Already this party has forced some interesting choices. The Ring of Evermemory for now I gave to Jessup of all people--because he's the only arcane caster with spells slots! Jessup also has Identify scribed from the getgo. So now he can Identify four items per rest period, lol.
Thankfully, Shank critted Tarnesh with a poisoned backstab. But then what to do with his three spell scrolls? Phyldia can't memorize them as a sorceress, although she can cast them from quickslots. Parda, the party's Bard, has yet to earn his first spell slot. And poor Jessup with his 9 Int has only a 35% chance to successfully scribe a spell. Parda (Int 13) at least has a 55% chance. So I decided to make an investment in having Parda scribe all three scrolls. He did succeed in learning Magic Missile and Burning Hands. He failed with Armor, however.
Anyway, it's turning out to be a pretty quirky challenge. How they'll handle the Nashkel mines kind of worries me, honestly. I don't really want to cheese-out by using the Bassilisk area... But I might have them sidequest for a bit with some relatively easy stuff before attempting the mines.
Can non-charname characters use familiars now??? This is great btw.
edit: the photo is really cool...like a group picture captioned "Me and the gang before the road trip of 1099"
Yes, and I was surprised to see that. I guess if you are playing a MP game with other players, each character is a player-character. And when you're using all the slots for just one player it still keeps that in effect. Although, as noted, evidently only CHARNAME can have full use of a familiar.
I think I'm going to treat it like a special (once per rest cycle) ability summoning spell for Parda. There's no in-game negative consequence if the creature dies (but by the same token neither does it impart an HP boost). Let's say that the iguana having been transmuted into a fairy dragon has some sort of funky ability to regenerate itself. :-)
This is actually a neat quirk. Really liking the idea of it, at least.
I've decided to offer both versions of Jessup. Why not. They're now on the BG: the Wide page (here). I made Jessup 2 Neutral Evil, though, just to make things more interesting.
I don't think of Jessup 2 as wholly evil. Just evil in the narcissistic, ultimately self-centered way that TV's "House" is, i.e., personal needs/wants/whims always supersede concerns about hurting others; and indeed in taking some pleasure in hurting others' feelings through a compulsion to constantly take others down a peg. (Note: Jessup 2 isn't a titanic super-genius like Dr. Gregory House, but he is cut from a similar sort of personality cloth).
Great! I was looking for a new run for this summer, just to try the new 1.3 beta version, when I discover this thread. I already played the "random PC&party" challenge and it was really fun, and this is even more challenging since you really have only one shot to try it out. Here we go:
Mods I have installed: 1. Sword Coast Stratagems, as always, big fan of this mod. For those who know it I have the following components installed: - every single smarter/improved enemy (except for improved kobolds), every improved final chapter battle and every improved minor encounter - option 3 of smarter mages (no pre-buff except for long-lasting spells like armor, shield or stone skin) - option 1 for improved clerics (they pre-buff with long and short-lasting spells) - potions for npc (2/3 of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost) - reputation increases 1/4 more slowly than normal, which won't help an heroic party like this 2. Faces: Great mod that adds a portrait to almost every NPC with something interesting to say 3. NPC Items: This mod allows you to buy Dorn, Rasaad and Neera quest items in stores around the game. Elven chains for everyone!
Charname & The Party This part is tricky. I've thinking for a while what class would I be if I lived in Faerum. My first idea was fighter, I guess everyone could be a fighter, but I have never been in a fight in real life. I'm a networking engineer, my job is usually about solving problems and solving them fast and under pressure. So my strengh is my brains, but that doesn't make me a mage, does it? On the other hand, my favourite hobby (along with BG saga of course) is music. I play guitar, piano and drums and I can sing. I usually play my guitar when I hang out with my friends and family just for the fun, and even though I'm not really into story-telling I guess If I lived in Faerum I would be a bard. Well to be honest I think I’d probably be a commoner, but since there’s no such class I’ll take bard, better yet, crappy bard (I decided to EE:Keeper Charname a and tone down DEX and CHA). So, let me introduce you to... me!
The party I’ve choosen for this amazing adventure is Reevor, Erik, Dreppin, Imoen and Phlydia.
Well that’s it. I’m not really concern about the speed contest (I guess I’ll rest a lot) and I’ll be metagaming (I know were the goodies are and I intend to take them). I’m currently in chapter 2 (didn’t get to the mines yet) so I’ll upload some screenshots in my next post.
@Dexter, looks like fun! I appreciate how you nerfed your RL Int and Cha in the spirit of the concept. I went the other direction by increasing my Int in order to be able to dual-class.
The mods you have installed look neat. I'm particularly interested to try Faces one day.
THE ADVENTURES OF DEXTER, THE ROCKIN’ BARD. POST 2 Residents of Candlekeep + SCS Challenge
I though it would be weird to do Phlydia’s or Dreppin’s quest while having them on the party so Dexter went through the Prologue solo. Note that I didn’t killed Shank nor Carbos. This guys are assassins under SCS and will use poison weapon, which means if they hit me I’m dead. Yes they still have crappy thac0 and AC, but so do I, and I’m not taking that kind of risk for no price. Besides I may have to recruit one of them in the future in case Immy dies. I had enough money to buy a long bow and a few arrows for Dexter.
CHAPTER 1 THE LION’s WAY
After Gorion demise and Imoen arrival I finally can join the rest of the party members. Unfortunately, they have no gear whatsoever, so Dexter gladly lend his long bow to erik, who would make a better use of it.
I decided to explore the whole area, and it was worth it. Besides killing a few diseased gibberlings and Imoen finding a diamond, the party ran into a dread wolf. They are worth 650xp and seem to be immune to sleep. I sent naked Reevor ahead while Erik and Imoen pelt the wolf with arrows and Dexter fired two magic missiles from Imoen’s wand. Reevor had to drink his first (but not last) healing potion, but hey, 650xp is always nice.
The party really needed some basic equipment (specially Reevor), so they traveled to Coast Way and followed the road straight north. They only stopped when Phlydia found a ring hidden in a rock. She said she had the feeling that the ring was magical and that it could be dangerous, so she wouldn’t let us use it until she had the time to identify it.
FRIENDLY ARM INN
The party finally arrived to the Friendly Arm Inn. Not that friendly, I guess, because a man wearing wizard robes attacked the party. The ranged fire and a well placed magic missile finished him, but he managed to hit Reevor with his quarterstaff. Reevor gets hit a lot.
Phlydia identified the ring she found, a Ring of Protection+1, which Reevor would use. After a deserved night of rest, the party met Joia, who wanted help to retrieve a ring of hers from a bunch of hobgoblins in the area. I bought a splint mail, a medium shield and 3 axes for Reevor, another long bow and arrows, and we set off on hobgoblin hunting. While we were exploring the area Phlydia found another ring, which she identified right away. It was the Evermemory ring, which she equipped right away. The hobgoblins were easy to kill with 3 archers and Reevor’s axe, and Joia was very happy when we returned her ring (no +1 rep reward, though). We saved the bastard swords we looted from the hobgoblins because we heard there is a wizard in Beregost who pays more than usual for mundane weapons. After another rest the party sets off south. Unfortunately we were ambushed by wargs, and dreppin nearly died. Phlydia saved the day with a sleep spell.
THE COAST WAY
The party was determined to explore the whole area, fighting their way through gibberlings, xvarts, bandits, kobolds and even an ogre, which Dreppin took down with a command word spell. Ogres are racial enemy for Erik, and he is even more a formidable archer when he mets one of them. The party headed south, but before going to Beregost we traveled to High Hedge.
HIGH EDGE
Both Phlydia and me are very interested in magic, so we were really excited to met Thalantyr, mighty mage of Beregost. On our way to his hold we were ambushed by three gnolls. This was the first time Reevor decided to use his defensive instance, and it saved his life because two of the gnolls had high attack rolls that would otherwise have dealed 21 damage (instead of 11) thus killing him. We understimated the gnolls, so Phlydia cast sleep at them. One of the Gnolls had a short sword with a letter “P” engraved on its hilt, that Imoen can use.
At Thalantyr’s we sold some extra loot and spend all our gold to buy a potion of freedom, a potion of perception, a potion case and scrolls of grease, charm person and protection from petrification. On to Beregost.
BEREGOST
The party had to work really hard in the big city of Beregost. First we calmed down a drunk guy named Marl who was looking for a fight. Then we ran into old Firebead Elvenhair, who gave us a scroll case (and +1 rep) in exchange of a book. We were exhausted so we rested in Feldepost inn. In the Read Sheaf Inn, a dwarf fighter attacked us because he wanted to collect a bounty on my head. Dreppin knocked him down with a commad word spell. In the Inn we met Perdue, whose sword was stolen by gnolls. As it turned out, it was the sword we found near High Edge. We had yet another quest; a dwarven lady named Landrin told us back in FAI to clear out his spider-infested house. A sleep spell did the job done, but we stored the items we are supposed to deliver to Landrin in the house because we’re not going north for now.
Dexter is now level 2, but he only gained 2 HP.
SOUTH BEREGOST ROAD
The party was in good shape and we though we could beat any enemy. First we killed 2 ogrillons we found down the road. They had killed a man. One of them had a letter addressed to a woman named Mirianne, which turned out to live in Beregost. She was so glad to hear from his husband that she gave us another Ring of Protection +1. Then we helped a misterious woman named Viconia who was hunted down by a mercenary. We killed the mercenary and even though I liked her I declined her proposal to join me. Good news is Reevor now has a plate mail while Dreppin can wear Reevor’s splint mail. After this everything went wrong. We ran into a ghast, an undead monster. We thought we could beat it, but the undead hit Reevor and paralyzed him. Reevor was dead before we had time to blink, but Erik managed to kill the monster with several accurate shots. Fortunately ghast dont's deal too much damage and Reevor wasn't chunked.
Imoen level up (2) as well, gaining 4HP and placing all 25 skill points into Lock Pick. We went to the temple and resurrected Reevor. Then we hanged out for a while at the Jovial Juggler, Reevor needed some rest. Imoen decided to go out for a while, and when she came back she had an amazing amount of treasure in her inventory, including a bastard sword and a mace which seemed magical, potions of heroism, healing, dexterity and invisibility, a magical wand of lighting, and lots of gold and gems. Imoen likes to call it “The sack of Beregost”. We went south Beregost again and finished exploring the area, only this time we were more cautious. We found a magical pair of boots and a scroll of Protection from Petrification in the corpse of a hobgoblin and several potions of healing in a cave. Then we rested in Feldepost, sold the loot and bought a battle axe+1 for Reevor and 20 arrows+2. Dreppin level up (2), 7HP.
NORTH NASHKEL ROAD
There’s not much to say here, the party went all down the road and only ran into a pack of hobgoblins (one of them dropped a Scroll of Grease; I bought 3 scrolls from Thalantyr and I’ve found two of them as random loot). Near the camp we found two “Colquette family amulet” (I guess this is a bug?). We met Mr. Colquette back in Beregost. His family was travelling to Nashkel but it seems the hobgoblins ambushed and killed them. We’ll give him the bad news next time we go to Beregost.
FISHERMAN’S LAKE
The party decided to explore this area. At soon as we arrived we ran into a hobgoblin who wanted our gold (like we had gold anyway). We spared his life because he gave us some information about the bandit raids going on in the Sword Coast. It seems there are two mercenary groups, the Chill and the Black Talons, who are responsible of the raids. The area was crawling with gnolls and we also ran into an ogre. Then we met the famous ranger Drizzt do’Urden, who was fighting a pack of gnolls. He asked for our help (like if he needed it), so we help him (I think he let us killed one or two gnolls). After some pleasant words he left for good (unfortunately he didn’t want to join our party).
Then we met another bandit gang. It consisted of a fighter, a mage and a hobgoblin archer. Imoen found them while hidden in shadows and she said they seemed dangerous, so we approached cautiously. Indeed they wanted our gold so the fight started. Erik used his arrows+2 and fired the mage, we needed to take her down as soon as possible, and Erik did what he does best. Then we killed the hobgoblin archer and finally the fighter. He managed to hit Reevor for quite damage so Dreppin put him to sleep with a command word:die spell.
Finally, we found what we were looking for. Back in the Jovial Juggler we met Bjornin, a Paladdin who was nearly kill by a pack of half-ogres in this area. We promised to kill the monsters for him and we did. Phlydia cast sleep and it took down three of them. Reevor finally level up (2), but he only gains 7 out of 15 HP. Dammed. Now the party went back to Beregost. Bjonin rewarded us with a Medium Shield+1 which Reevor can use (and +1rep). We were sorry to tell Mr. Colquette the news about his family (+1 rep). Erik level up (2), gains 5HP We didn’t stay long in Beregost, the party set off to Nashkel and Chapter 2.
There's no restriction on replaying this challenge, by the way. I used the term "one-off" earlier in the context of assuming that most players usually have lots of game ideas already planned. But if people would like to take multiple goes at this challenge then all the merrier.
Well, I'm a little disappointed to report that Parda can't make his familiar reappear. :-/ He performs the spell animation, but the critter doesn't materialize.
I would have loved for him to be able to summon it once per rest cycle the way that Tiax can summon a ghast. If anyone knows of a way to do that via EE Keeper please advise! :-D
In other news my party of
Lemernis - Priest of Lathander (who will dual to Mage) Phlydia Fuller Parda Shank Jessup 1
just cleared the road around FAI of hobgoblins and it was both amusing and nail-biting that they had to rely so heavily on Shank to backstab, then draw the mob to the party. I then had to have the PC dance around to try to avoid injury as they fought (and he did get injured pretty bad, twice). Jessup would kind of run up and poke at a hobgoblin with his dagger then run away, lol.
Shank at least has the element of surprise with his backstabs, and his poison attacks will kill. After his backstab attempt Shank zig-zags and weaves about to draw and distract the enemy, eventually looking to attack from the flank with his poison once the enemy is engaged in melee with the PC and Fuller. But it's always risky.
Anyway, a crit to any of my party members and they're D-E-D dead.
THE ADVENTURES OF DEXTER, THE ROCKIN’ BARD. POST 3 Residents of Candlekeep + SCS Challenge
Party Status
Dexter, bard level 3, 13HP Reevor, dwarven defender level 2, 22 HP Erik, archer level 2, 15 HP Imoen, thief level 2, 12 HP Dreppin, cleric level 2, 16 HP Phlydia, dragon disciple level 1, 6HP
CHAPTER 2: NASHKEL & CARNIVAL
The party finally arrived to Nashkel. We talked to Berrum, Oubleck (I decided to take the gold instead of reputation) and found out about Brage. I even let Noober do his “what about now” thing for the 400xp reward. Picked the Ankegh Plate for Reevor (his AC is now -2) and went to the Inn. Dreppin knocked down Neira with command word:die and the party killed her. After the fight two characters leveled up, Phlydia (level 2, 1HP!!!!) and Imoen (level 3, 6HP). I had extra copies of several spell scrolls I found as ramdom loot, so I crossed my fingers and Dexter inscribed 3 out of 7 spells (grease, shield and magic missile). After a night’s rest we went to carnival. We spend all our money buying the “one gift lost” amulet and the red elixir potion (rises INT to 25, but I’m not using it till I have stored more scrolls). Then we killed Zordral. Since Dexter had inscribed magic missile I used my extra scroll against the mage, preventing his mirror image, and he fell quickly. Now the party is going to explore the southwest portion of the map in order to obtain the gauntlets of dexterity.
FIRE LEAF FOREST
The fight against Sendai’s gang is a very good proof of the wonderful mod SCS is. This is a dangerous fight, but it’s worth lots of XP and loot so I usually do it after Nashkel with a level 2-3 party. Yes, sometimes a power word reload is needed, but more often I beat them in my first try. I always approach them from the left, so I have the river at my back. The enemies are Alexander and Delgod, which are deadly with their long bows, and Sendai, a strong melee fighter. Reevor has one potion of dexterity (the one Imoen looted in Beregost) and he drinks it for this very occasion. Reevor’s AC drops to -9 vs slashing and -11 vs missile (including Ankegh plate modifiers and sword & shield style bonus), so he’s quite safe, I think. I send him to talk to Sendai and pick up a fight while the party stays away from the archers. Reevor activates his Defensive Stance and attacks Delgod, which is the archer closer to the party, forcing him to draw his sword. Dexter then cast grease to their feet. I thought that a)being a dwarf with 17 CON, b)wearing ring of pro+1, c)defensive stance grants another +2 to ST, Reevor’s save vs. spell would be much better than our enemies, and even if he failed his save it would affect Sendai and the archers. Next move, and a very important one, Phlydia uses the wand of lighting against Delgod. Alexander is in straight line behind him, so with a little luck the lighting bolt will strike both of them, often killing them right away. Unfortunately, both of them made their save for half damage. Alexander drank one potion of healing (another feature of SCS), so he was barely injured, and Delgod (near death) retreated. Now this is the nice part. Under SCS enemies usually run away of the area of effect of spells. Delgod did so, and he got quite close to the party. He was still drawing his sword, so I attacked him with Dexter, Imoen and Erik. Reevor couldn’t follow Delgod anyway because he was greased and slowed by defensive stance, so he attacked Sendai instead. When Delgod was out of the grease area he **switched** to his bow again and, to make things worse, he had all the party members within range. Thank god he shot Dreppin for 12 damage (I guess Dreppin was the one with the higher AC), because if he had shot Phlydia or Dexter they would surely have been killed. Erik finally killed Delgod. Another charge of the wand of lighting dropped Alexander (didn’t made the save this time) and then the party killed Sendai (he saved Dreppin’s command word though). This kind of smart behavior SCS provides make every fight more challenging but to my mind, more realistic. If Delgod had shot Dexter instead of Dreppin this challenge would be over, but when I watch Delgod switch to his long bow **and** change targets I thought “what a smart motherfu*er”.
We looted the corpses and continued exploring. We ran into two winter wolves in this area, which are easy to kill even for this party and give good XP. Then we killed Zal and Vax with my lighting bolt tactic: Phlydia catch both of them with only one shot. Erik gets the bracers of archery and improves his Thac0 by 2.
Then we made Albert quest and picked up the cloudkill scroll (I won’t inscribe this one, will save it to use later). Dreppin reached level 3 in this area and gained 4 HP (now I have two level 2 cleric spells to worth with). We also ran into a pack of skeletons. Since no one in my party is proficient with blunt weapons and skeletons have slashing & missile & piercing damage resistance they are hard to kill. I’ll have to work this out.
DRYAD FALLS
This area is easier than the later. We made the dryad quest (Reevor gets the destroyer of the hills girdle), looted the cave, found another two winter wolves, helped drienne and his cat, killed a bunch of gnolls and knocked down Ingot with a command word spell. Reevor reached level 3 here, so I crossed my fingers and… yes! 12 HP. I was hesitating to place the proficiency pip in war hammers, so Reevor can use one when fighting skeletons. I finally placed it on axes so he has mastery. This grants him +2Thac0 and +1damage. He’ll be using his axe most of the time and I don’t have a magic hammer anyway. To the gnoll stronghold my comrades!
THE GNOLL FORTRESS
We rested as soon as we arrived; the right end of the bridge is usually a safe place to do it. Next morning we killed Hairtooth and whatever the other’s name is and Reevor picked up the Gauntlets of Dexterity, so his AC is now -6 plus modifiers. This doesn’t mean he won’t get hit any longer, far from it. The problem is this party doesn’t kill monsters as quickly as I’d like and critical hits happen. Besides, gnolls, xvarts and plenty other critters have twice the chance of critical hit (attack roll of 19 or 20), and I just can’t cast sleep at every pack of xvarts. So Reevor still gets hit *a lot*. Whatever. The real issue here is that I’m running out of healing potions and arrows. We went to the xvarts caves first and picked up the tome of leadership, which my alter ego would use to rise his CHA to a whopping 10. Good news at last! Erik reached level 3 (4 HP). This is a very important level up, because mastery in long bow means +2 thac0 and +1 damage (compared with specialization), and he also gets +1 thac0 & damage for being a level 3 archer. So, in addition to the Bracers of archery and the level up, he has lowered his thac0 by 6 and increased his damage by +2 since we left Nashkel. Sweet! Dexter also reached level 4, which means I can cast a level 2 mage spell, but I have found none yet. I placed his proficiency point in single weapon style. After this we cleared the gnoll stronghold. Reevor drank more healing potions than I wanted, but freeing Dynaheir is worth 800xp. I used grease, sleep and ranged fire in a strategic battle field:
Imoen and Phlydia also leveled up in this area, levels 4 and 3 respectively. For Imoen (gained only 3 HP on this level up, Phlydia even worse, 2 HP) I picked single weapon style and placed most of his thieving skill points in find traps, andI picked spook as the third spell know of Phlydia. She can use now her breath weapon ability, I look forward to that. Now we are going north.
BEAR RIVER
This is quite a heavy melee area, but since it is so far away I visit it after gnoll stronghold or never visit it at all. First we killed the polar bear. Imoen (better CHA) talked to the scared guy and he gave us the boots of the north (for Reevor in the meantime). We explored the right side of the river first, killing a bunch of hobgoblins by the way. Then we ran into Neville. This guy saved both a hold person and a command word die spells, and he drank one heroism potion and one healing potion, but he finally died. Phlydia knocked the hobgoblin archers down with sleep. Ah, and I finally was able to loot some arrows.
The northern bridge has a quite hard fight: two ogre berserkers and three hobgoblin elites. This is both heavy melee and ranged support but I decided to try it out. Ogre berserkers do use berserker rage under SCS and that make them even more dangerous (for instance they are immune to command word while enraged), so I wanted both of them disabled. Dexter cast grease in the bridge but out of the sight of the ogres, then he cast another grease spell and the party’s archers moved forward. Then Phlydia cast sleep in order to drop the hobgoblin archers and erik killed them. I used the last two charges of the wand of lighting to score some damage to the ogres, and Reevor used defensive stance when they stepped out of the grease area. I finally killed them, but reevor had to drink two potions of healing. Not worth it.
Erik killed a ogre with an awesome 30 damage critical hit:
So that's it for now. I'm not exploring xvart village, I'm out of arrows and short of healing potions, so the party is going back to Nashkel. Everyone had a level up, so I may try the mines next time. Farewel!
@Dexter I'm impressed that you're doing so well with SCS installed and mainly just Reevor on the front line--although I would assume that you probably have Dreppin helping him. I should think ankheg armor for Dreppin would be a good investment.
Running a randomly generated party, I'm having a relatively tough go with Fuller as my only true meleer. And his weapons profs are in Spear and Crossbow, lol. My cleric PC just isn't well armored enough yet on the front line without ankheg armor to commonly avoid serious injury, so for now I'm using him in melee gingerly. I'll put the Easter egg ankheg armor in Nashkel on him very soon, though. (No-reload Rule Number One: protect the quarterback!) And I think half plate should suffice for Fuller until I can raise the cash to suit him up in ankheg plate as well.
@Lemernis I do have SCS installed, but your game will be so much harder than mine! Reevor and Erik may have low stats, but they are dwarven defender, tank class by definition, and archer, which are very powerful in BG. Those two alone can hold quite a bit, that's why I chose them for my party (didn't know there was a randomly generated party challenge variant) Fuller has worse stats and his weapon proficiencies kind of put him out of the tank role, but I'd still give him ankegh plate, dexterity gauntlets, spear and crossbow and use him as one and only first liner. You are going to need a lot of magic support from your spellcasters to succeed, so good luck!
I managed to get a little more playtime in on my run. Defeated the Thayans that are hunting Neera (thanks for the gem bag). Got the Boots of Stealth for Shank. Painstakingly cleared the Coast Way of hobgoblins, human bandits, and kobolds on the way to Nashkel (for the big party of hobgobs I had to have Shank stealth and hurl knives to draw them away one at a time). Parda used his fairy dragon (more on this in the next post) to tie up one of the human archer bandits, as Shank backstabbed the other one; and that was pretty neat. Took out the other Neira, i.e., the assassin at the Nashkel Inn. Had some tense moments with ambushes during area transitions but got through them all. Got the Easter egg ankheg armor for the PC Cleric of Lathander.
Then I figured I'd collect the bounty for Brage... and things did not go as well. I ran into a cranky brown bear that attacked. Jessup fired the lightning wand at it (the one Shank stole from the estate in Nashkel) and even though the party was on completely open terrain, the lightning "ricocheted" back and killed Phlydia! Then Fuller got mauled to death by the bear. But Jessup zapped it again with the lightning wand (this time without ricochets), and the party finished the creature off.
Fortunately neither of my two fallen party members was chunked. So in a way it kind of worked out. Because with the XP awarded bringing Brage in, both Parda and Shank leveled up sooner (since the party was splitting the XP among 4 party members instead of 6). Thus, now Parda has a spell slot. (And he has Magic Missile, Burning Hands, and Grease scribed.) Anyway, it only cost 200 gp total to raise Fuller and Phlydia, so all is well.
The party is about to go to High Hedge to see about getting some spells for Jessup, and learning them with the help of a potion.
I have to say, this is working out about as well as I could have hoped with respect to the difficulty. This is a tough party to run. I have to play very smartly, and kind of gingerly almost. Everyone has to be used to their best possible advantage. I even have Jessup running around stabbing with his dagger at creatures that are already engaged--and he's actually got some kills, lol.
Right now the star is definitely Shank, what with his throwing daggers and (at times poisoned) melee dagger.
But anyway, it is nailbiting but fun to fight the low level enemies with daggers, darts, quarterstaff, spear, and crossbow! The challenge is definitely working out as I had hoped.
Also: With the help of @argent77 here and Jarno Mikkola at G3 I have gotten Parda's familiar to work--and it's a lot of fun, especially in the context of all these underpowered characters. His fairy dragon is not a familiar in the pure sense, but rather a creature that he can summon once per rest cycle. If the creature dies there is no negative effect for Parda. The fun explanation for this is that a wild magic surge happened when Parda attempted to transform his pet iguana into an enchanted familiar. (In canon wild magic can occur naturally within the Weave in certain places in Faerun, not just from a Wild's Mage's spell.) So the creature's reptilian properties were enchanted such that it regenerates itself from even a speck of its own remains.
Instead of Blur the critter can cast Mirror Image. I might give it both Blur and Mirror Image, actually. I'm still deciding. (What the hey, it was a bit of wild magic and Parda is seriously underpowered.)
I'm going to make all 18 characters of the collection (plus the script for Parda's familiar) available via a mini-mod that installs all the files to the proper folders so one can just fire up a MP game with them. I hope to have it available by sometime early in the coming week, or at the end of the week by the very latest.
This continues to be a fun and interesting playthrough. I've had a few deaths but no one got chunked. In the last session Phyldia got killed by a bandit archer when I got a little careless re-traversing the second map south of Beregost (forgetting that the bandits respawn there). And Fuller died to Graywolf's first hit. But otherwise I've managed pretty well. It's only 100 gp to resurrect, so no biggie.
I'm trying to avoid the basilisk map because it's kinda cheesy. Instead I've been doing relatively safe side quests to get everyone a few levels. I'm now at a point where I might as well head to the Nahskel mines (either that or give in and go basilisk hunting, then go to the mines).
Lemernis - Priest of Lathander 3 Phlydia - Dragon Disciple 2 Fuller - Fighter 2 Parda - Bard 3 Jessup (1) - Diviner 2 (my house rule: specialist wizards must use 1/2 their slots for their school) Shank - Assassin 3
No one is physically very strong. So the party doesn't have much carrying capacity. And both Shank and Jessup need throwing daggers, which are a bit heavy. Lemernis holds onto the extra daggers and doles them out.
I think I should probably have Jessup or Parda try to learn Strength! Actually, I may use the special Int boosting potion at the Nashkel Fair and have Jessup learn a bunch of spells. With the Ring of Evermemory he's got six slots now.
It's very strange to be relying on spear, crossbow, daggers, throwing daggers, darts, and quarterstaff. I don't really have any hardy meleers although Fuller and Lemernis do their best. So I use Parda's fairy dragon a lot as fodder and hurl crossbow, throwing daggers, and darts fairly often.
As you can imagine I'm relying heavily on Sleep and Command. Phlydia can cast Sleep and Jessup actually managed to scribe it as well (he has only a 35% chance to learn a spell). Parda scribed Blind, which helps.
Before taking on the Nashkel mines, I think I may purchase a couple of potions of master thievery at High hedge, and have Parda pickpocket Algernon's and Poe's spear +1 at Firewine for Fuller.
Darn, didn't realize that I could not pickpocket Poe's spear. I guess it's cause he has it equipped. Oh well. I enjoyed his song and gave him 10 gp for it.
But, with the aid of the red potion Jessup learned about 8 spells. According to how I play specialist mages he'll have to use half his slots for divination. But at least I can have him cast spells like Strength, Charm Person, and before long Horror.
And via a potion of master thievery (I had to buy them from Erdaine, since Thalantyr doesn't have them) Parda has Algernon's cloak. With Friendship and 18 rep that is giving the party some great prices. I'll be curious to see if in MP mode evil characters (Shank) leave when rep goes above 18. So onward to the Nashkel mines we go.
I decided that when Lemernis duals to Mage he will only use spells that would match the ethos of a Priest of Lathander. So he won't use necromantic spells, for example.
Nashkel mines completed with surprisingly little difficulty, as Sleep takes care of the kobolds. And for the big fight at the end I was able to block the choke points with the fairy dragon and Fuller; and Mulahey succumbed to Command and was Blinded by Parda. So he had a morale failure. Lemernis was also able to Turn the skeletons which helped. Before heading there I had defeated Silke; and so I had the merchants' two reward portions of defense, plus Silke's potion of invincibility, which Lemernis and Fuller used prior to the battle.
Nimbul was pretty easily vanquished as well. He fell due to Silence and Blind.
But now I have to figure out what to do about dual-classing Lemernis given this party composition. With Fuller as the only warrior class I'm going to miss having Lemernis suited up in armor. I would normally have dual-classed him to Mage right when he reached Priest of Lathander level 3. I don't like the down time from dualing; and having level 1-2 cleric spells is good enough for me (with the ring of holiness). But I preferred having him able to melee for completion of chapter 2.
So here I am now at the start of chapter 3... If I dual Lemernis now at cleric 3, I will have wasted about 1500 XP. That's okay because I was willing to pay that price to keep him in armor for the battle with Mulahey. But I will then have only Fuller and Parda's fairy dragon to melee.
I could wait to dual him after completion of chapter 4. The more I think about it, the cleric spells aren't really critical. I'll have to be relying on healing potions and paying for healing at temples for quit a while anyway. I'll be able to cast Hold Person as a Mage, so that's a wash. I'll mainly miss out on Command, Doom, and Silence. And I don't feel that there are any 'must-have' cleric level 3 spells.
If I dual lemernis to mage now, I can rely on Monster Summoning by Jessup (using a potion of genius from FAI to scribe), wands of monster summoning, and Parda's fairy dragon.
The choice is:
1) remain an armored and meleeing cleric for as long as possible --> much weaker mage in second half of the game (and possibly never get cleric spells back)
or
2) become a strong mage relatively quickly and try to use summoning spells/wands to shore up the front line.
Oh, another thing I found (i.e., confirmed) when testing out Parda's special ability: the game engine only allows for one familiar. So if you have Parda in your party and give him his special ability via the custom script, if you also have a PC mage then he or she will not be able to conjure a familiar. You do have a choice whether or not to assign the script however.
Another decision I'll have to make before long is what to do with Fuller's weapons profs, once he starts adding more. Fuller has profs in Spear ++ and Crossbow ++. I have held onto Varscona and Stupifier, in anticipation of giving one of them to Parda when he earns a new prof; and possibly the other to Fuller when he has another prof to spend. But perhaps with Fuller I should just 'double down' on Spear and work toward Grand Mastery... There isn't a great selection of spears, though...
BTW, MP evil chars won't leave at high rep because they don't have the NPC scripts.
True re: Animate Dead, and it'd be a badly needed summoning spell for this party. But I've decided to roleplay Lemernis as a cleric of Lathander... and as such I would imagine that he wouldn't dream of using Necromantic spells... I dunno, though. Maybe it could be justified under extraordinary circumstances even for that religion's ethos?
And I did just reach rep 19 and saw that Shank remained, which as you pointed out is due to the script not being assigned to him to make him leave. So that's a nice little bonus to this tactical challenge.
But healing spells are necromantic. =p It says so in the spell description.
I'm open to whatever the standard interpretation of this is! I just assumed a cleric of Lathander would recoil a bit from necromantic spells. But if it isn't that big a deal for them, then that's all good with me. I'm not even sure yet if I really want to run with the notion of avoiding necromancy spells as such. This challenge is tough enough as it is!
Oh, one more thing. For anyone interested, I should have all this together as a mini-mod by next week. I was all set to make it available yesterday and then unthinkingly updated with patch 1.3 and thereby lost my Override folder! (And I didn't have every file for the mod backed up.) I've got the mod recreated. But with blasted Windows 8.1 I now have to uninstall and reinstall the game to a new location (other than Program Files (x86)) to get the mod to install properly. Anyway, that's not going to happen until next week probably.
I'm mainly teasing. I feel like a dawnbringer turned mage would definitely avoid necromancy magic, (or at least spells that are directly summoning the undead) but healing magic IS under the necromancy school of magic.
Well, it is interesting to note, though, for sure. But yeah, summoning undead for a Dawnbringer does seem totally out of line. Priests of Lathander go around destroying undead!
I just went ahead and dualed Lemernis to Mage at Cleric 3. I'll go get the wand of monster summoning in the map just SE of Durlag's in the ghast's tomb. Then I'll hope for the best re: Fuller and Parda's fariy dragon (once per rest cycle).
I now have the ankheg armor on Fuller which puts his AC at -1. I'll get the gauntlets of dexterity for him as well, and that should lower it by quite a bit more. I think I'm going to have to use the monster summoning wand sparingly until I get to Sorcerous Sundries, though.
Hmm. Shank got killed by the ghasts in tomb in the map with the revenant dagger quest and the mage who is experimenting with the jellies. I wanted to just have him run in and grab the wand of monster summoning, then gulp down a potion of invisibility and slip on out. But he wasn't fast enough (I picked the wrong crypt to open first).
So I resurrected him. But I still want to go back and get the gear left in the tomb (Buckley's Buckler, Heart of the Golem, wand of monster summoning, potion of invisibility). The only potion of invisibility I had is in the tomb now. I don't have enough cash to buy the Sandthief's Ring at Ulgoth's Beard.
Suggestions?
I may just have to buy an oil of speed and a wand of fire and blast them...
I do have a scroll of Web and a potion of freedom that the Bard (Parda) could use. He could cast invisibility on himself and get to the far end of the tomb where the crypts are to give him some casting time. Then he'd cast a scroll of monster summoning to tie the ghasts up; then Web; then start blasting away with the fire wand. I guess a potion fire resistance will help too, if I can afford it.
Edit: This is going to be kind of difficult, I think. There's no wands of fire or oils of speed available at High Hedge. So I bought 3 potions of fiery explosion (and a potion of fire resistance) and 3 scrolls of Skull Trap. And there's no scrolls of monster summoning at High Hedge... I'll probably be best off just casting Web anyway.
Comments
Parda can use Find Familiar. But the familiar won't go into his inventory. It insists on going into the PC's inventory.
But... it doesn't confer hit points to the PC. And when the PC releases it, it disappears completely.
Now that said, the spell can be recast by Parda after a rest cycle. This of course recreates the fairy dragon anew.
I'll be curious to see should the fairy dragon die whether there is any loss of HP to anyone.
Anyway, I'm not sure how I will work with all that, lol. (Edit: see three posts down.)
edit: the photo is really cool...like a group picture captioned "Me and the gang before the road trip of 1099"
Thankfully, Shank critted Tarnesh with a poisoned backstab. But then what to do with his three spell scrolls? Phyldia can't memorize them as a sorceress, although she can cast them from quickslots. Parda, the party's Bard, has yet to earn his first spell slot. And poor Jessup with his 9 Int has only a 35% chance to successfully scribe a spell. Parda (Int 13) at least has a 55% chance. So I decided to make an investment in having Parda scribe all three scrolls. He did succeed in learning Magic Missile and Burning Hands. He failed with Armor, however.
Anyway, it's turning out to be a pretty quirky challenge. How they'll handle the Nashkel mines kind of worries me, honestly. I don't really want to cheese-out by using the Bassilisk area... But I might have them sidequest for a bit with some relatively easy stuff before attempting the mines.
I think I'm going to treat it like a special (once per rest cycle) ability summoning spell for Parda. There's no in-game negative consequence if the creature dies (but by the same token neither does it impart an HP boost). Let's say that the iguana having been transmuted into a fairy dragon has some sort of funky ability to regenerate itself. :-)
This is actually a neat quirk. Really liking the idea of it, at least.
I don't think of Jessup 2 as wholly evil. Just evil in the narcissistic, ultimately self-centered way that TV's "House" is, i.e., personal needs/wants/whims always supersede concerns about hurting others; and indeed in taking some pleasure in hurting others' feelings through a compulsion to constantly take others down a peg. (Note: Jessup 2 isn't a titanic super-genius like Dr. Gregory House, but he is cut from a similar sort of personality cloth).
Mods I have installed:
1. Sword Coast Stratagems, as always, big fan of this mod. For those who know it I have the following components installed:
- every single smarter/improved enemy (except for improved kobolds), every improved final chapter battle and every improved minor encounter
- option 3 of smarter mages (no pre-buff except for long-lasting spells like armor, shield or stone skin)
- option 1 for improved clerics (they pre-buff with long and short-lasting spells)
- potions for npc (2/3 of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost)
- reputation increases 1/4 more slowly than normal, which won't help an heroic party like this
2. Faces: Great mod that adds a portrait to almost every NPC with something interesting to say
3. NPC Items: This mod allows you to buy Dorn, Rasaad and Neera quest items in stores around the game. Elven chains for everyone!
Charname & The Party
This part is tricky. I've thinking for a while what class would I be if I lived in Faerum. My first idea was fighter, I guess everyone could be a fighter, but I have never been in a fight in real life. I'm a networking engineer, my job is usually about solving problems and solving them fast and under pressure. So my strengh is my brains, but that doesn't make me a mage, does it?
On the other hand, my favourite hobby (along with BG saga of course) is music. I play guitar, piano and drums and I can sing. I usually play my guitar when I hang out with my friends and family just for the fun, and even though I'm not really into story-telling I guess If I lived in Faerum I would be a bard. Well to be honest I think I’d probably be a commoner, but since there’s no such class I’ll take bard, better yet, crappy bard (I decided to EE:Keeper Charname a and tone down DEX and CHA). So, let me introduce you to... me!
The party I’ve choosen for this amazing adventure is Reevor, Erik, Dreppin, Imoen and Phlydia.
Well that’s it. I’m not really concern about the speed contest (I guess I’ll rest a lot) and I’ll be metagaming (I know were the goodies are and I intend to take them). I’m currently in chapter 2 (didn’t get to the mines yet) so I’ll upload some screenshots in my next post.
The mods you have installed look neat. I'm particularly interested to try Faces one day.
Residents of Candlekeep + SCS Challenge
I though it would be weird to do Phlydia’s or Dreppin’s quest while having them on the party so Dexter went through the Prologue solo. Note that I didn’t killed Shank nor Carbos. This guys are assassins under SCS and will use poison weapon, which means if they hit me I’m dead. Yes they still have crappy thac0 and AC, but so do I, and I’m not taking that kind of risk for no price. Besides I may have to recruit one of them in the future in case Immy dies. I had enough money to buy a long bow and a few arrows for Dexter.
CHAPTER 1
THE LION’s WAY
FRIENDLY ARM INN
After another rest the party sets off south. Unfortunately we were ambushed by wargs, and dreppin nearly died. Phlydia saved the day with a sleep spell.
THE COAST WAY
HIGH EDGE
BEREGOST
SOUTH BEREGOST ROAD
We went to the temple and resurrected Reevor. Then we hanged out for a while at the Jovial Juggler, Reevor needed some rest. Imoen decided to go out for a while, and when she came back she had an amazing amount of treasure in her inventory, including a bastard sword and a mace which seemed magical, potions of heroism, healing, dexterity and invisibility, a magical wand of lighting, and lots of gold and gems. Imoen likes to call it “The sack of Beregost”. We went south Beregost again and finished exploring the area, only this time we were more cautious. We found a magical pair of boots and a scroll of Protection from Petrification in the corpse of a hobgoblin and several potions of healing in a cave. Then we rested in Feldepost, sold the loot and bought a battle axe+1 for Reevor and 20 arrows+2.
Dreppin level up (2), 7HP.
NORTH NASHKEL ROAD
FISHERMAN’S LAKE
Now the party went back to Beregost. Bjonin rewarded us with a Medium Shield+1 which Reevor can use (and +1rep). We were sorry to tell Mr. Colquette the news about his family (+1 rep). Erik level up (2), gains 5HP
We didn’t stay long in Beregost, the party set off to Nashkel and Chapter 2.
I would have loved for him to be able to summon it once per rest cycle the way that Tiax can summon a ghast. If anyone knows of a way to do that via EE Keeper please advise! :-D
In other news my party of
Lemernis - Priest of Lathander (who will dual to Mage)
Phlydia
Fuller
Parda
Shank
Jessup 1
just cleared the road around FAI of hobgoblins and it was both amusing and nail-biting that they had to rely so heavily on Shank to backstab, then draw the mob to the party. I then had to have the PC dance around to try to avoid injury as they fought (and he did get injured pretty bad, twice). Jessup would kind of run up and poke at a hobgoblin with his dagger then run away, lol.
Shank at least has the element of surprise with his backstabs, and his poison attacks will kill. After his backstab attempt Shank zig-zags and weaves about to draw and distract the enemy, eventually looking to attack from the flank with his poison once the enemy is engaged in melee with the PC and Fuller. But it's always risky.
Anyway, a crit to any of my party members and they're D-E-D dead.
Residents of Candlekeep + SCS Challenge
Party Status
Reevor, dwarven defender level 2, 22 HP
Erik, archer level 2, 15 HP
Imoen, thief level 2, 12 HP
Dreppin, cleric level 2, 16 HP
Phlydia, dragon disciple level 1, 6HP
CHAPTER 2:
NASHKEL & CARNIVAL
After a night’s rest we went to carnival. We spend all our money buying the “one gift lost” amulet and the red elixir potion (rises INT to 25, but I’m not using it till I have stored more scrolls). Then we killed Zordral. Since Dexter had inscribed magic missile I used my extra scroll against the mage, preventing his mirror image, and he fell quickly.
Now the party is going to explore the southwest portion of the map in order to obtain the gauntlets of dexterity.
FIRE LEAF FOREST
We looted the corpses and continued exploring. We ran into two winter wolves in this area, which are easy to kill even for this party and give good XP. Then we killed Zal and Vax with my lighting bolt tactic: Phlydia catch both of them with only one shot. Erik gets the bracers of archery and improves his Thac0 by 2.
Then we made Albert quest and picked up the cloudkill scroll (I won’t inscribe this one, will save it to use later). Dreppin reached level 3 in this area and gained 4 HP (now I have two level 2 cleric spells to worth with). We also ran into a pack of skeletons. Since no one in my party is proficient with blunt weapons and skeletons have slashing & missile & piercing damage resistance they are hard to kill. I’ll have to work this out.
DRYAD FALLS
THE GNOLL FORTRESS
We went to the xvarts caves first and picked up the tome of leadership, which my alter ego would use to rise his CHA to a whopping 10.
Good news at last! Erik reached level 3 (4 HP). This is a very important level up, because mastery in long bow means +2 thac0 and +1 damage (compared with specialization), and he also gets +1 thac0 & damage for being a level 3 archer. So, in addition to the Bracers of archery and the level up, he has lowered his thac0 by 6 and increased his damage by +2 since we left Nashkel. Sweet! Dexter also reached level 4, which means I can cast a level 2 mage spell, but I have found none yet. I placed his proficiency point in single weapon style.
After this we cleared the gnoll stronghold. Reevor drank more healing potions than I wanted, but freeing Dynaheir is worth 800xp. I used grease, sleep and ranged fire in a strategic battle field:
Imoen and Phlydia also leveled up in this area, levels 4 and 3 respectively. For Imoen (gained only 3 HP on this level up, Phlydia even worse, 2 HP) I picked single weapon style and placed most of his thieving skill points in find traps, andI picked spook as the third spell know of Phlydia. She can use now her breath weapon ability, I look forward to that. Now we are going north.
BEAR RIVER
The northern bridge has a quite hard fight: two ogre berserkers and three hobgoblin elites. This is both heavy melee and ranged support but I decided to try it out. Ogre berserkers do use berserker rage under SCS and that make them even more dangerous (for instance they are immune to command word while enraged), so I wanted both of them disabled. Dexter cast grease in the bridge but out of the sight of the ogres, then he cast another grease spell and the party’s archers moved forward. Then Phlydia cast sleep in order to drop the hobgoblin archers and erik killed them. I used the last two charges of the wand of lighting to score some damage to the ogres, and Reevor used defensive stance when they stepped out of the grease area. I finally killed them, but reevor had to drink two potions of healing. Not worth it.
Erik killed a ogre with an awesome 30 damage critical hit:
So that's it for now. I'm not exploring xvart village, I'm out of arrows and short of healing potions, so the party is going back to Nashkel. Everyone had a level up, so I may try the mines next time. Farewel!
Running a randomly generated party, I'm having a relatively tough go with Fuller as my only true meleer. And his weapons profs are in Spear and Crossbow, lol. My cleric PC just isn't well armored enough yet on the front line without ankheg armor to commonly avoid serious injury, so for now I'm using him in melee gingerly. I'll put the Easter egg ankheg armor in Nashkel on him very soon, though. (No-reload Rule Number One: protect the quarterback!) And I think half plate should suffice for Fuller until I can raise the cash to suit him up in ankheg plate as well.
Fuller has worse stats and his weapon proficiencies kind of put him out of the tank role, but I'd still give him ankegh plate, dexterity gauntlets, spear and crossbow and use him as one and only first liner. You are going to need a lot of magic support from your spellcasters to succeed, so good luck!
Then I figured I'd collect the bounty for Brage... and things did not go as well. I ran into a cranky brown bear that attacked. Jessup fired the lightning wand at it (the one Shank stole from the estate in Nashkel) and even though the party was on completely open terrain, the lightning "ricocheted" back and killed Phlydia! Then Fuller got mauled to death by the bear. But Jessup zapped it again with the lightning wand (this time without ricochets), and the party finished the creature off.
Fortunately neither of my two fallen party members was chunked. So in a way it kind of worked out. Because with the XP awarded bringing Brage in, both Parda and Shank leveled up sooner (since the party was splitting the XP among 4 party members instead of 6). Thus, now Parda has a spell slot. (And he has Magic Missile, Burning Hands, and Grease scribed.) Anyway, it only cost 200 gp total to raise Fuller and Phlydia, so all is well.
The party is about to go to High Hedge to see about getting some spells for Jessup, and learning them with the help of a potion.
I have to say, this is working out about as well as I could have hoped with respect to the difficulty. This is a tough party to run. I have to play very smartly, and kind of gingerly almost. Everyone has to be used to their best possible advantage. I even have Jessup running around stabbing with his dagger at creatures that are already engaged--and he's actually got some kills, lol.
Right now the star is definitely Shank, what with his throwing daggers and (at times poisoned) melee dagger.
But anyway, it is nailbiting but fun to fight the low level enemies with daggers, darts, quarterstaff, spear, and crossbow! The challenge is definitely working out as I had hoped.
Instead of Blur the critter can cast Mirror Image. I might give it both Blur and Mirror Image, actually. I'm still deciding. (What the hey, it was a bit of wild magic and Parda is seriously underpowered.)
I'm going to make all 18 characters of the collection (plus the script for Parda's familiar) available via a mini-mod that installs all the files to the proper folders so one can just fire up a MP game with them. I hope to have it available by sometime early in the coming week, or at the end of the week by the very latest.
I'm trying to avoid the basilisk map because it's kinda cheesy. Instead I've been doing relatively safe side quests to get everyone a few levels. I'm now at a point where I might as well head to the Nahskel mines (either that or give in and go basilisk hunting, then go to the mines).
Lemernis - Priest of Lathander 3
Phlydia - Dragon Disciple 2
Fuller - Fighter 2
Parda - Bard 3
Jessup (1) - Diviner 2 (my house rule: specialist wizards must use 1/2 their slots for their school)
Shank - Assassin 3
No one is physically very strong. So the party doesn't have much carrying capacity. And both Shank and Jessup need throwing daggers, which are a bit heavy. Lemernis holds onto the extra daggers and doles them out.
I think I should probably have Jessup or Parda try to learn Strength! Actually, I may use the special Int boosting potion at the Nashkel Fair and have Jessup learn a bunch of spells. With the Ring of Evermemory he's got six slots now.
It's very strange to be relying on spear, crossbow, daggers, throwing daggers, darts, and quarterstaff. I don't really have any hardy meleers although Fuller and Lemernis do their best. So I use Parda's fairy dragon a lot as fodder and hurl crossbow, throwing daggers, and darts fairly often.
As you can imagine I'm relying heavily on Sleep and Command. Phlydia can cast Sleep and Jessup actually managed to scribe it as well (he has only a 35% chance to learn a spell). Parda scribed Blind, which helps.
Before taking on the Nashkel mines, I think I may purchase a couple of potions of master thievery at High hedge, and have Parda pickpocket Algernon's and Poe's spear +1 at Firewine for Fuller.
But, with the aid of the red potion Jessup learned about 8 spells. According to how I play specialist mages he'll have to use half his slots for divination. But at least I can have him cast spells like Strength, Charm Person, and before long Horror.
And via a potion of master thievery (I had to buy them from Erdaine, since Thalantyr doesn't have them) Parda has Algernon's cloak. With Friendship and 18 rep that is giving the party some great prices. I'll be curious to see if in MP mode evil characters (Shank) leave when rep goes above 18. So onward to the Nashkel mines we go.
I decided that when Lemernis duals to Mage he will only use spells that would match the ethos of a Priest of Lathander. So he won't use necromantic spells, for example.
Nimbul was pretty easily vanquished as well. He fell due to Silence and Blind.
But now I have to figure out what to do about dual-classing Lemernis given this party composition. With Fuller as the only warrior class I'm going to miss having Lemernis suited up in armor. I would normally have dual-classed him to Mage right when he reached Priest of Lathander level 3. I don't like the down time from dualing; and having level 1-2 cleric spells is good enough for me (with the ring of holiness). But I preferred having him able to melee for completion of chapter 2.
So here I am now at the start of chapter 3... If I dual Lemernis now at cleric 3, I will have wasted about 1500 XP. That's okay because I was willing to pay that price to keep him in armor for the battle with Mulahey. But I will then have only Fuller and Parda's fairy dragon to melee.
I could wait to dual him after completion of chapter 4. The more I think about it, the cleric spells aren't really critical. I'll have to be relying on healing potions and paying for healing at temples for quit a while anyway. I'll be able to cast Hold Person as a Mage, so that's a wash. I'll mainly miss out on Command, Doom, and Silence. And I don't feel that there are any 'must-have' cleric level 3 spells.
If I dual lemernis to mage now, I can rely on Monster Summoning by Jessup (using a potion of genius from FAI to scribe), wands of monster summoning, and Parda's fairy dragon.
The choice is:
1) remain an armored and meleeing cleric for as long as possible --> much weaker mage in second half of the game (and possibly never get cleric spells back)
or
2) become a strong mage relatively quickly and try to use summoning spells/wands to shore up the front line.
BTW, MP evil chars won't leave at high rep because they don't have the NPC scripts.
And I did just reach rep 19 and saw that Shank remained, which as you pointed out is due to the script not being assigned to him to make him leave. So that's a nice little bonus to this tactical challenge.
I now have the ankheg armor on Fuller which puts his AC at -1. I'll get the gauntlets of dexterity for him as well, and that should lower it by quite a bit more. I think I'm going to have to use the monster summoning wand sparingly until I get to Sorcerous Sundries, though.
So I resurrected him. But I still want to go back and get the gear left in the tomb (Buckley's Buckler, Heart of the Golem, wand of monster summoning, potion of invisibility). The only potion of invisibility I had is in the tomb now. I don't have enough cash to buy the Sandthief's Ring at Ulgoth's Beard.
Suggestions?
I may just have to buy an oil of speed and a wand of fire and blast them...
I do have a scroll of Web and a potion of freedom that the Bard (Parda) could use. He could cast invisibility on himself and get to the far end of the tomb where the crypts are to give him some casting time. Then he'd cast a scroll of monster summoning to tie the ghasts up; then Web; then start blasting away with the fire wand. I guess a potion fire resistance will help too, if I can afford it.
Edit: This is going to be kind of difficult, I think. There's no wands of fire or oils of speed available at High Hedge. So I bought 3 potions of fiery explosion (and a potion of fire resistance) and 3 scrolls of Skull Trap. And there's no scrolls of monster summoning at High Hedge... I'll probably be best off just casting Web anyway.