For those who are just dying, without any apparent reason... Do you know when the 'mysterious poisoning' of CHARNAME triggers? The one where you have 10 days to cure it through that quest in BG city? I'm wondering if that's getting triggered and you all aren't getting cured in time.
Just to answer the question the timer starts when you talk to Lothander in the central city area.
and ends when you pick up the 10 cure bottles he should drop after death unlike vanilla where just talking to the guy before the battle ends it... the beamdog change is bugged and he may not drop the cure which does make your game unwinnable so a reload is needed.
For those who are just dying, without any apparent reason... Do you know when the 'mysterious poisoning' of CHARNAME triggers? The one where you have 10 days to cure it through that quest in BG city? I'm wondering if that's getting triggered and you all aren't getting cured in time.
Just to answer the question the timer starts when you talk to Lothander in the central city area.
and ends when you pick up the 10 cure bottles he should drop after death unlike vanilla where just talking to the guy before the battle ends it... the beamdog change is bugged and he may not drop the cure which does make your game unwinnable so a reload is needed.
What happens if you rush the game and end it before the timer runs out? You die in SoA?
For those who are just dying, without any apparent reason... Do you know when the 'mysterious poisoning' of CHARNAME triggers? The one where you have 10 days to cure it through that quest in BG city? I'm wondering if that's getting triggered and you all aren't getting cured in time.
Just to answer the question the timer starts when you talk to Lothander in the central city area.
and ends when you pick up the 10 cure bottles he should drop after death unlike vanilla where just talking to the guy before the battle ends it... the beamdog change is bugged and he may not drop the cure which does make your game unwinnable so a reload is needed.
What happens if you rush the game and end it before the timer runs out? You die in SoA?
For those who are just dying, without any apparent reason... Do you know when the 'mysterious poisoning' of CHARNAME triggers? The one where you have 10 days to cure it through that quest in BG city? I'm wondering if that's getting triggered and you all aren't getting cured in time.
Just to answer the question the timer starts when you talk to Lothander in the central city area.
and ends when you pick up the 10 cure bottles he should drop after death unlike vanilla where just talking to the guy before the battle ends it... the beamdog change is bugged and he may not drop the cure which does make your game unwinnable so a reload is needed.
What happens if you rush the game and end it before the timer runs out? You die in SoA?
No, lol.
If you're playing BGT, you do. I don't know if the same applies to EET.
For those who are just dying, without any apparent reason... Do you know when the 'mysterious poisoning' of CHARNAME triggers? The one where you have 10 days to cure it through that quest in BG city? I'm wondering if that's getting triggered and you all aren't getting cured in time.
Just to answer the question the timer starts when you talk to Lothander in the central city area.
and ends when you pick up the 10 cure bottles he should drop after death unlike vanilla where just talking to the guy before the battle ends it... the beamdog change is bugged and he may not drop the cure which does make your game unwinnable so a reload is needed.
What happens if you rush the game and end it before the timer runs out? You die in SoA?
No, lol.
If you're playing BGT, you do. I don't know if the same applies to EET.
Oh, I have never played BGT actaully. Isn't that the mod that allows traveling between the worldmap of both games as well?
For those who are just dying, without any apparent reason... Do you know when the 'mysterious poisoning' of CHARNAME triggers? The one where you have 10 days to cure it through that quest in BG city? I'm wondering if that's getting triggered and you all aren't getting cured in time.
Just to answer the question the timer starts when you talk to Lothander in the central city area.
and ends when you pick up the 10 cure bottles he should drop after death unlike vanilla where just talking to the guy before the battle ends it... the beamdog change is bugged and he may not drop the cure which does make your game unwinnable so a reload is needed.
What happens if you rush the game and end it before the timer runs out? You die in SoA?
No, lol.
If you're playing BGT, you do. I don't know if the same applies to EET.
Oh, I have never played BGT actaully. Isn't that the mod that allows traveling between the worldmap of both games as well?
Blasphemy! No, you need EET for that. There is a mod (Neverending Journey, latest version) for BG2 that allows that also I think, since it uses some BG1 areas. It's a good mod, with some seriously OP equipment unfortunately.
@Grond0 That was bad luck in the Ducal palace and the bandit camp. @Blind_Visionary All the best in SoD @RelSundan Hope you enjoy no reload. I have found it more fun than reloading.
It sure is! I haven't really met any dangers yet to taste the real pressure of the element, but I am definitely looking forward to it. So far I am loving it, and the character I am playing was a cool idea as well. I have a tendency of dying "bullshit" deaths, like forgetting about a trap or accidently cancel a spell when I really just wanted to select another character, wasting a spell that more often than not changes the outcome of the battle drastically. And thank you @Wise_Grimwald
Well, I'm finally planning to move on to BG2 with this character, although I'm not happy with this run.
Things went pretty smoothly up to returning to Candlekeep, where I looted the tombs and moved into the doppleganger area - and died.
The previous time that happened I sort of rationalised the death by hypothesing that maybe Prat had heard the sounds of conflict and maybe he'd been hoarding a disintegrate scroll and maybe he'd used farsight to cast it at me from out of sight ... If that sounds almost impossible then I'd have to say this death was entirely impossible, so I did load up the autosave and went through the rest of the catacombs without trouble.
Back in Baldur's Gate Slythe was hit by a dispelling arrow, just before being confused by nymphs. The nymphs did their job again at the Palace where almost all the dopplegangers were confused by their opening spells.
That should have allowed an easy victory, only for one of the nymphs to suddenly decide to hold me. Looking back through the text record there were no attacks shown on the nymphs to justify one of them turning hostile. I suppose it's just possible that an attack by a confused doppleganger somehow was treated like that, but I think it's more likely that the clue is in this screenshot where a nymph suddenly dies without any reason.
Thinking about it I have seen that sort of unexplained death on a number of occasions before and I imagine it's the same bug that results in game over when it strikes the PC. In this case there was no need to take any action though as the nymph had no way to do much damage to me, particularly with a potion of regeneration active. Once I recovered I went to kill the final doppleganger - helpfully already in a side room to keep Belt and Liia out of harm's way.
After fighting through the maze I went to the temple and activated Sarevok by shooting at him with a dispelling arrow before retreating quickly. Semaj teleported out and resisted all the spells the nymphs could throw at him, but more dispelling arrows were too much for him (I was protected by a potion of magic shielding).
With Semaj dead I pulled Sarevok out to the front of the temple - this time successfully dispelling his haste. I tried going invisible and using Fog on him from out of sight, but he wasn't going to stand still for that one.
However, with a big speed advantage I just ran him around inside the Fog anyway until he'd had enough.
Ætheling went down the Nashkel mines and cast silence on Mulahey. Then cast her Holy Smite spells which injured him without turning him hostile, possibly because Ætheling was out of sight. She then summoned skeletons which attacked and killed Mulahey whilst Ætheling was once more out of sight. Therefore no screenshots.
Similar tactics were used against Tranzig, Deke, and Tauzogh. The skellies also killed a bunch of bandits without being told to.
After the skellies had died, Ætheling slept and summoned some more which were buffed with chant, bless and barkskin. She went inside Tazok's tent and lured out the enemy into the trap. Had to re-enter a couple of times to lure them all out except Hakt who she killed as one on one seemed fair.
I am just wondering, is it better to have four skellies, or three who have been buffed with Strength of One?
I have never tried this tactic before, and it seems most effective.
We set off to the east, heading towards the mines. Thunnir doesn't want to enter the mine, having in mind that he has no better chance than the local garrison to handle the problem for the moment. He explores the area, while looking for the fortress Edwin was headed to.
A friendly wolf? This must have been part of the SCS installation, I've never seen this before! Though, we met another wolf, that was not as friendly as this ordinary wolf. Yes you guessed it right, GREYWOLF. There was no reasoning with this man, he was too greedy for that. He was threatening the life of Thunnir, ready to kill. But Kagain stepped in, and fought him back bravely. But Greywolf was no easy prey, Kagain fell easily to his blade. He ran for Edwin, who luckily escaped quickly, he turned around and now went for Imoen! Tiax manages to summon a Ghast, who on his second hit successfully stunts Greywolf. The ghast keeps hitting him, and the party kept throwing missiles at him. Finally he died.
Kagain was no big loss to Thrunni, he knew that the dwarf was not a very good lass. But the death of him still shocked Thrunni. They decide to put their Journey to the fortress on hold for a while, and retreats back north.
We make our way back to Beregost, where we resupply on ammo and rest our eyes.
As we stroll down the streets of Beregost, we hear rumors about a mad cleric, resurrecting the dead. Turns out he got a bounty on his head, a sum of 5000 gold. Thrunni eavesdrop on the conversation and finds out that the priest is located to the immediate west, not far from where they hid from the gnolls some days ago. Thrunni decides to kill the cleric.
Within a few hours, the party has arrived at the burial sight and laid their eyes on the cleric
Tiax summons up a ghast (very ironically) and the party walks towards the cleric. The cleric talks to the zombie standing right next to him, and the zombie replies with his dead and cold groans. The Cleric sees the party, and gets upset. He begin casting spells towards them, but Tiax forces him to the ground with a command spell. The ghast closes in and start hammering the cleric to pieces, while his under constant firing of arrows. He fails to cast a single spell and is slain in a matter of seconds without any problems.
We begin our journey to the temple of Lathander, just to the east of the city limits of Beregost. We choose to visit the town on our way to ensure we have a safer travel. On our way we meet up with this strange girl called Neera. She desperately asks for help and we decide to protect her. To our shock, her enemies were Wizards, dressed up in the same robes as Edwin. Thunnir looks at Edwin for a second in confusement, and Edwin looks back angered. Edwin fends them off, threatening them that attacking his colleges can only end in him killing them, or have them killed by their superiors. They are scared off, but Edwin refuses to travel with the girl. We decide to leave her for the moment. She seemed mad at us, but I am not going to put my strangers in front of my friends.
We arrived at the temple of Lathander, were we collected our bounty. The priest was most happy about our efforts to bring the evil cleric, Bassiluss as he was called to justice. We received 5000 gold and Imoen advanced to her 2nd level in her thieving carrier.
My shaman is off and running in BG2. I noticed in going through the dungeon that pretty much everything was reacting to spell damage inflicted from out of sight by moving to attack. That's a bit different from BG1 where quite a few things just stood still waiting to die. Assuming that continues then I might be making more use of entangle in future - such as was done for the mephits in the elemental plane.
Another good alternative is just to run enemies without distance attacks round inside a Writhing Fog.
That spell doesn't harm the caster and casts pretty quickly, so works very well for that purpose.
At the Circus a couple of insect plagues ate their way through the opponents
before I moved on to the Slums. I got to level 11 in the Copper Coronet where insects and Fogs proved a winning combination against all comers.
With some of the funds gained I bought the Ring of Air Control and that was quickly in use to help me disappear when Suna Seni tried an ambush - I didn't have any insects available though so still had to work quite hard with the help of some nymphs.
Carrying on to Watcher's Keep I bought the potion case, but didn't venture inside for now.
At the Docks some nymphs held the Mad Cleric before I started Mae'Var's tasks. Renfeld was rescued en route to the Temple - insects being all that was required there. The temple of Talos provided a necklace along with a Wand of the Heavens.
Back in the Docks Prebek and Sanasha stood no chance against insects.
Getting into Rayic's house was a bit of a problem as I couldn't cast spells with the mephits attacking and didn't have the melee firepower to kill more than two before my fire protection ran out - resulting in a need to use a potion of speed to run away and reapply protection to finish them off.
That potion was also useful in allowing the stone golems to be cut down with a non-proficient dagger while nymphs provided a distraction. After a rest Rayic himself was no problem for more insects.
Reporting back to Renal what Mae'Var has been up to was enough for level 12. That means fire elementals can be used in future to provide a bit of melee muscle.
Shaman 12, 84 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 137 kills (+362 in BG1)
Strangely, almost every time I try to like other people's posts, I get a "Whoops you need to enable Java Script" message. So sorry for not liking (some of) your posts fellow no-reloaders. I do really like them. In my last post I forgot to mention @aldain (single class mage, nice!) and @CrevsDaak (love the Sharpshooter kit, especially with unnerfed poison weapon). Good luck to you both, and good luck to @RelSundan. I'm quite fond of the Wizard Slayer kit. Looking forward to more Thrunni. @Grond0, congrats too. Great portrait, and great work. Keep it going in Amn.
We decide to explore the lands north of the FAI, avoiding Ankhegs for now. Gavin and Sigrid do loot their hoard under Sanctuary. Father Brun is brought his son’s corpse, and given a 100 GP to get by. Tenya receives the bowl that three fishermen stole from her mother. We fight one Ankheg, but have no difficulty killing it thanks to two Commands. Taerom Fuiruim works its carapace into a suit of Ankheg armor for Jaheira.
Sigrid and Gavin’s first big task for Keldath Ormlyr is to eliminate the danger that is Bassilus the murderer. We track him down in the Red Canyons and we fail to fool him. His prebuffs are Remove Fear, Bless, AoF, DUHM, Defensive Harmony and Free Action, which is a bit of a surprise. These short duration buffs weren’t created in an ambush or teleport situation. If anything, we were ambushing him. Or do I not understand this SCS component correctly? Either way it matters little. Bassilus does manage to cast a Hold Person at Khalid, but the Half-Elf saves, and Sigrid then Silences the priest. Two Commands and a stun with the Stupefier that Imoen had gifted to Sigrid (without telling where she had it from), allows the party to severely injure Bassilus. At near death status, he gets up, and the Silence wears off, but a missile from Imoen’s wand does him in.
The party reports the good news to Keldath, and spends some leisure time in Beregost. We meet Garrick and agree to protect his employer, Silke. When we call her out on her deceit, she turns against us. Her only pre-buff is Stoneskin, she casts MI. Gavin fails to Command her, but Sigrid’s Hold Person paralyzes the bard. A collective assault strips her of her MIs and Stoneskins, and eventually does her in. Garrick joins the party. I have a soft spot for Garrick, and so does Imoen:
Garrick likes Imoen as well because the next day he gives her a fancy pink cloak, Imoen’s favorite color.
Sigrid and Gavin’s next assignment for the Temple is to stop Mutamin from making more victims.
The party receives six potions of mirrored eyes, and they buy a green scroll of PfPetrification at the Nashkel Carnival, where Garrick is given a rare tome by one Archibald. Khalid reads the green scroll, and takes down eight of the Basilisks with his longbow. Mutamin and two remaining Basilisks require a careful approach. Khalid, uncomfortable with being sent off to do the dirty work on his own, welcomes the help of Korax. Sigrid is disgusted but manages to focus on the task at hand. She scouts Mutamin and his two remaining pets and Silences him. So Khalid and the ghoul can dispatch the two monsters without the Gnome intervening. Mutamin is not amused and attacks Khalid with his staff, but he is no match for the warrior and the ghoul. Korax paralyzes both Basilisks, allowing Sigrid to kill a Greater one, and killing the Lesser one itself.
During their mission all party members level up once. We want to fight Kirian and co. for the Golden Girdle, but the only way to antagonize them is by taunting them and threatening to kill them. The hunters may be rude, but fighting and killing them would be way too harsh a response for this party, so we let them go.
To those people who say that the game doesn’t reward playing evil as much as it does playing good, I’d like to ask: have you ever played a truly good character? I mean Elves’ Bane, Golden Girdle, Algernon’s Cloak, Boots of Stealth, Meilum’s Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise, Cloak of Balduran, the Stupefier, Helm of Balduran, Cloak of Balduran, Helm of Glory, Wisdom tome from the temple of Tymora in Baldur’s Gate, Black Lily’s wares at the Thieves’ Guild in Baldur’s Gate, Sunin’s Ring of Wizardry, many many scrolls, the list probably goes on. All these items can be obtained with ease by evil or maybe kleptomaniac or mercenary-type neutral characters. But the acquisition of all these items involves theft, provocation, and/or needless bloodshed and thus seems hard to justify by any mentally sane good-aligned character. I wonder how well I’m capable of keeping this up. Forgoing nice items and finding mostly empty slots in characters’ inventory screens ain’t pretty, and avoiding certain quests or battles because there is no RP justification also makes me feel like I’m missing out on some nice action. I’m cool with giving up the girdle of piercing, but I was a bit disappointed when I couldn’t fight Kirian and her friends, not just for her belt but also for the fun of the battle. I may take a more liberal approach from now on. Interpret dialogue in the most favorable way possible, invent reasons to enter buildings, and give other characters’ personalities more weight.
Keldath’s potions of mirrored eyes prove priceless when we get waylaid by another Basilisk on the way back to the temple to report our success.
On the North Coast Shoal gives Garrick a kiss of death. Khalid attacks her alone with his bow, hoping she’ll come to her senses before it’s too late. Alas, she doesn’t and she dies. This isn’t the first time Shoal fails to beg for mercy. Losing out on so many good items I really anticipated getting the Helmet of Defense. I wonder if this is a bug. I purposely attacked with one character to prevent that a salvo of missiles might break the script. Looks like the best helmets this party can get their hands may be Kiel’s Helmet and the Helmet of Infravision.
Sigrid’s and Gavin’s Hold Persons prove deadly for Karlat, for Zargal’s men, and for Greywolf. We protect Prism, because one of Lathander’s tenets is to foster culture and the arts. We bring the emeralds that Prism drops to Oublek for 300 GP so that they can return to their rightful owner, rather than selling them for 1500 GP.
We then return north and dispatch to dispatch the many Ankhegs we had seen there. Jaheira and Khalid prove quite capable meleeing them.
Garrick finishes reading his book and wants to look for traces of a famous Half-Elven Bard, the late Myr’Cutio, near Ulcaster. We find him, undead and surrounded by some Zombies, and have to fight him. Sigrid’s Hold Undead ability makes this a piece of cake.
Garrick takes the Bard’s stylish armor (caster chain with AC4).
We then return to Beregost to carry out Sigrid and Gavin’s final test for the church of Lathander, solving the mystery of disappearing townspeople in Beregost. Through a rogue in the Burning Wizard we learn the location of the crimes, the house of Lady Valeria opposite the inn. After some interrogation of her butler, we are attacked by four warriors led by a priest, but Imoen and Khalid disrupt his spell casting, and Sigrid and Gavin manage to Hold all four men.
We finish them (the priest drops a suit of full plate armor, Sigrid's prospective engame armor), and Sigrid and Gavin head upstairs to find Lady Valeria. She explains that she’s responsible for the disappearances. She has studied these people, hoping to develop a happiness elixir but ended up killing them in the process. When Sigrid and Gavin refuse to leave her to her work she goes hostile. Both priests start casting Silence, but Sigrid is interrupted by a Flame Arrow for no less than 33 damage.
She retreats. Gavin does manage to Silence Lady Valeria, and dispatches her with her companions. She drops valuable gems and a robe of the evil archmagi, welcome loot to be converted in gold. Gavin and Sigrid, now Dawnbringers of Lathander, are overjoyed to see Keldath Ormlyr happy with their work, and to have proven themselves to Lathander.
After some time for contemplation as well as celebration we proceed to explore the coast. We help Charleston Nib, and Sigrid, a collector of artifacts for her church, takes the idol of Kozah. This means we have to battle the Doomsayer. Unfortunately we have great difficulty landing hits. Garrick’s Magic Missiles and wand of fire scorchers do the job.
Further north Imoen quaffs a potion of invisibility and Sigrid uses Sanctuary to bypass Sirines and Flesh Golems and loot Black Alaric’s cave. We shall return there later, when we feel ready to deal with these foes. We meet Safana but only Garrick seems eager to have her around. We decide against having her in the party.
Strangely, almost every time I try to like other people's posts, I get a "Whoops you need to enable Java Script" message. So sorry for not liking (some of) your posts fellow no-reloaders. I do really like them. In my last post I forgot to mention @aldain (single class mage, nice!) and @CrevsDaak (love the Sharpshooter kit, especially with unnerfed poison weapon). Good luck to you both, and good luck to @RelSundan. I'm quite fond of the Wizard Slayer kit. Looking forward to more Thrunni. @Grond0, congrats too. Great portrait, and great work. Keep it going in Amn.
We decide to explore the lands north of the FAI, avoiding Ankhegs for now. Gavin and Sigrid do loot their hoard under Sanctuary. Father Brun is brought his son’s corpse, and given a 100 GP to get by. Tenya receives the bowl that three fishermen stole from her mother. We fight one Ankheg, but have no difficulty killing it thanks to two Commands. Taerom Fuiruim works its carapace into a suit of Ankheg armor for Jaheira.
Sigrid and Gavin’s first big task for Keldath Ormlyr is to eliminate the danger that is Bassilus the murderer. We track him down in the Red Canyons and we fail to fool him. His prebuffs are Remove Fear, Bless, AoF, DUHM, Defensive Harmony and Free Action, which is a bit of a surprise. These short duration buffs weren’t created in an ambush or teleport situation. If anything, we were ambushing him. Or do I not understand this SCS component correctly? Either way it matters little. Bassilus does manage to cast a Hold Person at Khalid, but the Half-Elf saves, and Sigrid then Silences the priest. Two Commands and a stun with the Stupefier that Imoen had gifted to Sigrid (without telling where she had it from), allows the party to severely injure Bassilus. At near death status, he gets up, and the Silence wears off, but a missile from Imoen’s wand does him in.
The party reports the good news to Keldath, and spends some leisure time in Beregost. We meet Garrick and agree to protect his employer, Silke. When we call her out on her deceit, she turns against us. Her only pre-buff is Stoneskin, she casts MI. Gavin fails to Command her, but Sigrid’s Hold Person paralyzes the bard. A collective assault strips her of her MIs and Stoneskins, and eventually does her in. Garrick joins the party. I have a soft spot for Garrick, and so does Imoen:
Garrick likes Imoen as well because the next day he gives her a fancy pink cloak, Imoen’s favorite color.
Sigrid and Gavin’s next assignment for the Temple is to stop Mutamin from making more victims.
The party receives six potions of mirrored eyes, and they buy a green scroll of PfPetrification at the Nashkel Carnival, where Garrick is given a rare tome by one Archibald. Khalid reads the green scroll, and takes down eight of the Basilisks with his longbow. Mutamin and two remaining Basilisks require a careful approach. Khalid, uncomfortable with being sent off to do the dirty work on his own, welcomes the help of Korax. Sigrid is disgusted but manages to focus on the task at hand. She scouts Mutamin and his two remaining pets and Silences him. So Khalid and the ghoul can dispatch the two monsters without the Gnome intervening. Mutamin is not amused and attacks Khalid with his staff, but he is no match for the warrior and the ghoul. Korax paralyzes both Basilisks, allowing Sigrid to kill a Greater one, and killing the Lesser one itself.
During their mission all party members level up once. We want to fight Kirian and co. for the Golden Girdle, but the only way to antagonize them is by taunting them and threatening to kill them. The hunters may be rude, but fighting and killing them would be way too harsh a response for this party, so we let them go.
To those people who say that the game doesn’t reward playing evil as much as it does playing good, I’d like to ask: have you ever played a truly good character? I mean Elves’ Bane, Golden Girdle, Algernon’s Cloak, Boots of Stealth, Meilum’s Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise, Cloak of Balduran, the Stupefier, Helm of Balduran, Cloak of Balduran, Helm of Glory, Wisdom tome from the temple of Tymora in Baldur’s Gate, Black Lily’s wares at the Thieves’ Guild in Baldur’s Gate, Sunin’s Ring of Wizardry, many many scrolls, the list probably goes on. All these items can be obtained with ease by evil or maybe kleptomaniac or mercenary-type neutral characters. But the acquisition of all these items involves theft, provocation, and/or needless bloodshed and thus seems hard to justify by any mentally sane good-aligned character. I wonder how well I’m capable of keeping this up. Forgoing nice items and finding mostly empty slots in characters’ inventory screens ain’t pretty, and avoiding certain quests or battles because there is no RP justification also makes me feel like I’m missing out on some nice action. I’m cool with giving up the girdle of piercing, but I was a bit disappointed when I couldn’t fight Kirian and her friends, not just for her belt but also for the fun of the battle. I may take a more liberal approach from now on. Interpret dialogue in the most favorable way possible, invent reasons to enter buildings, and give other characters’ personalities more weight.
Keldath’s potions of mirrored eyes prove priceless when we get waylaid by another Basilisk on the way back to the temple to report our success.
On the North Coast Shoal gives Garrick a kiss of death. Khalid attacks her alone with his bow, hoping she’ll come to her senses before it’s too late. Alas, she doesn’t and she dies. This isn’t the first time Shoal fails to beg for mercy. Losing out on so many good items I really anticipated getting the Helmet of Defense. I wonder if this is a bug. I purposely attacked with one character to prevent that a salvo of missiles might break the script. Looks like the best helmets this party can get their hands may be Kiel’s Helmet and the Helmet of Infravision.
Sigrid’s and Gavin’s Hold Persons prove deadly for Karlat, for Zargal’s men, and for Greywolf. We protect Prism, because one of Lathander’s tenets is to foster culture and the arts. We bring the emeralds that Prism drops to Oublek for 300 GP so that they can return to their rightful owner, rather than selling them for 1500 GP.
We then return north and dispatch to dispatch the many Ankhegs we had seen there. Jaheira and Khalid prove quite capable meleeing them.
Garrick finishes reading his book and wants to look for traces of a famous Half-Elven Bard, the late Myr’Cutio, near Ulcaster. We find him, undead and surrounded by some Zombies, and have to fight him. Sigrid’s Hold Undead ability makes this a piece of cake.
Garrick takes the Bard’s stylish armor (caster chain with AC4).
We then return to Beregost to carry out Sigrid and Gavin’s final test for the church of Lathander, solving the mystery of disappearing townspeople in Beregost. Through a rogue in the Burning Wizard we learn the location of the crimes, the house of Lady Valeria opposite the inn. After some interrogation of her butler, we are attacked by four warriors led by a priest, but Imoen and Khalid disrupt his spell casting, and Sigrid and Gavin manage to Hold all four men.
We finish them (the priest drops a suit of full plate armor, Sigrid's prospective engame armor), and Sigrid and Gavin head upstairs to find Lady Valeria. She explains that she’s responsible for the disappearances. She has studied these people, hoping to develop a happiness elixir but ended up killing them in the process. When Sigrid and Gavin refuse to leave her to her work she goes hostile. Both priests start casting Silence, but Sigrid is interrupted by a Flame Arrow for no less than 33 damage.
She retreats. Gavin does manage to Silence Lady Valeria, and dispatches her with her companions. She drops valuable gems and a robe of the evil archmagi, welcome loot to be converted in gold. Gavin and Sigrid, now Dawnbringers of Lathander, are overjoyed to see Keldath Ormlyr happy with their work, and to have proven themselves to Lathander.
After some time for contemplation as well as celebration we proceed to explore the coast. We help Charleston Nib, and Sigrid, a collector of artifacts for her church, takes the idol of Kozah. This means we have to battle the Doomsayer. Unfortunately we have great difficulty landing hits. Garrick’s Magic Missiles and wand of fire scorchers do the job.
Further north Imoen quaffs a potion of invisibility and Sigrid uses Sanctuary to bypass Sirines and Flesh Golems and loot Black Alaric’s cave. We shall return there later, when we feel ready to deal with these foes. We meet Safana but only Garrick seems eager to have her around. We decide against having her in the party.
I don't recognize those last quests, with the Beregost lady. Is that a mod or do you have to be a priest of Lathander?
My preparations for Draconis were extensive: I collected and kept every item with acid resistance and all of the acid protection scrolls in SoA just for this encounter. The equipment may be inferior in every other way, but it beats getting instantly killed by Draconis' bugged double breath weapon (which has happened to me multiple times and is also the reason I'm so concerned about this encounter, since he tends to dispel the acid protections after transforming into a dragon). I also placed a number of traps near the entrance of the map, as a potential backup plan - if I have to flee, maybe I can lure Draconis into them (though it's more likely that an invisible stalker will trigger those traps). Owain prepared a spell trigger with 3x lower resistance, because he needs his level 5 spellslots for protection from acid spells. Since he has also prepared IA + Timestop, with the lower resistance spell trigger he should be able to kill Draconis if he gets to cast both spells (well, Draconis once managed to interrupt me while time was already stopped, though I don't remember how that could've happened).
With full party buffs and acid resistance via spells, scrolls and items, the party engaged, first defeating Draconis' human form without any trouble, though his ADHW did some significant damage to Donar:
To my surprise, Draconis didn't start out by dispelling all of my buffs after transforming into a dragon. Instead, he gave me a chance to activate GWWs and deal some damage to him while Owain started casting time stop:
The dragon's attempts to protect himself failed right away thanks go Goibniu's Carsomyr. He never really managed to do anything: No dispels, no breath weapon, and only one rather unsuccessful wing buffet (his attempt to go invisible was foiled by Owain's true sight). He died before Owain even completed his time stop spell:
Well, that was certainly easier than expected. Now I feel really confident about my chances.
Goibniu entered Abazigal's lair, obtained the water bottle and went for the rope, killing the prince of water:
The Cloak of Mirroring helped the paladin deal with the various eyes:
I rested before attacking Abazigal. Protection from lightning spells and hardiness activations were added to the usual buffs, and the bhaalspawn quickly abandoned his human form, pushing the party back upon transformation:
Goibniu soon managed to apply dispel magic via Carsomyr:
You know what? Owain still had his 3xLR spell trigger originally prepared for Draconis. This time, he had enough time to cast timestop, IA and most of his spellbook (including a spellstrike to deal with any potential defenses against magic) - here you can see a couple of spells flying at the dragon:
And here's the direct result:
Going off a short tangent here: During my time playing BG2 I went from "Carsomyr is the best thing ever" after killing Firkraag for the very first time, to "meh, this weapon is overrated" upon entering the "APR > everything" phase, and now I'm back at "this weapon is overpowered, I'm glad that SCS has an option to nerf it". Against all of the ToB dragons, it's been the difference between tough and interesting battles and just activating GWWs and attacking.
Next time: Balthazar and some more pocket plane challenges.
Tbh, I actually prefer Carsomyr working as "non-nerfed". You've got Dispel Arrows which almost anybody can use, you've got Magi Staff, so why not a paladin-only sword which requires a dragon to die? Makes more sense then either of these two...and staff is much better than Carsomyr.
Blackraven said... isn’t the first time Shoal fails to beg for mercy. Losing out on so many good items I really anticipated getting the Helmet of Defense. I wonder if this is a bug. I purposely attacked with one character to prevent that a salvo of missiles might break the script. Looks like the best helmets this party can get their hands may be Kiel’s Helmet and the Helmet of Infravision.
It's not a bug. Once she kisses someone dead, have a single character attacker her in MELEE. She'll talk if she is close enough. I'm sure Khalid plinking away she wanted to talk but got killed before she got within range. Also, when attacking in melee, be careful NOT to attack with someone with huge damage potential (like Minsc with a two-hand sword) - you don't want to one-shot with a critical after all.
Well, if you also remove arrows of dispelling from stores and take away the staffs invisibilty power, it all balances out, I think. Over multiple runs with and without paladins, I've noticed a huge difference in the effort it takes to deal with a ton of different opponents, though dragons might be affected the most. Sure, the unnerfed staff of the magi might be more powerful, but it at least takes some effort to use, especially when playing with a party (solo is a different story). Carsomyr is often the main reason to even have a paladin in your party, and it completely takes away the need to do anything but attack in a ton of battles.
That's just my opinion based on my observations and my playstyle. I tend not to overuse items like the staff of the magi, and I usually don't play solo, so perspectives might vary a lot.
Regarding accidentally killing Shoal and similiar characters (like Tenya), @Wise_Grimwald once gave me the very good advise to just surround them and attack them only with fists (if the party is powerful enough). Since fists deal nonlethal damage (unless you are a monk), you won't accidentally kill them regardless of how much damage you deal.
@Enuhal I never bother with fists - anytime I want the HoD, I just turn off AI, attack in melee, with a weak fighter like Khalid alone and sure enough soon she has had enough. This has worked EVERY time (and I get the HoD quite often with my parties).
Tbh, I actually prefer Carsomyr working as "non-nerfed". You've got Dispel Arrows which almost anybody can use, you've got Magi Staff, so why not a paladin-only sword which requires a dragon to die? Makes more sense then either of these two...and staff is much better than Carsomyr.
The other thing is, the Carsomyr is slow so hardly broken. "Broken" weapons are those like the Foebane - Alesia_BH got huge HP with that (300 or more?) with GWW, that plus her equipment/potion defenses and no enemy or enemies were any threat to her (well almost none - she lost her battle with two dragons (Abazigal and his partner dragon in Ascension).
To those people who say that the game doesn’t reward playing evil as much as it does playing good, I’d like to ask: have you ever played a truly good character? I mean Elves’ Bane, Golden Girdle, Algernon’s Cloak, Boots of Stealth, Meilum’s Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise, Cloak of Balduran, the Stupefier, Helm of Balduran, Cloak of Balduran, Helm of Glory, Wisdom tome from the temple of Tymora in Baldur’s Gate, Black Lily’s wares at the Thieves’ Guild in Baldur’s Gate, Sunin’s Ring of Wizardry, many many scrolls, the list probably goes on. All these items can be obtained with ease by evil or maybe kleptomaniac or mercenary-type neutral characters. But the acquisition of all these items involves theft, provocation, and/or needless bloodshed and thus seems hard to justify by any mentally sane good-aligned character. I wonder how well I’m capable of keeping this up. Forgoing nice items and finding mostly empty slots in characters’ inventory screens ain’t pretty, and avoiding certain quests or battles because there is no RP justification also makes me feel like I’m missing out on some nice action. I’m cool with giving up the girdle of piercing, but I was a bit disappointed when I couldn’t fight Kirian and her friends, not just for her belt but also for the fun of the battle. I may take a more liberal approach from now on. Interpret dialogue in the most favorable way possible, invent reasons to enter buildings, and give other characters’ personalities more weight.
I'm doing a Paladin run right now, all the lawful good characters, plus Imoen. So, no Stupifier, no fighting Kirin or Sendai, no entering houses except for quest purposes. I'm not even looking in rain barrels. It's still pretty early, I've just killed Tranzig and started my exploration/level up phase before taking on the bandit camp, so I'm not sure how this is going to affect the power curve yet.
@Enuhal and @Corey_Russell: thanks for your tips regarding Shoal. I used ranged attacks because the combat log kept saying "Shoal attacks Khalid", will try melee next time.
@RelSundan: @Aasim was right. The quest in Beregost was from the Gavin mod. I installed it for this playthrough, because with the extra Temple of Lathander content the temple kind of became Sigrid's BG1 stronghold.
@BillyYank: interesting! Fyi Sendai can be fought if you say "Are you saying Amn doesn't threaten Baldur's Gate?" followed by "We're not going anywhere. We have as much right to be here as you." I've started involving the other characters more actively in the role-playing. E.g. Garrick pickpocketed Algernon's cloak and gave it to Imoen whose attention he was seeking, Imoen occasionally steals too, and Jaheira and Minsc are a bit more aggressive and impulsive respectively than Sigrid. However with a pretty much completely LG party your leeway for that kind of thing is limited. I don't think missing out on the items I mentioned will make a much of a difference. And where it does, like in the case of missing Elves' Bane on one of your characters at the Bandit Camp, potions can mitigate that.
With the newly available fire elementals I was happy to invade Mae'Var's guild even without yet having ironskins. A single elemental for each floor proved plenty - with a little help from other spells.
Moving on to the Bridge District elementals provided a front line against the Fallen Paladins while spells rained in from the back.
The dreaded Rune Assassins were equally unable to touch an elemental.
With reputation up to 18 I went to Trademeet looking for a bit more. The genies managed to petrify the elemental inside their tent, but when they followed me outside they found another waiting there. At the Grove I used Flame Blade for the first time to give the elementals a little helping hand in finishing off trolls. A spirit troll proved hard to kill, but layering multiple insect plagues on it eventually wore it down before a wand blast killed it (flame blade not working as that's non-magical).
The rakshasas were left until their potions are bought, but other enemies soon fell against summons and insects. Faldorn would have gone the same way, but refused to match up against a mere shaman and got eaten by Cernd instead.
Being hailed as the Hero of Trademeet got me to level 13 and I celebrated by using my new ironskins to generate elementals to clear the tomb. After a bit of shopping I also helped Tiris out.
Back in Athkatla Mencar's party offered little opposition - 3 elementals being tasked with trapping Brennan to ensure he didn't run away.
On a roll with dwarf-led parties Tarnor's gang was the next to go.
The rest of the sewers was soon cleared and the Unseeing Eye quest started to get access to the lich before Mekrath was cremated by some elementals (who were mainly summoned to help deal with the umber hulks guarding the Portal Gem).
More shopping soaked up all my cash, though there's not much left worth buying now anyway.
Shaman 13, 86 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 229 kills (+362 in BG1)
Spells (I think in order of selection - final spells listed at each level are shaman only additions not requiring a pick): L1 - CLW, Armor of Faith, Bless, Doom, Entangle, Spirit Ward L2 - Charm P / M, Barkskin, Resist Fire / Cold, Flame Blade, Find Traps, Writhing Fog L3 - Call Lightning, Protection from Fire, Rigid Thinking, Summon Insects, Spiritual Clarity L4 - Call Woodland Beings, Farsight, Death Ward, Protection from Lightning, Spirit Fire L5 - Insect Plague, Chaotic Commands, Iron Skins, Recall Spirit L6 - Fire Elemental, Harm, Spiritual Lock
Interesting discussion of staying in character during runs. As I went through my last run, I was thinking about how much content I might be missing because of the Ring of Human Influence from Lord Foreshadow. I've gotten into the habit of treating charisma as a trash stat because of that ring. Steinarr, while very intelligent, probably couldn't get a room in an inn because of his ugly face and inability to do more than grunt out a few syllables in a row without wearing that ring. I think for my next run, I'm going to toss it into the river and forget about it, and see how people actually react...
I've also gotten into the habit of digging through all the item randomizer locations, out of lack of confidence that I can survive SCS Cloakwood bounty hunters + Davaeorn without lots of goodies. It would definitely make things more interesting to have good characters pass up on the places that require dodgy behavior to access. It would be a bit like the option to have randomizer randomly get rid of items...
Comments
No, you need EET for that. There is a mod (Neverending Journey, latest version) for BG2 that allows that also I think, since it uses some BG1 areas. It's a good mod, with some seriously OP equipment unfortunately.
@Blind_Visionary All the best in SoD
@RelSundan Hope you enjoy no reload. I have found it more fun than reloading.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821349/#Comment_821349
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821359/#Comment_821359
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821386/#Comment_821386
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821409/#Comment_821409
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821520/#Comment_821520
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821595/#Comment_821595
Well, I'm finally planning to move on to BG2 with this character, although I'm not happy with this run.
Things went pretty smoothly up to returning to Candlekeep, where I looted the tombs and moved into the doppleganger area - and died.
The previous time that happened I sort of rationalised the death by hypothesing that maybe Prat had heard the sounds of conflict and maybe he'd been hoarding a disintegrate scroll and maybe he'd used farsight to cast it at me from out of sight ...
If that sounds almost impossible then I'd have to say this death was entirely impossible, so I did load up the autosave and went through the rest of the catacombs without trouble.
Back in Baldur's Gate Slythe was hit by a dispelling arrow, just before being confused by nymphs. The nymphs did their job again at the Palace where almost all the dopplegangers were confused by their opening spells.
After fighting through the maze I went to the temple and activated Sarevok by shooting at him with a dispelling arrow before retreating quickly. Semaj teleported out and resisted all the spells the nymphs could throw at him, but more dispelling arrows were too much for him (I was protected by a potion of magic shielding).
Ætheling the Erudite Continued
Ætheling went down the Nashkel mines and cast silence on Mulahey. Then cast her Holy Smite spells which injured him without turning him hostile, possibly because Ætheling was out of sight. She then summoned skeletons which attacked and killed Mulahey whilst Ætheling was once more out of sight. Therefore no screenshots.Similar tactics were used against Tranzig, Deke, and Tauzogh. The skellies also killed a bunch of bandits without being told to.
After the skellies had died, Ætheling slept and summoned some more which were buffed with chant, bless and barkskin. She went inside Tazok's tent and lured out the enemy into the trap. Had to re-enter a couple of times to lure them all out except Hakt who she killed as one on one seemed fair.
I am just wondering, is it better to have four skellies, or three who have been buffed with Strength of One?
I have never tried this tactic before, and it seems most effective.
My first no-reload run. Update 2
First updateWe set off to the east, heading towards the mines. Thunnir doesn't want to enter the mine, having in mind that he has no better chance than the local garrison to handle the problem for the moment. He explores the area, while looking for the fortress Edwin was headed to.
A friendly wolf? This must have been part of the SCS installation, I've never seen this before! Though, we met another wolf, that was not as friendly as this ordinary wolf. Yes you guessed it right, GREYWOLF. There was no reasoning with this man, he was too greedy for that. He was threatening the life of Thunnir, ready to kill. But Kagain stepped in, and fought him back bravely. But Greywolf was no easy prey, Kagain fell easily to his blade. He ran for Edwin, who luckily escaped quickly, he turned around and now went for Imoen! Tiax manages to summon a Ghast, who on his second hit successfully stunts Greywolf. The ghast keeps hitting him, and the party kept throwing missiles at him. Finally he died.
Kagain was no big loss to Thrunni, he knew that the dwarf was not a very good lass. But the death of him still shocked Thrunni. They decide to put their Journey to the fortress on hold for a while, and retreats back north.
We make our way back to Beregost, where we resupply on ammo and rest our eyes.
As we stroll down the streets of Beregost, we hear rumors about a mad cleric, resurrecting the dead. Turns out he got a bounty on his head, a sum of 5000 gold. Thrunni eavesdrop on the conversation and finds out that the priest is located to the immediate west, not far from where they hid from the gnolls some days ago. Thrunni decides to kill the cleric.
Within a few hours, the party has arrived at the burial sight and laid their eyes on the cleric
Tiax summons up a ghast (very ironically) and the party walks towards the cleric. The cleric talks to the zombie standing right next to him, and the zombie replies with his dead and cold groans. The Cleric sees the party, and gets upset. He begin casting spells towards them, but Tiax forces him to the ground with a command spell. The ghast closes in and start hammering the cleric to pieces, while his under constant firing of arrows. He fails to cast a single spell and is slain in a matter of seconds without any problems.
We begin our journey to the temple of Lathander, just to the east of the city limits of Beregost. We choose to visit the town on our way to ensure we have a safer travel. On our way we meet up with this strange girl called Neera. She desperately asks for help and we decide to protect her. To our shock, her enemies were Wizards, dressed up in the same robes as Edwin. Thunnir looks at Edwin for a second in confusement, and Edwin looks back angered. Edwin fends them off, threatening them that attacking his colleges can only end in him killing them, or have them killed by their superiors. They are scared off, but Edwin refuses to travel with the girl. We decide to leave her for the moment. She seemed mad at us, but I am not going to put my strangers in front of my friends.
We arrived at the temple of Lathander, were we collected our bounty. The priest was most happy about our efforts to bring the evil cleric, Bassiluss as he was called to justice. We received 5000 gold and Imoen advanced to her 2nd level in her thieving carrier.
End of update 2
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821349/#Comment_821349
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821359/#Comment_821359
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821386/#Comment_821386
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821409/#Comment_821409
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821520/#Comment_821520
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821595/#Comment_821595
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821701/#Comment_821701
My shaman is off and running in BG2. I noticed in going through the dungeon that pretty much everything was reacting to spell damage inflicted from out of sight by moving to attack. That's a bit different from BG1 where quite a few things just stood still waiting to die. Assuming that continues then I might be making more use of entangle in future - such as was done for the mephits in the elemental plane.
At the Circus a couple of insect plagues ate their way through the opponents
With some of the funds gained I bought the Ring of Air Control and that was quickly in use to help me disappear when Suna Seni tried an ambush - I didn't have any insects available though so still had to work quite hard with the help of some nymphs.
At the Docks some nymphs held the Mad Cleric before I started Mae'Var's tasks. Renfeld was rescued en route to the Temple - insects being all that was required there. The temple of Talos provided a necklace along with a Wand of the Heavens.
Back in the Docks Prebek and Sanasha stood no chance against insects.
Reporting back to Renal what Mae'Var has been up to was enough for level 12. That means fire elementals can be used in future to provide a bit of melee muscle.
Shaman 12, 84 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 137 kills (+362 in BG1)
In my last post I forgot to mention @aldain (single class mage, nice!) and @CrevsDaak (love the Sharpshooter kit, especially with unnerfed poison weapon). Good luck to you both, and good luck to @RelSundan. I'm quite fond of the Wizard Slayer kit. Looking forward to more Thrunni.
@Grond0, congrats too. Great portrait, and great work. Keep it going in Amn.
Sigrid, Priestess of Lathander, 2nd BG1 update
We decide to explore the lands north of the FAI, avoiding Ankhegs for now. Gavin and Sigrid do loot their hoard under Sanctuary. Father Brun is brought his son’s corpse, and given a 100 GP to get by. Tenya receives the bowl that three fishermen stole from her mother. We fight one Ankheg, but have no difficulty killing it thanks to two Commands. Taerom Fuiruim works its carapace into a suit of Ankheg armor for Jaheira.
Sigrid and Gavin’s first big task for Keldath Ormlyr is to eliminate the danger that is Bassilus the murderer. We track him down in the Red Canyons and we fail to fool him. His prebuffs are Remove Fear, Bless, AoF, DUHM, Defensive Harmony and Free Action, which is a bit of a surprise. These short duration buffs weren’t created in an ambush or teleport situation. If anything, we were ambushing him. Or do I not understand this SCS component correctly? Either way it matters little. Bassilus does manage to cast a Hold Person at Khalid, but the Half-Elf saves, and Sigrid then Silences the priest. Two Commands and a stun with the Stupefier that Imoen had gifted to Sigrid (without telling where she had it from), allows the party to severely injure Bassilus. At near death status, he gets up, and the Silence wears off, but a missile from Imoen’s wand does him in.
Sigrid and Gavin’s next assignment for the Temple is to stop Mutamin from making more victims.
I wonder how well I’m capable of keeping this up. Forgoing nice items and finding mostly empty slots in characters’ inventory screens ain’t pretty, and avoiding certain quests or battles because there is no RP justification also makes me feel like I’m missing out on some nice action. I’m cool with giving up the girdle of piercing, but I was a bit disappointed when I couldn’t fight Kirian and her friends, not just for her belt but also for the fun of the battle. I may take a more liberal approach from now on. Interpret dialogue in the most favorable way possible, invent reasons to enter buildings, and give other characters’ personalities more weight.
Keldath’s potions of mirrored eyes prove priceless when we get waylaid by another Basilisk on the way back to the temple to report our success.
On the North Coast Shoal gives Garrick a kiss of death. Khalid attacks her alone with his bow, hoping she’ll come to her senses before it’s too late. Alas, she doesn’t and she dies. This isn’t the first time Shoal fails to beg for mercy. Losing out on so many good items I really anticipated getting the Helmet of Defense. I wonder if this is a bug. I purposely attacked with one character to prevent that a salvo of missiles might break the script. Looks like the best helmets this party can get their hands may be Kiel’s Helmet and the Helmet of Infravision.
Sigrid’s and Gavin’s Hold Persons prove deadly for Karlat, for Zargal’s men, and for Greywolf. We protect Prism, because one of Lathander’s tenets is to foster culture and the arts. We bring the emeralds that Prism drops to Oublek for 300 GP so that they can return to their rightful owner, rather than selling them for 1500 GP.
We then return north and dispatch to dispatch the many Ankhegs we had seen there. Jaheira and Khalid prove quite capable meleeing them.
Garrick finishes reading his book and wants to look for traces of a famous Half-Elven Bard, the late Myr’Cutio, near Ulcaster. We find him, undead and surrounded by some Zombies, and have to fight him. Sigrid’s Hold Undead ability makes this a piece of cake.
We then return to Beregost to carry out Sigrid and Gavin’s final test for the church of Lathander, solving the mystery of disappearing townspeople in Beregost. Through a rogue in the Burning Wizard we learn the location of the crimes, the house of Lady Valeria opposite the inn. After some interrogation of her butler, we are attacked by four warriors led by a priest, but Imoen and Khalid disrupt his spell casting, and Sigrid and Gavin manage to Hold all four men.
After some time for contemplation as well as celebration we proceed to explore the coast. We help Charleston Nib, and Sigrid, a collector of artifacts for her church, takes the idol of Kozah. This means we have to battle the Doomsayer. Unfortunately we have great difficulty landing hits. Garrick’s Magic Missiles and wand of fire scorchers do the job.
Further north Imoen quaffs a potion of invisibility and Sigrid uses Sanctuary to bypass Sirines and Flesh Golems and loot Black Alaric’s cave. We shall return there later, when we feel ready to deal with these foes. We meet Safana but only Garrick seems eager to have her around. We decide against having her in the party.
Continued from https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/820579/#Comment_820579
My preparations for Draconis were extensive: I collected and kept every item with acid resistance and all of the acid protection scrolls in SoA just for this encounter. The equipment may be inferior in every other way, but it beats getting instantly killed by Draconis' bugged double breath weapon (which has happened to me multiple times and is also the reason I'm so concerned about this encounter, since he tends to dispel the acid protections after transforming into a dragon). I also placed a number of traps near the entrance of the map, as a potential backup plan - if I have to flee, maybe I can lure Draconis into them (though it's more likely that an invisible stalker will trigger those traps).
Owain prepared a spell trigger with 3x lower resistance, because he needs his level 5 spellslots for protection from acid spells. Since he has also prepared IA + Timestop, with the lower resistance spell trigger he should be able to kill Draconis if he gets to cast both spells (well, Draconis once managed to interrupt me while time was already stopped, though I don't remember how that could've happened).
With full party buffs and acid resistance via spells, scrolls and items, the party engaged, first defeating Draconis' human form without any trouble, though his ADHW did some significant damage to Donar:
To my surprise, Draconis didn't start out by dispelling all of my buffs after transforming into a dragon. Instead, he gave me a chance to activate GWWs and deal some damage to him while Owain started casting time stop:
The dragon's attempts to protect himself failed right away thanks go Goibniu's Carsomyr. He never really managed to do anything: No dispels, no breath weapon, and only one rather unsuccessful wing buffet (his attempt to go invisible was foiled by Owain's true sight). He died before Owain even completed his time stop spell:
Well, that was certainly easier than expected. Now I feel really confident about my chances.
Goibniu entered Abazigal's lair, obtained the water bottle and went for the rope, killing the prince of water:
The Cloak of Mirroring helped the paladin deal with the various eyes:
I rested before attacking Abazigal. Protection from lightning spells and hardiness activations were added to the usual buffs, and the bhaalspawn quickly abandoned his human form, pushing the party back upon transformation:
Goibniu soon managed to apply dispel magic via Carsomyr:
You know what? Owain still had his 3xLR spell trigger originally prepared for Draconis. This time, he had enough time to cast timestop, IA and most of his spellbook (including a spellstrike to deal with any potential defenses against magic) - here you can see a couple of spells flying at the dragon:
And here's the direct result:
Going off a short tangent here: During my time playing BG2 I went from "Carsomyr is the best thing ever" after killing Firkraag for the very first time, to "meh, this weapon is overrated" upon entering the "APR > everything" phase, and now I'm back at "this weapon is overpowered, I'm glad that SCS has an option to nerf it". Against all of the ToB dragons, it's been the difference between tough and interesting battles and just activating GWWs and attacking.
Next time: Balthazar and some more pocket plane challenges.
Enuhal
Tbh, I actually prefer Carsomyr working as "non-nerfed". You've got Dispel Arrows which almost anybody can use, you've got Magi Staff, so why not a paladin-only sword which requires a dragon to die? Makes more sense then either of these two...and staff is much better than Carsomyr.
isn’t the first time Shoal fails to beg for mercy. Losing out on so many good items I really anticipated getting the Helmet of Defense. I wonder if this is a bug. I purposely attacked with one character to prevent that a salvo of missiles might break the script. Looks like the best helmets this party can get their hands may be Kiel’s Helmet and the Helmet of Infravision.
It's not a bug. Once she kisses someone dead, have a single character attacker her in MELEE. She'll talk if she is close enough. I'm sure Khalid plinking away she wanted to talk but got killed before she got within range. Also, when attacking in melee, be careful NOT to attack with someone with huge damage potential (like Minsc with a two-hand sword) - you don't want to one-shot with a critical after all.
Well, if you also remove arrows of dispelling from stores and take away the staffs invisibilty power, it all balances out, I think.
Over multiple runs with and without paladins, I've noticed a huge difference in the effort it takes to deal with a ton of different opponents, though dragons might be affected the most. Sure, the unnerfed staff of the magi might be more powerful, but it at least takes some effort to use, especially when playing with a party (solo is a different story). Carsomyr is often the main reason to even have a paladin in your party, and it completely takes away the need to do anything but attack in a ton of battles.
That's just my opinion based on my observations and my playstyle. I tend not to overuse items like the staff of the magi, and I usually don't play solo, so perspectives might vary a lot.
Regarding accidentally killing Shoal and similiar characters (like Tenya), @Wise_Grimwald once gave me the very good advise to just surround them and attack them only with fists (if the party is powerful enough). Since fists deal nonlethal damage (unless you are a monk), you won't accidentally kill them regardless of how much damage you deal.
@RelSundan: @Aasim was right. The quest in Beregost was from the Gavin mod. I installed it for this playthrough, because with the extra Temple of Lathander content the temple kind of became Sigrid's BG1 stronghold.
@BillyYank: interesting! Fyi Sendai can be fought if you say "Are you saying Amn doesn't threaten Baldur's Gate?" followed by "We're not going anywhere. We have as much right to be here as you." I've started involving the other characters more actively in the role-playing. E.g. Garrick pickpocketed Algernon's cloak and gave it to Imoen whose attention he was seeking, Imoen occasionally steals too, and Jaheira and Minsc are a bit more aggressive and impulsive respectively than Sigrid. However with a pretty much completely LG party your leeway for that kind of thing is limited. I don't think missing out on the items I mentioned will make a much of a difference. And where it does, like in the case of missing Elves' Bane on one of your characters at the Bandit Camp, potions can mitigate that.
Previous updates at:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821349/#Comment_821349
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821359/#Comment_821359
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821386/#Comment_821386
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821409/#Comment_821409
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821520/#Comment_821520
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821595/#Comment_821595
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821701/#Comment_821701
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/821771/#Comment_821771
With the newly available fire elementals I was happy to invade Mae'Var's guild even without yet having ironskins. A single elemental for each floor proved plenty - with a little help from other spells.
Moving on to the Bridge District elementals provided a front line against the Fallen Paladins while spells rained in from the back.
With reputation up to 18 I went to Trademeet looking for a bit more. The genies managed to petrify the elemental inside their tent, but when they followed me outside they found another waiting there. At the Grove I used Flame Blade for the first time to give the elementals a little helping hand in finishing off trolls. A spirit troll proved hard to kill, but layering multiple insect plagues on it eventually wore it down before a wand blast killed it (flame blade not working as that's non-magical).
Being hailed as the Hero of Trademeet got me to level 13 and I celebrated by using my new ironskins to generate elementals to clear the tomb. After a bit of shopping I also helped Tiris out.
Back in Athkatla Mencar's party offered little opposition - 3 elementals being tasked with trapping Brennan to ensure he didn't run away.
More shopping soaked up all my cash, though there's not much left worth buying now anyway.
Shaman 13, 86 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 229 kills (+362 in BG1)
Spells (I think in order of selection - final spells listed at each level are shaman only additions not requiring a pick):
L1 - CLW, Armor of Faith, Bless, Doom, Entangle, Spirit Ward
L2 - Charm P / M, Barkskin, Resist Fire / Cold, Flame Blade, Find Traps, Writhing Fog
L3 - Call Lightning, Protection from Fire, Rigid Thinking, Summon Insects, Spiritual Clarity
L4 - Call Woodland Beings, Farsight, Death Ward, Protection from Lightning, Spirit Fire
L5 - Insect Plague, Chaotic Commands, Iron Skins, Recall Spirit
L6 - Fire Elemental, Harm, Spiritual Lock
I've also gotten into the habit of digging through all the item randomizer locations, out of lack of confidence that I can survive SCS Cloakwood bounty hunters + Davaeorn without lots of goodies. It would definitely make things more interesting to have good characters pass up on the places that require dodgy behavior to access. It would be a bit like the option to have randomizer randomly get rid of items...