Ironman H/O paladin diary

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99: 5-5. It takes a while to lure Sauron into conflict. First engagement is melee, in a hallway. Hit him with a rod of slow, quaff speed, a few Orbs, and then hand-to-hand. He summons Carchorath,, and I send the beast into TO time out. What follows is a surprisingly boring cycle of whack once, heal once. I really don’t want to falll below the 800-point threshold, because that’s trouble. Then again, three out of four elemental immunities mean I don’t have to worry about the ranged attacks other than Suaron’s mana storms. Somewhere in the mess, poor, brave, dumb Azog charged to engage, and died horribly due to a blast of fire from a multihued dragon and a mana storm from Sauron. (shrug). Drops were bland; heck, an emperor wight at least dropped an artifact maul. I go back to where battle began and find a Quouldwenamethethings better, who vanishes me into the time—out corner where I find Carchorath. Oh, breathing fire. How quaint.

[Moving Pictures]

100: I land right next to a locker full of all sorts of devils and demons. I do not wish to engage, and move 20 steps east when … big guy. Speed potion, prayer, and one of two runes. Morgoth summons liches, and takes one round to smack through the rune. Instantly, something drains almost every stat I have and takes me to 514 points. I read a PS scroll, and get out of there. I do not like how this begins. I feel pressured to quaff one of four “life” potions, then drop an earthquake on Morgoth, in part to limit summoning spaces. Engage, get hit hard with mana storm, PD out, heal to full. This time, I hit M with two bolts of slow monster. He summons liches, and while I am beating on M, they suck stats – again. Down instantly to 445 hp. I PD out, “restore” spell to return stats to where they were, two heals. I figure I have more restore mana potions (39) than potions of life. (3). Check speed – still at 38. Morgoth re-engages. Hit him with an Orb, then orb fails twice. (Gaugh). Melee, now. He smacks me with Grond, which does meagre damage. I’m OK with that. I poke him a few times. He is now down three stars, I’m in decent health, albeit surrounded by various undead. Ponder options.
Another round of combat, and now the hp and stats are looking suckky. Not sure what creature is doing this – no, it’s Mortgoth. New trick, I guess. Suffer a moment of “yiike” when portal fails, but suffer only a bit of damage before next turn (and that, folks, is why 38 speed is good). Portal away, do the restore-stat/heal thing. He comes back, we re-engage (after a speed potion to keep moving). He hits me, down go stats again. CON drain caps hp ceiling. I PD out, full heal. Undead now, I drop two dispel evils, waiting for Morgoth to come in range. Somewhere in here, I make a blunder, and I will never know what it is: a Great Wrym of balance breathes shards and I’m dead.
Just like that, over.

[Pete Mack]

M has always had an attack that drains all stats. I wouldn't think it matters much for a Paladin with a large stack of ?PD and !rMana (assuming you did.)
And ? Banishment would have solved your little D problem there at the end... I always keep both kinds of scrolls. They are a lot more reliable than Banish Evil spell, which can suffer from the Tarrasque (etc), and from LOS issues from M's earthquakes (and that's assuming you find Wrath.)

[geoff_tewierik]

Bugger, that's a bit shit.

[wobbly]

I'm guessing you've had sustains in previous fights & just missed that he drains stats.

[Moving Pictures]

Originally Posted by wobbly

I'm guessing you've had sustains in previous fights & just missed that he drains stats.

That's a valid conclusion... makes planning a bit different for future such escapades.

[Moving Pictures]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

M has always had an attack that drains all stats. I wouldn't think it matters much for a Paladin with a large stack of ?PD and !rMana (assuming you did.)
And ? Banishment would have solved your little D problem there at the end... I always keep both kinds of scrolls. They are a lot more reliable than Banish Evil spell, which can suffer from the Tarrasque (etc), and from LOS issues from M's earthquakes (and that's assuming you find Wrath.)

Never found Wrath. Had PDs up the tailpipe, and 40 rMana, so no issues there. I was watching hit points like a hawk, but I think I must have just lapsed a round, which you can't do against the big guy. I had mass banishment, which I had used twice, and had two left. I had a few game plans, one of which included using Rune - I've done that successfully before, and had the rune hold for several rounds. But I only found two ?rune, so that didn't work.

The lesson here: build a defensible plan based on *what you have* somewhere around 80, and do not alter that unless something better comes along. That said, I did have a reasonable plan: with forty rMana in the tank, the wail-and-bail, as mindlessly boring as it might be, ought to have been successful.

The other factor: never found a solid up front heavy-damage weapon. I went in doing, IIRC, 350/rd. I could have had a trident in hand that did 450, but that would have sapped 6 speed and a hundred mana points, as a main WIS buff came from that scimitar. A MOD of Slay Demon was on the wish list, let's say - but nope. Maybe going for the 32 base speed was the wrong plan?

Thing is, I made so many goofs on this trip, I was probably lucky to get as far as I did. Putting on that big ring and leaving rPois vacant,... But I guess that's the challenge with an ironman, right? Jugglin options without being able to leave the juicy backup items back home for the "just in case." Had that been available, the gauntlets that gave rPois and +4 wis would never have been abandoned.

I struggled with inventory spots for much of the last 35 levels. Only late did I realize that Beginners wasn't being used. The thing is, I was using one spell from the other books, frequently (portal, heal, TO, Tself, restoration)

What's needed is a packmule option for ironman players. Or a pack mumak: they have more hit points.

[Derakon]

350 is adequate against Morgoth. It's not great, but the fight's absolutely doable especially with a class like paladin where you can just stand in melee indefinitely...so long as you can deal with Morgoth's stat drain and charges drain, anyway.

[Moving Pictures]

Had zero charged items, and the stat drain was easily solved with a "restoration" spell, so that was "meh."

[Pete Mack]

350 dam/turn is terrible for a Paladin. 450 is more usual, and not all that hard to get.