Bounty Huntress No-Reload
Blackraven
Member Posts: 3,486
Hello everyone! I'lle be posting in this thread about the adventures of my halfling Bounty Huntress Nelsy Brightweather:
Nelsy's cheerful and rather naive, with no real interest in power but eager to go out and explore the world and to do good. She hopes to leave Candlekeep soon, and visit Gullykin, the nearest halfling village she's aware of, expecting to learn more about halfling culture and about herself because halflings are a rarity in Candlekeep, with her and her friend Deder being the only ones.
Her personality is similar to that of Alora and Imoen, though below the surface she isn't as carefree, as she's really demanding with herself regarding both morality and professionalism. Although most people are easily taken in by her kindness and good spirits, Nelsy's very cautious in her dealings with other people. She's well aware that she isn't an adept fighter, and magic is as frightening as it is admirable to her.
She's clearly good aligned but outspokenly chaotic. To Nelsy illegal and wrong are not synomymous, and therefore she has no scruples with certain illegal behaviour such as stealing from the rich (in order to give to the poor) or tripping on the black lotus as she discovered when she stole some from a visting nobleman and tried it out one starry night with Imoen, which to the both of them was a life-changing experience. Nelsy is likely to get along better with neutral and chaotic aligned characters, be they neutral or good, than with lawful ones (too rigid/uptight for her taste). Evil is out of the question.
I created Nelsy using the dice for pretty much every characteristic: gender, race, class, kit, alignment. I did however pick her weapon proficiencies (daggers and darts) myself and also gave myself ten rolls for attributes plus the freedom to max out one stat (dexterity being the obvious choice).
As you can see Nelsy's already quite skilled in setting traps (75 points), thanks to the trap revisions mod that I'll be playing with. This mod, as its name implies, changes the trap setting system. A trap's damage output depends on the number of skill points invested in traps (so one could go way over 100 skill points, to get stronger traps). Traps are categorized in different tiers: basic, advanced, expert, master, with master being the HLA traps. Setting a single trap costs between 50 and 2500 gold depending on its tier. The mod introduces a bounty-hunter-only alchemical trap and eliminates the vanilla special traps for the bounty hunter. (It also introduces a couple of class-specific traps: arcane traps for the thief/mage and divine traps for the cleric/mage.) The readme can be found here: http://www.shsforums.net/topic/45268-trap-revisions/.
The mod awards the bounty hunter with 25 skill points in trap setting at character creation. It also gives the bounty hunter three traps at level 1, but it eliminates their vanilla special traps. In my case however I had created Nelsy before installing the mod, so when I imported her I still found she had one vanilla special trap. I could delete that one in Shadowkeeper but I won't as I know traps are going to be pretty much her only trick.
As mentioned in the title, my idea is to play no-reload. Unfortunately there are certain areas in the game where movement freezes all the time, which can severely complicate combat. I might allow myself reloads if I feel the freezing caused or strongly influenced the (negative) outcome of the battle.
I'll be playing on core rules, but with max hitpoints for all characters (protagonist, friend and foe).
Ok off to play now, will post my first experiences later.
Nelsy's cheerful and rather naive, with no real interest in power but eager to go out and explore the world and to do good. She hopes to leave Candlekeep soon, and visit Gullykin, the nearest halfling village she's aware of, expecting to learn more about halfling culture and about herself because halflings are a rarity in Candlekeep, with her and her friend Deder being the only ones.
Her personality is similar to that of Alora and Imoen, though below the surface she isn't as carefree, as she's really demanding with herself regarding both morality and professionalism. Although most people are easily taken in by her kindness and good spirits, Nelsy's very cautious in her dealings with other people. She's well aware that she isn't an adept fighter, and magic is as frightening as it is admirable to her.
She's clearly good aligned but outspokenly chaotic. To Nelsy illegal and wrong are not synomymous, and therefore she has no scruples with certain illegal behaviour such as stealing from the rich (in order to give to the poor) or tripping on the black lotus as she discovered when she stole some from a visting nobleman and tried it out one starry night with Imoen, which to the both of them was a life-changing experience. Nelsy is likely to get along better with neutral and chaotic aligned characters, be they neutral or good, than with lawful ones (too rigid/uptight for her taste). Evil is out of the question.
I created Nelsy using the dice for pretty much every characteristic: gender, race, class, kit, alignment. I did however pick her weapon proficiencies (daggers and darts) myself and also gave myself ten rolls for attributes plus the freedom to max out one stat (dexterity being the obvious choice).
As you can see Nelsy's already quite skilled in setting traps (75 points), thanks to the trap revisions mod that I'll be playing with. This mod, as its name implies, changes the trap setting system. A trap's damage output depends on the number of skill points invested in traps (so one could go way over 100 skill points, to get stronger traps). Traps are categorized in different tiers: basic, advanced, expert, master, with master being the HLA traps. Setting a single trap costs between 50 and 2500 gold depending on its tier. The mod introduces a bounty-hunter-only alchemical trap and eliminates the vanilla special traps for the bounty hunter. (It also introduces a couple of class-specific traps: arcane traps for the thief/mage and divine traps for the cleric/mage.) The readme can be found here: http://www.shsforums.net/topic/45268-trap-revisions/.
The mod awards the bounty hunter with 25 skill points in trap setting at character creation. It also gives the bounty hunter three traps at level 1, but it eliminates their vanilla special traps. In my case however I had created Nelsy before installing the mod, so when I imported her I still found she had one vanilla special trap. I could delete that one in Shadowkeeper but I won't as I know traps are going to be pretty much her only trick.
As mentioned in the title, my idea is to play no-reload. Unfortunately there are certain areas in the game where movement freezes all the time, which can severely complicate combat. I might allow myself reloads if I feel the freezing caused or strongly influenced the (negative) outcome of the battle.
I'll be playing on core rules, but with max hitpoints for all characters (protagonist, friend and foe).
Ok off to play now, will post my first experiences later.
Post edited by Blackraven on
5
Comments
Again they were after me. More assassins? I wonder. This wasn't what I had expected of my journey with poor old Gorion. This morning Imoen [Adventurer: +5% to lockpick and detect traps every other level, +1 bonus to all saves at levels 1, 8 & 14, no backstab multiplier] found me sitting by the roadside on the Lion's Way. I told her what had happened and we decided to take a look at the crime scene, where I found a letter to Gorion by someone named "E", urging Gorion to seek more travelling companions for safety. "E" also mentioned two people in the Friendly Arm Inn who could be trusted and would be willing to accompany us, so I suppose we should go and seek them out. But first we returned to Candlekeep where the keeper of the portal wouldn't let me back in. Curiously, Imoen was free to enter, but she insisted on coming along with me, which is very sweet of her. I just hope she won't regret that decision later. The keeper promised us to send out a search party to retrieve Gorion's remains and bury them in Candlekeep, he also gave me 100 gold to help us out.
We rested and continued our journey eastward, where we met a whimsical mage and a halfling bloke called Montaron. The mage, Xzar, seemed friendly enough, he even gave me a healing potion. However he turns out to be some kind of crazy necromancer. Montaron, whom I looked forward to know better, is disappointingly blunt and curt. Nevertheless Imoen and I decided that to be safe we'd travel with them for now, at least till we reach the Friendly Arm Inn.
At the crossroads we encountered an old sage who seemed to know Imoen. Strangely, she didn't know him. He told us that the Inn is to the north, so we decided to take a shortcut through the fields, where I found a gold ring on a rock. Not much later I glimpsed a wolf! So we ran for the road again. Luckily it didn't follow us. A few minutes later we weren't so lucky. Imoen said she heard someone mumbling in the woods, so we decided to take a look. Turns out it was an ogre, a very agressive one! No way that any of us could take him on, so I asked Montaron to distract him so that I could set a trap. However Monty got a near fatal hit in the head (1 hp remaining), and after that the ogre kept coming for me as I was the only one hurting him with my darts (Immy had run out of arrows). In the end the ogre fell and we found two possibly magical belts.
Upon reaching the gate of the Inn, feeling secure in the vicinity of the guards and with Montaron on the brink of collapse, we rested (for 2 days and 16 hours... this party could sure use a cleric!) Inside we met Joia whom we agreed to retrieve her lost flamedance ring for from a couple of hobgoblins. One of the hobgoblins managed to hurt Imoen, leaving her with 1 hp (out of 8). I'm wondering whether I should leave her at the Inn, I don't want her to get hurt because of me. Anyway let's get inside, rest again, get Imoen fixed up, and see if we can find Gorion's friends...
We finally met Gorion's friends, but to be honest, I'm not impressed. They appear to be as unexperiencied as the rest of us, but the woman, Jaheira, is acting as if she were a veteran, bossy and condescending. Khalid, the husband, is gentler but as a warrior/mage (fighter 1/transmuter 1) quite underwhelming. I mean he's shy, he stutters and he's just very insecure of himself.
I've seen Montaron and my dear Imoen nearly die on me, die because of me, and I don't want that. I mean Montaron is a dickhead but he just risked his neck and saved us all from Tarnesh. An assassin that wasn't after him but after me. And Imoen, I couldn't deal with the responsibility for her death... So I decide to leave them all. Khalid and Jaheira are free to go wherever they want to, and Monty and Xzar as well. Imoen I convince to wait in the inn till I get back to pick her up with more useful and experienced company. She didn't like my plan at all, I guess she worries as much over me as I over her. The difference is that she almost got herself killed, and I didn't...
Farther south I get ambushed by a group of kobolds with bows. One arrow hits me and takes away 7 hitpoints. I simply ran. I need to make my way to Beregost soon, and hope to find some reliable travel companions and maybe some useful gear there... I sold a ring I found near a tree just outside the Friendly Arm Inn and Imoen's wand of magic missiles to Gellana Mirrorshade, so I've some coin to spend.
Reached Beregost and have been running errands and doing "safe" quests (got Firebead a book he was looking for, killed four spiders for a gnomish lady I met at the Friendly Arm Inn, calmed down Marl, and two minor mod quests: help a guy that was turned into a slime, and a family that was divided after they lost a heirloom, a pearl necklace). This helped me get to level 4 and with it some vaulable hitpoints plus increased stealth skills.
I haven't set any traps yet, but now that I'm solo and better at stealth/scouting, I think my time will soon come. My other thief skills are fully undeveloped, so for now I won't be crawling any dungeons unless I pick up Immy again.
PS I also killed an ogre (more mod content), purportedly the father of a little boy in one of the houses, and looted the gauntlets of ogre power off his body. Not sure if I will use them though, this seems endgame gear to me. On the other hand, it's basically nothing more than increased carrying capacity as I don't melee. Backstabs would of course become more likely to connect...
EDIT: Gauntlets dilemma solved: thieves can't use those
BTW this definitely seems to be a slower / more challenging run than it would have been with the cleric/thief, and I don't see that change anytime soon. God, how I would have loved to have Animate dead....
Thalantyr is a grumpy, dour old man, but he sure has some great items for sale. A deep red ioun stone which grants +1 dex. I might come back for that one later....
On my way out of the I got pursued by more undead and a Flind, who together might well be too much for me too handle so again I bravely fled the scene, southward this time.
Down south I get welcomed by even more undead, a zombie this time. It falls easily. I also saved a talking chicken from a wolf. Apparently the chicken is in reality a young man named Melicamp. I would have kept him as my famililar, but he he was so desperate to get to his mentor Thalantyr that I reluctantly head back to where I fled from.
My return to the High Hedge area was even worse than my departure... Fatigued, I get greeted immediately by two skeletons whose throwing knives do some mean damage. And if I try to take one on in melee, my dagger is of little use and the other skeleton keeps on launching its throwing knives... I run and try to set a trap, but the effort is wasted as one of the skeletons just enters my line of sight again. I finally manage to take the both of them doen, but it cost me 3 healing potions.
As I continue my way toward the High Hedge, I get attacked by a flind, two skeletons, and two dogs. Everyone and everything seems to hate me here! This time I just decide to run, hide, and sneak my way to Thalantyr. I bring him Melicamp and a skull he says he needs in order to make his anti-chickenator spell work on Melicamp. All this hassle for what? For a dead chicken...
On my way out, more aggressive skeletons and dogs, so I just flee back to Beregost.
Anyhow Nelsy's alive and well, and ready to venture to Nashkel, as there seems to be something going on down there.
PS @Lemernis: you're a moderator yes? The only one I know on here. Could you move this thread to "General", I think (and hope) I'd have more readers and commenters on there (as you correctly pointed out to me before...).
Further south three menacing looking Flaming Fist mercenaries came walking my way so I decided to take a detour through the woods. Before I reached Nashkel a flamboyant nobleman, Lord Foreshadow from Waterdeep, came up to me and handed me his ring of human influence stating that I might need it on my travels 'to win hearts'... In Nashkel I saw the town under the protection of Amnish soldiers. One of them told me about a captain of theirs who had gone on a murdering frenzy, and about troubles in the Nashkel mines. The mayor of the town, a man named Berrun Ghastkill gave me a similar account of the state of the mines and asked me to go and investigate. He offered me a reward. I neither accepted nor declined the offer, but for the moment I can't see myself investigating those mines all by myself without having a better idea of what to expect, not while a single hobgoblin archer still poses a threat to me. Next to the Nashkell store I met a svirfneblin lass who sells shoes and other goods. My eye was caught by a pair of so-called 'stylish boots of the cheetah' , which double movement speed. They cost me about 5400 gold, but I couldn't leave them there. Not only do they look lovely, they'll enhance my fleeing and kiting skills.
Instead of going south I returned north. I remembered having promised the gnomish lady in the Friendly Arm Inn to return some goods to her from her spider-infested home in Beregost. The spiders I had already killed. And I could use the trip north to the inn to check on Imoen.
But first I needed some time to rest and prepare new traps because I had only one left. I walked into the Red Sheaf inn in Beregost, where I saw myself confronted with yet another assassin. An axe-wielding dwarven fighter. I tried to change his mind, even offered him double the amount of money he was being paid to kill me, but there was no negotiating with this one. My speedy boots enabled me to play hide and seek with the dwarf. I dared not engage in face to face combat. My strategy was tiring, but in the end it worked well. An arrow trap set from stealth, two backstabs (that did 12 and 8 damage respectively) and a few darts meant the end of Karlat the dwarf. In the inn I also met Perdue the owner of the shortsword I'd found. He turned out to be another dour halfling not unlike Montaron. He was hardly capable of saying thank you, though he did give me 50 gold for my exertions. I wonder if many halflings are like that. I thought we had a reputation of being pleasant and sociable people. I guess I'll have to see for myself: after I visit Imoen, I shall go to Gullykin.
In the Friendly Arm Inn all was relatively quiet. There weren't any noteworthy new guests. Imoen was happy to see me, and the same goes for me, but I saw the disappointment in her eyes when she noticed I was still alone. We talked, I showed her the trinkets I had acquired (the ring, the boots) and she showed me a pair of golden pantaloons she had somehow acquired from a nobleman in the inn. I don't know if they have any magical properties. Immy wanted to come with me again. Said she knew all the guests by now, and that there wern't any locks left to pick. I gave her Tarnesh's spellbook so she could study it, but I begged her to be careful. I told her that I'd be visiting Gullykin, something I want to do alone, but I promised her that afterward I'd come back for her.
I travelled back north, and then east. When I rested I had a dark dream about death, but the when I woke in the middle of the night I became aware of a new innate healing ability. Pretty neat! I got up and used the cover of night to scout and set a few traps. Unfortunately my first trap got "wasted" on a gnoll I might have taken down with my darts. The other traps were helpful but certainly not decisive in dealing with the basilisks. (The first basilisk kill got Nelsy one level up, to 5, she invested her skill 20 points in trap setting for the first time since level 1; from level 2 to 4 all skill points had been gone to MS/HiS).
When I ran out traps I used stealth and backstabs (triple damage by now) to take on the basilisks, with mixed results, as the images below make clear:
I wonder, is there a logical explanation for this? Doing only 1or 2 damage with my dagger or darts, is painful. Once I have the money I shall pick up that mean dagger of venom in Beregost...
BTW as can be seen in the second image, Korax the ghoul was of little use to me in fighting teh basilisks.
Check the one you did 24 damage. It is not a critical hit. Your maximum backstab damage is 12. Notice you also get +8 to hit instead of +4, what's going on there? It is a game engine thing. When a target has a ranged weapon equipped, anyone attacking them with a melee weapon gets +4 to hit and damage. Basilisks use a special 'weapon' coded to be undroppable by which they launch their gaze attacks. It is like a ranged weapon for game engine respects, except it always hits. So when you attack a basilisk who is in the petrifiying gaze mode (thus having the gaze attack ranged weapon equipped) you get +4 more to hit, which stacks with your +4 backstab bonus. +4 damage bonus gets multiplied by the triple backstab to 12 too, so you do 3d4+12 damage. In this case it also seems you rolled all 4s and did 12+12=24 damage, an absolute maximum without a critical.
Bg:ee fixes this by not giving +4 damage bonus to assailants attacking victims holding ranged weapons, just the +4 to hit bonus. Unarmed targets (no weapon equipped, creatures with natural weapons:bears, wolves, monks, golems are never unarmed, but commoners are) do give +4 to hit and damage bonuses to attacker, so you can easily chunk unarmed commoners with a dagger.
The last basilisk was standing in very close proximity to Mutamin the gnome. The latter is a formidable (buffed and hasted) opponent in SCS, especially without any summons or Korax to help me out. So I set two lightning bolt traps that had become available to me when I raised my set traps skill to 100. Now this is something else, according to the readme:
"When triggered, the trap will shoot magically enchanted bolts at enemies in a rapid succession.
If all targets are destroyed and there are unfired bolts remaining, the device will await for
new targets to arrive. The number of bolts loaded is 3 plus 1 per level of the trap. Bolts never
miss and deal 1d8+2 missile damage plus 4d4, save vs breath for half, electrical damage."
At this stage (with my 100 set traps skill points) this is "level 1" trap, but with more skill points spent the trap levels will increase and hus the damage output. Each trap does about 40 damage. The first went off only partly as I had already weakened Mutamin with a critical backstab (18 damage). The trap did the rest (24 damage). The remaining basilisk (that saved vs breath twice btw for reduced damage) suffered 54 damage.
This seems to be OP, no? Any opinions?? (if anyone is actually reading lol)
To its defense I must say that it's kind of a last resort trap at this point in the game, as 1000 gold for a single trap is a lot of money. I think that only at the end of the game one could be more generous in setting this kind of traps. And it was kind of nice for once in this playthrough not to feel like an utter weakling lol.
On Mutamin I found what seem to be bracers of archery, but I'm not sure so I won't try them on until I've got them identified. There's a hunting party of four in the area that doesn't look friendly enough for me to initiate conversation. They haven't seen me, maybe one day. Time to travel to Gullykin, and meet my halfling kin. I'm looking forward to this, there must be so much that I can learn about halfling culture, about my roots...
Seems right to me that BG:EE fixes this. A thac0 bonus against a ranged enemy in melee makes sense, a damage bonus doesn't.
This is very very disappointing. First of all because I was beginning to grow attached to Nelsy. Secondly, I had just begun to believe in her potential. And thirdly I would have wanted to experiment more with the various traps, and at higher levels.
However no-reload = no-reload. I've got two options now: take her through the first levels again (maybe solo, more clinical and less roleplaying), or start with a new character...
Did you have darts equipped at hand when Jenkl backstabbed, he might have enjoyed +4 to hit and damage and you might count it as a bug and reload. Or, it might have been an unlucky critical hit.
I'm not sure whether it's fair though to take advantage from this bug while doing damage and to reload when the same bug works against me (in a fatal way). Nevertheless you've got me thinking now. I had already kind of decided to give the evil cleric/thief a shot, but Nelsy's demise still hurts, so if I manage to convince myself that a reload would be justifiable...
These traps seem to look cooler than the vanilla ones. Money is probably not an issue in TOB but I like they get more powerful with the ability. Ability might need to be capped by level, though? Or you dont get that many points to get OP too early?
@MacHurto, I concur that the revised traps are cooler than the vanilla ones, more diverse also. As to the power level of the traps, the only way to possibly get OP traps would be to invest each and every skill point in trap setting, something I hadn't done as I'd focused on HiS/MS as well. As things were in my game the traps might have been slightly more damaging than the vanilla traps of a bounty hunter of the same level but that advantage is somewhat offset by the price you pay to use them. I had already spent thousands on traps, and therefore couldn't yet afford the dagger of venom I would have otherwise bought for instance. I'm not sure how generous one could be in TOB with the HLA traps which cost 2500 gold each. Piling 7 spike traps in 6 different fights would make charname 100,000 gold lighter...
Maybe level capping makes sense as it would would prevent abuse. On the other hand I for one would never invest only in set traps, as the other skills are just too useful. Even if one uses a second thief for the utility skills (i.e. lockpicks, trap detection and pickpockt), HiS/MS and detect illusion are IMO too good to pass up, and they require at least 10-12 level ups to have them sufficiently developed.
You can end up with a couple million gp in ToB without too much trouble, so you will be able to spam your way to victory :-) anyway traps are more varied and interesting. Looking forward to the next thread. I always admire no-reload runs. It is so much work being careful not to be killed by a random mob in low levels and to avoid death or save spells in higher ones.
This strengthens your argument for trap level capping in the trap revisions mod.
Thanks for your support
Okay, it is your call about the reload. If anything, this could be a lesson to learn:NEVER equip ranged weapons when an enemy backstabber is around. That +4 extra damage multiplied by backstab (and even again multiplied by critical hit) can be downright ridiculously deadly.
Let's look at this scenario, (1d6+6 (+2 from specialisation +4 from ranged weapon bonus))x3 damage is a lot (21-36 damage) but still that max wouldn't be able to kill you outright. A critical hit would be in the range of 42-72 damage, as critical hit multiplies all damage bonuses except strength based. This is interesting as you really stood no chance to survive a critical hit from that guy's backstab while you were holding darts. (minimum 42 damage is just equal to your full hit points, a shame really.) And if he had single weapon proficiency and no shield equipped, he had %10 chance to insta-kill you via critical hit, really. Wow, pretty deadly for a nasty little bugger. In a no-reload, if you have %10 chance for instant death in a given situation, it is not a risk you should ever take. ^^
I have no idea how the trap revs mod has evolved over the years, I hope my next charname will be a true survivor so that I may tell you more, about the HLA traps
I've survived BG1 various times, I suppose I also know that game better. My most successful attempt was with an elven swashbuckler/mage multi (great class), but improved Irenicus, second round in which he gates in God knows how many demons, had he reload over and over again...
Have you seen my other thread, about Teyl the neutral evil cleric/thief, he's doing better so far than Nelsy the bounty-huntress.
PS My experience is that once you go down the no-reload road, there is no way back. I've come to hate reloading... I abandoned the swashmage game for example (though I still have the save)