I was really liking this party too . Stupid me decided to play with the sound muted and listen to awesome music (Beethoven's 9th). Being distracted, I entered the tent with Zordral. I forgot all about the fact that I was playing a barbarian and did not use rage. Result? 2 Sleep spells later, everyone was asleep and Zordral magic missle'ed and staffed me to death a second before the spell wore off .
I was thinking about doing a minimal reload with this group, but in the spirit of the no-reload, decided against it.
Lessons learned:
1. Tiax (and cleric/thief in general) can be awesome (I was thinking...Champion's Strength, Draw Upon Holy Might, cloak of non-detection, ring of invisibility, Staff of Striking [maybe Poison too?...though I'm sure Saravok's save vs. poison is pretty good, especially with SCS]...could Tiax do a super-awesome backstabs on Saravok and RULE ALL??...Sanctuary to run away of course ). Also, with the boots of stealth, or whatever they call it now, his stealth is slightly bearable with no points put into it...let alone if he gets shadow armor.
2. Barbarian's...especially 19 strength half-orcs are awesome.
3. Don't listen to music while playing a no-reload run!
Special thanks to SCS for making it possible to getting Tiax early.
I definitely feel your pain, lol. There's so many ways to bite the dust in these games that if you let your guard down at all there's pretty high odds that something is going to kill you.
I almost had a calamity in my current game traveling back from the gnoll stronghold, and I forgot about the polar bear. Yikes! No one is heavily armored enough at that moment. So like Benny Hill they run from the polar bear. I'm hoping my Assassin can get enough of a lead on the bear to enter stealth. But... this takes us right into the hands of an ogre! (Luckily they shook the bear!) So I try to draw the ogre off by having Darthyra and Monty diverge each in a different direction. But he doesn't go for it. No, he goes straight for Edwin. Who had just enough time, by a hair's breadth, to get off a shot with his lightning wand.
See, that was because I got lazy and didn't stealth ahead to spot the bear, is how I think of it. Monty wasn't wearing his ankheg armor then.
But re: your party, yeah, it definitely looked like it rocked. I'd make an archived save of your last auto- or quicksave and maybe return to it as a minimal reload game at some point!
@Lemernis, tempting, but nah. The whole thing about the no-reload, is if these characters die, they're merely memories. I suppose in the future, I could easily re-roll something similar. I've already rolled the next one (though, I might not play for a bit...until I've shaken the last loss of ha ha):
I won't get Alora until late (no relocation for SCS), so my multi-class thief will have to do it all ...luckily, as a halfling, I get plenty of points. Lawful neutral ought to be...interesting for a thief....Charname will have to tank, scout, and do traps/locks until Cloakwood (assuming I get even that close). Thankfully, Quayle is relocated and I'll have a cleric early. Hopefully, I get some good sleep casts...
@Lemernis “I gave the Tome of Leadership and Influence to Edwin. At least he can also wear Algernon's Cloak and cast Friends. So his Cha will be 19 for dealing with merchants. “
Don’t forget to make him a leader of the party (a top character in the list) – for a moment you talk to a merchant at least - because just having Edwin talk to a merchant without taking the lead does not change prices. In BG:EE most NPCs still use the speaker's CHA to calculate the reaction adjustment but shopkeepers stick to using the CHA of the person in the top slot.
Here’s the continuation of the story of Jagen MoonShadow, also known as Jagen H’gar.
I use the classic rules of this tournament, playing at the insane difficulty. BTW, because of the increased damage of enemies I'm too not much concerned with the speed of the game.
The progress including the time spent at the moment Jagen was ready to leave Nashkel in order to complete Edwin’s quest can be seen on the following screenshot.
So, it was 7 days and 9 hours.
The party of Jagen, Viconia ,Edwin and Dorn came to the Xvart village and rather easily destroyed any resistance they came across. The hilarious part was the appearing of the great Ursa that suddenly became aggressive towards… a xvart who called for it. Ursa seemed to like Viconia as it didn’t even want to touch her.
The group of wolves that was found to the west of the village was dealt with the Color Spray spell casted by Edwin. This can be a useful spell – you target the start of the area covered by it and every creature that have up to 4HD in this area is affected (if don’t save). In this case all 5 wolves fell unconscious and never awoke.
Viconia reached 4th level and luckly got 5 HP this time and -2 to THACO. A hammer proficiency was chosen as it can be handy at some point of the game due to Ashideena – because of +1 electricity damage. This hammer is one of the best weapons in BG.
And then we met Borda. The pleasure of this game is there’re some dangerous enemies even when everyone else on the whole location is easy. As this party found out, Borda is an interesting opponent. To this moment everything went rather smooth. It’s partly because the main quest line can be not so hard as some side events and meetings.
First of all, the party hadn’t rested for a while and was short of spells. There was a shortage of arrows and traps as well. Second, Borda seemed to have a good AC so that his mirrored images vanished slowly, even being attacked by Dorn’s THACO. Third, Borda saved against the Hold Person spell. Fourth, he’s not a low-level mage so only one shot of Magic Missiles killed Edwin who had 17 HPs. Viconia and Dorn had the same fate. Jagen, as always, stayed somewhere far and when the situation became critical (3 members of the party fell in the period of several seconds) he didn’t panic. Instead, he hid in shadows and attacked. Jagen made sure Borda had no spells left. The high AC of Borda managed to prevent the successful hit 4 or 5 times. Every time Jagen became visible, he retreated, walked in circles, changed directions, waited for the moment there’s no enemy seen and tried to hide in shadows. Then he repeated his attack and everything began again. Sooner rather than later, Borda’s fate was decided.
Here’s the screenshot showing this moment of glory as well as the grey portraits of Viconia ,Edwin and Dorn.
The travel to this area from Nashkel took only 4 hours so I thought going back to Nashkel to resurrect Viconia ,Edwin and Dorn and to buy some arrows and potions and coming back wouldn’t seriously increase the time spent –like only one rest, really. But it turns out travelling back to Nashkel took 20 (!) hours while going to the area where the loot was left (there’s a container in the cave). It’s so strange…
This fight helped to understand that side events and meetings poise a great threat to the no-reload run when the level of party members is not so great (due to the speedy adventure) but enemies are full in their force. Jagen definitely got more experience from this fight than just 900 Exp for killing Borda, although getting 900 Exp for one enemy and alone (everyone else was dead so Jagen got the whole amount) is not bad either – the higher level the thief will be, the more thieving points he’ll have.
@bengoshi, I always thought that shopkeepers looked at the speaker for prices...good to know. I also thought that even dead characters received xp...also good to know. Good luck with your insane run. Is it SCS too (that would be nuts)?
Just to update, Unahana Hollysharp was killed by Karlat. I had trouble RP'ing lawful neutral. After doing Silke's bidding, I used a potion of defense giving me -4 AC. Even with Xzar's 2 Larloch's Minor Drains, a couple good shots, and two potions, she still fell.
I started another: chaotic good, Female, Elven, Mage/Thief who rolled Khalid *and* Jaheira in the party (what are the odds?). Tarnesh was easy due to the potion of clarity and Shield spell (resistance to Sleep was great too...almost a perfect character vs Tarnesh). Chaotic good/neutral are so much easier to play! However, I am going to stop updating characters that I run unless they make it past the mines. It's a little ridiculous to keep posting such fail runs .
@dstoltzfus, it's always interesting to read about someone's runs no matter how long their adventure is. Every story has its own unique traits and more or less gives something that can be useful. Also, every new story contributes to this tournament and shows your effort.
For example, I haven't played SCS yet (I think the classic game is hard enough if there're no reloads) and every possible experience I can get from those who try it + no-reload is interesting for me. Really, hat's off to all of you, guys!
@dstoltzfus, it's always interesting to read about someone's runs no matter how long their adventure is. Every story has its own unique traits and more or less gives something that can be useful. Also, every new story contributes to this tournament and shows your effort.
For example, I haven't played SCS yet (I think the classic game is hard enough if there're no reloads) and every possible experience I can get from those who try it + no-reload is interesting for me. Really, hat's off to all of you, guys!
I so agree with this. Each game is a unique kind of tactics/strategy clinic in it's own right. In some of these games it's like being dropped into the wilderness with a Swiss army knife--you're forced to use whatever is available. And that often means learning something new. Or at least trying something new.
I've already learned some new strategies, both from my own games and reading others' postings.
It's also proven more of a pleasure than I expected to play classes I would otherwise never have dreamed of running, with parties that are so off-the-wall. I mean, I figured I would enjoy that to begin with. But the sheer fun of that surprised me.
I have updated the topic starter to include the following versions of the challenge:
No Meta-gaming and Roleplayed Same rules as 'Classic' but with two exceptions: No meta-gaming (as defined above) and here you play each party member as befits their alignment and backstory, imagining how you believe each would (most likely) behave and proceeding accordingly.
SCS/No Meta-gaming/Roleplayed Same rules as 'Classic' but with the following exceptions: SCS is installed, no meta-gaming, and here you roleplay the party. All as defined above. If you're taking this on, you obviously love a challenge!
And I included a note also that players can definitely have full fun with this system by just competing against their own 'personal best', and an encouragement to share whatever that is. For most of us that will be the farthest you've managed to get. There won't be a leader board for that, of course, but it'll still add to the vicarious enjoyment of one another's efforts.
Hmm, interesting idea GH, there could be a soloed version of each, really... The leader board would then look like this:
Classic This is the basic game with the rules spelled out here. What distinguishes it from the other versions: vanilla EE (no mods), no illegal race/class/alignments, and meta-game freely.
Classic - Solo Same as above except that you don't roll up a party. You run only the PC you rolled up via best of three rolls.
EEKeepered Classes Allowed Same rules as 'Classic' but with one exception: EEKeepered illegal race/class/alignment combos are allowed. This just for the fun value since the random generation system can give you some pretty wild PC builds.
EEKeepered Classes Allowed - Solo Same as above except that you don't roll up a party. You run only the PC you rolled up via best of three rolls.
No Meta-gaming Same rules as 'Classic' but with one exception: No meta-gaming. Characters behave only according to what the they would/could know, not what you know as a player. I.e., your characters don't know what lies around each bend, nor where various magical items may be obtained, etc.. So your tactical approach to the game flows from that premise. In-depth role-playing is not required. But it may be presumed that the PC would be on guard after the initial ambush in the Prologue. In the same spirit as no-meta-gaming, when you're rolling your PC please no outrageous min-maxing (no 3 Int, etc.).
No Meta-gaming - Solo Same as above except that you don't roll up a party. You run only the PC you rolled up via best of three rolls.
Roleplayed Same rules as 'Classic' but with one exception: Here you play each party member as befits their alignment and backstory, imagining how you believe each would (most likely) behave and proceeding accordingly. You may meta-game however.
Roleplayed - Solo Same as above except that you don't roll up a party. You run only the PC you rolled up via best of three rolls.
No Meta-gaming and Roleplayed Same rules as 'Classic' but with two exceptions: No meta-gaming and roleplayed (as defined above)..
No Meta-gaming and Roleplayed - Solo Same as above except that you don't roll up a party. You run only the PC you rolled up via best of three rolls.
SCS Same rules as 'Classic' but with one exception: you're playing with the Sword Coast Stratagems mod with at least AI Modifications installed, other components optional. Obviously this will be more difficult.
SCS - Solo Same as above except that you don't roll up a party. You run only the PC you rolled up via best of three rolls.
No Meta-gaming and SCS Same rules as 'Classic' but with two exceptions: SCS is installed (with AI Modifications installed at a minimum) and no meta-gaming. This is truly a hardcore challenge.
No Meta-gaming and SCS - Solo Same as above except that you don't roll up a party. You run only the PC you rolled up via best of three rolls.
SCS/No Meta-gaming/Roleplayed Same rules as 'Classic' but with the following exceptions: SCS is installed, no meta-gaming, and here you roleplay the party. All as defined above. If you're taking this on, you obviously love a challenge!
SCS/No Meta-gaming/Roleplayed - Solo Same as above except that you don't roll up a party. You run only the PC you rolled up via best of three rolls.
What do others think?
The only way soloing is meaningful as a challenge with this system, though, is via best of three rolls. I think only one roll might prove too tough. It's all on the honor system to begin with, of course.
I already haven't included all the possible variations of 'EEKeepered Classes Allowed', eg, No-Meta-gaming, SCS, and Roleplayed, because the leader board seemed to be getting a bit dizzying. To broaden the leader board even more with all the soloing versions might have some players feel 'oh no, this all looks too complicated, no thanks'. But another way of looking at it is in for a penny, in for a pound.
Actually, one solution to keeping the leader board more easily digestible might be simply to include a 'Best Thus Far - Solo' for all these respective challenges.
I guess another thing is that, at least for me, a big part of the charm and uniqueness of this system is the random party aspect. It's what really sets this form of a no-reload challenge apart, I think. Maybe that's just me, though.
We already have it in the rules that you can choose not to take NPCs that one rolls, at the player's discretion, so a solo run is basically an extreme version of that. Yet the challenge of soloing no-reload with a random character does seem to merit a category of its own. Soloing a randomly generated character would (or could) be massively more difficult than with the support of a party--especially with SCS, No-Meta-gaming, and Roleplayed.
I guess the question is: how integral do you all feel the random party aspect is to this challenge?
Well, my father died viciously last night, but life is cruel and you have to use the hand you've been dealt. Imoen accosted me on the side of the road, and I ordered her to go back to Candlekeep. Stupid girl. I don't think she even noticed that I took her wand of missiles. http://i.imgur.com/azpkBtm.jpg I revisited the ambush site, and found a belt I had never seen before on my foster father, and I copied the note I found on him about me into my journal. I lit his body on fire, and pilfered what I could from the soldiers Gorion had killed. Gorion, killing people? I never thought he could. I then walked away from the ambush site, I don't plan to ever return to that place. I next went East and reached a crossroads, where a twinkling caught my eye, I had found a ring! I then thought about the letter, and how we had been ambushed. To think, that person had asked for me...
I decided to take my own path and go South. In Beregost, some crazy witch got me into a fight so I scared her away. I managed to avoid a fight with a drunkard in Feldepost's I think it was, and raided the mayor of Beregost. I think I did well. I got some sort of wand and a potion of invisibility. http://i.imgur.com/Qmo0tUa.jpg http://i.imgur.com/hgwaI5g.jpg Then I went further South, and was waylaid by big hairy smelly things on the road. I managed to put poison on my blade, hide in the shadows and kill them one by one. Those nasty things never saw me until I hit them, then they would chase me around the trees until I disappeared again just for me to stab them in the back. I found a note on one of their bodies, I'm going to have to find this Mirianne. http://i.imgur.com/LzFFUan.jpg I decided to then avoid the road, and went West, only to run into some hobgoblins, I led them on a merry chase, but after killing them one by one, I found out their leader had a good taste in boots. I continued my trek South in my new boots and ran into a guy named Portalbendsomething, he said that I won't last long. Eh, whatever. He probably got on the wrong side of Cyric. http://i.imgur.com/obd7rn3.jpg I next ran into Nashkel, and found Berrun Ghastkill, who gave me a quest to clear a mine to the South, I guess I'll do it since he promised a reward. I then went raiding.
There wasn't much in the farmhouses, except that they were crawling with pond scum before long. I did however randomly stumble on some green armour in a field, it was very light and it was worth tons. Poor farmers never knew they were sitting on a fortune. I then ran into the inn to rest for the first time since I had left Candlekeep with Gorion, I hid in the shadows once more and entered the inn. It was a good thing too, since there was an armed cleric within that was searching for something at the door, expecting the arrival of someone. I talked to the barkeep, who was startled when I appeared in front of him, but he still let me pay for a room for the night.
In the morning, the armed figure was still there. I decided a preemptive strike would be at best. So, I poisoned my blades, with the barkeeper watching with wide eyes, and I hid in the shadows. I hit the cleric, she turned around and exclaimed, "I've found you! Now die!" She cast a spell, but I was already in the shadows once more. I hit her twice, before a spell hit me. It seemed to do nothing so I continued, on the third hit she was dead. In her pocket she had a bounty notice on my head, and a helm I later found out was for infra-vision... The money was nice at least.
http://i.imgur.com/MxrHeac.jpg I need to find this person who is willing to pay others to kill me. Wait, I'm worth 680 gold? They must really want me dead.
I've tried to play a no-reload solo run as a multi gnome illusionist/thief once and found out that while it's rather interesting at the start it becomes easier later on. You get so much EXP and thus HP, THACO, thieving abilities too fast, have an early access to powerful spells. In that game it became obvious the character is stronger than enemies he met. Not for me.
But I understand there can always be another point of view. Especially if it's some other class and (or) race.
Just from the experience I've got BG just "feels" better and "naturally" when you have a party, act as a group, everyone has his own role etc. This game is connected to managing a party.
And the thing I liked the most about this random contest is probably the random party aspect.
But again, it's my opinion.
The current rules stating that you can choose if you take NPCs which you've rolled with you or not, already covers the possibility of a solo run. I think there's no need to put additional options to the leader board. It (soloing the game) should be possible, no question about that, but it doesn't need it's own category.
@bengoshi Maybe just note that if done solo go use the best of three rolls and note via 'Best Thus Far - Solo' when it's a solo run for the category? Eg,
No Meta-gaming Same rules as 'Classic' but with one exception: No meta-gaming. Characters behave only according to what the they would/could know, not what you know as a player. I.e., your characters don't know what lies around each bend, nor where various magical items may be obtained, etc.. So your tactical approach to the game flows from that premise. In-depth role-playing is not required. But it may be presumed that the PC would be on guard after the initial ambush in the Prologue. In the same spirit as no-meta-gaming, when you're rolling your PC please no outrageous min-maxing (no 3 Int, etc.).
Best Thus Far: (None yet.)
Best Thus Far - Solo Run (No Party): (None yet.)
But doing this only when someone records a solo run.
We're already noting when folks are taking on a challenge with different difficulty settings (rules state Core Rules, but it's best to keep a big tent). So this would be in the same spirit. It's all in fun anyway, so we're not going to rules lawyer overmuch. Just note the variations.
IIRC, Taerom completes ankheg armor in a tenday (FR's ten day week), which is ten game days.
I believe BGEE adjusted this to a shorter time period - IIRC now he says it will take a "few" days altho the one run I had him make the armor I didn't track exactly how many days it was (more than 2 but much less than 10 I think).
Other changes include not having to drop all but one armor to keep him from taking as many as you have in inventory for the price of one - he now buys them one at a time no matter how many you are holding.
He will now also continue to buy as many shells as you wish to bring to him even after making the armor but will still only make one set of armor.
@Wanderon I believe that he makes the ankheg armor in 4 days now... and 1 if you pay the extra 2000 gold.
The continued adventures of Naomilais Greensleeves, elven cleric of Helm...(this is a long one, my apologies in advance))
The group decided to continue on through the mines in search of Daevorn without resting. The first level was easy, as there were only 2 guards to be dealt with. The next level brought some challenge as we had to make it through two rooms full of guardsmen, a mage, and a few black talon elites. Safana managed to scout the area and we formulated our plan of attack. Safana got rid of the 2 traps on the corridor leading to the guardroom and Jaheira (the least damaged of the members with good AC peaked around the corner and tossed a potion of explosions into the room (classic grenade into a crowded room... still very effective though). Safana had counted 10 people in the room, 1 followed Jaheira back to the waiting group, where he was quickly dispatched. Next another guard and the mage came into the room. The guard was met by Khalid and Jaeira. The mage was met by the sling stone and darts of Imoen, Naolmilais, and Baeloth. The icing on the cake was the backstab by Safana which dropped the badly injured mage just as she started casting her first spell. Safana then returned to the room via stealth to find only 2 of the original 10 still standing and both looking in very bad shape. Khalid and Jaheira advanced into the room and Safana struck the remaining black talon elite from the shadows, keeping him from firing his bow at the half elven couple.
There were several more guards in the next room and they managed to injure Khalid quite severly (4 HP left). The stair down beckoned us and we proceded down them only to meet yet another guardroom bellow. Imoen cast her final spell {sleep} and manged to get 4 of the 7 guards down while Khalid (back up to 14 HP thanks to an elixer of health) and Jaheira handled those not affected by the spell. Those who fell asleep were dealt with by the rest of the party. We continued on this level eliminating several groups of hobgoblins until we found the stairs down. We got a few spell scrolls and some potions from looting some of the rooms here.
And finally the lowest level where we faced off against Daevorn, the master of the mines. We killed the last guard in our way and opened the secert door leading to Daevorn. Safana managed to get rid of 4 traps but missed the 5th and was spotted by Daevorn. Our initial strategy was to use silence on Daevorn and make short work of him if it landed. Our backup was for Khalid to drink 1 of 2 potions of magic blocking and take Daevorn out. We opted for the back up. Khalid drank the potion and charged Daevorn, shrugging of the myriad of spells being cast at him. Baeloth used his remaining 3rd level spell to cast fireball and injure Daevorn.
We were successful in killing Daevorn and finding out about his connection to the Iron Throne. We were going to Baldur's gate. On our way out of the mines we freed the slaves kept there and helped flood the mines. We were now were at about 20% average health and almost entirely without magic( Baeloth and Imoen were out of spells, Jaheira had a slow poison, and Naomilais had 2 commands, a slow poison, strength of one and dispel magic).
On exiting the Cloakwood the severely injured party was ambushed by 4 ettercaps. Khalid and Jaheira rushed forward to protect the weaker party members as Naomilais cast her two command spells and Imoen used a wand of frost. Baeloth used a scroll of Magic Missiles and in combination with Imoen was able to bring down an ettercap (2 uses of the wand of frost and 1 magic missile) Meanwhile Khalid was slain by two of the other ettercaps and Jaheira was able to down an injured ettercap who had fallen victim to a command spell. The next thing that happened was that Safana had found a trap to the west and removed it, just as Jaheira fell to the last 2 ettercaps. Safana attempted to get an ettercap off of Imoen as Baeloth retreated west and Naomilais engaged an ettercap in melee. The results were that Safana was killed defending Imoen, but Imoen was able to get off a charge of her wand of frost bringing the ettercap down to near dead status and Baeloth finish it off with a burning hands scroll. Naomilais had to retreat as she was severely injured (level 5 21 HP total, her HP rolls have been atrocious). Imoen was hit and poisoned by the last ettercap and Jaheira had been holding onto our last antidote potion. Imoen made a dash for Jaheira's downed body, but was overcome by the poison coursing through her just as she reached for Jaheira's pack. The party was down to 2 Baeloth and Naomilais. Naomilais ran to Imoens body an took the wand of frost from her hand and tossed it to Baeloth who used the last charge on the ettercap. Naomilais was keeping the ettercap occupied by slinging stones at it and retreating. Baeloth then played the last card he had by using a potion of firebreath on the ettercap, leaving it as a a smoldering pile of ash on the forrest floor. Naomilais and Baeloth were able to divide up the magical gear and hard to find potion their slain companion were carrying and make it back to the FAI to revive them all and pay for healing (I'm not about to waste time resting for my meager healing spells) then finally rest before going north to Baldur's Gate.
Upon reaching the outskirts of Baldur's Gate... the party was walking through the outer farms when they were attacked by Ankhegs! Four of them to be exact. Again Khalid and Jaheira rushed to confront our attackers. One of the giant insects was slain. Khalid was then hit by multiple ankhegs and fell down to the ground under their onslaught. Imoen, seeing the noble half-elven fighter fall, cast a sleep spell that managed to put 2 of the 3 monstrous insects to sleep. We managed to slay the remaining 3 ankhegs, but the damage was done... We collected Khalid's body and continued on to Baldur's Gate where we were met by Scar and accepted his task to infiltrate the Seven Suns compound and investigate the strange goings on reported. We first made for the temple of Gond to restore our comrade to life. We then headed to the Seven Suns where we are currently discussing our plans.
We stopped here and saved our progress for the time being.
Day: 19 Hour: 8
(To be continued...)
I thought this was a good time to reflect on the luck of our mine encounter and the near-tragic loss of the whole party to a minor encounter in the Cloakwood. They are walking on the edge of a blade and any little wrong step could be their deaths. The fight in the cloakwood brought to light a few details that I'd like to share outright. The first is the above statement... risk is calculated by reward. Not only did I take on the mines with limited resources (everyone was already even roughed up a bit going in and we had no healing other than what we scrounged in the mines, which was very little), but we even tried to get through the cloakwood without running into a random encounter (good luck even though it is possible and has happened before, it's just a high likelihood of happening and none of the encounters are very nice, especially when you are down to very low health and no magic. My advice is buy healing and carry plenty with you, everywhere and use whatever resources you must to obtain victory BEFORE you start taking resource eating losses. Each of my fallen companions were 800 gold a piece to revive and at least 200 in healing cost, so there went 4000+ gold just to get them back to adventuring shape... I had that much and bought some potions on top of that and was able to sell the robe of evil arch magi for 10,000 gold (I'm saving that money for a possible wand of monster summoning if needed). Basically I lost money (the least of my worries), but didn't lose time which is much more precious. However I almost lost the entire game right there to four ettercaps, which has taken others out of this challenge. Naomilais had 7 HP and Baeloth had 9 HP and they were quickly running out of options here. Furthermore Naoilais was able to use strength of one on herself and Baeloth to give them the strength needed to carry their companions gear back to the FAI and dump it on arrival. I should have run, but for some reason it took Safana FOREVER to find the web trap, then I wasn't leaving 3 to 4 persons worth of gear on the ground in a random encounter I couldn't recover later. I'm still helmetless in BG right now, as I can't find a store that sells them... funny right?
@bengoshi, I agree. Just from running a three man party for awhile, the extra xp really makes a difference. I think in any successful run a good level at crucial places is vital (especially early). In fact my number one strategy now is get a couple levels before fighting big mage fights. Just a little more xp will allow you to take hits to succeed (e.g. Tarnesh: sans preparing for his sleep [SCS], horror, and magic missle via spellcasting, the only way to beat him without luck early is to have good hp from leveling).
Well after considering for awhile whether or not I'd like this style (I'm usually a power gamer) and even rolling up some charnames just for grins, I finally decided to give this challenge a 'go'. I got really lucky on my 2nd character and got a female elf Dragon Disciple with 88 points (3rd of 6 re-rolls)! I decided to max her STR, DEX & CHA (old habits) and with the 'Lucky 88' was able to give her 14 CON and still not look too min/maxed overall. I thought I'd wind up using her in melee more than a normal Sorcerer with her extra HP's and high strength but chose sling prof first figuring to add staff at level six. My spells of choice were magic missile & shield. The NPC's I rolled were Garrick, Khalid, Baeloth, Shar-Teel & Neera. I have to admit I was pumped at the magic prospects of this group and couldn't wait to get started!
I decided I'd better get my party together ASAP and went first to the FAI to procure Khalid (necessary meat-shield). I could have gotten Garrick & Neela first but with shield up I didn't think Tarnesh would be a problem. For once I was right as I nailed him with MM before he could get horror off. He went down to a sling shot (I got a nice support hit from one of the militia that was really appreciated as well) and Khalid became my 2nd party member.
I zipped on down to Beregost next to gather Garrick & Neela. Neela was my first choice because she's unkillable in her battle so I figured it was lower risk than taking on Silke right away. Khalid was battered badly but I managed to win Neela's companionship w/o any casualties. A quick rest at a local inn refreshed our spells and then we were off to obtain Garrick.
Well, the Silke fight went marvelously, at least up until she blasted Khalid with a lightning bolt! He wasn't chunked (I don't know how at first level!) so I was able to add Garrick to my roster and resurrect Khalid at the Temple next door. It only cost 100 gold to get him back! I never knew it was that cheap to resurrect low level characters.
I pondered going on to Nashkell with just my four characters but decided I'd need a thief. Shar-Teel here I come! Since I was already at the temple map, I headed to the south edge and walked east to Mutamin's garden.
Did I mention that I took sling as my proficiency? It turned out to a very bad choice. We were ambushed by twelve gibberlings on the way to Mutamin's and surrounded. Not five seconds later, and before I could even get a spell off, everything was black.
So, I just had a crazy fight with Silke. In SCS she has Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Haste, and many invisibility and greater healing potions. So, I Blinded her right away (thank god it stuck). So, I had a blinded Silke with all of those effects going bat shit crazy running around while I tried to shoot her down with a level 2 party (Mage/Thief, Neera, Khalid, Jaheira). Then, right before she dies, she quaffs an invisibility potion and runs off unseen. I was like wtf. So, I spread my party out waited around, hoping the blindness would wear off and she would attack me (Khalid is like,"I prefer these long periods of relaxation. Lovely day for it"...and I was like "Shut-up Khalid, you ran from Karlat like a bitch. It's night time and raining.").
So I scour the city...entering a few houses to look for her (she can and will run into unlocked houses). Finally, I spot her around the top manor house. She minor sequencer's a Dire Charm (I don't know what happened to lightning or what else was supposed to be sequenced) on Khalid, and luckily he stands there doing nothing and my party finishes her off with bullets and arrows.
I took no damage, but it was a pretty crazy fight .
EDIT: Oh yeah, I spent all of my gold buying that Blindness spell from High Hedge. So glad I scribed it successfully
Alas for Marlannan Laughshield, a male halfling swashbuckler. A self-centered, mercenary lad (read NE), his corpse was discovered outside High Hedge. Upon further examination, an elven Ranger named Kivan confirmed he'd seen the foppish halfling running around screaming, trailed by an interested group of gnolls and a few skeletons.
Mr. Laughshield was a loner out of Candlekeep, foster child of the sage Gorion of Candlekeep, who was discovered murdered outside the citadel. Mr. Laughshield was sought by Ulraunt, Keeper of the Tomes, for questioning in Candlekeep with regard the murder of two visitors and one watcher, alongside numerous thefts.
--
I should have rerolled the party: Marlannan had Faldorn, Coran, Skie, Alora, and Quayle in his party. I was going for a ... Solo run, I guess, through the first 4 chapters. But I wandered into a high hedge skeleton outside High Hedgen while trying to kite the gnolls. So much for that character. 1 day 10 hours.
Next up: Krisdove Hawksdeath, a LE half-Orc woman who hates wizards (wizard slayer). 9 rerolls. Going Classic with Kivan, Coran, Kagain, Khalid, and Rassad.
Thanks @dstolzfus. Congrats on making it past Silke -- I am now getting too fast and loose.
That Silke fight must have been unnerving -- that feeling of danger around every bend is one of the most tantalizing aspects of BG.
Sadly, Krisdove was killed as I ambitiously tried to take down the wolves outside Beregost. Vampiric wolves and their holds. I should have waited for the kite specialist, Rassad, to take those two down. I was looking forward to a complete lack of area effect spells, too.
I also learned, on this play through, that Zhurlog won't talk to you if have poor reputation/krisma.
I think next time, I will try no to go *so* fast -- and maybe I will even try the no meta game aspect of the challenge?
@Zalson, playing a minimum reload (not this challenge), I have learned that the Vampiric wolves east of Beregost (the Temple area) are immune to regular weapons (SCS has changes to +1 weapons if this pertains), so you have to be careful. Even with my Mage/Thief (who has horrible HiS and MS, being the only thief until I manage Safana), I am super careful and I endure the long "Hide in Shadows Failed" routine...it is worth the wait and scouting to not die.
CLUA may be enabled but restricted to only a couple uses: The player may use Ctrl+Y to nuke unwanted NPC pair members; and ExploreArea(), which simply eliminates the fog-of-war, since with a 14 year-old game for most of us the FoW poses no challenge because know every nook and cranny of each map by heart. So this is an aesthetic preference, really.
Core Rules difficulty setting is now preferred rather than required; for a 'best thus far' game please note the difficulty level if other than Core.
Game engine features such as auto-pause on enemy sighted and attack are allowable, as are the standard selection of combat scripts. Heal fully on rest is also allowable. But for a 'best thus far' please note any variation from 'preferred'. Preferred is: No auto-pausing, no scripts, heal normally upon rest.
If soloing please limit to three re-rolls, as countless re-rolls works against the purpose of random generation.
Or should we say best of five re-rolls (versus three) allowed for a Solo run? Five feels about right to me, imho. Thoughts?
And I amended the Leader Board categories to include Roleplaying, by itself and in combination with other the other approaches. Roleplaying is not necessarily synonymous with a No-Meta-gaming approach. For example, one can meta-game various aspects of the game, and yet still have characters respond to situations via roleplay.
Now how you make the roleplaying work for a mixed alignment party is really up to you. (You'll have a mixed party more often than not.) It's ultimately all for fun, so enjoy it and be creative. But some decisions are obvious: Eg, would your Blackguard really retrieve the child's dead cat from the foot of the waterfall? And how much would Good-aligned characters actually tolerate blatantly evil behavior right under their noses? If Montaron backstabs Algernon for his cloak right in front of Ajantis, the paladin of Helm he just going to stand there and do nothing? (Out of sight is another story, of course.) The breaking points for party members to leave by alignment via the game engine are very extreme. But if you are roleplaying in earnest, you may assume that a member might leave the party much sooner than a super high or low rep score.
But anyway, the challenge definitely varies according to these various elements, and how they shape choices and actions. It's a very different experience indeed to play the game as 'No-Meta-gaming and Roleplayed' versus the Classic challenge. Especially with these wacky random line-ups!
...I should have rerolled the party: Marlannan had Faldorn, Coran, Skie, Alora, and Quayle in his party. I was going for a ... Solo run, I guess, through the first 4 chapters...
Not that we're rules-lawyering this by any means, but the Classic rules state you can re-roll if three or more party members aren't available until chapters 4-5.
Next up: Krisdove Hawksdeath, a LE half-Orc woman who hates wizards (wizard slayer). 9 rerolls. Going Classic with Kivan, Coran, Kagain, Khalid, and Rassad.
Wow, that is a martially powerful line-up! Kivan and Coran is such a powerful archer duo, and you have a half-orc WS and Kagain to tank. Rasaad can throw darts (higher APR than the sling, I believe...). But, myself, I wouldn't be shy about using Rasaad to try to stun mages at every opportunity; and otherwise to tie up enemy archers by making them switch to swords. If you give him a Shield amulet it helps, although whether you can regularly afford to recharge (sell and buy back) it is questionable.
CLUA may be enabled but restricted to only a couple uses: The player may use Ctrl+Y to nuke unwanted NPC pair members; and ExploreArea(), which simply eliminates the fog-of-war, since with a 14 year-old game for most of us the FoW poses no challenge because know every nook and cranny of each map by heart. So this is an aesthetic preference, really.
Core Rules difficulty setting is now preferred rather than required; for a 'best thus far' game please note the difficulty level if other than Core.
Game engine features such as auto-pause on enemy sighted and attack are allowable, as are the standard selection of combat scripts. Heal fully on rest is also allowable. But for a 'best thus far' please note any variation from 'preferred'. Preferred is: No auto-pausing, no scripts, heal normally upon rest.
If soloing please limit to three re-rolls, as countless re-rolls works against the purpose of random generation.
Or should we say best of five re-rolls (versus three) allowed for a Solo run? Five feels about right to me, imho. Thoughts?
And I amended the Leader Board categories to include Roleplaying, by itself and in combination with other the other approaches. Roleplaying is not necessarily synonymous with a No-Meta-gaming approach. For example, one can meta-game various aspects of the game, and yet still have characters respond to situations via roleplay.
Now how you make the roleplaying work for a mixed alignment party is really up to you. (You'll have a mixed party more often than not.) It's ultimately all for fun, so enjoy it and be creative. But some decisions are obvious: Eg, would your Blackguard really retrieve the child's dead cat from the foot of the waterfall? And how much would Good-aligned characters actually tolerate blatantly evil behavior right under their noses? If Montaron backstabs Algernon for his cloak right in front of Ajantis, the paladin of Helm he just going to stand there and do nothing? (Out of sight is another story, of course.) The breaking points for party members to leave by alignment via the game engine are very extreme. But if you are roleplaying in earnest, you may assume that a member might leave the party much sooner than a super high or low rep score.
But anyway, the challenge definitely varies according to these various elements, and how they shape choices and actions. It's a very different experience indeed to play the game as 'No-Meta-gaming and Roleplayed' versus the Classic challenge. Especially with these wacky random line-ups!
Re: rest until healed - AFAIK there is no real advantage in this other than convienence - in fact it may actually be a disadvantage due to the speed run scoring - the option continues to rest in 8 hour segments (behind the scene) and apply healing spells thus learned until the entire party is at full health - so time continues and the only real advantage is not having to apply the healing spells manually after each 8 hour rest -
I'm not 100% certain but I fully suspect when the party is fully healed and any healing spells have been used that the option will add one more 8 hour period to reset the used spells before ending the rest period (rather than bringing the party out of rest with some spells already used) -
thus if one party member was still down a couple of hit points after the 8 hour segment that resets the spells it would use a healing spell to remedy that and then rest a final 8 hours to reset that single spell - (while a player would be more likely to move on with the single spell or two already used - thus not using the extra 8 hours)
I am also fairly certain this does not change the "ambushed while resting mechanic" either so your rest could still be interrupted (before you were fully healed) - I would expect that it porbably rolls for that for every 8 hour segment.
I recall using this option in BG2 with a full party that was severly wounded (with few healing spell options among the group) and auto resting for literally 100s of hours to heal everyone - LOL
I don't really care if it's allowed or not as I never use rest until healed for all those reasons just thought I would mention them.
As to the rerolls I'm on board for changing them to best of 5 but would like to see that implemented for any sort of run as opposed to only for solo runs (if others agree)
to me the no reload aspect + random theme makes for a very difficult challenge to begin with so having a couple more optional rolls to get a PC and workable team one would like to play is unlikely to diminish the overall challenge.
also a female human fighter pick kit could be good, since it will allow me to dual class into thief to handle my thieving. and she got a terribly selected potential party
i am trying to take a small break and don't intend on playing right now unless my mood changes
Optional rolls makes it easier in the sense that you can get preferable party members, which makes the run significantly easier, in my opinion. If I didn't have "auto-pause when enemy is sighted", I'd probably never make it past Chapter 2 .
I think best of five rolls (be it party or solo) feels about right...
How about this:
We can say that 'preferred' is best of five rolls.
If it's other than that please post to that effect.
When a result is a "Best Thus Far" for a category and the party was created in more than five rolls, we will include that caveat.
But that result will get replaced on the leader board if someone is able to get farther (or farthest in the least number of days) with a party that was produced by the best of five rolls.
Comments
I was thinking about doing a minimal reload with this group, but in the spirit of the no-reload, decided against it.
Lessons learned:
1. Tiax (and cleric/thief in general) can be awesome (I was thinking...Champion's Strength, Draw Upon Holy Might, cloak of non-detection, ring of invisibility, Staff of Striking [maybe Poison too?...though I'm sure Saravok's save vs. poison is pretty good, especially with SCS]...could Tiax do a super-awesome backstabs on Saravok and RULE ALL??...Sanctuary to run away of course
2. Barbarian's...especially 19 strength half-orcs are awesome.
3. Don't listen to music while playing a no-reload run!
Special thanks to SCS for making it possible to getting Tiax early.
Anyway..............
I almost had a calamity in my current game traveling back from the gnoll stronghold, and I forgot about the polar bear. Yikes! No one is heavily armored enough at that moment. So like Benny Hill they run from the polar bear. I'm hoping my Assassin can get enough of a lead on the bear to enter stealth. But... this takes us right into the hands of an ogre! (Luckily they shook the bear!) So I try to draw the ogre off by having Darthyra and Monty diverge each in a different direction. But he doesn't go for it. No, he goes straight for Edwin. Who had just enough time, by a hair's breadth, to get off a shot with his lightning wand.
See, that was because I got lazy and didn't stealth ahead to spot the bear, is how I think of it. Monty wasn't wearing his ankheg armor then.
But re: your party, yeah, it definitely looked like it rocked. I'd make an archived save of your last auto- or quicksave and maybe return to it as a minimal reload game at some point!
Unahana Hollysharp
Female
Halfling
Fighter/Thief
Lawful Neutral
8 Re-rolls; 17/17/15/12/9/10
8,29,28,20,2
8 - Edwin
29 - Yeslick
28 - Xzar
20 - Quayle
2 - Alora
I won't get Alora until late (no relocation for SCS), so my multi-class thief will have to do it all
I won't play for a bit though, probably.
Don’t forget to make him a leader of the party (a top character in the list) – for a moment you talk to a merchant at least - because just having Edwin talk to a merchant without taking the lead does not change prices. In BG:EE most NPCs still use the speaker's CHA to calculate the reaction adjustment but shopkeepers stick to using the CHA of the person in the top slot.
Here’s the continuation of the story of Jagen MoonShadow, also known as Jagen H’gar.
I use the classic rules of this tournament, playing at the insane difficulty. BTW, because of the increased damage of enemies I'm too not much concerned with the speed of the game.
The progress including the time spent at the moment Jagen was ready to leave Nashkel in order to complete Edwin’s quest can be seen on the following screenshot.
So, it was 7 days and 9 hours.
The party of Jagen, Viconia ,Edwin and Dorn came to the Xvart village and rather easily destroyed any resistance they came across. The hilarious part was the appearing of the great Ursa that suddenly became aggressive towards… a xvart who called for it. Ursa seemed to like Viconia as it didn’t even want to touch her.
The group of wolves that was found to the west of the village was dealt with the Color Spray spell casted by Edwin. This can be a useful spell – you target the start of the area covered by it and every creature that have up to 4HD in this area is affected (if don’t save). In this case all 5 wolves fell unconscious and never awoke.
Viconia reached 4th level and luckly got 5 HP this time and -2 to THACO. A hammer proficiency was chosen as it can be handy at some point of the game due to Ashideena – because of +1 electricity damage. This hammer is one of the best weapons in BG.
And then we met Borda. The pleasure of this game is there’re some dangerous enemies even when everyone else on the whole location is easy. As this party found out, Borda is an interesting opponent.
To this moment everything went rather smooth. It’s partly because the main quest line can be not so hard as some side events and meetings.
First of all, the party hadn’t rested for a while and was short of spells. There was a shortage of arrows and traps as well. Second, Borda seemed to have a good AC so that his mirrored images vanished slowly, even being attacked by Dorn’s THACO. Third, Borda saved against the Hold Person spell. Fourth, he’s not a low-level mage so only one shot of Magic Missiles killed Edwin who had 17 HPs. Viconia and Dorn had the same fate. Jagen, as always, stayed somewhere far and when the situation became critical (3 members of the party fell in the period of several seconds) he didn’t panic. Instead, he hid in shadows and attacked. Jagen made sure Borda had no spells left. The high AC of Borda managed to prevent the successful hit 4 or 5 times. Every time Jagen became visible, he retreated, walked in circles, changed directions, waited for the moment there’s no enemy seen and tried to hide in shadows. Then he repeated his attack and everything began again. Sooner rather than later, Borda’s fate was decided.
Here’s the screenshot showing this moment of glory as well as the grey portraits of Viconia ,Edwin and Dorn.
The travel to this area from Nashkel took only 4 hours so I thought going back to Nashkel to resurrect Viconia ,Edwin and Dorn and to buy some arrows and potions and coming back wouldn’t seriously increase the time spent –like only one rest, really. But it turns out travelling back to Nashkel took 20 (!) hours while going to the area where the loot was left (there’s a container in the cave). It’s so strange…
This fight helped to understand that side events and meetings poise a great threat to the no-reload run when the level of party members is not so great (due to the speedy adventure) but enemies are full in their force. Jagen definitely got more experience from this fight than just 900 Exp for killing Borda, although getting 900 Exp for one enemy and alone (everyone else was dead so Jagen got the whole amount) is not bad either – the higher level the thief will be, the more thieving points he’ll have.
Just to update, Unahana Hollysharp was killed by Karlat. I had trouble RP'ing lawful neutral. After doing Silke's bidding, I used a potion of defense giving me -4 AC. Even with Xzar's 2 Larloch's Minor Drains, a couple good shots, and two potions, she still fell.
I started another: chaotic good, Female, Elven, Mage/Thief who rolled Khalid *and* Jaheira in the party (what are the odds?). Tarnesh was easy due to the potion of clarity and Shield spell (resistance to Sleep was great too...almost a perfect character vs Tarnesh). Chaotic good/neutral are so much easier to play! However, I am going to stop updating characters that I run unless they make it past the mines. It's a little ridiculous to keep posting such fail runs
I went and rolled almost 30 times, to get some viable classes to pick from.
5574, 650
Chaotic Neutral Female Half-Elf Assassin, 5 rerolls
5, 7, 14, 4, 6
Branwen, Coran, Dorn, Dynaheir, Kagain
9569, 390
Chaotic Good Male Half-Elf Wild Mage, 9 rerolls
1, 24, 13, 28, 14
Ajantis, Jaheira, Kagain, Skie, Xzar
5140, 637
Chaotic Neutral Female Human Priest of Helm, 3 rerolls
11, 9, 17, 10, 12
Eldoth, Faldorn, Garrick, Imoen, Minsc
I'm honestly thinking about taking my chances with the Assassin even though the Wild Mage would be hilarious.
For example, I haven't played SCS yet (I think the classic game is hard enough if there're no reloads) and every possible experience I can get from those who try it + no-reload is interesting for me. Really, hat's off to all of you, guys!
5574, 650
Chaotic Neutral Female Half-Elf Assassin, 5 rerolls
5, 7, 14, 4, 6
Her name is Victasaadi Falconsflight, Falcon for short. I'll start tomorrow.
Edit: Nevermind, already started, and have an update written, I'm trying a new diary-type format.
I've already learned some new strategies, both from my own games and reading others' postings.
It's also proven more of a pleasure than I expected to play classes I would otherwise never have dreamed of running, with parties that are so off-the-wall. I mean, I figured I would enjoy that to begin with. But the sheer fun of that surprised me.
The only way soloing is meaningful as a challenge with this system, though, is via best of three rolls. I think only one roll might prove too tough. It's all on the honor system to begin with, of course.
I already haven't included all the possible variations of 'EEKeepered Classes Allowed', eg, No-Meta-gaming, SCS, and Roleplayed, because the leader board seemed to be getting a bit dizzying. To broaden the leader board even more with all the soloing versions might have some players feel 'oh no, this all looks too complicated, no thanks'. But another way of looking at it is in for a penny, in for a pound.
Actually, one solution to keeping the leader board more easily digestible might be simply to include a 'Best Thus Far - Solo' for all these respective challenges.
I guess another thing is that, at least for me, a big part of the charm and uniqueness of this system is the random party aspect. It's what really sets this form of a no-reload challenge apart, I think. Maybe that's just me, though.
We already have it in the rules that you can choose not to take NPCs that one rolls, at the player's discretion, so a solo run is basically an extreme version of that. Yet the challenge of soloing no-reload with a random character does seem to merit a category of its own. Soloing a randomly generated character would (or could) be massively more difficult than with the support of a party--especially with SCS, No-Meta-gaming, and Roleplayed.
I guess the question is: how integral do you all feel the random party aspect is to this challenge?
http://i.imgur.com/hmSqIgB.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jxDZ7x4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RICH6BQ.jpg
Day 2
Well, my father died viciously last night, but life is cruel and you have to use the hand you've been dealt. Imoen accosted me on the side of the road, and I ordered her to go back to Candlekeep. Stupid girl. I don't think she even noticed that I took her wand of missiles.
http://i.imgur.com/azpkBtm.jpg
I revisited the ambush site, and found a belt I had never seen before on my foster father, and I copied the note I found on him about me into my journal. I lit his body on fire, and pilfered what I could from the soldiers Gorion had killed. Gorion, killing people? I never thought he could. I then walked away from the ambush site, I don't plan to ever return to that place. I next went East and reached a crossroads, where a twinkling caught my eye, I had found a ring! I then thought about the letter, and how we had been ambushed. To think, that person had asked for me...
I decided to take my own path and go South. In Beregost, some crazy witch got me into a fight so I scared her away. I managed to avoid a fight with a drunkard in Feldepost's I think it was, and raided the mayor of Beregost. I think I did well. I got some sort of wand and a potion of invisibility.
http://i.imgur.com/Qmo0tUa.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hgwaI5g.jpg
Then I went further South, and was waylaid by big hairy smelly things on the road. I managed to put poison on my blade, hide in the shadows and kill them one by one. Those nasty things never saw me until I hit them, then they would chase me around the trees until I disappeared again just for me to stab them in the back. I found a note on one of their bodies, I'm going to have to find this Mirianne.
http://i.imgur.com/LzFFUan.jpg
I decided to then avoid the road, and went West, only to run into some hobgoblins, I led them on a merry chase, but after killing them one by one, I found out their leader had a good taste in boots. I continued my trek South in my new boots and ran into a guy named Portalbendsomething, he said that I won't last long. Eh, whatever. He probably got on the wrong side of Cyric.
http://i.imgur.com/obd7rn3.jpg
I next ran into Nashkel, and found Berrun Ghastkill, who gave me a quest to clear a mine to the South, I guess I'll do it since he promised a reward. I then went raiding.
There wasn't much in the farmhouses, except that they were crawling with pond scum before long. I did however randomly stumble on some green armour in a field, it was very light and it was worth tons. Poor farmers never knew they were sitting on a fortune. I then ran into the inn to rest for the first time since I had left Candlekeep with Gorion, I hid in the shadows once more and entered the inn. It was a good thing too, since there was an armed cleric within that was searching for something at the door, expecting the arrival of someone. I talked to the barkeep, who was startled when I appeared in front of him, but he still let me pay for a room for the night.
In the morning, the armed figure was still there. I decided a preemptive strike would be at best. So, I poisoned my blades, with the barkeeper watching with wide eyes, and I hid in the shadows. I hit the cleric, she turned around and exclaimed, "I've found you! Now die!" She cast a spell, but I was already in the shadows once more. I hit her twice, before a spell hit me. It seemed to do nothing so I continued, on the third hit she was dead. In her pocket she had a bounty notice on my head, and a helm I later found out was for infra-vision... The money was nice at least.
http://i.imgur.com/MxrHeac.jpg
I need to find this person who is willing to pay others to kill me. Wait, I'm worth 680 gold? They must really want me dead.
http://i.imgur.com/0HxAchG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WeIazg5.jpg
But I understand there can always be another point of view. Especially if it's some other class and (or) race.
Just from the experience I've got BG just "feels" better and "naturally" when you have a party, act as a group, everyone has his own role etc. This game is connected to managing a party.
And the thing I liked the most about this random contest is probably the random party aspect.
But again, it's my opinion.
The current rules stating that you can choose if you take NPCs which you've rolled with you or not, already covers the possibility of a solo run. I think there's no need to put additional options to the leader board. It (soloing the game) should be possible, no question about that, but it doesn't need it's own category.
We're already noting when folks are taking on a challenge with different difficulty settings (rules state Core Rules, but it's best to keep a big tent). So this would be in the same spirit. It's all in fun anyway, so we're not going to rules lawyer overmuch. Just note the variations.
Other changes include not having to drop all but one armor to keep him from taking as many as you have in inventory for the price of one - he now buys them one at a time no matter how many you are holding.
He will now also continue to buy as many shells as you wish to bring to him even after making the armor but will still only make one set of armor.
The continued adventures of Naomilais Greensleeves, elven cleric of Helm...(this is a long one, my apologies in advance))
The group decided to continue on through the mines in search of Daevorn without resting. The first level was easy, as there were only 2 guards to be dealt with. The next level brought some challenge as we had to make it through two rooms full of guardsmen, a mage, and a few black talon elites. Safana managed to scout the area and we formulated our plan of attack. Safana got rid of the 2 traps on the corridor leading to the guardroom and Jaheira (the least damaged of the members with good AC peaked around the corner and tossed a potion of explosions into the room (classic grenade into a crowded room... still very effective though). Safana had counted 10 people in the room, 1 followed Jaheira back to the waiting group, where he was quickly dispatched. Next another guard and the mage came into the room. The guard was met by Khalid and Jaeira. The mage was met by the sling stone and darts of Imoen, Naolmilais, and Baeloth. The icing on the cake was the backstab by Safana which dropped the badly injured mage just as she started casting her first spell. Safana then returned to the room via stealth to find only 2 of the original 10 still standing and both looking in very bad shape. Khalid and Jaheira advanced into the room and Safana struck the remaining black talon elite from the shadows, keeping him from firing his bow at the half elven couple.
There were several more guards in the next room and they managed to injure Khalid quite severly (4 HP left). The stair down beckoned us and we proceded down them only to meet yet another guardroom bellow. Imoen cast her final spell {sleep} and manged to get 4 of the 7 guards down while Khalid (back up to 14 HP thanks to an elixer of health) and Jaheira handled those not affected by the spell. Those who fell asleep were dealt with by the rest of the party. We continued on this level eliminating several groups of hobgoblins until we found the stairs down. We got a few spell scrolls and some potions from looting some of the rooms here.
And finally the lowest level where we faced off against Daevorn, the master of the mines. We killed the last guard in our way and opened the secert door leading to Daevorn. Safana managed to get rid of 4 traps but missed the 5th and was spotted by Daevorn. Our initial strategy was to use silence on Daevorn and make short work of him if it landed. Our backup was for Khalid to drink 1 of 2 potions of magic blocking and take Daevorn out. We opted for the back up. Khalid drank the potion and charged Daevorn, shrugging of the myriad of spells being cast at him. Baeloth used his remaining 3rd level spell to cast fireball and injure Daevorn.
We were successful in killing Daevorn and finding out about his connection to the Iron Throne. We were going to Baldur's gate. On our way out of the mines we freed the slaves kept there and helped flood the mines. We were now were at about 20% average health and almost entirely without magic( Baeloth and Imoen were out of spells, Jaheira had a slow poison, and Naomilais had 2 commands, a slow poison, strength of one and dispel magic).
On exiting the Cloakwood the severely injured party was ambushed by 4 ettercaps. Khalid and Jaheira rushed forward to protect the weaker party members as Naomilais cast her two command spells and Imoen used a wand of frost. Baeloth used a scroll of Magic Missiles and in combination with Imoen was able to bring down an ettercap (2 uses of the wand of frost and 1 magic missile) Meanwhile Khalid was slain by two of the other ettercaps and Jaheira was able to down an injured ettercap who had fallen victim to a command spell. The next thing that happened was that Safana had found a trap to the west and removed it, just as Jaheira fell to the last 2 ettercaps. Safana attempted to get an ettercap off of Imoen as Baeloth retreated west and Naomilais engaged an ettercap in melee. The results were that Safana was killed defending Imoen, but Imoen was able to get off a charge of her wand of frost bringing the ettercap down to near dead status and Baeloth finish it off with a burning hands scroll. Naomilais had to retreat as she was severely injured (level 5 21 HP total, her HP rolls have been atrocious). Imoen was hit and poisoned by the last ettercap and Jaheira had been holding onto our last antidote potion. Imoen made a dash for Jaheira's downed body, but was overcome by the poison coursing through her just as she reached for Jaheira's pack. The party was down to 2 Baeloth and Naomilais. Naomilais ran to Imoens body an took the wand of frost from her hand and tossed it to Baeloth who used the last charge on the ettercap. Naomilais was keeping the ettercap occupied by slinging stones at it and retreating. Baeloth then played the last card he had by using a potion of firebreath on the ettercap, leaving it as a a smoldering pile of ash on the forrest floor. Naomilais and Baeloth were able to divide up the magical gear and hard to find potion their slain companion were carrying and make it back to the FAI to revive them all and pay for healing (I'm not about to waste time resting for my meager healing spells) then finally rest before going north to Baldur's Gate.
Upon reaching the outskirts of Baldur's Gate... the party was walking through the outer farms when they were attacked by Ankhegs! Four of them to be exact. Again Khalid and Jaheira rushed to confront our attackers. One of the giant insects was slain. Khalid was then hit by multiple ankhegs and fell down to the ground under their onslaught. Imoen, seeing the noble half-elven fighter fall, cast a sleep spell that managed to put 2 of the 3 monstrous insects to sleep. We managed to slay the remaining 3 ankhegs, but the damage was done... We collected Khalid's body and continued on to Baldur's Gate where we were met by Scar and accepted his task to infiltrate the Seven Suns compound and investigate the strange goings on reported. We first made for the temple of Gond to restore our comrade to life. We then headed to the Seven Suns where we are currently discussing our plans.
We stopped here and saved our progress for the time being.
Day: 19 Hour: 8
(To be continued...)
I thought this was a good time to reflect on the luck of our mine encounter and the near-tragic loss of the whole party to a minor encounter in the Cloakwood. They are walking on the edge of a blade and any little wrong step could be their deaths. The fight in the cloakwood brought to light a few details that I'd like to share outright. The first is the above statement... risk is calculated by reward. Not only did I take on the mines with limited resources (everyone was already even roughed up a bit going in and we had no healing other than what we scrounged in the mines, which was very little), but we even tried to get through the cloakwood without running into a random encounter (good luck even though it is possible and has happened before, it's just a high likelihood of happening and none of the encounters are very nice, especially when you are down to very low health and no magic. My advice is buy healing and carry plenty with you, everywhere and use whatever resources you must to obtain victory BEFORE you start taking resource eating losses. Each of my fallen companions were 800 gold a piece to revive and at least 200 in healing cost, so there went 4000+ gold just to get them back to adventuring shape... I had that much and bought some potions on top of that and was able to sell the robe of evil arch magi for 10,000 gold (I'm saving that money for a possible wand of monster summoning if needed). Basically I lost money (the least of my worries), but didn't lose time which is much more precious. However I almost lost the entire game right there to four ettercaps, which has taken others out of this challenge. Naomilais had 7 HP and Baeloth had 9 HP and they were quickly running out of options here. Furthermore Naoilais was able to use strength of one on herself and Baeloth to give them the strength needed to carry their companions gear back to the FAI and dump it on arrival. I should have run, but for some reason it took Safana FOREVER to find the web trap, then I wasn't leaving 3 to 4 persons worth of gear on the ground in a random encounter I couldn't recover later. I'm still helmetless in BG right now, as I can't find a store that sells them... funny right?
EDIT: forgot something.
I decided I'd better get my party together ASAP and went first to the FAI to procure Khalid (necessary meat-shield). I could have gotten Garrick & Neela first but with shield up I didn't think Tarnesh would be a problem. For once I was right as I nailed him with MM before he could get horror off. He went down to a sling shot (I got a nice support hit from one of the militia that was really appreciated as well) and Khalid became my 2nd party member.
I zipped on down to Beregost next to gather Garrick & Neela. Neela was my first choice because she's unkillable in her battle so I figured it was lower risk than taking on Silke right away. Khalid was battered badly but I managed to win Neela's companionship w/o any casualties. A quick rest at a local inn refreshed our spells and then we were off to obtain Garrick.
Well, the Silke fight went marvelously, at least up until she blasted Khalid with a lightning bolt! He wasn't chunked (I don't know how at first level!) so I was able to add Garrick to my roster and resurrect Khalid at the Temple next door. It only cost 100 gold to get him back! I never knew it was that cheap to resurrect low level characters.
I pondered going on to Nashkell with just my four characters but decided I'd need a thief. Shar-Teel here I come! Since I was already at the temple map, I headed to the south edge and walked east to Mutamin's garden.
Did I mention that I took sling as my proficiency? It turned out to a very bad choice. We were ambushed by twelve gibberlings on the way to Mutamin's and surrounded. Not five seconds later, and before I could even get a spell off, everything was black.
To end, by GIBBERLINGS!!!!!
Back to power-gaming for a while...
So I scour the city...entering a few houses to look for her (she can and will run into unlocked houses). Finally, I spot her around the top manor house. She minor sequencer's a Dire Charm (I don't know what happened to lightning or what else was supposed to be sequenced) on Khalid, and luckily he stands there doing nothing and my party finishes her off with bullets and arrows.
I took no damage, but it was a pretty crazy fight
EDIT: Oh yeah, I spent all of my gold buying that Blindness spell from High Hedge. So glad I scribed it successfully
Mr. Laughshield was a loner out of Candlekeep, foster child of the sage Gorion of Candlekeep, who was discovered murdered outside the citadel. Mr. Laughshield was sought by Ulraunt, Keeper of the Tomes, for questioning in Candlekeep with regard the murder of two visitors and one watcher, alongside numerous thefts.
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I should have rerolled the party: Marlannan had Faldorn, Coran, Skie, Alora, and Quayle in his party. I was going for a ... Solo run, I guess, through the first 4 chapters. But I wandered into a high hedge skeleton outside High Hedgen while trying to kite the gnolls. So much for that character. 1 day 10 hours.
Next up: Krisdove Hawksdeath, a LE half-Orc woman who hates wizards (wizard slayer). 9 rerolls. Going Classic with Kivan, Coran, Kagain, Khalid, and Rassad.
Healing potions, anyone?
That Silke fight must have been unnerving -- that feeling of danger around every bend is one of the most tantalizing aspects of BG.
Sadly, Krisdove was killed as I ambitiously tried to take down the wolves outside Beregost. Vampiric wolves and their holds. I should have waited for the kite specialist, Rassad, to take those two down. I was looking forward to a complete lack of area effect spells, too.
I also learned, on this play through, that Zhurlog won't talk to you if have poor reputation/krisma.
I think next time, I will try no to go *so* fast -- and maybe I will even try the no meta game aspect of the challenge?
- CLUA may be enabled but restricted to only a couple uses: The player may use Ctrl+Y to nuke unwanted NPC pair members; and ExploreArea(), which simply eliminates the fog-of-war, since with a 14 year-old game for most of us the FoW poses no challenge because know every nook and cranny of each map by heart. So this is an aesthetic preference, really.
- Core Rules difficulty setting is now preferred rather than required; for a 'best thus far' game please note the difficulty level if other than Core.
- Game engine features such as auto-pause on enemy sighted and attack are allowable, as are the standard selection of combat scripts. Heal fully on rest is also allowable. But for a 'best thus far' please note any variation from 'preferred'. Preferred is: No auto-pausing, no scripts, heal normally upon rest.
- If soloing please limit to three re-rolls, as countless re-rolls works against the purpose of random generation.
Or should we say best of five re-rolls (versus three) allowed for a Solo run? Five feels about right to me, imho. Thoughts?And I amended the Leader Board categories to include Roleplaying, by itself and in combination with other the other approaches. Roleplaying is not necessarily synonymous with a No-Meta-gaming approach. For example, one can meta-game various aspects of the game, and yet still have characters respond to situations via roleplay.
Now how you make the roleplaying work for a mixed alignment party is really up to you. (You'll have a mixed party more often than not.) It's ultimately all for fun, so enjoy it and be creative. But some decisions are obvious: Eg, would your Blackguard really retrieve the child's dead cat from the foot of the waterfall? And how much would Good-aligned characters actually tolerate blatantly evil behavior right under their noses? If Montaron backstabs Algernon for his cloak right in front of Ajantis, the paladin of Helm he just going to stand there and do nothing? (Out of sight is another story, of course.) The breaking points for party members to leave by alignment via the game engine are very extreme. But if you are roleplaying in earnest, you may assume that a member might leave the party much sooner than a super high or low rep score.
But anyway, the challenge definitely varies according to these various elements, and how they shape choices and actions. It's a very different experience indeed to play the game as 'No-Meta-gaming and Roleplayed' versus the Classic challenge. Especially with these wacky random line-ups!
I'm not 100% certain but I fully suspect when the party is fully healed and any healing spells have been used that the option will add one more 8 hour period to reset the used spells before ending the rest period (rather than bringing the party out of rest with some spells already used) -
thus if one party member was still down a couple of hit points after the 8 hour segment that resets the spells it would use a healing spell to remedy that and then rest a final 8 hours to reset that single spell - (while a player would be more likely to move on with the single spell or two already used - thus not using the extra 8 hours)
I am also fairly certain this does not change the "ambushed while resting mechanic" either so your rest could still be interrupted (before you were fully healed) - I would expect that it porbably rolls for that for every 8 hour segment.
I recall using this option in BG2 with a full party that was severly wounded (with few healing spell options among the group) and auto resting for literally 100s of hours to heal everyone - LOL
I don't really care if it's allowed or not as I never use rest until healed for all those reasons just thought I would mention them.
As to the rerolls I'm on board for changing them to best of 5 but would like to see that implemented for any sort of run as opposed to only for solo runs (if others agree)
to me the no reload aspect + random theme makes for a very difficult challenge to begin with so having a couple more optional rolls to get a PC and workable team one would like to play is unlikely to diminish the overall challenge.
female half orc shadowdancer
viconia, yeslick, xzar, ajantis, kagain
also a female human fighter pick kit could be good, since it will allow me to dual class into thief to handle my thieving. and she got a terribly selected potential party
i am trying to take a small break and don't intend on playing right now unless my mood changes
How about this:
We can say that 'preferred' is best of five rolls.
If it's other than that please post to that effect.
When a result is a "Best Thus Far" for a category and the party was created in more than five rolls, we will include that caveat.
But that result will get replaced on the leader board if someone is able to get farther (or farthest in the least number of days) with a party that was produced by the best of five rolls.
Sound good?