I received an e-mail message at around four in the morning. It was from an individual I'd never heard of, for no apparent reason, and naturally my first suspicion was that they had found me, and a crack death squad was on its way. After the initial paranoid reaction, I realized that 'Phil Crosby' if that is his real name, was sending me a link to a mod. I, of course, felt obligated to try it.
In short, I'm glad I did. TDDMotB as it will henceforth be known, definitely started off on the right foot by me. How? It didn't require me to reinstall D2 1.06b, a process I've become all too familiar with in recent weeks. The installer that TDDMotB comes with is quite effective, and I liked the ability to rebuild the MPQ file with different difficulty settings. Taking on legions of Fallen at 32x the normal difficulty "level" is manageable, but taking on Mephisto at that level is not.
The challenge is slightly balanced by an extremely large inventory along with a much larger stash. This provides more space for charms, and allows for one to carry them without necessitating a town run with every two or three items. This tends to make Diablo II much more enjoyable, I really hope that all new mods will incorporate larger inventory space, simply because running back to town all the time is tedious and irritating.
On the downside, not much has changed other than the challenge factor and increased storage. While these two tweaks add a lot in terms of fun, I can't help but think that some more innovation could have helped TDDMotB. Hopefully "Phil" will continue to update the mod, and perhaps add some new exciting features.
Highs: Nice installer, not a long download, more inventory space, variable difficulty, Works with DII: LoD! Woo hoo! Lows: Not much innovation, Phil's e-mail caused me to huddle into a corner in my room sobbing softly to myself in a fit of terrible paranoia. So from now on, please make sure to put "not a death threat" in the subject line of any e-mail message to red_death@planetdiablo.com.
I am beginning to realize that unless a mod changes the skills or items around substantially that strategy will remain basically the same as a standard game of Diablo II. The Dragon's Deadly Mod of the Bat is no different. As such, I only have one real piece of advice for this mod.
Running away: Avoid monsters with Lightning Enchantment or a damage aura at all costs, these will do immense damage, and often times result in one hit kills, if you see a monster with either of these properties, just run.
Rely on bad AI: Sometimes I've found that it's possible to get a terrible aura enchanted monster stuck on the edge of the screen if you summon something in front of it or get a hirable to engage it, this often (at 800x600) puts the damage aura just out of range, and thusly makes it no threat.
Undead Stygian Dolls can easily cause death when you slay them in 32x mode, even with this clvl 86 Barbarian with over 1200 hit points.
Check out the information page for The Dragon's Deadly Mod of the Bat at The Phrozen Keep's Visitor Mod Archive, where you may also download it.
RSS Feeds
