Poverty Run FINISHED!
lundgrnn
Member Posts: 27
I've seen people post about playthroughs with special rules like no-reloads, speed runs and such. I wanted to try a solo poverty run. I've never seen anybody post about poverty runs here and I don't know if that means nobody's tried one (I doubt I'm the first to do something like this honestly) or there's no point in trying. Anyway...
The rules I was going to restrict myself to are:
1) Solo, no companions.
2) No equipment or consumables used other than the quarterstaff I start the game with.
3) Pick up no items unless they're used for a quest. I can't equip or use any quest item for anything but the quest (ex: I can bring Hull his long sword but I cannot equip it).
4) I want to start at Insane difficulty and keep it there as much as possible. I won't drop it for any quest or fight that isn't part of the main quest line. If I cant beat it I'll skip it or come back to it later. However, if I get to a point where I cannot continue the story I'll probably drop the difficulty just to keep the game going.
Other than that I think anything is fair game. As for class and race, I was thinking multiclass cleric/thief gnome. I think it's a pretty versatile kit, especially considering limited resources. Spell casting - not reliant on scrolls (no items remember!), and the versatility and damage of stealth, backstabs, and traps. I bet its doable with a sorcerer too, but I've done a solo sorcerer run with equipment and I want to try something a little different from that experience this time.
So what do you think? Is this possible or am I on a fools errand? Where am I most likely to hit a wall here? Any suggestions on how to play a cleric/thief?
The rules I was going to restrict myself to are:
1) Solo, no companions.
2) No equipment or consumables used other than the quarterstaff I start the game with.
3) Pick up no items unless they're used for a quest. I can't equip or use any quest item for anything but the quest (ex: I can bring Hull his long sword but I cannot equip it).
4) I want to start at Insane difficulty and keep it there as much as possible. I won't drop it for any quest or fight that isn't part of the main quest line. If I cant beat it I'll skip it or come back to it later. However, if I get to a point where I cannot continue the story I'll probably drop the difficulty just to keep the game going.
Other than that I think anything is fair game. As for class and race, I was thinking multiclass cleric/thief gnome. I think it's a pretty versatile kit, especially considering limited resources. Spell casting - not reliant on scrolls (no items remember!), and the versatility and damage of stealth, backstabs, and traps. I bet its doable with a sorcerer too, but I've done a solo sorcerer run with equipment and I want to try something a little different from that experience this time.
So what do you think? Is this possible or am I on a fools errand? Where am I most likely to hit a wall here? Any suggestions on how to play a cleric/thief?
Post edited by lundgrnn on
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Edit: Just tested Shillelagh, Spiritual Hammer, and Flame Blade on the wolf pack by the temple next to Bergost. Shillelagh hit as a magical weapon against the Vampic Wolves and was also able to backstab. Spiritual Hammer hit as a magical weapon and was also able to backstab, despite not being a thief weapon type. I wonder if that is a bug or if it is considered to be a club. Flame Blade did not hit as a magical weapon but was able to backstab against the wolves that didn't require a magical weapon to hit, might prove useful vs trolls.
level 3 summon skeletons-> kill all ;D i don't know if cleric is powerfull enough to do this but mage is and cleric is pretty good too
i would consider fighter/cleric dwarf with staffs he would be more of a brute force rather than stealthy guy
Imagine facing six kobold archers. You would probably take damage from every arrow. The highest HP fighter at level 3 would be dead in 2 rounds. A good cleric could buff themselves or walk past with sanctuary, but nobody could fight Sarevok with a quarter staff. (of course I bet someone on YouTube already has...)
Candlekeep: No problems started off much like a normal game.
Area E of Candlekeep: Probably the least time I've ever spent in this area. Cant take what Gorion dropped, can't take the diamond, I could have probably hunted some black bears for exp but I just decided to head east.
Crossroads: Spoke with Elminster, proceeded to the Ogre with the belt. Loaded up on Command spells before resting. Stealted -> backstab to injured, then Command and dropped a trap on his head while unconscious -> dead. Surprisingly easy. I found out later that you cannot lay traps down while there are enemies on screen, but apparently you can if they're unconscious.
Friendly Arm Inn
Set down a trap as Tarnesh came to greet me. It triggered after the dialogue and then it was a matter of keeping him unconscious with Command while I got in my free whacks with the quarter staff. 3 Commands = 3 rounds of free hits and a dead mage. Popped my head inside to speak with Dorn and return a lost belt, then headed to to top of the map to grab the Flamedance ring for Joia. The Hobgoblins are spaced far enough appart that I can pull one or two at a time and melee them down with Command and my quarterstaff.
Beregost: Killed Marl with a backstab and a trap, I didn't even try to offer him a drink. Just strait up murdered him for being a jerk when I first came in. Killed the assassin in the Red Sheaf with a trap followed by 3 Commands and finally had to chase him around the tavern after his morale failed. The mage and mercenaries after Neera left me as a red stain on the cobblestone so I'm going to save them for later, probably will try them again now that I have hold person. Did some fetch quests for exp and left with cleric level 2, and thief level 3. All thief points have gone into traps at this point as they're responsible for most of my damage, it's up to 100 now so everything else is probably going to go to stealth next.
Temple E of Bergost: I wanted to see what I could do vs. the wolf pack so I headed here next. Had to rest several times and lay down about 5 traps and pull the vampic wolves into them in order to kill them. Cheesy, but probably the most powerful tool in my toolbox. I also wanted to have Larloch's Minor Drain for my Baalspawn ability (to interrupt casters) so I murdered the drunk who claims to be a Lich (he was misinformed) to drop my reputation a bit.
Nothing else really notable before getting to Nashkel. I just went directly south from Beregost and there wasn't much to do in either area.
Things that I've learned so far!
1. You can drop a trap with enemies visible if they are unconscious (will have to test if they're held too).
2. Having one * in single weapon style gives you -1 AC when you cast spiritual hammer.
3. Sanctuary is pretty good for scouting, but if you cast it mid battle to run, enemies will follow but not attack. I think you may need to break line of sight somehow to get them to stop following.
I think if the first gibberling doesn't finish you off tarnesh will clean up the scraps
S 18/77 D 18 C 16 I 14 W 18 C 12
Warhammer **
Single Weapon Style **
Future profs to be put into maximising Warhammer, 1 in Quarterstaff and 1 in 2-handed style
My plan is to use Spiritual Hammer with Barkskin for hard future battles
A little way in and hard doesn't even begin to say it! hahaha! Probably 20 reloads vs Silkie when I was just a Kensai, in the end I Kai punched her unconscious (better Thaco than staff) and then finished her off with the staff, was unbearably tempting to pick up and use her +1 staff but I stayed strong and true to my poverty!
I did a couple things around beregost for XP, then metagamed the hell out of it and went on an expedition to bring Brage back to the Temple in nashkel, talking to noober got me to L3 and so I fought Neira as a Level 1 cleric... one shillelagh and two commands at my disposal, I cast the magical cudgel as she approached shouting about slitting my throat, the commands interrupted her rigid thinking and one of her hold spells the other hold I saved against, she then cast entangle which was a blessing in disguise as when I was free and she was still stuck I could then hit her with the staff whilst out of range of her club/spirit hammers, in the end it was a slug-fest as the entangle ran out and I survived (with 6hp!) and she fell!
I don't know if I will continue, its going to be a long hard road before this char starts showing his potential!
Look at me, violating religious privilege!
I cleared out Bassalus without too much difficulty. I stealthed up to him among his minions and opened with a backstab and immediately dropped a trap at my feet. Rather than get mad at me right away for clocking him in the head with a staff he decided to talk for a while first. I managed to frustrate him into fighting me 1 on 1 and his undead army collapsed without a fight. At that point it was just a matter of getting a Hold Person to stick before he got one to stick to me. It took 4 reloads.
Zagral and his two Hobgoblin cohorts on the same map proved to be more of a challenge strangely. This fight took a while before I found a good strategy. Pulling them one at a time into traps didn't work two well as they all came as a group and the too archers would hang back and take no damage. Opening with a Hold Person only reliably held one and then the others would fill me with poison arrows. I ended up placing a trap just out of range then, opening with a backstab on one of the archers forcing it to melee, even though I wasn't getting a multiplier from doing it to any of them. I then immediately started casting Hold Person and prayed that it would stick to two of them. When it finally did I just Commanded and meleed the 2nd archer to death then started on the held archer. The Hold Person wore off half way through meleeing down Zagral himself at which point I could kite him over to the trap. This fight took several (7-8) reloads to get right.
I headed down to the mines area at this point and figured I would kill Greywolf. I didn't want to risk any time being swung at by that Long Sword +2 so I cheesed it by stacking 5 traps next to Prisim before talking to him. Once Greywolf appeared and made his hostile intentions known, Boom! Dead bounty hunter.
After all of that I'm at level 5 cleric and level 5 thief. My main strategy for general mobs has been to trap and backstab when I can. If I get caught off guard, having 5 Commands in my level one slots has allowed me to whack most of what's come at me to death. If something is too high leveled or I run out of Commands I generally throw up Barkskin, pull out a Spiritual Hammer (1 more thac0 and 1 more AC advantage thanks to single weapon style over my staff, same damage still) and pray I kill it before it kills me. Now that I have a skeleton or two to summon I suppose I'll have at least one at my side at all times from now on.
Tomorrow I'll run the mines. I'm looking forward to the Mulahey fight and the fight with the bounty hunters after I exit. I'm worried about the traps in the mines. I've been ignoring the find traps skill. I first got 100 in Set Traps and the rest have gone into Hide in Shadows and Move Silently. Traps may be my Achilles' heel for this run.
Btw, it stinks that your skeletons can't throw knives like those jerks at high hedge. You could disrupt spellcasters straight through the game. (does protection from arrows help against thrown weapons?)
I do wonder why someone who is so poor wouldn't pick up free gear, but I get the point of the run
Mulahey proved to be cake. I loaded up the area of his cave where he spawns skeletons and kobolds. Stealthed up to him backstab into a Hold Person and then just meleed him to death. Grabbed the documents and his holy symbol to finish quests and move the chapter along.There was still a bunch of skeletons left when I tried to exit and I suppose I could have stealthed past if I wanted but at this point turn undead made them all run for the hills and I picked them off one at a time.
The assassins hanging out north of the cave exit I dealt with by parking a couple of skeletons and traps at the cave then pulling them down one or two at a time. Casting Silence 15' Radius on the caster to make her run into melee. The hardest one was the archer. But pulling her into skeletons forces her to melee. She got a few good shots off on me though. I had to rest in between a few of them but in the end they fell.
For the Reverent who wants his dagger back, I was tempted to just give him the dagger and leave him in peace, but I wanted to see what I could do. Toe to toe, even with every buff I could throw up he tore me to pieces. Turn undead did nothing. I still had normal skeletons with normal long swords at this point so he was immune to their damage. I settled on pulling him outdoors into traps then kiting him around the rocks, resting when it was out of sight to get more traps. This would be impossible if mobs healed when you rested, but luckily this one didn't.
Feeling pretty confidant I headed up to Larswood and zipped to the group of bandits in the upper left and volunteered to join up! I figured it would be easier and quicker to infiltrate the bandit camp this way than kill my way to Tazok's tent. When I got there I convinced Tazok that I was the real deal and was deemed worthy to begin my new career as a bandit!
I headed over to the tent and stealthed in. No way of pulling these guys one at a time in here so it was going to have to be 4 vs. 1. Surprisingly if I destealthed with Raemon (the bandit who calls you out for being in Tazok's tent) out of line of sight behind the blacksmith. The other 3 don't care that I'm in there. I could have just snagged the documents and peaced out, but I chose to do the fight. I set up some traps behind the blacksmith and then pulled Raemon on top of them. He gets pissed, turns hostile triggering the traps and dies. The traps hit the others damaging but not killing them. I get off a Hold Person on the Hobgoblin, get a lucky hit on the Near Death gnoll, killing it before it can hack me to bits. The held Hobgoblin also fell to a couple of staff hits at this point too. The mage has been buffing with Mirror Image and trying to hit me with a Terror (yay shorty saves!), he's about to start launching Melf's Acid Arrows so I dart out of the tent and manage to quickly rest. Upon waking the mage has found its way outside and is healed (I guess resting in a different area allows them to heal?) I get off a Hold Person and stealth away momentarily as now all the bandits outside are pissed. When out of line of sight I came back and backstabbed the mage (did this twice) until he died. All in all not to shabby, but it took several reloads to figure all this out, and get lucky on my saves.
Not wanting to waste time I headed straight to Cloakwood. Nothing interesting in the first area. The druids attacking Aldeth proved highly venerable to Silence 15' Radius and Hold Person.
The second area was fun. Lay a couple traps down (I had 2 per day by this time) pull a phase spider and watch it explode when it teleports to you. The spider nest was also pretty easy. Set traps and summon skeletons and leave them outside. Head on in and talk to Centeol, once she sicks her minions on me, run back out and let the traps and skeletons go to work. Repeat as necessary and then smack Centeol to death with the staff.
The druids in the 3rd area also proved to be highly susceptible to Hold Person (and were worth quite a bit of experience for how easy they were). In the 4th area the Wyvern cave fell to the the same strategy I used on the spider nest.
Finally the Mines. The assassins outside were able to be pulled 1 at a time so that is what I did. It was kind of funny to see the one wearing boots of speed sprint into a stack of 5 traps and die. The mages had some really high saves and I wasn't getting Silence or Hold Person to stick so I just swarmed them with skeletons. Hold Person stuck to the axe throwing fighter like ugly on an orc.
Down in the mines the guards were all pretty venerable to Hold Person, and Terror (baalspawn ability). The hard part was Davaeorn. I couldn't detect the traps leading up to them so buffed up with Protection from Lightning, stealthed, and tripped them all, triggering the Doom Guards to appear. I headed back upstairs without agroing anybody and rested. The first thing I tried was pulling them into a big old pile of traps only to find out they were immune to their damage. I then tried pulling them into 3 skeletons. The Doom Guards tore them to pieces. What finally worked was casting a Far Sight to see where they were and then dropping my 3 Holy Smites on them. This was barely enough damage to kill them. I needed to reload a few times to get some lucky damage rolls, it also took a chunk out of Davaeorn when they finally died. To finish him up I landed a lucky backstab on him through his mirror images that made his morale fail. Then I just chased him around until I landed a few more staff hits.
So that's where I'm at. If you've read this far I know I've typed a novel here but I'm having a lot of fun on this run and I like sharing it too. I hit max level (7 cleric/8 thief) about half way through Cloakwood mine so all the tools that will be available to me, I have at this point. I've yet to drop the difficulty to get past anything. I think I'm going to continue to progress the main quest for a while, and might try out a few side quests or Durlag's Tower just to see how far I can get.
The cleric/thief combo has left me with sooooo many ways of approaching fights. Stealth, backstabs, traps, summons, buffs, damage spells, debuffs, crowd control, heals. This kit has it all!
A naked female gnome cleric/thief has killed Sarevok!
There was nothing really worth writing home about up until the last few fights of the game. From the end of Cloakwood to the Duchal Palace I got by with a lot more of the same strategies I talked about above. Traps, backstabs, Hold Person, Silence, and Summon Skeletons carried me through every fight.
Things finally got interesting at the Duchal Palace. Killing 6 Greater Doppelgangers before they murder the Grand Dukes is no easy feat when you're naked and solo. It all came down to luck in the end. I rested and set traps until I was capped at 7 in the room. I spaced them out enough that they took out two right off the bat. I summoned up my skeletons between them and the Grand Dukes to act as meat (well bone I guess) shields. After that I needed a good couple of Horrors to stick. They have high enough saves that nothing happened several times and many reloads were required to get 2 of them to run away for a while the guards and skeletons worked on the other 2. I basically stood back and spammed Hold Person in hopes that one would get held for a while while the skeletons and guards took care of them. After several (over 15) reloads I finally killed them all before they could murder Belt. The female mage Duke always died. She's sooooo squishy and never even tried to defend herself with spells.
After that I was too excited for the final battle so I stealthed past all the mobs in the maze, used protection spells to get past the traps, and snuck past the group of assassins outside of the Temple.
The final battle was a ton of fun. I started by stealthing around, seeing where the traps where, finding out where I needed to stand to trigger the fight and what the cadre surrounding Saravok were scripted to do. IT WAS TOUGH! I had to save every chance I got throughout the fight because so many small lucky things needed to happen in order to win. I'll run through what happened step by step as best as I can.
1) Summon 3 skeletons and leave them in the back by the door.
2) Stealth carefully up to the alter without triggering any traps.
3) Trigger dialogue with Sarevok while still in stealth by getting close enough.
4) Run back toward my skeletons (again avoid traps!).
5) SAVE!
The next step takes a lot of tries because of the mage's high saves.
6) The mage, Samaji, is scripted to Dimension Door to the back of the Temple right off the bat. Stick him with a Mental Domination when he's back there by himself (my 1 level 4 spell slot).
7) SAVE!
Everyone else is still standing up front twiddling their thumbs because I never left stealth until casting Mental Domination. Surprisingly you can save with a dominated enemy in your party.
8) March Samaji up to the bottom edge of the Baal sigil on the floor and start slinging Cloudkill and Fireballs from his spell book up toward the alter.
9) Stealth charname and park her in by the door for a while while all of this is happening.
10) Haste the skeletons after out of fireballs and send Samaji and the skeletons into the fray allowing Angelo's arrows of detonation to explode over everyone in the Cloudkill.
11) Wait until Cloudkill and incidental AoE damage cooks everybody leaving Saravok alone and Badly Injured.
12) SAVE!
13) Time for charname to make her last stand! Buff up with Draw Upon Holy Might, plant your two traps and backstab Saravok with your trusty quarterstaff (26 damage!) and kite him into your traps killing him.
Lots of abusing saves, lots of cheese, but it's done. Naked gnome > Saravok. Solo. Insane difficulty. This was awesome and I wish my laptop could handle recording because I bet this would be worth throwing on Youtube.