A roll of 75 is quite common actually. Granted it's more difficult with some race/class combos, but they come up all the time. This is a really fun challenge if you're looking to mix it up and quite difficult if you follow the rules.
Beta patch away! And what better way to conduct the testing than to let Savilous handle it? (I know, there are countless better ways, but that's not the point!) Onward!
Not far from the encampment's entrance, a group of bounty hunters were waiting to intercept our heroes. Savilous spotted them first, so he made sure everyone in his party was in a favorable position before making their presence known to them. The bounty hunters had no idea they had swords ready to strike at their backs, and so they fell like flies.
Khalid found a dandy pair of Boots of Speed on one of their corpses, which he decided to don.
They headed inside the mines and disposed of any unfortunate guards who thought it was a good idea to try and stop the heroes of Nashkel. The Cloakwood Mines had turned out to be a slaving operation, and one of the slaves told Savilous that it was an old dwarven mine before the Iron Throne annexed it. Apparently there was a river plug nearby, the key of which was in the possession of the master of the mine, an Iron Throne dignitary with an unnecessarily complicated name who Savilous titled "Mr. D". It was time to pay this Mr. D a visit.
On the second level Savilous found a room filled to the brim with guards. They didn't notice him yet, so this gave Dynaheir the perfect opportunity to show off her prowess with a well-placed Fireball spell. The rest of the gang had no trouble taking out the few smoldering, half-dead guards that survived the explosion.
In a nearby room they found a slave leader named Rill, to whom they gave some money to allow him to bribe the guards and get the rest of the slaves to safety.
After leaving a bloody path through yet another long level, they had finally arrived to the bottom of the complex, to the offices of the master of the mines.
Mr. D was an unpleasantly arrogant individual, but more importantly, he was said to be a frighteningly competent archmage. The team decided to take no chances with a spellcaster of Mr. D's caliber, and instead sit back and wait while Savilous's magical arrows and Dynaheir's summoned horde of wolves did the dirty work. Of course, Mr. D did blast the wolves with every spell in his repertoire, but even as they fell more would pop out of that Wand of Monster Summoning.
For Savilous, the sweetest part of that victory was how it wiped the smug look from Mr. D's face when he realized he was to be undone by a pack of lowly feral wolves.
Looking at Mr. D's letters and interrogating his pathetic apprentice confirmed Savilous's suspicion that Mr. D had received his orders from the Iron Throne high ups at Baldur's Gate. It was time to leave that dreary place behind for good.
But first, with key in hand, Savilous had one little business to take care of. He made sure everyone was safe and gave the key to the old slave who told him about the river plug. He ran as fast as he could as the river flooded the mines behind him.
The next stop: Baldur's Gate!
Level-Ups:
Khalid: 1 level gained, rolled 2+3 for HP. O Khalid, Khalid, wherefore art thou Khalid?
Thrilled with their victory over the Iron Throne, Savilous and the gang made their way back through the Cloakwood forest. They were waylaid by a bunch of senseless bandits at one point, but otherwise their journey was uneventful.
They spent the night at the Friendly Arm, then continued north towards Baldur's Gate.
On the way they met an old farmer named Brun whose lands were overrun with ankhegs. They brought back to him the body of his lost son who had sadly fallen prey to the large insects. The adventurers left Brun with some of the ankhegs' hoard to help him get by—at least for a few seasons.
Further down the road, they handled a dispute between some Talossian fishermen and a priestess of Umberlee. Although the two parties were pretty much at each others' throats, they managed to resolve the situation without bloodshed. Well, mostly. A few threats and punches did the trick.
Finally, the adventurers crossed the bridge leading into the capital. After paying the bridge tax, they were approached by a man named Scar, commander of the Flaming Fist. He had heard about Savilous and his group's involvement in abolishing the iron crisis, and hired them to investigate the merchant organization known as the Seven Suns which had been acting strange lately. They accepted the task.
It was getting late, so the party set their course towards the city gate.
Level-Ups:
Savilous: 1 level gained, rolled 5+1 for HP. Mediocrous. Jaheira: 1 druid level gained, rolled 3+1 for HP. This roll may look terrible, but for a multiclass druid it's actually pretty decent. Minsc: 1 level gained, rolled 3+1 for HP. No excuses this time, this roll truly is terrible. Imoen: 1 level gained, rolled 4+2 for HP. You passed, sis. Not that is matters.
Heh.. it didn't help that my sword broke during combat. I should have beat a hasty retreat after the first hit, but who would have thought. I rolled up another one for the challenge last night. Randomly selecting Race/Gender/Class/Alignment. I ended up with a Male Elven Priest of Talos, this should be interesting. I'll post details hopefully this weekend.
Ok, I ended up with a CE, Male, Elf, Priest of Talos, this should be interesting. Meet Demitrio:
Things went mostly as usual in the beginning, except that CHARNAME is CE, so he didn't do a lot of the quests, well in some cases he took the items for himself or if he thought the reward would be more valuable he did those.
Reached FAI without much event, picked up Xzar and Monty along the way. Kept Imoen around, I'm sure I can exploit her thieving skills to my benefit. Picked up Khalid and Jaheira in FAI, we'll see how long I can stand these two, but for now it's best probably to have some companions.
Found out about a nice ring some lady was missing, so we told her to blow off, then went and looked for it and sold it to the innkeeper. Got a tip on an ogre carrying a magical belt too, so we hunted him down. We killed him but almost lost Jaheira who managed to entangle herself and not the ogre:
Lucky for her she had a healing potion and the rest of the group took the brute down before he could get off another swing. A well timed command spell helped too.
After that we headed to Beregost. It was night when we arrived, and so we stopped at Feldpost's and were accosted by some chump. I told him to shove it and he pulled a sword. We put him down pretty quick. That didn't seem to bother anyone except his sulky friend.
Using @Sirk8 method of randomizing everything, I rolled gender, race, class, alignment and even rolled for the lucky winner of the gender swapping belt.
I ended up with a female dwarven barbarian and actually had a freakishly amazing stat roll for this challenge. Oh and I used a random female dwarven name generator and got 'Gladis'
This is the furthest I have gotten in a while on this challenge, mostly due to the fact that I got super lucky and hit pretty well max hp on level ups every time on Gladis. Some quick highlights of the run include Montaron being bladed by the thayan bodyguards, Ajantis being paralyzed and having his throat bitten by a vampiric wolf and Minsc sadly falling to a single ghast.
The end of my run came out of nowhere. Gladis was high on life - Very strong companions and full of vitality thanks to her amazing HP rolls on level up. The group marched into a secluded cave and were face to face with a lone ettercap. A web trap was sprung at the exact same time Gladis was struck by the ettercap which poisoned and paralyzed her. The slow ticks of 2 poison damage painfully withered away the fortified 57 HP warrior, stamping a facepalm worthy end to the sensational run.
After putting that smart mouth Marl down for getting in our face we decided to take a walk around town. Hopefully the rest of this place isn't like the Feldpost inn... though an excuse to shed blood in public is welcome. We come across a guy named Garrick who hires us out for a his boss Silke, to protect her from some ruffians. She claims one is a wizard, either she was stupid or lying. We killed them anyhow and then took our 300 gold. Imoen and Khalid whined about killing innocents, so I made it up to them and we slaughtered Silke as well. It was obvious she had previous dealings with those men and double crossed them... I didn't want to wait for our turn. Turns out it was a good call, we collected some gold and items from her.
We talked to Garrick afterward and he he sulked and stomped off into the Red Sheaf. We followed him in, you know to rough him up a bit and tell him to stay out of our way (he had said something about our deeds catching up to us). Instead we were confronted by an assassin. He got a good hit in on Khalid, but a well timed command a hail of bullets ended his career.
Quite satisfied with ourselves we continued to explore this increasingly delightful place and came across a mage named Neera, she pleaded for our help, which we intended to ignore, then we were confronted by a group of Red Wizards. He seemed to think we were her protection so we tried to arrange a trade, but all they would offer was our life.... and so we took theirs. Khalid took a magic missile to the face though and died right as we laid the wizard low. Jaheira seemed a bit shaken up, but she'll get over it. We dumped his body and agreed to take Neera on since she had no gold to give us.
Her time with us didn't last long however. We came across a mercenary named Kagain and decided he was a better fit for the group, and a much better replacement for Khalid that Neera. We stripped her of her belongings for payment of our earlier protection and sent her packing.
I've decided to join the party and tried my first challenge tonight. Are you bored? I hope so. Read on!
I started out with nothing but good intentions. Keeping a character alive throughout BG? Hah. That was going to be easy. All I had to do is plan ahead and keep my character out of trouble. Yes, that was my character concept. A Jack Sparrow of sorts.
So I went for a Halfing Shadowdancer named Rain, after the portrait I've made using a very nice piece of artwork from some talented artist that was posted on Deviant Art. I'm pretty sure I owe that one to LadyRhian as well.
It felt strange passing all those nice rolls in order to keep a 75 stored. After rolling for a while, these are the stats I went for. That 18 in Dexterity is legit, I promise.
A Shadowdancer sounded like a great idea. Rain was going to be primarily a burglar who'd able to bolt away if things got too rough. That happened on numerous occasions, as you're about to discover.
So there I was in Candlekeep. First things first - let's pester Firebead until he spits out that nice gift of 300 gold pieces. What a nice old man. After that, I equipped myself (don't want to risk getting killed by Shank or Carbos) and went to do some quests. I just cannot skip these, no matter what. It doesn't feel like a complete game if I don't kill some rats and get out of there without my precious 345 XP.
Now, I usually max out CHA, no matter what class I'm playing. Of course, this wasn't the case with Rain, even though she had a decent 15 on that stat. It's not enough, however, to inspire any sort of human decency or gratitude in Hull, who insulted me after I brought him his sword.
Playing a Chaotic Neutral Thief, I thought this was the perfect opportunity for some mischief. Try to pickpocket him, the little imp on my shoulder said. It's going to be fun, it said. As you can see, my attempt failed miserably and seconds later, I was running for my life, trying desperately to use Hide in Plain Sight so Hull would stop trying to kill me. Talk about overreacting.
After running a couple of laps around the inner grounds, I found some shade and finally succeeded to hide in shadows. Hull stood there looking sort of confused. But then again, that's the usual expression on his dumb mead-filled face. Man, I hate Hull.
But that's okay. I would have my revenge later. Once I return to Candlekeep at Chapter Six, it'll be backstabbing-fun time. Just you wait, Hull. Or should I call you... Dull? Hah! Rain's snarky comments could rival Tyrion Lannister's if he existed in this world. And she's probably taller than him, too. Rain's so much fun. I'm already in love with my character by this point.
Oh, wait, what's that? I've run into Hull again while completing my last quest (Phlydia's book). Guess it's time to run to Gorion.
Yadda yadda yadda Gorion's dead and Imoen's tagging along. Now, what do I do with her? I'll take her to the Friendly Arm at least, while I decide who's going to be my party Mage. Maybe I could dual-class her. I'll leave that decision for later...
...as I'll leave exploring for later. I recruit Montaron and Xzar, check out Gorion's ambush site (not without running into a wolf first) and quickly get the hell outta there.
Oh look, a diamond!
At the crossroads, I give Elminster the snarky remark about how pestering strangers about their mental state doesn't seem all too well-adjusted (another one from Tyrion's handbook, I guess) and decide not to spend too much time around there. Except for a very short detour to grab that Ring of Protection that's hidden in a rock.
As soon as I arrive at the Friendly Arm and grab that hidden Ring of Wizardry (you've noticed at this point that I've absolutely no shame in taking advantage of my knowledge of easter eggs and hidden items), I start to worry.
This is it, guys, the moment of truth. Tarnesh. The bane of many a non-reload game, I assume. My strategy for this one is hiding Rain in shadows and throwing everyone else at him. I told you I was going to be a total coward, at least until she cannot be killed by a single stupid Magic Missile.
It's nighttime so it isn't hard for her to disappear. We approach the inn's entrance and Tarnesh approaches Imoen. "Candlekeep? Never heard of it." He obviously doesn't buy that and the fight begins.
Rain is hiding. Montaron is at the frontlines and as soon as Tarnesh's Mirror Image works, she bolts away as well. I don't want to lose her right now - remember, she's still a candidate for party Mage. Speaking of Mages, hold on a second...
What just happened there?
I love you, Xzar. I'm not considering making *you* the official party Mage, which doesn't bode well for Montaron. There's only room for one Thief in this party, dude. Sorry.
Once I finally enter the inn, it's time for some good old stealing. I raid every container that's not supervised and possible to lockpick with my 40 points in Open Locks. I also get the Golden Pantaloons because why the hell not. Dorn confuses me with a waitress and is promptly put in his place (and by that I mean "threatens to crush my neck with his bare hands").
Now, should I recruit Khalid and Jaheira? I think so. I'm missing a Fighter and a priest. At this point I'm considering getting Minsc (which does not bode well for Dynaheir, by the way) but Nashkel is a bit far away. I need them for now, so that's it. All I have to do now is get rid of Montaron.
And what about Imoen? I'll leave her here for now and recruit Neera. This was the worst decision since Robb Stark decided to cross Walden Frey. I know I'm exaggerating on the Game of Thrones references here, but bear with me.
Now, I think Montaron has had a bit too much to drink, because once we decide to take a walk outside the walls of the inn, he decides to tackle some smelly Hobgoblins by himself, wearing no armor. Maybe he wants to show off to Rain, you never know.
The first two Hobgoblins fall down easily. The third and fourth hurt him, but also go down. He hands Rain a Flamedance Ring which probably belongs to Joia but looks nice on Rain's finger so that's where it stays right now.
Hey, Jaheira, you might want to use some of your healing magic on Montaron.
I see. Okay then.
Oh, look at that, Montaron's dead. Sorry, old chum. See you at the Harper's Headquarters. With that taken care of, it's time to go to Beregost.
The trip to Beregost is without incident. I take Xzar to the Feldepost Inn so he can get some well-deserved rest. Before that, I stop by old Firebead's house, where he gives me a Scroll Case and even raises my reputation. What a nice old man.
So now it's time to recruit Neera.
Do you remember a few paragraphs ago when I said this was a bad decision? Oh well.
The fight between Rain, Khalid, Jaheira, Neera and the Red Wizards and their stupid bodyguards start. After a couple of rounds, Khalid goes down. Blast it, Khalid!
But that's okay... he can be replaced by Minsc, who's much more awesome. The bodyguards are dead and now I only need to take care of the Mage with the stupid accent whose name I forgot.
He casts a Color Spray that puts Rain and Jaheira to sleep. Uh-oh. Now I'm finally starting to worry.
Neera decides to return the favor, to no effect. By the end of that round, she's dead. For a second there, my mind wanders to these forums, where Dee is addressing the community with patch notes, claiming it's now much harder for Neera to get killed on this little battle. Damn you, Dee.
But that's okay. I've never lost this battle before and I'm going to lose it now on my first non-reload game because that would be too unlucky.
Wait, what's that now? He targeted Rain with... a single stupid Magic Missile? DAMN YOU, SHARKTOPUS!
And that's it for her. Before I see the dreaded hand animation, I still have time to see that stupid Mage running towards Jaheira, and I like to imagine he suffered greatly at her hands.
I took no screenshots of this fight. I thought it'd be inconsequential. Heh.
Anyway, that was a lot of fun. In case you guys find my post entertaining, I'll try it again with a different character.
Neera has about a 100% higher death rate after they removed her immunity to dying. Now, she takes one hit and dies most of the time.
Oh, and fun read Kilivilitsz! Looking forward to your next character. After the changes to the Neera battle, I find more of my soloers dying during that fight than previously.
I liked your Game of Thrones references, oh and Hull is an asshole. He talks all nice to you so you'll get his sword, then insults you afterward if your CHA score isn't to his liking.
As for Neera being killable, I like that. It does add a bit of challenge to the fight, since you have to worry about keeping her alive, also you don't end up with her absorbing hits like a mage shouldn't be able to.
My party was able to take her down with her alive, though we did lose Khalid
Yeah, and I'd say overall we had a net gain... a gem bag and a magical staff (to sell) for Khalid's life. Not a bad trade Though this is a no resurrection game, so I do want to try and preserve the lives of NPCs so as not to run out in the end (if I make it that far!)
Not much play time today. We run across some flaming fist enforcers who accuse us of being bandits. It seemed a case of mistaken identity, but we couldn't take the chance that they were on to our recent misdeeds. So we killed them and looted their armor, plate mail for all!
Feeling good about ourselves for ridding the world of three of these shmucks we went back to Beregost and commited some B&E including the mansion up North, we got quite a haul.
Xzar started whining about heading to Nashkel so we set our sites south. It was with mixed emotion that we left Beregost behind - such good times. Upon arriving in Nashkel I could see why Xzar was at home here... the place was full of looneys! First some guy dancing in the street yelling about justice
Then some cleric lady who thought she could take out six well armed adventurers all by herself, not to mention first announcing her intention. She got a hold spell off on me, but the others cut her down nice and easy
We decided to take a walk around town, spoke to some guy who thought I was someone named Greywolf... pocketed his 200 gold, his loss for being stupid. We talked to the mayor and promised to check out the mines.. yadda yadda, sure if we get some time - though Kagain's axes keep breaking so it may be worth it just for that. Then we ran across some annoying guy that wouldn't SHUT UP, so we shut him up... the town didn't seem to mind to much
We robbed a few peasants, almost got caught on one house... maybe this place isn't so bad after all
We decided to start in on the job Kagain hired us for initially, we did some searching but he gave up on it pretty quick - I'm starting to think it was all just an excuse to join our party. I don't mind though, he seems to enjoy the same type of fun I do.
Came across a talking chicken, was hoping for a nice reward from the guy's mentor, we didn't even get a discount at the shop.
Alright I just got done with possibly the best run I've ever had at this challenge. I'm going to link an imgur album ( http://imgur.com/a/n4pm7 ) with all the screenshots I took, although the order is mangled for some reason so just take it for what it is.
I went with a Halfing Bounty Hunter, Edgar, and cheesed the hell out of traps. It worked out quite amazingly and I had few mistakes in the entire run up until the end where I started doing stupid crap with complete lack of preparation. The screenshot I uploaded has 76 stats because I used a Con tome on him and realized I didn't snap a screenshot of his record page so I did it after the run.
I basically explored and destroyed the whole sword coast and scoured every area below Baldurs Gate. I'll highlight the NPC's I lost and the major mistakes I made as well as the end of the run. To be honest I considered cheating at one point with a reload but after 10 or 15 minutes of thinking I just took the bullet and stayed true to the challenge, I will go into detail on this
- Dynaheir was disposed of swiftly with the intention of picking up Edwin or Baeloth in the future. Sorry Minsc
- Minsc got smashed by an Ogre Berserker and his gang of Ogrillon and Hob Goblin thugs. Not a heavy loss but I wanted Minsc to endure so we had a moment of silence for him. Ajantis made a better 2 handed sword artist anyway
- Viconia's death was the start of a series of ridiculous and saddening mistakes. The Basilisk area was the source of failure and it ate me up and spat me out by the end. My first mistake was entering this area from the north - your positioning is horrible and you are forced to fight through basilisks to get to Korax. My second mistake was leaving the Belt of Antipode on Viconia. My third mistake was leaving the default ai scripts on all my NPC's and being too content with them running into battle. My fourth mistake was CASTING A FIREBALL ON TOP OF HER WITH BAELOTH in a thoughtless panic. Yep. With the -100 fire resist thanks to the belt she had no chance and was a incinerated. I can't justify my brilliant play so it is what it is. I blew her up with a fireball.
- Kivan's demise was when I seriously considered a reload. I've never done a reload once for this challenge because I feel like a dirty cheating scum but since I got so far in this run and he was so precious to me it took a lot of pondering. After being done with the Basilisk area and losing Viconia, I remember thinking to myself when I was leaving "Thank fuck thats over". Well.... I got waylaid by a Basilisk on my way out with no stone to flesh scrolls and Kivan was Medusa'd before my eyes. He had over 20,000 gold worth of fire/cold/biting arrows on him, the longbow of marskmanship, the archer gauntlets, all my magical potions and a chainmail +2 and a bunch of other valuable stuff. All gone. After much thought about a reload to keep some of his items, then kill him, it was decided that cheating was not an option. I'm glad I took the loss and stuck with the challenge.
- Rasaad was picked up with not much intention of keeping him. His poor AC led to his inevitable death at the hands of an Ogre Berserker. Didn't get a chance to use his Sun Soul Monk abilities before his grave was buried
- Branwen was a rock solid replacement for Viconia who the party was still heavily mourning. Her proficiencies were spot on and she had a better melee prowess than Viconia. Her death came at the hands of a baby wyvern in cloakwood. A crippling and deadly 5 damage poison per second withered her life away and didn't even leave a window to drink an antidote. Edgar's slow poison spell was 1 second late and she was buried in the wyvern cave.
- Yeslick's death was due to another colossal mistake on my part. Right around the corner from where he was imprisoned was a mage named Hareishan. I gave the witch far too much time to employ her magics and she got off an invisibility spell off and positioned herself for a lightning bolt spell. The lightning pierced the party and damn well near killed Coran, Ajantis and Yeslick after several bounces. A sneaky flame arrow spell sadly finished Yeslick off.
- The end of this challenge came at the hands of Davaeorn. Actually it came at the hands of a ghoul he summoned. I think I would of easily defeated him if I had taken off the stupid NPC ai scripts. I had baeloth cast an Improved Invisibility 10' radius spell after buffing everybody with potions, spells etc. As I position myself behind him with my whole crew Ajantis decides to take a swing at him and start a horrible initiation. Everything happened pretty fast after that, I tried to dispel magic on Davaeorn but he shadow doored away and I missed. The battle horrors came and were hacking away as I tried to decide whether to chase Davaeorn or take them out first. I'm not sure if it was a fireball or a lightning spell or what but the damage piled on FAST. Ajantis dropped, followed by Baeloth and Kagain. With just Edgar and Coran left, I went for the kill. Another mistake I made was using a potion of firebreath in a last ditch effort with Edgar. I thought it was a ranged fireball potion like the other 2 but it's melee and I ran right up to him. Woops. Coran's arrows were doing work but he got a Summon Monster III spell off right before he died. 2 ghouls were spawned and Edgar was struck and held. The last hope was Coran's archery skill. He managed to take 1 of the ghouls down but the second one finished the job.
A great run, I had a ton of fun. The reason I had so much success was because a single class thief levels up so damn fast. Some of the NPC's I picked up started at twice the level Edgar was. Recruiting NPC's at a high level is a far better route than raising them yourself.
I'll be back to conquer this challenge.. one day..
Comments
Now if it was "anything under 75" that would be different
Rolling 3d6*6 is a distribution of 18-108.
Rolling 3d6 is a distribution of 3-18.
Now see how likely is is to roll 12 (or 13) rolling three dice compared to rolling 18.
Same difference.
Not far from the encampment's entrance, a group of bounty hunters were waiting to intercept our heroes. Savilous spotted them first, so he made sure everyone in his party was in a favorable position before making their presence known to them. The bounty hunters had no idea they had swords ready to strike at their backs, and so they fell like flies.
Khalid found a dandy pair of Boots of Speed on one of their corpses, which he decided to don.
They headed inside the mines and disposed of any unfortunate guards who thought it was a good idea to try and stop the heroes of Nashkel. The Cloakwood Mines had turned out to be a slaving operation, and one of the slaves told Savilous that it was an old dwarven mine before the Iron Throne annexed it. Apparently there was a river plug nearby, the key of which was in the possession of the master of the mine, an Iron Throne dignitary with an unnecessarily complicated name who Savilous titled "Mr. D". It was time to pay this Mr. D a visit.
On the second level Savilous found a room filled to the brim with guards. They didn't notice him yet, so this gave Dynaheir the perfect opportunity to show off her prowess with a well-placed Fireball spell. The rest of the gang had no trouble taking out the few smoldering, half-dead guards that survived the explosion.
In a nearby room they found a slave leader named Rill, to whom they gave some money to allow him to bribe the guards and get the rest of the slaves to safety.
After leaving a bloody path through yet another long level, they had finally arrived to the bottom of the complex, to the offices of the master of the mines.
Mr. D was an unpleasantly arrogant individual, but more importantly, he was said to be a frighteningly competent archmage. The team decided to take no chances with a spellcaster of Mr. D's caliber, and instead sit back and wait while Savilous's magical arrows and Dynaheir's summoned horde of wolves did the dirty work. Of course, Mr. D did blast the wolves with every spell in his repertoire, but even as they fell more would pop out of that Wand of Monster Summoning.
For Savilous, the sweetest part of that victory was how it wiped the smug look from Mr. D's face when he realized he was to be undone by a pack of lowly feral wolves.
Looking at Mr. D's letters and interrogating his pathetic apprentice confirmed Savilous's suspicion that Mr. D had received his orders from the Iron Throne high ups at Baldur's Gate. It was time to leave that dreary place behind for good.
But first, with key in hand, Savilous had one little business to take care of. He made sure everyone was safe and gave the key to the old slave who told him about the river plug. He ran as fast as he could as the river flooded the mines behind him.
The next stop: Baldur's Gate!
Level-Ups:
Khalid: 1 level gained, rolled 2+3 for HP. O Khalid, Khalid, wherefore art thou Khalid?
Current Party:
Savilous: lvl 5
Imoen: lvl 6
Khalid: lvl 6
Jaheira: lvl F5/D5
Minsc: lvl 5
Dynaheir: lvl 5
Thrilled with their victory over the Iron Throne, Savilous and the gang made their way back through the Cloakwood forest. They were waylaid by a bunch of senseless bandits at one point, but otherwise their journey was uneventful.
They spent the night at the Friendly Arm, then continued north towards Baldur's Gate.
On the way they met an old farmer named Brun whose lands were overrun with ankhegs. They brought back to him the body of his lost son who had sadly fallen prey to the large insects. The adventurers left Brun with some of the ankhegs' hoard to help him get by—at least for a few seasons.
Further down the road, they handled a dispute between some Talossian fishermen and a priestess of Umberlee. Although the two parties were pretty much at each others' throats, they managed to resolve the situation without bloodshed. Well, mostly. A few threats and punches did the trick.
Finally, the adventurers crossed the bridge leading into the capital. After paying the bridge tax, they were approached by a man named Scar, commander of the Flaming Fist. He had heard about Savilous and his group's involvement in abolishing the iron crisis, and hired them to investigate the merchant organization known as the Seven Suns which had been acting strange lately. They accepted the task.
It was getting late, so the party set their course towards the city gate.
Level-Ups:
Savilous: 1 level gained, rolled 5+1 for HP. Mediocrous.
Jaheira: 1 druid level gained, rolled 3+1 for HP. This roll may look terrible, but for a multiclass druid it's actually pretty decent.
Minsc: 1 level gained, rolled 3+1 for HP. No excuses this time, this roll truly is terrible.
Imoen: 1 level gained, rolled 4+2 for HP. You passed, sis. Not that is matters.
Current Party:
Savilous: lvl 6
Imoen: lvl 7
Khalid: lvl 6
Jaheira: lvl F5/D6
Minsc: lvl 6
Dynaheir: lvl 5
I even used a dice roller to randomly pick his race, gender, class, etc....
Gender - 1, Male
Race - 6, Dwarf
Class - 5, Multiclass; 1, Fighter/Thief
Alignment - 3, lawful Neutral
Voice - 5, Male 5
Well back to the drawing board. I love this challenge
Things went mostly as usual in the beginning, except that CHARNAME is CE, so he didn't do a lot of the quests, well in some cases he took the items for himself or if he thought the reward would be more valuable he did those.
Reached FAI without much event, picked up Xzar and Monty along the way. Kept Imoen around, I'm sure I can exploit her thieving skills to my benefit. Picked up Khalid and Jaheira in FAI, we'll see how long I can stand these two, but for now it's best probably to have some companions.
Found out about a nice ring some lady was missing, so we told her to blow off, then went and looked for it and sold it to the innkeeper. Got a tip on an ogre carrying a magical belt too, so we hunted him down. We killed him but almost lost Jaheira who managed to entangle herself and not the ogre:
Lucky for her she had a healing potion and the rest of the group took the brute down before he could get off another swing. A well timed command spell helped too.
After that we headed to Beregost. It was night when we arrived, and so we stopped at Feldpost's and were accosted by some chump. I told him to shove it and he pulled a sword. We put him down pretty quick. That didn't seem to bother anyone except his sulky friend.
I ended up with a female dwarven barbarian and actually had a freakishly amazing stat roll for this challenge. Oh and I used a random female dwarven name generator and got 'Gladis'
This is the furthest I have gotten in a while on this challenge, mostly due to the fact that I got super lucky and hit pretty well max hp on level ups every time on Gladis. Some quick highlights of the run include Montaron being bladed by the thayan bodyguards, Ajantis being paralyzed and having his throat bitten by a vampiric wolf and Minsc sadly falling to a single ghast.
The end of my run came out of nowhere. Gladis was high on life - Very strong companions and full of vitality thanks to her amazing HP rolls on level up. The group marched into a secluded cave and were face to face with a lone ettercap. A web trap was sprung at the exact same time Gladis was struck by the ettercap which poisoned and paralyzed her. The slow ticks of 2 poison damage painfully withered away the fortified 57 HP warrior, stamping a facepalm worthy end to the sensational run.
I've decided to jump face first into this crazy challenge of yours with a gnome thief/illusionist.
So far the run has gone well and Cutler is about to enter the Nashkel Mines at level 5 Illusionist/6 Thief.
Good luck out there!
Keep 'em coming, I love this thread!
Im rocking a human lawful good inquisitor
spec in bastard swords and single weapon
roll of 75
18 Str
9 dex (going for gloves of dex asap)
9 con
8 Int (gotta read those prot scrolls)
13 Wis
18 char
Not sure who ill pick up but will probably try to grab all the folks i never use
just leaving candlekeep
wish me luck
After putting that smart mouth Marl down for getting in our face we decided to take a walk around town. Hopefully the rest of this place isn't like the Feldpost inn... though an excuse to shed blood in public is welcome. We come across a guy named Garrick who hires us out for a his boss Silke, to protect her from some ruffians. She claims one is a wizard, either she was stupid or lying. We killed them anyhow and then took our 300 gold. Imoen and Khalid whined about killing innocents, so I made it up to them and we slaughtered Silke as well. It was obvious she had previous dealings with those men and double crossed them... I didn't want to wait for our turn. Turns out it was a good call, we collected some gold and items from her.
We talked to Garrick afterward and he he sulked and stomped off into the Red Sheaf. We followed him in, you know to rough him up a bit and tell him to stay out of our way (he had said something about our deeds catching up to us). Instead we were confronted by an assassin. He got a good hit in on Khalid, but a well timed command a hail of bullets ended his career.
Quite satisfied with ourselves we continued to explore this increasingly delightful place and came across a mage named Neera, she pleaded for our help, which we intended to ignore, then we were confronted by a group of Red Wizards. He seemed to think we were her protection so we tried to arrange a trade, but all they would offer was our life.... and so we took theirs. Khalid took a magic missile to the face though and died right as we laid the wizard low. Jaheira seemed a bit shaken up, but she'll get over it. We dumped his body and agreed to take Neera on since she had no gold to give us.
Her time with us didn't last long however. We came across a mercenary named Kagain and decided he was a better fit for the group, and a much better replacement for Khalid that Neera. We stripped her of her belongings for payment of our earlier protection and sent her packing.
Current Party:
Demitrio, Priest of Talos - Level 1
Imoen, Thief - Level 1
Kagain, Fighter - Level 1
Jaheira, Figher/Druid - Level 2/2
Monteron, Figher/Thief - Level 1/1
Xzar, Necromancer - Level 1
The Fallen:
Khalid, Fighter - Level 1
I started out with nothing but good intentions. Keeping a character alive throughout BG? Hah. That was going to be easy. All I had to do is plan ahead and keep my character out of trouble. Yes, that was my character concept. A Jack Sparrow of sorts.
So I went for a Halfing Shadowdancer named Rain, after the portrait I've made using a very nice piece of artwork from some talented artist that was posted on Deviant Art. I'm pretty sure I owe that one to LadyRhian as well.
It felt strange passing all those nice rolls in order to keep a 75 stored. After rolling for a while, these are the stats I went for. That 18 in Dexterity is legit, I promise.
A Shadowdancer sounded like a great idea. Rain was going to be primarily a burglar who'd able to bolt away if things got too rough. That happened on numerous occasions, as you're about to discover.
So there I was in Candlekeep. First things first - let's pester Firebead until he spits out that nice gift of 300 gold pieces. What a nice old man. After that, I equipped myself (don't want to risk getting killed by Shank or Carbos) and went to do some quests. I just cannot skip these, no matter what. It doesn't feel like a complete game if I don't kill some rats and get out of there without my precious 345 XP.
Now, I usually max out CHA, no matter what class I'm playing. Of course, this wasn't the case with Rain, even though she had a decent 15 on that stat. It's not enough, however, to inspire any sort of human decency or gratitude in Hull, who insulted me after I brought him his sword.
Playing a Chaotic Neutral Thief, I thought this was the perfect opportunity for some mischief. Try to pickpocket him, the little imp on my shoulder said. It's going to be fun, it said. As you can see, my attempt failed miserably and seconds later, I was running for my life, trying desperately to use Hide in Plain Sight so Hull would stop trying to kill me. Talk about overreacting.
After running a couple of laps around the inner grounds, I found some shade and finally succeeded to hide in shadows. Hull stood there looking sort of confused. But then again, that's the usual expression on his dumb mead-filled face. Man, I hate Hull.
But that's okay. I would have my revenge later. Once I return to Candlekeep at Chapter Six, it'll be backstabbing-fun time. Just you wait, Hull. Or should I call you... Dull? Hah! Rain's snarky comments could rival Tyrion Lannister's if he existed in this world. And she's probably taller than him, too. Rain's so much fun. I'm already in love with my character by this point.
Oh, wait, what's that? I've run into Hull again while completing my last quest (Phlydia's book). Guess it's time to run to Gorion.
Yadda yadda yadda Gorion's dead and Imoen's tagging along. Now, what do I do with her? I'll take her to the Friendly Arm at least, while I decide who's going to be my party Mage. Maybe I could dual-class her. I'll leave that decision for later...
...as I'll leave exploring for later. I recruit Montaron and Xzar, check out Gorion's ambush site (not without running into a wolf first) and quickly get the hell outta there.
Oh look, a diamond!
At the crossroads, I give Elminster the snarky remark about how pestering strangers about their mental state doesn't seem all too well-adjusted (another one from Tyrion's handbook, I guess) and decide not to spend too much time around there. Except for a very short detour to grab that Ring of Protection that's hidden in a rock.
As soon as I arrive at the Friendly Arm and grab that hidden Ring of Wizardry (you've noticed at this point that I've absolutely no shame in taking advantage of my knowledge of easter eggs and hidden items), I start to worry.
This is it, guys, the moment of truth. Tarnesh. The bane of many a non-reload game, I assume. My strategy for this one is hiding Rain in shadows and throwing everyone else at him. I told you I was going to be a total coward, at least until she cannot be killed by a single stupid Magic Missile.
It's nighttime so it isn't hard for her to disappear. We approach the inn's entrance and Tarnesh approaches Imoen. "Candlekeep? Never heard of it." He obviously doesn't buy that and the fight begins.
Rain is hiding. Montaron is at the frontlines and as soon as Tarnesh's Mirror Image works, she bolts away as well. I don't want to lose her right now - remember, she's still a candidate for party Mage. Speaking of Mages, hold on a second...
What just happened there?
I love you, Xzar. I'm not considering making *you* the official party Mage, which doesn't bode well for Montaron. There's only room for one Thief in this party, dude. Sorry.
Once I finally enter the inn, it's time for some good old stealing. I raid every container that's not supervised and possible to lockpick with my 40 points in Open Locks. I also get the Golden Pantaloons because why the hell not. Dorn confuses me with a waitress and is promptly put in his place (and by that I mean "threatens to crush my neck with his bare hands").
Now, should I recruit Khalid and Jaheira? I think so. I'm missing a Fighter and a priest. At this point I'm considering getting Minsc (which does not bode well for Dynaheir, by the way) but Nashkel is a bit far away. I need them for now, so that's it. All I have to do now is get rid of Montaron.
And what about Imoen? I'll leave her here for now and recruit Neera. This was the worst decision since Robb Stark decided to cross Walden Frey. I know I'm exaggerating on the Game of Thrones references here, but bear with me.
Now, I think Montaron has had a bit too much to drink, because once we decide to take a walk outside the walls of the inn, he decides to tackle some smelly Hobgoblins by himself, wearing no armor. Maybe he wants to show off to Rain, you never know.
The first two Hobgoblins fall down easily. The third and fourth hurt him, but also go down. He hands Rain a Flamedance Ring which probably belongs to Joia but looks nice on Rain's finger so that's where it stays right now.
Hey, Jaheira, you might want to use some of your healing magic on Montaron.
I see. Okay then.
Oh, look at that, Montaron's dead. Sorry, old chum. See you at the Harper's Headquarters. With that taken care of, it's time to go to Beregost.
The trip to Beregost is without incident. I take Xzar to the Feldepost Inn so he can get some well-deserved rest. Before that, I stop by old Firebead's house, where he gives me a Scroll Case and even raises my reputation. What a nice old man.
So now it's time to recruit Neera.
Do you remember a few paragraphs ago when I said this was a bad decision? Oh well.
The fight between Rain, Khalid, Jaheira, Neera and the Red Wizards and their stupid bodyguards start. After a couple of rounds, Khalid goes down. Blast it, Khalid!
But that's okay... he can be replaced by Minsc, who's much more awesome. The bodyguards are dead and now I only need to take care of the Mage with the stupid accent whose name I forgot.
He casts a Color Spray that puts Rain and Jaheira to sleep. Uh-oh. Now I'm finally starting to worry.
Neera decides to return the favor, to no effect. By the end of that round, she's dead. For a second there, my mind wanders to these forums, where Dee is addressing the community with patch notes, claiming it's now much harder for Neera to get killed on this little battle. Damn you, Dee.
But that's okay. I've never lost this battle before and I'm going to lose it now on my first non-reload game because that would be too unlucky.
Wait, what's that now? He targeted Rain with... a single stupid Magic Missile? DAMN YOU, SHARKTOPUS!
And that's it for her. Before I see the dreaded hand animation, I still have time to see that stupid Mage running towards Jaheira, and I like to imagine he suffered greatly at her hands.
I took no screenshots of this fight. I thought it'd be inconsequential. Heh.
Anyway, that was a lot of fun. In case you guys find my post entertaining, I'll try it again with a different character.
Oh, and fun read Kilivilitsz! Looking forward to your next character. After the changes to the Neera battle, I find more of my soloers dying during that fight than previously.
As for Neera being killable, I like that. It does add a bit of challenge to the fight, since you have to worry about keeping her alive, also you don't end up with her absorbing hits like a mage shouldn't be able to.
My party was able to take her down with her alive, though we did lose Khalid
Feeling good about ourselves for ridding the world of three of these shmucks we went back to Beregost and commited some B&E including the mansion up North, we got quite a haul.
Sarevok went down to the might of level 1 Pia, the new god of murder!
Then some cleric lady who thought she could take out six well armed adventurers all by herself, not to mention first announcing her intention. She got a hold spell off on me, but the others cut her down nice and easy
We decided to take a walk around town, spoke to some guy who thought I was someone named Greywolf... pocketed his 200 gold, his loss for being stupid. We talked to the mayor and promised to check out the mines.. yadda yadda, sure if we get some time - though Kagain's axes keep breaking so it may be worth it just for that. Then we ran across some annoying guy that wouldn't SHUT UP, so we shut him up... the town didn't seem to mind to much
We robbed a few peasants, almost got caught on one house... maybe this place isn't so bad after all
We decided to start in on the job Kagain hired us for initially, we did some searching but he gave up on it pretty quick - I'm starting to think it was all just an excuse to join our party. I don't mind though, he seems to enjoy the same type of fun I do.
Came across a talking chicken, was hoping for a nice reward from the guy's mentor, we didn't even get a discount at the shop.
I went with a Halfing Bounty Hunter, Edgar, and cheesed the hell out of traps. It worked out quite amazingly and I had few mistakes in the entire run up until the end where I started doing stupid crap with complete lack of preparation. The screenshot I uploaded has 76 stats because I used a Con tome on him and realized I didn't snap a screenshot of his record page so I did it after the run.
I basically explored and destroyed the whole sword coast and scoured every area below Baldurs Gate. I'll highlight the NPC's I lost and the major mistakes I made as well as the end of the run. To be honest I considered cheating at one point with a reload but after 10 or 15 minutes of thinking I just took the bullet and stayed true to the challenge, I will go into detail on this
- Dynaheir was disposed of swiftly with the intention of picking up Edwin or Baeloth in the future. Sorry Minsc
- Minsc got smashed by an Ogre Berserker and his gang of Ogrillon and Hob Goblin thugs. Not a heavy loss but I wanted Minsc to endure so we had a moment of silence for him. Ajantis made a better 2 handed sword artist anyway
- Viconia's death was the start of a series of ridiculous and saddening mistakes. The Basilisk area was the source of failure and it ate me up and spat me out by the end. My first mistake was entering this area from the north - your positioning is horrible and you are forced to fight through basilisks to get to Korax. My second mistake was leaving the Belt of Antipode on Viconia. My third mistake was leaving the default ai scripts on all my NPC's and being too content with them running into battle. My fourth mistake was CASTING A FIREBALL ON TOP OF HER WITH BAELOTH in a thoughtless panic. Yep. With the -100 fire resist thanks to the belt she had no chance and was a incinerated. I can't justify my brilliant play so it is what it is. I blew her up with a fireball.
- Kivan's demise was when I seriously considered a reload. I've never done a reload once for this challenge because I feel like a dirty cheating scum but since I got so far in this run and he was so precious to me it took a lot of pondering. After being done with the Basilisk area and losing Viconia, I remember thinking to myself when I was leaving "Thank fuck thats over". Well.... I got waylaid by a Basilisk on my way out with no stone to flesh scrolls and Kivan was Medusa'd before my eyes. He had over 20,000 gold worth of fire/cold/biting arrows on him, the longbow of marskmanship, the archer gauntlets, all my magical potions and a chainmail +2 and a bunch of other valuable stuff. All gone. After much thought about a reload to keep some of his items, then kill him, it was decided that cheating was not an option. I'm glad I took the loss and stuck with the challenge.
- Rasaad was picked up with not much intention of keeping him. His poor AC led to his inevitable death at the hands of an Ogre Berserker. Didn't get a chance to use his Sun Soul Monk abilities before his grave was buried
- Branwen was a rock solid replacement for Viconia who the party was still heavily mourning. Her proficiencies were spot on and she had a better melee prowess than Viconia. Her death came at the hands of a baby wyvern in cloakwood. A crippling and deadly 5 damage poison per second withered her life away and didn't even leave a window to drink an antidote. Edgar's slow poison spell was 1 second late and she was buried in the wyvern cave.
- Yeslick's death was due to another colossal mistake on my part. Right around the corner from where he was imprisoned was a mage named Hareishan. I gave the witch far too much time to employ her magics and she got off an invisibility spell off and positioned herself for a lightning bolt spell. The lightning pierced the party and damn well near killed Coran, Ajantis and Yeslick after several bounces. A sneaky flame arrow spell sadly finished Yeslick off.
- The end of this challenge came at the hands of Davaeorn. Actually it came at the hands of a ghoul he summoned. I think I would of easily defeated him if I had taken off the stupid NPC ai scripts. I had baeloth cast an Improved Invisibility 10' radius spell after buffing everybody with potions, spells etc. As I position myself behind him with my whole crew Ajantis decides to take a swing at him and start a horrible initiation. Everything happened pretty fast after that, I tried to dispel magic on Davaeorn but he shadow doored away and I missed. The battle horrors came and were hacking away as I tried to decide whether to chase Davaeorn or take them out first. I'm not sure if it was a fireball or a lightning spell or what but the damage piled on FAST. Ajantis dropped, followed by Baeloth and Kagain. With just Edgar and Coran left, I went for the kill. Another mistake I made was using a potion of firebreath in a last ditch effort with Edgar. I thought it was a ranged fireball potion like the other 2 but it's melee and I ran right up to him. Woops. Coran's arrows were doing work but he got a Summon Monster III spell off right before he died. 2 ghouls were spawned and Edgar was struck and held. The last hope was Coran's archery skill. He managed to take 1 of the ghouls down but the second one finished the job.
A great run, I had a ton of fun. The reason I had so much success was because a single class thief levels up so damn fast. Some of the NPC's I picked up started at twice the level Edgar was. Recruiting NPC's at a high level is a far better route than raising them yourself.
I'll be back to conquer this challenge.. one day..