Ironman Insane challenge

[Waterd103]

In RPG codex there was a challenge and I beated it in the 3rd run without previous knowledge in the game, and I think it was kind of easy (Ironman with MAx hp chars and one 18 stat for each char, only 1 campfire use).
So I decided that raise the bet and make an harder challenge.

-Ironman mode
-1 use per campfire (Write down in a notepad or somewhere every time you use a campfire as to not reuse it later)
-No crafting/Forge/Scribing scrolls (Which means no share spells)
-Can Only use NPC clerics to remove permanent effects.
-Zero Resets in Character creation.
-Default Gameplay based settings (except wandering monster and respawn monsters disabled)
-Not allowed to buy more the one scroll of the 1k scroll stacks of clerics. (if I do buy one from one stack I have to buy one from each 1k stack that cleric has as to make it easy to keep track)

*Gameplay based settings are the last 6 options in the setting menu, it should look like:
NO/NO/0/YES/YES/NO

Here is the resume of my 8th failed attempts on this ironman challenge.

1.My party died fast! I did 2 clerics and 2 wizards (I think the best team is 3 clerics and 1 wizard though), and its was so harsh because Wizards are SO BAD before they even get to level 5. I lost against the lizards in corinth. I think 3 clerics and 1 wizard is SLIGHTLY worse late, and a lot better early, making a better choice, But I think 2 wizards may be more fun. I will try again with 2 wizards and if it fails I will do a final run with 3 clerics.

2. My second party of 2 clerics and 2 wizard failed in a bad way. Little did i know that if your char was dominated, and you take him down, it dies, no matter what. Or that is what apprently happend.
Little did I know in my trave to venice to revive him that the monsters you find in the path are WAY beyond your possible level, and just break you. And thus I lost again.

3. My third party, now 3 clerics and 1 wizard, did fall even FASTER. I got terrible stats on the 5 chars and already demoralized fought the first 4 elementals. Before i could even move I was down my wizard and one cleric. Honestly I could have
try to fightback healing the fallen soldiers, but instead decided to fight it like a man, and lost.

4. My 4th party, Again 2 wizard/2 clerics(I dont know why I keep with it ) failed in the cave, I pushed too hard, and, when I wanted to comeback, spiders where blocking the exit, I didnt have resources to finish the fight This is hard!

5. My 5th party, Again 2 wizard/2 clerics (yeah, again), lost against the first 4 elementals. This time i tried, but despite improved initiative on both wizards, elementals moved first and took them down, the clerics tried to revie one but the -3 just got to 0, not enough. Both clerics ended losing against both elementals without even taking one down! Sad. It seems without a Knight, this fight is hard. I thikn I will add a Knight to my party just becaus losing another run against the elementals would be sad.

6. My 6th party a 3 Cleric/1 wizard team with weak stats gets a Technical fail when the leader of the Orc assault do to a critical to my cleric of 33 DAMAGE!. Sending him from full 18 hp to his death in one stroke. That was a lame end.

7.The team, of 1 knight 2 clerics and 1 wizard, got to the queen of spiders with only using corinth and keep campfire, And the lose was because I spent my last 2nd level cleric spell on a restoration thinking that it would remove the paralysis from the wizard. (it seems if your wizard gets paralyzed because 0 STR, restoring the STR do not remove the paralysis, you also seem to need a remove paralysis spell). IT didnt, and it proved fatal, since my whole plan on that fight was my wizard to missile down the Queen.

8. My 8th team Is a a party of 1Knight, 2 Clerics, 1 wizard. I lost in the most stupid way in the dragon of the passage. I forgot I need remove blind. So I got all blinded and couldnt fight against the dragon. That was the end.

I think Its definitely possible to do this challenge, but one need absolute knowledge of everything in the game, which i dont have such good memory, Like there were fireplaces I didnt account for, because I didnt knew there were there, and I played very different based on that. Its important to remember exactly which are the fights that are ahead so one can distribute the spells perfectly.
I would say I got a lot of fun doing this attempts, but im starting to get less fun as I think my chances of succeeding are more related to memorizing whats ahead and planning accordingly.
In any case this is not a challenge suited for First time runners.

I would like to design a First time challenge run (for people that play the game for first time) So I can recommend the game to my friends. Any suggestions? My first time experience was kind of lame because Scribe scrolls is Brutally good and made most of the fights in the game kind of not fun.

I also Plan to do another attempt of this challenge in the future. Maybe modify some rules related to Respawn and world map creatures (which actually , tend to play in the favor of the player since most encounters are worth more exp than the resources you need to spend to beat it (wich in most cases is nothing at all).

If you completed the game and enjoyed KOTC and want to rerun it, I strongly suggesting trying to do this challenge, at least its has been a lot of fun for me trying to do it, and will keep trying.

[Tiavals]

I think the most interesting challenge would be 4 knights, but no other limits as such. Not having a cleric or a wizard makes the game a lot more harder, since you cannot heal after or during battles, or use the powerful spells available to the wizard, like Dominate Monster and such.

Might even want to use full hp on level up, and 6 stats at 18.

[Waterd103]

I find it very uninteresting for a couple of reason:
a) knights is the class with the less options, so I wouldnt have much tactical options to use.
b) The challenge is in part with the intention of removing of What i consider the most boring part of the game, any fight that is not challenging with full resources. With infinite fireplaces, 4 knights or whatever.just will have to mind about big fights, small fights being an annoyance at most.
c) Knights are pretty limited in KOTC. They can't use magic from scrolls or wands, there is no potion magical or not. Most of the challenging things about playing 4 knights would more like "just rolling right".
Some fights will be just "impossible" (of course possible in the sense that rolling right is always enough to win). The final fights come to mind. And there arent tools or space to actually solve the problem, more like, it can or cant be done. Maybe is entertaining to see if 4 18 in all stats knights can have a reasonable chance of going through the game. But I dont think there isnt really much interesting input from the player other than just attacking things.

[Waterd103]

9)Yesterday I did another attempt that failed in a weird way. I fighted against the lizard on Corintiah and the cleric started to summon elementals non stop. Used to win that fight without much problems in general, didnt want to use spells and by the time I realized I was going to lose it was too late to use the artillery. I Will try again today with version 1.28 and Also will keep editing this post to add further logs of my attempts to beat this challenge. If someone want to try this challenge, plz make a post and log your attempts!

10) Im currently in my 10th run with 2K 1C 1W and I notice the new cleric that appears in 1.28 have 1k scrolls of each healing spell. Making the whole challenge obsolete, so maybe i should revise the rules of the challenge before continuing.

10b) Ok I canceled the 10th run so this is run 10th b and WIll try with new rules, I cant buy minor and moderate cure spells from the 1.28 cleric.

[Waterd103]

10b) Death on spider queen
11) Death on water elementals.
12) This was a great run but then I noticed that 2 other clerics have 1k scrolls. So I had to change the rules midrun to not be allowed to buy scrolls in wich the trader has 1k scrolls. Death against The frozen giant king. But I feel this penalty may be too harsh, since it means the cleric on torbury doesn't have any scrolls to sell me. I will have to think how I will make the rules for my 13th run.
I'm considering:
a) Keep it as "I can't buy scrolls the trader have 1k off"
b) Return to the old "only 1 trade per seller per game"
c) Put some restriction on what can I loot/sell so money is an issue so getting 30 true resurrection scrolls isn't the free pass to finish the game.

[Waterd103]

Ok I will start the challenge from scrap with the current rules.

Ironman run
Char creation: No Reroll but allowed to cancel to go back and change other things.
1 use per campfire
No crafting Whatsoever, (So no share spells)
Default Gameplay based settings (except , no world encounters or monster respawn.)
NPC clerics healing can only be used on Chars with death or Petrification
Can only buy 1 scroll of each infinite stack NPC clerics have (if 1 of those scrolls is bought, we have to buy 1 scroll of each infinite statck of that NPC cleric)

And will see how it goes.

13) I got the best rolls ever:
Knight Mul: 19/15/17/10/12/11 Two weapon fighting/Longsword
Knight Mul: 16/12/16/12/13/13 Cleave/Greatsword
Cleric Mul: 17/12/14/11/18/14 Initiative
Wizard Half-elf:09/17/13/20/15/14 Enchantment

I thought with such great melee power level 1 Going right too The water elementals would be great as it would be easy. I only take 1 elemental as they proceed to dodge and critical everthing and that was my 13th run. I noticed that too many runsfailed at the first fight, I think the first fight before you get to level 2 are among the hardest fights in the whole game! (with this time 4 times my run ended on the elementals and once against the orc attack, maybe i should do the orc attack first)
I should start to think what's better to attack first, if the elemental or the orcs. I guess I will start to attack the orcs first as it seems half the time I go to water elementals first, I die.

14) Scratch that, Now I got even better rolls, I almost feel bad because I feel If I finally do a complete run is because of the rolls:
Knight Mul: 19/14/18/12/13/16 Cleave/Greatsword
Cleric Mul: 20/13/15/08/16/10 Cleave
Cleric Mul: 20/13/17/11/15/09 Cleave
Wizard Half-elf:08/18/09/15/12/11 Enchantment

Im about to fight the spider queen but i generally go to do some orc stockade fights to be level 5, but the witch refuse to show me the secret passage she just cries that is too late, what's going on?
I'm in the giant fortress now. And I think I will suspend the run and start a new run, this is dumb. Clearly a team of 3 19+ STR and 15+con just walk over the game. I really wish the game had a point system or uses what's planned for KOTC2

15) So I canceled the 14th run. So I redid a little the rules for my 15th rune which I will start today.
Ironman run
Char creation: No Reroll but allowed to cancel to go back and change other things. Chars should be rerolled if they have 73 points or less before the last reroll or 85+ after the final reroll.
1 use per campfire
No crafting Whatsoever, (So no share spells)
Default Gameplay based settings (except , no world encounters or monster respawn.)
NPC clerics healing can only be used on Chars with Permanent negative effects.
Can only buy 1 scroll of each infinite stack NPC clerics have (if 1 of those scrolls is bought, we have to buy 1 scroll of each infinite statck of that NPC cleric) from the following spells:
Cure light wounds, Cure moderate wounds, Cure Serious wounds.
Can't sell non-gem items whose cost is less than 1k.

[BlueSalamander]

the witch refuse to show me the secret passage she just cries that is too late, what's going on?

I think the reason is that you have to talk to the trader first, and then she will talk about the secret passage.

[Waterd103]

ok btw in the news im mad....My ironman run....................CRASHED. Im..........sad. I dont know if i will do it again after this. I was in casting spell mid combat, i choose control person....and it crashes.
It was in the frozen giant fortress. No words.

[Waterd103]

After all I couldn't help it and did ah 16th run:
I finally did it. I did complete the main quest and the final battle.

Here is the log of my game in case you wonder:
After it there is a long review of my runs comments etc, this is gonna be a long post if you dont like long post dont read it!.

Rules:
Ironman run
Char creation: No Reroll but allowed to cancel to go back and change other things. Chars should be rerolled if they have 73 points or less before the last reroll or 85+ after
the final reroll.
1 use per campfire
No crafting Whatsoever, (So no share spells)
Default Gameplay based settings (except , no world encounters or monster respawn.)
NPC clerics healing can only be used on Chars with Permanent negative effects.
Can only buy 1 scroll of each infinite stack NPC clerics have (if 1 of those scrolls is bought, we have to buy 1 scroll of each infinite statck of that NPC cleric) from the following spells:
Cure light wounds, Cure moderate wounds, Cure Serious wounds.
Can't sell non-gem items whose cost is less than 1k.

Knight Mul: 19/12/15/09/11/11 (77) - Cleave/Greatsword/I.Initiative/L.Reflexes/C.reflexes/G.Clave/GF.Greatsword/IC.Greatsword/Blindfight/GS.Greatsword/Iron Will/Quick draw/W.F
Longbow/GWFlongbow/Pointblankshot
Cleric Mul: 16/11/12/12/18/14 (83) - Cleave/S.Concentration/I.initiative/MP.Longsword/WF.Longsword/MM.Still/Quickdraw
Cleric Mul: 14/12/18/09/14/10 (77) - Conjuration/A.Summoning/S.Concentration/MM.Still/I.Initiative/Quickdraw/Iron will
Wizard HE : 11/20/13/18/11/10 (83) - Enchantment/S.concentration/I.Initiative/Dodge/S.Penetration/GSF.Enchantment/MM.Still/G.penetration/MM.Empower/Ironwill/Great fortitude

Rests:
Keep-Level 3 Before Big lizard fight in Corinth
Bought 1 light cure and 1 moderate scroll from Keep NPC cleric.
Cave-Level 4 After killing skeletons and spiders from cave.
Corinth-Level 5- After killing some of the orc stockade.
Tri-kreen cave-Level 6-After doing the catacomb.
1st slaver room-Level 7
Upper orc stackade-Level 9, after clearing most of the orc stockade.
Lower orc stockade-Level 10, After clearing the whole orc stockade.
Mountain Pass-Level 10 after clearing the pass.
Underground-Level 11
Slavyer city-Level 12-After clearing most of it
Dwarf city-level 13 After clearing some of the giant fortress.
Bottom of giant fortress-Level 14 After clearing the whole giant fortress
1st flor ice giant fortress-Level 15 after clearing all 1st level
2nd flor ice giant fortress-Level 16 before fighiting giant ice king
chamber of Ice king-Level 16 AFter killign ice giant king
Top giant fortress- Level 17 after cleaning most of the fire pits.
Top Fire giant fortress-Level 18
Bottom fire giant fortress-Level 18 after killing the balor
Top Fire giant fortres-Level 19 after stoping the ritual.
King fire giant room-Level 19 after killing fire giant
Lich tower-Level 19
Torbutry-level 20 after killing lord elementals and ambush on duke
Taneliz-After finishing main quest.
Norglde-AFter killing mephisto and clearing it

*****************

Some feats are missing of the end, but nothing important.

Lineups
I think its nearly impossible to do it without 2 clerics and 1 Wizard. The reason it's possible is that 2 clerics and 1 wizard is broken strong. But the final one needs to be a knight.
You need 2 clerics to do what allow you very high chance to succeed in any battle, True resurrection. With 2 clerics you can just true Resurrection each other and mass heal. No fight in the game can put out enough damage to get through it. So constant true resurrections and mass heal will get you through anything. Anoter important reason is that in the final fights you need death wards and you need protection from evil, you need 2 clerics to pull all that out. Another thing crucial of 2 clerics is free of movement. During game grappling will be hell unless you have 2 clerics with Metamagic still.
2 Clerics Can keep each other running and that is what makes everthing possible.
1 wizard is a must for the level 20 fights. Dominate monster is toooooo strong. But without it, it would be impossible to win.
1Knight. Without 1 knight good luck keeping early game fights going with only 1 rest every so and then. My main strat most of the game is to put a Knight with ice shield on the front and wait them to die.

Top 10hardest fights in the game imo (according to the level you may face them in general in desecendant order)

10. Bottom of the Frozen giant fortress:
I would say the king but what's really hard is the 3 fights in a row. They hit and they hit hard, if you dont come here with enough true Resurrection (Which i did and failed miserably) this may get very hard. I dont put it higher because in later run I did the first 2 fights and then did the rest. And then it was very easy to beat the frozen king.

9. 1st gnoll ambush: I never lost this fight, but is scary, scary. AT the point in my later runs i just avoid it.

8. Final Final army fight.
This fight seems hard but it isnt becaues they are all huge creatures that lack ranged attacks mostly in a choke point. But I still ranked it 8th because If you fail dominate monster, you may lose. I only had 4 shots of dominate monster in my last run and and in the second one I got a balor (which is all you need). But it basically rely on you capturing a balor, which you may never do with some bad luck.

7. Final lich fight:
This is the only fight I was in any real danger in my last run. I was happy to end the game there to be honest. I got with only one cleric alive, but well, True ressurect my other cleric who true ressurect my wizard... and all was good. But i can see this fight can end bad.

6. Fire giant king:
Its hard to gauge this fight because the fire king is so easy to dominate, and once you have him, is game over. But if you fail, and Ive failed, a single attack can take 1 or 2 chars easily. I wonder how this fight would be without dominate monster.

5. Orc raid in the keep (level 1):
The reason I used to go to water elemental firsts is that this fight seems hard, it is hard, and bad luck can make you lose, but nothing like the water elementals.

4.Spiders and skeleton ambush:
Very hard fight, (I learned only later you can fight them separately which makes it so much easier). Web is too strong and those spiders with resistance and the skeletons...and worse then you have to fight more stuff and then more spiders!.

3.Blue dragon in the undercave passage:
I wouldn't Say this is so hard fight in the sense that is hard to win in itself, but you have to fight it after 2 super hard fights , winning the other fights and having resources left for this fight is really hard.
This is the fight where you feel more the "I was grind out by the mobs and now this?" That is fun and interesting though i wish more of the game that follow, would have this effect. (in fact after slavers you have the giants, and the giants as noted are a boring part because fights are long but they don't even tire your team, you can just put your fighter in front with ice shield or stoneskin and kill them...SLOOOWLY)

2. Water elementals at level 1 in the keep:
I wouldn't be surprised that the perception of many people of KOTC being too hard is just that the potential first fight you have is the hardest in the game. no kidding. There is nothing you can do about this, even if you do every move perfectly , you have a high chance of losing. Ive had an absurdly powerful start party and still got wiped out. This fight shouldn't be accessible level 1. Maybe it's unfair because the right answer, as i learned later is to fight the orc raid first (And then a level 2 this fight is super easy)

1.Queen Spider in the caves:
This fight is hell. At the point that to beat it, ive learn to go grind somewhere else (Generally some of the orc stockade), as level 4 this fight is nigh impossible or you need super luck, I can't come up with a solid strat. once you are level 5 its a different beast because you have access to so much better stuff (especiall without crafting since you can't get magical weapons). Ive seen some complains in the forums about this fight, and honestly i agree 100%.

***
Notes: Many people said that the game become a breeze once you have money to craft equipment. But I think thats wrong d. What really makes the game a breeze is when you have easy access to true ressurection. Once you have 2 clerics that can true ressurect each other non stop, there isn't much way to lose the game.

I think I spent more time in KOTC than I should, and that's because the fighting system is so pleasant to play. KOTC has the BEST fighting system of any rpg I've played, and yes better than TOEE. I really can't wait for KOTC2, because there is only so much times i can play the same fights before getting sick of it.

I thought about trying again with other restrictions, but I cant think of anything else that is sane or fun.
Even a different part composition seems not good idea. I dont think its possible to beat the challenge with any other party than 1K 2C 1W (at least in a reasonable number of tries)

[Waterd103]

The more I'm playing other RPGs the more Im appreciating KOTC. Im starting to think KOTC is my favorite RPG of all time.
The problem is that I think I squeezed it's replayability to the most.

However I found some post by Bluesalamander saying there are a few very few battles that I may or may not ever experienced.
1) Council of the Slaver Lords (with the commander of the guards).
What is this? how does that happen?

2) Battle against Frost Giants and an Iron Golem in a large room after setting off the alarm.
Is this the fight one room before the king?

Also , to not make another post.

I want to point out, in case you will release another patch sometime, I think it would be nice to make the fight against spider queen slightly easier or give more xp somewhere somehow. as I said, this fight at level 4 is imo the hardest battle in the whole game. And unless you do what I do (kill some things in orc stockade to reach level 5) I would understand this being a frustrating fight.

Another little improvement you could do is to make the fire giant king harder to control. He is so easy to control, and once you do, fight is over.

Of course I would appreciate features to make challenging runs "easier to do". But I guess for that one im the only customer .