Trilogy no-reload 'bad' NPC run.
SionIV
Member Posts: 2,689
Hello everyone, i'm starting my trilogy no reload run with 'bad/mediocre' NPC's. I made a thread earlier with some questions to this (http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/30918/need-help-with-npc-s-for-a-trilogy-run#latest) and now i'm going to start my run.
Charname : Priest of Helm
Sion
STR : 15
DEX : 18
CON : 16
INT : 15
WIS : 18
CHA : 9
* Sling
* Sword and shield
For the BG1 part i'm going to pick up : Safana, Garrick, Shar-Teel and Faldorn. I'm going to do a full clear of the game including all side quests (Durlags, Werewolf island) and it's a no-reload on core difficulty.
Hopefully i'll get through BG1 without too much trouble, Durlag will probably be painful but let's see what happens.
Sion is standing in the middle of candlekeep and is just about to shop for some items.
Charname : Priest of Helm
Sion
STR : 15
DEX : 18
CON : 16
INT : 15
WIS : 18
CHA : 9
* Sling
* Sword and shield
For the BG1 part i'm going to pick up : Safana, Garrick, Shar-Teel and Faldorn. I'm going to do a full clear of the game including all side quests (Durlags, Werewolf island) and it's a no-reload on core difficulty.
Hopefully i'll get through BG1 without too much trouble, Durlag will probably be painful but let's see what happens.
Sion is standing in the middle of candlekeep and is just about to shop for some items.
3
Comments
Candlekeep is clear but i'm lacking 4 coins to buy a splint mail, damn you low STR!
Maybe you could use ranged attacks to best Shar-Teel?
He completed candlekeep without any problem, lacked 4 coins so couldn't buy a splint mail and wasn't going to pay a fortune for a chain mail. So i though "To hell with it, i got +2 AC from sword and shield and a large shield, i'll survive an arrow". This thinking is NOT good for a no reload game and almost cost me the game. I left Candlekeep with 300 bullets, a sling, a helm and a large shield.
I watched Gorian die to Sarevok and then Imoen ran into me. I 'borrowed' her potions and wand, then told her that it would be better if she went back to candlekeep. I walked up to Gorians body and looted the bodies. After this i ran past a wolf and rushed as fast as i could for the diamond in the tree and then zoned. The wolf came close but missed it's only bite.
Went to the next zone, told Elminster that helm isn't being very nice to me right now and life can go suck on a war hammer. Picked up the ring of protection +1 and went to Friendly Arm inn. Didn't want to face Tarnesh so i looted the ring of Wizardry, went to the temple to identify both of my rings and then went on my way to beregost. On the way to beregost i had to fight a bandit (Should have bought the damn armor) and he brought me down to 3 health with his first shot. I took a potion and used my sling to kill him.
I finally got to beregost and hugged the upper map to ignore Neera's encounter and went to the temple area. Hugged the upper part of the temple map to ignore the wolfs and finally got to the basilisk area. Got attacked by 3 gnolls so spoke to our friendly ghoul and left him to deal with it. Went up to fight Shar-Teel, ran for my life and used 'Imoens' wand three times on her to win the fight.
I finally had a warrior and things were looking up, wanted to sell my ring of wizardry and buy the full plate for Shar-Teel but we both had a low charisma score so figured out that i would get Safana. Getting Safana was pretty smooth except getting chased by a damn bear through the entire map of high hedge. When did cave bears get so damn fast? I swear between being out of breath and hearing Shar-Teel scream how she would gut me once we got away from the bear... Harsh.
We entered the Lighthouse map at a good place and could walk up to Safana, picked her up and went to Beregost. I had this 'brilliant' idea that between Shar-Teel (2 warrior), Safana (2 rogue) and me (1 cleric) we could totally collect Garrick and kill Silke!
We went or the battle and she killed both Shar-Teel and Safana with a lightning bolt. I got one lucky critical on my sling shot that brought her down, but it was not worth losing both my party members for. I got a level for my cleric (With my entire party being dead, no need to share experience) and got Garrick to join my party, it wasn't really worth it but ah well. I normally take risks early on in the game, i've just been lucky now to survive it all.
I went to ressurect both Shar-Teel and Safana (400 gold) and after that went to sell some things (Including the ring of wizardry) so that i could buy the full plate for Shar-Teel. She also got a tower shield and ring of protection to boost her AC so that she can tank a little bit.
I got 4/5 of my party now and can't get Faldorn until later, i'm not going to rush to get her so i'll just do some wilderness areas now.
My team looks like this at the moment.
Sion - Priest of Helm (2)
20/20 health
AC -1
Shar-Teel - Warrior (2)
20/20 health
AC -4
Safana - Rogue (2)
12/12 health
AC 4
Garrick - Bard (1)
6/6 health
AC 4
Now for some notes that i took in the game...
1.) What the hell happened to Shar-Teels proficiency? That is a cluster f*ck of massive proportions!
2.) I don't see why people complain about Safana? You get her early and she'll have put all her skills into lockpick which brings it to 50? So far she's been awesome!
re: (1) No idea what happened there.
re: (2) Good that you picked her up early, if my memory hasn't abandoned me her higher level thief skills distribution isn't that good (or maybe it's different between the original game and EE)
We went to clear the starting area from enemies and also killed Montaron + Xzar for their loot. Everything was looking well so far, we were getting some items and experience for a minimal risk. This was about to change... We went to Beregost to steal the bastard sword +1 and buy some new ammunition for the team. I'm not used to playing BGEE so i ran right into Neera without even noticing it. I knew this fight could be painful, but i had no idea just how brutal this fight is. The damn Wizard put Shar-Teel and Sion to sleep (My two best members) and one of the body guards chunked Neera in one hit. Why would you go into close combat against a fighter with your staff Neera? At least she's gone now. Garrick DIED to the magic missile volley and Safana was running for her life trying to avoid both warriors and dart the Wizard. She killed the Wizard and then Shar-Teel woke up to kill the warriors. Garrick and Neera dead, what a great start.
I looted Neera and spat on her corpse, stupid BGEE NPC. Then i went to resurrect Garrick (Something i would end up doing A LOT). We stole the sword and bought the ammunition we needed and then left Beregost. We enter the area above and ran straight into two bandits, one of them shoot at Garrick and brings him down to 1/6 health. He starts to panic and i'm cursing loudly while telling Shar-Teel to kill the damn bandit, can't trust Safana with stuff like this. Shar-Teel breaks her sword and she runs around with her dagger. We finally killed both the bandits and i got to throw a healing spell on Garrick, i'm so glad that i picked a cleric to play.
We clear the map without any close calls, and Garrick actually nails the ogre for 14 damage with a critical. For once he was actually useful, dare i hope for this to happen again? We went up to candlekeep and cleared the road from hobgoblins. Shar-Teel breaks another longsword and i'm back to using the dagger, i think she's trying to tell me something. A hobgoblin brings Garrick down to 2/6 health but i'm feeling quite lucky so i just keep him back and clear the other hob's. Shar-teel gets struck by lightning for half health, i'm getting a little bit worried and eye Garrick, i'm clicking the rest button but "You can't do this right now" and lo and behold, before i get to rest Garrick gets struck by lightning and falls over...
...
...
I'm really tired of this now. I rested to get rid of the lightning and went to ressurect Garrick for a second time in 15 minutes. I went up to the Ankheg map and killed the 3 peasent, took the bowl and the flail +1 and followed the sea up to the bridge map. I gave the bowl to the Priest of Umberlee and this gave Safana a level which put her lock pick to 75 (Which i needed for the next zone). I ran past the Ankheg with Shar-Teel taking the front and went into the Zombie map.
The first thing that happens when i enter the Zombie map is that Safana whines about her treasure cave. HELLO LADY!? HAVE YOU SEEN MY PARTY!? I'm not going to a cave guarded by 6 Sirenes and 3 flesh golem at level 2 in a no reload game, thank you very much.
I started clearing the map of Zombies with Shar-Teel as the tank and everything went smooth, until a Zombie ran past Garrick and hit him once, Critical for 8 damage and Garrick goes down again. That's the third time he's died so far since i got him. I went back to Friendly Arm Inn to resurrect him and then went back to clearing out the Zombies. Sion got to level 3, Garrick got to level 2 (Finally!) and Shar-Teel hit level 3 (Put another * into longsword). I cleared the zombies, collected the reward and stole the cloak of protection +1 from inside his house. Oh and Shar-Teel broke her dagger.
I'm slightly worried about what to do now, and i can't help but to eye Garrick every time it rains. I can't help but feeling that he brings out a huge metal lance every time it rains just to get sapped.
Sion - Priest of Helm (3)
30/30 health
AC -2
Shar-Teel - Fighter (3)
30/30 health
AC -4
Safana - Rogue (3)
18/18 health
AC 4
Garrick - Bard (2)
12/12 health
AC 4
Deaths :
Safana - 1
Shar-Teel -1
Garrick - 3 (!)
Amount of broken weapons by Shar-Teel - 3
3.) Garrick dies... A lot.
We went to Friendly Arm Inn and killed of Tarnesh, sold some stuff to the innkeeper and gave in the belt to the gnome for our quest reward. After this we went to Beregost to buy some magical ammo so we could kill the two flesh golems, 20 bullets +1, 20 darts +1 and 20 bolts +1 for a price of 750 coins. We went over to high hedge and i placed Sion, Safana and Garrick outside the keep while using Shar-Teel to pull out one golem at a time. My great plans never really go the way i would like them with this team, the moment Shar-Teel got a golem outside i had 6 war dogs spawn next to me and 3 skeletons under me. I put Shar-Teel on the war dogs, Sion closest to the undead to take the shots (-5 AC vs missile) and kept moving away from the golem while killing it with arrows, bolts and darts. It went surprisingly smooth and after that we got the last golem outside and killed it without a problem which made Safana gain a level, i also grab the short sword from the gnolls.
Garrick gets to level 3 which is lovely as he gets more health, pick pocket and lore (!) which i happen to be in love with, no more need for identify. We also go clear the spiders outside of the house in the same map, and then travel down to the zone with Bassilus and Melicamp. We pick up the chicken and travel back to the mage to see if we are lucky enough to get him to survive the transformation. I can see Shar-Teel trying to chat up Safana and... Where is Garrick? Oh right he is fiddling with something close to the magical crystal. I tell Garrick to go sit down in a corner where i can have my eyes on him, then i talk to the mage and start the transformation spell. I'm really relieved when i see that it was successful and Melicamp gave us a nice XP boost and a reputation point.
We went back to the map where we found the chicken and went up to fight Bassilus. I'm normally a little worried about this fight because rigid thinking and hold spell can really shut down my team quickly. I spread out my archers so that hold wasn't as effective and then i had Shar-Teel speak to him. I picked the right dialogues and the undead around him fell down and died. I put everyone to attack him and Safana breaks his first spell (Rigid thinking) after this i throw my own hold spell on him with Sion and it goes through, none in my team took any damage but Shar-Teel broke yet another longsword and Bassilus gets taken down. I loot his body and move onto the hobgoblins close by, Shar-Teel tanks with her -4 AC and my second hold spell captures the tough one with the short sword +2. I kill his two archer friends and then put him down into the deadbook and loot the short sword +2. Sion gets a level.
I move east onto the map straight under beregost and kill the hobgoblins for the boots of stealth, walk into the cave to steal the 5 potions of healing and then go to the road. A group of flaming fist wants to talk with me, i convince Safana to flirt with Shar-Teel and get her away from this heavily armed group of 3 men. Garrick is chasing butterflies so i'm in the safe for now, i talk with the guards and they let me go. After this i travel up to the two Ogrillons, kill them and take the letter.
After this i went to Beregost to turn in the letter for another ring of protection +1, killed karlat (Shar-Teel breaks my last longsword) and then turned in the short sword for a little reward from the halfling. I send Safana to steal the diamond, potion of invisibility and other goodies around town and then talk to the halfling and gave back his boots. Almost everything is completed in Beregost, i went over to speak to Marl for some quick experience which gave Garrick another level, didn't want to try my luck with pickpocketing the cloak yet and bought the book for the candlekeep mage. Went on to kill the spiders without any problem and traveled up to Friendly Arm Inn to gain my reward. Sold most of my stuff there and rested for a night, then went to the temple zone to turn in the holy symbol for some experience and gold. I now have 13 000 gold and nothing really to spend it on, i'll probably buy the light crossbow of speed for Garrick soon.
Sion - Priest of Helm (4)
40/40 health
AC -2
Shar-Teel - Fighter (4)
40/40 health
AC -4
Safana - Rogue (4)
24/24 health
AC 4
Garrick - Bard (4)
24/24 health
AC 3
Deaths :
Safana - 1
Shar-Teel -1
Garrick - 3 (!)
Amount of broken weapons by Shar-Teel - 5
4.) Safana has 100 in lockpick now, i'll go for 100 in find trap and then dual class her to a mage.
Like your writing. Clever.
Deaths
Shar-Teel - 1
Safana - 3
Garrick - 7
Deaths
Shar-Teel - 3
Safana - 4
Garrick - 12 (Died 4 times in Durlags tower, 1 time on the Island and couldn't resurrect him so did pretty much the entire Island with 3 people)
[Edited] : Faldorn got chunked in Durlags, first death and no way to bring her back.