BG:EE Order of the Stick minimal reload run
BelgarathMTH
Member Posts: 5,653
Hi, I'm about to start an OotS BG:EE run, and I thought it might be fun to post about it here and share. Here are my versions of our favorite Burlew toons I've created for this run, along with the new party standing outside Winthrop's Inn:
I've spent most of my remaining gaming time tonight just creating the party, so it'll be tomorrow before I get any playing done that I can journalize.
I've spent most of my remaining gaming time tonight just creating the party, so it'll be tomorrow before I get any playing done that I can journalize.
Post edited by BelgarathMTH on
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Comments
Did Tarnesh, FAI ogre, no problems.
Got Roy killed against Silke - you can't use "autopause on enemy sighted" in multiplayer when you have to start by speaking to an enemy in a blue circle. So, this reload was partially because of unfamiliarity with the differences in the pause controls in multiplayer. Just regular pausing also seems to behave differently.
Silke went invisible as her first spell, and then cast lightning. Roy didn't stand a chance.
On the second attempt, I managed to pause the game before she went invisible. Then, Durkon was able to target her with command. Elan also got her confused. Then it was easy.
Most of BG1 should be pretty easy with a six person party, but the disadvantage of dividing xp six ways can cause problems. Roy is going to have hit points issues for quite some time. I almost had him get killed against Karlat.
Early difficulty is also increased by not having Imoen's potions and wand of missiles, nor any of Xzar and Montaron's potions.
I think this whole experiment should be pretty interesting. Some things are much easier, some are much harder. I am trying to minimize powergaming, metagaming, and cheese.
For example, Haley states Elan has 18 Charisma, and it's often implied that his Intelligence is around 8 or 9.
Durkon and Yeslick are going to have a serious bromance going on. Same with Garrick and Elan, and V and Xan. Imoen and Haley would be bffs. Then in ToB I think Roy and Sarevok would compliment each other being greatsword-wielding bald badasses.
Good luck with the playthrough!!
Barbarian would be better choice for Belkar, IMHO, so he can move faster and with massive STR bonuses from barbarian rage, he can do insane amounts of damage even with a puny dagger. In the comics, he is almost always first to jump at the enemies and chunk them easily with little weapons. Dagger++ and Two weapon style ++ and you are set.
Vaarsuvius should be a specialist, too, in the comics he/she is an invoker IIRC, but his barred school is conjuration if I am not mistaken. He definitely could cast sleep and charm type of spells so bg invoker is a no-no. Hmm. Maybe make him a diviner to simulate barred school? Also you can set his/her gender to 'neither' or 'None' via EEkeeper, but that may negate his spell chanting sounds entirely.
Durkon can be simulated as a LG Priest of Talos, because he can use Thor's lightning:it is essentialy lightning bolt special ability. Just use EEkeeper and ignore the whole priest of talos stuff, only to enjoy the lightning bolt ability.
Haley is okay, I think. Always thought her of CG with neutral tendencies. Fighter thief is ok as it allows her to be awesome with her bow like in the comics. Now if only one could do backstabs with a ranged weapon in bg.
Elan is also explicitly CG in the comics, you can change it via EEkeeper. Also, you may want to decrease his wisdom to 7 or such to show his quirkiness and...rather unique thinking style. (AKA-Minsc light. Instead of Boo he has Banjo the clown god!)
@lunar, I am playing an unmodded game, so I had to work within BG vanilla rules. I didn't see that halflings had barbarian available, or that would have been my first choice, other than ranger.
I thought it was important for Vaarsuvius to be a full-blooded elf. In vanilla BG rules, elves may only specialize in Divination, Enchantment, or Wild Magic. I didn't think any of those worked for V, so I just settled on general mage so I'd have flexibility with his/her spellbook. I could have gotten an appropriate specialty, probably conjuration, if I'd been willing to make V a half-elf, but that didn't seem right.
On your advice, I think I'll try to Keeper Belkar to Barbarian, and see if I can give V that illegal specialty.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12070/order-of-the-stick-portraits
He provides the Deviant Art link and artist credit in the post. The elaborate drawings are not official, but rather an artist's conception.
I had my small portraits sized for Icewind Dale, and I didn't feel like resizing all of them, so I'm just allowing the little black frame around them in BG:EE.
I've decided to start my run again from the beginning. This time, Belkar is a barbarian as he should be, and I used some minor Keepering to give V the conjuration specialty. (I created him/her as a half-elf, and keepered his/her race to elf, which probably means he/she only has 30% charm resistance.)
I also gave Haley a fighter-thief multiclass with human race and avatar. She may have a vestigal illegal 30% charm resistance from the way I did it, because I don't think Keeper alters that for you automatically when you change the race setting, and I couldn't find the variables for it.
Since I made V a conjurer, he/she is not going to be able to Identify, which will be a pain. I'll have to have Elan doing it eventually, even though it's a bit out of character for him. At least I made him with no intelligence or wisdom bonuses to lore, which is appropriate. Elan is a lot like Garrick.
I thought about making Elan a blade to represent his levels in dashing swordsman, but I decided that would make him too competent in combat, so I just left him as a jester. (He does worship Banjo the Clown as his hand puppet deity, after all, so I think it kind of fits.) He will mostly be standing around singing and acting silly throughout the game (i.e. singing Confusion onto enemies).
I'll make a post to report how far I get today after I get done playing, and I'll start keeping a reload counter.
Belkar as a Barbarian is probably reasonable, but he DOES have his companion.
Haley talked Roy into keeping Gurke's boots because he stole gold from the party. Haley is practicing lockpicking on the upper floors of the inns and taverns, unbeknownst to Roy, but she's not good enough at it yet to get most of them open. She is resolved to keep practicing.
While exploring the southwest looking for Bjornin's ogres, the OotS ran into Bassilus. I decided Roy's intelligence would allow him to give the "right" answers to disrupt Bassilus' control over his undead. It was still a hard battle, as the OotS is level one.
Went back to home base - Mellicamp survived, collected 5,000 gold, resumed southwest search for ogres.
Even at level one, V dominates the tougher battles.
V puts four spiders to sleep:
V puts two ogrillons to sleep, either magically, or by boring them to sleep with a long-winded speech about how his/her power is overwhelming and beyond their comprehension
The battle with Bassilus. Roy, Haley and Belkar attack, Elan sings "hit, hit, hit the bad cleric", V uses both his/her memorized magic missiles and two saved scroll magic missiles in interrupt attempts (one successful, two failed), Durkon tries command. Bassilus gets rigid thinking completed before Durkon's command hits, luckily Roy saves. Bassilus succumbs to command, but gets back up at round's end at only badlly wounded. V attempts interrupt and fails, Bassilus gets hold person on Elan, but Roy, Belkar and Haley manage to kill Bassilus before he can attack the held Elan.
We got Bjornin's half ogres, then headed south for Nashkel. Had a close brush on the way southwest to the half ogres with some orcs shooting poisoned arrows. Roy got poisoned twice and had to use up two precious antidotes. Durkon made level 3 after and can now back up the antidotes with a slow poison spell, and can cast hold person and silence. Returned to Bjornin and got a magic shield for Durkon. Every one is at least level 2 now, so hit points are less of a problem. Haley improved her lockpicking.
V evens the odds against the half-ogres with his/her ever popular sleep spell:
V only gets one hobgoblin archer, but Elan gets another confused shortly after:
No reloads so far.
Also! Rather enjoying the play through!
-the OotS finally make it to Nashkel, speak to the mayor, find out about Prism and Brage. Roy wants to go to the mines, but keeps getting sidetracked by people in urgent need.
-Roy speaks to Minsc, finds out about an innocent woman taken by gnolls. Talk about urgent. Roy reluctantly decides that the OotS must head west to try to rescue the woman. Will the party *never* get to the mines?
-It is too late to set out into the wilderness, but too early to sleep. Elan and Haley want to check out the carnival. They promptly run into a murderous mage holding *another* mage woman hostage and threatening to kill her. Roy tries to reason with him. The mage kills the woman before the Oots can do anything about it. The OotS kill the mage, who casts horror, countered by Durkon and remove fear before the mage can complete horror. At least V gets some good robes out of it.
-The OotS is attacked by Neira while trying to check into the inn. Durkon wins this one with a successful hold person spell.
-Roy has weird dreams all night, that his father is visiting him as a ghost. They mostly exchange insults and barbs all night as Roy's father tells him what a disappointment he is, and that he should have been a mage like his father, instead of a boring meathead fighter. At the end of the night, just before Roy wakes, his father begins to fade back to the afterlife, but says in parting, "Oh, by the way, I'm not your biological father: your mother got raped by some weird god avatar thing. And there's a dwarf-sized suit of ankheg plate buried in the corn field outside the inn you're sleeping in that your cleric friend might want, and a ring of wizardry buried under a tree at the FAI that your elf friend probably wants." Roy awakens and feels both weird and manically powerful, as though he could heal himself of wounds almost instantly.
-The party heads west in the morning, passing through an xvart village and being forced to slaughter the entire population and two cave bears. The xvarts wouldn't even try to parlay or surrender. Elan's confusing singing, playing his lute, and dancing about was unusually effective here, making the xvarts and Ursa the cave bear all fight each other somehow.
-The party goes west almost to the end of the Cloudpeaks. The party is lost. Must have missed the gnoll stronghold by veering too far to the north. Will have to move south along the western rim of the Cloudpeaks, then turn back east if it isn't found before the mountains slope down at the southern end. Very dangerous area. The party encounters "the fair bandit and an archer troop", uses a lot of magic resources to survive. Then, *another* bandit troop, this time with elite hobgoblin archers with poison arrows and two ogre berserkers. V both almost gets the party killed but also saves it. He/she casts a fizzled sleep spell, then an effective one. An ogre berserker starts chasing Elan, but he keeps confusing it by running around and singing and shouting puns at it. He actually tanks it for a couple of rounds, shouting puns at it the whole time.
V tries to catch the ogre berserker in a color spray read from a scroll, and winds up rendering Roy and Durkon, who are trying to coup de grace a sleeping ogre berserker before he gets back up, unconscious. Do *not* try that again, V!
At the end, the Oots is victorious, but badly weakened in the middle of nowhere. May need to make camp for an extended time to allow Durkon to pray and for V to study and refresh.
V takes care of the Fair Bandit's archer troop:
V fizzles a sleep spell and only gets one elite archer:
That's better, V!
The OotS stands victorious, although wounded:
The OotS continues to work south searching for the gnoll stronghold. The OotS kills several ogres, assists a paladin to kill gibberlings, and kills giant bear.
Belkar is sent to scout out the east side of the river before the OotS heads south, and he decides to kill a troop of hobgoblins solo just because he's a sexy, shoeless god of war. I've never played with male halflings in my party, so I'm just noticing that Belkar's avatar has hairy feet. That's kind of cool. Sexy and shoeless.
There is a strange, probably bugged game behavior where the enemies are often "falling asleep" or unconscious to Belkar. Sometimes he can't attack them until they reawaken. Very, very strange, but not gamebreaking. Belkar has no magic items or anything else that would make this game behavior legitimate. (solved by Crevs Daak. At least one of his daggers must have broken, and I was having him fight with at least one bare hand without realizing it.)
Sexy, shoeless god of war:
Addendum: The OotS finds the gnoll stronghold and rescues Minsc's witch. Roy finds a magic book that raises his charisma to 17. The OotS heads straight back to Nashkel to reunite Minsc with his witch. Roy would like to help the town find its lost guard captain Brage, and to track down Prism and the stolen emeralds, but he has no idea where to find either one of them. He resolves to head into the mines and begin his investigation of the iron crisis tomorrow, come hell or high water!
-The OotS finally gets to the mines. Roy plays along with Mulahey hoping for info, and gets an outcome that buys us both info and time to surround him. I had never even gotten this before - it must be a charisma-based possibility:
-Mulahey goes hostile as soon as Haley opens his chest, tries to sneak ambush us with skellies and kobolds. No matter. Durkon tries command and succeeds, so this battle is over before it starts. Kind of anti-climactic. Durkon's almost as powerful as V, in his own way, at least during early levels:
-The OotS returns to Nashkel. Roy isn't interested in exploring any deeper into the lower caverns of the mines with the main quest accomplished, so the OotS backtracks up out of the mines through known routes. Roy reports to the mayor, receives 900 gold. It's dark and the party is exhausted. Enter Nimbul. Durkon already used his one command on Mulahey, so opens with remove fear per his standing orders to do so by round two whenever an enemy mage starts casting. V lights up the night sky with magic missiles. Nimbul lights up Belkar with magic missiles. Elan confuses and distracts Nimbul for a critical moment as he dances around, strums his lute, and loudly sings "Stop, stop, stop the mad axe murderer mage!"
-The OotS follows the lead in Mulahey's orders to find Tranzig at Feldpost's in Beregost. Durkon succeeds with his command, and it's over again before it even starts. V doesn't even need to get involved.
Roy finds orders telling the late Tranzig to go to one of the northeast forests. He wants to head there at first light, but Belkar, Haley, and V talk him into following their other lead to the Ulcaster Ruins, to look for more powerful equipment. V points out that neither Belkar nor Roy have magic weapons, Haley could use some magic artillery, and the order is very low on gold since Roy purchased his full plate from the Beregost smithy. With a heavy sigh, Roy agrees to head southeast towards the ruins rather than northeast to follow the lead on the bandits.
Finished Ulcaster ruins. On the way, Roy gets a desperately needed +1 greatsword from a half ogre. In the dungeon, Belkar gets a desperately needed +1 dagger, and V gets a nifty wand of fire. The diversion from the main quest winds up being well worth it.
The battle against the vamp wolf. I tried to rage Belkar and let him handle it, but the vamp wolf was after Haley, and I fumbled the controls. Somehow, I manage to interrupt Belkar's rage before it took effect, so I get him held. Luckily, the rest of the order is able to kill it before it can kill Belkar. Haley uses all the flame arrows we've been finding on kobolds since the Nashkel mines, which are of great help.
En route to the Peldvale woods to search for the iron crisis bandits, Roy goes by way of Beregost and encounters a vamp wolf pack. He quickly shouts, "Retreat! V cast your web!" V ensnares most of the pack. Belkar finds out the hard way that his rage does not protect from web, but luckily manages to get free just as V fires a fireball from the wand of fire obtained in Ulcaster. Haley shoots arrows +1 at vamp wolves. One gets free, but Roy, Durkon and Belkar manage to dispatch it quickly. Elan sings "Nice, nice, nice puppies, wag, wag, wag your tails!" and gets two wargs to stop attacking and growl at him. The OotS stands victorious. V gains a level.
Keep it up!!
Big event for this session is the bandit camp, main tent.
Roy and the OotS can see that the big tent with treasure piles outside is quite obviously the bandit leaders' headquarters, so Roy has Durkon cast remove fear in case they have a mage inside, which would be a reasonable assumption. Haley readies all her arrows of acid, ice, and her two arrows of piercing, expecting a huge, tough, battle.
Durkon winds up being the mvp for this battle, yet again. Upon entering, Roy begins tanking the leader who confronts him, while Belkar flies into a rage and tries to head for the man wearing robes, chanting, waving his arms around, and swirling pretty lights in the air. Durkon immediately starts hold person on the mage, V casts magic missile at the mage, and Haley fires her arrows of biting at the mage.
(You'd think those dangerous supposedly super-intelligent mages would know better than to call so much attention to themselves. V always keeps a low profile in the back of the party, and doesn't start casting until well-guarded by other OotS members.)
Elan sings and plays his new golden harp given to him by the Lake Poets' Society. "Fight, fight, fight, fight the bad bandits!"
(Roy had had *no* patience for the Lake Poets' Society and had insisted on leaving after saving the poets from a spider and some bears, but he had not been able to drag Elan away. Elan had said "See, Roy, it was worth it - look at my pretty new harp!" Elan had strummed a few extremely discordant sounds. "You don't play the harp, stop! It sounds awful!" had growled Belkar. "Never fear, I'll get the hang of it soon enough," had said Elan while continuing to strum dissonance after dissonance and singing "Play, play, play, play the new harp.")
The mage resists Durkon's hold person. Belkar is body blocked from the mage by a really big gnoll. V casts another magic missile, while Haley's best arrows get wasted against the mage's mirror images. Durkon tries hold person a second time. The bandit leader becomes confused by Elan's dancing around, but still keeps Roy busy fighting for his life. V notices that Elan's harp, despite the incompetent playing, actually casts an arcane confusion spell into the fray, rather than just the usual Elan confusion. He/she makes note of it for future study.
The mage successfully casts not one, but *two* horror spells. They bounce harmlessly off of Durkon's fear shield. If not for that spell, almost every member of the Order would have been running in helpless magically induced panic, and killed. Durkon's second hold person spell is effective, and the battle is close to won.
Belkar gets poisoned by an elite orc firing arrows from the center of the room, and Durkon has to start casting slow poison on Belkar, else he is doomed. Neither Roy nor Belkar can get to the orc, still being blocked by the bandit leader. V decides to risk a carefully placed web, but the orc tears away from the sticky strands and keeps firing at Belkar. Belkar starts throwing his daggers rather than risk being caught in the web. Roy skewers the bandit leader, but now must avoid the web, as he has no ranged attack prepared. Finally, the elite orc archer becomes entangled in V's web. Durkon throws a command in for good measure, while Haley fires arrows of ice and Belkar throws daggers.
The OotS stands victorious. A prisoner and some documents in a chest reveal new clues about the iron crisis. Unfortuntely, the bandits are part of two organizations, one monstrous and one human, that are merely mercenaries hired to do the dirty work for a much larger conspiracy. There are letters from a mysterious "Davaeorn" that mention a mine deep in the Cloakwood. This must be the Order's next destination.
Haley gets a spiffy new magic bow! (I have given her two pips each in shortbow and longbow, plus one in shortsword, because I think that fits her character the best. She will be able to use either short or longbows throughout the saga. In the comic, she is almost never seen using anything but her bow, other than some rare sneak attacks with her blade. But she seems to me to clearly prefer archery over the blade. Of course, in 3rd edition, rogues can sneak attack with a bow any way. I have to make some compromises trying to fit the characters to 2nd edition.