The Cursed: Abazigal's Bath Time

[Part of the Cursed story line]

A summoned planetar (who happen to be fantastic healers) is able to resurrect Sarevok and restore him fully - leading to Imoen and Korgan making fun of him a bit. No such luck for Hexxat though - she's gone for good.

The interior of the lair is a network of underwater tunnels guarded by lesser enemies - frost salamanders, kuo-toa with water elementals including a very weak Olhydra (Elemental Princess of Evil Water), a lair of strange eyeballs and a geas-ed dragon whom Catharina just imprisons while it's monologuing.After the fight outside, she's had enough of dragons.

Olhydra is one gnarly wave dude.

There is one more to defeat though, Abazigal himself who transforms from fighter mode to a blue dragon! He's not as clever as his son but is immune to time stop meaning its back to waves of planetars, mord-swords and dragon breath spells for him. He manages to fatally toss Korgan against the cave wall before Imoen's summoned pit fiend (she was getting desperate) can finish him off.

Due to the state of his corpse, Korgan is unable to be resurrected.

Insight: If you're wondering why I'm not just casting Imprisonment of everything it's because most of the "bosses" are immune to it somehow. Just like being immune to time stop. It really undermines any "power gain" you as the player might feel wasting a slot on a spell that doesn't work against something - especially without any hints before hand that it won't work. Aka terrible design.

The Cursed: Biting Back

[Part of the Cursed story line]

With Sendai's demise a new "pocket test" is unlocked that the team easily passes: defeating Catharina's second demonic form: the slayer which happens to be good foreshadowing of what is to come. After selling stuff at the village they proceed on to Abazigal's lair which, unlike Sendai's, is not hidden at all.

The entrance is huge, opulent and guarded by one wizard, Abazigal's son. A fight ensues and Hexxat manages to sink her teeth into the fool. To her surprise, he then transforms into a green dragon and bites back - ripping her to shreds! Sarevok is also killed via claw impalement.

With things not looking good, Catharina uses the next cheesiest method to win the fight. Spell Strike (remove all magic defenses of target - no save), time stop, shape shift into a mind flayer, and then attack physically. Creatures affected by time stop are counted as "at your mercy" since they aren't moving so you will always hit, and mindflayers do tiny damage physically but each hit reduces INT by 5. When INT reaches 0... dead dragon.

So much for all your shields and hundreds of hit points.

Insight: This took me a few attempts to win against this guy as he was regularly re-upping his shields, using invisibility, full healing, using haste on himself and dispeling summons - projected images included. That's on top of the regular dragon abilities!

The Cursed: Mirrors of Sendai

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Sendai's base is quite well concealed in the forest, and humorously guarded by Drow disguised as woodland critters. Inside, more Drow, a lair of myconids, pet umberhulks, a slave army, a lich, mindflayers and minor demons all serve as guardians but they are all planetar-ed out of the way.

Even Ogremoch himself, the elemental Prince of Evil Earth (yeah, "Earth" not Faerun), is present but doesn't get to do much as Catharina imprisons it as her opening move. Finally they reach Sendai who proves to be an exciting battle as she makes seven statue clones of herself and has constant Drow reinforcements arriving during the fight.

You can imprison the Prince of Earth, in the Earth? Okay then!

Catharina and Imoen make good use of breach (anti magic), pierce (anti magic), horrid wilting, planetars, mord-swords, true sight and the dragon breath ability (20d10 fireball with knock back) coupled with projected images to prolong spell use (as their spells aren't tied to the original casters memory somehow). After an epic fight, Sendai finally is slain when Catharina "wishes" all magic defenses down and lands a Melf's acid arrow on her.

Insight: For extra cheese, project image also makes copies of the quick slot items so that one powerful scroll you have can be used as much as you like, as long as it is only ever used by a projected image. Obviously, one scroll means each image can only use it once though.

The Cursed: Unexpected Aid

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Eager to rest outside the pocket plane for a change, the squad goes to the Amkethran tavern where they are surprised to find the vampire Hexxat! Since she wasn't staked last time she's survived and using a day-walking cloak has found herself here, to ask Catharina for help with a lich. Not to kill it, but to enslave it for her master.

Guess we didn't kill her good enough last time.

That sounds all sorts of wrong but since help is hard to come by, Catharina agrees as long as the vampire helps her kill a few Bhaalspawn first. Hexxat finds this acceptable. There is a local lich in the village (these things are everywhere!) but this soul trader is not Hexxat's target. They do manage to get a young girl's soul stone from it though, by trading the one of her stupid father.

Instead of using it to restore the child, Hexxat keeps it for herself as it gives nice bonuses. With that, it's finally time to hit one of those Bhaalspawn bases so the team votes to head for the closer one: Sendai's enclave.

Insight: While the day walking cloak lets Hexxat not burn out in the sun, remember to take it off in dungeons as it significantly reduces her stats when worn.

The Cursed: Thief Lesson

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The mystery of Montaron is not much of a mystery. The Harpers killed him since he was spying on them for the Zhents, just like they kill Xzar when the team goes to report back to him. Jaheira decides to leave the team to work for this Harper branch, so Catharina finds a replacement in the somewhat crazy lady Hexxat at the Copper Coronet. Hexxat has a burning desire to revisit the graveyard so that's where they go.

They also kept his corpse in a chest. Nasty.

As a thief, she is much better than Raven at detecting traps (and she teaches him a bit) which is handy as she leads them down into one particular crypt and right to... the vampire that's mind controlling her. The vampire "Hexxat" kills her thrall and begins making demands of the party, which isn't really great for first impressions so Catharina and company just end up killing her too.

They hire the dwarf fighter Korgan nearby, who is hunting for a tome in one of the crypts but finds that his old crew have beaten him to it. These vagrants seem to also have raided the house of the collector who wanted the book, killing all inside so Catharina has no qualms in tracking them down and ending them in the same fashion.

Insight: Detect traps never turns on automatically for Raven as he is player generated, which is why Hexxat seemed to be so much better at finding them. Simply remembering to press that button makes him much more useful.