Fast, (relatively) easy quest XP to hog before expanding your party
PugPug
Member Posts: 560
I'm keeping a lookout for things I can do with just me and Imoen before I start recruiting. So far I have found:
Friendly Arm Inn:
Joia's Flamedance Ring
Unshey's girdle stolen by the ogre
Beregost:
Lady Mirianne awaits news of her husband
Talking down Marl in Feldepost's Inn (900 xp just for dialogue)
Silke bodyguard quest
Getting the book for Firebead Elvenhair
Landrin's house with the spiders it too tough, I think, unless you're wearing plate mail with a shield and have some antidotes.
Friendly Arm Inn:
Joia's Flamedance Ring
Unshey's girdle stolen by the ogre
Beregost:
Lady Mirianne awaits news of her husband
Talking down Marl in Feldepost's Inn (900 xp just for dialogue)
Silke bodyguard quest
Getting the book for Firebead Elvenhair
Landrin's house with the spiders it too tough, I think, unless you're wearing plate mail with a shield and have some antidotes.
1
Comments
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/14152/ankheg-help
Silke is actually dangerous. Many a 1st lvl character has fallen to her lightning spells and Karlat's mighty axe next door. Careful if you are on a no-reload!
Get the protection from petrification scroll from the Nashkel Carnival, go to 'Mutamin's Statue Garden of Horrors' use it and kill the beasts with ranged weapons. Korax is a great help too, just make sure he keeps his distance from you.
Get the lightning wand from Beregost Manor. With a mage you can use it to kill Bassilus, Imoen's wand of missiles guarantee free hits to dirsupt his spells, too! It is risky, but profitable.
If you have magical ammunition, set traps skill, powerful wands, a good tank, potion of freedom, you can take down Vampiric Wolf pack on the east corner of Song of the Morning temple area. Vampiric wolves give 2k xp each and Dread wolves are not too bad at 650 xp per head.
Flesh golems in the High Hedge! You can try to backstab them with a thief with a magical weapon. (that +1 dagger you can get from Fuller in Candlekeep pays off!) but careful, flesh golems are mean, fast and deadly. If you are a second late to turn tail and flee after your backstab, the flesh golem's fist will cave the skull of your thief in. If the thief is lvl 1, and at full health, he can't die from a single strike, so you can abuse it, take the hit, gulp a potion and retreat. Remember that if it is a npc you are using, he/she may suffer morale failure after taking the massive hit, lose control, and die. Try to lure the golems outside and kite them, while someone with magical ammunition shoots them down. If you've set traps outside you can kill them even easier. They are very easy to hit, their ACs are bad. Even a mage can hit them reliably with magical darts or bullets.
Shoal the Nereid is a fat big chunk of 5k xp! And super easy to kill! You can kite her and pelt with arrows. If her fiancee Droth comes, he may be problematic, but hey, the lady is 5000 xp with feet! In the same map, bringing the cursed ring to Arcand the Mad gives you quest xp. Also, he may reward you a valuable potion of explosions, so you can use it on the ogres just down that map. Surviving ogres should be kited and put down with missile weapons.
If you have potion of clarity and protection from poison scroll, or just a potion of magic shielding, you can go Sirine hunting with a good fighter. Protected from charm and poison, they are easy pickings for 2k xp each. Golem cave there can be abused too, flesh golems are easy to kite and kill with magic arrows. Just watch out for those traps!
I personally find Ankhegs too tedious and dangerous. Their attacks are so damaging and very hard to avoid. If you have a scroll of acid protection, and good AC vs missiles, plus sleep and command spells plenty, you can take them. Send a big tank with plate mail, large shield, shield&weapon style, equipped with girdle of piercing, to tank the ankhegs and rest of your characters should fire ranged weaponry at the oversized cockroach. But there is no guarantee you won't suffer any casualties, they almost always manage to kill at least one of my characters. In the ankheg caves, abuse the shadows. A thief or stalker should hide in shadows, go with a tank to an ankheg. Ankheg will target the tank, and your tank moves to engage it, while your thief/stalker quickly goes behind the critter, still invisible, and gets a backstab attack with +8 to hit. (+4 from hide in shadows, +4 for ankheg having ranged weapon eqipped)
Also on the note of xvarts, there's a "merchant" named Borda who will drop 900 Experience if you can get him to hold still. He's also got a short sword +1 and some scrolls.
Make sure that the first time you get to the road to Nashkel, you grab the amulet! It's a ground item, and it'll despawn if not picked up fast-like.
- Colquetle's family amulet, found 2 areas beneath Beregost->Nashkel can be given back to a guy in a house north of the house you find Firebead Elvenhair in.
- Melicamp the chicken quest - south from High Hedge. Quite easy to do. (only some annoying skeletons in - girdle of piercing (+AC vs arrows from the ogre under FAI) helps).
- half-ogres in the north part of Drizzt's map are easy to kite and Bjornin in Beregost will give you a shield and exp for killing them.
Otherwise you can:
Kill Firebead after giving him the book for 2700 xp and a reputation loss.
Do the Fishermen and the Priestess quest in the Ankheg area for an easy 2500 xp.
if u can get there the quest with the beserk guard captain from naskel is very easy xp seeing as you can finish it with only dialogue and on top of that you get some pretty valuable loot for early in the game
Recruit them before they would be level 4, and they will still be level 2. No proficiency or thieving points wasted. None that you could prevent by rushing to them, anyway.
Wizards actually don't get a second proficiency point until level 6, so you could wait longer for them.
Then, I cast the level one spell Command on the Ankhegs. They don't EVER seem to resist it for some reason, and it gives me a round or so to wail on them. I think because they are unconscious, it gives an extra -4 AC (or +4 THAC0) to the Ankheg (attacker).
That's huge at the beginning! It also adds an extra chance on top of the Stealth and missile weapon equipped bonuses! (I didn't know the acid missile counted, huh...)
So, command them for a second and when they are on the ground peacefully chittering away in a blissful insect-dream... Find a weak spot in the chitin and stab that abdomen!
Their spits seem to hit twice, as it allows a save vs death for half damage.
So if you fail the save, you'll see
Ankheg did 9 damage to Viconia
Ankheg did 10 damage to Viconia
If the save is passed:
Ankheg did 9 damage to Viconia
Viconia-save vs death:16 (this is displayed instead of the second hit of the spit, so the damage is halved.)
Ankhegs have a mean melee attack too, that does good pyshical damage plus a few points of acid damage. (no save) So you'll see that attack as two hits too.
Most spells that allow a save for half damage work that way. So if you are hit by a fireball for 10d6, you will see:
Xzar did 13 damage to Edwin (this is 5d6 damage, first half of the spell)
Xzar did 12 damage to Edwin (this is the next 5d6 damage, second half, Edwin failed the save and suffered this)
or
Xzar did 13 damage to Edwin
Edwin-save vs spells:18 (Edwin rolled a save vs spells and avoided the second half of the fireball dmg)
Command causes ankhegs to fall uncouncious, similar to sleep spell. When an enemy is uncouncious, asleep, held, paralysed, or stunned, you don't roll to hit. All hits are automatic. So you can kill such a disabled foe very quickly. Even a mage with 25 THAC0 with darts will hit with all of his darts, doing 3d3 damage/round if the foe is disabled. This is also another reason, if your character is held, stunned, etc. he is pretty much dead, as even xvarts can kill him very quickly.