Alena, Halfling Priest of Lathander, Canon Party Run: The Planar Sphere, Part 4: Tolgerias- Little Fluffy Clouds
People say you learn something new every day. I must be slow because I learn something new every six to eight weeks.
That's on average. I have my good days. Today was one of them. Today I learned a lot of things.
First and foremost, I learned that George Clooney is Valygar's manservant.
Who knew? Not George Clooney, I'd wager.
I also learned that Death Gaze does acid damage now. Noted.
Finally, I learned the DavidW is trying to kill me. Not me personally, but maybe me personally? I don't know. Sometimes it feels like it. Sometimes David's v35 scripts do the exact right thing to foil my plans. My plans...Hmm, that's a new way of thinking about it. He's not trying to kill me, he's trying to kill my plans. That's fair. Some of my plans are discount day at the dollar store cheap. They deserve to die. I just hope they don't take Alena down with them.
Part of me thinks we should talk more about the whole George Clooney manservant thing, but I'm going to file that in the personal interest category and move onto the Tanar'ri. Don't thank me later. Thank me now.
We let our fire elementals handle the opening quasits and salamanders. With their fire resistance and immunity to weapons below +2, they had nothing to fear. I'd say the SCS fire elemental are OP, but really all fire elementals are OP. Few enemies rock +2s or higher in SoA. I haven't tried buffing these things, but I'm pretty sure they could win a lot of fights. Like a lot. Mencar and Co would be an interesting choice. Buff up your elemental, cast Remove Curse on Orcslicer, and enjoy the show.
Say what you will about Mr. Tanar'ri here but he's clued in- ear to the ground and all that. He wanted no part of the ToD. He penguin waddled right by her. Here we see Jaheira and Minsc belatedly moving into position to intercept. Minsc, with his MIs protecting him from Vampiric Touch, took the lead. Oh, and check out Alena tossing her Bolt of Glory. Bolt of Glory would be a nice spell if the casting time weren't six to eight weeks. Nalia is casting Malison here because most of her book is useless atm, thanks to the Tanar'ri's decision to ignore the ToD.
Dead demons are the best demons. Alena did take damage from the acid portion of the Tanar'ri's Death Gaze, but she healed it.
Onto Tolgerias. Since my earliest runs, I've always thought of the Lavok fight as the big hurdle in the Planar Sphere. Not so. It's really Tolgerias. Tolgerias is the tough one- especially with SCS installed.
Alas, Tolgeris's greatest weakness is his strength. He's such a colossal pain in the tuckus that I find myself justifying an insta-kill here. I wasn't super enthused with the idea of doing that this time, but I caved on practical grounds. According to the no reloader grapevine, high level SCS mages use Imprisonment now. We could avoid that by staying out of touch range, but Tolgerias has more than one L9. Time Stop->Imprisonment would be a major bummer- especially since we don't have Freedom scrolls yet. The man had to die and he had to die fast. It was time for a Harm->Victor assassination.
This should be Aerie's job. As soon as she gets an L6 it will be. For now, the task falls to the eminently more vulnerable Jaheira. I don't love that.
Since the Drasus encounter had seemingly been tweaked to thwart a potion of firebreath insta-kill, it occurred to me that this encounter may have been altered too. We took our buffs before sending Jaheira in, and we waited, with bated breath, as she approached. We know you've got this, Jaccy. What we don't know is whether you'll survive.
Jaheira lands her Harm. Tolgerias vanishes almost -almost- fast enough to evade Jaheira's follow up Victor strike. The Cowled One falls, but he's left a going away present.
Remove + Malison + Summon Effreeti x 2. Like I said: this should be Aerie's job. You better run, Jaccy. Run for your life.
With Jaheira's aura clouded, on account of the Victor activation, she's seriously in danger here. Were I to do this again I'd have Jaheira and Aerie work as a team. Jaheira, equipped with Harmony, would land her Harm. Aerie in ToD mode, including SI:A, would activate the Victor. Once the Remove effects resolved, Jaheira, with a clear aura in this scenario, could activate her RoAC. Unfortunately for Jaheira, she doesn't live in that reality, she lives in this one. What to do?
SCS has changed Death Fog so that it no longer kills all summons creatures. Instead it kills creatures L8 or below. I hadn't checked the CRE files, but it seemed, highly, highly likely to me that those efreetis were above L8. Nonetheless, Death Fogging them was worth a try. We want our Death Fog on the field anyways to nullify Tolgerias's helper mage. Jaheira, we hate to do this, but we're going to ask you to take one for the team. Stop breaking north. Keep those efreetis in range of Nalia's Death Fog. You can still activate your RoAC II at first opportunity.
Jaheira falls. NGL, I saw that coming. Chalk up another death to v35 adjustments. SCS has done a nice job of making this encounter tricky for solo characters, at least non-arcane ones. As for the rest of us, we still have work to do.
The efreetis survived the Death Fog. No surprise there. They're the most dangerous enemies on the field, but the mage is more vulnerable so we'll take her out first. I shared that expanded battle record in the last pic to highlight the mage's buffs. She went MGoI + MSD. You know what that means ToD: Spell Thrust her. Let's get a True Sight going, too. It'll remove the mage's MIs, and hedge against the risk of invisibilities from the efreetis.
Nalia finishes the helper mage with a Skull Trap. Alena makes progress on the efreetis with another Holy Smite. We're going to win this but those efreetis aren't going down without a fight.
A fight indeed. We could kill them with ease, if only they didn't have that infernal gaseous form. I'm not complaining. It's a nice touch. It should be there. It is a hassle, though.
I don't usually give enemies theme songs, but these efreetis deserve one.
After getting these thing down to Near Death repeatedly, only to see them turn gaseous, we tried stunning them with Nalia's darts, hoping it would put the kibosh on the transformation.
That worked for one, not the other. He flipped to cloud form, even though he was stunned.
You know what? Frack this. If stun won't stop them then we're out of here. Minsc summons Mr. Efreeti. Mr. Efreeti casts Invisibility on Minsc and Nalia, the remaining party members without Sanctuary. Were gone. You efreetis can work this out between yourselves.
About time!
it's been a long road but we're almost home.
Best,
A.
)