ACT THREE

Skeletor begins Act Three at clvl 47, with 34 Str, 25 Dex, 111 Vit and 150 Nrg.

Raise Skeleton @ 3
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 9
Skeleton Mastery @ 20
Summon Resist @ 4
Iron Maiden @ 7
Dim Vision @ 4 (+3 from Wand)
Confuse @ 1

Clay Golem @ 1
Golem Mastery @ 1
Amplify @ 1
Weaken @ 1
Terror @ 1
Life Tap @ 1
Decrepify @ 1
Lower Resist @ 1

All Skills +4, from Necromancer's Wand (+2), Wormskull and Eye of Etlich

Necromancer's Wand: +2 All Skills, +3 Dim Vision, +9 Mana - bought from Akara in Hell
Wormskull: +1 Necro Skills, +10 Mana, +25 Poison Resistance - found Canyon of Magi, NM
Bloodfist: +40 Life, Fastest Hit Recovery, +5 Minimum Damage - gambled Act 2 Normal
Rare Quilted Armor: Fastest Recovery, +59 Life, +21 Fire Resist, +18 Lit Resist - gambled Act 1 NM
Eye of Etlich: +1 Skills, +3 Light, 1-3 Cold Damage, 5% Life Leech - gambled Act 3 NM
Rare Boots: Fastest Run, +13 Fire Res, +14 Lit Res, +16 Mana, +98% Gold - gambled Act 2 NM
Gemmed Large Shield: +57 Resist All - completed in Black Marsh, Act 1 Hell
Demonhide Sash: +59 Life - found Stony Field, Act 1 NM
Rare Ring: +24 Lit Res, +40 Fire Res, -2 Magic Damage, +1 Light - Gidbinn reward in NM
Rare Ring: +27 Lit Res, +13 Cold Res, +32 Mana, -2 MD, 4% Life Steal, 1-3 Fire Dmg - gambled Act 2 Hell

Civerb's Icon - gambled Act 4 Normal
Amulet: +1 Necro Skills, 50% Poison Dur Reduced - gambled Act 1 Hell
Rare Amulet with cold and lightning resistance - gambled Act 2 NM
Hotspur, Nokozan Relic, Nagelring

Effective Skill Levels:

Raise Skeleton @ 7
Raise Skeletal Mage @ 13
Skeleton Mastery @ 24
Summon Resist @ 8
Iron Maiden @ 11
Dim Vision @ 11
Confuse @ 5

Clay Golem @ 5
Golem Mastery @ 5
Amplify @ 5
Weaken @ 5
Terror @ 5
Life Tap @ 5
Decrepify @ 5
Lower Resist @ 5

Stronger curses made Hell easier than Nightmare, for Skeletorr. That was true in almost every instance, too. Normal monsters were quieted with Dim Vision. Iron Maiden made more of a difference against aggressive melee types and some bosses, actually killing faster (fewer monster swings), which broke even or better with the fact that skeleton health had topped out. Golem was stronger now with +skills boosting its health, so it was doing better, too.

Even so, "doing better" is a relative term. Bosses in Hell have three abilities, not two, so there were more tough bosses: more LEBs, more heal-a-portation, more Magic Resistant and Stone Skin, more Extra Fast. Skel's army was decimated over and over by bosses. The only good news was that curses had turned the tide against normal creatures, who were now almost entirely a source of new recruits, rather than trouble.

Top of the Agenda: Locate and hire Thadar. Yes! He was available! Excellent news. Prognosis already looking favorable.

The first boss out of the gate was Holy Fire enchanted, and stuck on a jut of land. Arrgh. He was protected by water, and I had to work up and around and back down to him, all the while his long range aura nipping at my heels, forcing several successive townings to heal my fledgling army. I didn't even have foot troops yet. Still gathering mages. On the way up to a log crossing, Skel ran into a second midget boss, this one LEB, and the game for act three was officially afoot.

I used Lower Resist on that shrimp, spamming Golly into his face to absorb bolts and keep him from charging my mages. The little bugger ran away once and my mages went to pursue, arrrgh. "No, you idiots!" I was able to save most of them, and then thankfully it was over. Raise replacements, and look! One foot soldier now! On down to face that Holy Fire midget. Oh joy. I get to town about seven times in a row, after every three flashes, to prevent all my troops from dropping dead suddenly.

If not for Lower Resist, that there would have been one long, grueling fight. Not that it wasn't already grueling, but at least it didn't last forever.

From there, no trouble with the standard monsters. No vultures yet, either, so I could Dim everything on the screen with no worries. (Silly Invulnabird bug: DV leaves flying birds in the air, where they can't be harmed, yet forces them into walk mode, from which they happily attack. AFAIK, this bug hasn't been fixed in the Expansion yet either, though I haven't checked). Here's a shot entering the first alcove. You can see the Dimmed midgets all over the place, and my troops marching in under cover of relative safety.

Spiders were nasty tough in nightmare, but now with all this Iron Maiden on hand, they burnt themselves out very quickly, without raking through my troops. Sure, they might even kill one with each hit, and it was tough keeping warriors alive. My warrior count rose and fell with each skirmish. However, the warriors are there only to shield the mages, so as long as they hold the line, Skeletorr is going strong. Sszark reflected himself to death in a matter of seconds.

Nothing eventful on the way to the next alcove. The Arachnid Lair was filled with hard-hitting spiders and hordes of maggots.

A lot of warriors died holding that line. A LOT. There were so many dead enemies, though, that replacements were easy to come by. The carnage piled high and heavy. The fight ended amazingly quickly. On through the lair, now. Maggot champs guarding the chest. Those proved rather tough, as they hatched endless broods of young. More carnage, more drinking of mana potions as I raised new warriors as quickly as the old ones fell in battle.

As had happened in Nightmare, Skeletorr once again drew an arrangement where the Spider Forest led directly to both the Marsh and Jungle, with no connection between those two. Hmm. Well, of course, I had to take advantage: press into the Jungle, try to punch through to the city first, backtrack as necessary to raise new armies, and only once the way through was secured, come back for the dungeons and the full clear. That was the plan, at least.

Things started off well. Lost my warriors at the first midget boss, but managed to recruit more after that.

First alcove held the waypoint. Skeletorr grabbed that, then on through the Jungle. DV was helping immensely, and I was able to use it with impunity thanks to the absence of any vultures. I skipped the Swampy Pit for the moment, according to plan, and pressed onward. Found the flayer village in the second alcove. The Ratman Gidbinn boss popped up CE-LE. Yummy cold electricity. How does that work anyway? (Like MS LEBs, I don't think it's really a feature. Just a bug that got left in because they thought it was "cool" or something). The little rat mopped the jungle floor with my infantry, but my artillery smashed him easily enough.

Onward, ever onward we go. Yeah, the reward ring was crappy. What do you expect from Ormus? He's an old, washed up mage anyway. Why should he have anything BUT crap to offer? Onward and onward, and lo, Skeletorr has reached the city gate already. Much less blood and sweat expended than in Nightmare, albeit still "tough" by mainstream standards. Not quite pushing my playing limits any more, at least not most of the time.

Check out that loot pile! Yep. Keep in mind, this was played under v1.05 and minion collisions were still a major nuisance for Skeletorr. So I piled the junk in town, awaiting a time when my army would get completely wiped out, to venture over to Hratli to sell everything. (Still had to repair to get full credit, in that version). Check out that unique armor. Nice purple color for some hot-to-trot sorceress, but it quite nearly made Skeletorr retch. :)

Stormtree. Mana Burn and Spectral Hit? Yeah, he's goin down. :) Into the slum side of town, where all the "po foke" apparently lived. Secure the waypoint. Lots of Decrep used here, as the birds had come a callin.

OK, so now the hard part. The Flayer Dungeon. Down we go and right away it's all hitting the fan. Look at the decimation!

I had a heck of a time corralling that little pest into that corner. Until I did, he was running willy nilly through my ranks, wiping out whole platoons in passing as they shot unrelentingly at him. Finally did get him into a good spot, then raised more mages and spammed golems to keep him pinned. Tough tough battle, fought in half a sardine can which was itself half-occupied with salty fish. Very crowded, and remember... minion collisions. Ouch. Had to drink purple. Had to drink several.

Down to level two, another stone skin midget. This one would have been quite the treat in D2X, with physical and cold immunity, and 95% resist to lightning and fire. Yum. Not so, here, though. 75% capped for all four of those resists. Still a challenge for this hardly-able variant army, bunch of pathetic skel mages walking around with 60 hit points late in Hell Difficulty. Monsters didn't even have to sneeze. Just look at them cross-eyed and they keeled over. Ah, but not as long as those sturdy 160ish hit point skeleton warrior GODS could hold the line. Yep, Skeletorr was just overflowing with power, chewing right through the game with no problem. :)

And then... the unthinkable happened. That little midget killed Thadar! Arrrrgh! Aw dammit, I'm mad now. Send in the skeletons! YOU WILL ALL PAY!!!

How in the world did Thadar survive all those LEBs and CEBs, extra fast jobbers, extra strong, cursed and whatever else, and die to this sad little midget. Life just ain't fair, you know.

Skeletorr had to press on, though. Down down to level three, through the twisty passages to the Witchdoctor's chamber. Dim vision should handle him quickly. Won't have any trouble at all.

Uh... crap. Holy Fire enchanted? Uh... crap.

Blah and blah, there goes that army. I tried the port-to-town trick to get them all into the room, but it just didn't help. Everyone wiped out, including a merc I'd had for, oh, two minutes. What the Hell am I gonna do now? Sheesh.

Welp, time to sell that mountainous accumulation of junk in the town square. Let's see how much gold we can turn up.

Yep. Mucho gold. Mounds of dough. Swimmin in the moolah. "I'm rich! I'm fabulously wealthy!" Netted almost HALF A MILLION in sales. Can't even hold it all. Time to do some serious gambling!

Off to Lut Gholein, half an hour of Elzix runs, trying to upgrade boots, armor, gambling on the odd bit of jewelry. Well there went half a million in gold. Easy come, easy go. *sigh*

Back to the old grindstone. Where am I going to get troops? See, I don't want to run all over the place, and I don't want to lose that active town portal back down to Flayer 3 (could lose half my army on the way, unless I painstakingly babysit them -- remember, v1.05 is unkind to lost mercs and minions). So... I get the BRILLIANT idea of zipping to the Flayer waypoint and popping in to the Swampy Pit to pick up some quick corpses.

Uhh... yeah, OK. I admit it. That was a STUPID move. Holy craperoo, here comes the STAIRS TRAP, and it's just me and Golly and some poor sap who hired on to more than he bargained for. If not for some very careful tempting (in a sardine can, ouch), and the power of slvl 7+4 Iron Maiden, Skeletorr might well have kicked his bucket on this one. I tell you I was NOT going to quit and save and redo all this work for my full clear. Dammit, those beasties must be vanquished! I'll beat them with bamboo if I have to!

Killed the champs, managed not to wake the boss (though I did get a minion or two), got a few new recruits and got the Hell out of there. Yikes. Well blah and blah, have to run to the Marsh for more troops anyway. What a time killer. And all that risk (without troops to shield me) for naught. Well, OK, maybe not for naught. Got quite the adrenalin rush -- if you consider that a good thing. Not sure I do. Means I goofed bad, just not fatally.

Down, down, down we go, and sure enough, despite my best babysitting efforts, four mages and a warrior or two got lost along the way, killed off by the pathetic pathfinding AI. Arrrrrrrrgh. I'm SO glad that doesn't happen in the Expansion any more. Well here we go, and I'm done with the direct assaults. Holy Fire won't reach through grates and windows, so I do my level best to lure Endugu over there, where my golems keep him pinned and a couple mages with clear shots whittle him down from relative safety. Took some time, but less time than charging in, losing another army, and having to go round up more troops.

By the way... I had gotten the brain on the first pass. I did not NEED to go back down there, but dammit, Skel's got a full clear going, and I'm not going to let this fiery little midget besmirch his record.

Back to the Swampy Pit, where that undead flayer boss turned out to be extra strong, extra fast, and stone skin. Sorry no pix, I was busy not dying. I am just soooooooo glad I didn't wake him before I had some walking bone shields in front of me. Yowza yowza, he was packin the heat. Yes he was. What a stairs trap. The pitter patter of bony little feet, walking midget bombs ready to explode on contact. Fun stuff for a hardcore character. :) Remember Astra's bouts with those things? hehe

With all the Dungeons cleaned out now, it was time to finish clearing the marsh and be forever done with the jungles, for Skeletorr.

I ended my session after that. Next time around, I'd be starting at the Lower Kurast waypoint and have to build an army from there. Might be tough, if birds prevented DV use, but so it goes. Better than having to wade through the midgets again. Doing that once was fun, but I didn't want to do it again.

Stay tuned.

- Sirian

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