Another stream down and a great many more things completed. We cleared up a few side-areas outside of Baldur's Gate that we could now complete due to our increased level (The Thayan fight in the "Spider Woods" east of Larswood, the mustard jellies in the Valley of the Tombs, and the ettercap cave in the "Lonely Peaks").
Afterwards we went to Baldur's Gate and finished several new quests.
-Alatos and the Thieves' Guild
-Investigating the Merchant's League Estate
-Larceny at the Hall of Wonders
-Marek and Lothander
-The Captive Nymph
-Tremain's Son
We dealt with a few other odds and ends in Baldur's Gate as well (the wizards at the top of Sorcerous Sundries, the "sisters of entropy" in the Low Lantern, Larze in the Blushing Mermaid, etc. etc.) and somewhat notably, we obtained and used the Manuals of Dexterity, Intelligence, and one of the three Manuals of Wisdom. None of these provide noteworthy boosts to our abilities, but they at least make our character that much more impressive looking. Speaking of impressive looking; with the greatly increased quantity of XP gained from quests now, our character is rapidly approaching level 10, which will be an incredibly valuable boost. +2 HP, -1 THAC0, -1 AC, -1 saving throws, and +1 movement speed are all quite nice enhancements.
Come Monday I'll be looking to begin a detailed and thorough cleaning out of all the quests and other interesting ventures that can be found in the great city.
I’m streaming soon! 10:30PM EDT over at http://twitch.tv/caron_driel! Come on over as we play more of our Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition challenge playthrough!
Another great stream! Thanks to everyone who came out. We basically spent the stream clearing all the City of Baldur's Gate side-quests. We did it area by area, but I'll write the quests in alphabetical order as they occur in the in-game journal:
-A Bard's Request
-A Contract Killing
-A Corpse for Arkion
-A Ring for a Lady
-Basilisk on the Loose
-Brielbara's Baby
-G'axir the Seer
-Ghorak the Diseased
-Laerta and Louise
-Missing Citizens
-Nadine and Euric
-Noralee's Gauntlets
-Petrine's Cat
-Quinn's Friend
-Shlimes and Oozshes
-The Helm of Balduran
-The Seven Suns
In addition to the quests, we also dealt with a few of the minor attractions (E.g. the ogre assassins in the dock's district). I've decided I'll try to start explaining all the places where deaths occurred or where difficult and/or noteworthy fights happen.
The most notable event was certainly the fight against Degrodel's minions. (bloody hell that fight took a lot of work. The only way I succeeded was by running in and out of buildings. My stunning blow didn't seem to affect the doom guards, and they hit too hard. They died easily enough, but the invisible stalkers felt like a horrible tank. They just took hit after hit. 3-5 per stalker. And I'm typically dealing 14-20 damage a blow, too!)
I died a couple of times against the greater basilisk in the docks, but third time's the charm and a stunning blow on the first hit signals a swift end to the beast.
The ogre mage and the various carrion crawlers in the sewers also defeated Tugul numerous times. If a carrion crawler gets a successful hold on me, the fight's over. Even though they do so little damage, they reapply the hold before I can recover from the first. And that's with me making a good 80-90% of my saves! When I finally beat them at the end of the stream, I did so by assassinating the mage, then outrunning the crawlers, vanishing into the dark and reappearing to 2-shot one before disappearing again. An accidental trip up the ladder de-spawned two of them, much to my chagrin. It's only about 840 XP lost, but it's still sad.
Despite how hard the ogre mages in the docks district hit, Tugul made his saves against their CC spells and tanked his way through their damaging ones, resulting in a first try success.
Jardak proved dangerous with his +1 longsword, but it didn't stop Tugul from mashing his face into a fine paste.
Stunning blow was incredibly useful (the most useful it's been, I'd say) in the fight against the Maulers of the Undermountain. I didn't die, but I did reload once here because I wanted to single-handedly beat them and gain the XP all for myself, not sharing any with the Merry Fools.
I chose to let the former adventurers turned statues leave with their lives instead of killing them for their XP, which in retrospect I regret somewhat. Occasionally my role-play gets the better of my meta-gaming. This is a very good thing in P&P D&D, but not as useful in a challenge run.
I made the mistake of fighting Sunin and his bodyguards at half health initially. This resulted in two completely avoidable deaths before I thought to stop at an inn first. Even after healing they still weren't exceptionally easy.
I then made the exact same mistake fighting against Wiven and her thief brethren, though I only lost my life once to them.
All in all, my skills could certainly improve, but thankfully this isn't some sort of No-Reload run. Despite the easy difficulty setting, there has certainly been some real challenge in certain areas. I think it might be possible without the un-capper on Core Rules, but I'm certainly not interested in trying it, that's for sure.
Next time we will continue with the main quest. I know there is sort of a continuation to "A Corpse for Arkion", so we'll make sure to do that next time too.
I forgot to post about it, but we completed another stream on the 12th, finishing Nemphre and Ordulinian's quests (albeit in a bloodier way than Ordulinian would have liked), cleared out the sewers, dealt with Sarevok's cronies at the top of the Iron Throne building, and then we set off to Ulgoth's Beard to do some side quests.
We only ended up completing Shandalar's Ice Prison, then after we spent most of the remaining stream time attempting to kill Shandalar. This was unsuccessful, as while I could hit him, I could only do so on a crit. What's more, our stunning blow was revealed (after many attempts) to be useless, as he made his save despite rolling a 1. While I could, could, theoretically quickload time and again to see if I could manage enough consecutive crits to down him, the likelihood of it working is far too unlikely for me.
As for other noteworthy battles? There really weren't any, save for one. We suffered significantly at the hands of Cloudwulfe and co., dying to them numerous times until a combination of stealth, stunning blows, screen transition abuse, and running between the two staircases finally brought them down. I think it did cost us about six deaths before we succeeded, though.
I'm streaming again in about 20 minutes! Same time, same place. And this'll be the last time I'll announce it until my schedule changes. So one more time, I stream this run Mondays and Fridays at 10:30PM EDT. Hope to see y'all there!
Well today's stream was a joke. We attempted the Isle of Balduran, knowing full well that we'd have to reload to before we got on the boat since we wouldn't be able to defeat Karoug. I wanted to test it, though. In the end, the regular wolfweres, let alone Karoug, tore us to pieces.
One or two wolfweres we could handle, but if there were any more they would shred us with their rapid powerful strikes. After a great deal of struggle we managed to complete most of the quests in the area, but Balduran's wreck was too much. I ended up testing out whether or not the silver knife (Balduran's Butterknife, I think?) would make things any easier. Oddly enough, the -1 AC (from single weapon style) seemed to make a massive difference, and while I still couldn't handle too many at once, my odds improved dramatically. This was not to last, however, and in the end I had to give up and reload. This was after Karoug had despawned, however, so I couldn't even attempt to lure him away from the rest. I think it may have been possible for us to defeat Karoug if it was a one on one, through a combination of the knife, DUHM, and stunning blow, but alas, I had already quick-saved too many times. If I wanted to try taking Karoug down it would cost me an extra hour or two to go back through everything all over again. What's more, I would have had to reload anyway, since the dagger isn't allowed for anything more than testing. I gave up, reloaded the save from before stepping on the boat, and continued on.
As if to punish me for breaking the rules, the stream then crapped out and proceeded to record only audio for the remaining hour. We had moved on to Candlekeep, completing everything there prior to slaying Rieltar and company. I finished with a dramatic cliff-hanger ending after reading the letter from Gorion, only to discover the issue with the stream. There wasn't anything I could do, so in the end, I uploaded the whole thing as a "WHAT IF" on my Youtube channel and we'll pick up next time going to Candlekeep from the beginning.
Now for some theory-crafting. Could we defeat the Isle of Balduran with a solo poverty monk (with an XP uncapper)? The answer is definitively yes, but would it be worth it? We'd be looking at grinding all the way to level 15 for +3 fists, by which point I think our THAC0 and AC would be unquestionably strong enough to smash Karoug and all his friends. But is that really a good choice? I'm inclined to say no.
Now, there is the potential to level just to 13 and save-scum quivering palm, which I have no reason to believe should not work against Karoug and the other greater wolfweres, but again, this would likely require some grinding. Based on my research, it looks as though by the end of BG1, I should be between level 11 and 13. With how close we are and how much XP is still required, I am more than inclined to say that level 12 will be our cap. Now, one could argue that grinding to level 15 is only fair, as it would put us equal to Sarevok, and after all, he has all that fancy armour and weaponry, so grinding really just evens the playing field. I, however, am not sure that's either in the spirit of the challenge, nor something I have the spirit to do. That'd be a lot of wyverns. If you have any thoughts on the matter, feel free to add them.
Smashing Karoug with +3 fists? No, that wouldn't work. He requires silver weapons to hit, and no level of monk fist is silver. Using the werebane dagger? Now you can hit him, but you can't beat the 30 HP/round regeneration. Quivering Palm? The instant death effect would have a chance, but it requires a fist attack to deliver. Nope. Stunning Blow? Nope - can't deliver it with a weapon, and Karoug has free action anyway.
With the solo poverty rules, even stretching them a bit to allow the use of that dagger you can't sell, I'm pretty sure Karoug is unbeatable before HLAs. Either Whirlwind Attack/Greater Whirlwind or Greater Deathblow, with the werebane dagger, ought to work. That, and you'd need to extend your uncapper to add HLAs to BGEE.
A non-poverty solo monk ... dual-wielding the werebane dagger and the Burning Earth long sword, plus a Wand of the Heavens hit each round, might be able to do the job with enough levels and support gear.
The second lycanthrope boss, Selaad, is much easier to handle - he doesn't have that super-fast regeneration. You still can't hit him with any level of fists, but attrition with the werebane dagger should work.
All of the other wolfweres and werewolves merely require magical weapons to hit.
Oh, Karoug and Selaad are even more difficult than greater wolfweres, eh? Wonderful. Or is it that the vulnerability to +3 weapons only exists in BG2? Either way, whatever. I still want to do some testing off-screen with different things, but I won't bore you with the details unless something absurd appears.
My area is undergoing a major thunderstorm right now, and because of connectivity issues, I won't be streaming tonight. I'll see you all again at the normal time on Monday, though!
Well after having to skip Friday's stream, we're back and Monday's stream was... Irritating. We completed Candlekeep and then began Durlag's Tower, clearing out the upper floors and the rooftop. As the fights get harder and the mages get more AoE-happy, we're starting to reload more out of a desire to not miss XP than because we're dying. We're certainly still dying, but it's not the primary issue.
We did, however, reach level 11, providing us with the much desired immunity to poison. This will be a big difference for any remaining spiders or hobgoblin elites we come across. At this point it's only crowd control spells like Feeblemind and Horror (or worse, Hold Person) that scare us. In terms of damage, melee opponents are far more intimidating, and we're coming across more fighters with the power to really tear us apart. Our innate AC and THAC0 aren't yet at the level needed to really power through those types of opponents. On the bright side, when we hit, we hit hard, usually dealing around 18-20 damage a blow.
Our wisdom is certainly doing well, as we obtained the last two Tomes of Understanding, boosting our WIS to 21! I think it gave us six points of lore... Underwhelming, to be sure. As Rik said during the stream, it's a shame that WIS doesn't affect monk AC. And alas, we were (as I expected) unable to obtain the Manual of Gainful Exercise, meaning that our 19 STR is the best we get. But that's certainly better than the average monk, so no sense crying over spilt milk.
As far as deaths, I think we fell prey to spiders and basilisks a few times, but most of our reloads came in the form of avoiding a wizard's lightning bolt killing either himself or one of his party.
I know Prat and co. killed us at least once after a well placed horror from Sakul allowed the archer Tam to pincushion us while we ran about.
Rieltar and co. caused reloads, but it was (I believe) almost exclusively a result of Rieltar's aforementioned ignorant application of lightning bolts.
I think we may have also suffered a death or three at the hands of the ghasts in Durlag's Tower. That kitchen area on the second (first if you're from the UK) floor has a nasty Hold Person trap that spells doom for a solo poverty character hit by it.
Either way, another stream down. Next time we'll finish Durlag's Tower which might take the whole stream, it might not. I don't really know. If it doesn't we'll continue on towards the endgame in the city of Baldur's Gate!
Today we pushed further into Durlag's Tower, making it to the end of the third floor. It was hard and painful and fraught with dozens of reloads. The big issue was that the enemies hit so hard that a single successful CC spelled our doom.
On the first of the lower levels, we struggled most against the three greater dopplegangers (GD). This would be a recurring issue, as one or two GDs was difficult but manageable, especially if we could prevent one from casting mirror image. It became more troublesome when confronted with several at once. We hit hard, but our THAC0 isn't high enough to consistently hit high-AC enemies, and our damage isn't high enough to put them on the ground quickly enough. Meanwhile groups of enemies are able to whale on us with few repercussions. We did manage it with a bit of running around and stunning blows, although if the enemy AI pathing is good enough, the hasted GDs can catch us. The two flesh golems comboed with the Skeleton warrior were a bit scary, but a quick dash away and a lay on hands before returning solved the problem.
At this point, stunning blow and DUHM is basically a requisite for any fight involving two or more opponents. The one round that stunning blow lasts is really heartbreaking, as even with three uses, it dissipates far too quickly.
Moving down to the next floor, we struggled a lot. It was here that my temper flared as death after death occurred as a result of Tugul critically missing. I swear, it felt like he missed half his swings. With a THAC0 of 2 or 3 (thanks to DUHM), it feels like he misses far more than he should. The GDs mimicking Kiel and Islanne seemed to be the worst, as the invisibility spell or whatever it is they're using seems to make them insufferably hard to hit. Can transformed GDs use their mirror image and haste? It didn't appear so, but that might explain a bit. Either way, we held our tongue and barely restrained the swears as we pummeled our way through. The tactics are, unsurprisingly, much the same as they have been. we did use the sigil transporter to abuse the enemy AI some, killing the dwarven doomguards and ghouls with that trick. At this point of the tower I find I'm less concerned with enemies dying and giving us XP than I am with them just dying. If a trap kills them it is perfectly fine to me.
After several tries to defeat the skeleton warrior trio in the false exit, we finally beat them and moved down to the next floor. This floor was... actually not too bad. The greater wyverns could be defeated one on one, unquestionably due to our immunity to poison. We then killed the ensorcelled heroes one on one and proceeded on to the elemental trials. Ice killed us once due to Kaldran the polar bear "freezing" us (hold person), but on our second try we prioritized him and were successful. Air was close because the Air Aspect was insanely fast, but we prevailed, even eliminating the invisible stalkers. Fire was absurdly easy, as the phoenix guards drop like flies and they aren't numerous enough to threaten us with their explosive deaths. Earth... Earth made me think that we couldn't complete Durlag's Tower. We have no source of fire damage, so the Fission Slime was unkillable, or so I thought. After several attempts and a bit of research to understand its gimmick, I threw up my hands and went on my way, dealing with Air and Fire next.
I then cleared out the rest of the area, dying *numerous* times to the greater ghouls. Those punks were infuriating. The Ashirukuru were actually fairly easy, and the skeleton room in the middle was only irritating because of the Stinking Cloud traps. The cloud did result in a death, but it wasn't too bad. I then had the spark of creativity that ended up not being necessary. I thought to myself, why don't I lure the Fission Slime to the room with the endless fireball trap? That should kill it! I decided to kill one or two myself for the experience, only to find that taking down one teleported me to the chess room. Apparently even though I didn't truly defeat it, that was enough, so long as I had bested the other trials.
The chessboard took a few tries. Scoping out the enemy, trying to understand what worked and what didn't. My final successful attempt involved drawing out and killing each pawn one on one, before stealthing across the board (quickly to avoid lightning bolts), killing the queen (to level up, as the king alone wouldn't get me the level), then pummeling the king into submission. One of the bishops didn't disappear as quickly, and he sent a farewell Hold Person at me, spooking me a bit. Fortunately he disappeared immediately after, so whether I saved or not, it wouldn't have negatively affected me.
And that's where we ended. The stream started about fifteen minutes late and I ended it about fifteen minutes late, but there just wasn't enough time to complete the tower in one stream. Ideally we'll see the triumphant Tugul crash through the Demon Knight and return from the depths on Monday! Hope to see you then!
Smashing Karoug with +3 fists? No, that wouldn't work. He requires silver weapons to hit, and no level of monk fist is silver. Using the werebane dagger? Now you can hit him, but you can't beat the 30 HP/round regeneration. Quivering Palm? The instant death effect would have a chance, but it requires a fist attack to deliver. Nope. Stunning Blow? Nope - can't deliver it with a weapon, and Karoug has free action anyway.
You could try dual-wielding the dagger - monk special abilities can normally be activated by a weapon in the off-hand so long as the main hand uses their fist. Also free action won't protect against stun unless you have mods installed to make that change (though I'm not sure if Karoug has immunity to stun as well anyway).
The dual-wielding penalties will make it more difficult to hit Karoug, but if you're reloading anyway that shouldn't be a problem.
Karoug gets his free action from the "FREERING" item. There's a "Cure Stun" effect in there, but it doesn't look like there's actual stun immunity. Not that it would help a solo monk much to stun him - you would still need to beat the regeneration, and the werebane dagger alone doesn't do enough damage attacking once per round even if you have 25 strength and hit every time.
Dual-wielding the dagger... now that does work. Testing with some BG2EE characters:
Test conditions: Pokey is a level 14 monk with a short sword (proficient) in his off hand. Punching Bag is a level 13 sorcerer with 3 Dex, active Stoneskin, active Protection from Magical Weapons, and no gear.
Start an attack sequence and get a couple of fist attacks in, then activate Quivering Palm ... one more ineffective fist attack, then the short sword delivers the instant-kill blow.
The werebane dagger is +4 versus lycanthropes, so that's a total of -4 wielded off-hand. At level 13, with strength 19, that's 11 to hit Karoug's -2 AC. Then he saves on a 7, so you have an overall 15% chance of killing him with each attempt.
Oh, can’t believe I missed this thread ! I’ll make sure to catch up and look at some of your videos, I’ve always wondered if you could clear BG1 with a solo poverty monk (non modded, that’s impossible without relying on many many reloads as far as I know).
FYI, monks and sorcerers are not the only candidates for poverty runs : I’ve completed BG1 and BG2 with a solo totemic druid, and even managed to advance quite far in BG2 (till Irenicus in Spellhold) with a cleric/thief in solo, poverty, no-reload, legacy of bhaal run (although the LoB part makes it all about summons, so definitely a very different gameplay)
Oh, can’t believe I missed this thread ! I’ll make sure to catch up and look at some of your videos, I’ve always wondered if you could clear BG1 with a solo poverty monk (non modded, that’s impossible without relying on many many reloads as far as I know).
FYI, monks and sorcerers are not the only candidates for poverty runs : I’ve completed BG1 and BG2 with a solo totemic druid, and even managed to advance quite far in BG2 (till Irenicus in Spellhold) with a cleric/thief in solo, poverty, no-reload, legacy of bhaal run (although the LoB part makes it all about summons, so definitely a very different gameplay)
@monico it's not actually quite that difficult using a monk in BG1. Davaeorn can be a problem in a no-reload if he's feeling uncooperative, but the two main encounters where you need a bit of luck are the Coronation and the fight with Sarevok. Having two horror spells helps in the former to break the opposition up and with a bit of luck a couple of the dopplegangers will chase you and can be stranded in the side rooms. In the latter, Sarevok can be dragged out using LMD, but Semaj will teleport out in support. You need some luck to get him - horror may work to take him out of sight of Sarevok where he can be left alone, but if that doesn't work stunning blows are another possibility (his saves are pretty good though). Once you manage to get Sarevok on his own, it's not particularly hard to use the pillars to stealth despite his slight speed advantage.
By the way, how did you manage to beat Mel with a totemic druid - was that relying on save-scumming or is there some useful tactic for druids I'm not aware of?
Oh, can’t believe I missed this thread ! I’ll make sure to catch up and look at some of your videos, I’ve always wondered if you could clear BG1 with a solo poverty monk (non modded, that’s impossible without relying on many many reloads as far as I know).
FYI, monks and sorcerers are not the only candidates for poverty runs : I’ve completed BG1 and BG2 with a solo totemic druid, and even managed to advance quite far in BG2 (till Irenicus in Spellhold) with a cleric/thief in solo, poverty, no-reload, legacy of bhaal run (although the LoB part makes it all about summons, so definitely a very different gameplay)
@monico it's not actually quite that difficult using a monk in BG1. Davaeorn can be a problem in a no-reload if he's feeling uncooperative, but the two main encounters where you need a bit of luck are the Coronation and the fight with Sarevok. Having two horror spells helps in the former to break the opposition up and with a bit of luck a couple of the dopplegangers will chase you and can be stranded in the side rooms. In the latter, Sarevok can be dragged out using LMD, but Semaj will teleport out in support. You need some luck to get him - horror may work to take him out of sight of Sarevok where he can be left alone, but if that doesn't work stunning blows are another possibility (his saves are pretty good though). Once you manage to get Sarevok on his own, it's not particularly hard to use the pillars to stealth despite his slight speed advantage.
By the way, how did you manage to beat Mel with a totemic druid - was that relying on save-scumming or is there some useful tactic for druids I'm not aware of?
@Grond0 to me, the real problem for a solo poverty monk is the final fight, everything else can be done or avoided. Aggroing Sarevok out of sight of his henchmen is doable, the problem is:
- no matter which kit you take, your combat stats vs his are so far apart that a direct fight should only end in your demise (unless he only rolls 1 and you only do crits)
- his saves are 1, so if you can’t lower them, your stunning blows and other abilities will not work
About my totemic druid, when I said "I cleared bg1 and bg2", I meant only those (no SoD nor ToB). I don’t think Big B or Mel are actually feasible alas.
To be frank, my runs/challenges rarely cover ToB. I don’t like it much for plenty of reasons (storyline, OP characters, mainly).
EDIT : some number crunching between Sarevok and a lvl8 monk:
Sarevok : -5 AC; 135HP; -5 thac0; 4 ApR; 90% elemental resistances; 1 to all his saving throws
Lvl8 poverty monk: 80HP max; 0 AC (if 18 starting DEX + DEX tome + DuHM); 9 thac0 (if 18 starting STR + tome + DuHM = 21 STR so -4 thac0 to its 13 base thac0); 2 ApR, 1d10+9 dmg
Basically, Sarevok hits you 4 times per round unless critical miss.
You hit 2 per round if you manage to roll 14 or higher.
The kits would bot fare much better, since the DMM’s blur doesn’t help at all, the elemental damage from the frozen fist or the SSM’s abilities are almost entirely resisted.
In fact, I’d say you would be better going the evil DMM route and take the Vampiric Touch dream abilities. with the DMM’s own Vampiric Touch that he gets at lvl7, that allows you to try casting 3x4d6 dmg, meaning up to 72 damage. If you don’t get interrupted. With 2 MLD’s, that’s 80 damage total.
But then you’re dead in seconds.
The only way would be to make careful use of the terrain and pillars, hitting Sarevok from the shadows, flee around a corner before he reacts (he runs faster than you so not easy to pull off), and re-stealth hoping it works.
Keeping in mind that at lvl8, with only 10 skill points per lvl, you won’t have superb stealth skills (I’d say about 70% in both at most, under DuHM buff)
That’ll probably take more than the 2 turns worth of DuHM you may have though, so it gets even more difficult and random.
@monico I agree that a monk has no chance in straight melee against Sarevok, but that's not the point - you can hide and he can't. His weapon speed is not great, so he has no real chance of hitting you while you're moving despite his movement speed advantage and the pillars offer an easy way to get out of his sight to try repeatedly to stealth until you're successful.
One of the things that annoys me about the Bhaal VT power is how slow that is to cast - you're extremely likely to lose more HPs than you gain trying to use that on Sarevok.
@Grond0 you're right, evading might be easier than I thought. Hiding in shadows though might be difficult, since he moves faster than you.
Well, there's only one way to know : my next run will be a solo poverty monk (probably DMM, my favourite kit).
This won't be no-reload though, because this fight in particular will probably need some grinding to hone my evading/stealthing skills ^^
On a side note, about monks in BG1 in general, I don't know if it was said on this thread, but the wolf cape (Relair's Mistake) is a very useful item for solo monks: you move a bit faster, have better combat stats, hit as +1 (at least magical), and your paws benefit from the monk's fist APRs.
In fact, if I had to chose only 1 item to attempt a solo monk run, that would definitely be the item I would go for.
Apologies to anyone who was waiting for me to stream tonight. Today was absurdly busy with real life things. I'm still planning on doing two BG streams this week, it's just the one normally scheduled for Monday will be done on Wednesday instead. Sorry, y'all.
@monico Welcome to the thread! You bring up a lot of interesting points. I had no clue that more classes could do a poverty run. To be honest, I hadn't really seen poverty runs anywhere except for this one Gamefaqs guide way back in the day. I can't even find it anymore, but that's where I heard that only monks and sorcerers could do it. Although the logic given in the guide did seem sound, I'm happy to hear that there are even more options.
I think you may be referring to this guide, which covers solo poverty runs along with other information (though only in relation to BG2). The guide includes some misleading information, but much of that may be to do with changes made in the game over the years. The guide assumes that only a sorcerer can be successful. For a solo, insane, poverty run that covers ToB and doesn't allow save-scumming I'd be inclined to agree, though there are quite a few classes that could make decent progress.
You might also be interested in this old discussion, which does at least briefly consider options beyond the sorcerer.
@Elrandir thanks for the welcome I've watched a few of your videos and was really hooked (we have very different playstyles and found myself trying to move the cursor sometimes haha)
The problem with poverty runs is that if you have the final SoD and final ToB fight in mind, it is indeed impossible for most classes to do anything.
But my point when doing poverty runs (i've done a few) is not to "clear that final battle", but to see how much progress I can make, what strategies I can come up with, etc.
Poverty runs is how I discovered the fun & awesomeness of druids (and totemic ones in particular). One such run was not only poverty-oriented, but also had as a rule "no-direct damage from PC" (only buffs/debuffs, the damage can only be done by summons). There is no logical reason for this rule than just "hey, let's see if it's possible/fun".
What I mean is that, if you only think of 1 or 2 battles in the whole saga to prevent you from doing a run, you miss all the potential fun along the way : I'm currently running a randomized solo no-reload challenge, were class, weapons, stats are relatively random and often end up with characters that I know will never beat the entirety of the game, but each is unique in its own way and it's fun !
EDIT : also a note about the feasability of poverty runs. For SoD for example, it would be impossible to fight Belhifet who needs +3 weapons to hit for anything other than a sorcerer. Which means the problem here is with the rules of the poverty challenge and not the character builds. I think that if just 1 or 2 fights bar you from clearing the challenge, you should be allowed a tweak for THAT particular 1 or 2 fights (like be allowed the +3 weapon needed to face Big B ).
I don't have other such examples, since I rarely include ToB in my runs (where I suspect would be the most problematic fights).
EDIT : also a note about the feasability of poverty runs. For SoD for example, it would be impossible to fight Belhifet who needs +3 weapons to hit for anything other than a sorcerer. Which means the problem here is with the rules of the poverty challenge and not the character builds. I think that if just 1 or 2 fights bar you from clearing the challenge, you should be allowed a tweak for THAT particular 1 or 2 fights (like be allowed the +3 weapon needed to face Big .
I don't have other such examples, since I rarely include ToB in my runs (where I suspect would be the most problematic fights).
@monico I think you were trying out a cleric/thief recently. That has the ability to beat both Belhifet (slay living - which ignores MR) and Mel (mainly spike traps). The chance against Belhifet is small, but perfectly realistic if you're allowing reloads.
@monico I think you were trying out a cleric/thief recently. That has the ability to beat both Belhifet (slay living - which ignores MR)
wow, so many bosses are immune to the slay effect that I did not think Big B could die from that spell (also, didn't know about the slay effect bypassing MR).
Although, with its high ST:Spell (5), and C/T's bad thac0 vs. Belhifet's high AC, that would indeed require much reloading.
I guess starting the fight with a Doom spell would be a good first step.
Then whatever's needed to lower the C/T's thac0 as much as possible.
Is that spell's attack a melee attack or a ranged attack ?
EDIT : om nom nom (number crunching) : at SoD's lvl cap, a C/T normally has only 1 lvl5 spell slot. If going half-orc (for better thac0 & WIS) + 3 tomes of understanding (if allowed, since the idea is a poverty run), that's a 2nd lvl5 spells, so at most 2 chances of slaying Belhifet.
With Belhifet's 80% mag res, trying to land a Doom spell before Belhifet casts Improved Invisibility will be tricky (and trying to dispel it until Doom lands could take too long, a naked C/T would probably not survive that long).
Best case scenario, let's say Doom lands --> Belhifet's ST is now 7. So Belhifet has 70% chances of shrugging each slay effect. Having 2 casts of the spell, that's 100% - (70% * 70%) = 51% chances that Belhifet survives both hits.
Without Doom, it's only 36% chances of success.
Now, the attack actually must land for the slay effect to trigger.
At SoD's lvl cap, a C/T has 15 base thac0.
For this strategy to work, there won't be much time to prebuff (and spells will mostly have expired during the cinematic). I'd say, at most, you have time for 1 or 2 buffs.
I'd suggest Chant (and hope that it bypasses Belhifet's 80% MR), then Holy Power (-6 thac0 from the 18/00 set STR and the fighter base thac0) --> it is actually even better than a half-orc with 19 starting STR + STR tome + DuHM (23 STR is -5 thac0).
That still only brings you to 9, effectively 8 (chant luck effect) thac0.
I don't remember exactly Belhifet's AC. I think it is -8, but I don't know why I think that.
If true, that means having to roll at least 16 or higher (25% chances).
So, if I'm not wrong with percentages, the probabilities would be 14,4375% chances of slaying Belhifet
calculation is thus (correct me if I'm wrong, math classes were long ago):
(25% chances of hit roll 16 or higher) * (30% of slay effect applying) = 7,5% chances per try to kill Belhifet.
Or 92,5% chances for Belhifet to survive.
Since only 1 of the casts needs to land, we'll have to calculate the chances for Belhifet not to survive one of the casts, so:
1 - (0,925 x 0,925) = 1 - 0,855625 = 14,4375%
It's not a spell I've used much, but it's a touch spell. I suspect the best chance of landing it would be near the start of the battle rather than trying to cast spells to nerf Belhifet's saving throw (I think he has 100% MR, so doom, chant etc won't work). If you have single weapon proficiency I think that means you would get a critical with a 19, so you'd have at least a 10% chance of hitting (I don't think you could improve chances enough to hit without a critical). A C/T would only get a single 5th level spell to try with, so a 10% chance of hitting and a 20% chance of getting past his saving throw give 2% overall. That would be painful if trying a no-reload, but quite possible if you were just reloading the game for a minute or two each time ...
@Grond0 haha, I was also crunching numbers and edited my above post. My calculations were more optimistic.
I'm pretty sure Belhifet's MR is not 100% (Wiki states 80%, I think it is correct).
BTW, I couldn't find a detailed description of Belhifet's stats/immunities (the wiki is not complete on that part), do you have them (or a link to them) ?
Last thought about that Slay Living spell and I'll stop the off-topic there : does the Slay Living attack hits as +3 ?
Slay Living hits as +6, silver, and cold iron. Only Protection from Magical Weapons, a modified save vs. spell of 1 or less, or immunity to "slay" effects can protect against it entirely.
@Grond0 haha, I was also crunching numbers and edited my above post. My calculations were more optimistic.
I'm pretty sure Belhifet's MR is not 100% (Wiki states 80%, I think it is correct).
BTW, I couldn't find a detailed description of Belhifet's stats/immunities (the wiki is not complete on that part), do you have them (or a link to them) ?
Last thought about that Slay Living spell and I'll stop the off-topic there : does the Slay Living attack hits as +3 ?
He's definitely had 100% MR when I've come across him before, but I think that's the result of an equipped item - so the Wiki is correct that he himself has 80%. It's possible I suppose that item is only added in LoB, though I vaguely remember it applies to any difficulty level above normal.
Full stats are somewhere in the LoB SCS challenge thread, but I'm not sure exactly where. However, he's got 100% fire resistance and 50% cold, he's immune to poison and has 25% resistance to melee damage with 50% to missile damage. His AC is -12 and he has THAC0 of -1 (including adjustment for 22 strength).
Slay living can definitely hit him (and kill him). Looking at it a bit further though, I was too pessimistic about the chance to hit Belhifet. In addition to his single L5 spell (which has to be slay living), the cleric thief could potentially benefit from the following:
- holy power (setting THAC0 to 9th level fighter THAC0, i.e. 12)
- chant, 11
- aid, 10
- bless (stacks with aid), 9
DUHM doesn't help as strength does not give a THAC0 advantage to touch spells. However, there are two significant benefits I didn't take account of previously:
- invisibility, 5 (sanctuary doesn't give a benefit and I was thinking a poverty cleric had no way to go invisible, but of course a cleric/thief may be able to hide (though that wouldn't necessarily be straightforward in that fight).
- slay living, 2 (testing the spell, it gives an undocumented bonus of 3 to hit).
Getting the above all working at the same time would not of course be easy! However, if done that would mean you could hit Belhifet with a 14, or a 35% chance. If you did pull off the miraculous doom as well that would mean a 30% chance of failing his saving throw. That would give an overall chance of success of over 10% - piece of piss.
Haha, damn, the stars must align perfectly for this to work then !
Especially managing to buff up during the fight with no gear on and without dying, that would already be quite the achievement haha !
The thing that I haven't tested is how much time passes during the cut-scene at the start of the battle with Belhifet. If that's not much then you could buff up while you're in the lift after killing the last of the 3 groups of enemies that appear. However, even if you can't make use of any of the bonuses, there's still a chance and Lady Luck might smile on you .
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Afterwards we went to Baldur's Gate and finished several new quests.
-Alatos and the Thieves' Guild
-Investigating the Merchant's League Estate
-Larceny at the Hall of Wonders
-Marek and Lothander
-The Captive Nymph
-Tremain's Son
We dealt with a few other odds and ends in Baldur's Gate as well (the wizards at the top of Sorcerous Sundries, the "sisters of entropy" in the Low Lantern, Larze in the Blushing Mermaid, etc. etc.) and somewhat notably, we obtained and used the Manuals of Dexterity, Intelligence, and one of the three Manuals of Wisdom. None of these provide noteworthy boosts to our abilities, but they at least make our character that much more impressive looking. Speaking of impressive looking; with the greatly increased quantity of XP gained from quests now, our character is rapidly approaching level 10, which will be an incredibly valuable boost. +2 HP, -1 THAC0, -1 AC, -1 saving throws, and +1 movement speed are all quite nice enhancements.
Come Monday I'll be looking to begin a detailed and thorough cleaning out of all the quests and other interesting ventures that can be found in the great city.
-A Bard's Request
-A Contract Killing
-A Corpse for Arkion
-A Ring for a Lady
-Basilisk on the Loose
-Brielbara's Baby
-G'axir the Seer
-Ghorak the Diseased
-Laerta and Louise
-Missing Citizens
-Nadine and Euric
-Noralee's Gauntlets
-Petrine's Cat
-Quinn's Friend
-Shlimes and Oozshes
-The Helm of Balduran
-The Seven Suns
In addition to the quests, we also dealt with a few of the minor attractions (E.g. the ogre assassins in the dock's district). I've decided I'll try to start explaining all the places where deaths occurred or where difficult and/or noteworthy fights happen.
The most notable event was certainly the fight against Degrodel's minions. (bloody hell that fight took a lot of work. The only way I succeeded was by running in and out of buildings. My stunning blow didn't seem to affect the doom guards, and they hit too hard. They died easily enough, but the invisible stalkers felt like a horrible tank. They just took hit after hit. 3-5 per stalker. And I'm typically dealing 14-20 damage a blow, too!)
I died a couple of times against the greater basilisk in the docks, but third time's the charm and a stunning blow on the first hit signals a swift end to the beast.
The ogre mage and the various carrion crawlers in the sewers also defeated Tugul numerous times. If a carrion crawler gets a successful hold on me, the fight's over. Even though they do so little damage, they reapply the hold before I can recover from the first. And that's with me making a good 80-90% of my saves! When I finally beat them at the end of the stream, I did so by assassinating the mage, then outrunning the crawlers, vanishing into the dark and reappearing to 2-shot one before disappearing again. An accidental trip up the ladder de-spawned two of them, much to my chagrin. It's only about 840 XP lost, but it's still sad.
Despite how hard the ogre mages in the docks district hit, Tugul made his saves against their CC spells and tanked his way through their damaging ones, resulting in a first try success.
Jardak proved dangerous with his +1 longsword, but it didn't stop Tugul from mashing his face into a fine paste.
Stunning blow was incredibly useful (the most useful it's been, I'd say) in the fight against the Maulers of the Undermountain. I didn't die, but I did reload once here because I wanted to single-handedly beat them and gain the XP all for myself, not sharing any with the Merry Fools.
I chose to let the former adventurers turned statues leave with their lives instead of killing them for their XP, which in retrospect I regret somewhat. Occasionally my role-play gets the better of my meta-gaming. This is a very good thing in P&P D&D, but not as useful in a challenge run.
I made the mistake of fighting Sunin and his bodyguards at half health initially. This resulted in two completely avoidable deaths before I thought to stop at an inn first. Even after healing they still weren't exceptionally easy.
I then made the exact same mistake fighting against Wiven and her thief brethren, though I only lost my life once to them.
All in all, my skills could certainly improve, but thankfully this isn't some sort of No-Reload run. Despite the easy difficulty setting, there has certainly been some real challenge in certain areas. I think it might be possible without the un-capper on Core Rules, but I'm certainly not interested in trying it, that's for sure.
Next time we will continue with the main quest. I know there is sort of a continuation to "A Corpse for Arkion", so we'll make sure to do that next time too.
We only ended up completing Shandalar's Ice Prison, then after we spent most of the remaining stream time attempting to kill Shandalar. This was unsuccessful, as while I could hit him, I could only do so on a crit. What's more, our stunning blow was revealed (after many attempts) to be useless, as he made his save despite rolling a 1. While I could, could, theoretically quickload time and again to see if I could manage enough consecutive crits to down him, the likelihood of it working is far too unlikely for me.
As for other noteworthy battles? There really weren't any, save for one. We suffered significantly at the hands of Cloudwulfe and co., dying to them numerous times until a combination of stealth, stunning blows, screen transition abuse, and running between the two staircases finally brought them down. I think it did cost us about six deaths before we succeeded, though.
One or two wolfweres we could handle, but if there were any more they would shred us with their rapid powerful strikes. After a great deal of struggle we managed to complete most of the quests in the area, but Balduran's wreck was too much. I ended up testing out whether or not the silver knife (Balduran's Butterknife, I think?) would make things any easier. Oddly enough, the -1 AC (from single weapon style) seemed to make a massive difference, and while I still couldn't handle too many at once, my odds improved dramatically. This was not to last, however, and in the end I had to give up and reload. This was after Karoug had despawned, however, so I couldn't even attempt to lure him away from the rest. I think it may have been possible for us to defeat Karoug if it was a one on one, through a combination of the knife, DUHM, and stunning blow, but alas, I had already quick-saved too many times. If I wanted to try taking Karoug down it would cost me an extra hour or two to go back through everything all over again. What's more, I would have had to reload anyway, since the dagger isn't allowed for anything more than testing. I gave up, reloaded the save from before stepping on the boat, and continued on.
As if to punish me for breaking the rules, the stream then crapped out and proceeded to record only audio for the remaining hour. We had moved on to Candlekeep, completing everything there prior to slaying Rieltar and company. I finished with a dramatic cliff-hanger ending after reading the letter from Gorion, only to discover the issue with the stream. There wasn't anything I could do, so in the end, I uploaded the whole thing as a "WHAT IF" on my Youtube channel and we'll pick up next time going to Candlekeep from the beginning.
Now for some theory-crafting. Could we defeat the Isle of Balduran with a solo poverty monk (with an XP uncapper)? The answer is definitively yes, but would it be worth it? We'd be looking at grinding all the way to level 15 for +3 fists, by which point I think our THAC0 and AC would be unquestionably strong enough to smash Karoug and all his friends. But is that really a good choice? I'm inclined to say no.
Now, there is the potential to level just to 13 and save-scum quivering palm, which I have no reason to believe should not work against Karoug and the other greater wolfweres, but again, this would likely require some grinding. Based on my research, it looks as though by the end of BG1, I should be between level 11 and 13. With how close we are and how much XP is still required, I am more than inclined to say that level 12 will be our cap. Now, one could argue that grinding to level 15 is only fair, as it would put us equal to Sarevok, and after all, he has all that fancy armour and weaponry, so grinding really just evens the playing field. I, however, am not sure that's either in the spirit of the challenge, nor something I have the spirit to do. That'd be a lot of wyverns. If you have any thoughts on the matter, feel free to add them.
With the solo poverty rules, even stretching them a bit to allow the use of that dagger you can't sell, I'm pretty sure Karoug is unbeatable before HLAs. Either Whirlwind Attack/Greater Whirlwind or Greater Deathblow, with the werebane dagger, ought to work. That, and you'd need to extend your uncapper to add HLAs to BGEE.
A non-poverty solo monk ... dual-wielding the werebane dagger and the Burning Earth long sword, plus a Wand of the Heavens hit each round, might be able to do the job with enough levels and support gear.
The second lycanthrope boss, Selaad, is much easier to handle - he doesn't have that super-fast regeneration. You still can't hit him with any level of fists, but attrition with the werebane dagger should work.
All of the other wolfweres and werewolves merely require magical weapons to hit.
We did, however, reach level 11, providing us with the much desired immunity to poison. This will be a big difference for any remaining spiders or hobgoblin elites we come across. At this point it's only crowd control spells like Feeblemind and Horror (or worse, Hold Person) that scare us. In terms of damage, melee opponents are far more intimidating, and we're coming across more fighters with the power to really tear us apart. Our innate AC and THAC0 aren't yet at the level needed to really power through those types of opponents. On the bright side, when we hit, we hit hard, usually dealing around 18-20 damage a blow.
Our wisdom is certainly doing well, as we obtained the last two Tomes of Understanding, boosting our WIS to 21! I think it gave us six points of lore... Underwhelming, to be sure. As Rik said during the stream, it's a shame that WIS doesn't affect monk AC. And alas, we were (as I expected) unable to obtain the Manual of Gainful Exercise, meaning that our 19 STR is the best we get. But that's certainly better than the average monk, so no sense crying over spilt milk.
As far as deaths, I think we fell prey to spiders and basilisks a few times, but most of our reloads came in the form of avoiding a wizard's lightning bolt killing either himself or one of his party.
I know Prat and co. killed us at least once after a well placed horror from Sakul allowed the archer Tam to pincushion us while we ran about.
Rieltar and co. caused reloads, but it was (I believe) almost exclusively a result of Rieltar's aforementioned ignorant application of lightning bolts.
I think we may have also suffered a death or three at the hands of the ghasts in Durlag's Tower. That kitchen area on the second (first if you're from the UK) floor has a nasty Hold Person trap that spells doom for a solo poverty character hit by it.
Either way, another stream down. Next time we'll finish Durlag's Tower which might take the whole stream, it might not. I don't really know. If it doesn't we'll continue on towards the endgame in the city of Baldur's Gate!
On the first of the lower levels, we struggled most against the three greater dopplegangers (GD). This would be a recurring issue, as one or two GDs was difficult but manageable, especially if we could prevent one from casting mirror image. It became more troublesome when confronted with several at once. We hit hard, but our THAC0 isn't high enough to consistently hit high-AC enemies, and our damage isn't high enough to put them on the ground quickly enough. Meanwhile groups of enemies are able to whale on us with few repercussions. We did manage it with a bit of running around and stunning blows, although if the enemy AI pathing is good enough, the hasted GDs can catch us. The two flesh golems comboed with the Skeleton warrior were a bit scary, but a quick dash away and a lay on hands before returning solved the problem.
At this point, stunning blow and DUHM is basically a requisite for any fight involving two or more opponents. The one round that stunning blow lasts is really heartbreaking, as even with three uses, it dissipates far too quickly.
Moving down to the next floor, we struggled a lot. It was here that my temper flared as death after death occurred as a result of Tugul critically missing. I swear, it felt like he missed half his swings. With a THAC0 of 2 or 3 (thanks to DUHM), it feels like he misses far more than he should. The GDs mimicking Kiel and Islanne seemed to be the worst, as the invisibility spell or whatever it is they're using seems to make them insufferably hard to hit. Can transformed GDs use their mirror image and haste? It didn't appear so, but that might explain a bit. Either way, we held our tongue and barely restrained the swears as we pummeled our way through. The tactics are, unsurprisingly, much the same as they have been. we did use the sigil transporter to abuse the enemy AI some, killing the dwarven doomguards and ghouls with that trick. At this point of the tower I find I'm less concerned with enemies dying and giving us XP than I am with them just dying. If a trap kills them it is perfectly fine to me.
After several tries to defeat the skeleton warrior trio in the false exit, we finally beat them and moved down to the next floor. This floor was... actually not too bad. The greater wyverns could be defeated one on one, unquestionably due to our immunity to poison. We then killed the ensorcelled heroes one on one and proceeded on to the elemental trials. Ice killed us once due to Kaldran the polar bear "freezing" us (hold person), but on our second try we prioritized him and were successful. Air was close because the Air Aspect was insanely fast, but we prevailed, even eliminating the invisible stalkers. Fire was absurdly easy, as the phoenix guards drop like flies and they aren't numerous enough to threaten us with their explosive deaths. Earth... Earth made me think that we couldn't complete Durlag's Tower. We have no source of fire damage, so the Fission Slime was unkillable, or so I thought. After several attempts and a bit of research to understand its gimmick, I threw up my hands and went on my way, dealing with Air and Fire next.
I then cleared out the rest of the area, dying *numerous* times to the greater ghouls. Those punks were infuriating. The Ashirukuru were actually fairly easy, and the skeleton room in the middle was only irritating because of the Stinking Cloud traps. The cloud did result in a death, but it wasn't too bad. I then had the spark of creativity that ended up not being necessary. I thought to myself, why don't I lure the Fission Slime to the room with the endless fireball trap? That should kill it! I decided to kill one or two myself for the experience, only to find that taking down one teleported me to the chess room. Apparently even though I didn't truly defeat it, that was enough, so long as I had bested the other trials.
The chessboard took a few tries. Scoping out the enemy, trying to understand what worked and what didn't. My final successful attempt involved drawing out and killing each pawn one on one, before stealthing across the board (quickly to avoid lightning bolts), killing the queen (to level up, as the king alone wouldn't get me the level), then pummeling the king into submission. One of the bishops didn't disappear as quickly, and he sent a farewell Hold Person at me, spooking me a bit. Fortunately he disappeared immediately after, so whether I saved or not, it wouldn't have negatively affected me.
And that's where we ended. The stream started about fifteen minutes late and I ended it about fifteen minutes late, but there just wasn't enough time to complete the tower in one stream. Ideally we'll see the triumphant Tugul crash through the Demon Knight and return from the depths on Monday! Hope to see you then!
You could try dual-wielding the dagger - monk special abilities can normally be activated by a weapon in the off-hand so long as the main hand uses their fist. Also free action won't protect against stun unless you have mods installed to make that change (though I'm not sure if Karoug has immunity to stun as well anyway).
The dual-wielding penalties will make it more difficult to hit Karoug, but if you're reloading anyway that shouldn't be a problem.
Dual-wielding the dagger... now that does work. Testing with some BG2EE characters:
Test conditions: Pokey is a level 14 monk with a short sword (proficient) in his off hand. Punching Bag is a level 13 sorcerer with 3 Dex, active Stoneskin, active Protection from Magical Weapons, and no gear.
Start an attack sequence and get a couple of fist attacks in, then activate Quivering Palm ... one more ineffective fist attack, then the short sword delivers the instant-kill blow.
The werebane dagger is +4 versus lycanthropes, so that's a total of -4 wielded off-hand. At level 13, with strength 19, that's 11 to hit Karoug's -2 AC. Then he saves on a 7, so you have an overall 15% chance of killing him with each attempt.
FYI, monks and sorcerers are not the only candidates for poverty runs : I’ve completed BG1 and BG2 with a solo totemic druid, and even managed to advance quite far in BG2 (till Irenicus in Spellhold) with a cleric/thief in solo, poverty, no-reload, legacy of bhaal run (although the LoB part makes it all about summons, so definitely a very different gameplay)
@monico it's not actually quite that difficult using a monk in BG1. Davaeorn can be a problem in a no-reload if he's feeling uncooperative, but the two main encounters where you need a bit of luck are the Coronation and the fight with Sarevok. Having two horror spells helps in the former to break the opposition up and with a bit of luck a couple of the dopplegangers will chase you and can be stranded in the side rooms. In the latter, Sarevok can be dragged out using LMD, but Semaj will teleport out in support. You need some luck to get him - horror may work to take him out of sight of Sarevok where he can be left alone, but if that doesn't work stunning blows are another possibility (his saves are pretty good though). Once you manage to get Sarevok on his own, it's not particularly hard to use the pillars to stealth despite his slight speed advantage.
By the way, how did you manage to beat Mel with a totemic druid - was that relying on save-scumming or is there some useful tactic for druids I'm not aware of?
@Grond0 to me, the real problem for a solo poverty monk is the final fight, everything else can be done or avoided. Aggroing Sarevok out of sight of his henchmen is doable, the problem is:
- no matter which kit you take, your combat stats vs his are so far apart that a direct fight should only end in your demise (unless he only rolls 1 and you only do crits)
- his saves are 1, so if you can’t lower them, your stunning blows and other abilities will not work
About my totemic druid, when I said "I cleared bg1 and bg2", I meant only those (no SoD nor ToB). I don’t think Big B or Mel are actually feasible alas.
To be frank, my runs/challenges rarely cover ToB. I don’t like it much for plenty of reasons (storyline, OP characters, mainly).
EDIT : some number crunching between Sarevok and a lvl8 monk:
Sarevok : -5 AC; 135HP; -5 thac0; 4 ApR; 90% elemental resistances; 1 to all his saving throws
Lvl8 poverty monk: 80HP max; 0 AC (if 18 starting DEX + DEX tome + DuHM); 9 thac0 (if 18 starting STR + tome + DuHM = 21 STR so -4 thac0 to its 13 base thac0); 2 ApR, 1d10+9 dmg
Basically, Sarevok hits you 4 times per round unless critical miss.
You hit 2 per round if you manage to roll 14 or higher.
The kits would bot fare much better, since the DMM’s blur doesn’t help at all, the elemental damage from the frozen fist or the SSM’s abilities are almost entirely resisted.
In fact, I’d say you would be better going the evil DMM route and take the Vampiric Touch dream abilities. with the DMM’s own Vampiric Touch that he gets at lvl7, that allows you to try casting 3x4d6 dmg, meaning up to 72 damage. If you don’t get interrupted. With 2 MLD’s, that’s 80 damage total.
But then you’re dead in seconds.
The only way would be to make careful use of the terrain and pillars, hitting Sarevok from the shadows, flee around a corner before he reacts (he runs faster than you so not easy to pull off), and re-stealth hoping it works.
Keeping in mind that at lvl8, with only 10 skill points per lvl, you won’t have superb stealth skills (I’d say about 70% in both at most, under DuHM buff)
That’ll probably take more than the 2 turns worth of DuHM you may have though, so it gets even more difficult and random.
One of the things that annoys me about the Bhaal VT power is how slow that is to cast - you're extremely likely to lose more HPs than you gain trying to use that on Sarevok.
Well, there's only one way to know : my next run will be a solo poverty monk
This won't be no-reload though, because this fight in particular will probably need some grinding to hone my evading/stealthing skills ^^
On a side note, about monks in BG1 in general, I don't know if it was said on this thread, but the wolf cape (Relair's Mistake) is a very useful item for solo monks: you move a bit faster, have better combat stats, hit as +1 (at least magical), and your paws benefit from the monk's fist APRs.
In fact, if I had to chose only 1 item to attempt a solo monk run, that would definitely be the item I would go for.
@monico Welcome to the thread! You bring up a lot of interesting points. I had no clue that more classes could do a poverty run. To be honest, I hadn't really seen poverty runs anywhere except for this one Gamefaqs guide way back in the day. I can't even find it anymore, but that's where I heard that only monks and sorcerers could do it. Although the logic given in the guide did seem sound, I'm happy to hear that there are even more options.
You might also be interested in this old discussion, which does at least briefly consider options beyond the sorcerer.
The problem with poverty runs is that if you have the final SoD and final ToB fight in mind, it is indeed impossible for most classes to do anything.
But my point when doing poverty runs (i've done a few) is not to "clear that final battle", but to see how much progress I can make, what strategies I can come up with, etc.
Poverty runs is how I discovered the fun & awesomeness of druids (and totemic ones in particular). One such run was not only poverty-oriented, but also had as a rule "no-direct damage from PC" (only buffs/debuffs, the damage can only be done by summons). There is no logical reason for this rule than just "hey, let's see if it's possible/fun".
What I mean is that, if you only think of 1 or 2 battles in the whole saga to prevent you from doing a run, you miss all the potential fun along the way : I'm currently running a randomized solo no-reload challenge, were class, weapons, stats are relatively random and often end up with characters that I know will never beat the entirety of the game, but each is unique in its own way and it's fun !
EDIT : also a note about the feasability of poverty runs. For SoD for example, it would be impossible to fight Belhifet who needs +3 weapons to hit for anything other than a sorcerer. Which means the problem here is with the rules of the poverty challenge and not the character builds. I think that if just 1 or 2 fights bar you from clearing the challenge, you should be allowed a tweak for THAT particular 1 or 2 fights (like be allowed the +3 weapon needed to face Big B ).
I don't have other such examples, since I rarely include ToB in my runs (where I suspect would be the most problematic fights).
@monico I think you were trying out a cleric/thief recently. That has the ability to beat both Belhifet (slay living - which ignores MR) and Mel (mainly spike traps). The chance against Belhifet is small, but perfectly realistic if you're allowing reloads.
wow, so many bosses are immune to the slay effect that I did not think Big B could die from that spell (also, didn't know about the slay effect bypassing MR).
Although, with its high ST:Spell (5), and C/T's bad thac0 vs. Belhifet's high AC, that would indeed require much reloading.
I guess starting the fight with a Doom spell would be a good first step.
Then whatever's needed to lower the C/T's thac0 as much as possible.
Is that spell's attack a melee attack or a ranged attack ?
EDIT : om nom nom (number crunching) : at SoD's lvl cap, a C/T normally has only 1 lvl5 spell slot. If going half-orc (for better thac0 & WIS) + 3 tomes of understanding (if allowed, since the idea is a poverty run), that's a 2nd lvl5 spells, so at most 2 chances of slaying Belhifet.
With Belhifet's 80% mag res, trying to land a Doom spell before Belhifet casts Improved Invisibility will be tricky (and trying to dispel it until Doom lands could take too long, a naked C/T would probably not survive that long).
Best case scenario, let's say Doom lands --> Belhifet's ST is now 7. So Belhifet has 70% chances of shrugging each slay effect. Having 2 casts of the spell, that's 100% - (70% * 70%) = 51% chances that Belhifet survives both hits.
Without Doom, it's only 36% chances of success.
Now, the attack actually must land for the slay effect to trigger.
At SoD's lvl cap, a C/T has 15 base thac0.
For this strategy to work, there won't be much time to prebuff (and spells will mostly have expired during the cinematic). I'd say, at most, you have time for 1 or 2 buffs.
I'd suggest Chant (and hope that it bypasses Belhifet's 80% MR), then Holy Power (-6 thac0 from the 18/00 set STR and the fighter base thac0) --> it is actually even better than a half-orc with 19 starting STR + STR tome + DuHM (23 STR is -5 thac0).
That still only brings you to 9, effectively 8 (chant luck effect) thac0.
I don't remember exactly Belhifet's AC. I think it is -8, but I don't know why I think that.
If true, that means having to roll at least 16 or higher (25% chances).
So, if I'm not wrong with percentages, the probabilities would be 14,4375% chances of slaying Belhifet
(25% chances of hit roll 16 or higher) * (30% of slay effect applying) = 7,5% chances per try to kill Belhifet.
Or 92,5% chances for Belhifet to survive.
Since only 1 of the casts needs to land, we'll have to calculate the chances for Belhifet not to survive one of the casts, so:
1 - (0,925 x 0,925) = 1 - 0,855625 = 14,4375%
Does that seem correct, mathematically ?
I'm pretty sure Belhifet's MR is not 100% (Wiki states 80%, I think it is correct).
BTW, I couldn't find a detailed description of Belhifet's stats/immunities (the wiki is not complete on that part), do you have them (or a link to them) ?
Last thought about that Slay Living spell and I'll stop the off-topic there : does the Slay Living attack hits as +3 ?
He's definitely had 100% MR when I've come across him before, but I think that's the result of an equipped item - so the Wiki is correct that he himself has 80%. It's possible I suppose that item is only added in LoB, though I vaguely remember it applies to any difficulty level above normal.
Full stats are somewhere in the LoB SCS challenge thread, but I'm not sure exactly where. However, he's got 100% fire resistance and 50% cold, he's immune to poison and has 25% resistance to melee damage with 50% to missile damage. His AC is -12 and he has THAC0 of -1 (including adjustment for 22 strength).
Slay living can definitely hit him (and kill him). Looking at it a bit further though, I was too pessimistic about the chance to hit Belhifet. In addition to his single L5 spell (which has to be slay living), the cleric thief could potentially benefit from the following:
- holy power (setting THAC0 to 9th level fighter THAC0, i.e. 12)
- chant, 11
- aid, 10
- bless (stacks with aid), 9
DUHM doesn't help as strength does not give a THAC0 advantage to touch spells. However, there are two significant benefits I didn't take account of previously:
- invisibility, 5 (sanctuary doesn't give a benefit and I was thinking a poverty cleric had no way to go invisible, but of course a cleric/thief may be able to hide (though that wouldn't necessarily be straightforward in that fight).
- slay living, 2 (testing the spell, it gives an undocumented bonus of 3 to hit).
Getting the above all working at the same time would not of course be easy! However, if done that would mean you could hit Belhifet with a 14, or a 35% chance. If you did pull off the miraculous doom as well that would mean a 30% chance of failing his saving throw. That would give an overall chance of success of over 10% - piece of piss.
Especially managing to buff up during the fight with no gear on and without dying, that would already be quite the achievement haha !
The thing that I haven't tested is how much time passes during the cut-scene at the start of the battle with Belhifet. If that's not much then you could buff up while you're in the lift after killing the last of the 3 groups of enemies that appear. However, even if you can't make use of any of the bonuses, there's still a chance and Lady Luck might smile on you