A new challenge.
CaloNord
Member Posts: 1,809
Not sure if this has been mentioned by others, most likely, bit NEVER THE LESS!
I'm about to commence a no reload, max difficulty play through with one of the stock characters, Daria the mage. Good constitution and passable dex, barely strong enough to hold her toothpick though and none to sure of this whole "Leadership" thing. Wisdom is also not a thing apparently.
Has anyone had a go at this?
Any tips, strategies or ideas?
Cheers!
I'm about to commence a no reload, max difficulty play through with one of the stock characters, Daria the mage. Good constitution and passable dex, barely strong enough to hold her toothpick though and none to sure of this whole "Leadership" thing. Wisdom is also not a thing apparently.
Has anyone had a go at this?
Any tips, strategies or ideas?
Cheers!
5
Comments
If you don't play solo
1) if you don't reload, don't let CHARNAME die. I know, it's obvious. to do so, you have to be abble to make her get away from combat ASAP when things go bad. The solution: potion/ring of invisibility. In BGEE (1) almost no one can see through it (without SCS (a mod) instaled) so you will be able to run away fast. If the rest of your party doesn't survive, light a candle, say a prayer, move on and recruit other meat shields. CHARNAME's survival is the main priority. Honor and friendship don't matter. Run!
2) I might have been a bit excessive in tip #1. Your party might be useful sometimes. like for scoutng ahead and finding traps. Once again, you could make use of your new favorite spell to avoid enemies : invisibility! Put all your thief's point in find traps and send him all alone in front while detecting traps and being invisible. (when doing that, you can use your cleric to turn undead. "CLERIC turning undead" will appear every round in your text bar (also works with bard song) which is also the frequency at which you roll to find traps. Advance your thief a little, wait for the text to appear and advance again.) An invisible thief can disarm traps but not open doors and chest. bring your party to do that. Scouting is also useful to know where enemies are so you can prepare your protection spells.
3) When getting ready for a fight, use all your protection spells. You could need them. Also unleash every spell in the fight. Just rest after the fight.
4) If you have a thief with set traps you can trap the floor everytime you decide to rest.
5) If you are afraid a strong group of enemy might be behind a door or somewhere on the map you can use the cleric spell farsight.
6) Use summons
7) Use more summons
8) Always try to have the best equipement for CHARNAME. The rest of the good stuff goes to the other members.
9) Use wands
10) Use potions
11) Don't use boots of speed they will seperate your party. Unless the battle is horifically lost and CHARNAME runs away. Keep a pair in your inventory and put them on when retreating.
12) Make your CHARNAME and your cleric imune to hold and mind affecting effects. Your cleric so he can heal others affected by this and CHARNAME so he can run away.
13) Don't reload!
If you play solo it's the same, just send summons to die in traps, you can put the boots of speed on. Also always keep a potion of invisibility on you.
As you can see it can feel tedious and unrealistic to play no reload. Caution should be your key word but you don't have to do all my tips. using farsightt on a door is a bit excessive i believe :P
Personally I don't play no reload because I like to be abble to clear out 3 maps without resting and I find it hilarious to see all my party being exausted. I also save all my spells potions and wands in case I might need them later. When I do need them I reload.
Good luck friend!
AFAIK, no one has attempted such a run with a pregerated mage character. It would be fun if you share your progress with us. You can read wonderful stories of other people trying a hard run here:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/14574/baldur-s-gate-series-and-icewind-dale-series-minimal-reload-challenge-spoiler-warning#latest
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/15828/the-75-roll-no-reload-no-resurrection-challenge#latest
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12581/the-no-reload-challenge-spoiler-warning#latest
You can post your adventure there too.
Also, there're many separate threads for any kind of runs, check some wonderful examples:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/32182/the-scs-no-reload-tale-of-serene-winterbloom-beast-mistress-of-candlekeep#latest
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/30682/the-exploits-of-teyl-the-evil-strifeleader-thief-no-reload-initially-solo-spoiler-alert#latest
I think it would be useful to look at these threads:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/21464/how-do-i-got-about-playing-a-no-reload
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/18113/survivable-mage-tips
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/17896/tips-on-starting-a-new-no-reload-game
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/30646/finally-i-ve-completed-the-saga-on-no-reload-some-thoughts-and-advice-for-others-spoilers
Thanks for the help!
BUT with SCS installed for better AI -- especially since you are using a mage: it will reward intelligent play.
Specifically, I would install AI improvements, but not specific encounter improvements (arbitrarily hard sometimes) and no "casters prebuff immediately" component (too hard, unbalanced, without metagaming).
I also only play no-reload.
Yea I was wondering about the arbitrarily doubling incoming damage... sounds a little cheesy...
DISCLAIMER:
Had you chosen Abdel Whatsisface, the above post would have read quite differently.
@CaloNord, looking forward to reading your about Daria's progress.
I'm quoting @Ygramul's excellent groundrules for survival. Keeping them in mind may help you along the way:
A while ago, I developed some ground rules to survive no-reload -- and EVERYTIME I die it is because I have broken one of them myself:
1. Do not fight wounded. -- If a Gibberling could kill you with a critical hit with 5% chance, you WILL die after many many encounters. Similarly, do not melee with Charname if you don't have enough HP to survive a worst case blow (non-helmet classes need twice the HP buffer).
2. Scout. -- Obvious. If not metagaming, an encounter with a hostile party can go south easily if unbuffed, but become a cake walk if buffed. Especially at BGEE levels, you don't have enough spells to remain buffed to the hilt all the time. So, scout.
3. Spells: Melee Defense. -- Especially, if charname is a frontliner. If charname is a F/M or Blade almost all spells should be defensive. Load up on: Shield, Mirror Image, Blur, Wraithform, Stoneskin etc. BUT also on mage defense spells such as Minor Globe, Remove Magic etc.
4. Spells: Mage Fights. -- Most dangerous encounters by far; will end most no-reload games. In BGEE, status effects (sleep, hold, horror, web) WILL kill you. Worse yet, some mages will do clever things like:
Minor Globe -> Web -> Fireball. (SCS mage AI is fantastic! -- and without breaking game rules; it plays close to how *you* should be playing a mage.)
So, you need to:
- scatter the party (so that not everyone is disabled/burned by a single AoE spell)
- carry anti-magic spells (Spell Thrust is a must in BGEE -- even necessary in BG2 because it removes Spell Immunity that SCS mages love to use)
- Scout! and Buff! (That Web and Fireball will just tickle you, if you are buffed with Protection from Fire and Free Action)
- strike first (since I do not allow myself to metagame, I only do this if I legitimately scouted)
5. Defense over Offense. -- Some risky strategies that let you win 1/3 times are just fine if you reload, but in a no-reload run, for every round you need to make sure that you are 0.9999 (*) likely to survive that particular round.
(*) Yes, that number is more or less accurate:
Say, in a typical BGEE/BG2EE run you remain in combat for something like 20 hours (not including pauses), then you are in combat for a little over 10,000 rounds. With the average survival rate given above, your chances of finishing a BGEE/BG2EE no-reload run is a mere 37%. (0.9999^10000)
6. Use consumables like your life depends on them. It does.
7. Wild Mages [theoretical] -- DO. NOT. CAST. IN. PUBLIC. Really, what are you gonna do if you get a Gate in Beregost, or a Fireball:self amid Flaming Fist headcourters. Cast only at the enemies (and do not ever buff the charname with a wild mage!)
This is just with Neera, by the way. I doubt anyone ever finished a no-reload run with a Wild Mage charname:
Here are the odds:
there are about ~10/100 wild surges that act as "kill the caster" at low levels (even at high levels, "Petrify:self" will usually kill you, even if you might survive a fireball to the face then) If you cast 1000 spells through a no-reload run, you will have about 50 surges and your survival chance throughout the run comes to about
0.5% -- yep, just half a percent, even if you play an otherwise perfect game. (0.1 chance of death per surge -> 0.9^50 = 0.0052 chance of surviving 50 surges)
\end{theorycraft}
(A slight disadvantage could be that if more people start posting their playthroughs in the thread, different playthroughs will be intertwined, complicating an orderly read of your playthrough. But this wouldn't a huge problem imo.)