Poor Zangold got one-shotted by Tarnesh. I thought I could get away with backstabbing him. But the attempt failed to kill him.
After the backstab Tarnesh actually had a morale failure and fled into the inn. (Interesting result, never seen that.) Zangold then pursued him. I figured he would be easy pickins due to the panic. But unfortunately on the other side of the door Tarnesh had regained his morale and started casting.
Zangold then ran out and gulped down the Oil of Speed and ran quite a distance away. Zangold tried to stealth again, but failed. Then waiting to try to stealth again... And to my surprise Tarnesh actually tracked him down! Basically, at the instant Tarnesh saw him and cast his spell, the die was cast. Magic Missile zapped Zangold as he fled.
I had initially thought to just sneak past Tarnesh and get Jaheira. But I figured Zangold has 18 Strength and Tarnesh is just a mage. I expected Tarnesh would probably get chunked by the backstab.
What a disappointment.
Oh well, if you're gonna make an omelet ya gotta break some eggs.
@Lemernis, I just installed SCS...Tarnesh is now even more deadly with sleep (killed my gnome barbarian and Monty...who had the same problem with shadows/speed/backstab).
@Lemernis, yeah I'm doing a RP minimal reload to use a bunch of NPC's that I've never used (Rasaad being one of them) with my fresh SCS install. It's a blast. I've only died 5 times (everything up to the mines -- Gnoll stronghold etc...with 4 man parties mostly...2 deaths were just me forgetting the vampire wolves on the temple map are immune to normal weapons). I'll be reading the randoms, just not doing them for a bit...........maybe
No healer until Cloakwood. A Wild Mage, so then wild surges. Imoen could be dualed to mage, to add a second wizard, though. Monty could be put in heavy armor and I could ignore his thieving skills and try to make him a front-liner. Otherwise only one real tank-ish character (the PC). Rasaad...
Only 3 Ability re-rolls. At least here I have three solid front-liners: halfling Barbarian, Minsc, and Dorn. But no thief, wizard or healer until chapter 5! Rasaad...
Really not sure which kit to pick for the half-orc Thief... Lots of Ability re-rolls, which is good. No healer until chapter 5. At least I have a mage and two thieves. It's basically a four person team, though...
@Lemernis, healers are over-rated. Potions do just fine and casting in combat is never something to bank on. Monty makes a great tank. In fact, switch up the armor and make him do thieving and tanking.
Hate to say it, but the wizard slayer looks the most viable ha ha. Those are rough rolls, party-wise. Neera will kill you eventually (if nothing else).
day 26 17 hours, outside of baldurs gate. that's right, we were victorious in cloackwood
after the bandit camp, kagain now had a whopping -6 AC. yeah, he is practically never hit, and he already has +5 health per level and regen. he is my invincible tank! got hit by the ettercaps again. sent kagain into the middle, and safana found the trap. removed it and set up for everybody to fire from behind kagain. completely explored the spider area. i find spiders easy. even went to centeol and tossed a fireball in that did good work at weakening the spiders in there. gave minsc the sword. completely explored the wivern area. not a sing wyvern hit kagain as most enemies, so it was quite easy. at the mine i dispeled the two outside mages. kagain was hit by horror, but he ran around the enemies so they stayed attacking him. kagain now has the speed boots. in the mine at daevorn, safana went ahead and removed the traps. i set up my archers, and had my inquisitor use his second dispel. unfortunately, i only dispelled his mirror image, so he was still protected from normal weapons. baeloth hit him with magic missle to weaken him to injured. he then teleported and began to launch lightning, the target was kagain. i quickly tossed kagain my boots and helm to give him 70 resistance, so he was almost unaffected. he then cast fireball, only hitting kagain and he still was not dead with 20 fire resistance. we managed to surround him and beat him down with magical weapons and more magic from baeloth. strangely enough, i was not interrupted leaving cloackwood. usually i am ambush at least 3 times. went through the ankheg area, where kagain was hit once and made a successful save vs death. thank god! and this is where i am right now. we are all level 6 still except safana and kagain, and baeloth is next to level. most likely after the poison quest.
@ChildofBhaal599, Kagain is the man...er...dwarf . I actually don't use the speed boots or the evermemory ring...too cheesy. I just started that "home rule" the past month or so and haven't really missed them. You might have gone the farthest so far? Congrats! It'd be crazy if you made it to Saravok!
Here’s the continuation of the story of Jagen MoonShadow, also known as Jagen H’gar.
Having come to Beregost at night, Jagen and Viconia made time out to the hot points on this location – while it’s night outdoors, Jagen’s chances to hide in shadows raise a lot. At first, Neera was met. After some dialog thayan wizards appeared and we had to defend the poor girl from their experiments. It was oddly that Viconia could’s resist the Color Spray spell and rendered unconscious. Jagen, as it’s becoming a tradition already, tried to keep some distance and waited till any of the mercenaries became “near death”. Then he used the wand of MM and took their lives. It’s so effective – the last hit gives you all the Exp.
Because this is a no-reload run Jagen decided not to take Neera (one of his possible companions due to the random roll) with him – at least for a while. But the Gem bag was taken, of course))
Then Jagen and Viconia went to Garrick. After the initial dialog ended Jagen managed to set a simple trap next to Silke (as you remember, a special trap had already been used when confronting the fetishist) and hid in shadows. When Silke became an enemy, the trap thwarted her first spell but didn’t kill her. Jagen missed the backstab attack however and because we all know the power of Silke and the danger of the Lighting spell Jagen used the potion of Invisibility to hide again. The second backstab attack came in time – Silke fell.
Jagen decided not to take Garrick at least for a while (another one of his possible companions due to the random roll) as well.
And Jagen reached the 3rd level. 6 HP (lucky!) and 20 points put into Open Locks skill. With 45 points total in Open Locks he managed to open the chests in the forge and took the magical bastard sword – an equivalent of 1250 gp. It’s interesting to know that before putting 20 points into Open Locks skill Jagen couldn’t open those chests.
Then the Exp from the Marl dialog brought Viconia to the 3rd level as well. She wasn’t lucky though, getting only 1 HP (to make it 13 total). But the 2nd level of spells became available – I’ve chosen a Hold Person (x2)spell. It’ll be a useful addition to 2 Command and 2 Heal spells that she uses.
For a party of two members it wasn’t hard to kill Karlat. Viconia led him in circles while Jagen shot him to death. Then we got Stupifier for Vikky.
After resting (rest #4), getting a scroll case, selling some stuff Jagen and Viconia went to the south. Ogrillions and hobgoblins didn’t pose a big threat but the Boots +20 His +14 MS became useful at the first onset (especially taking into account Jagen’s minimal stats in those abilities).
Without any troubles Jagen and Viconia came to Nashkel, took Edwin (the 4th level conjurer – it’s amazing, really, he had 10 000 Exp while Jagen and Viconia had only 3 000+), found the famous green armor (Viconia’s AC became even better) and went to the inn.
Neira is always a tough enemy. Her Rigid Thinking on Vikky was a success but Edwin’s starting magic pool (2 Acid Arrows and 6 Larloch’s) was the difference. It was so cool to find him just minutes before and then be able to kill a strong assassin with his powers.
First thing I noticed, no thief. I'm going to have to get creative.
I did all of the Candlekeep quests except for Tethtoril's quest which isn't working for me, during the last 3 games at least, and left Candlekeep at Despised(4). First thing I did was grab the diamond, the gear at the ambush site, grabbed the +1 ring, and then went to the Friendly Arm Inn, Soloed the Hobgoblins, and quickly gained 1 point of reputation from Joia before the Flaming Fist appeared. I was then safe to travel, I think I'll kill Tarnesh first.
I cast Remove Fear on my character, then cast command on Tarnesh. I hit him, he panicked, and we chased him into the Friendly Arm Inn, where he became instantly brave. Three balls of magical energy hit the Half Orc, who retreated through the doors again and drunk a healing potion. Tarnesh died when he came back outside.
Inside, Wandatranna found Khalid and Jaheira. We next went North to get Ajantis. He became the leader when he joined the party. We then went and killed the Ogre at the crossroads and then grabbed Neera from the Red Wizards in Beregost. I lost Khalid in that fight. Will be carrying his corpse around while I scrounge up some money to pay for his resurrection.
This is not going to end well I think. Neera got one-shotted by a ranged Hobgoblin South of Beregost after we killed those Ogrillons. Then we went South, grabbed the Ankheg Plate in Nashkel, and went into the Nashkel Mine. Neera got one-shotted by a kobold for a second time.
We beat our way to Mulahey, springing traps one by one with Jaheira. I had Wandatranna draw him out of his room, and threw my soldiers into Xan's cave to fight off one side of the ambush to come. Jaheira cast entanglement once Mulahey and Wandatranna rounded the corner, and the duel began. Mulahey attempted to confuse Wanda who had drank a potion of clarity and a potion of speed. Wanda proceeded to hit Mulahey a few times, then cast command on him, hit him a few more times. When Mulahey came out of his stupor, Wanda refused to let him surrender. in seconds he was dead, and his soldiers lay in confusion as the party of 4 quickly killed them.
After that, the party went back to Nashkel, collected the reward, then went to Beregost and killed Silke. I killed the bounty hunter in the inn but the guards got Nimbul. I next went into the Cloudpeaks, helped Albert find Rufie, saved the Dryad, killed the bridge guards at the Gnome stronghold, then now I'm getting ready to enter Nexlit's Base.
Re: @bengoshi's decision not to take Neera, I'll clarify in the rules that we do have the option to not take a NPC that we rolled. I mean, it would be most in the spirit of the game to use every character that we roll. But we are free to meta-game, also. So then the reason for opting out of taking the character is basically the same as Khalid in many players' games sleepwalking naked and get killed by bears. I.e., it'll be engineered that the NPC will just meet their demise anyways. A Wild Mage is a ticking time bomb in a no-reload game.
@GemHound Sounds like you're off to a strong start!
I see that you went with Priest of Talos for Wandatranna versus Pure Class, so I'm guessing you did so mainly for the benefit of Storm Shield versus attempting to cast Lighting Bolt (unless it's outdoors with a clear shot and no chance of ricochets). Might as well get some benefit of a kit when playing a cleric, and you rolled that option. And what a great Ability score roll.
No Thief just makes traps a pain, but you do have clerics at least to detect them. And I guess you can try having your PC try to break open locked containers by using Strength potions (with Str 20+) and/or DUHM.
One of the toughest things to deal with when you have neither a Thief or Ranger is the lack of Stealth, and then the ability to scout ahead. So it's good to see you negotiating that successfully thus far.
True, but you only have so many cleric spell slots, and the duration of Sanctuary is limited. It's a staple spell for my clerics. But I'm also using a cleric's spell slots for healing, Command, and Hold Person. So I typically reserve Sanctuary for coordinated surprise attacks with other characters who are either stealthed or invisible.
@ChildofBhaal599, Kagain is the man...er...dwarf . I actually don't use the speed boots or the evermemory ring...too cheesy. I just started that "home rule" the past month or so and haven't really missed them. You might have gone the farthest so far? Congrats! It'd be crazy if you made it to Saravok!
Kagain certainly is power with dex gauntlets, ankheg, medium shield 1, and amulet of protect 1. The boot keep him ahead so that he can be up front tanking. It is neck and neck with @wanderon, but he had to leave to raise dead, giving a time advantage. Also I don't do much resting unless baeloth needs it
@Lemernis, healers are over-rated. Potions do just fine and casting in combat is never something to bank on. Monty makes a great tank. In fact, switch up the armor and make him do thieving and tanking.
Hate to say it, but the wizard slayer looks the most viable ha ha. Those are rough rolls, party-wise. Neera will kill you eventually (if nothing else).
I dunno, I think the female CE Half-orc Thief (choose kit; 9 Ability score re-rolls) with
Montaron Minsc Edwin (Quayle Alora)
might give me the best shot. I'm pretty much resigned to the likelihood of not making it to chapter 5, so this is basically a four person team, I reckon. But I will have Minsc and Monty as tanks, Edwin as a mage, and I can probably take out a lot of enemy mages by backstabbing with both the PC and Montaron and Minsc striking from the front in stealth mode as well. Then with Edwin casting spells like Sleep, Blind, Charm, and Glitterdust, and Horror I think this team can probably perform well for many a battle.
I have also found it extremely useful to have a Thief or Ranger pick off enemies one by one from the perimeter (yes, that's cheese, but we're free to powergame away here ;D). So here I can actually do this with not one but three stealthy characters.
Can an assassin add poison to crossbow bolts? Because the Light Crossbow of Speed firing Bolts of Biting could be totally wicked with even more poison damage added to them.
Otherwise I think Assassin might be a good choice with a half-orc's 19 Str and backstabbing with a quarterstaff. (I still feel deprived of this class/weapon by Zangold getting killed so quickly in my last game!)
@ChildofBhaal599 - don't forget there are supposed to be penalties to being fatigued (-1 luck) and if BGEE has fixed them so they work as originally intended they increase for every 4 hours beyond 24 hours of game time after resting. In Vanilla BG the original -1 to luck almost always went into effect but the increases for every four hours after that worked very intermittently. (IIRC -1 to luck means -1 to all rolls) - don't know how BGEE has implemented these - maybe I'll start a thread about it.
@Lemernis - I am fairly sure assassin poison works for any weapon but I'm not sure if it will coninue to work if you switch from one to another while it is active.
Did a little research and it appears Coran will leave if I don't complete the quest and turn in the wyvern head (possibly within 16 game days) so I guess we will be wasting another week or so when I get back to the game as its 60 hours from FAI to the wyvern map - one way! (where I have one stored in a container)
That's a good combination. Because you've rolled Montaron and a thief PC you've got an option to make him a narrow specialist. An assassin is a good choice since you get additional (to assassin's inner +1 bonus) +3 to THACO because of 19 STR available early on.
Assassin's Posion Weapon works with any kind of weapon. The description says "each successful hit within next round", so it will coninue to work if you switch from one to another while it is active.
This Posion Weapon ability works quite right with ranged attacks.
Edwin's a great mage. I can't just stop saying good things about him.
Monty can tank while Minsk will be your main damage dealer. You can equip Monty with the best armor available - your PC can be an excellent scout, Minsk can scout as well - if he's not a tank, his armor is not so important. You can put Monty's thieving points into Disarm Trap skill and while you're looking for some traps you can take his armor off.
Because you've rolled "choose kit" you can also consider multiclass cleric/thief. I see no healer in your group, so healing some severe casualties can become a problem (it will cost some money). And a multiclass cleric/thief, especially a half-orc, is a stand-out character. With DUHM his THACO will become even better and bonus from STR will really help while using a sling.
@Lemernis, true about the half-orc group. I don't see perimeter ranged fighting that bad (especially with "call for help" in SCS). It's like guerrilla warfare and something elves and rangers would always do anyway. I've always called it "the elf way to fight".
As @bengoshi said,"This Posion Weapon ability works quite right with ranged attacks." I find it hard to do with my assassin characters because the backstab is so gratifying. It also works with the Blackguard ability. Darts of wounding with Poison weapon are really good.
@Wanderon, it does work when switching weapons (EDIT: Just realized @bengoshi said that). Also, the fatigue topic is a very good one. I'm not sure if they even fixed the other bugs with it (some party members never fatiguing), let alone whether it actually has an effect as it should.
@GemHound Sounds like you're off to a strong start!
I see that you went with Priest of Talos for Wandatranna versus Pure Class, so I'm guessing you did so mainly for the benefit of Storm Shield versus attempting to cast Lighting Bolt (unless it's outdoors with a clear shot and no chance of ricochets). Might as well get some benefit of a kit when playing a cleric, and you rolled that option. And what a great Ability score roll.
No Thief just makes traps a pain, but you do have clerics at least to detect them. And I guess you can try having your PC try to break open locked containers by using Strength potions (with Str 20+) and/or DUHM.
One of the toughest things to deal with when you have neither a Thief or Ranger is the lack of Stealth, and then the ability to scout ahead. So it's good to see you negotiating that successfully thus far.
That is one of the toughest things? I never scout ahead, only did that on my solo no-reload assassin with Tutu. On the way to the Xvart camp, I did get waylaid by an Ogre Mage. We fled the scene. I'm also sort of railroading, as I mentioned all my encounters except for Marl and randoms.
@GemHound, scouting is what I do more than anything while playing BG (especially since Hide in Shadows is so low and there are so many maps/traps). It's up there in importance with disarm traps and tanking in my playstyle.
Of course, I use disarm traps and tanking all the time, a little microing works to, and tactics as well. Why scout when you already know what is there?
You can find traps regardless of what armor you are wearing but have to switch to thief armor to disarm them - this is great for a fighter/thief or cleric thief that wants to stay in heavy armor most of the time.
You can find traps regardless of what armor you are wearing but have to switch to thief armor to disarm them - this is great for a fighter/thief or cleric thief that wants to stay in heavy armor most of the time.
Wow, that will be really helpful for my f/t game. I could have him disarm and immy open locks
Here it goes, post number 2 (first one is in page 6). I'm playing SCS and metagaming (a lot). Charname is Graven Carter, elf mage/thief, 77 stat points, and the party Kagain, Viconia, Garrick, Kivan and Safana. The best thing of this kind of contest is that I'm being more careful than I've ever been. I mean, I'm using (and buying) potions, wands, spells at every single fight... It's a totally different gaming than I'm used to, and I'm having lots of fun
Now a summary of the adventures of my party from where I left it in the first post!
After dealing with Tranzig I decided that the party needed more firepower and better gear before going to the bandit camp. There were lots of areas to explore in the world map, so I headed to Bassilus area. Bassilus is quite tough under SCS because he is slightly higher level and buffs himself (optional component) at the start of the battle with Pro Evil, Defensive Harmony, Armor of Faith and Draw Upon Holy Might. He also uses the cast-and-attack tactic, and has smarter use of his spells (watch out for Unholy Might!). Disrupting his casting is not granted either despite Garrick's non-stop Magic Missiles. Thankfully, before visiting the area I bought some pricy Arrows of Biting from Taeroum, and Kivan just needed 3 shots to have Bassilus poisoned. Good bye Bassilus. Then I finish the area and did Melicamp Quest. Back to Beregost, time to visit the coast, starting with the area south of Candlekeep. This one is not really difficult, just picked the Helm of Defense and moved on.
The lighthouse. This is an in-and-out mission. I recruited Safana (level4, one level lower than the party, and 19HP) and then headed to the pirate's cave with charname scouting ahead. Time to fight Sirines. Kagain drank that potion of clarity I picked in Candlekeep to make himself immune to charms and Viconia had Dispel Magic ready to go, just in case. It seems that SCSed Sirines have improved invisibility as a special ability, because the go invisible instantly, and of course after a while they realized that Kagain was immune to charm and charmed Kivan instead, who almost kill charname. I had to wait inside the cave till the charm went off. Anyway, some traps removed, 3 dead flesh golems (they hit really hard! only needeed an attack roll of 11 against Kagain with AC-6), picked the treasure and out of the area.
Moving south. I went straight to Brage and I even though I don't want my rep too high I spared Brage's life. The point is you are instantly teleported to Nashkel and this is also a speed contest, isn't it?
Next stop was Carnival. Besides some items to purchase, there's a tent where if you charm the owner you can pick a couple chests that contain some really good potions. Something weird happend here. I charmed the merchant and picked the chest, and out of nowhere, the guy went hostile. I had AI on so Kivan shot him dead with a 5 point dive to rep. Kagain and Vico are happy now but that never happened to me before, although I usually use Cloak of Algernon to do the charming and this time was a spell. Whatever.
It was time for Durlag's Tower. Our target was the Tome of Wisdom of course, Viconia will gladly improve her WIS. Not much to say here. Kagain, with low AC, fire resistance (ring + helm), potion of stone giant strengh and potion of heroism fought the Helmet Horrors solo (one of them dropped a wand of fire!). Then I explored the four levels above ground but avoided fighting the ghost mage at level3, I'm not taking any risk against SCS mages.
Then travelled to Firewine Bridge, just to pick the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise, for Kivan.
Day 25. Right now I'm in Friendly arm (I forgot that I actually didn't kill Tarnesh before), just ready to travel to Peldvale and infiltrate the bandit camp. I'll let you now what happens in the big (improved) end-of- chapter3 battle.
Well I had a premonition that returning to Cloakwood to retrieve a wyvern head would end badly - got beat up pretty good by an ambush of spiders going in then stumbled upon a group of guards we weren't expecting - grabbed the skull we had stashed in the cave - got away from an ambush of Wyverns - then triggered a web trap trying to escape from the blasted 4 ettercap ambush and it was all over but the screaming...which didn't last too long...
Upon further review it probably would have been better to let that dead-beat dad go and go on with a group of five - Beserker, Fighter-cleric, Thief - Mage - and a bard to write it down - we had all the bases covered once we got Yeslick. (Hindsight being 20/20)
Ah well it was fun while it lasted.
I may roll up another 3 just to see if there's a really interesting one...
Final save before dying - Chap 5 : 31 days 23 hours (autosave from Wyvern Cave map)
now seems like the right time to update, considering our close call with death.
so we are in baldurs gate, nothing much interesting to mention. went to seven suns and merchant league. however it gets interesting when i entered Degrodel's house for the first time. The doom guards came rushing in, and then i met the invisible stalkers. I will admit I never entered this house and realized when i saw the stalkers a retreat was in order. we got out and left the district, readying up to fight. when we returned, they had followed me outside, so i decided a fight in the street would be best. i sent kagain in, though a stalker got by so the rest of my party attacked that while kagain held them off. i then decided to have baeloth haste the group, and we made a ran north so that kagain could be healed by my bhaalspawn heals and some potions, while baeloth shot a fireball at them (no civilians were around) we then moved kagain back up and he got them all on him. we killed a couple here, but we need to retreat again. this time baeloth had no fireballs, so kivan chucks an oil of fiery burning. they are all badly injured. baeloth continued using magic missle and we continued going at them with a once again healed kagain tanking, and we took them out. went back into the house and found one more, but he was easy to take out. taking a trip to the temple of helm to get a lot of healing.
Comments
After the backstab Tarnesh actually had a morale failure and fled into the inn. (Interesting result, never seen that.) Zangold then pursued him. I figured he would be easy pickins due to the panic. But unfortunately on the other side of the door Tarnesh had regained his morale and started casting.
Zangold then ran out and gulped down the Oil of Speed and ran quite a distance away. Zangold tried to stealth again, but failed. Then waiting to try to stealth again... And to my surprise Tarnesh actually tracked him down! Basically, at the instant Tarnesh saw him and cast his spell, the die was cast. Magic Missile zapped Zangold as he fled.
I had initially thought to just sneak past Tarnesh and get Jaheira. But I figured Zangold has 18 Strength and Tarnesh is just a mage. I expected Tarnesh would probably get chunked by the backstab.
What a disappointment.
Oh well, if you're gonna make an omelet ya gotta break some eggs.
Female Dwarf Wizard Slayer
Chaotic Good
5 Ability score re-rolls
(Female3)
Imoen
Montaron
Rasaad
Neera
Faldorn
No healer until Cloakwood. A Wild Mage, so then wild surges. Imoen could be dualed to mage, to add a second wizard, though. Monty could be put in heavy armor and I could ignore his thieving skills and try to make him a front-liner. Otherwise only one real tank-ish character (the PC). Rasaad...
--------------------
Male Halfling Barbarian
Neutral Evil
3 Ability score re-rolls
(Male6 )
Minsc
Rasaad
Dorn
Skie
Tiax
Only 3 Ability re-rolls. At least here I have three solid front-liners: halfling Barbarian, Minsc, and Dorn. But no thief, wizard or healer until chapter 5! Rasaad...
---------------------
Female Half-orc Thief - Pick kit
Chaotic Evil
9 Ability score re-rolls
(Female1)
Montaron
Minsc
Edwin
Quayle
Alora
Really not sure which kit to pick for the half-orc Thief... Lots of Ability re-rolls, which is good. No healer until chapter 5. At least I have a mage and two thieves. It's basically a four person team, though...
Hate to say it, but the wizard slayer looks the most viable ha ha. Those are rough rolls, party-wise. Neera will kill you eventually (if nothing else).
after the bandit camp, kagain now had a whopping -6 AC. yeah, he is practically never hit, and he already has +5 health per level and regen. he is my invincible tank!
got hit by the ettercaps again. sent kagain into the middle, and safana found the trap. removed it and set up for everybody to fire from behind kagain.
completely explored the spider area. i find spiders easy. even went to centeol and tossed a fireball in that did good work at weakening the spiders in there. gave minsc the sword.
completely explored the wivern area. not a sing wyvern hit kagain as most enemies, so it was quite easy.
at the mine i dispeled the two outside mages. kagain was hit by horror, but he ran around the enemies so they stayed attacking him. kagain now has the speed boots.
in the mine at daevorn, safana went ahead and removed the traps. i set up my archers, and had my inquisitor use his second dispel. unfortunately, i only dispelled his mirror image, so he was still protected from normal weapons. baeloth hit him with magic missle to weaken him to injured. he then teleported and began to launch lightning, the target was kagain. i quickly tossed kagain my boots and helm to give him 70 resistance, so he was almost unaffected. he then cast fireball, only hitting kagain and he still was not dead with 20 fire resistance. we managed to surround him and beat him down with magical weapons and more magic from baeloth.
strangely enough, i was not interrupted leaving cloackwood. usually i am ambush at least 3 times.
went through the ankheg area, where kagain was hit once and made a successful save vs death. thank god!
and this is where i am right now. we are all level 6 still except safana and kagain, and baeloth is next to level. most likely after the poison quest.
5 - Female
9 - Half Orc
4 - Cleric
0 - Choose
Second Roll:
8 - Neutral Evil
8 - Reroll 8 times, got 92 on 4th roll
9 - Female6(Using Default)
NPCS:
1 - Ajantis
15 - Khalid
19 - Neera, This is going to get interesting.
20 - Quayle
13 - Jaheira
Random Name: Wandatranna the Chosen One
Stats:
STR: 19
DEX: 18
CONST: 19
INT: 9
WIS: 18
CHA: 9
Character Sheet:
http://i.imgur.com/4Bd6pQw.jpg
If I play my cards right, I'll be regenerating in no time.
Having come to Beregost at night, Jagen and Viconia made time out to the hot points on this location – while it’s night outdoors, Jagen’s chances to hide in shadows raise a lot. At first, Neera was met. After some dialog thayan wizards appeared and we had to defend the poor girl from their experiments. It was oddly that Viconia could’s resist the Color Spray spell and rendered unconscious. Jagen, as it’s becoming a tradition already, tried to keep some distance and waited till any of the mercenaries became “near death”. Then he used the wand of MM and took their lives. It’s so effective – the last hit gives you all the Exp.
<img src="http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/8195/11217675.jpg">
Because this is a no-reload run Jagen decided not to take Neera (one of his possible companions due to the random roll) with him – at least for a while. But the Gem bag was taken, of course))
Then Jagen and Viconia went to Garrick. After the initial dialog ended Jagen managed to set a simple trap next to Silke (as you remember, a special trap had already been used when confronting the fetishist) and hid in shadows. When Silke became an enemy, the trap thwarted her first spell but didn’t kill her. Jagen missed the backstab attack however and because we all know the power of Silke and the danger of the Lighting spell Jagen used the potion of Invisibility to hide again. The second backstab attack came in time – Silke fell.
Jagen decided not to take Garrick at least for a while (another one of his possible companions due to the random roll) as well.
And Jagen reached the 3rd level. 6 HP (lucky!) and 20 points put into Open Locks skill. With 45 points total in Open Locks he managed to open the chests in the forge and took the magical bastard sword – an equivalent of 1250 gp. It’s interesting to know that before putting 20 points into Open Locks skill Jagen couldn’t open those chests.
Then the Exp from the Marl dialog brought Viconia to the 3rd level as well. She wasn’t lucky though, getting only 1 HP (to make it 13 total). But the 2nd level of spells became available – I’ve chosen a Hold Person (x2)spell. It’ll be a useful addition to 2 Command and 2 Heal spells that she uses.
For a party of two members it wasn’t hard to kill Karlat. Viconia led him in circles while Jagen shot him to death. Then we got Stupifier for Vikky.
After resting (rest #4), getting a scroll case, selling some stuff Jagen and Viconia went to the south.
Ogrillions and hobgoblins didn’t pose a big threat but the Boots +20 His +14 MS became useful at the first onset (especially taking into account Jagen’s minimal stats in those abilities).
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Without any troubles Jagen and Viconia came to Nashkel, took Edwin (the 4th level conjurer – it’s amazing, really, he had 10 000 Exp while Jagen and Viconia had only 3 000+), found the famous green armor (Viconia’s AC became even better) and went to the inn.
Neira is always a tough enemy. Her Rigid Thinking on Vikky was a success but Edwin’s starting magic pool (2 Acid Arrows and 6 Larloch’s) was the difference. It was so cool to find him just minutes before and then be able to kill a strong assassin with his powers.
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I did all of the Candlekeep quests except for Tethtoril's quest which isn't working for me, during the last 3 games at least, and left Candlekeep at Despised(4). First thing I did was grab the diamond, the gear at the ambush site, grabbed the +1 ring, and then went to the Friendly Arm Inn, Soloed the Hobgoblins, and quickly gained 1 point of reputation from Joia before the Flaming Fist appeared. I was then safe to travel, I think I'll kill Tarnesh first.
I cast Remove Fear on my character, then cast command on Tarnesh. I hit him, he panicked, and we chased him into the Friendly Arm Inn, where he became instantly brave. Three balls of magical energy hit the Half Orc, who retreated through the doors again and drunk a healing potion. Tarnesh died when he came back outside.
Inside, Wandatranna found Khalid and Jaheira. We next went North to get Ajantis. He became the leader when he joined the party. We then went and killed the Ogre at the crossroads and then grabbed Neera from the Red Wizards in Beregost. I lost Khalid in that fight. Will be carrying his corpse around while I scrounge up some money to pay for his resurrection.
This is not going to end well I think. Neera got one-shotted by a ranged Hobgoblin South of Beregost after we killed those Ogrillons. Then we went South, grabbed the Ankheg Plate in Nashkel, and went into the Nashkel Mine. Neera got one-shotted by a kobold for a second time.
We beat our way to Mulahey, springing traps one by one with Jaheira. I had Wandatranna draw him out of his room, and threw my soldiers into Xan's cave to fight off one side of the ambush to come. Jaheira cast entanglement once Mulahey and Wandatranna rounded the corner, and the duel began. Mulahey attempted to confuse Wanda who had drank a potion of clarity and a potion of speed. Wanda proceeded to hit Mulahey a few times, then cast command on him, hit him a few more times. When Mulahey came out of his stupor, Wanda refused to let him surrender. in seconds he was dead, and his soldiers lay in confusion as the party of 4 quickly killed them.
http://i.imgur.com/G0e4ObK.jpg
After that, the party went back to Nashkel, collected the reward, then went to Beregost and killed Silke.
I killed the bounty hunter in the inn but the guards got Nimbul. I next went into the Cloudpeaks, helped Albert find Rufie, saved the Dryad, killed the bridge guards at the Gnome stronghold, then now I'm getting ready to enter Nexlit's Base.
http://i.imgur.com/gglrLZp.jpg
I see that you went with Priest of Talos for Wandatranna versus Pure Class, so I'm guessing you did so mainly for the benefit of Storm Shield versus attempting to cast Lighting Bolt (unless it's outdoors with a clear shot and no chance of ricochets). Might as well get some benefit of a kit when playing a cleric, and you rolled that option. And what a great Ability score roll.
No Thief just makes traps a pain, but you do have clerics at least to detect them. And I guess you can try having your PC try to break open locked containers by using Strength potions (with Str 20+) and/or DUHM.
One of the toughest things to deal with when you have neither a Thief or Ranger is the lack of Stealth, and then the ability to scout ahead. So it's good to see you negotiating that successfully thus far.
Montaron
Minsc
Edwin
(Quayle
Alora)
might give me the best shot. I'm pretty much resigned to the likelihood of not making it to chapter 5, so this is basically a four person team, I reckon. But I will have Minsc and Monty as tanks, Edwin as a mage, and I can probably take out a lot of enemy mages by backstabbing with both the PC and Montaron and Minsc striking from the front in stealth mode as well. Then with Edwin casting spells like Sleep, Blind, Charm, and Glitterdust, and Horror I think this team can probably perform well for many a battle.
I have also found it extremely useful to have a Thief or Ranger pick off enemies one by one from the perimeter (yes, that's cheese, but we're free to powergame away here ;D). So here I can actually do this with not one but three stealthy characters.
Can an assassin add poison to crossbow bolts? Because the Light Crossbow of Speed firing Bolts of Biting could be totally wicked with even more poison damage added to them.
Otherwise I think Assassin might be a good choice with a half-orc's 19 Str and backstabbing with a quarterstaff. (I still feel deprived of this class/weapon by Zangold getting killed so quickly in my last game!)
@Lemernis - I am fairly sure assassin poison works for any weapon but I'm not sure if it will coninue to work if you switch from one to another while it is active.
Did a little research and it appears Coran will leave if I don't complete the quest and turn in the wyvern head (possibly within 16 game days) so I guess we will be wasting another week or so when I get back to the game as its 60 hours from FAI to the wyvern map - one way! (where I have one stored in a container)
That's a good combination. Because you've rolled Montaron and a thief PC you've got an option to make him a narrow specialist. An assassin is a good choice since you get additional (to assassin's inner +1 bonus) +3 to THACO because of 19 STR available early on.
Assassin's Posion Weapon works with any kind of weapon. The description says "each successful hit within next round", so it will coninue to work if you switch from one to another while it is active.
This Posion Weapon ability works quite right with ranged attacks.
Edwin's a great mage. I can't just stop saying good things about him.
Monty can tank while Minsk will be your main damage dealer. You can equip Monty with the best armor available - your PC can be an excellent scout, Minsk can scout as well - if he's not a tank, his armor is not so important. You can put Monty's thieving points into Disarm Trap skill and while you're looking for some traps you can take his armor off.
Because you've rolled "choose kit" you can also consider multiclass cleric/thief. I see no healer in your group, so healing some severe casualties can become a problem (it will cost some money). And a multiclass cleric/thief, especially a half-orc, is a stand-out character. With DUHM his THACO will become even better and bonus from STR will really help while using a sling.
As @bengoshi said,"This Posion Weapon ability works quite right with ranged attacks." I find it hard to do with my assassin characters because the backstab is so gratifying. It also works with the Blackguard ability. Darts of wounding with Poison weapon are really good.
@Wanderon, it does work when switching weapons (EDIT: Just realized @bengoshi said that). Also, the fatigue topic is a very good one. I'm not sure if they even fixed the other bugs with it (some party members never fatiguing), let alone whether it actually has an effect as it should.
Yeah...what @bengoshi said :P.
I'm also sort of railroading, as I mentioned all my encounters except for Marl and randoms.
Now a summary of the adventures of my party from where I left it in the first post!
After dealing with Tranzig I decided that the party needed more firepower and better gear before going to the bandit camp. There were lots of areas to explore in the world map, so I headed to Bassilus area. Bassilus is quite tough under SCS because he is slightly higher level and buffs himself (optional component) at the start of the battle with Pro Evil, Defensive Harmony, Armor of Faith and Draw Upon Holy Might. He also uses the cast-and-attack tactic, and has smarter use of his spells (watch out for Unholy Might!). Disrupting his casting is not granted either despite Garrick's non-stop Magic Missiles. Thankfully, before visiting the area I bought some pricy Arrows of Biting from Taeroum, and Kivan just needed 3 shots to have Bassilus poisoned. Good bye Bassilus. Then I finish the area and did Melicamp Quest.
Back to Beregost, time to visit the coast, starting with the area south of Candlekeep. This one is not really difficult, just picked the Helm of Defense and moved on.
The lighthouse. This is an in-and-out mission. I recruited Safana (level4, one level lower than the party, and 19HP) and then headed to the pirate's cave with charname scouting ahead. Time to fight Sirines. Kagain drank that potion of clarity I picked in Candlekeep to make himself immune to charms and Viconia had Dispel Magic ready to go, just in case. It seems that SCSed Sirines have improved invisibility as a special ability, because the go invisible instantly, and of course after a while they realized that Kagain was immune to charm and charmed Kivan instead, who almost kill charname. I had to wait inside the cave till the charm went off. Anyway, some traps removed, 3 dead flesh golems (they hit really hard! only needeed an attack roll of 11 against Kagain with AC-6), picked the treasure and out of the area.
Moving south. I went straight to Brage and I even though I don't want my rep too high I spared Brage's life. The point is you are instantly teleported to Nashkel and this is also a speed contest, isn't it?
Next stop was Carnival. Besides some items to purchase, there's a tent where if you charm the owner you can pick a couple chests that contain some really good potions. Something weird happend here. I charmed the merchant and picked the chest, and out of nowhere, the guy went hostile. I had AI on so Kivan shot him dead with a 5 point dive to rep. Kagain and Vico are happy now but that never happened to me before, although I usually use Cloak of Algernon to do the charming and this time was a spell. Whatever.
It was time for Durlag's Tower. Our target was the Tome of Wisdom of course, Viconia will gladly improve her WIS. Not much to say here. Kagain, with low AC, fire resistance (ring + helm), potion of stone giant strengh and potion of heroism fought the Helmet Horrors solo (one of them dropped a wand of fire!). Then I explored the four levels above ground but avoided fighting the ghost mage at level3, I'm not taking any risk against SCS mages.
Then travelled to Firewine Bridge, just to pick the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise, for Kivan.
Day 25. Right now I'm in Friendly arm (I forgot that I actually didn't kill Tarnesh before), just ready to travel to Peldvale and infiltrate the bandit camp. I'll let you now what happens in the big (improved) end-of- chapter3 battle.
Cheers.
Well I had a premonition that returning to Cloakwood to retrieve a wyvern head would end badly - got beat up pretty good by an ambush of spiders going in then stumbled upon a group of guards we weren't expecting - grabbed the skull we had stashed in the cave - got away from an ambush of Wyverns - then triggered a web trap trying to escape from the blasted 4 ettercap ambush and it was all over but the screaming...which didn't last too long...
Upon further review it probably would have been better to let that dead-beat dad go and go on with a group of five - Beserker, Fighter-cleric, Thief - Mage - and a bard to write it down - we had all the bases covered once we got Yeslick. (Hindsight being 20/20)
Ah well it was fun while it lasted.
I may roll up another 3 just to see if there's a really interesting one...
Final save before dying - Chap 5 : 31 days 23 hours (autosave from Wyvern Cave map)
so we are in baldurs gate, nothing much interesting to mention. went to seven suns and merchant league. however it gets interesting when i entered Degrodel's house for the first time. The doom guards came rushing in, and then i met the invisible stalkers. I will admit I never entered this house and realized when i saw the stalkers a retreat was in order. we got out and left the district, readying up to fight. when we returned, they had followed me outside, so i decided a fight in the street would be best. i sent kagain in, though a stalker got by so the rest of my party attacked that while kagain held them off. i then decided to have baeloth haste the group, and we made a ran north so that kagain could be healed by my bhaalspawn heals and some potions, while baeloth shot a fireball at them (no civilians were around) we then moved kagain back up and he got them all on him. we killed a couple here, but we need to retreat again. this time baeloth had no fireballs, so kivan chucks an oil of fiery burning. they are all badly injured. baeloth continued using magic missle and we continued going at them with a once again healed kagain tanking, and we took them out. went back into the house and found one more, but he was easy to take out. taking a trip to the temple of helm to get a lot of healing.