Negative cost on crafting/Selecting heroic thing from Mona

[S0litude]

Just played the game 2nd time through. Ok game. Pretty much the same like icewind dales and othe D&D comp.games.

About the crafting issue:
I had keen longsword +3 with all basic elemental imbues(do they stack?) and when I imbued it with bursts of frost and lightning the cost box showed a negative number of about 50k(! - don't remember correclty but a lot) meaning I would get money for adding more properties to my sword. I also noticed same effect when crafting rod of smiting(+3 keen basic elementals) with same extras so I made enough money for the rest of the game by imbuing my weapons. Seems it works with all crafting - just add all elements you want until the cost goes"over"and turns negative.

About Mona's selections:
I selected the heroic thingie(again don't remember correctly what it sais) and this time when I walked to Hedrak he started different conversation with me than with the previous time.
1st time I played I selected"whatever the gods have for me" got with Lareth in to his trap but made it and just went straight down without looking through the tempel and faced Hedrak he just was pissed of about me in the temple and attacked(shortly).
2nd time when I faced Hedrak he/she started a conversation where he would ask who I am and I could question him about all the stuff in the temple *for example what god he worships(not my business he told) or where Zuggtmoy is imprisoned(didn't know)* and the last option available was that "could we make a deal that I just left" which Hedrak replies"Yes, I can be a man of peace(!?! LOL), Ok. You may go but don't come back".
Could this be the effect of Mona? I surely think it is rather Heroic to just walk in to the heart of the Temple of Elemental Evil just chat with the Head of the place and walk out to tell the world about it!

P.S. Staff of Straking(with imbued elementals) is rather great. My cleric wielded it and got criticals from 85 to over 100(!). Imbued with keen to make the critical range greater is well...critical. Don't actually care about Fragarach and the other. They are kind of Godly items for always hitting which simply makes the D&D system useless.

P.P.S. Anybody slain Iuz? I didn't have enough time before Cuthbert appeared but I managed to make dmg to him and so forth could have killed him!

[Lord Plothos]

The crafting thing is a bug, I believe. It happens when you craft burst effects. The elemental things do stack, but some of the burst things are screwed up (I can give you specifics, if you care).

High crit modifiers are nice, mainly because they triple or quadruple your strength modifiers (elemental damage is not increased, except for burst effects, which go from 1d6 to 1d10, 2d10, or even 3d10). Try the great cleavers. They normally have a x3 modifier, and a HUGE threat range, making them routinely do over 100 damage once they've been buffed up.

Iuz has been killed. You get lots of experience and no loot to speak of. St. Cuthbert has also been killed.

It's hard to say what Mona does for you. Picking humor results in a trio of NPCs in a temple dungeon cell who suck but can join you (you get a funny end slide if you beat it with them in your party). There are other things, though, that might have affected what you could or couldn't say to Hedrack: your speaker's cha., your ranks in any number of skills, any number of things you may have done differently in dealing with temple agents throughout the game, or simply saying something different at the outset of the conversation. It's entirely possible, though, that Mona had some effect on this.

[Sindegra]

I chose something easy and pitiful to kill. And I got 3 men, saying please help me! They had PITIFUL HP and kept on saying please help me even if I didn't attack. Well, if that isn't tempting (the combination of being annoying and weak) then nothing is. I killed em. . Heard the one with alot of gold gives you TREASURE.

[S0litude]

What happens when you kill Iuz before Guthbert appears? New dialogues? End game different dialogues? Cause if they leave the battle in the end titles is a parchment about Iuz and Guthberts "conversation" .What? Plz tell me.
And how in the Devils name do you kill Guthbert? Cause when Big G appears he only talks to Iuz and vanishes. So it must be something about killing Iuz 1st and then being able to kill Big G? And you don't get the cludgel of Big G or the dagger of Iuz - sad.

And about the conversation: It started out differently so it had nothing do do with my choices and also it was the same whomever of my party confronted him. 1st time I played Chaotic Evil 2nd time Lawful Good. So if it would be something about allignements I would have thought that Evil party would be better accepted than good...

And more: It also has nothing to do about how I treated the temple's apprentices. Because 1st I just entered the tower way. Killed brigandines got the orb of death and went back up to the tower and from the 1st floor to the locked level. From locked level I took the teleport down to end up behind(!) Hedrak and his little army and went to talk to him. 1st I thought it was the thing that I came form behind him meaning that I came from the inside the temple causing the dialogue to differ*he wondered whom I was to come from the temple but not knowing me*. BUT I wanted to investigate and kill the whole tempel(I was lawful good you know) so I reloaded - didn't go to the locked level but killed the whole tempel and confronted Hedrak face to face(from the normal way of getting to the 4th level). Same thing.

I have heard about the humorous way but it seems no one knows how the others affect the game so that is why it intrigued me.

[Lord Plothos]

You should post a question about that dialog over at the co8.org forum. People like Livyona have been modding like crazy lately, and changing dialog all over the place. They could probably find out in a minute or two if anything in that dialog is affected by Mona.

As for killing Cuth-boy, I can't say how they got him to appear, but I'm pretty sure Iuz was dead first, or else they would have talked to each other. Anyway, I think the guy used spike growth to slow him down and then pelted him with arrows, waiting for natural 20s to hit him. Sounds pretty boring and not really a big challenge in the end, to me, but whatever. Anyway, I don't know if any slide for that comes up, but if you kill Iuz you do get one about how he has been banished to his own plane, much weakened, and ..."Iuz fears you." Nice, huh?