The examples that come to mind suggest the Cloak of Mirroring wouldn't be a trump card in most cases. Most enemy mages don't come alone, and Symbol spells and Chaos can leave the party helpless against enemy fighters and such. Of the enemy mages who don't have allies with them, they should still have other options, especially since they tend to be higher in level. Summoning spells, of course, can deal damage indirectly. Flesh to Stone if not FoD and Disintegrate should bypass the Cloak of Mirroring. And since Death Fog and Cloudkill are categorized as Battleground rather than Offensive Damage spells, they should bypass Cloak of Mirroring, too, and Rakshasas use Cloudkill constantly (maybe I'll try using Death Fog against Kuroisan the next time I play the Tactics mod).
The Cloak of Mirroring certainly reduces the options of enemy spellcasters a great deal. I guess by the time I've found it, though, I've usually taken down most of the liches and so forth, so there aren't so many mage battles for the Cloak of Mirroring to protect me against. And in late-game SoA and ToB, Dragon's Breath can take out most mages anyway, either from sheer damage or the unconscious effect (which I believe has a -10 save penalty).
Maybe it's just that, whenever I have the Cloak of Mirroring, the party is already strong enough to deal with mages, and so I don't notice the difference it makes.
If 15 and 16 CON have a big fatigue gap between them, it's not reflected in the 2da files. Ostensibly, the HPCONBON.2da file shows the effect of CON on fatigue, and it's only a difference of 1. But maybe that "1" means more than just 1 luck.
I would actually argue that the majority of the really threatening mages are alone, and while they theoretically have options like summoning, they rarely employ them. I'm also fairly confident that all the various save-or-die spells are blocked by the Cloak. I'm quite sure the beholder eye ray versions are, as I've run characters with the Cloak through the beholder dungeon with no difficulty (they get charmed periodically, so they can definitely fail the saves, but they never die). I've also never seen a character be killed by such a spell from an actual mage while wearing the Cloak of Mirroring, but between good saves and the fact that I only used the described tactics for about three runs, it's possible (although somewhat unlikely) that I just got lucky.
Honestly, it's probably not that bad if you don't take one character solo with it. I've just cheesed enough of the game with it that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth these days.
I have just tested it and Flesh to Stone does bypass the Cloak of Mirroring, as it is a Disabling spell rather than an Offensive Damage spell (unlike FoD and Disintegrate, which the Cloak of Mirroring blocks). The Beholder ray Flesh to Stone is categorized as an Offensive Damage spell, however, so the Cloak of Mirroring blocks it. Same goes for the Beholder rays Lightning Bolt, Disintegrate, Death Ray, and Cause Serious Wounds, but the charm, slow, hold, fear, and antimagic rays. So a solo character can die against a Beholder despite wearing the Cloak of Mirroring, if he or she fails a save against a charm or domination ray. Of course, there are many ways to prevent that. Also, there's always Maze against solo characters, though Chaotic Commands appears to have an undocumented immunity to maze effect, which I've never heard anyone mention before.
But you're right. Vanilla mages don't know to avoid damage-dealing spells if a character is wearing the Cloak of Mirroring, so their other spells won't necessarily come into play before they fall. If a mage only casts Dominate on your solo Charname on the 8th round, and you kill them by the 6th, the Cloak of Mirroring really does make you immune to their spells. SCS would be a different story, but then it usually is.
It's funny... I'm perfectly willing to use the WoL trick or jury-rig a character to turn into an Iron Golem, but I've never made much use of one of the most infamously overpowered items in the game.
Ah, yes, that seems to explain my experience quite well. Weird that Flesh to Stone and its beholder equivalent would be classified differently, but not altogether unsurprising. BG2 does many weird things.
You're definitely right that, for actual solo runs, the Cloak of Mirroring is insufficient, because so many spells that would otherwise be merely inconvenient now end your run. I'm referring more to the tactic of sending in just one character out of a whole party, rather than running truly solo. In that case, you can just wait out the duration and kill them afterwards (which, admittedly, is pretty tedious). But yeah, for soloing it wouldn't work without some augmentation.
Man, I'm learning all sorts of things in this thread.
As long as we're learning new things, I should clarify why Haer-dalis works well in Iron Golem form. The thing about the Iron Golem, aside from its 100% resistance to magic and all elements, and its 20% resistance to physical damage (even a Wizard Slayer/Thief can't match all that at once), it attacks once per round at 24 STR for 4d10 damage, as a +4 weapon. This means that, unlike the Mind Flayer or (Greater) Werewolf forms, it has low base APR but very high damage potential. To make maximum use of the form, we want APR bonuses, and there are only a few potential sources: Offensive Spin (doesn't work with Improved Haste) Boon of Lathander (stacks with itself) Kundane (usable by thiefs, bards, and fighters) Belm (use able by druids, thiefs, bards, and fighters) Scarlet Ninja-to (UAI thief only, since monks can't hold weapons in the off hand) As a Blade with proficiencies in Two-Weapon Fighting and Short Sword, Haer'dalis gets two of those things. Unfortunately, I can't rest to get his Offensive Spin back, but he'll still be able to use Kundane in the off hand.
Note that Kundane won't give him an extra attack per round if he equips it in his main hand, since the Iron Golem fist replaces it and removes that APR bonus. We can, of course, dispel any shapeshift weapon with Dispel Magic, or a scroll or spell sequencer that creates a magical weapon: Shocking Grasp, Ghoul Touch, Phantom Blade, Black Blade of Disaster, Flame Blade, Spiritual Hammer, one of the Cause Wounds spells, or Harm. Cleric/Mages can put Flame Blade into a Minor Sequencer, which works quite marvelously, as it gets an undocumented +4 THAC0 bonus. Or, you can use Shocking Grasp, and once the Shocking Grasp is expended, you get to equip your normal items. I used this a lot in my last cleric/mage run.
The Iron Golem's 4d10 base damage is also very important. That's 22 base damage, or 40 maximum damage. And there are three ways to guarantee maximum damage per hit: Offensive Spin (24 seconds) Kai (10 seconds) Righteous Magic (1 round/level) Again, Haer'dalis gets one of these. Blades work very well with the Iron Golem form, but unfortunately they cannot learn the spell itself, and must cast it via a scroll. Also note that Haer'dalis will be able to learn Time Trap, and can use that to get automatic hits as a Mind Flayer. Kensai/Mages can do quite well with this form, too (dualing at level 13 is especially beneficial, and might make it worth compared to dualing at level 9), but Kai will only get them a few rounds of maximum damage, so other level 9 spells might be worth it.
I have been considering doing a run with a Cleric of Lathander/Mage, which would allow maximum use of the Iron Golem form. I hear Boon of Lathander, for dual classes, is cast at the higher class's level, so it would improve as the character gained mage levels. You get an extra casting of Boon of Lathander at 11th level, so you can reach 3 APR fairly early on. Plus, a dual-classed cleric/mage will learn Shapechange much faster (at 3 million XP, roughly, rather than 6 million) and won't have to wait so long to reach Spell Sequencer, Spell Trigger, and Chain Contingency, compared to a multi-class. The late-game setup would be: Minor Sequencer: Armor of Faith, Armor of Faith Spell Sequencer: Holy Power, Teleport Field, Stoneskin/Armor of Faith, or 3 Animate Dead or Skull Trap spells Contingency: Heal Spell Trigger: Righteous Magic, PFMW, Improved Haste and/or Heal Chain Contingency: too many possibilities to list And it would be wielding Defender of Easthaven in the off hand. Fully buffed, this character would have 70% resistance to physical damage (or 85% with an extra Armor of Faith, or over 100% with pre-cast Armor of Faith), immunity to the elements and magic, and attack 6 times per round (plus the off hand) for 54 damage per hit, at 4 base THAC0 (11 from Holy Power, plus 7 from 25 STR), with a +4 weapon. The most damaging weapon in the game isn't the Flail of Ages or Ixil's Spike. It's the Iron Golem's fist.
I tried out a similar model with a Fighter/Mage/Cleric, but that took far too much XP. The Cleric of Lathander/Mage would work better with a party, though it won't get GWW or Hardiness (the F/M/C can do over 500 damage per round with Iron Golem form and GWW), and unlike a Fighter/Mage or Mage/Thief, it won't get access to speed weapons. And the Cleric of Lathander/Mage won't require any exploits: all the spells and items will work as intended, no glitches involved. They just happen to synergize very well.
And, of course, the Cleric of Lathander/Mage gets all buffing spells. The only one it doesn't get is Ironskins, and it already gets Stoneskin. So, it can be immune to all spells, if not from its 100% MR, then its spell protections. Note that the Beholder Death Ray bypasses MR. Same goes for Planetars' vorpal strikes.
Oh, and simulacra can turn into the Iron Golem, too, if you cast Shapechange beforehand. And they get HLAs. My F/M/C simulacrum could use GWW, Hardiness, and Critical Strike with Iron Golem form. Over 500 damage per round with a Simulacrum. Over multiple rounds. Plus immunity to all damage.
Oh, and if you equip the Boots of Speed, that can add a 1/2 attack per round for a fighter in Iron Golem form, if their APR when shapeshifted is 1.5 or 2.5, bumping it up to 2 APR or 3 APR. I'm not sure why. This is important because fighters don't get their +1/2 attack per round from weapon specialization, since the Iron Golem fist has no proficiency.
Oh... and the Iron Golem fist can be used to backstab. An F/M/T with Mislead could do 2,500 damage per round with GWW.
Usually, I have no problem with overpowered stuff or the three C's, cheap, cheating, and cheesy. But honestly, I wouldn't recommend using the Shapechange trick to let a character shapeshift at will, unless you're using a bunch of difficulty-enhancing mods, or you're imposing a really severe limitation on yourself in an unmodded game. Same reason I haven't used the WoL trick with the Wand of CLoudkill since Draug Fea. When I played my Iron Golem F/M/C, the game got really simple, really fast. Only SCS2 Watcher's Keep as an underleveled character posed much of a threat.
It was fun exploring it for a bit and figuring out how to maximize it, but from what I can tell, the Iron Golem form is very reductive. Enemies go down so quickly, and they can do so little to hurt you, that you don't have to do much besides run up and bonk them on the head, and they explode. If you're going solo, the whole party is basically invincible, and if you're running a party, the other party members feel really underpowered. If you cast the spell normally--at 18th level as a mage or higher--then your non-Shapechange alternatives are actually worth using sometimes, and Shapechange does not absolutely eclipse all other strategies. Below 3 million XP, however, the Iron Golem form is just plain better than basically anything else, and it can get tedious to see your Iron Golem character massacring everything while the rest of the party sits there, feeling inadequate. But that's just my experience with it.
I wish BG2 had a HoF mode like they have in IWD and IWD2, with triple enemy HP plus 80 on top, double damage, extra enemies, and +5 or +10 to enemy saves, THAC0, damage, and AC. The Iron Golem form would be kind of balanced in HoF mode.
The Unseeing Eye quest was more interesting than I expected.
I ran off to the Temple District and went back to the sewers. Since I had the melee power, I decided to take on the Rakshasa, although I ended up just backstabbing him with Yoshimo, twice. I turned Keldorn aside. I had no room for him.
On to Gaal! And the Vampiric Mists who precede him. I always hated those things. Luckily, Poppy took them down with a single charge from the Wand of Lightning.
Unfortunately, I was not so lucky in the hallway southwest of the Shade Lich. The Wraiths took a level off of Minsc and Poppy both. I had to seek out a Restoration spell. I tried going to the Temple of Helm just outside, but when I selected Greater Restoration, it cast as though my main character cast it: Poppy instantly became fatigued, instead of the priest who ostensibly cast the spell. Thankfully, though, it restored both Poppy and Minsc, and healed everybody. But I was not willing to bear that extra fatigue for the whole game. I ditched Haer'dalis, picked up Viconia from the graveyard district, and brought her to the Temple of Helm so she could select Greater Restoration instead of Poppy. Everyone but Haer'dalis got healed, Minsc and Poppy were restored, and Viconia was fatigued, all for 750 gold (the Restoration scrolls available for sale nearby were over 1,000 gold each; not even close to worth it). I left Viconia inside the temple in case I needed her again. I had to apologize for Haer'dalis before he came back; he wouldn't rejoin without an apology. I only left him there because he was new to the party, and removing him would do the least to improve the party's overall fatigue (I don't want to use Reform Party to remove fatigue).
When I sent Mazzy across the bridge with the riddle, the SOB failed to reflect the Gauths' rays; it merely deflected them, forcing Mazzy to actually attack them. Sometimes it reflected the rays, but usually the rays just had no effect. Aerie used the Wand of Fire and Turn Undead on the Shadows and Shadow Fiends once they rushed in, and after grabbing the Rift Device itself I backstabbed my way through the various ghasts and mummies of the lower reaches. The Blind Priests did little besides blind Haer'dalis and hit Mazzy with a Flame Strike. I threw out two or three Cloudkills, but to my disappointment, the priests did not follow Mazzy out of the cloud. I suppose it makes sense. They are blind, anyway.
Finally I got to the second half of the Rift Device, and sent Mazzy down to where the Unseeing Eye spawns. I removed its Stoneskins with the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin (which strikes as a +4 weapon), and then switched to Kundane once the Unseeing Eye's Improved Mantle wore off. The Unseeing Eye wasted several rounds using Power Word: Stun, which Mazzy could have avoided even if her HP were low enough to get paralyzed, as she could have simply switched to the Sword of Arvoreen, which blocks stun and slow effects. When that didn't work, he tried chomping on Mazzy's face. He's so angry!
Unfortunately, I did not realize the Unseeing Eye was making excellent progress. By nibbling away at Mazzy, he was able to get her HP below 60, rendering her vulnerable to Power Word: Kill. I decided to bear the cost and raise her later, and sent out Yoshimo to try a backstab.
Yoshimo died. Power Word: Kill. Again. I decided to reload, and this time drank a potion when Mazzy got below 60 HP. This time, we won. In retrospect, I should have realized that, since the Unseeing Eye's big thing is that it's a blind Beholder, the Shield of Balduran wouldn't be a standard trump card against it.
Now I had to see if I could smuggle out the Rift Device. I'm pretty sure your familiar can't pickpocket characters who have a higher pickpocket skill than it does (the LN Ferret Familiar has like 80 in pickpocket; the CN Cat has about 20), so I decided that Mr. Meeseeks, Poppy's ferret familiar, would pickpocket it from Minsc, since Minsc should have the lowest pickpocket score: as a human, he should have the lowest racial bonus, as a non-thief, he should have no base pickpocket score, and with his 16 DEX, he had the lowest Dexterity of anyone in the party (BG2 NPCs have some pretty darn high DEX scores).
I did some initial tests and found that Mr. Meeseeks could in fact steal it from Minsc... but if he returned the Rift Device to Poppy, he would no longer be able to steal it again. If I gave the Rift Device back to Minsc and asked Mr. Meeseeks to pickpocket it again, he would report that Minsc had no items left. Worse yet, he couldn't pickpocket Boo. Apparently, I would only be able to hide the Rift Device in Mr. Meeseeks' inventory once. I reloaded.
Before I could smuggle it out of the area, I first wanted to complete the quest, and for that, I needed to get a copy of the expended Rift Device. When you use the Rift Device, the Rift Device itself vanishes, but it creates a new item in your inventory, the expended Rift Device, which is only good for ending the quest.
Thing is, if you have a projected image or simulacrum use the Rift Device, a spare copy of the EXPENDED Rift Device will appear in its inventory, which you can take to the Diseased Ones and complete the quest without losing the ACTIVE Rift Device. To do this, you have to kill the projected image or simulacrum, and nab the expended Rift Device from its body (pickpocketing might work, too, but I didn't try that). When testing this in the past, I have found that only instant-kill effects (such as Finger of Death or CTRL-Y) will make the item drop; otherwise you will get nothing. So giving the clone a couple whacks with a stick will not necessarily give you the expended Rift Device. I forgot to bring a scroll of Finger of Death, but I did succeed with another method.
I put the Rift Device, a scroll of Project Image, and a scroll of Flesh to Stone in my main character's quickslots. I cast Project Image, then had the clone use the Rift Device on Mazzy, nearly killing her (the Rift Device does damage equal to a percentage of the target's HP) and creating a copy of the expended rift device in the clone's inventory. I then had the clone cast Flesh to Stone on itself, and Haer'dalis, with his Ring of Earth Control, cast Stone to Flesh on the clone, bringing it back to life at Near Death. Yoshimo used Hide in Shadows, got behind the clone, and backstabbed her. As I had hoped, the expended Rift Device fell to the ground. I then had both copies of the Rift Device. I didn't really need to backstab the clone. I just felt like doing it.
I gave the expended copy to Minsc and had Mr. Meeseeks pick his pocket. Success!
I returned the expended Rift Device to the Avatar of Amaunator, completing the quest while Mr. Meeseeks still held the active Rift Device. On the way out, I paid a visit to Gaal and his friends.
Poppy gained a level and put the points in Hide in Shadows and Move Silently. I gave her the Boots of Stealth, and once I had sold off Yoshimo's equipment and the other loot I had gathered, I kicked Yoshimo out of the party. Poppy now can backstab for 5x damage, just like Yoshimo, and her stealth skills are about high enough to be a decent backstabber. To fill the void, I hurried off to the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart, and asked Keldorn to go on an adventure. Despite Poppy's gradual mental breakdown, Keldorn decides to join the party.
We are now at 50,000 gold, a very dramatic improvement. All that's left is the Druid Grove, Windspear Hills, and Planar Sphere, which I somehow forgot to activate while I was in the Umar Hills. I'll probably use my two spare Polymorph Self scrolls to tank out the Shade Lich and Elemental Lich, but I'm not sure if I'll go after Kangaxx, due to a lack of +4 and +5 weapons. It will probably depend on whether I kill Firkraag and get Carsomyr.
Findings: 1: The Shield of Balduran doesn't protect you against the Unseeing Eye. Should have been a no-brainer, really. 2: Haer'dalis is kind of unforgiving if you take him out of the party. 3: You can heal and restore the entire party for 750 gold at a temple. It only fatigues one person, and you can bring an NPC into the party just long enough for them to take the hit.
Future Plans: Druid Grove. I really want to get Belm. Poppy has been lugging around a +2 staff for ages, even though I planned from the beginning of the game to have her use Belm (more chances to backstab that way, I think). Plus, Aerie could use the Shield of Harmony, and with all the gold I've got, I should be able to grab some of Adratha's potions before I bring her head to the genies.
I recently discovered that Turn Undead is surprisingly effective against vampiric mists. I managed to kill one with just a 10th level cleric doing the turning, although the other one stubbornly refused to explode (it did its share of running away, though). Since Turn Undead isn't use-limited, and vampiric mists cause level drain, that might be a useful thing to keep in mind.
Good point on Turn Undead. It would make Viconia much more useful than I expected. The extra cleric levels would make her an alternative to Aerie, and as always, her MR makes her an alternative to Anomen or a player-created cleric.
It has just occurred to me that Spell Trap offers a source of new spells, once we get at least two 9th level spells. Most of you are probably familiar with the infinite spell trick: you cast Spell Trap, then Project Image, and have the projected image cast PW: Stun and PW: Kill (or other single-target spells of 7th and 9th level) to restore your castings of Spell Trap and Project Image. You can then continue casting spells from the projected image to the character with Spell Trap, gradually restoring their spells. I did some tests to see if this would work with scrolls, only to find that, whether I used Poppy or Aerie, and cast Spell Trap or PW: Stun or PW: Kill or Contagion or Feeblemind or Flesh to Stone or PW: Blind, none of the spells or scrolls I used ever restored a single mage spell slot.
Is anyone aware of a Spell Trap bug? I checked the spell file in DLTCEP and it was just as it was supposed to be, with the spell trap opcode (opcode 259) for levels 1 to 9 and up to 30 spell levels absorbed. So it can't be a mod (I've uninstalled all of mine anyway) causing the problem.
If we did use this trick, we could get a continuous source of spells, although only for mage characters of level 19 or higher, or sorcerors or specialist mages of 18th level or higher, since we'd need two 9th-level spell slots to both cast and restore Spell Trap. Multiclass Mage/Thieves, Fighter/Mages, and Cleric/Mages could also do this at 6.75 million XP, or Gnomish Illusionist multiclasses at 6 million XP. Notably, this would let us cast Limited Wish, which would let us summon vampires if we used a low-WIS character to talk to djinni, and Viconia can control those vampires if she is of high enough level. Limited Wish would also give us an unlimited supply of level 1 to 4 cleric and druid spells (and mage spells for bards and mages besides the Spell Trap character), if we had a high-WIS character talk to the djinni instead and choose the restore spells option. This would allow us to cast most spells normally, without resorting to Wish rest, which removes ALL the limitations of a restless run.
But I won't be able to use this if Spell Trap isn't actually absorbing any spells.
On to the Druid Grove! Thankfully, the Militia Soldier at the entrance to Tradement survived the Giant Spider attack without needing my healing. I hate when those guys die, but I don't want to spend any resources healing them.
Haer'dalis has become fatigued. At 8 hours in the party, he had no fatigue, but when I arrive at the Druid Grove, he has been in the party for 36 hours, and he has a -1 luck penalty. With 9 CON, he appears especially vulnerable to fatigue, more so than I would have thought. Minsc, who has 16 CON and has spent 5 days with the party, is not fatigued at all. I believe I underestimated both the dangers of fatigue and the effect of Constitution on preventing it. We probably DO need high CON for a restless run, at least for our front line.
Mazzy's low AC is still keeping us afloat. A Troll needs a critical hit to do any damage.
I decided to nuke the encounter just west of Kyland Lind. Just for funsies. Bright-rush! I forget what novel that phrase is from.
Keldorn interrupted me when I tried to buy potions from Adratha. He saw through her facade and turned her hostile. Thankfully, she went down pretty quick. A backstab helped take down her cronies, too. They only got one Cloudkill off the ground before falling. We didn't need her anyway. We have Roger in the sewers.
Poppy has taken Yoshimo's place as a backstabber, and she's doing well. Poor Dalok. Amazing he survived, though.
Note that, for neutral enemies, you can backstab and then immediately Hide in Shadows, allowing you to get in two backstabs before combat begins. That's why Poppy is currently hidden despite having just taken 74 HP off of Dalok.
I let Cernd handle Faldorn herself. He wins automatically, I think; he gets an item that keeps him from falling below 1 HP. I believe have seen him die once, but that might have just been a bug.
Since I gathered rather little loot in the Druid Grove, I decided to head directly to the Windspear Hills before returning to Trademeet, since that would save me some travel time. I accepted Garren Windspear's invitation to his home by accident, but then just walked away when the party reappeared at his house, to avoid the forced rest when you enter his home. On the way to the dryads, Aerie and Keldorn had a heartfelt talk. I like Keldorn. He's a good guy.
Before I can enter Firkraag's lair, Garren interrupts me and starts the Firkraag quest, giving me the note from Firkraag and telling me of his son's capture (his child is a son if Charname is female, and a daughter if Charname is male). I've never seen this dialogue before. Note that your dialogue options never refer to Garren's child as his son or daughter; only his "child" or "kin." They didn't rig the dialogue to change according to Charname's sex, so the language is gender-neutral.
I took Jarrakul's advice regarding the Vampiric Mists, and found it to be very effective. I gave Aerie the Boots of Speed, activated Turn Undead, and had her lure out the Vampiric Mists from the pools in the southwest corner of the first level. Once the Mists were turned, the rest of the party attacked them, and we picked them off one by one. Aerie's Turn Undead prevented the Mists from attacking, so the party was perfectly safe. An excellent divide and conquer tool.
Then I ran into this. I don't like vampires. My party is only level 11 on average, and my only defense against level drain is a single Negative Plane Protection spell from Aerie. I could have cast it on Minsc and sent him out with the Ring of Fire Protection and a Helmet of Charm Protection, and maybe prebuffed with Mazzy's Remove Fear innate spell, and that would have given me 5 rounds to throw out Fireballs, but instead I just used 6 charges of the Wand of Fire with the WoL trick, and even then I needed another, non-WoL trick charge, plus a Magic Missile from Haer'dalis and a few melee hits, before the battle was over. Two of them disappeared and I lost the XP. I had expected a group of ghouls and mummies, given my level. Apparently the vampires appear sooner than I thought.
Aerie's Turn Undead also helped me against the Shadows, Shadows Fiends, and Wraiths to the south of the vampire area.
Samia et al took several reloads. Kaol in particular caused a lot of trouble with his Chaos and Confusion spells. Haer'dalis actually killed me shortly after I took the above screenshot. Aerie tried to heal Poppy with a WoL Cure Serious Wounds scroll, but she directed too many castings of Cure Serious Wounds to Haer'dalis (I was worried about his health, too), and eventually Poppy fell.
I tried again, using the Wand of Lightning itself to attack Samia et al, but it didn't bring anybody close to death. Only when I brought Haer'dalis and Poppy together and had them both use the Wand of Lightning at the same time (there are three or four such wands in the party) did I succeed. I don't know how many times it bounced, but the lightning bolts killed Haer'dalis as well as several members of the enemy party, and Kaol fell soon after under melee pressure, since his friends weren't there to protect him. A few Darts of Stunning also paralyzed Legdoril, though that likely made little difference. I actually tried using the WoL trick with a Blindness scroll and maybe one or two other things, in my failed attempts to take Samia down. Only after I used the Wand of Lightning for its normal purpose did I actually succeed. Lightning bolts are just so vicious in narrow spaces.
I used the WoL trick to resurrect Haer'dalis and heal everybody else. Apparently, to do that, you have to target the dead character, in this case Haer'dalis, with the first charge of the Wand of Lightning. And I think you have to click on their portrait; pressing 4 (Haer'dalis was the fourth in the party lineup) may not be enough to actually get the Rod of Resurrection to target them. Gotta love them flowers.
The Mask of Kind Strohm quest posed a minor problem. The Guardians do lots of damage with their fireballs, and all I had to defend against them was the Ring of Fire Resistance from the Ruhk Transmuter. I tried backstabbing them, but I couldn't finish them off reliably. I used a charge of the Wand of Lightning on each instead, though I had to stay a certain distance away or else the lightning bolts would trigger the Guardians' Fire Shields. Again, lightning bolts saved the day.
Other than that, the dungeons required very few resources. All I spent was an Oil of Speed on Minsc to help take down a Greater Wolfwere. I didn't bother with the Adamantine Golem; I just snuck past to nab the Beljuril, Moonbar Gems, and Heartseeker. Note that the Horn of Blasting comes without a charge and cannot be sold. As far as I know, without resting, the Horn of Blasting can never be used for anything, even merchant fodder.
I decided not to bother with Firkraag, though I'm not sure why. A Lower Resistance and Feeblemind scroll would have doomed him. Using Blindness would have worked, too; I had over 10 copies of the scroll.
After informing Garren of the party's success, I headed back to Trademeet and finished up the quest. I sold off all my excess loot, bought the Necklace of Missiles (I had to sell back and buy it again to fill it up to 25 charges) and some scrolls, and now the party is sitting on over 80,000 gold pieces, plus enough scrolls to fill four Scroll Cases, plus a few more inventory slots. Now the party is looking properly equipped. Note that that Necklace of Missiles is not actually redundant with the Wand of Fire: unlike the Wand of Fire, it has a power of 9, and can therefore hit anything besides demiliches. I will use it for interrupting mages, I think, but I already have 4 Death Fog scrolls, and those can serve much the same purpose.
I had Haer'dalis make an attack roll on Aerie and found that it came with a +3 modifier, according to the dialog box. When I did that in the Druid Grove, it was +7, and in Athkatla, before he got fatigued, it was +8. That means he has a -5 luck penalty due to fatigue (for a fatigue value of 11, according to the FATIGMOD.2da file in DLTCEP), and I haven't even gotten back to Athkatla. It looks like Haer'dalis is not a good option for a melee fighter in a restless run, not unless we're willing to do something to remove his fatigue, like use a forced rest period or the Reform Party trick. At this rate, he'll have about -10 luck by the time we get back to Athkatla. Negative luck is supposed to increase spell damage, and although that could be negated with the Cloak of Mirroring, he should still have lousy damage output. Things are looking bad for Haer'dalis.
Findings: 1: The Wand of Lightning is often better used normally, to throw out lightning bolts, rather than using it to duplicate other wands or spells. Properly bounced in a narrow area, we could do up to 30d6/90d6 with only one charge (the Cloak of Reflection is going to be so ridiculous once I get through Spellhold). Unfortunately, we're going to start seeing magic resistant enemies a lot more often, and the biggest fights in the game occur in wide open spaces. 2: Unless you're using the Reform Party trick or the forced rest periods, you really do need high CON to avoid crippling fatigue penalties. I underestimated its impact. 3: Our resources are less finite than I first believed. If I used more scrolls and potions and wand charges, the WoL trick would not have been necessary, although using the Potion of Firebreath on Mencar Pebblecrusher et al, and using the Wand of Cloudkill on Draug Fea et al, were both major boons in the early game.
Future plans: I think I am going to cut off the WoL trick from now on. I might make an exception here and there for the sake of fun, but I've got so many scrolls and so much extra gold for Roger's potions that I really shouldn't need it. Unless the party starts getting fatigued. I think I will buy back the Wand of Paralyzation, too. Even without the WoL trick, it should come in useful. Next up, I think, is the Planar Sphere. Togan, Tolgerias, and the Tanar'ri could prove troublesome, but we've got the resources to handle some Symbol spells and so forth.
Planar Sphere done. Party at over 100,000 gold pieces, though we're out of Potions of Extra Healing. I didn't use the Wand of Lightning trick, and the Planar Sphere was very draining.
Nay, My Raven: I did a test and found that Haer'dalis did not get any more fatigued when we returned to Athkatla, so I'm not sure how quickly fatigue actually progresses. Either way, I decided to get rid of him. Valygar arrived in the party with 16 Constitution and no fatigue, and Haer'dalis didn't care o'ermuch for being prodded all the time, anyway.
You Can't Stab with Katanas: The first Clay Golem of the dungeon nearly killed Mazzy due to some lucky rolls. The Sahuagin caused a crash somehow, but otherwise were not problem. Backstabbing with two characters does a lot to end encounters quickly, but Valygar only does 2x damage on a backstab, and he can't do it with the Corthala Family Blade (I used the Stiletto of Demarchess for that purpose when I got it later on). This time, the Boots of Speed did not prevent Poppy from backstabbing, like it did with Yoshimo. It might be because I was using Belm, but I don't really know.
Keldorn talked to Valygar and admired his sense of justice. Keldorn gets along with everybody. You know, except Viconia. And Anomen, but Anomen's a jerk. But a Paladin who can be on good terms with an atheist? That's just nice.
The Hungry Hungry Halflings: Togan, Mogadish, Entu, and Kayardi turned out to be very easy to beat. After backstabbing Entu, I threw out a couple of Cloudkill spells, with some shots from the Tuigan Bow in between, and it seems that that shut down their spells. Valygar and Poppy backstabbed Mogadish while the others slowly died from the Cloudkill. I might be remembering them as more difficult because the last time I played them was with SCS, and I always have enemies prebuff when I've got SCS installed. Anyway, they didn't seem to cast any spells, and with Valygar and Poppy's backstabbing, and the poison effect from the Corthala Family Blade, they went down without causing much damage.
Don't Fail Your Saves: Necre and Taibela were much harder. I used the Wand of Cloudkill again, but Necre and Taibela gave chase, escaping the cloud. Taibela came in with spell protections and Mirror Image. I activated Detect Illusions, but before I could dispel the Mirror Image and start to interrupt her spells, she cast Chaos, and the only one who made their save was Mazzy. The rest were disabled, and Taibela wisely followed up with a Confusion spell. It makes sense: you throw out the short-duration Chaos spell because of its save penalty and high chance of success, and then, to extend the duration, you use Confusion right afterwards. By the time the battle was over, Mazzy, Poppy, and Keldorn were all more than 3/4 in the red. Keldorn had a nice chat with Minsc over his wounds. I love this guy!
Lavok Killed Me: With a Chain Lightning spell. Sure wish I had Protection from Lightning. Anyway, on my successful try, I managed to backstab him a couple times, but then his Improved Mantle came up, and the only weapons that could damage him were the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin and the Flame Tongue (which also strikes as a +4 weapon, but this only applies to the one you find in the Druid Grove, not the one you can purchase). He got a Horrid Wilting spell off the ground, but I kept Aerie out of the way, and the rest of the party had just enough HP to survive it. Once his Improved Mantle went down, though, there wasn't much he could do.
Lunch Break! The whole party was in pieces, so I made lunch and waited for the Ring of Regeneration and Pearly White Ioun Stone to heal up the party. By the time the party had recovered, Aerie was fatigued again. I still feel bad for not letting her rest in the Temple Ruins.
Tolgerias and his Toady: I used the Wand of Cloudkill twice in this battle to interrupt the enemy's spellcasting. Tolgerias managed to summon some monsters, but that just gave me extra loot. I kept Aerie out of the cloud, as well as Poppy, and had them attack Tolgerias' nameless buddy, who only had Protection from Normal Missiles and I think also Protection from Normal Weapons. Aerie has loads of Bullets +2, and Poppy has a fair amount of Arrows +1, so the mage was basically helpless. Tolgerias, however, had Improved Mantle, so I used the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin and Flame Tongue. Unfortunately, Tolgerias had a Spell Trigger with PFMW and Protection from Normal Missiles, prolonging his life. I switched all of my fighters to fists, except for Valygar, who had an unenchanted Katana, and broke through Tolgerias' defenses. All the while, the two Cloudkills kept interrupting Tolgerias' spells. Tolgerias managed to stun Mazzy and Keldorn, but his longer spells got interrupted. He dropped a Ring of the Ram, so I got two of them in this run. Too bad they come without charges. But at least got that 1 extra gold piece. Except I spent 75 gold identifying it with Joluv. So I actually lost 74 gold because of it. And I lost 99 gold when I pickpocketed it from him earlier on, because I had to identify it, then, too, to see if it came with a charge. So I lost 173 gold because of the Ring of the Ram. Crime doesn't pay.
Duh: Against the various ice enemies to the northwest, I used the Wand of Fire. Against the various fire enemies to the northeast, I used the Wand of Frost. First I went after the ice enemies. All I had to do was give Mazzy the Ring of Fire Resistance, Dragon Scale Helm, and Dragon Scale Shield, and she was at 90% fire resistance and 50% cold resistance. Three charges from the Wand of Fire and the enemies were down. When I remembered Valygar's armor gives 25% fire resistance, I switched the ring, helm, and shield to Valygar, so he had over 100% fire resistance and 50% cold resistance. The fire enemies caused more trouble; I had to bring in the other fighters to finish them off. Note that the Wand of Frost does not actually do 8d6 damage, with all 1s rolled as 2s, as the description says. It does 16d3 damage, which just means the damage is less likely to be very low or very high, since there are more dice rolls. When the Efreeti turned into a cloud to recover, I had Valygar hit it with his sword. I saw in an earlier thread that Valygar's sword's poison effect can finish off Efreet in their gaseous forms, and I always hated Efreet for their cloud forms. It worked. Valygar poisoned a cloud to death. Yay.
Free Action is So Nice: Finally, I had to deal with the Tanar'ri, to get the Demon Heart and feed it to the Planar's Sphere power core thingy. I didn't like this. The Tanar'ri, aside from its 50 MR, good saves, 4 APR, -5 AC, and roughly 100 HP, also uses Death Gaze, which does 2d8 fire damage and holds the target for 5 rounds. If I could cast Free Action, I could have made the whole party immune to the hold effect, and Protection from Fire (Aerie could cast both) would have negated the fire damage. And, if I used a scroll of Protection from Normal Weapons, I could have made one character immune to the Tanar'ri's attacks for 10 rounds, since it attacks with a nonmagical weapon. Unfortunately, I had none of those things. Instead, I tried using Blindness on the Tanar'ri, but that never worked. My frontliners also repeatedly failed their saves, and only Keldorn was immune to the hold effect, a product of his armor. The party got slaughtered. Finally I got sick of it and decided to drink three potions: one Potion of Frost Giant Strength for Keldorn, and an Oil of Speed for both Keldorn and Minsc (Mazzy actually would have been a better choice for that extra Oil of Speed, given her high APR that makes her a better hitter than Minsc). That time, only one character failed their save, and finally the Tanar'ri fell. But we were all out of Potions of Extra Healing.
I also tried to kill Firkraag. I've heard his WIS was 3, meaning that Kachiko's Wakizashi can take him down in 2 hits. But with his save vs. death of 3, Kachiko's Wakizashi seldom ever drains Firkraag's Wisdom, Greater Malison is blocked by MR, and even when I buffed Poppy with a Potion of Power, DUHM, Improved Haste, and Tenser's Transformation, she still couldn't land those two Wisdom-draining hits on him. I will try again later, but it's disappointing Kachiko's Wakizashi didn't work.
I didn't have any pre-Firkraag saves, so I decided to go ahead and fight him using other methods. The results were actually more disappointing than the failure of Kachiko's Wakizashi.
Simulacrum -> Lower Resistance -> Feeblemind
No surprises here.
And he flashes yellow the first time I try it. No reload necessary. Before, I reloaded at least 20 times, trying different things and hoping for better rolls, to drain Firkraag's Wisdom. And then Feeblemind succeeded in one try.
Mazzy landed the killing move.
So I went over to Thaxll'ssillyia, since I had a Lower Resistance and Feeblemind scroll left. Poppy cast LR; Aerie cast Feeblemind.
Yup. Such a letdown. If I had kept a save before I went to the Windspear Hills again, then I would have saved Firkraag and Thaxll'ssillyia for later, and we would have had a more interesting battle. I was rather pleased with myself when I first discovered the Feeblemind trick so many years ago, but now...
Ah, well. At least we have Carsomyr, and some extra room in our scroll cases. And Mazzy gained a level, and a proficiency point in Two-Weapon Fighting. She now dual-wields Kundane and the Short Sword of Backstabbing. Maybe I'll buy her the Short Sword of Mask on the way back.
One thing I neglected to mention earlier: Mazzy appears to get an extra, illegal proficiency point at level 9. If she joins at level 7, she has +++++ in Short Bow and + in Short Sword. At level 9, she has +++++ in Short Bow and +++ in Short Sword, gaining two proficiency points in two levels. At level 9, you should have seven proficiency points, four from level 1 and three from levels 3, 6, and 9... but Mazzy gets eight. Unless you really don't want Mazzy using Short Swords, it's actually best to get her at level 9. I don't get why more people don't use Mazzy. She's proficient in Short Swords, and therefore Kundane. At low levels, that's a 50% increase in APR and therefore damage (or 33% if you're using Haste). At high levels, that's a 33% increase in APR (or 25% if you're using Haste). I've heard lots of enemies are resistant to piercing damage, but I don't know which ones those are besides Clay Golems. There are several excellent short swords, and three of them you can get in Chapter 2, with minimal work: Kundane, the Short Sword of Backstabbing, and the Short Sword of Mask. Being able to use the Tuigan Bow doesn't hurt, either. I guess if you have Haer'dalis in your party, though, you would want to give him Kundane, and Mazzy's APR advantage would therefore come with a major opportunity cost.
Can I just say I love that you're familiar with the Law of Large Numbers? It's something I have to explain to people so often, seeing it just casually used warms my heart.
Also, Mazzy is a boss. Best fighter in the game, barring Sarevok, and even then it's arguable. I use her a lot.
Thanks for all those screenshots. It seems you do them at the right time : )
Also, thanks for all those insights. You've brought another evidence to the fact that a F/M/T can do insane damage and be an overkill even in the party of 6. This character is just unstoppable.
Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been busy with Christmas stuff.
With Carsomyr in hand, I decided to deal with the liches of Athkatla and the Guarded Compound. I wanted the Ring of Gaxx and Celestial Fury. I decided not to do the Twisted Rune, though I'm not sure why. Poppy would have been a ludicrously effective backstabber with the Staff of the Magi.
On the way to the Bridge District lich, I spotted Shank and Carbos fighting over Bubbles. Just for fun, I decided to backstab Carbos. I accidentally clicked on Bubbles. Reload.
For the Elemental Lich, I used a scroll of Death Fog. While the lich had Improved Mantle up, I had Mazzy dual the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin and Kundane. Valygar used the Flame Tongue, and Keldorn used Carsomyr. Death Fog interrupted the lich's initial Time Stop, as planned. From there, Mazzy, Valygar, and Keldorn whittled away the lich, while the lich struggled to land a single spell. The War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin and the Flame Tongue don't get enough credit for being +4 weapons. They're not just useful for Kangaxx; a lot of vanilla mages seem to use Improved Mantle, and those two weapons go right through it. Kundane and Belm are doubly notable for making these weapons useful even for characters without pips in situational weapons like the hammer and Flame Tongue. Death Fog really should be the go-to method for killing liches. Their spells take so long to cast that the Death Fog is almost guaranteed to hit during spellcasting, though spell disruption isn't guaranteed.
I didn't use Death Fog on the Shade Lich. He went down anyway. Improved Mantle just isn't much use against +4 weapons and Carsomyr. No potions, no scrolls, nothing. We had high enough APR to break through his protections anyway.
On the way out of the Temple District, I looked at the northwest corner of the map. I have played this game for more than half my life, and I have never set eyes on this section of the map, simply because nothing is there.
I didn't feel like using Death Fog on Kangaxx, so I equipped Keldorn with fire resistance items (no Red Dragon Scale; I didn't want to spend the money), plus a Potion of Fire Resistance, and used the Necklace of Missiles on him from afar. The Necklace of Missiles has a power of 9, bypassing even Rakshasas' spell level immunities. It only interrupted one spell, but thankfully, it was Time Stop. Keldorn ended up with the Necklace of Form Stability, since I moved the Necklace of Missiles from him to Poppy, and Poppy traded it for the Necklace of Form Stability. This was especially useful, as I was relying on Keldorn to tank, and that necklace made him virtually immune to Kangaxx's many Flesh to Stone spells (he cast at least three). Keldorn also resisted Kangaxx's Symbol spells and Disintegrate due to his high MR and low saves, and because he was an Inquisitor, he was immune to Domination.
When Kangaxx changed to Demilich form, Keldorn used a scroll of Protection from Undead. A scroll of Protection from Magic would have made more sense conceptually, but scrolls of Protection from Undead are easier to come by: aside from the scrolls in Waukeen's Promenade, you can buy several of them in the Temple District at the Temple of Helm, and maybe some other temples as well. I kept the other characters out of Kangaxx's view, since they had no protection against his Imprisonment ability (I didn't want to use up any scrolls of Spell Immunity or Spell Deflection). Eventually Kangaxx panicked and fled. He flew past Keldorn before I could block him in. Since Kangaxx doesn't attack when he's fleeing, I brought in Mazzy and Valygar with their +4 weapons (one of them also had the Boots of Speed, but I forget who) and eventually trapped Kangaxx in a corner. Keldorn got the final blow.
I stopped by Watcher's Keep to get the Short Sword of Mask, and bought a bunch of Potions of Extra Healing, since Garlena sold them at lower prices than I saw at the Adventurer's Mart.
From there, I returned to the Temple District to grab Celestial Fury. The game crashed when I triggered the summoning trap on the first level, so I decided to use CTRL-J to hop over it. The Boots of Speed might have also helped; I've bypassed area triggers with them before.
I used the Wand of Cloudkill twice to interrupt Sion and Stalman's spells, then disarmed the traps with Poppy. Meanwhile, my frontliners braced for Ketta, Koshi, Maferan, and Olaf Rassmusen, and Aerie cast Blindness on Stalman. Stalman failed his save, and sat in the cloud while the rest of of us fought. I took down Koshi first to avoid getting stunned, then handed the sword to Valygar. Mazzy entangled Ketta with the Short Sword of Mask, preventing Ketta from backstabbing us, so we first attacked Olaf Rassmusen and Maferan, before turning on Ketta (Sion died in the cloud).
When Ketta finally fell and I was picking up the loot, I noticed Stalman, standing around in the south. I completely forgot he was there. I backstabbed him until he exploded.
Next up was the Shadow Thieves' quest and the lich at the Crooked Crane inn, in the Gate District.
The first mission for the Shadow Thieves had to be done at night, but it was daytime when I started it, so I decided to travel to Watcher's Keep and back to pass the time. Since Poppy had gone for two weeks without sleep already and still was not fatigued, I assumed that the trip would not fatigue the party.
When I got back, not only was it still daytime; Mazzy also reminded me her sister was dying in Trademeet. I had forgotten about that quest. I hurried off to Trademeet to help her sister. When I finally got back to Athkatla, it was nighttime.
The first two Shadow Thief missions were simple enough. The final assault was harder. Keldorn used a second Protection from Undead scroll to run through the area, but Tanova sees right through Protection from Undead, and with her many spells, she is a considerable threat even to Keldorn (she once stunned him with Symbol: Stun and her summons cut him to pieces while he was vulnerable). Some vampires tracked down the other party members as well, but thanks to a lot of running, only Aerie got level drained, just once. I forget how I restored her; I don't recall visiting a temple. Maybe I reloaded. Only Aerie and Poppy could wear the Amulet of Power, so I had to keep the vampires trained on one of them.
Finally, I visited the Crooked Crane to fight the second-to-last lich in Athkatla, besides Shangalar. After picking up a few spells from the merchant outside, I had Aerie cast Polymorph Self and Protection from Evil with scrolls and head through the secret door. She shapeshifted into the Mustard Jelly form to reach 100% magic resistance and sat there while the lich wasted his spells on her. With Protection from Evil, the lich's Pit Fiend ignored Aerie and ended up getting killed by the lich's Horrid Wilting spell. When the lich was down to using Melf's Acid Arrows, I sent in the rest of the party to finish off the lich and grab Daystar, which I pawned off.
For reasons I do not understand, the entire party aside from Mazzy was fatigued by the end of the fight with the Crooked Crane lich. Even though they had been awake for varying lengths of time (Poppy was awake for over a month), they all got fatigued simultaneously, midway through this fight, with a few seconds separating them. Mazzy presumably didn't get fatigued since she left the party due to her quest.
Keldorn had an nice talk with Minsc. It happened next to Aran Linvail, probably because I used MoveToArea and CTRL-J to rush them from the Crooked Crane inn to the Shadow Master.
I decided to let the party rest on the way to Spellhold. I even let them memorize a few spells. I didn't want to leave them fatigued the rest of the game, not when I had gotten so accustomed to having them fresh. Testing later found, though, that they were only at -1 luck. Aerie, despite being fatigued many days earlier, was only at -2 luck.
Findings: 1: The handful of +4 weapons in Chapter 2 work wonders against enemy mages, since vanilla spellcasters, even liches, tend to use Improved Mantle rather than Protection from Magical Weapons. 2: Death Fog is a fantastic anti-lich spell, as it breaks through liches' spell level immunities, hits many times, and does 80 damage over the course of its 10-round duration. Cloudkill and Death Fog in general are very good at taking down enemy casters. 3: Fatigue really doesn't work the way I thought it did.
Despite the party being awake for weeks, and for different times, all the NPCs with 16 CON or higher got fatigued within a few seconds of each other. Unless I have a unique bug, it seems that in-game time does not guarantee the onset of fatigue. High constitution delayed the onset of fatigue, but fatigue progressed incredibly slowly across the board. Most of the party only got -1 luck. Aerie only got -2. Fatigue does not progress quickly or at predictable intervals, at least not with the information at our disposal.
One possibility is that there are certain periods in the game when the party's fatigue is reset. Having NPCs leave the group is one example, but this does not explain why Poppy did not get fatigued for so long. However, since Aerie's fatigue did not disappear except when she left the party, it seems that the party's fatigue is not actually reset: I assume what's happening is that a fatigue TIMER is reset, or for some other reason does not progress normally. This means that, if a character gets fatigued, he or she will stay fatigued until the party rests or they leave the party. But, if a character approaches fatigue, he or she may get kicked back to an earlier state, resetting the timer and preventing fatigue for a time.
But this is speculation. I do not know the real reason why fatigue for my high-CON characters took so long to develop, and set in simultaneously.
If fatigue always behaves the way I've seen it in this run, then a restless run's biggest weakness is not fatigue, but the lack of spells, especially cleric buffs (there are barely any scrolls for cleric spells in BG2).
Spellhold was simple. Perth the Adept died before he could get any spells off the ground; he wasted his first round with spell turning. Despite having the wardstone to get into Spellhold, I convinced Desharik to let me into the asylum. Minsc is a ham.
In the asylum itself, Mazzy took a moment to raise party morale. Mazzy is nice.
I don't remember how long you have to wait in Spellhold for Irenicus to appear. I tried talking to everybody, but that didn't work. I decided to try and pickpocket Lonk the Sane, and failed, and though he did not turn hostile, that seemed to trigger Irenicus' entry, just like if you attack somebody in the area.
Backstabbing and melee force got the party through Spellhold. The party is tough enough that minor encounters aren't really an issue anymore.
Valygar is 90% dead, but he's taking it in stride. Mazzy has been especially sweet lately.
Somehow, when I fought the mind flayer at the podium near the kobold area, it dominated Mazzy and Valygar, and Valygar was removed from the party in the process. I'd never seen Psionic Domination remove somebody from the party before. I used CTRL-R to see what would happen, and Mazzy turned green, only to turn red later on (maybe Minsc attacked her for killing Aerie), and then Mazzy left the party. I'm not sure what happened. I reloaded to fix the problem. We left the Spellhold gauntlet with an extra Ring of Regeneration, the Robe of Reflection, and a second pair of Boots of Speed. With the Ring of Gaxx and two Rings of Regeneration, the party no longer needs to worry about healing between battles.
Irenicus saved against a Bolt of Biting and an Arrow of Biting, which I hoped would interrupt his spells, but the party got him down to Near Death within a few seconds anyway, ending the battle before Irenicus could start to hurt us. Wanev's Symbol spells disabled all the clones except for the Keldorn clone. The Murderers tried to backstab Poppy, which worried me, but they had such poor THAC0 that they never even hit her.
It was daytime when I got out, meaning I would have to wait until nightfall to retrieve the horn from Cayia's home. Since I was nowhere near getting fatigued, had spent no spells, and regeneration would have healed the party anyway, I decided that resting wouldn't have helped the party, and resting once to get to nightfall would have been acceptable.
Resting triggers the cutscene that gives Charname the Slayer Change ability, so I shouldn't actually get the Slayer Change form in a restless run. One of the nice things about a restless run is that you don't get those cutscenes.
Actually, I'm not sure which cutscene grants the Slayer Change ability. I have a bug that has prevented it from happening for my last four games or so. In a restless run, though, it shouldn't matter, since you shouldn't end up resting anyhoo.
On to the City of Caverns! I love King Ixilthetocal. How could I say no to that big, fishy face?
Incidentally, is there any connection between Ixilthetocal and Ixil's Spike?
The City of Caverns was rather dull besides King Ixilthetocal. All I really wanted was the Cloak of Mirroring, Boots of Etherealness, and Cloak of Protection +2. Impaler was a nice bonus. Valygar can use it.
Alchra Diagott was disappointing. He died in three hits. I really underused backstabbing in my other games.
Vithal, however, was a trial. Killing him is optional (he's evil, so it's okay, and anyway there are no laws in the Underdark for my Lawful Neutral Charname to follow), but he does drop a scroll of Time Stop if he dies after his quest is over (not before), and I didn't want to miss out on one of the best scrolls in the game. Vithal comes out with PFMW, and with his excellent saves (his save vs. spell is 1), he easily resisted my Bolts of Biting, Darts of Wounding, and Darts of Stunning. And if he survives the first round, he casts Time Stop, and once he has the opportunity to throw out any spells he wants to, he doesn't hold back. That's just mean.
Sometimes he escapes with Dimension Door instead, which doesn't kill us but still robs us of a useful scroll. On two separate tries, I've seen him cast two Imprisonment spells and two Time Stop spells, and with his one Gate spell, he apparently has five 9th level spell slots. Sorceror, mage, or specialist mage, he's long past epic levels. I don't remember how I took him down. I think I managed to get in one Dart of Wounding, eventually, and that prevented his Time Stop.
I gave the Shield of Balduran and Cloak of Mirroring to Valygar and Mazzy, gave both of them Boots of Speed, and had them rush through the Beholder hive. Note that the Cloak of Mirroring does not stop Beholder's disabling spells, so Mazzy still got paralyzed by Beholder rays. Also note that Beholders keep using their rays even when they're stunned. Celestial Fury will not stop the rays. Only the Shield of Balduran can do that. Or a Globe of Invulnerability+Death Ward+Spell Shield+Chaotic Commands+Protection from Petrification+Spell Immunity: Transmutation+Free Action combo. Or 100% magic resistance, plus -1 save vs. death or Hindo's Doom or Spell Immunity: Transmutation, since Death Ray bypasses magic resistance. Or Spell Immunity to Necromancy, Transmutation, Evocation, and Enchantment. Plus Spell Shield. Or negative saves across the board. Plus Protection from Magical Energy or GOI. And Protection from Lightning. Of course, you also need Spell Immunity: Abjuration or Spell Deflection/Turning/Trap or Shield of the Archons, if you're going up against Elder Orbs. Because they use Imprisonment. Like they did on Valygar. Thankfully, you get Freedom scrolls just a few minutes' walk away.
I am midway through the Ust Natha quests, though I will likely kill Adalon by the end of the questline anyway to get the Silver Dragon's Blood.
Findings: 1: Mind Flayers can remove your party members somehow. It doesn't seem too common, though. I've only seen it once before. 2: I've really underestimated Carsomyr. All spellcasters have gotten much, much easier since getting a hold of it and started using it alongside Flame Tongue and the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin. I've always thought of Carsomyr as a defensive weapon due to its 50 MR, but its high enchantment does a lot to help break through mages' defenses. A weapon's enchantment level is often just as important as its damage and THAC0 bonuses. 3: Carsomyr can dispel disablers, but not always. I've seen it remove a domination spell on Poppy, only for it to fail to dispel another domination effect, and also fail to dispel the fear effect from Symbol: Fear. This could be a better option than using Carsomyr's Dispel Magic ability, as Dispel Magic is area effect and could remove positive buffs on non-disabled party members. 4: Mazzy is a sweetie pie.
This is great stuff semiticgod, it's been a long time since I've seen a run as original as this and executed with such panache. Could I tentatively suggest a name: No Sleep Till Balduran?
Since Phaere wasn't at the city entrance as I had hoped, I decided to do the Illithid quest until she appeared.
Nope, still can't escape.
I intended to use Project Image scrolls to save the Control Circlets, only to find that my projected image lost her second Control Circlet when I reloaded from a Quick Save. I was not pleased. No quickslot items left. Apparently saving during Project Image's duration and reloading empties out their quickslots. I didn't have an earlier save, so I just continued.
Half my party failed their saves on a Psionic Blast. They didn't last long. Mind Flayers are no fun without Chaotic Commands. I reloaded multiple times due to INT drain. Valygar and Mazzy die in two hits, and the Mind Flayers apparently didn't need critical hits to eat their brains. I found the Wand of Cloudkill to be very effective against Mind Flayers, as it kills their Umber Hulks and appears to break through the Mind Flayers' magic resistance.
I don't know why Mazzy takes Valygar for her squire, but he doesn't like it. In classic Valygar fashion, he's unemotional and calm. Call him stoic or call him boring. I love Mazzy's line.
I used a second Project Image scroll to save Control Circlet, and unwisely chose an Ulitharid to charm, because it was tougher. Turns out Ulitharids can't open doors. Apparently only Mind Flayers can open those doors. Without any Project Image scrolls, and not willing to use any Simulacrum scrolls, I decided to use a Control Circlet normally, this time on a Mind Flayer, and he or she managed to open the door where the Ulitharid had failed. I wouldn't have to deal with this nonsense if I could turn into the Slayer.
I decided to backstab the Ulitharid on the way out, but the game had other plans. I don't know why it's so hard to Hide in Shadows in that room. The rest of the dungeon was easy to hide in.
Like most runs of the Illithid lair, it was fairly hard and fairly boring. Mind Flayers are awful nasty, but they've only got one strategy. The best way to deal with them basically boils down to Chaotic Commands or Death Spell. Other strategies just don't work very well. I wasn't willing to spend Aerie's Chaotic Command spells, and I forgot to use my one Death Spell scroll, so the party got their brains eaten many times.
Back to Ust Natha. With an Elder Orb eye and Elder Brain's blood, there weren't much of any challenges left in the Ust Natha questline.
Phaere was very impressed with the svirfneblin helmet. This is one of four separate quests where you can avoid killing somebody you're ordered to kill. Mae'var says to kill Embarl, but all you need is his dagger. Ixilthetocal says to kill Villynaty, but all you need is a fake heart. Phaere says to kill the deep gnomes, but all you need is a helmet. Phaere says to kill Solaufein, but all you need is his Piwafwi Cloak. In other quests when you're asked to kill somebody, like in the Harper quests or Edwin's quest, the questgiver automatically knows the target is dead. They only ask for proof of a kill when they're too stupid to verify the death themselves.
When Phaere calls you back from the Matron Mother's place, a rather imperious drow female interrupts you and demands you fight a bunch of Ghaunadar priests and their various oozes. If you ignore her, the whole city attacks you. And if you don't get back to Phaere within an hour, the whole city attacks you. Taso Kala's only purpose is to irritate you. So I talk-blocked her to avoid the quest. Unfortunately, when I used CTRL-J to reach Phaere's quarters later on, Taso Kala talked to me before I realized she was still there. I had to do the quest anyway. I used the Wand of Cloudkill to deal with the priests and Otyughs. The oozes were immune.
Adalon's imp is like an annoying version of Cespenar. Look at its syntax. It doesn't even tell you anything new. Another distraction.
I decided not to kill Adalon, despite her irritating imp. It's been ages since I actually completed the quest normally, though my Charname really could use the Human Flesh.
Before I left, I had to go grab the Girdle of Frost Giant Strength. Mazzy, Valygar, and Keldorn all have below 18 STR, and we need all the girdles we can get. I hate the Demon Knights, but the loot is worth it. I summoned a Fire Elemental via a scroll and used a few charges from the Wand of Cloudkill before battle. I had to reload when I accidentally turned the Fire Elemental hostile. By the time I got out of the Underdark, I had 14 charges left in the Wand of Cloudkill.
Valygar, Mazzy, Keldorn, and Minsc all got level drained. I will restore them at the Temple of Helm with Viconia.
Findings: None, really. This part of the game isn't very heavy on strategy, so there's not much to say, beyond using the talk-block trick of Taso Kala, and using the Wand of Cloudkill on Mind Flayers and Demon Knights.
I threw out one Cloudkill to hassle Layenne, sent Valygar with the Shield of Balduran to occupy Vaxall, had Poppy run out to distract Shyressa, because she had the Amulet of Power, and the rest of my party busied themselves with attacking Shangalar. Revanek, as usual, was a non-issue.
Shangalar cast Improved Mantle and thus was more or less helpless against Mazzy and Keldorn. Aerie and Minsc could not break through the Improved Mantle, so they did fairly little. Vaxall charmed himself two or three times, and did little else before dying a few rounds into the fight.
Shyressa attacked Valygar, ignoring Poppy, and I had Valygar flee for a moment, trying to keep Vaxall focused on Valygar and Shyressa focused on Poppy, but Valygar ended up being the sole target of both. Valygar got level drained a bit before killing Vaxall and Shyressa. I don't remember how Revanek died.
When Shangalar, Shyressa, Vaxall, and Revanek were gone, Layenne was lingering in the cloud, with a (Minor) Globe of Invulnerability apparently active, but nothing else. When the cloud cleared soon after, I rushed in and attacked her. She went down.
This was the single most anticlimactic fight I'd ever had with the Twisted Rune. With the whole party at level 15, equipped with the best weapons in vanilla SoA, plus the Short Sword of Mask, even the Twisted Rune can't do much. I think I drank one or two Potions of Extra Healing, and that was it.
I have a ridiculous oversupply of scrolls, and only a few thousand gold left, as I have placed a very high priority on grabbing consumables. For about the second half of the game so far, I have been relying almost entirely on brute melee force, using almost no potions, wands, scrolls, or spells. I originally planned to have a more consumables-oriented party, with Aerie, Poppy, and at least one other arcane spellcaster to use scrolls and wands. As time has gone on, though, it seems that fighter-types are just plain more effective in most situations in a restless run, and casters are mostly suited for situational, toolkit-type roles.
Findings: 1: If fatigue normally develops as slowly as it did in this run (with high-CON characters, anyway), then spellcasters are mostly dead weight in a restless run. We lose out on a lot of valuable buffs, and spellcasting via consumables is ridiculously expensive, but fighters tend to stay quite strong despite losing rest. Except for, perhaps, the very early game, we only need one or maybe two characters with mage levels, since we usually only need one spell per round, at most, and few or no buffs. 2: The resource crunch occurs very early on in a restless run. If I had used more spellcasters in my party, then scrolls and such might have had a bigger role, but once the party got the right equipment and a few levels, then consumables because increasingly irrelevant to the party's success. 3: The Wand of Lightning trick is completely unnecessary for a restless run. The party has enough resources not to need the WoL trick to enhance its consumables. Though the WoL trick is quite fun.
In general, a restless run would probably start with pooling enough money to buy Potions of Master Thievery and nabbing the Ring of Regeneration from Ribald (which could be done by the moment we escaped the first dungeon), as the ring will save a lot of money that would otherwise go to potions. A melee-heavy party should plow through enough early encounters to buy the Wand of Cloudkill, which would break basically every fight with enemy mages. We could also kill Mekrath, who in vanilla BG2 has no defense against magical weapons, to get his Wand of Cloudkill and Rod of Resurrection. Against liches, we just need a scroll of Death Fog or +4 weapons, or maybe just wait out their spells with Polymorph Self in Mustard Jelly form, and a Protection from Evil spell to keep away gated demons. The Ring of Regeneration is sufficient to replace healing spells on rest, and with a melee-heavy party, our inability to memorize spells will not be such a big disability, as our strength will not come from spells.
The weaknesses of a restless run can be nearly negated by using a melee-heavy party with high Constitution, getting the Ring of Regeneration, a Wand of Cloudkill, and a small number of scrolls for special situations. Jan would suffice as the party scroll- and wand-user, and due to his equipment and thief levels, he would be the superior alternative to other spellcasting NPCs. A single-classed dwarven Kensai Charname with the Shield Amulet would probably work best.
I think the restless run has been broken as a challenge, considering how impossible it seemed at the beginning. There are certainly more ways of playing a restless run than I have used here, but this formula is probably sufficient to resolve the most critical problems of a restless run, which are (1) a lack of pre-combat buffs (2) a lack of healing (3) a lack of in-combat offensive magic, and (4) the onset of fatigue.
ToB might be different, but right now it looks like resting is simply not necessary for a successful run of BG2.
All right. We can avoid "waiting around" to limit the HP we get from regeneration. But that wouldn't have made much difference in my run. It would have required one reload and a few hundred extra gold.
In the case of my run, I actually only stalled the adventure once to regenerate fully. That was after Lavok, for maybe 5 minutes (50 HP healed, roughly), and if I did not do so, I would have had great difficulty getting out of the Planar Sphere alive, as I had run out of potions by the end. It might have been necessary to reload an earlier save, and buy some potions before entering the sphere. I got a LOT of healing from regeneration, but "waiting around" for regeneration to take effect was just a drop in the bucket.
If we avoid waiting around for regeneration to kick in, then the Ring of Regeneration would still be a huge boon. It just wouldn't completely obviate the need for out-of-combat potions and healing. Putting aside travel time, BG2 has a fair amount of walking around, during which you can regenerate a great deal. The remainder could be filled in with potions. Also, Greater Restoration at a temple only costs 750 gold and heals the entire party, at the cost of fatiguing one member (which would probably be our spellcaster). That would be relatively cheap compared to buying potions.
So let's say we do not rest, nor do we wait for regeneration to heal us. We just move from one encounter to the next. Every hour of gameplay, we would heal 600 HP, right? That's 3600 seconds, with 1 HP every 6 seconds. BG2 has many hours of gameplay, although much of that is spent paused, and therefore not regenerating.
If we don't allow ourselves to regenerate AT ALL, however, we would be much more strained. We'd probably heal ourselves at temples, which would save a lot of money at the cost of a lot of backtracking.
I'm not sure what you're suggesting as the alternative, but I see two alternatives, both of which would work fine. If you're saying we shouldn't "wait around" for regeneration, I don't think that actually makes a big difference. I healed only tens of HP by waiting, and hundreds of HP by just walking around, and I used CTRL-J to speed up the party!
If you're saying we shouldn't use regeneration at all in a restless run, however (a no-rest, no-regeneration run), then we would need to dedicate a lot more gold to healing. I think temples would probably be the cheapest method. Still doable, but more expensive.
BG2 does have a lot of gold in it, though. If I took half the money I spent on wands and scrolls, and spent it one potions instead, I probably could have bought enough potions to make regeneration unnecessary. If I spent that money on healing at a temple, I definitely could have compensated for the loss of regeneration. Regeneration is not the only way to get back that HP; it just saves a lot of hassle and gold.
So, without regeneration, the restless run should still be doable. But you wouldn't be able to waste as much money as I did (tens of thousands of gold went into scrolls I'll probably never use).
Thank you for pointing that out. I wouldn't have thought much about the specifics of regeneration if you hadn't called attention to it.
I think I'll take off the rings of regeneration when I continue the game, and see how the game goes without any regeneration at all. I'll still wear the Ring of Gaxx, but only in battle. I don't know where you can find healing in Suldanessalar, though, so maybe I should buy a bunch of potions before going there. I'll have to sell a lot of stuff to get the gold, though.
Maybe I'll leave Aerie behind and pick up Korgan. I don't have any good axes or hammers on hand, but he'd still be more useful than Aerie.
@semiticgod Well I kind of got the idea you wanted to make resource management more meaningful with this challenge. Unlimited regeneration, whether you're waiting on it or not, removes a massive challenge from this.
EDIT: I don't mean to tell you what you should or shouldn't do, just voicing my thoughts on the subject. TBH, I'd be interested in a challenge that made resource management more meaningful.
Comments
The Cloak of Mirroring certainly reduces the options of enemy spellcasters a great deal. I guess by the time I've found it, though, I've usually taken down most of the liches and so forth, so there aren't so many mage battles for the Cloak of Mirroring to protect me against. And in late-game SoA and ToB, Dragon's Breath can take out most mages anyway, either from sheer damage or the unconscious effect (which I believe has a -10 save penalty).
Maybe it's just that, whenever I have the Cloak of Mirroring, the party is already strong enough to deal with mages, and so I don't notice the difference it makes.
If 15 and 16 CON have a big fatigue gap between them, it's not reflected in the 2da files. Ostensibly, the HPCONBON.2da file shows the effect of CON on fatigue, and it's only a difference of 1. But maybe that "1" means more than just 1 luck.
Honestly, it's probably not that bad if you don't take one character solo with it. I've just cheesed enough of the game with it that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth these days.
But you're right. Vanilla mages don't know to avoid damage-dealing spells if a character is wearing the Cloak of Mirroring, so their other spells won't necessarily come into play before they fall. If a mage only casts Dominate on your solo Charname on the 8th round, and you kill them by the 6th, the Cloak of Mirroring really does make you immune to their spells. SCS would be a different story, but then it usually is.
It's funny... I'm perfectly willing to use the WoL trick or jury-rig a character to turn into an Iron Golem, but I've never made much use of one of the most infamously overpowered items in the game.
You're definitely right that, for actual solo runs, the Cloak of Mirroring is insufficient, because so many spells that would otherwise be merely inconvenient now end your run. I'm referring more to the tactic of sending in just one character out of a whole party, rather than running truly solo. In that case, you can just wait out the duration and kill them afterwards (which, admittedly, is pretty tedious). But yeah, for soloing it wouldn't work without some augmentation.
Man, I'm learning all sorts of things in this thread.
Offensive Spin (doesn't work with Improved Haste)
Boon of Lathander (stacks with itself)
Kundane (usable by thiefs, bards, and fighters)
Belm (use able by druids, thiefs, bards, and fighters)
Scarlet Ninja-to (UAI thief only, since monks can't hold weapons in the off hand)
As a Blade with proficiencies in Two-Weapon Fighting and Short Sword, Haer'dalis gets two of those things. Unfortunately, I can't rest to get his Offensive Spin back, but he'll still be able to use Kundane in the off hand.
Note that Kundane won't give him an extra attack per round if he equips it in his main hand, since the Iron Golem fist replaces it and removes that APR bonus. We can, of course, dispel any shapeshift weapon with Dispel Magic, or a scroll or spell sequencer that creates a magical weapon: Shocking Grasp, Ghoul Touch, Phantom Blade, Black Blade of Disaster, Flame Blade, Spiritual Hammer, one of the Cause Wounds spells, or Harm. Cleric/Mages can put Flame Blade into a Minor Sequencer, which works quite marvelously, as it gets an undocumented +4 THAC0 bonus. Or, you can use Shocking Grasp, and once the Shocking Grasp is expended, you get to equip your normal items. I used this a lot in my last cleric/mage run.
The Iron Golem's 4d10 base damage is also very important. That's 22 base damage, or 40 maximum damage. And there are three ways to guarantee maximum damage per hit:
Offensive Spin (24 seconds)
Kai (10 seconds)
Righteous Magic (1 round/level)
Again, Haer'dalis gets one of these. Blades work very well with the Iron Golem form, but unfortunately they cannot learn the spell itself, and must cast it via a scroll. Also note that Haer'dalis will be able to learn Time Trap, and can use that to get automatic hits as a Mind Flayer. Kensai/Mages can do quite well with this form, too (dualing at level 13 is especially beneficial, and might make it worth compared to dualing at level 9), but Kai will only get them a few rounds of maximum damage, so other level 9 spells might be worth it.
I have been considering doing a run with a Cleric of Lathander/Mage, which would allow maximum use of the Iron Golem form. I hear Boon of Lathander, for dual classes, is cast at the higher class's level, so it would improve as the character gained mage levels. You get an extra casting of Boon of Lathander at 11th level, so you can reach 3 APR fairly early on. Plus, a dual-classed cleric/mage will learn Shapechange much faster (at 3 million XP, roughly, rather than 6 million) and won't have to wait so long to reach Spell Sequencer, Spell Trigger, and Chain Contingency, compared to a multi-class. The late-game setup would be:
Minor Sequencer: Armor of Faith, Armor of Faith
Spell Sequencer: Holy Power, Teleport Field, Stoneskin/Armor of Faith, or 3 Animate Dead or Skull Trap spells
Contingency: Heal
Spell Trigger: Righteous Magic, PFMW, Improved Haste and/or Heal
Chain Contingency: too many possibilities to list
And it would be wielding Defender of Easthaven in the off hand.
Fully buffed, this character would have 70% resistance to physical damage (or 85% with an extra Armor of Faith, or over 100% with pre-cast Armor of Faith), immunity to the elements and magic, and attack 6 times per round (plus the off hand) for 54 damage per hit, at 4 base THAC0 (11 from Holy Power, plus 7 from 25 STR), with a +4 weapon. The most damaging weapon in the game isn't the Flail of Ages or Ixil's Spike. It's the Iron Golem's fist.
I tried out a similar model with a Fighter/Mage/Cleric, but that took far too much XP. The Cleric of Lathander/Mage would work better with a party, though it won't get GWW or Hardiness (the F/M/C can do over 500 damage per round with Iron Golem form and GWW), and unlike a Fighter/Mage or Mage/Thief, it won't get access to speed weapons. And the Cleric of Lathander/Mage won't require any exploits: all the spells and items will work as intended, no glitches involved. They just happen to synergize very well.
And, of course, the Cleric of Lathander/Mage gets all buffing spells. The only one it doesn't get is Ironskins, and it already gets Stoneskin. So, it can be immune to all spells, if not from its 100% MR, then its spell protections. Note that the Beholder Death Ray bypasses MR. Same goes for Planetars' vorpal strikes.
Oh, and simulacra can turn into the Iron Golem, too, if you cast Shapechange beforehand. And they get HLAs. My F/M/C simulacrum could use GWW, Hardiness, and Critical Strike with Iron Golem form. Over 500 damage per round with a Simulacrum. Over multiple rounds. Plus immunity to all damage.
Oh, and if you equip the Boots of Speed, that can add a 1/2 attack per round for a fighter in Iron Golem form, if their APR when shapeshifted is 1.5 or 2.5, bumping it up to 2 APR or 3 APR. I'm not sure why. This is important because fighters don't get their +1/2 attack per round from weapon specialization, since the Iron Golem fist has no proficiency.
Oh... and the Iron Golem fist can be used to backstab. An F/M/T with Mislead could do 2,500 damage per round with GWW.
But that's just silly.
It was fun exploring it for a bit and figuring out how to maximize it, but from what I can tell, the Iron Golem form is very reductive. Enemies go down so quickly, and they can do so little to hurt you, that you don't have to do much besides run up and bonk them on the head, and they explode. If you're going solo, the whole party is basically invincible, and if you're running a party, the other party members feel really underpowered. If you cast the spell normally--at 18th level as a mage or higher--then your non-Shapechange alternatives are actually worth using sometimes, and Shapechange does not absolutely eclipse all other strategies. Below 3 million XP, however, the Iron Golem form is just plain better than basically anything else, and it can get tedious to see your Iron Golem character massacring everything while the rest of the party sits there, feeling inadequate. But that's just my experience with it.
I wish BG2 had a HoF mode like they have in IWD and IWD2, with triple enemy HP plus 80 on top, double damage, extra enemies, and +5 or +10 to enemy saves, THAC0, damage, and AC. The Iron Golem form would be kind of balanced in HoF mode.
I ran off to the Temple District and went back to the sewers. Since I had the melee power, I decided to take on the Rakshasa, although I ended up just backstabbing him with Yoshimo, twice.
I turned Keldorn aside. I had no room for him.
On to Gaal! And the Vampiric Mists who precede him. I always hated those things. Luckily, Poppy took them down with a single charge from the Wand of Lightning.
Unfortunately, I was not so lucky in the hallway southwest of the Shade Lich. The Wraiths took a level off of Minsc and Poppy both. I had to seek out a Restoration spell.
I tried going to the Temple of Helm just outside, but when I selected Greater Restoration, it cast as though my main character cast it: Poppy instantly became fatigued, instead of the priest who ostensibly cast the spell. Thankfully, though, it restored both Poppy and Minsc, and healed everybody.
But I was not willing to bear that extra fatigue for the whole game. I ditched Haer'dalis, picked up Viconia from the graveyard district, and brought her to the Temple of Helm so she could select Greater Restoration instead of Poppy. Everyone but Haer'dalis got healed, Minsc and Poppy were restored, and Viconia was fatigued, all for 750 gold (the Restoration scrolls available for sale nearby were over 1,000 gold each; not even close to worth it).
I left Viconia inside the temple in case I needed her again. I had to apologize for Haer'dalis before he came back; he wouldn't rejoin without an apology. I only left him there because he was new to the party, and removing him would do the least to improve the party's overall fatigue (I don't want to use Reform Party to remove fatigue).
When I sent Mazzy across the bridge with the riddle, the SOB failed to reflect the Gauths' rays; it merely deflected them, forcing Mazzy to actually attack them. Sometimes it reflected the rays, but usually the rays just had no effect. Aerie used the Wand of Fire and Turn Undead on the Shadows and Shadow Fiends once they rushed in, and after grabbing the Rift Device itself I backstabbed my way through the various ghasts and mummies of the lower reaches.
The Blind Priests did little besides blind Haer'dalis and hit Mazzy with a Flame Strike. I threw out two or three Cloudkills, but to my disappointment, the priests did not follow Mazzy out of the cloud. I suppose it makes sense. They are blind, anyway.
Finally I got to the second half of the Rift Device, and sent Mazzy down to where the Unseeing Eye spawns. I removed its Stoneskins with the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin (which strikes as a +4 weapon), and then switched to Kundane once the Unseeing Eye's Improved Mantle wore off. The Unseeing Eye wasted several rounds using Power Word: Stun, which Mazzy could have avoided even if her HP were low enough to get paralyzed, as she could have simply switched to the Sword of Arvoreen, which blocks stun and slow effects. When that didn't work, he tried chomping on Mazzy's face.
He's so angry!
Unfortunately, I did not realize the Unseeing Eye was making excellent progress.
By nibbling away at Mazzy, he was able to get her HP below 60, rendering her vulnerable to Power Word: Kill. I decided to bear the cost and raise her later, and sent out Yoshimo to try a backstab.
Yoshimo died. Power Word: Kill. Again. I decided to reload, and this time drank a potion when Mazzy got below 60 HP. This time, we won. In retrospect, I should have realized that, since the Unseeing Eye's big thing is that it's a blind Beholder, the Shield of Balduran wouldn't be a standard trump card against it.
Now I had to see if I could smuggle out the Rift Device. I'm pretty sure your familiar can't pickpocket characters who have a higher pickpocket skill than it does (the LN Ferret Familiar has like 80 in pickpocket; the CN Cat has about 20), so I decided that Mr. Meeseeks, Poppy's ferret familiar, would pickpocket it from Minsc, since Minsc should have the lowest pickpocket score: as a human, he should have the lowest racial bonus, as a non-thief, he should have no base pickpocket score, and with his 16 DEX, he had the lowest Dexterity of anyone in the party (BG2 NPCs have some pretty darn high DEX scores).
I did some initial tests and found that Mr. Meeseeks could in fact steal it from Minsc... but if he returned the Rift Device to Poppy, he would no longer be able to steal it again. If I gave the Rift Device back to Minsc and asked Mr. Meeseeks to pickpocket it again, he would report that Minsc had no items left. Worse yet, he couldn't pickpocket Boo. Apparently, I would only be able to hide the Rift Device in Mr. Meeseeks' inventory once. I reloaded.
Before I could smuggle it out of the area, I first wanted to complete the quest, and for that, I needed to get a copy of the expended Rift Device. When you use the Rift Device, the Rift Device itself vanishes, but it creates a new item in your inventory, the expended Rift Device, which is only good for ending the quest.
Thing is, if you have a projected image or simulacrum use the Rift Device, a spare copy of the EXPENDED Rift Device will appear in its inventory, which you can take to the Diseased Ones and complete the quest without losing the ACTIVE Rift Device. To do this, you have to kill the projected image or simulacrum, and nab the expended Rift Device from its body (pickpocketing might work, too, but I didn't try that). When testing this in the past, I have found that only instant-kill effects (such as Finger of Death or CTRL-Y) will make the item drop; otherwise you will get nothing. So giving the clone a couple whacks with a stick will not necessarily give you the expended Rift Device. I forgot to bring a scroll of Finger of Death, but I did succeed with another method.
I put the Rift Device, a scroll of Project Image, and a scroll of Flesh to Stone in my main character's quickslots. I cast Project Image, then had the clone use the Rift Device on Mazzy, nearly killing her (the Rift Device does damage equal to a percentage of the target's HP) and creating a copy of the expended rift device in the clone's inventory. I then had the clone cast Flesh to Stone on itself, and Haer'dalis, with his Ring of Earth Control, cast Stone to Flesh on the clone, bringing it back to life at Near Death. Yoshimo used Hide in Shadows, got behind the clone, and backstabbed her. As I had hoped, the expended Rift Device fell to the ground.
I then had both copies of the Rift Device.
I didn't really need to backstab the clone. I just felt like doing it.
I gave the expended copy to Minsc and had Mr. Meeseeks pick his pocket. Success!
I returned the expended Rift Device to the Avatar of Amaunator, completing the quest while Mr. Meeseeks still held the active Rift Device. On the way out, I paid a visit to Gaal and his friends.
Poppy gained a level and put the points in Hide in Shadows and Move Silently. I gave her the Boots of Stealth, and once I had sold off Yoshimo's equipment and the other loot I had gathered, I kicked Yoshimo out of the party. Poppy now can backstab for 5x damage, just like Yoshimo, and her stealth skills are about high enough to be a decent backstabber. To fill the void, I hurried off to the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart, and asked Keldorn to go on an adventure. Despite Poppy's gradual mental breakdown, Keldorn decides to join the party.
We are now at 50,000 gold, a very dramatic improvement. All that's left is the Druid Grove, Windspear Hills, and Planar Sphere, which I somehow forgot to activate while I was in the Umar Hills. I'll probably use my two spare Polymorph Self scrolls to tank out the Shade Lich and Elemental Lich, but I'm not sure if I'll go after Kangaxx, due to a lack of +4 and +5 weapons. It will probably depend on whether I kill Firkraag and get Carsomyr.
Findings:
1: The Shield of Balduran doesn't protect you against the Unseeing Eye. Should have been a no-brainer, really.
2: Haer'dalis is kind of unforgiving if you take him out of the party.
3: You can heal and restore the entire party for 750 gold at a temple. It only fatigues one person, and you can bring an NPC into the party just long enough for them to take the hit.
Future Plans:
Druid Grove. I really want to get Belm. Poppy has been lugging around a +2 staff for ages, even though I planned from the beginning of the game to have her use Belm (more chances to backstab that way, I think). Plus, Aerie could use the Shield of Harmony, and with all the gold I've got, I should be able to grab some of Adratha's potions before I bring her head to the genies.
It has just occurred to me that Spell Trap offers a source of new spells, once we get at least two 9th level spells. Most of you are probably familiar with the infinite spell trick: you cast Spell Trap, then Project Image, and have the projected image cast PW: Stun and PW: Kill (or other single-target spells of 7th and 9th level) to restore your castings of Spell Trap and Project Image. You can then continue casting spells from the projected image to the character with Spell Trap, gradually restoring their spells. I did some tests to see if this would work with scrolls, only to find that, whether I used Poppy or Aerie, and cast Spell Trap or PW: Stun or PW: Kill or Contagion or Feeblemind or Flesh to Stone or PW: Blind, none of the spells or scrolls I used ever restored a single mage spell slot.
Is anyone aware of a Spell Trap bug? I checked the spell file in DLTCEP and it was just as it was supposed to be, with the spell trap opcode (opcode 259) for levels 1 to 9 and up to 30 spell levels absorbed. So it can't be a mod (I've uninstalled all of mine anyway) causing the problem.
If we did use this trick, we could get a continuous source of spells, although only for mage characters of level 19 or higher, or sorcerors or specialist mages of 18th level or higher, since we'd need two 9th-level spell slots to both cast and restore Spell Trap. Multiclass Mage/Thieves, Fighter/Mages, and Cleric/Mages could also do this at 6.75 million XP, or Gnomish Illusionist multiclasses at 6 million XP.
Notably, this would let us cast Limited Wish, which would let us summon vampires if we used a low-WIS character to talk to djinni, and Viconia can control those vampires if she is of high enough level. Limited Wish would also give us an unlimited supply of level 1 to 4 cleric and druid spells (and mage spells for bards and mages besides the Spell Trap character), if we had a high-WIS character talk to the djinni instead and choose the restore spells option. This would allow us to cast most spells normally, without resorting to Wish rest, which removes ALL the limitations of a restless run.
But I won't be able to use this if Spell Trap isn't actually absorbing any spells.
Haer'dalis has become fatigued. At 8 hours in the party, he had no fatigue, but when I arrive at the Druid Grove, he has been in the party for 36 hours, and he has a -1 luck penalty.
With 9 CON, he appears especially vulnerable to fatigue, more so than I would have thought. Minsc, who has 16 CON and has spent 5 days with the party, is not fatigued at all. I believe I underestimated both the dangers of fatigue and the effect of Constitution on preventing it. We probably DO need high CON for a restless run, at least for our front line.
Mazzy's low AC is still keeping us afloat. A Troll needs a critical hit to do any damage.
I decided to nuke the encounter just west of Kyland Lind. Just for funsies.
Bright-rush! I forget what novel that phrase is from.
Keldorn interrupted me when I tried to buy potions from Adratha. He saw through her facade and turned her hostile. Thankfully, she went down pretty quick. A backstab helped take down her cronies, too. They only got one Cloudkill off the ground before falling.
We didn't need her anyway. We have Roger in the sewers.
Poppy has taken Yoshimo's place as a backstabber, and she's doing well.
Poor Dalok. Amazing he survived, though.
Note that, for neutral enemies, you can backstab and then immediately Hide in Shadows, allowing you to get in two backstabs before combat begins. That's why Poppy is currently hidden despite having just taken 74 HP off of Dalok.
I let Cernd handle Faldorn herself. He wins automatically, I think; he gets an item that keeps him from falling below 1 HP. I believe have seen him die once, but that might have just been a bug.
Since I gathered rather little loot in the Druid Grove, I decided to head directly to the Windspear Hills before returning to Trademeet, since that would save me some travel time. I accepted Garren Windspear's invitation to his home by accident, but then just walked away when the party reappeared at his house, to avoid the forced rest when you enter his home. On the way to the dryads, Aerie and Keldorn had a heartfelt talk.
I like Keldorn. He's a good guy.
Before I can enter Firkraag's lair, Garren interrupts me and starts the Firkraag quest, giving me the note from Firkraag and telling me of his son's capture (his child is a son if Charname is female, and a daughter if Charname is male). I've never seen this dialogue before.
Note that your dialogue options never refer to Garren's child as his son or daughter; only his "child" or "kin." They didn't rig the dialogue to change according to Charname's sex, so the language is gender-neutral.
I took Jarrakul's advice regarding the Vampiric Mists, and found it to be very effective. I gave Aerie the Boots of Speed, activated Turn Undead, and had her lure out the Vampiric Mists from the pools in the southwest corner of the first level. Once the Mists were turned, the rest of the party attacked them, and we picked them off one by one. Aerie's Turn Undead prevented the Mists from attacking, so the party was perfectly safe. An excellent divide and conquer tool.
Then I ran into this.
I don't like vampires. My party is only level 11 on average, and my only defense against level drain is a single Negative Plane Protection spell from Aerie. I could have cast it on Minsc and sent him out with the Ring of Fire Protection and a Helmet of Charm Protection, and maybe prebuffed with Mazzy's Remove Fear innate spell, and that would have given me 5 rounds to throw out Fireballs, but instead I just used 6 charges of the Wand of Fire with the WoL trick, and even then I needed another, non-WoL trick charge, plus a Magic Missile from Haer'dalis and a few melee hits, before the battle was over. Two of them disappeared and I lost the XP.
I had expected a group of ghouls and mummies, given my level. Apparently the vampires appear sooner than I thought.
Aerie's Turn Undead also helped me against the Shadows, Shadows Fiends, and Wraiths to the south of the vampire area.
Samia et al took several reloads. Kaol in particular caused a lot of trouble with his Chaos and Confusion spells.
Haer'dalis actually killed me shortly after I took the above screenshot. Aerie tried to heal Poppy with a WoL Cure Serious Wounds scroll, but she directed too many castings of Cure Serious Wounds to Haer'dalis (I was worried about his health, too), and eventually Poppy fell.
I tried again, using the Wand of Lightning itself to attack Samia et al, but it didn't bring anybody close to death. Only when I brought Haer'dalis and Poppy together and had them both use the Wand of Lightning at the same time (there are three or four such wands in the party) did I succeed. I don't know how many times it bounced, but the lightning bolts killed Haer'dalis as well as several members of the enemy party, and Kaol fell soon after under melee pressure, since his friends weren't there to protect him. A few Darts of Stunning also paralyzed Legdoril, though that likely made little difference.
I actually tried using the WoL trick with a Blindness scroll and maybe one or two other things, in my failed attempts to take Samia down. Only after I used the Wand of Lightning for its normal purpose did I actually succeed. Lightning bolts are just so vicious in narrow spaces.
I used the WoL trick to resurrect Haer'dalis and heal everybody else. Apparently, to do that, you have to target the dead character, in this case Haer'dalis, with the first charge of the Wand of Lightning. And I think you have to click on their portrait; pressing 4 (Haer'dalis was the fourth in the party lineup) may not be enough to actually get the Rod of Resurrection to target them.
Gotta love them flowers.
The Mask of Kind Strohm quest posed a minor problem. The Guardians do lots of damage with their fireballs, and all I had to defend against them was the Ring of Fire Resistance from the Ruhk Transmuter. I tried backstabbing them, but I couldn't finish them off reliably. I used a charge of the Wand of Lightning on each instead, though I had to stay a certain distance away or else the lightning bolts would trigger the Guardians' Fire Shields. Again, lightning bolts saved the day.
Other than that, the dungeons required very few resources. All I spent was an Oil of Speed on Minsc to help take down a Greater Wolfwere. I didn't bother with the Adamantine Golem; I just snuck past to nab the Beljuril, Moonbar Gems, and Heartseeker.
Note that the Horn of Blasting comes without a charge and cannot be sold. As far as I know, without resting, the Horn of Blasting can never be used for anything, even merchant fodder.
I decided not to bother with Firkraag, though I'm not sure why. A Lower Resistance and Feeblemind scroll would have doomed him. Using Blindness would have worked, too; I had over 10 copies of the scroll.
After informing Garren of the party's success, I headed back to Trademeet and finished up the quest. I sold off all my excess loot, bought the Necklace of Missiles (I had to sell back and buy it again to fill it up to 25 charges) and some scrolls, and now the party is sitting on over 80,000 gold pieces, plus enough scrolls to fill four Scroll Cases, plus a few more inventory slots.
Now the party is looking properly equipped. Note that that Necklace of Missiles is not actually redundant with the Wand of Fire: unlike the Wand of Fire, it has a power of 9, and can therefore hit anything besides demiliches. I will use it for interrupting mages, I think, but I already have 4 Death Fog scrolls, and those can serve much the same purpose.
I had Haer'dalis make an attack roll on Aerie and found that it came with a +3 modifier, according to the dialog box. When I did that in the Druid Grove, it was +7, and in Athkatla, before he got fatigued, it was +8. That means he has a -5 luck penalty due to fatigue (for a fatigue value of 11, according to the FATIGMOD.2da file in DLTCEP), and I haven't even gotten back to Athkatla. It looks like Haer'dalis is not a good option for a melee fighter in a restless run, not unless we're willing to do something to remove his fatigue, like use a forced rest period or the Reform Party trick. At this rate, he'll have about -10 luck by the time we get back to Athkatla. Negative luck is supposed to increase spell damage, and although that could be negated with the Cloak of Mirroring, he should still have lousy damage output. Things are looking bad for Haer'dalis.
Findings:
1: The Wand of Lightning is often better used normally, to throw out lightning bolts, rather than using it to duplicate other wands or spells. Properly bounced in a narrow area, we could do up to 30d6/90d6 with only one charge (the Cloak of Reflection is going to be so ridiculous once I get through Spellhold). Unfortunately, we're going to start seeing magic resistant enemies a lot more often, and the biggest fights in the game occur in wide open spaces.
2: Unless you're using the Reform Party trick or the forced rest periods, you really do need high CON to avoid crippling fatigue penalties. I underestimated its impact.
3: Our resources are less finite than I first believed. If I used more scrolls and potions and wand charges, the WoL trick would not have been necessary, although using the Potion of Firebreath on Mencar Pebblecrusher et al, and using the Wand of Cloudkill on Draug Fea et al, were both major boons in the early game.
Future plans:
I think I am going to cut off the WoL trick from now on. I might make an exception here and there for the sake of fun, but I've got so many scrolls and so much extra gold for Roger's potions that I really shouldn't need it. Unless the party starts getting fatigued.
I think I will buy back the Wand of Paralyzation, too. Even without the WoL trick, it should come in useful.
Next up, I think, is the Planar Sphere. Togan, Tolgerias, and the Tanar'ri could prove troublesome, but we've got the resources to handle some Symbol spells and so forth.
Nay, My Raven:
I did a test and found that Haer'dalis did not get any more fatigued when we returned to Athkatla, so I'm not sure how quickly fatigue actually progresses. Either way, I decided to get rid of him. Valygar arrived in the party with 16 Constitution and no fatigue, and Haer'dalis didn't care o'ermuch for being prodded all the time, anyway.
You Can't Stab with Katanas:
The first Clay Golem of the dungeon nearly killed Mazzy due to some lucky rolls. The Sahuagin caused a crash somehow, but otherwise were not problem. Backstabbing with two characters does a lot to end encounters quickly, but Valygar only does 2x damage on a backstab, and he can't do it with the Corthala Family Blade (I used the Stiletto of Demarchess for that purpose when I got it later on). This time, the Boots of Speed did not prevent Poppy from backstabbing, like it did with Yoshimo. It might be because I was using Belm, but I don't really know.
Keldorn talked to Valygar and admired his sense of justice.
Keldorn gets along with everybody. You know, except Viconia. And Anomen, but Anomen's a jerk. But a Paladin who can be on good terms with an atheist? That's just nice.
The Hungry Hungry Halflings:
Togan, Mogadish, Entu, and Kayardi turned out to be very easy to beat. After backstabbing Entu, I threw out a couple of Cloudkill spells, with some shots from the Tuigan Bow in between, and it seems that that shut down their spells. Valygar and Poppy backstabbed Mogadish while the others slowly died from the Cloudkill. I might be remembering them as more difficult because the last time I played them was with SCS, and I always have enemies prebuff when I've got SCS installed. Anyway, they didn't seem to cast any spells, and with Valygar and Poppy's backstabbing, and the poison effect from the Corthala Family Blade, they went down without causing much damage.
Don't Fail Your Saves:
Necre and Taibela were much harder. I used the Wand of Cloudkill again, but Necre and Taibela gave chase, escaping the cloud. Taibela came in with spell protections and Mirror Image. I activated Detect Illusions, but before I could dispel the Mirror Image and start to interrupt her spells, she cast Chaos, and the only one who made their save was Mazzy. The rest were disabled, and Taibela wisely followed up with a Confusion spell. It makes sense: you throw out the short-duration Chaos spell because of its save penalty and high chance of success, and then, to extend the duration, you use Confusion right afterwards. By the time the battle was over, Mazzy, Poppy, and Keldorn were all more than 3/4 in the red.
Keldorn had a nice chat with Minsc over his wounds.
I love this guy!
Lavok Killed Me:
With a Chain Lightning spell. Sure wish I had Protection from Lightning.
Anyway, on my successful try, I managed to backstab him a couple times, but then his Improved Mantle came up, and the only weapons that could damage him were the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin and the Flame Tongue (which also strikes as a +4 weapon, but this only applies to the one you find in the Druid Grove, not the one you can purchase). He got a Horrid Wilting spell off the ground, but I kept Aerie out of the way, and the rest of the party had just enough HP to survive it. Once his Improved Mantle went down, though, there wasn't much he could do.
Lunch Break!
The whole party was in pieces, so I made lunch and waited for the Ring of Regeneration and Pearly White Ioun Stone to heal up the party. By the time the party had recovered, Aerie was fatigued again.
I still feel bad for not letting her rest in the Temple Ruins.
Tolgerias and his Toady:
I used the Wand of Cloudkill twice in this battle to interrupt the enemy's spellcasting. Tolgerias managed to summon some monsters, but that just gave me extra loot. I kept Aerie out of the cloud, as well as Poppy, and had them attack Tolgerias' nameless buddy, who only had Protection from Normal Missiles and I think also Protection from Normal Weapons. Aerie has loads of Bullets +2, and Poppy has a fair amount of Arrows +1, so the mage was basically helpless.
Tolgerias, however, had Improved Mantle, so I used the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin and Flame Tongue. Unfortunately, Tolgerias had a Spell Trigger with PFMW and Protection from Normal Missiles, prolonging his life. I switched all of my fighters to fists, except for Valygar, who had an unenchanted Katana, and broke through Tolgerias' defenses. All the while, the two Cloudkills kept interrupting Tolgerias' spells. Tolgerias managed to stun Mazzy and Keldorn, but his longer spells got interrupted.
He dropped a Ring of the Ram, so I got two of them in this run. Too bad they come without charges. But at least got that 1 extra gold piece.
Except I spent 75 gold identifying it with Joluv. So I actually lost 74 gold because of it. And I lost 99 gold when I pickpocketed it from him earlier on, because I had to identify it, then, too, to see if it came with a charge. So I lost 173 gold because of the Ring of the Ram.
Crime doesn't pay.
Duh:
Against the various ice enemies to the northwest, I used the Wand of Fire. Against the various fire enemies to the northeast, I used the Wand of Frost. First I went after the ice enemies. All I had to do was give Mazzy the Ring of Fire Resistance, Dragon Scale Helm, and Dragon Scale Shield, and she was at 90% fire resistance and 50% cold resistance. Three charges from the Wand of Fire and the enemies were down. When I remembered Valygar's armor gives 25% fire resistance, I switched the ring, helm, and shield to Valygar, so he had over 100% fire resistance and 50% cold resistance. The fire enemies caused more trouble; I had to bring in the other fighters to finish them off. Note that the Wand of Frost does not actually do 8d6 damage, with all 1s rolled as 2s, as the description says. It does 16d3 damage, which just means the damage is less likely to be very low or very high, since there are more dice rolls.
When the Efreeti turned into a cloud to recover, I had Valygar hit it with his sword. I saw in an earlier thread that Valygar's sword's poison effect can finish off Efreet in their gaseous forms, and I always hated Efreet for their cloud forms.
It worked. Valygar poisoned a cloud to death. Yay.
Free Action is So Nice:
Finally, I had to deal with the Tanar'ri, to get the Demon Heart and feed it to the Planar's Sphere power core thingy.
I didn't like this.
The Tanar'ri, aside from its 50 MR, good saves, 4 APR, -5 AC, and roughly 100 HP, also uses Death Gaze, which does 2d8 fire damage and holds the target for 5 rounds. If I could cast Free Action, I could have made the whole party immune to the hold effect, and Protection from Fire (Aerie could cast both) would have negated the fire damage. And, if I used a scroll of Protection from Normal Weapons, I could have made one character immune to the Tanar'ri's attacks for 10 rounds, since it attacks with a nonmagical weapon.
Unfortunately, I had none of those things.
Instead, I tried using Blindness on the Tanar'ri, but that never worked. My frontliners also repeatedly failed their saves, and only Keldorn was immune to the hold effect, a product of his armor. The party got slaughtered.
Finally I got sick of it and decided to drink three potions: one Potion of Frost Giant Strength for Keldorn, and an Oil of Speed for both Keldorn and Minsc (Mazzy actually would have been a better choice for that extra Oil of Speed, given her high APR that makes her a better hitter than Minsc). That time, only one character failed their save, and finally the Tanar'ri fell. But we were all out of Potions of Extra Healing.
I also tried to kill Firkraag. I've heard his WIS was 3, meaning that Kachiko's Wakizashi can take him down in 2 hits. But with his save vs. death of 3, Kachiko's Wakizashi seldom ever drains Firkraag's Wisdom, Greater Malison is blocked by MR, and even when I buffed Poppy with a Potion of Power, DUHM, Improved Haste, and Tenser's Transformation, she still couldn't land those two Wisdom-draining hits on him. I will try again later, but it's disappointing Kachiko's Wakizashi didn't work.
Simulacrum -> Lower Resistance -> Feeblemind
No surprises here.
And he flashes yellow the first time I try it. No reload necessary.
Before, I reloaded at least 20 times, trying different things and hoping for better rolls, to drain Firkraag's Wisdom. And then Feeblemind succeeded in one try.
Mazzy landed the killing move.
So I went over to Thaxll'ssillyia, since I had a Lower Resistance and Feeblemind scroll left. Poppy cast LR; Aerie cast Feeblemind.
Yup.
Such a letdown. If I had kept a save before I went to the Windspear Hills again, then I would have saved Firkraag and Thaxll'ssillyia for later, and we would have had a more interesting battle. I was rather pleased with myself when I first discovered the Feeblemind trick so many years ago, but now...
Ah, well. At least we have Carsomyr, and some extra room in our scroll cases. And Mazzy gained a level, and a proficiency point in Two-Weapon Fighting. She now dual-wields Kundane and the Short Sword of Backstabbing. Maybe I'll buy her the Short Sword of Mask on the way back.
One thing I neglected to mention earlier: Mazzy appears to get an extra, illegal proficiency point at level 9. If she joins at level 7, she has +++++ in Short Bow and + in Short Sword. At level 9, she has +++++ in Short Bow and +++ in Short Sword, gaining two proficiency points in two levels. At level 9, you should have seven proficiency points, four from level 1 and three from levels 3, 6, and 9... but Mazzy gets eight. Unless you really don't want Mazzy using Short Swords, it's actually best to get her at level 9.
I don't get why more people don't use Mazzy. She's proficient in Short Swords, and therefore Kundane. At low levels, that's a 50% increase in APR and therefore damage (or 33% if you're using Haste). At high levels, that's a 33% increase in APR (or 25% if you're using Haste). I've heard lots of enemies are resistant to piercing damage, but I don't know which ones those are besides Clay Golems. There are several excellent short swords, and three of them you can get in Chapter 2, with minimal work: Kundane, the Short Sword of Backstabbing, and the Short Sword of Mask. Being able to use the Tuigan Bow doesn't hurt, either.
I guess if you have Haer'dalis in your party, though, you would want to give him Kundane, and Mazzy's APR advantage would therefore come with a major opportunity cost.
Also, Mazzy is a boss. Best fighter in the game, barring Sarevok, and even then it's arguable. I use her a lot.
Also, thanks for all those insights. You've brought another evidence to the fact that a F/M/T can do insane damage and be an overkill even in the party of 6. This character is just unstoppable.
Keep it up!
Yes, Poppy is a Mage/Thief but I referred to this part:
With Carsomyr in hand, I decided to deal with the liches of Athkatla and the Guarded Compound. I wanted the Ring of Gaxx and Celestial Fury. I decided not to do the Twisted Rune, though I'm not sure why. Poppy would have been a ludicrously effective backstabber with the Staff of the Magi.
On the way to the Bridge District lich, I spotted Shank and Carbos fighting over Bubbles. Just for fun, I decided to backstab Carbos.
I accidentally clicked on Bubbles. Reload.
For the Elemental Lich, I used a scroll of Death Fog. While the lich had Improved Mantle up, I had Mazzy dual the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin and Kundane. Valygar used the Flame Tongue, and Keldorn used Carsomyr. Death Fog interrupted the lich's initial Time Stop, as planned.
From there, Mazzy, Valygar, and Keldorn whittled away the lich, while the lich struggled to land a single spell. The War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin and the Flame Tongue don't get enough credit for being +4 weapons. They're not just useful for Kangaxx; a lot of vanilla mages seem to use Improved Mantle, and those two weapons go right through it. Kundane and Belm are doubly notable for making these weapons useful even for characters without pips in situational weapons like the hammer and Flame Tongue.
Death Fog really should be the go-to method for killing liches. Their spells take so long to cast that the Death Fog is almost guaranteed to hit during spellcasting, though spell disruption isn't guaranteed.
I didn't use Death Fog on the Shade Lich. He went down anyway. Improved Mantle just isn't much use against +4 weapons and Carsomyr. No potions, no scrolls, nothing. We had high enough APR to break through his protections anyway.
On the way out of the Temple District, I looked at the northwest corner of the map.
I have played this game for more than half my life, and I have never set eyes on this section of the map, simply because nothing is there.
I didn't feel like using Death Fog on Kangaxx, so I equipped Keldorn with fire resistance items (no Red Dragon Scale; I didn't want to spend the money), plus a Potion of Fire Resistance, and used the Necklace of Missiles on him from afar. The Necklace of Missiles has a power of 9, bypassing even Rakshasas' spell level immunities. It only interrupted one spell, but thankfully, it was Time Stop.
Keldorn ended up with the Necklace of Form Stability, since I moved the Necklace of Missiles from him to Poppy, and Poppy traded it for the Necklace of Form Stability. This was especially useful, as I was relying on Keldorn to tank, and that necklace made him virtually immune to Kangaxx's many Flesh to Stone spells (he cast at least three). Keldorn also resisted Kangaxx's Symbol spells and Disintegrate due to his high MR and low saves, and because he was an Inquisitor, he was immune to Domination.
When Kangaxx changed to Demilich form, Keldorn used a scroll of Protection from Undead. A scroll of Protection from Magic would have made more sense conceptually, but scrolls of Protection from Undead are easier to come by: aside from the scrolls in Waukeen's Promenade, you can buy several of them in the Temple District at the Temple of Helm, and maybe some other temples as well. I kept the other characters out of Kangaxx's view, since they had no protection against his Imprisonment ability (I didn't want to use up any scrolls of Spell Immunity or Spell Deflection).
Eventually Kangaxx panicked and fled. He flew past Keldorn before I could block him in. Since Kangaxx doesn't attack when he's fleeing, I brought in Mazzy and Valygar with their +4 weapons (one of them also had the Boots of Speed, but I forget who) and eventually trapped Kangaxx in a corner.
Keldorn got the final blow.
I stopped by Watcher's Keep to get the Short Sword of Mask, and bought a bunch of Potions of Extra Healing, since Garlena sold them at lower prices than I saw at the Adventurer's Mart.
From there, I returned to the Temple District to grab Celestial Fury. The game crashed when I triggered the summoning trap on the first level, so I decided to use CTRL-J to hop over it. The Boots of Speed might have also helped; I've bypassed area triggers with them before.
I used the Wand of Cloudkill twice to interrupt Sion and Stalman's spells, then disarmed the traps with Poppy. Meanwhile, my frontliners braced for Ketta, Koshi, Maferan, and Olaf Rassmusen, and Aerie cast Blindness on Stalman. Stalman failed his save, and sat in the cloud while the rest of of us fought.
I took down Koshi first to avoid getting stunned, then handed the sword to Valygar. Mazzy entangled Ketta with the Short Sword of Mask, preventing Ketta from backstabbing us, so we first attacked Olaf Rassmusen and Maferan, before turning on Ketta (Sion died in the cloud).
When Ketta finally fell and I was picking up the loot, I noticed Stalman, standing around in the south. I completely forgot he was there.
I backstabbed him until he exploded.
Next up was the Shadow Thieves' quest and the lich at the Crooked Crane inn, in the Gate District.
The first mission for the Shadow Thieves had to be done at night, but it was daytime when I started it, so I decided to travel to Watcher's Keep and back to pass the time. Since Poppy had gone for two weeks without sleep already and still was not fatigued, I assumed that the trip would not fatigue the party.
When I got back, not only was it still daytime; Mazzy also reminded me her sister was dying in Trademeet. I had forgotten about that quest. I hurried off to Trademeet to help her sister. When I finally got back to Athkatla, it was nighttime.
The first two Shadow Thief missions were simple enough. The final assault was harder. Keldorn used a second Protection from Undead scroll to run through the area, but Tanova sees right through Protection from Undead, and with her many spells, she is a considerable threat even to Keldorn (she once stunned him with Symbol: Stun and her summons cut him to pieces while he was vulnerable). Some vampires tracked down the other party members as well, but thanks to a lot of running, only Aerie got level drained, just once. I forget how I restored her; I don't recall visiting a temple. Maybe I reloaded. Only Aerie and Poppy could wear the Amulet of Power, so I had to keep the vampires trained on one of them.
Finally, I visited the Crooked Crane to fight the second-to-last lich in Athkatla, besides Shangalar. After picking up a few spells from the merchant outside, I had Aerie cast Polymorph Self and Protection from Evil with scrolls and head through the secret door.
She shapeshifted into the Mustard Jelly form to reach 100% magic resistance and sat there while the lich wasted his spells on her. With Protection from Evil, the lich's Pit Fiend ignored Aerie and ended up getting killed by the lich's Horrid Wilting spell.
When the lich was down to using Melf's Acid Arrows, I sent in the rest of the party to finish off the lich and grab Daystar, which I pawned off.
For reasons I do not understand, the entire party aside from Mazzy was fatigued by the end of the fight with the Crooked Crane lich. Even though they had been awake for varying lengths of time (Poppy was awake for over a month), they all got fatigued simultaneously, midway through this fight, with a few seconds separating them. Mazzy presumably didn't get fatigued since she left the party due to her quest.
Keldorn had an nice talk with Minsc. It happened next to Aran Linvail, probably because I used MoveToArea and CTRL-J to rush them from the Crooked Crane inn to the Shadow Master.
I decided to let the party rest on the way to Spellhold. I even let them memorize a few spells. I didn't want to leave them fatigued the rest of the game, not when I had gotten so accustomed to having them fresh. Testing later found, though, that they were only at -1 luck. Aerie, despite being fatigued many days earlier, was only at -2 luck.
Findings:
1: The handful of +4 weapons in Chapter 2 work wonders against enemy mages, since vanilla spellcasters, even liches, tend to use Improved Mantle rather than Protection from Magical Weapons.
2: Death Fog is a fantastic anti-lich spell, as it breaks through liches' spell level immunities, hits many times, and does 80 damage over the course of its 10-round duration. Cloudkill and Death Fog in general are very good at taking down enemy casters.
3: Fatigue really doesn't work the way I thought it did.
Despite the party being awake for weeks, and for different times, all the NPCs with 16 CON or higher got fatigued within a few seconds of each other. Unless I have a unique bug, it seems that in-game time does not guarantee the onset of fatigue. High constitution delayed the onset of fatigue, but fatigue progressed incredibly slowly across the board. Most of the party only got -1 luck. Aerie only got -2. Fatigue does not progress quickly or at predictable intervals, at least not with the information at our disposal.
One possibility is that there are certain periods in the game when the party's fatigue is reset. Having NPCs leave the group is one example, but this does not explain why Poppy did not get fatigued for so long. However, since Aerie's fatigue did not disappear except when she left the party, it seems that the party's fatigue is not actually reset: I assume what's happening is that a fatigue TIMER is reset, or for some other reason does not progress normally. This means that, if a character gets fatigued, he or she will stay fatigued until the party rests or they leave the party. But, if a character approaches fatigue, he or she may get kicked back to an earlier state, resetting the timer and preventing fatigue for a time.
But this is speculation. I do not know the real reason why fatigue for my high-CON characters took so long to develop, and set in simultaneously.
If fatigue always behaves the way I've seen it in this run, then a restless run's biggest weakness is not fatigue, but the lack of spells, especially cleric buffs (there are barely any scrolls for cleric spells in BG2).
Minsc is a ham.
In the asylum itself, Mazzy took a moment to raise party morale.
Mazzy is nice.
I don't remember how long you have to wait in Spellhold for Irenicus to appear. I tried talking to everybody, but that didn't work. I decided to try and pickpocket Lonk the Sane, and failed, and though he did not turn hostile, that seemed to trigger Irenicus' entry, just like if you attack somebody in the area.
Backstabbing and melee force got the party through Spellhold. The party is tough enough that minor encounters aren't really an issue anymore.
Valygar is 90% dead, but he's taking it in stride.
Mazzy has been especially sweet lately.
Somehow, when I fought the mind flayer at the podium near the kobold area, it dominated Mazzy and Valygar, and Valygar was removed from the party in the process. I'd never seen Psionic Domination remove somebody from the party before. I used CTRL-R to see what would happen, and Mazzy turned green, only to turn red later on (maybe Minsc attacked her for killing Aerie), and then Mazzy left the party. I'm not sure what happened. I reloaded to fix the problem.
We left the Spellhold gauntlet with an extra Ring of Regeneration, the Robe of Reflection, and a second pair of Boots of Speed. With the Ring of Gaxx and two Rings of Regeneration, the party no longer needs to worry about healing between battles.
Irenicus saved against a Bolt of Biting and an Arrow of Biting, which I hoped would interrupt his spells, but the party got him down to Near Death within a few seconds anyway, ending the battle before Irenicus could start to hurt us. Wanev's Symbol spells disabled all the clones except for the Keldorn clone. The Murderers tried to backstab Poppy, which worried me, but they had such poor THAC0 that they never even hit her.
It was daytime when I got out, meaning I would have to wait until nightfall to retrieve the horn from Cayia's home. Since I was nowhere near getting fatigued, had spent no spells, and regeneration would have healed the party anyway, I decided that resting wouldn't have helped the party, and resting once to get to nightfall would have been acceptable.
Resting triggers the cutscene that gives Charname the Slayer Change ability, so I shouldn't actually get the Slayer Change form in a restless run. One of the nice things about a restless run is that you don't get those cutscenes.
Actually, I'm not sure which cutscene grants the Slayer Change ability. I have a bug that has prevented it from happening for my last four games or so. In a restless run, though, it shouldn't matter, since you shouldn't end up resting anyhoo.
On to the City of Caverns! I love King Ixilthetocal.
How could I say no to that big, fishy face?
Incidentally, is there any connection between Ixilthetocal and Ixil's Spike?
The City of Caverns was rather dull besides King Ixilthetocal. All I really wanted was the Cloak of Mirroring, Boots of Etherealness, and Cloak of Protection +2. Impaler was a nice bonus. Valygar can use it.
Alchra Diagott was disappointing. He died in three hits.
I really underused backstabbing in my other games.
Vithal, however, was a trial. Killing him is optional (he's evil, so it's okay, and anyway there are no laws in the Underdark for my Lawful Neutral Charname to follow), but he does drop a scroll of Time Stop if he dies after his quest is over (not before), and I didn't want to miss out on one of the best scrolls in the game.
Vithal comes out with PFMW, and with his excellent saves (his save vs. spell is 1), he easily resisted my Bolts of Biting, Darts of Wounding, and Darts of Stunning. And if he survives the first round, he casts Time Stop, and once he has the opportunity to throw out any spells he wants to, he doesn't hold back.
That's just mean.
Sometimes he escapes with Dimension Door instead, which doesn't kill us but still robs us of a useful scroll. On two separate tries, I've seen him cast two Imprisonment spells and two Time Stop spells, and with his one Gate spell, he apparently has five 9th level spell slots. Sorceror, mage, or specialist mage, he's long past epic levels. I don't remember how I took him down. I think I managed to get in one Dart of Wounding, eventually, and that prevented his Time Stop.
I gave the Shield of Balduran and Cloak of Mirroring to Valygar and Mazzy, gave both of them Boots of Speed, and had them rush through the Beholder hive. Note that the Cloak of Mirroring does not stop Beholder's disabling spells, so Mazzy still got paralyzed by Beholder rays.
Also note that Beholders keep using their rays even when they're stunned. Celestial Fury will not stop the rays. Only the Shield of Balduran can do that. Or a Globe of Invulnerability+Death Ward+Spell Shield+Chaotic Commands+Protection from Petrification+Spell Immunity: Transmutation+Free Action combo. Or 100% magic resistance, plus -1 save vs. death or Hindo's Doom or Spell Immunity: Transmutation, since Death Ray bypasses magic resistance.
Or Spell Immunity to Necromancy, Transmutation, Evocation, and Enchantment. Plus Spell Shield. Or negative saves across the board. Plus Protection from Magical Energy or GOI. And Protection from Lightning.
Of course, you also need Spell Immunity: Abjuration or Spell Deflection/Turning/Trap or Shield of the Archons, if you're going up against Elder Orbs. Because they use Imprisonment. Like they did on Valygar. Thankfully, you get Freedom scrolls just a few minutes' walk away.
I am midway through the Ust Natha quests, though I will likely kill Adalon by the end of the questline anyway to get the Silver Dragon's Blood.
Findings:
1: Mind Flayers can remove your party members somehow. It doesn't seem too common, though. I've only seen it once before.
2: I've really underestimated Carsomyr. All spellcasters have gotten much, much easier since getting a hold of it and started using it alongside Flame Tongue and the War Hammer +1, +4 vs. Giantkin. I've always thought of Carsomyr as a defensive weapon due to its 50 MR, but its high enchantment does a lot to help break through mages' defenses. A weapon's enchantment level is often just as important as its damage and THAC0 bonuses.
3: Carsomyr can dispel disablers, but not always. I've seen it remove a domination spell on Poppy, only for it to fail to dispel another domination effect, and also fail to dispel the fear effect from Symbol: Fear. This could be a better option than using Carsomyr's Dispel Magic ability, as Dispel Magic is area effect and could remove positive buffs on non-disabled party members.
4: Mazzy is a sweetie pie.
Nope, still can't escape.
I intended to use Project Image scrolls to save the Control Circlets, only to find that my projected image lost her second Control Circlet when I reloaded from a Quick Save. I was not pleased.
No quickslot items left. Apparently saving during Project Image's duration and reloading empties out their quickslots. I didn't have an earlier save, so I just continued.
Half my party failed their saves on a Psionic Blast. They didn't last long.
Mind Flayers are no fun without Chaotic Commands. I reloaded multiple times due to INT drain. Valygar and Mazzy die in two hits, and the Mind Flayers apparently didn't need critical hits to eat their brains. I found the Wand of Cloudkill to be very effective against Mind Flayers, as it kills their Umber Hulks and appears to break through the Mind Flayers' magic resistance.
I don't know why Mazzy takes Valygar for her squire, but he doesn't like it. In classic Valygar fashion, he's unemotional and calm. Call him stoic or call him boring.
I love Mazzy's line.
I used a second Project Image scroll to save Control Circlet, and unwisely chose an Ulitharid to charm, because it was tougher. Turns out Ulitharids can't open doors.
Apparently only Mind Flayers can open those doors. Without any Project Image scrolls, and not willing to use any Simulacrum scrolls, I decided to use a Control Circlet normally, this time on a Mind Flayer, and he or she managed to open the door where the Ulitharid had failed. I wouldn't have to deal with this nonsense if I could turn into the Slayer.
I decided to backstab the Ulitharid on the way out, but the game had other plans.
I don't know why it's so hard to Hide in Shadows in that room. The rest of the dungeon was easy to hide in.
Like most runs of the Illithid lair, it was fairly hard and fairly boring. Mind Flayers are awful nasty, but they've only got one strategy. The best way to deal with them basically boils down to Chaotic Commands or Death Spell. Other strategies just don't work very well. I wasn't willing to spend Aerie's Chaotic Command spells, and I forgot to use my one Death Spell scroll, so the party got their brains eaten many times.
Phaere was very impressed with the svirfneblin helmet.
This is one of four separate quests where you can avoid killing somebody you're ordered to kill. Mae'var says to kill Embarl, but all you need is his dagger. Ixilthetocal says to kill Villynaty, but all you need is a fake heart. Phaere says to kill the deep gnomes, but all you need is a helmet. Phaere says to kill Solaufein, but all you need is his Piwafwi Cloak. In other quests when you're asked to kill somebody, like in the Harper quests or Edwin's quest, the questgiver automatically knows the target is dead. They only ask for proof of a kill when they're too stupid to verify the death themselves.
When Phaere calls you back from the Matron Mother's place, a rather imperious drow female interrupts you and demands you fight a bunch of Ghaunadar priests and their various oozes. If you ignore her, the whole city attacks you. And if you don't get back to Phaere within an hour, the whole city attacks you. Taso Kala's only purpose is to irritate you. So I talk-blocked her to avoid the quest.
Unfortunately, when I used CTRL-J to reach Phaere's quarters later on, Taso Kala talked to me before I realized she was still there. I had to do the quest anyway. I used the Wand of Cloudkill to deal with the priests and Otyughs. The oozes were immune.
Adalon's imp is like an annoying version of Cespenar. Look at its syntax.
It doesn't even tell you anything new. Another distraction.
I decided not to kill Adalon, despite her irritating imp. It's been ages since I actually completed the quest normally, though my Charname really could use the Human Flesh.
Before I left, I had to go grab the Girdle of Frost Giant Strength. Mazzy, Valygar, and Keldorn all have below 18 STR, and we need all the girdles we can get. I hate the Demon Knights, but the loot is worth it. I summoned a Fire Elemental via a scroll and used a few charges from the Wand of Cloudkill before battle.
I had to reload when I accidentally turned the Fire Elemental hostile. By the time I got out of the Underdark, I had 14 charges left in the Wand of Cloudkill.
Valygar, Mazzy, Keldorn, and Minsc all got level drained. I will restore them at the Temple of Helm with Viconia.
Findings:
None, really. This part of the game isn't very heavy on strategy, so there's not much to say, beyond using the talk-block trick of Taso Kala, and using the Wand of Cloudkill on Mind Flayers and Demon Knights.
I threw out one Cloudkill to hassle Layenne, sent Valygar with the Shield of Balduran to occupy Vaxall, had Poppy run out to distract Shyressa, because she had the Amulet of Power, and the rest of my party busied themselves with attacking Shangalar. Revanek, as usual, was a non-issue.
Shangalar cast Improved Mantle and thus was more or less helpless against Mazzy and Keldorn. Aerie and Minsc could not break through the Improved Mantle, so they did fairly little. Vaxall charmed himself two or three times, and did little else before dying a few rounds into the fight.
Shyressa attacked Valygar, ignoring Poppy, and I had Valygar flee for a moment, trying to keep Vaxall focused on Valygar and Shyressa focused on Poppy, but Valygar ended up being the sole target of both. Valygar got level drained a bit before killing Vaxall and Shyressa. I don't remember how Revanek died.
When Shangalar, Shyressa, Vaxall, and Revanek were gone, Layenne was lingering in the cloud, with a (Minor) Globe of Invulnerability apparently active, but nothing else. When the cloud cleared soon after, I rushed in and attacked her. She went down.
This was the single most anticlimactic fight I'd ever had with the Twisted Rune. With the whole party at level 15, equipped with the best weapons in vanilla SoA, plus the Short Sword of Mask, even the Twisted Rune can't do much. I think I drank one or two Potions of Extra Healing, and that was it.
I have a ridiculous oversupply of scrolls, and only a few thousand gold left, as I have placed a very high priority on grabbing consumables. For about the second half of the game so far, I have been relying almost entirely on brute melee force, using almost no potions, wands, scrolls, or spells. I originally planned to have a more consumables-oriented party, with Aerie, Poppy, and at least one other arcane spellcaster to use scrolls and wands. As time has gone on, though, it seems that fighter-types are just plain more effective in most situations in a restless run, and casters are mostly suited for situational, toolkit-type roles.
Findings:
1: If fatigue normally develops as slowly as it did in this run (with high-CON characters, anyway), then spellcasters are mostly dead weight in a restless run. We lose out on a lot of valuable buffs, and spellcasting via consumables is ridiculously expensive, but fighters tend to stay quite strong despite losing rest. Except for, perhaps, the very early game, we only need one or maybe two characters with mage levels, since we usually only need one spell per round, at most, and few or no buffs.
2: The resource crunch occurs very early on in a restless run. If I had used more spellcasters in my party, then scrolls and such might have had a bigger role, but once the party got the right equipment and a few levels, then consumables because increasingly irrelevant to the party's success.
3: The Wand of Lightning trick is completely unnecessary for a restless run. The party has enough resources not to need the WoL trick to enhance its consumables. Though the WoL trick is quite fun.
In general, a restless run would probably start with pooling enough money to buy Potions of Master Thievery and nabbing the Ring of Regeneration from Ribald (which could be done by the moment we escaped the first dungeon), as the ring will save a lot of money that would otherwise go to potions. A melee-heavy party should plow through enough early encounters to buy the Wand of Cloudkill, which would break basically every fight with enemy mages. We could also kill Mekrath, who in vanilla BG2 has no defense against magical weapons, to get his Wand of Cloudkill and Rod of Resurrection. Against liches, we just need a scroll of Death Fog or +4 weapons, or maybe just wait out their spells with Polymorph Self in Mustard Jelly form, and a Protection from Evil spell to keep away gated demons. The Ring of Regeneration is sufficient to replace healing spells on rest, and with a melee-heavy party, our inability to memorize spells will not be such a big disability, as our strength will not come from spells.
The weaknesses of a restless run can be nearly negated by using a melee-heavy party with high Constitution, getting the Ring of Regeneration, a Wand of Cloudkill, and a small number of scrolls for special situations. Jan would suffice as the party scroll- and wand-user, and due to his equipment and thief levels, he would be the superior alternative to other spellcasting NPCs. A single-classed dwarven Kensai Charname with the Shield Amulet would probably work best.
I think the restless run has been broken as a challenge, considering how impossible it seemed at the beginning. There are certainly more ways of playing a restless run than I have used here, but this formula is probably sufficient to resolve the most critical problems of a restless run, which are (1) a lack of pre-combat buffs (2) a lack of healing (3) a lack of in-combat offensive magic, and (4) the onset of fatigue.
ToB might be different, but right now it looks like resting is simply not necessary for a successful run of BG2.
In the case of my run, I actually only stalled the adventure once to regenerate fully. That was after Lavok, for maybe 5 minutes (50 HP healed, roughly), and if I did not do so, I would have had great difficulty getting out of the Planar Sphere alive, as I had run out of potions by the end. It might have been necessary to reload an earlier save, and buy some potions before entering the sphere. I got a LOT of healing from regeneration, but "waiting around" for regeneration to take effect was just a drop in the bucket.
If we avoid waiting around for regeneration to kick in, then the Ring of Regeneration would still be a huge boon. It just wouldn't completely obviate the need for out-of-combat potions and healing. Putting aside travel time, BG2 has a fair amount of walking around, during which you can regenerate a great deal. The remainder could be filled in with potions. Also, Greater Restoration at a temple only costs 750 gold and heals the entire party, at the cost of fatiguing one member (which would probably be our spellcaster). That would be relatively cheap compared to buying potions.
So let's say we do not rest, nor do we wait for regeneration to heal us. We just move from one encounter to the next. Every hour of gameplay, we would heal 600 HP, right? That's 3600 seconds, with 1 HP every 6 seconds. BG2 has many hours of gameplay, although much of that is spent paused, and therefore not regenerating.
If we don't allow ourselves to regenerate AT ALL, however, we would be much more strained. We'd probably heal ourselves at temples, which would save a lot of money at the cost of a lot of backtracking.
I'm not sure what you're suggesting as the alternative, but I see two alternatives, both of which would work fine. If you're saying we shouldn't "wait around" for regeneration, I don't think that actually makes a big difference. I healed only tens of HP by waiting, and hundreds of HP by just walking around, and I used CTRL-J to speed up the party!
If you're saying we shouldn't use regeneration at all in a restless run, however (a no-rest, no-regeneration run), then we would need to dedicate a lot more gold to healing. I think temples would probably be the cheapest method. Still doable, but more expensive.
BG2 does have a lot of gold in it, though. If I took half the money I spent on wands and scrolls, and spent it one potions instead, I probably could have bought enough potions to make regeneration unnecessary. If I spent that money on healing at a temple, I definitely could have compensated for the loss of regeneration. Regeneration is not the only way to get back that HP; it just saves a lot of hassle and gold.
So, without regeneration, the restless run should still be doable. But you wouldn't be able to waste as much money as I did (tens of thousands of gold went into scrolls I'll probably never use).
Thank you for pointing that out. I wouldn't have thought much about the specifics of regeneration if you hadn't called attention to it.
I think I'll take off the rings of regeneration when I continue the game, and see how the game goes without any regeneration at all. I'll still wear the Ring of Gaxx, but only in battle. I don't know where you can find healing in Suldanessalar, though, so maybe I should buy a bunch of potions before going there. I'll have to sell a lot of stuff to get the gold, though.
Maybe I'll leave Aerie behind and pick up Korgan. I don't have any good axes or hammers on hand, but he'd still be more useful than Aerie.
EDIT: I don't mean to tell you what you should or shouldn't do, just voicing my thoughts on the subject. TBH, I'd be interested in a challenge that made resource management more meaningful.