Stealth Ops: Diplomatic Impunity

There’s only one thing you must do in “Diplomatic Impunity“: Kill the Droaam commander.

And that’s what Sukitetica the Assassin did.

This is first in a series of summarized walkthroughs that will highlight stealth tactics for selected quests. Selection criteria include whether stealth gains advantages in resources (fighting and healing versus avoidance), completion speed, and experience earned.

Most importantly, quest selections are based on how freaking fun it is to beat a quest against seemingly insurmountable odds and without slaying hordes of things.

Normally, my Ninja Spies like Kiricletica do such fun stuff. She managed to kill the commander but had to dispatch three others–and died once on her solo attempt. Still impressive numbers, but Suki thought she could do better.

Part 1: Get to Ulluvian

Since Assassins aren’t the greatest in protracted fighting, relying on their Sneak Attack damage for greater DPS, it was prudent to have a meat-shield backup. Natasha, the level 16 Cleric, was selected for her Death Ward. She was left parked throughout most of the quest, only summoned at the wildmen village for a rebuff of Death Ward and for one other use at the adventure’s end.

Suki’s been very busy in completing any and all quests at level 11 and below, banking her level 15 while earning 1,750 total favor for a +2 INT tome and then a +3 Upgrade INT tome. Suki preferred to get her Assassinate DC as high as possible without depreciating her XP rewards too much while entering this quest on Elite difficulty. Eventually her training as a Harper Agent will try switching her DEX-to-hit/damage to INT-to-hit/damage so I can pour INT into every level-up.

The extra INT added a couple more skill points to her level ups to 16. For this mission, Suki took advantage of the Ranger spell Camouflage and its stacking +10 Circumstance bonus to Hide. On top of that, scrolls of Invisibility helped for close-quarters cloaking.

After speaking to Henritta, simply go into Sneak and follow the northern (player’s left) edge of the jungle, never walking over the large plant flumes and their gray dirt, which may summon scorpions.

Carefully destroy root walls to proceed. You’ll avoid the gathering of irate wildmen (logically pissed off at more invaders but probably helpless to do much about it) to reach the next root wall and an area where panthers live. Suki was detected by one but used a paralyzing runestone on it to escape, avoiding a need to slay the kitty.

Once past the kitty-cats, you’re in the jungle clearing. Head down the beach path to find Ullevian and speak with him. Recent updates don’t count hirelings as party members for the purposes of activating objectives, so I was able to leave my meat-shield behind for the next step: bypassing the Droaam scout forces.

Part 2: Warn Henritta

Strong Hide/Move Silently isn’t enough at close-quarters going back up the narrow gorge where Droaam patrols now spawned. I also needed Invisibility and Faster Sneaking to get past things fast. Even when one or two scouts sensed me, their Spot check doesn’t last and they flail about blindly while I’m already far away.

Back at the jungle clearing, I stay to the player’s right, on the outer edge of the clearing, evading one pacing Droaam mage to make it to the root wall I’ll return to later, that leads towards the end-fight. For speed and safety, going through the Vinethrasher camp is faster.

I evaded detection from the wildmen guards and used Diplomacy to enter the camp and used the skill again to move peacefully through the village and back to base camp. I’m an Assassin, not a murderer, nor am I greedy for random low-value loot. You don’t need a high Diplomacy skill to complete either check.

Out through the village’s northern path, you’re soon reunited with Henritta to deliver the bad news. She gives you a new order: kill Ilos Hrolk.

Part 3: Assassinate the Commander

In the past, I enjoyed the fun of simply going through the entire jungle, past Droaam, wildmen and panthers to get to the last root wall leading to the fortress. Suki chose the more efficient path of returning up a path through the Vinethrasher village and then sneaking by the hostile wildmen guards to the root wall, completing avoiding the bulk of the Droaam jungle scouts.

With the root wall destroyed, Suki had to deal with yet another narrow rocky pathway and many more Droaam. Passing by these guys, even with Invisibility and greater Hide would be risky, so Suki used a noisemaker in one spot to pull enemies together, making it easier to slip by.

After bypassing a couple more patrols, Suki hears the Droaam commander ordering everyone to stand down to parley with me. At this point, all patrol spawns in the jungle and final path disappear, and all Droaam are temporarily non-aggressive.

I stood by the fortress gate. Suki had no kills at all to this point. There are at least 104 hostiles possible to kill in the entire quest.

Killing Hrolk and only Hrolk wasn’t a simple matter.

He is inside his fortress with a door I cannot open once I’m inside. I could go toe-to-toe with the commander easily enough, but I had to find a way to keep his reinforcements out of the battle.

I could call in the hireling to distract others. But the longer that the hireling remained present, the greater the chance that she’d kill someone else, as well as pull unwanted company.

So I took advantage of two tactics we’ve noted in the Stormreach Shadows guide.

One: I summoned a Flaming Sphere. If it worked, this little blob of annoying and nearly indestructible flame would make an excellent hate-magnet that would keep the commander’s initial guards too busy to find me.

Two: Once I initially spoke to the NPC commander, I was pulled from Sneak, but I re-engaged Sneak once the dialogue appeared, completed the remaining dialogue that way, leaping away from the commander as the fight began.

It all worked. The Flaming Sphere pulled everyone to itself, including the red-named commander. Now, how to get the commander away to fight me alone?

Here’s where I momentarily forgot that I was a Rogue, not a Monk. I used Bluff to pull the commander down to the fortress door and began my attack. His initial guards up top stayed put. So far, so good.

As expected, Hrolk goes dirty and calls in his outside reinforcements. In hindsight, if I were smarter, I’d would’ve placed Web traps at this door to slow down the extra fighters.

With more Droaam than I could handle, it was time for my one distraction. I summoned the Cleric hireling and threw her into aggressive mode. It worked. She gave me a brief series of emergency healing while I continued my final blows against the commander. A few moments later and the commander was dead and the quest completed.

Officially, only one kill to complete the quest.

The hireling and I together did mop up the remaining Droaam outside and inside the fortress to reach the three reward chests.

Next time: “Frame Work.” Let’s hope that the aggro rebalancing in Update 23 works as it should for that adventure.