challenging; I usually went through several levels before heading back to the temple for a rest.

At one point the game said that the party's thief noticed a trap in the floor. All well and good, except I don't have a thief in my party, since Ardhiel's dual class hasn't yet activated... On the same level, there might have been an actual use for a thief because there were trapped treasure chests where a failed disarm triggered an explosion that destroyed all the contents. On the other hand, I managed to disarm one of the traps with a non-thief. Then, that was the treasure that contained that level's staff piece so maybe the disarm couldn't fail.

The only mildly interesting part is the bottom level, with its entrance to the dungeon. Heading towards the dungeon, there are all the medusas and basilisks to kill. Well, I just peppered them with fireballs from afar and was not in any danger at any point, not even in the final battle at the dungeon entrance where there are more of them and they start closer. So the mine is now done and it's time to head upwards:
The dungeon, as I recall, is at least a bit more interesting. But after that, there are the crevasses...

Slaying Dragons... and Wizards

Blades is now well on its way. Compared to the other games in this series, the plot is just railroading from start to finish. In the other games, it was at least possible to pick the order in which to complete the intermediate tasks, and in Curse and Pools there are also side tasks that are not necessary for completing the game. Here, on the other hand, there's a pretty strict sequence of events, and there aren't really any true side quests.

I began by cleaning the Well of Knowledge area (well, actually, I began by traipsing around the ruins to get XP for Ardhiel, but the Well was the first quest item I did). That's a good place to start because the Well is the main railroad track in this game. Also, it gives a safe place to rest: I don't know what's wrong with the game now but I was never able to rest at the mayor's place without at least on Fire Knife attack.

The Well area isn't very hard to clean but it's somewhat interesting. In the Banite-Black Circle fight I fought both groups but separately. The hatchling and adult dragons I did in a single run but one of the adults got a breath attack in so I needed to go recuperate before tackling the ancient one. (Well, I would have done that anyway; fighting an ancient dragon with a combat-weakened party isn't my idea of fun if there's a rest opportunity.) I came in from the north, the dragon was nicely next to a wall so I bounced lightning bolts off the walls, had Gabrielle pull a flame strike and the fighters hack it to pieces. It got in one breath attack but I don't even remember who was hit (they made their saving throw).

After that I've just been following the Well's instructions. So, first I went to kill the other ancient red dragon. (On my first time, I tried the hatchling fight at the Well and got creamed, so then I thought I'd see if the map in the journal was accurate; it was, and I began the game by killing that dragon instead.) Same tactics, except this time Gabrielle didn't make her save against the breath attack. I was very disappointed that the temple in Verdigris doesn't have resurrection, only raise dead, but losing the constitution point isn't a disaster so I let it be. Then I killed the adult dragon up north in the ruins.

The Black Circle headquarters was at least some work to clean. I began with the commander's room so that I got access to the Well teleport, cleaned out the readily-accessible part, and went into the secret area. I didn't really take much care in the secret area and needed to come back once to rest. Otherwise it was just mostly fireballing our way through the fights: with three magic users it's pretty certain that every enemy magic user gets killed on the first round, unless they manage to escape the area of effect before all the fireballs hit. According to my maps, the next step seems to be the mines, but I haven't yet gone to the Well to verify that.

And after the BC headquarters is cleaned, they start sending their groups to attack Verdigris. The fire giant groups I like because each fire giant has 2000 platinum, which translates into A) XP and B) gems traded from the vault. I now have about 400 gems, so I don't think there will be a problem getting the Well to speak anymore.

The game itself is beginning to devolve into pure hack-and-slash. Apart from spreading the party out against the dragons and bouncing the lightning bolts I haven't needed anything that could be called tactics. And as I recall, that's pretty much par for the course throughout the game. I think it's because the party is getting to be high enough level that they can do hack-and-slash and the fight difficulty hasn't been increased accordingly. In previous games, the party was so weak that positioning the members and using spells effectively was much more important, and in Pools the combat difficulty gets turned up into eleven. But this one falls in between and kind of fails to be interesting. Also, the teleports back to the Well area are so frequent and available that there's little need to plan any part beforehand to save up on spells and HP.

One thing I didn't actively realize about Ardhiel dual-classing into a magic user: he's advancing in levels very fast and learning one new spell per level but there aren't that many scrolls around and the ones that are there mostly have high-level spells, so Ardhiel's spell selection is kind of poor. He has the basic combat stuff but when the going gets tougher, it's better to know some protective spells too. I'm also not sure anymore about the idea of having Eugene dual-class; my fighter power isn't that great with Janna's low HP. I'll need to think about it some more.

Why Should We Help?

Time to get started on the next game. Having removed all the characters from the party when they were still under the spell effects from Curse's final fight, their strengths are pretty ridiculous. The gauntlets of ogre power that the citizens of Verdigris provide went to Daenerys because she was the only one with strength less than 20. Other ability scores are also affected by the ioun stones and whatever. But the correct scores are stored in the characters files, and as I recall, going through a pool of darkness will return them back to the originals. That's in the next game, though. I don't really have the inclination to go and edit the character files again; if a bug in the game is to my advantage, I'll let it be.

As partial compensation for all the extra damage the party can inflict, I've set the difficulty level to Champion, now that there is such a setting. Well, I would have done that anyway, since I've found that provides an appropriate challenge; I've never played on a level lower than Adept (except for the final fight in Pools, which I really needed to make easier...). I don't think the difficulty level affects anything other than monster hit points: they go in proportions 2:3:4:5:6. With all the dragons flying around, the differences can really be a matter of life and death.

Blades also seems to be the first game where the party is not out for themselves. In Pool, the council was paying for all the missions, and in Curse, the sigils are a curse to get rid of. But here, I don't think any reward was mentioned and the townies are certainly not giving any for helping them. They give some stuff in the beginning (but very little, considering that it's their fault all the old stuff went missing) and provide free training and healing, but that seems to be it.

Ardhiel also dual-classed to a magic user. He was a 12th level thief so it's going to take quite a while before he gets to use those abilities. No matter really, a thief isn't that useful anymore in the game. (I hope there aren't any spots where a thief is necessary that I just don't remember because I've always had a thief with me...) Otherwise the party composition remains the same. I'll need to see how the party is arranged in combat to see what is the proper ordering. I'll want to keep Janna off the point position because of her low HP, and think carefully whether Ardhiel or Daenerys should be the most protected; Daenerys because of her lower HP or Ardhiel because Daenerys needs space to move to more advantageous places for casting spells. Well, I don't usually spend inordinate amounts of time worrying about those kinds of things.

The interface is slightly more annoying than in Curse. In Curse, the movement keys were always available and the menu was key-controlled. Selecting the active character was done with keys other than the cursor keys. Here, these two are separated and it's always necessary to select Move to move around and exit from that when you want to do something else. The same in combat, in Curse just pressing a direction key started moving without the need to select Move explicitly, but not here. And the biggest annoyance that I found out in one of my first combats: manual targeting does not allow centering. Targeting those fireballs and ice storms just became a bit more difficult.

Die Already!

There are two ways into Tyranthraxus's temple. Previously I've come in through the grate in the ruins, which leads to some back chamber of the temple. There's some loot and some fighting there, but this time I went in straight through the front door so I don't remember what all there is. Tyranthraxus of course starts gloating right away:

One thing I didn't remember from before: the sigils don't let the party rest at all in Tyranthraxus's temple. I figured it might be possible, so I got a bit too happy with the fireballs in the random encounters. And there were a lot of those: in the large hall after the entrance room I was fighting on almost every step. Luckily they were mostly just hack-and-slash with no spell-casters or just one.

Preparing for the final battle, I was lucky to have enough healing potions to get everyone up to full HP. (Well, actually, I had way more than I needed.) I cast every preparatory spell I had, which is getting to be quite a lot already at these levels. Pro tip: remember to save the globes of invulnerability to the end so that the magic-users get the benefits from all the other spells (not too hard to guess why I'm giving this tip...).

My tactic in the battle was to get off fireballs from Daenerys and Janna to damage the high priests and to clean out the margoyles. Then Andreas and Eugene run through the formed gaps straight to Tyranthraxus and start hacking him to pieces. If they get their turn before the fireballs, haste on them gives enough movement so that they can circle around the enemy formation into position. Resist fire on both allows further fireballs to keep the priests damaged. Tyranthraxus dies in a round or two from the hasted, enlarged fighters; especially Andreas with 24 STR and a two-handed sword +2 does a lot of damage to a large-sized enemy. After Tyranthraxus is dispatched, Andreas and Eugene can focus on the remaining high priests; after the fireball bath they've had, one or two hits usually gets them. Daenerys and Janna provide any necessary cover fire, and Ardhiel and Gabrielle focus on hacking the high priests on their side that are out of reach for the fireballs.

The plan didn't go entirely without a hitch. Daenerys got off the initial fireball, which left nice gaps into the margoyle ranks, but I made the mistake of not getting her to proper safety. When Tyranthraxus threw a lightning at her, it then bounced back from the wall behind her. One failed saving throw, one dead magic-user. Also, Janna got hit by the bounce before she could get off her fireball on the first round. Still, the rest of the plan worked as above. Eugene went a bit low on HP since I used him to hunt down the high priests, so he got some margoyle hits when disengaging.

Now in the final sequence there is nothing surprising. Tyranthraxus admits his defeat and dies as he should:

The final bond fades:

And as usual, after the party has on their own defeated the Big Bad, the cavalry arrives and the game ends. I think I'll take a few days off before getting started with Blades.

Once More unto the Breach

Time to head back to the Standing Stone to meet the hooded figure who has been advising me. Surprise, surprise, it's Tyranthraxus:

Myth Drannor isn't at all a boring area to explore. What I like about it is that most random encounters are avoidable, the thri-kreen by saying Tyranthraxus is your master, the rakshasa patrols by adopting a haughty tone. This latter I discovered by accident; I had begun by being nice, and the patrols took some money but didn't fight. Then once I pressed Return when the cursor was still on haughty and they left me alone completely. So yay!

The fights at the graveyard area are pretty trivial and I didn't bother to go through all of them. I'm not sure of all the places where it's possible to rest; one sure place is the elf queen's ghost's tower, so I always went there.

The ruins were much more fun, with all the rakshasa fights, especially the one with multiple rakshasas. There I just disengaged Eugene who had the crossbow and blessed bolts and started picking them off one by one. The party got hit with a few lightning bolts but nothing serious. Also, it's very worthwhile to pick up the treasure at the northeast corner; there's a girdle of giant strength there.