It’s been awhile since I actually played through an adventure in DDO, and even longer since I played my wizard, Koriander, because of my concerns that he was being viewed by the other group members as not pulling his weight. See, once you’re in an adventure, there are no regenerating Spell Points (ie. mana) in DDO because there’s no such thing in D&D. No regenerating Hit Points (health), either. Hence I have been exceptionally conservative when playing Kori because I don’t grind repeatedly through the same dungeons, therefore I do not have them memorized to know what’s coming up, when I should hold back and when I should let loose. So Kori has been tending to cast the odd spell here and there, then relying upon wands, which are becoming increasingly useless.
The wizard class in DDO is the finest casting I’ve seen in any game, however, and it’s one of the reasons I love the game. I typically avoid playing casters in MMO’s, with the exception of my Monk (and Necromancer) in Guild Wars because that game also handles spells differently than your typical MMO would.
So, with Daniel busy working up his new Vanguard Cleric to duo and group with my Dread Knight, I took time away from Vanguard so he could catch up. Walking out of the office, I happened to notice my Harry Potter DVD’s which prompted me to play DDO for the excellent wizard class.
I started off finding a group doing some lower-level adventures just so I could re-familiarize myself with Kori. One of the chests we looted had a Robe of Power III which bestows an additional 30 Spell Points so Kori is loving that!
Next I found a group heading into Tangleroot Gorge where we completed the short quest to find Chief Ungurz, a hobgoblin chieftain at war with the Splinterskull hobgoblin clan. Chief Ungurz started us on Assault on Splinterskull, a seven-chapter quest chain taking us into the upper and lower sections of Splinterskull Fortress. Each chapter of the quest gave increasing experience points and by the end of the whole thing, Kori was hovering tantalizingly close to level 6! To date, all three of my characters are level 5, which is very easy to reach but it seems there’s a lull from 5-7 where groups can be difficult to find at times. My only complaint was during Chapter 4. There’s a section of the fortress where a nasty spider named Whisperdoom lives, along with his three daughters. Our job is to enter Whisperdoom’s lair and destroy his egg sacs. Killing his three daughters is an optional objective for bonus xp, but Whisperdoom himself is not an objective so everyone in the group went into Sneak mode and hid in a corner then someone (with high Armor Class) pulled Whisperdoom away so the rest can go in and destroy the egg sacs. It’s the same tactic used in old-school Upper Blackrock Spire where a hunter would kite General Drakkisath while the group dealt with his guards. The difference was you still had a nasty fight on your hands to kill Drakk afterwards, while there was no need to touch Whisperdoom at all. Bit of a shame, really.
I felt I was at least getting the hang of the wizard class by now, though I was noticing that my days of wands would be coming to an end soon. My former stand-by, the wand of Magic Missile (3rd), was barely doing any damage at all. The other wands were doing none. Rather than think of the wizard in the role most MMO’s place it — nuker — I will work on diversifying my spell book to include buffs and especially some crowd control, which is likely the low-level wizard’s best defense.
I was up for more action after Splinterskull, so I found a group planning on running the Catacombs on Elite difficulty! Catacombs is a very long, challenging quest chain that takes roughly 3 hours to complete in one sitting. It’s split up into multiple quests, some of them multi-chapter, so doing all of the Catacombs at once is not necessary, but our group went for it.
The basic storyline behind the Catacombs series is that of the Dryden family. Friar Renau of the Silver Flame has lost touch with his niece Marguerite, who is being held in the Sanctuary (read: insane asylum) section of the Catacombs, part of the Church of the Silver Flame in Stormreach. Upon entering the Sanctuary, we quickly discover the place has been overrun by undead! Something is amiss in Stormreach! Renau sends us upstairs to talk to Bishop Dryden, who turns out to be Marguerite’s father. Even more undead are now in the Catacombs, and we find the spirit of a former asylum inmate who tells us Marguerite herself is responsible for the undead uprising. The bishop sends us further into the Catacombs to retrieve a rubbing from the Bishop’s dead (and evil) uncle Gerard to look for clues to Marguerite’s whereabouts. Gerard had been using a power called the Duality which gives power over both life and death and allows one to raise the dead, and it’s suspected Marguerite is now using the Duality herself. A few more chapters and intrigues, we meet up with Marguerite who has become a powerful wraith. She tells us it was her father, Bishop Dryden, who manipulated his insane daughter to use the Duality. We rush upstairs to confront the Bishop where we learn ultimately, the Bishop has been possessed by the spirit of his brother Arkasic Dryden. Forcing Arkasic’s spirit from his body, the Bishop faints and the final boss fight is on!
This fight can be tricky as Arkasic has the Duality at his disposal: if a party member dies, Arkasic can raise him as an undead, and there are spots of grease on the floor where the Bishop’s two iron defenders died, which can lead to party members slipping and falling, taking them out of combat for a few moments.
We were victorious, defeating the vile wraith of Arkasic and his undead legion! Kori attained level 6 mid-way through the Catacombs chain but I did not take the time to go train until afterward. Friar Renau has a large list of unique items as the final reward. Kori chose a cap of wizardry which bestows an additional 25 Spell Points, at which point I was horrified to learn bonuses do not stack in DDO! The +30 from the Robe of Power III outweighs the +25 of the cap, rendering it moot. Live and learn, yes, but that was an exhaustive lesson…
After training up, Kori is officially level 6 and was greeted with a mail stating he had achieved over 400 total favor with the various patrons (ie. factions) of Stormreach, and I had unlocked the Drow race for a new character! I’m kinda thinking a Drow rogue might be fun…
Addition: A bit ahead of schedule but I also wanted to offer a congratulations to The Sublime Permadeath Guild, also from my home server of Thelanis, who will be celebrating their two-year anniversary on March 7th. I believe they’ll be planning a player event, also. I see The Sublime running around all the time, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about both The Sublime and their way of doing permadeath. I actually did create a cleric to join The Sublime, but haven’t worked up the nerve yet… I suspect I’d really enjoy it, however. It would feel even closer to D&D (barring divine intervention or having the luck of a cleric’s resurrection, in D&D when a character died, he was dead) and I enjoy the exploration aspect of the adventures rather than rushing through just for the xp, which too many PUG’s do.
Tags: DDO, MMO Gaming
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