The party travelled to Larswood and Peldvale. As it turns out, Lirilis' breath weapon is quite good at quickly getting rid of a huge group of bandits:
As you can see, I travelled with Baeloth and Viconia for a little while. Baeloth seems incredibly powerful.
I picked up Kivan for the assault on the bandit camp, with Khalid moving forward while the other party members took out one bandit after the other. Taugosz was blinded and shot. In front of the tent, Jaheira buffed the party with strength of one and bless, and inside, the mage was focused down, while Lirilis used more blind spells:
The party went to the eastern parts of the map, killing some vampiric wolves near the temple, defeating Meilum and taking on Kahrk. The ogre mage managed to cast a lightning bolt on Imoen which somehow bounced on what looks like thin air, but is propably an invisible part of the firewine bridge structure, killing the thief (should have had her drink a potion of absorption, simply forgot about that).
I wasn't able to disrupt Kahrk's spellcasting, and quickly I realized I was losing the fight. I ended up having to use a scroll of protection from magic, a potion of magic blocking and an invisibility potion to finally win the battle, and all three remaining party members had very little hp left.
After reviving Imoen at the temple, I defeated two bounty hunter groups (the amazons and the one near Gullykin) without any issues. Finally, Ulcaster School provided me with enough experience for both Lirilis to reach level 6 (first level 3 spell - randomization provided me with hold undead, not exactly what I hoped for) and Imoen to reach level 7. I dualled her to mage and moved to the Sword Coast to pick up Safana as a replacement thief. Some more shopping also allowed Lirils to pick up the Claw of Kazgaroth.
Together, the new party moved against the sirens, where I horribly mistimed Khalid's greenstone amulet charge, resulting in him being dire charmed. He ended up killing Imoen, though the other party members defeated the sirens and escaped. A resurrection later, and the second siren group fell without trouble, and so did the flesh golems. This will ensure Safana's happiness. I also explored the other Sword Coast area, killing Droth in the process.
Since I have two people capable of using wands of fire and Safana has an amulet of missles from the Nashkell Carnival, I decided to have a little fun with the red wizards and just explode them:
I also killed the basilisks. Imoen's first important job as a mage (besides casting resist fear) was to protect Khalid from petrification:
With all the wilderness areas clear for now, it's time to move to the Cloakwood. There's not a lot to report for the first couple of levels - I helped Coran to kill some wyverns, took Faldorn along and Lirilis gained another level - new spells for level 1, 2 and 3! I got friends (well, she can reach 25 charisma for the maximum discount now), stinking cloud (decent) and lightning bolt (I'm way too afraid of this spell to actually use it, except in some outdoor situations).
Stinking cloud was tested out against the Drasus party with some success:
However, I decided not to enter the mine just yet, because I forgot to do some other stuff first, so I travelled back to FAI and removed Faldorn from the party for now. Will continue tomorrow.
Current level: 7 Current randomized Spellbook: First level spells: Chill touch, shocking grasp, chromatic orb, blindness, friends Second level spells: Luck, deafness, stinking cloud Third level spells: Hold undead, lightning bolt
Ooph, that's not the friendliest set of spells you have there. Maybe use Lightning Bolt plus some sort of electricity nullifier (Pro. Electricity from a Cleric/Druid, Potion of Absorption, Potion of Insulation + Talos' gift...)?
Anyways, the current thread title (Abi dalzim's horrid dreadful terrible no good wilting) is fairly appropriate, though fortunately nothing lost besides 30 minutes and 1200 gold.
Rondo, Half-Elf pacifist skald, update 2: There was one other thing I wanted to do before heading to Trademeet, and so Rondo and co. traveled to Umar hills to obtain Ilbratha. Ran into the Orog slavers, though both castings of Holy Smite from Truth were enough to thin the Orog hordes while the others played spell disruption. Free Action on Grant makes the mimic... mostly a non-problem, although undodgeable acid still hurts. Umber Hulks don't do much either with Rondo's Skald song correctly protecting against Confusion. It didn't do that in the EEs, so an opcode must've changed between the two? (In rogue rebalancing, Skald's supposed to grant confusion immunity.)
Trademeet: Preemptive strike on the Djinni, using all Rondo's level 1s on Pro. Petrification, though that left Quinn without one, so he stayed far away from the fight. True Seeing helps quite a bit vs innate Invisibility spells, and between the three actually fighting the djinni the Stoneskins weren't enough either. Purchased the Cloak of Displacement and Tansheron's bow, one of the few +3 ranged weapons available by this point.
Spirit trolls weren't nearly as bad as I remember, especially since I don't actually have spellcasting spirit trolls because I don't hate myself that much yet. But two Fire Elementals plus another Spirit Animal, all enhanced with +3s in attack, damage, and AC, put down the trolls handily. Inside Maple had to resort to Flame Blade to finish off a few trolls, but fairly easy stuff. Rest of the grove, even enhanced, is mostly put down by slugging it all to death. Spore colonies really aren't that bad when you can give an entire team immunity to confusion, summons included. But... I really ought to have rested before fighting Dalok and his friends, but I'm reckless and probably that's why I don't have a documented success yet.
I ignored the Nymph spam that Dalok and the second caster did, with an end result of getting everyone besides Rondo held and insect plague'd and eventually everyone besides Rondo was dead, with only one of their casters dying before that. Rondo's still invisible after all this, so it's not hopeless: I wait for their summons to despawn, and recruit Cernd to help me out of the sticky situation. Dalok was already Near Death, so the Werewolf token was enough for Cernd to kill him. The Adherant, having downed like 6 different potions including Invulnerability, Frost Giant Strength, and Freedom is attacked by Cernd's summons boosted by Rondo, and we have victory. Cernd ferries all the gear from the battlefield to a chest in Adratha's cottage to avoid losing everything. One trip back to Trademeet, one Raise Dead paid for to Waukeen and two more rests for Truth to raise everyone else and we're back to the grove. Cernd, under Improved Invisibility from Rondo, easily defeats Faldorn after the initial Insect Plague leaves her stripped of her Iron Skins and defenseless against the Werewolf-form Cernd. Final business in Trademeet, I returned the mantle-thingy to the governor.
Vampire hunting time. There are no hitches with Mook, with Graecas, nor with the spiders and Pai'na. I took a page out of... I think @semiticgod 's playbook and had Maple cast Fireseed before the Spider fight and handed one to each member besides Rondo. Miniature fireballs everywhere significantly reduce the spider populations.
The real issue is always Tanova. I started running the instant I saw the text in my screen that she attacked something, but she has in this iteration DIMENSION DOOR. I'm terrified. I try to fodder summons behind me as quickly as I can, but it's not quite enough as Grant dies to... something. I can't even remember what, though I think it was an ADHW. She teleports to us one more time, but I'm fairly certain she was low on spells and focused fire was enough to shut her up before she murdifies the rest of us. Another rest, another Raise Dead. Fire Elementals are enough to clear up basically everything else, with Spirit Animals joining for the last hurrah in the basement. Summons also fight Bodhi for me, and the battle's won. Note: I don't have Improved Vampires from SCS, otherwise I'd probably not do too well at such a low level.
One more death in Brynnlaw before Spellhold as Truth dies to simple melee damage from a few guards, embarrassingly enough. The Perth fight lasted forever and a day as I didn't realize that Harm had in fact worked against him and needed almost anything to finish it. Alas. No further deaths there though.
Test 1 for no-killing: Bhaal. Brought him inside, summoned Kitthix and the Barbarian warrior, used both uses of Summon Monster II and sung and waited. I misclicked a button here, though, and lost a point of CON instead of STR or something. An instant loss of 10 HP is kind of painful.
Spellhold was fairly simple. The test run against the Pit Fiend was successful, which gives me hope for the Balor. The Beholder summoned from the book I simply hoped and prayed and kept Rondo invisible, and fortunately it didn't use anything devastating before melee damage murdered it. Test 2 for no-killing: Slayer change. I'm... not actually sure why I was worried about this. I closed Rondo behind a door and let the others deal with the Vampires. Lonk the Sane died to Harm + Magic Missile.
But Irenicus. IRENICUS. A Sphere of Chaos herded everyone into a corner, and between 4 ADHW's, Rondo and Quinn were the only survivors, Quinn to a lucky save and Rondo from keeping away from the targets of the ADHW. I had to drink every Potion of Invisibility here. Irenicus was eventually brought down to using Horrors, which due to the Skald song is useless, and dual-wielding gets Irenicus to flee. The one and only charge of the Wand of Monster Summoning was used to bait Backstabs, and we get back to Brynnlaw to raise Truth and so she can raise everyone else. Phew.
Imoen died one further time to the Githyanki on the ship. With the Sahuaguin, I've got to the Spectator beholder and the Cloak of Mirroring. Due to ADHW's, Rondo will be permanently wearing it.
I'll edit in stats in a bit, but death counts are skyrocketing.
It was the shade lord that did him in. I'm not totally sure where the fatal blow came from -- It wasn't level drain, since Steinarr was protected from that by rage. It wasn't the black blade of disaster the Shade Lord had (unless those can hit from range). It wasn't a death spell or finger of death, since Steinarr was protected by death ward. It wasn't melee damage or the blade barrier, since Steinarr had almost 150 health and was fighting from range.
I thought we had the battle won. We outlasted his PfMW. We outlasted his mirror images. We got an insect plague to stick and he was starting to fail a spell or two now and then. Our arrows and bullets were starting to bite.
Then, snap. Done. I'm guessing it was an instant special ability that I didn't know about and I must not have had invulnerable saves. Whatever the case, the symbol of Bhaal came up on the screen (and then the game crashed). I think Steinarr is dead.
Next attempt, I'm going to hold off on the Shade Lord much longer and come at him with a much stronger party. That was brutal.
Can anyone familiar with the SCS version of the shade lord help me diagnose what I did wrong here?
That was by far the longest run I've ever had in the no-reload challenge. I'm proud of how well I did, even if I underestimated the Shade Lord.
BG1 I have wired fairly well at this point. The fights can still be challenging, but I know how to get through them all.
SoD is easier than BG1, especially because it is so easy to have high-powered equipment, potions and scrolls coming out of the fight with Sarevok.
BG2 with SCS is brutal right now. In particular, it seems like there were fewer tools available to deal with challenges -- I didn't find any arrows of biting in stores. No potions of invulnerability. No magic protection scrolls (and I got rid of the protection from undead scrolls). The buffs that did exist were still expensive for my low-rep party. And I needed to not spend too much money in order to have any chance at hiring help to go find Imoen.... but I'm confident there's a way to crack this. I should probably make a note of which boss fights (ie Shade Lord) are super dangerous, and avoid them until I'm better equipped to deal with their quirks.
Well, Steinarr, you fought hard and well. I regret that you're now going to spend eternity wandering a corrupted temple to a dead sun god, insubstantial, only a shadow of the barbarian you used to be.....
@Blind_Visionary sorry to hear about your shady battle. To me it sounds like the bug associated with that might have struck though. My memory of it is hazy (like most of my memories ), but I think the intention is that when something dies in that battle they can be transformed into a ghoul. However, instead of the transformation occurring to the thing that died it can occur to anyone in the battle - and if that's your PC you will get the instant death screen out of a clear blue sky ...
For that battle I now tend to only take the Shade Lord on when I'm confident of a quick win (or dodging up and down the stairs from the dragon lair) - rather than fighting a drawn-out defensive battle. You may find a sun ray from Daystar combined with a weapon assault can kill him before he finishes buffing.
Re your comment on protections I agree that in early SoA potions of invulnerability are scarce, though make sure you've bought up Roger's stock (the Guild Contact also has 2, if you kill him quickly). However, there are plenty of stone form potions and they can provide an acceptable substitute in many situations. Also you referred to low-rep costs - note that spending some money on temple donations right after emerging from the dungeon can save you an awful lot of money in the medium term. You could also prioritise getting reputation from some of the easier quests early on - I tend to do virtually no shopping until my reputation is up to 20.
What Grond0 says. If you summon anything and it dies, one of your PCs gets "ghasted", no save, nothing. If you didn't summon anything, it could be a bug.
Aldain, Human Conjurer, Update 10 Previous update found here Next update found here
We're closing in on the end game. Before heading back to Candlekeep, however, we opt to finally tackle the Ice Dungeon. Another thing best left for late in the game, mainly due to how incredibly dangerous/annoying Andris is. Once you beat your way through his protections, he just teleports away and comes back fully healed... you essentially have to take him down twice. We do manage it, in large part thanks to Andris wandering off between spells, getting caught in a corridor by a summoned Ogre, and proceeding to blow his most devastating offensive spells (Sunfire, Cone of Cold) on the poor creature, rather than on our party. Pictured: Andris' cronies going down.
The rest of the dungeon is of little consequence, summons soaking up the incessant Confusion/Emotion spells thrown at us. And we get our reward: A singular Stoneskin scroll off of Dezkiel.
We return to the Gate and hand in the evidence. Cue the Ogre-Mage ambush outside Candlekeep, for which I vastly over-prepare: I had Xan gulp a Potion of Magic Shielding in case they targetted him with anything nasty, but the Ogre-Mages in question are a bit underleveled and just resort to tossing Sleep and Glitterdust at us. Silly ogres!
Having stolen everything not bolted down from floors 1-5 in Candlekeep, Rieltar and cronies are treated to 4 Fireballs in the face, as I want to conserve our memorized spells for the catacombs.
We then have Imoen and invisible Xan steal everything from the 6th and final floor without alerting the Gate Warden (there's nothing of real consequence though: A Wand of Missiles and Ring of Protection +1 is the best of the lot). We are (rightly) accused of killing the Iron Throne leaders, imprisoned, sprung by Tethoril, and begin our catacomb excursion.
Pretty much all of the catacombs passes without incident. Singular Greater Dopplegangers really don't stand a chance, much less their common kin. One Doppleganger does have the good manners to drop that rarest of BG1EE spells though: Invisibility 10' Radius! Hooray!
Not that it matters a lot for what remains of BG1, but it will be very handy having that scribed from the start for BG2, should Aldain make it that far. And it's looking likely he will, after all.
We emerge into the catacombs of the catacombs (I guess...), buff to the hilt, and engage Prat, the charge led by our much-beloved and ever-present Skeleton Warriors. His three team-mates drop within a few rounds without accomplishing anything of note.
Prat himself runs off (SCS AI trying to keep moving between spells, I guess), and it takes some searching to find him, but when we do, our Skeletons finish him off quickly. Clearing the two Greater Basilisks just before the exit, we actually get a second Invisibility 10' Radius. Yay, I suppose.... not that it'll be all that useful.
Alright, we're free! What next? We can either rush to the end, or do some more content. I tend not to bother with Werewolf Island: You do get Chainmail +3 in the end (which can be imported to BG2), but it's no use in BG1, and even imported to BG2 it gets outshone so quickly it's just not worth the risk of engaging Mendas with all his spells. Durlag's Tower on the other hand... we've only cleared the second subterranean level, and there are a few spell scrolls scattered throughout. All arcane knowledge must be ours! To Durlag's!
The entire level cleared, we buff, summon skeletons, and engage the Warders of the seal. I actually remembered one of them Cloudkills his own position, so Jaheira memorized (and successfully casts) Zone of Sweet Air. I don't really recall all the names, but the Doppleganger warder dies almost instantly to simple focused fire. The backstabbing one does get a few backstabs off (for surprisingly low damage), but we corner and kill him soon after. By now Pride has, as he always does, cut his way through our summons, so we engage and kill him. Not before he gets a few heavy hits in, though...
We engage the final warder, Love, who for some reason did not join his peers in the assault. He's very annoying, having MGoI and (what seems to be) Physical Mirror up, but Khalid and Jaheira bring him down (Khalid blowing a charge of the Greenstone Amulet to render Love's Dire Charm attempts moot).
Following this, all of the third level goes smoothly. I was worried about the Islanne dopplegangers, but turns out she's not that high-level (and doesn't get to prebuff, for some reason). The Durlag dopplegangers are more of a headache, having great THAC0 and good hitpoints. We weather the storm without any close calls, however. True to form, anything and everything that can be looted is looted, and in relatively short order the entire level is cleared.
We go back outside and sell off our ill-gotten gains. Somewhere amidst all the Doppleganger-slaying, Aldain (and Xan, for that matter), actually leveled up. Hooray! As we leave our party, they are pondering spell picks to assist in clearing the fourth level of Durlag's Tower. Aldain is now a level 9 Human Conjurer, and rolled a 4 (boo!) for hitpoints at level-up.
Turns out I'm not as Balor-proof as I had hoped. The innate Remove Magic that he casts plus the Firestorm is simply too much for my group; a Vorpal hit on Grant seals the deal, as there's no more damage to be had or to be absorbed. Rondo falls, and as promised I'm going to make a fresh install using Kit Revisions to see how that is.
Icewind Gate 2: Frisk, Asriel, and Chara in BG2 (first post here)
I have been distracted by a no-reload Dragon Warrior Monsters run, but now I am back. Asriel, Frisk, and Chara head to the Planar Sphere!
This place has several high-intensity magic-heavy battles, not least of which is the fight with Kayardi and the halfling cannibals. We send out Kitty and our Efreeti to pester the halflings while Chara casts Vipergout and Frisk turns the party invisible.
Vipergout is a strange level 7 spell from IWD2 that summons a Giant Viper once per round for one round per level, and each viper lasts three rounds before vanishing (so only 3 can be active at once). The drawback is that you can't cast any spells while it's active--not even innate spells like shapeshifts.
The vipers themselves aren't that deadly, but because they get replaced so often, they're effectively an immortal summons.
My old IWD2 mods strengthened the vipers and allowed druids like Chara to cast the spell, but the main draw of this spell is that the vipers keep coming even if you're invisible. It's a great way to grind down enemy mages.
The halflings hurl out disablers and turn the vipers against each other. Chara waits outside the fray, letting their vipers and Static Charges wear down the enemy.
Chara's spells aren't grayed-out because Chara and Asriel are immune to the "Disable Spellcasting" opcode. It was the easiest way to let them cast spells in armor.
I let Asriel break invisibility to use the Iron Horn of Valhalla, assuming he's out of the enemy's field of vision. But Kayardi's Efreeti has been wandering around while invisible, and takes aim at Asriel the moment he turns visible. Asriel smashes it, but SCS Efreet can turn to mist and regenerate when they get low on HP. You have to kill them very fast, or disable them, to keep them from turning to mist.
While in mist form, they are invincible, and all you can do is wait for them to come back and pounce.
Chara's vipers keep snapping at the remaining halflings, and Frisk takes down Kayardi's Efreeti the moment it returns to normal form.
Kayardi appears and buffs with Protection from Magical Weapons. Chara is still under the effects of Vipergout and therefore cannot switch to Will o' Wisp form, but their vipers can strike right past PFMW. Lots of IWD2 items are nonmagical, much like the original IWD.
Asriel slays Mogadish with the Flail of Ages. Those IWD2 cleric buffs and IWD2-style attacks per round give him spectacular damage output. Asriel and Chara make a great team: Chara can take down almost any mage, and Asriel can take down almost anything else.
But Lavok is different. He can cast Summon Fallen Planetar, and a Planetar's vorpal strikes bypass magic resistance. Will o' Wisp won't make Chara safe.
After Chara tanks Necre and Taibela and a Finger of Death trap in Will o' Wisp form, we cast Vipergout and turn invisible before confronting Lavok. Chara lingers just close enough to Lavok to evade his area-effect spells, relying on their vipers to absorb Lavok's spells.
Then Lavok reveals us with True Seeing, which I didn't think was possible.
IWD2's Non-Detection spell blocks all divination magic and protects all forms of invisibility, unlike a standard BG2 Non-Detection spell. It also lasts more than a day given our high levels. But I forgot to cast it, so True Seeing can reveal us.
Lavok activates a PFMW Contingency. He is now vulnerable to normal arrows from Asriel's Tuigan Bow. But this exposes Asriel to a Breach spell.
Asriel casts Greater Shield of Lathander. In IWD2, this grants 30- damage reduction against all damage and +40 spell resistance, which basically means immunity to all attacks for three rounds.
That amounts to 150% resistance to damage and 80% magic resistance in my conversion scheme, but I decided to just take the Greater Shield of Lathander spell from IWD:EE and give it a BG2 icon and string. This means Asriel gets 100% magic resistance and immunity to opcode 12--which means no form of damage can even touch him for the next 3 rounds.
Of course, it can easily be dispelled.
Lavok begins casting Time Stop. But it seems Chara had perfect timing with their pre-cast Static Charges.
And the vipers, like Asriel, can strike through Lavok's PFMW spell. We crack through his Stoneskins and bring him to Near Death.
Lavok transforms, and the battle is won. But we're not out of the woods yet. We still have to deal with Tolgerias, who is just as tough as Lavok himself.
I've been travelling lately so I played a bit on my phone (god bless) and successfully went through BG1:EE with a Half Orc Berkserker. I rushed everything after the Mines and I think it was my 5th no-reload attempt in the 4 days I've been away from home.
Mulahey got chunked in like 3 hits, Tranzig got killed with just one Critical Hit, Davaeron was hard and I almost die. I had to ran away and rest, then he had no spells and I massacred him. I also almost died in the Bandit Camp, where I was at 2hp after opening the chest (!) because I had Talos' Gift and I thought I could save against the trap (it did like 50 damage).
For the Candlekeep/Iron Throne fights I ran using Sandthief's, or killed whom I had to kill after I had reached the XP cap; the Palace was actually easy since 1) vanilla 2) used Horror on the Dopleggangers and only half of them saved against it 3) they focused me instead of the Dukes. I ran past the Undercity and the Maze, and buffed a lot and melee'd Sarevok until he died.
The screenshots were from before I buffed to fight Sarevok.
I started another one with a Totemic Druid but got killed by the Beregost spiders after proving you can't bump summons. I started another one but only got level 2 and a bunch of items so far.
@Blind_Visionary: A bug is grounds for a reload, and that one is a confirmed bug. Your run is not over if you want it to continue.
I had summoned a couple of fire elementals. They soaked up a lot of the early danger from the Shade Lord until they were wiped out by a death spell. I don't think I could have lasted long without summons.
Even if this were a bug, Steinarr bit off more than he could chew. I'm going to let him lie there next to the Shade Lord's altar. Hopefully my next character will be able to make it that far and score some revenge!
I'm actually kind of excited to see what kind of random character I'm going to roll out of Candlekeep next...
Thanks for your attention, advice and encouragement, all!
Nice work @Aldain, you seem well in control of your challenge so far. Condolences to @Blind_Visionary (I really liked Steinarr) and @Neverused, but congrats with your good efforts nonetheless.
Having stumbled upon no less than two good Gnome portraits, I have now officially lost my battle against restartitis. Sigrid shall wait in Durlag's Tower.
I haven't played many single-class mages, and the few times I did the results were mostly poor. But I've come to like single-class characters in general (reduced versatility makes for more archetypical RPG characters and requires increased imagination at times). And I felt like trying to become a better Mage player. I rolled a Transmuter, but got scared thinking of late BG2 without Abjuration spells, then found one of the Gnome portraits I mentioned and went with an Illusionist.
Enter Segurd, TN Gnome Illusionist.
(1) Item randomisation (thanks @Serg_BlackStrider for reminding of that great mod), (2) full SCS pre-buffs to prevent me from blasting enemy mages to oblivion with wands and missiles as I've been doing with Sigrid, and (3) a restriction as to which NPCs are eligible to join Segurd, should make this playthrough more exciting to me than my run with Sigrid. The NPC restriction is that all companions shall be (part) casters and that they may not be (part) warriors. In other words only pure casters or caster/thieves may join Segurd throughout the saga. NPCs may be arcane casters or divine, or both. That doesn't really matter to me; I just feel like slinging lots of spells around. Not being able to use brute force means I'll have to use creative solutions for some battles, or shun them altogether (at the risk of losing out on great loot thanks to Randomiser). Besides it'll be a nice change to ignore NPCs I often use when not soloing such as Imoen, Jaheira, Kivan, Coran, Alora, Yeslick, and Kagain, and welcome NPCs like Tiax or Faldorn into the party.
There will be moderate role-playing. Segurd is apathetic TN. We could call him a libertarian. He lives by the adage that everyone should leave everyone else alone. This means he's not evil/selfish. Segurd will never take more than his due. He'll generally expect payment for his good deeds, but he's not really a mercenary type as he doesn't mind lending an occasonial favor as long as it's not too much of a hassle.
@Blind_Visionary: nooooooooooooo!! Same portrait. I always look for unique portraits that nobody uses, and now this... Anyway you posted first.
@Blackraven what are the odds?? I rolled a random character and got a gnome illusionist. And then pored through google images until I found something that looked suitably grim for the character I had in mind...
For what it is worth, I think you should run Segurd. We can have a parallel journey...
Origin | Previous | NextReevor looked up from his notes as Smielkest emerged from the storehouse, wiping his lips and beard on his forearm.
"So, did ya take care of the rats, then?" Reevor inquired.
"Indeed," Smielkest replied, fishing around in his teeth with stubby fingers, pulling out a bone and tossing it casually aside. "Do you have any other ... rodent problems ... I could address?"
Reevor shivered. "Err... no, I think that'll be enough for today."
Look, you both play no-reload. You therefore know deep down in your bones that it doesn't matter how low the odds are, they're going to turn up eventually .
The start of the session saw the duo cruising through the Cloakwood. Gorn was briefly detained by a detour to fetch a new cloak, but made up the lost time there by opting out of the opportunity to go in search of Spider's Bane. At the Mine Rezdan was silenced by Prit. Kysus saved, but was silenced in a more vigorous fashion by Gorn.
Drasus was also struck dumb, which meant he just stood there while Gorn finished him off with an (extremely quiet) howl of triumph.
Downstairs Prit tried to pull back just one of the battle horrors, but got both at once. Deciding not to bother with the finer points of battle tactics he just used the wand of the heavens to burn them down. Gorn then took a potion of magic blocking to allow him to go mage-hunting.
In the City a couple of tomes were picked up along with the Helm and Cloak of Balduran. Prit also threw some skeletons in Lothander's path to allow him to acquire some boots of speed of his own.
Gorn then sneaked into the Iron Throne to investigate what they'd been up to.
At Candlekeep no protection was used against traps, though there was a rest to repair damage before collecting the loot from the tombs. The dopplegangers and Prat were ignored before Gorn made use of a scroll of PfP to attack the basilisks - and was slightly surprised to find that Prit had got there first having used another PfP scroll.
Before we forgot there was a quick side trip to Durlag's to pick up the important tome there. Back in the City a final tome was collected from Ramazith's Tower, though that didn't actually benefit either of us.
Slythe chased Gorn, but ran into a dispelling arrow and failed to make his way past some skeleton blockers. Initially the duo moved on to the palace straight after that, but Prit decided that another level (giving access to level 4 spells) would help. A basilisk and a few ankhegs later and they were back at the palace. Buffed skeletons proved enough for Belt to survive at badly wounded.
I did make the mistake of being too close to Belt when the last doppleganger died, but fortunately Sarevok chose not to attack Belt before making a run for it.
After fighting through the maze and avoiding the Undercity party the temple saw the final BG1 hurdle. As usual, Sarevok was hit by a dispelling arrow from extreme range, meaning he left Semaj alone to face the music when he teleported out.
When Sarevok was then encouraged to come out and fight himself he struggled to deal with Prit's skeletons. Meanwhile Gorn was having fun stuck in a web trap - MP confusion over just where the web was meaning he twice freed himself, but got stuck again. However, he did finally escape for good - just in time to get the killing shot in on Sarevok.
Segurd started out doing the usual quests between the FAI and Nashkel. I'm just going to highlight the noteworthy events as I don't have enough time for lengthy write-ups.
We met Tarnesh at level 3. A FAI guard dealt with him after a very swift retreat by the Gnome. Casting Blindness and throwing daggers, we managed to fell Neira early on as well, after she followed Segurd into the Nashkel store. We tried the same with Zordral, and we actually managed to Blind him, but then he quaffed an invisibility potion. Segurd left him for another day. We let Dorn take care of Senjak, Dorothea and their friends, and were a bit displeased to see Isra (mod) strike down Greywolf after we had done most of the work (again Blindness and throwing daggers).
We reunited Albert and Rufie (level 4), and found a MGoI scroll in the hidden stash in the Cloudpeaks. We steered clear from Sendai and from Vax and Zal, survived two Hobgoblin ambushes, and had to visit the High Hedge twice to discover that Thalantyr had a scroll of Invisibility for sale. The first time, when Segurd had just reached level 3, we thought Thalantyr had a very limited selection of scrolls, but the second time we rummaged through the wizard's entire stock, and we noticed a second bundle of spells below the wands and Kazgaroth items, including most noticeably a nice Haste scroll. (Scrolls are also randomised in this set-up, though no scrolls of a higher level than level 3, in line with vanilla Thalantyr). We bought a selection of useful scrolls and copied them into Segurd's spell book using the red potion from the Carnival.
We then tried again to deal with Zordral. The strategy was to enter, cast Spook, stay if Zordral failed his save, cast Blindness (two chances), again stay only in case of a failed save, and finish our foe with throwing daggers. This worked after three attempts.
Also at the carnival we bought a green scroll of PfPetrification for Basilisk hunting purposes. (Could have used the spell, but the one hour duration can be tricky.) We managed to dispatch six, but then we ran out of throwing daggers and out of time. So we returned to Beregost, filled Segurd's pack with throwing daggers, and memorized several castings of PfPetrification to finish our work. Back in Mutamin's garden we slew two more Basilisks, and then called Korax for help. We Hasted the Ghoul, and it managed to hold the remaining Basilisks and Mutamin.
We decided to try our luck with Korax against Kirian & Co as well, but her band made short work of the Ghoul.
Segurd had now more than 32k XP, which was a good time to make some new friends. We met one at the Nashkel Carnival (Quayle), and one at Feldepost's Inn (Tiax). The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly were complete.
The trio summoned two Skeletons and a Ghast, Hasted them, and had them finish Silke after Commanding and Blinding her.
I didn't feel bad about the pre-buffing. Until recently I wouldn't do it even with full SCS pre-buffing. But I'm starting to accept that this is how I'm expected to play in this type of set-up.
With our summons still around we also dealt with Neera's Red Wizards.
The Half-Elf wanted to join us, but she looked to be too much of a liability. We received her gem bag with gratitude, and we traded an Adventurer's robe for her Traveller's robe, but then we let her go.
In terms of randomised loot, most of it has been warrior stuff (Mauletar Axe +2, +1 armors and shields). Mutamin dropped the gauntlets of dexterity, so that's nice.
@Blackraven Yes, it's been a good run so far. I had my most hair-raising moment yet though, which is why this is a short update (I need to gather my wits for the final push).
On the topic of mages, Transmuter and Abjurer are probably the worst of the lot when it comes to specialists for a no-reload. Like you said, lacking Abjuration spells in BG2/TOB is really bad news (you can do just fine in BG1 though obviously, just keep your Transmuter invisible/out of sight for the mage battles). Likewise, for Abjurers, BG1 is fine, but BG2 without Stoneskin? It's such a critical spell for keeping your squishy mages alive, I can't really envisage trying to work around it. And no Timestop! I'd almost be tempted to add Necromancer to the pile o' crap specialists due to no Mirror Image, but I imagine you could make do with just Stoneskin (you'd need to keep a bunch of PfMW memorized, however. Maybe you'd even find a use for Mantle?). I am tempted to try it at some point, a Chaotic Good Necromancer seems very fitting for a Bhaalspawn... and I have a 99 point roll Necromancer character kicking about.
Alright! On to the update, which is short. Never fear, we are still alive!
Aldain, Human Conjurer, Update 11 Previous update found here Next update found here
We were about to proceed to the fourth (underground) level of Durlag's Tower. Onward! Greater Wyverns fall rather fast, and we are forced to kill off a few of the Dire Charmed heroes ourselves. We get a fourth set of Full Plate armor (a Durlag Doppleganger dropped the third set previously), but since we are a party of weak-sauce characters, and Khalid and Jaheira both have Full Plate already, no one can use it... shame. I also take out the Skeleton Archers on this level, who while annoying have heaps of lovely magical arrows. We have something like 6 Wands of Fire anyway, might as well put them to some use. The invisible Ashikurus (is that the spelling?) are annoying with their constant backstabs, but we plow through with a lot of healing potions (also of course keeping Aldain and Xan invisible to not tempt the Ashikurus).
Now, we are approaching our (almost) doom. We clear the Phoenix Guard room using a few fire protection scrolls and potions, no problem! We cut down the Air Aspect and its accompanying Invisible Stalkers with the help of a Greater Malison and Slow, no sweat! We fireball the named Polar Bear and its friends the Winter Wolves with the help of a few potions of cold resistance, easy! Only the Fission Slime remains. We kill it with fire, no teleport. I always get this bug with SCS, but I always forget how to fix it. You need to manually set a global variable, alright. So I muck about a bit with enabling Debug mode, finally get it working. And for some reason, I just set the global variable without even casting Stoneskin on Aldain first.
We're instantly teleported to the chess board, completely unbuffed. We've got something like 2 1/2 seconds before the entire enemy group will come charging at us. What to do? Go nova! We hurl 6 fireballs (2x Wand of Fire, 2x Necklace of Missiles, 2x potions) at the center of the board. We kill almost everything. Two Towers (I think they're called Towers... they wear full plate and wield a long sword + large shield), a Rook, and a very badly wounded King yet live. The two Towers somehow avoid all damage, charge straight into our lines, and start wailing on totally unbuffed Aldain. One hit, two hits, Aldain is at 18 hitpoints. Somehow I do NOT panic (neither the character nor I controlling the action) but manage to move Aldain skillfully behind Khalid and Jaheira, blocking the bloody towers. Then the Rook pops an arrow at Aldain for 12 damage, leaving him with 6 hitpoints. Aldain's aura now clear, he manages to chug a Potion of Invisibility, prompting the Rook to turn his attention on Xan. Moments after this screenshot, Xan got a final Fireball from a wand off, killing the King and removing the remaining chess pieces.
That was just stupid on a stick. Why not have Stoneskin up? Indeed, why not start invisible, or have everyone quaff a Potion of Absorption beforehand, so we could move freely on the chessboard? Bah. I got so absorbed trying to work around the bugged script I forgot everything. For some reason the game forgot all my settings as well when Debug mode was enabled, hence the health bars, grey-scale on pause etc. Just silly. At least we're still alive. Lots of healing potions later, we proceed to the fifth level.
This level goes fine. Khalid's Freedom potion (necessary with the enormous amounts of Greater Ghouls running around) wears off while fighting Grael, resulting in a Held Khalid. We fix the situation by summoning some additional fodder, and that is as dangerous as it got on this entire level. Well, Xan almost got killed in one hit by a Greater Ghoul, but that's just Xan for you. Slow and steady with constant trap removal wins the day, and we get a lot of loot (a second scroll of Domination really being the only thing worthwhile, as we have no need for the items here).
The Demon Knight is left alone, given that it's a risky fight with no real reward. Some identifying and resting later, we move back into the Gate under Invisibility 10' Radius. We save Eltan, take out Cythandria, and that's where we leave our adventures for now. Everyone is at 161k experience. The party is currently situated at the Elfsong tavern, having spent 50k+ on potions, wands and ammunition in preparation for the final push.
Origin | Previous | Next Hulrik heard his cow bellow. He looked out the window, finding a horde of xvarts, swords drawn, bearing down on his last farm animal. His livelihood. He rushed outside to try to scatter them.
But by the time he reached the pasture, his cow was already dead. A grim-faced gnome stood over the carcass, growling at the xvarts.
"What have you done?" cried Hulrik.
"Caught some dinner," replied Smielkest. He cast a spell, fracturing into multiple images. Each illusionary gnome whirled a sling and let fly. The xvarts crumpled to the ground.
Trio Update Corsen - human berserker (protagonist, controlled by Corey_Russell) Gremlin - halfling bounty hunter (controlled by Grond0) Vorgan - human inquisitor (controlled by Gate70 Last post - not sure but more than 4 pages back
Trio had a lot of issues in getting together, but this week we were all present and accounted for and got to the adventuring.
Last time we had crashed in the Basilisk area. We decided to quick-save after we made good progress, and the crash did not repeat itself. Fortunately, our success on the other hand did. Grond0 and Gate70 have a very intricate path in clearing this area, but of course Corey_Russell is not familiar with it. So Vorgan tanked the baslisks with the green scroll.
The key battles were Mutamutin and Kirian's group. For Mutamutin we did divide and conquer - that is, we killed his pets, then engaged him. He did successfully make Vorgan run in fear, but since all the nearby enemies were already cleared, he just took some spell damage. Mutamutin failed to kill anyone before being killed himself.
Traps and Korax were key against Kirian's group. Gremlin showed some guile in this respect - he laid a trap at the enemies feet while they were blue circle - the initiated conversation and then were hurt bad. Since Corsen was protected by enrage he dived into melee - victory!
A good number of ambushes this session, but the ambushers weren't able to accomplish anything.
Being at level 5, the party was plenty strong enough to solve the Nashkel Mines problem - and in fact there were no problems.
The party was also plenty strong for the bandit camp, with Gremlin once again taking advantage of the enemies starting neutral in Tazok's Tent with some traps.
Some Sirenes were also defeated with a clarity potion with no issues in that respect - the golems weren't able to d much either. There was possibly dangerous moment when a carrion crawler got very close to Corsen - fortunately his aura was clear, so enrage made him quite safe.
For some reason Gate70/Grond0 don't like buying what we need, but Corsen said the Smithy's full plate would be a big help for him, so they relented after all.
We ran out of time by this point, so will probably delve into the Cloakwood next session.
Screenshots from the adventure: (note: I had thought I had taken many more screenies than this - but probably pressed print screen on the wrong keyboard (I have 2, but one is defunct). Got one at least...)
For some reason Gate70/Grond0 don't like buying what we need, but Corsen said the Smithy's full plate would be a big help for him, so they relented after all.
Origin | Previous | NextThalantyr closed his eyes in concentration, holding a skull in one hand and a wand in the other. He slowly recited an incantation.
Melicamp stopped sqwaking. His chicken body began to quiver and twitch, faster than any living thing should be able to move. Then abruptly, all motion stopped. The chicken slumped to the floor, still.
"And that, as they say, is that," said Thalantyr, wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow.
"I beg to differ," said Smielkest, picking up the chicken corpse by the neck. "It's time for lunch. Care for some roast chicken?"
Origin | Previous | Next "But, Portal Keeper, you've known me for years!" Talanis cried. "It's not safe out here!"
"I know this is hard to hear, child," The massive knight said as he leaned on his greatsword, the tip gouging into the ground. "But you are safer out in the wilderness than you would be inside this keep."
"How could that be?" Talanis whispered. "Only a few miles from here, Gorion was cut down in cold blood!"
"And the same fate awaits you here, child," the knight said. "The order comes from Ulraunt himself."
Talanis looked at the Keeper in confusion. "But, why? I've done nothing."
The Keeper said, "Go, before one of the watchers sees you. Only your god can help you now."
Comments
Continued from https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/825529/#Comment_825529
The party travelled to Larswood and Peldvale. As it turns out, Lirilis' breath weapon is quite good at quickly getting rid of a huge group of bandits:
As you can see, I travelled with Baeloth and Viconia for a little while. Baeloth seems incredibly powerful.
I picked up Kivan for the assault on the bandit camp, with Khalid moving forward while the other party members took out one bandit after the other. Taugosz was blinded and shot. In front of the tent, Jaheira buffed the party with strength of one and bless, and inside, the mage was focused down, while Lirilis used more blind spells:
The party went to the eastern parts of the map, killing some vampiric wolves near the temple, defeating Meilum and taking on Kahrk. The ogre mage managed to cast a lightning bolt on Imoen which somehow bounced on what looks like thin air, but is propably an invisible part of the firewine bridge structure, killing the thief (should have had her drink a potion of absorption, simply forgot about that).
I wasn't able to disrupt Kahrk's spellcasting, and quickly I realized I was losing the fight. I ended up having to use a scroll of protection from magic, a potion of magic blocking and an invisibility potion to finally win the battle, and all three remaining party members had very little hp left.
After reviving Imoen at the temple, I defeated two bounty hunter groups (the amazons and the one near Gullykin) without any issues. Finally, Ulcaster School provided me with enough experience for both Lirilis to reach level 6 (first level 3 spell - randomization provided me with hold undead, not exactly what I hoped for) and Imoen to reach level 7. I dualled her to mage and moved to the Sword Coast to pick up Safana as a replacement thief. Some more shopping also allowed Lirils to pick up the Claw of Kazgaroth.
Together, the new party moved against the sirens, where I horribly mistimed Khalid's greenstone amulet charge, resulting in him being dire charmed. He ended up killing Imoen, though the other party members defeated the sirens and escaped. A resurrection later, and the second siren group fell without trouble, and so did the flesh golems. This will ensure Safana's happiness. I also explored the other Sword Coast area, killing Droth in the process.
Since I have two people capable of using wands of fire and Safana has an amulet of missles from the Nashkell Carnival, I decided to have a little fun with the red wizards and just explode them:
I also killed the basilisks. Imoen's first important job as a mage (besides casting resist fear) was to protect Khalid from petrification:
With all the wilderness areas clear for now, it's time to move to the Cloakwood. There's not a lot to report for the first couple of levels - I helped Coran to kill some wyverns, took Faldorn along and Lirilis gained another level - new spells for level 1, 2 and 3! I got friends (well, she can reach 25 charisma for the maximum discount now), stinking cloud (decent) and lightning bolt (I'm way too afraid of this spell to actually use it, except in some outdoor situations).
Stinking cloud was tested out against the Drasus party with some success:
However, I decided not to enter the mine just yet, because I forgot to do some other stuff first, so I travelled back to FAI and removed Faldorn from the party for now. Will continue tomorrow.
Current level: 7
Current randomized Spellbook:
First level spells: Chill touch, shocking grasp, chromatic orb, blindness, friends
Second level spells: Luck, deafness, stinking cloud
Third level spells: Hold undead, lightning bolt
Enuhal
Anyways, the current thread title (Abi dalzim's horrid dreadful terrible no good wilting) is fairly appropriate, though fortunately nothing lost besides 30 minutes and 1200 gold.
Rondo, Half-Elf pacifist skald, update 2:
There was one other thing I wanted to do before heading to Trademeet, and so Rondo and co. traveled to Umar hills to obtain Ilbratha. Ran into the Orog slavers, though both castings of Holy Smite from Truth were enough to thin the Orog hordes while the others played spell disruption. Free Action on Grant makes the mimic... mostly a non-problem, although undodgeable acid still hurts. Umber Hulks don't do much either with Rondo's Skald song correctly protecting against Confusion. It didn't do that in the EEs, so an opcode must've changed between the two? (In rogue rebalancing, Skald's supposed to grant confusion immunity.)
Trademeet: Preemptive strike on the Djinni, using all Rondo's level 1s on Pro. Petrification, though that left Quinn without one, so he stayed far away from the fight. True Seeing helps quite a bit vs innate Invisibility spells, and between the three actually fighting the djinni the Stoneskins weren't enough either. Purchased the Cloak of Displacement and Tansheron's bow, one of the few +3 ranged weapons available by this point.
Spirit trolls weren't nearly as bad as I remember, especially since I don't actually have spellcasting spirit trolls because I don't hate myself that much yet.
I ignored the Nymph spam that Dalok and the second caster did, with an end result of getting everyone besides Rondo held and insect plague'd and eventually everyone besides Rondo was dead, with only one of their casters dying before that. Rondo's still invisible after all this, so it's not hopeless: I wait for their summons to despawn, and recruit Cernd to help me out of the sticky situation. Dalok was already Near Death, so the Werewolf token was enough for Cernd to kill him. The Adherant, having downed like 6 different potions including Invulnerability, Frost Giant Strength, and Freedom is attacked by Cernd's summons boosted by Rondo, and we have victory. Cernd ferries all the gear from the battlefield to a chest in Adratha's cottage to avoid losing everything. One trip back to Trademeet, one Raise Dead paid for to Waukeen and two more rests for Truth to raise everyone else and we're back to the grove. Cernd, under Improved Invisibility from Rondo, easily defeats Faldorn after the initial Insect Plague leaves her stripped of her Iron Skins and defenseless against the Werewolf-form Cernd. Final business in Trademeet, I returned the mantle-thingy to the governor.
Vampire hunting time. There are no hitches with Mook, with Graecas, nor with the spiders and Pai'na. I took a page out of... I think @semiticgod 's playbook and had Maple cast Fireseed before the Spider fight and handed one to each member besides Rondo. Miniature fireballs everywhere significantly reduce the spider populations.
The real issue is always Tanova. I started running the instant I saw the text in my screen that she attacked something, but she has in this iteration DIMENSION DOOR. I'm terrified. I try to fodder summons behind me as quickly as I can, but it's not quite enough as Grant dies to... something. I can't even remember what, though I think it was an ADHW. She teleports to us one more time, but I'm fairly certain she was low on spells and focused fire was enough to shut her up before she murdifies the rest of us. Another rest, another Raise Dead. Fire Elementals are enough to clear up basically everything else, with Spirit Animals joining for the last hurrah in the basement. Summons also fight Bodhi for me, and the battle's won. Note: I don't have Improved Vampires from SCS, otherwise I'd probably not do too well at such a low level.
One more death in Brynnlaw before Spellhold as Truth dies to simple melee damage from a few guards, embarrassingly enough. The Perth fight lasted forever and a day as I didn't realize that Harm had in fact worked against him and needed almost anything to finish it. Alas. No further deaths there though.
Test 1 for no-killing: Bhaal. Brought him inside, summoned Kitthix and the Barbarian warrior, used both uses of Summon Monster II and sung and waited. I misclicked a button here, though, and lost a point of CON instead of STR or something. An instant loss of 10 HP is kind of painful.
Spellhold was fairly simple. The test run against the Pit Fiend was successful, which gives me hope for the Balor. The Beholder summoned from the book I simply hoped and prayed and kept Rondo invisible, and fortunately it didn't use anything devastating before melee damage murdered it. Test 2 for no-killing: Slayer change. I'm... not actually sure why I was worried about this. I closed Rondo behind a door and let the others deal with the Vampires. Lonk the Sane died to Harm + Magic Missile.
But Irenicus. IRENICUS. A Sphere of Chaos herded everyone into a corner, and between 4 ADHW's, Rondo and Quinn were the only survivors, Quinn to a lucky save and Rondo from keeping away from the targets of the ADHW. I had to drink every Potion of Invisibility here. Irenicus was eventually brought down to using Horrors, which due to the Skald song is useless, and dual-wielding gets Irenicus to flee. The one and only charge of the Wand of Monster Summoning was used to bait Backstabs, and we get back to Brynnlaw to raise Truth and so she can raise everyone else. Phew.
Imoen died one further time to the Githyanki on the ship. With the Sahuaguin, I've got to the Spectator beholder and the Cloak of Mirroring. Due to ADHW's, Rondo will be permanently wearing it.
I'll edit in stats in a bit, but death counts are skyrocketing.
It was the shade lord that did him in. I'm not totally sure where the fatal blow came from -- It wasn't level drain, since Steinarr was protected from that by rage. It wasn't the black blade of disaster the Shade Lord had (unless those can hit from range). It wasn't a death spell or finger of death, since Steinarr was protected by death ward. It wasn't melee damage or the blade barrier, since Steinarr had almost 150 health and was fighting from range.
I thought we had the battle won. We outlasted his PfMW. We outlasted his mirror images. We got an insect plague to stick and he was starting to fail a spell or two now and then. Our arrows and bullets were starting to bite.
Then, snap. Done. I'm guessing it was an instant special ability that I didn't know about and I must not have had invulnerable saves. Whatever the case, the symbol of Bhaal came up on the screen (and then the game crashed). I think Steinarr is dead.
Next attempt, I'm going to hold off on the Shade Lord much longer and come at him with a much stronger party. That was brutal.
Can anyone familiar with the SCS version of the shade lord help me diagnose what I did wrong here?
That was by far the longest run I've ever had in the no-reload challenge. I'm proud of how well I did, even if I underestimated the Shade Lord.
BG1 I have wired fairly well at this point. The fights can still be challenging, but I know how to get through them all.
SoD is easier than BG1, especially because it is so easy to have high-powered equipment, potions and scrolls coming out of the fight with Sarevok.
BG2 with SCS is brutal right now. In particular, it seems like there were fewer tools available to deal with challenges -- I didn't find any arrows of biting in stores. No potions of invulnerability. No magic protection scrolls (and I got rid of the protection from undead scrolls). The buffs that did exist were still expensive for my low-rep party. And I needed to not spend too much money in order to have any chance at hiring help to go find Imoen.... but I'm confident there's a way to crack this. I should probably make a note of which boss fights (ie Shade Lord) are super dangerous, and avoid them until I'm better equipped to deal with their quirks.
Well, Steinarr, you fought hard and well. I regret that you're now going to spend eternity wandering a corrupted temple to a dead sun god, insubstantial, only a shadow of the barbarian you used to be.....
Barbarian News, signing off.
For that battle I now tend to only take the Shade Lord on when I'm confident of a quick win (or dodging up and down the stairs from the dragon lair) - rather than fighting a drawn-out defensive battle. You may find a sun ray from Daystar combined with a weapon assault can kill him before he finishes buffing.
Re your comment on protections I agree that in early SoA potions of invulnerability are scarce, though make sure you've bought up Roger's stock (the Guild Contact also has 2, if you kill him quickly). However, there are plenty of stone form potions and they can provide an acceptable substitute in many situations. Also you referred to low-rep costs - note that spending some money on temple donations right after emerging from the dungeon can save you an awful lot of money in the medium term. You could also prioritise getting reputation from some of the easier quests early on - I tend to do virtually no shopping until my reputation is up to 20.
What Grond0 says. If you summon anything and it dies, one of your PCs gets "ghasted", no save, nothing. If you didn't summon anything, it could be a bug.
Previous update found here
Next update found here
We're closing in on the end game. Before heading back to Candlekeep, however, we opt to finally tackle the Ice Dungeon. Another thing best left for late in the game, mainly due to how incredibly dangerous/annoying Andris is. Once you beat your way through his protections, he just teleports away and comes back fully healed... you essentially have to take him down twice. We do manage it, in large part thanks to Andris wandering off between spells, getting caught in a corridor by a summoned Ogre, and proceeding to blow his most devastating offensive spells (Sunfire, Cone of Cold) on the poor creature, rather than on our party. Pictured: Andris' cronies going down.
The rest of the dungeon is of little consequence, summons soaking up the incessant Confusion/Emotion spells thrown at us. And we get our reward: A singular Stoneskin scroll off of Dezkiel.
We return to the Gate and hand in the evidence. Cue the Ogre-Mage ambush outside Candlekeep, for which I vastly over-prepare: I had Xan gulp a Potion of Magic Shielding in case they targetted him with anything nasty, but the Ogre-Mages in question are a bit underleveled and just resort to tossing Sleep and Glitterdust at us. Silly ogres!
Having stolen everything not bolted down from floors 1-5 in Candlekeep, Rieltar and cronies are treated to 4 Fireballs in the face, as I want to conserve our memorized spells for the catacombs.
We then have Imoen and invisible Xan steal everything from the 6th and final floor without alerting the Gate Warden (there's nothing of real consequence though: A Wand of Missiles and Ring of Protection +1 is the best of the lot).
We are (rightly) accused of killing the Iron Throne leaders, imprisoned, sprung by Tethoril, and begin our catacomb excursion.
Pretty much all of the catacombs passes without incident. Singular Greater Dopplegangers really don't stand a chance, much less their common kin. One Doppleganger does have the good manners to drop that rarest of BG1EE spells though: Invisibility 10' Radius! Hooray!
Not that it matters a lot for what remains of BG1, but it will be very handy having that scribed from the start for BG2, should Aldain make it that far. And it's looking likely he will, after all.
We emerge into the catacombs of the catacombs (I guess...), buff to the hilt, and engage Prat, the charge led by our much-beloved and ever-present Skeleton Warriors. His three team-mates drop within a few rounds without accomplishing anything of note.
Prat himself runs off (SCS AI trying to keep moving between spells, I guess), and it takes some searching to find him, but when we do, our Skeletons finish him off quickly.
Clearing the two Greater Basilisks just before the exit, we actually get a second Invisibility 10' Radius. Yay, I suppose.... not that it'll be all that useful.
Alright, we're free! What next? We can either rush to the end, or do some more content. I tend not to bother with Werewolf Island: You do get Chainmail +3 in the end (which can be imported to BG2), but it's no use in BG1, and even imported to BG2 it gets outshone so quickly it's just not worth the risk of engaging Mendas with all his spells. Durlag's Tower on the other hand... we've only cleared the second subterranean level, and there are a few spell scrolls scattered throughout. All arcane knowledge must be ours! To Durlag's!
The entire level cleared, we buff, summon skeletons, and engage the Warders of the seal. I actually remembered one of them Cloudkills his own position, so Jaheira memorized (and successfully casts) Zone of Sweet Air. I don't really recall all the names, but the Doppleganger warder dies almost instantly to simple focused fire. The backstabbing one does get a few backstabs off (for surprisingly low damage), but we corner and kill him soon after. By now Pride has, as he always does, cut his way through our summons, so we engage and kill him. Not before he gets a few heavy hits in, though...
We engage the final warder, Love, who for some reason did not join his peers in the assault. He's very annoying, having MGoI and (what seems to be) Physical Mirror up, but Khalid and Jaheira bring him down (Khalid blowing a charge of the Greenstone Amulet to render Love's Dire Charm attempts moot).
Following this, all of the third level goes smoothly. I was worried about the Islanne dopplegangers, but turns out she's not that high-level (and doesn't get to prebuff, for some reason). The Durlag dopplegangers are more of a headache, having great THAC0 and good hitpoints. We weather the storm without any close calls, however. True to form, anything and everything that can be looted is looted, and in relatively short order the entire level is cleared.
We go back outside and sell off our ill-gotten gains. Somewhere amidst all the Doppleganger-slaying, Aldain (and Xan, for that matter), actually leveled up. Hooray!
As we leave our party, they are pondering spell picks to assist in clearing the fourth level of Durlag's Tower.
Aldain is now a level 9 Human Conjurer, and rolled a 4 (boo!) for hitpoints at level-up.
(first post here)
I have been distracted by a no-reload Dragon Warrior Monsters run, but now I am back. Asriel, Frisk, and Chara head to the Planar Sphere!
This place has several high-intensity magic-heavy battles, not least of which is the fight with Kayardi and the halfling cannibals. We send out Kitty and our Efreeti to pester the halflings while Chara casts Vipergout and Frisk turns the party invisible.
Vipergout is a strange level 7 spell from IWD2 that summons a Giant Viper once per round for one round per level, and each viper lasts three rounds before vanishing (so only 3 can be active at once). The drawback is that you can't cast any spells while it's active--not even innate spells like shapeshifts.
The vipers themselves aren't that deadly, but because they get replaced so often, they're effectively an immortal summons.
My old IWD2 mods strengthened the vipers and allowed druids like Chara to cast the spell, but the main draw of this spell is that the vipers keep coming even if you're invisible. It's a great way to grind down enemy mages.
The halflings hurl out disablers and turn the vipers against each other. Chara waits outside the fray, letting their vipers and Static Charges wear down the enemy.
Chara's spells aren't grayed-out because Chara and Asriel are immune to the "Disable Spellcasting" opcode. It was the easiest way to let them cast spells in armor.
I let Asriel break invisibility to use the Iron Horn of Valhalla, assuming he's out of the enemy's field of vision. But Kayardi's Efreeti has been wandering around while invisible, and takes aim at Asriel the moment he turns visible. Asriel smashes it, but SCS Efreet can turn to mist and regenerate when they get low on HP. You have to kill them very fast, or disable them, to keep them from turning to mist.
While in mist form, they are invincible, and all you can do is wait for them to come back and pounce.
Chara's vipers keep snapping at the remaining halflings, and Frisk takes down Kayardi's Efreeti the moment it returns to normal form.
Kayardi appears and buffs with Protection from Magical Weapons. Chara is still under the effects of Vipergout and therefore cannot switch to Will o' Wisp form, but their vipers can strike right past PFMW. Lots of IWD2 items are nonmagical, much like the original IWD.
Asriel slays Mogadish with the Flail of Ages. Those IWD2 cleric buffs and IWD2-style attacks per round give him spectacular damage output. Asriel and Chara make a great team: Chara can take down almost any mage, and Asriel can take down almost anything else.
But Lavok is different. He can cast Summon Fallen Planetar, and a Planetar's vorpal strikes bypass magic resistance. Will o' Wisp won't make Chara safe.
After Chara tanks Necre and Taibela and a Finger of Death trap in Will o' Wisp form, we cast Vipergout and turn invisible before confronting Lavok. Chara lingers just close enough to Lavok to evade his area-effect spells, relying on their vipers to absorb Lavok's spells.
Then Lavok reveals us with True Seeing, which I didn't think was possible.
IWD2's Non-Detection spell blocks all divination magic and protects all forms of invisibility, unlike a standard BG2 Non-Detection spell. It also lasts more than a day given our high levels. But I forgot to cast it, so True Seeing can reveal us.
Lavok activates a PFMW Contingency. He is now vulnerable to normal arrows from Asriel's Tuigan Bow. But this exposes Asriel to a Breach spell.
Asriel casts Greater Shield of Lathander. In IWD2, this grants 30- damage reduction against all damage and +40 spell resistance, which basically means immunity to all attacks for three rounds.
That amounts to 150% resistance to damage and 80% magic resistance in my conversion scheme, but I decided to just take the Greater Shield of Lathander spell from IWD:EE and give it a BG2 icon and string. This means Asriel gets 100% magic resistance and immunity to opcode 12--which means no form of damage can even touch him for the next 3 rounds.
Of course, it can easily be dispelled.
Lavok begins casting Time Stop. But it seems Chara had perfect timing with their pre-cast Static Charges.
And the vipers, like Asriel, can strike through Lavok's PFMW spell. We crack through his Stoneskins and bring him to Near Death.
Lavok transforms, and the battle is won. But we're not out of the woods yet. We still have to deal with Tolgerias, who is just as tough as Lavok himself.
Mulahey got chunked in like 3 hits, Tranzig got killed with just one Critical Hit, Davaeron was hard and I almost die. I had to ran away and rest, then he had no spells and I massacred him. I also almost died in the Bandit Camp, where I was at 2hp after opening the chest (!) because I had Talos' Gift and I thought I could save against the trap (it did like 50 damage).
For the Candlekeep/Iron Throne fights I ran using Sandthief's, or killed whom I had to kill after I had reached the XP cap; the Palace was actually easy since 1) vanilla 2) used Horror on the Dopleggangers and only half of them saved against it 3) they focused me instead of the Dukes. I ran past the Undercity and the Maze, and buffed a lot and melee'd Sarevok until he died.
The screenshots were from before I buffed to fight Sarevok.
I started another one with a Totemic Druid but got killed by the Beregost spiders after proving you can't bump summons. I started another one but only got level 2 and a bunch of items so far.
Even if this were a bug, Steinarr bit off more than he could chew. I'm going to let him lie there next to the Shade Lord's altar. Hopefully my next character will be able to make it that far and score some revenge!
I'm actually kind of excited to see what kind of random character I'm going to roll out of Candlekeep next...
Thanks for your attention, advice and encouragement, all!
Introducing Smielkest Gophereater. Rock gnome. Fighter/Illusionist. Neutral Evil.
Launching his run under hard rules without additional damage. SCS + item randomizer are the key mods.
I'm going tell his story through snippets of dialogue. Enjoy!
Condolences to @Blind_Visionary (I really liked Steinarr) and @Neverused, but congrats with your good efforts nonetheless.
Having stumbled upon no less than two good Gnome portraits, I have now officially lost my battle against restartitis. Sigrid shall wait in Durlag's Tower.
I haven't played many single-class mages, and the few times I did the results were mostly poor. But I've come to like single-class characters in general (reduced versatility makes for more archetypical RPG characters and requires increased imagination at times). And I felt like trying to become a better Mage player. I rolled a Transmuter, but got scared thinking of late BG2 without Abjuration spells, then found one of the Gnome portraits I mentioned and went with an Illusionist.
Enter Segurd, TN Gnome Illusionist.
(2) full SCS pre-buffs to prevent me from blasting enemy mages to oblivion with wands and missiles as I've been doing with Sigrid, and
(3) a restriction as to which NPCs are eligible to join Segurd, should make this playthrough more exciting to me than my run with Sigrid. The NPC restriction is that all companions shall be (part) casters and that they may not be (part) warriors. In other words only pure casters or caster/thieves may join Segurd throughout the saga. NPCs may be arcane casters or divine, or both. That doesn't really matter to me; I just feel like slinging lots of spells around. Not being able to use brute force means I'll have to use creative solutions for some battles, or shun them altogether (at the risk of losing out on great loot thanks to Randomiser). Besides it'll be a nice change to ignore NPCs I often use when not soloing such as Imoen, Jaheira, Kivan, Coran, Alora, Yeslick, and Kagain, and welcome NPCs like Tiax or Faldorn into the party.
There will be moderate role-playing. Segurd is apathetic TN. We could call him a libertarian. He lives by the adage that everyone should leave everyone else alone. This means he's not evil/selfish. Segurd will never take more than his due. He'll generally expect payment for his good deeds, but he's not really a mercenary type as he doesn't mind lending an occasonial favor as long as it's not too much of a hassle.
@Blind_Visionary: nooooooooooooo!! Same portrait.
I always look for unique portraits that nobody uses, and now this... Anyway you posted first.
For what it is worth, I think you should run Segurd. We can have a parallel journey...
Smielkest Gophereater
Reevor looked up from his notes as Smielkest emerged from the storehouse, wiping his lips and beard on his forearm.
"So, did ya take care of the rats, then?" Reevor inquired.
"Indeed," Smielkest replied, fishing around in his teeth with stubby fingers, pulling out a bone and tossing it casually aside. "Do you have any other ... rodent problems ... I could address?"
Reevor shivered. "Err... no, I think that'll be enough for today."
Prit, half-elf cleric/ranger (Grond0) & Gorn, elf stalker (Gate70)
Previous updates here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/825770/#Comment_825770
The start of the session saw the duo cruising through the Cloakwood. Gorn was briefly detained by a detour to fetch a new cloak, but made up the lost time there by opting out of the opportunity to go in search of Spider's Bane. At the Mine Rezdan was silenced by Prit. Kysus saved, but was silenced in a more vigorous fashion by Gorn.
Downstairs Prit tried to pull back just one of the battle horrors, but got both at once. Deciding not to bother with the finer points of battle tactics he just used the wand of the heavens to burn them down. Gorn then took a potion of magic blocking to allow him to go mage-hunting.
In the City a couple of tomes were picked up along with the Helm and Cloak of Balduran. Prit also threw some skeletons in Lothander's path to allow him to acquire some boots of speed of his own.
At Candlekeep no protection was used against traps, though there was a rest to repair damage before collecting the loot from the tombs. The dopplegangers and Prat were ignored before Gorn made use of a scroll of PfP to attack the basilisks - and was slightly surprised to find that Prit had got there first having used another PfP scroll.
Before we forgot there was a quick side trip to Durlag's to pick up the important tome there. Back in the City a final tome was collected from Ramazith's Tower, though that didn't actually benefit either of us.
Slythe chased Gorn, but ran into a dispelling arrow and failed to make his way past some skeleton blockers. Initially the duo moved on to the palace straight after that, but Prit decided that another level (giving access to level 4 spells) would help. A basilisk and a few ankhegs later and they were back at the palace. Buffed skeletons proved enough for Belt to survive at badly wounded.
After fighting through the maze and avoiding the Undercity party the temple saw the final BG1 hurdle. As usual, Sarevok was hit by a dispelling arrow from extreme range, meaning he left Semaj alone to face the music when he teleported out.
Prit, cleric 7 / ranger 6, 77 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 151 kills
Gorn, stalker 7, 78 HPs, 143 kills, 0 deaths
Segurd, TN Gnome Illusionist, 1st BG1 update
Segurd started out doing the usual quests between the FAI and Nashkel. I'm just going to highlight the noteworthy events as I don't have enough time for lengthy write-ups.
We met Tarnesh at level 3. A FAI guard dealt with him after a very swift retreat by the Gnome. Casting Blindness and throwing daggers, we managed to fell Neira early on as well, after she followed Segurd into the Nashkel store. We tried the same with Zordral, and we actually managed to Blind him, but then he quaffed an invisibility potion. Segurd left him for another day. We let Dorn take care of Senjak, Dorothea and their friends, and were a bit displeased to see Isra (mod) strike down Greywolf after we had done most of the work (again Blindness and throwing daggers).
We reunited Albert and Rufie (level 4), and found a MGoI scroll in the hidden stash in the Cloudpeaks. We steered clear from Sendai and from Vax and Zal, survived two Hobgoblin ambushes, and had to visit the High Hedge twice to discover that Thalantyr had a scroll of Invisibility for sale. The first time, when Segurd had just reached level 3, we thought Thalantyr had a very limited selection of scrolls, but the second time we rummaged through the wizard's entire stock, and we noticed a second bundle of spells below the wands and Kazgaroth items, including most noticeably a nice Haste scroll. (Scrolls are also randomised in this set-up, though no scrolls of a higher level than level 3, in line with vanilla Thalantyr). We bought a selection of useful scrolls and copied them into Segurd's spell book using the red potion from the Carnival.
We then tried again to deal with Zordral. The strategy was to enter, cast Spook, stay if Zordral failed his save, cast Blindness (two chances), again stay only in case of a failed save, and finish our foe with throwing daggers. This worked after three attempts.
Segurd had now more than 32k XP, which was a good time to make some new friends. We met one at the Nashkel Carnival (Quayle), and one at Feldepost's Inn (Tiax). The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly were complete.
The trio summoned two Skeletons and a Ghast, Hasted them, and had them finish Silke after Commanding and Blinding her.
With our summons still around we also dealt with Neera's Red Wizards.
In terms of randomised loot, most of it has been warrior stuff (Mauletar Axe +2, +1 armors and shields). Mutamin dropped the gauntlets of dexterity, so that's nice.
On the topic of mages, Transmuter and Abjurer are probably the worst of the lot when it comes to specialists for a no-reload.
Like you said, lacking Abjuration spells in BG2/TOB is really bad news (you can do just fine in BG1 though obviously, just keep your Transmuter invisible/out of sight for the mage battles).
Likewise, for Abjurers, BG1 is fine, but BG2 without Stoneskin? It's such a critical spell for keeping your squishy mages alive, I can't really envisage trying to work around it. And no Timestop!
I'd almost be tempted to add Necromancer to the pile o' crap specialists due to no Mirror Image, but I imagine you could make do with just Stoneskin (you'd need to keep a bunch of PfMW memorized, however. Maybe you'd even find a use for Mantle?). I am tempted to try it at some point, a Chaotic Good Necromancer seems very fitting for a Bhaalspawn... and I have a 99 point roll Necromancer character kicking about.
Alright! On to the update, which is short. Never fear, we are still alive!
Aldain, Human Conjurer, Update 11
Previous update found here
Next update found here
We were about to proceed to the fourth (underground) level of Durlag's Tower. Onward!
Greater Wyverns fall rather fast, and we are forced to kill off a few of the Dire Charmed heroes ourselves. We get a fourth set of Full Plate armor (a Durlag Doppleganger dropped the third set previously), but since we are a party of weak-sauce characters, and Khalid and Jaheira both have Full Plate already, no one can use it... shame.
I also take out the Skeleton Archers on this level, who while annoying have heaps of lovely magical arrows. We have something like 6 Wands of Fire anyway, might as well put them to some use.
The invisible Ashikurus (is that the spelling?) are annoying with their constant backstabs, but we plow through with a lot of healing potions (also of course keeping Aldain and Xan invisible to not tempt the Ashikurus).
Now, we are approaching our (almost) doom. We clear the Phoenix Guard room using a few fire protection scrolls and potions, no problem! We cut down the Air Aspect and its accompanying Invisible Stalkers with the help of a Greater Malison and Slow, no sweat! We fireball the named Polar Bear and its friends the Winter Wolves with the help of a few potions of cold resistance, easy!
Only the Fission Slime remains. We kill it with fire, no teleport. I always get this bug with SCS, but I always forget how to fix it. You need to manually set a global variable, alright. So I muck about a bit with enabling Debug mode, finally get it working. And for some reason, I just set the global variable without even casting Stoneskin on Aldain first.
We're instantly teleported to the chess board, completely unbuffed. We've got something like 2 1/2 seconds before the entire enemy group will come charging at us. What to do? Go nova!
We hurl 6 fireballs (2x Wand of Fire, 2x Necklace of Missiles, 2x potions) at the center of the board.
We kill almost everything. Two Towers (I think they're called Towers... they wear full plate and wield a long sword + large shield), a Rook, and a very badly wounded King yet live.
The two Towers somehow avoid all damage, charge straight into our lines, and start wailing on totally unbuffed Aldain. One hit, two hits, Aldain is at 18 hitpoints. Somehow I do NOT panic (neither the character nor I controlling the action) but manage to move Aldain skillfully behind Khalid and Jaheira, blocking the bloody towers. Then the Rook pops an arrow at Aldain for 12 damage, leaving him with 6 hitpoints. Aldain's aura now clear, he manages to chug a Potion of Invisibility, prompting the Rook to turn his attention on Xan. Moments after this screenshot, Xan got a final Fireball from a wand off, killing the King and removing the remaining chess pieces.
That was just stupid on a stick. Why not have Stoneskin up? Indeed, why not start invisible, or have everyone quaff a Potion of Absorption beforehand, so we could move freely on the chessboard? Bah. I got so absorbed trying to work around the bugged script I forgot everything. For some reason the game forgot all my settings as well when Debug mode was enabled, hence the health bars, grey-scale on pause etc. Just silly.
At least we're still alive. Lots of healing potions later, we proceed to the fifth level.
This level goes fine. Khalid's Freedom potion (necessary with the enormous amounts of Greater Ghouls running around) wears off while fighting Grael, resulting in a Held Khalid. We fix the situation by summoning some additional fodder, and that is as dangerous as it got on this entire level. Well, Xan almost got killed in one hit by a Greater Ghoul, but that's just Xan for you.
Slow and steady with constant trap removal wins the day, and we get a lot of loot (a second scroll of Domination really being the only thing worthwhile, as we have no need for the items here).
The Demon Knight is left alone, given that it's a risky fight with no real reward. Some identifying and resting later, we move back into the Gate under Invisibility 10' Radius. We save Eltan, take out Cythandria, and that's where we leave our adventures for now. Everyone is at 161k experience. The party is currently situated at the Elfsong tavern, having spent 50k+ on potions, wands and ammunition in preparation for the final push.
Smielkest Gophereater
Hulrik heard his cow bellow. He looked out the window, finding a horde of xvarts, swords drawn, bearing down on his last farm animal. His livelihood. He rushed outside to try to scatter them.
But by the time he reached the pasture, his cow was already dead. A grim-faced gnome stood over the carcass, growling at the xvarts.
"What have you done?" cried Hulrik.
"Caught some dinner," replied Smielkest. He cast a spell, fracturing into multiple images. Each illusionary gnome whirled a sling and let fly. The xvarts crumpled to the ground.
"And a fine dinner it will be, too."
Corsen - human berserker (protagonist, controlled by Corey_Russell)
Gremlin - halfling bounty hunter (controlled by Grond0)
Vorgan - human inquisitor (controlled by Gate70
Last post - not sure but more than 4 pages back
Trio had a lot of issues in getting together, but this week we were all present and accounted for and got to the adventuring.
Last time we had crashed in the Basilisk area. We decided to quick-save after we made good progress, and the crash did not repeat itself. Fortunately, our success on the other hand did. Grond0 and Gate70 have a very intricate path in clearing this area, but of course Corey_Russell is not familiar with it. So Vorgan tanked the baslisks with the green scroll.
The key battles were Mutamutin and Kirian's group. For Mutamutin we did divide and conquer - that is, we killed his pets, then engaged him. He did successfully make Vorgan run in fear, but since all the nearby enemies were already cleared, he just took some spell damage. Mutamutin failed to kill anyone before being killed himself.
Traps and Korax were key against Kirian's group. Gremlin showed some guile in this respect - he laid a trap at the enemies feet while they were blue circle - the initiated conversation and then were hurt bad. Since Corsen was protected by enrage he dived into melee - victory!
A good number of ambushes this session, but the ambushers weren't able to accomplish anything.
Being at level 5, the party was plenty strong enough to solve the Nashkel Mines problem - and in fact there were no problems.
The party was also plenty strong for the bandit camp, with Gremlin once again taking advantage of the enemies starting neutral in Tazok's Tent with some traps.
Some Sirenes were also defeated with a clarity potion with no issues in that respect - the golems weren't able to d much either. There was possibly dangerous moment when a carrion crawler got very close to Corsen - fortunately his aura was clear, so enrage made him quite safe.
For some reason Gate70/Grond0 don't like buying what we need, but Corsen said the Smithy's full plate would be a big help for him, so they relented after all.
We ran out of time by this point, so will probably delve into the Cloakwood next session.
Screenshots from the adventure:
(note: I had thought I had taken many more screenies than this - but probably pressed print screen on the wrong keyboard (I have 2, but one is defunct). Got one at least...)
Party Stats:
Corsen - 61 HP, 95 kills, Shoal the Nereid
Gremlin - 37 HP, 76 kills, Flesh Golem
Vorgan - 68 HP, 107 kills, Greater Basilisk
Smielkest Gophereater
Thalantyr closed his eyes in concentration, holding a skull in one hand and a wand in the other. He slowly recited an incantation.
Melicamp stopped sqwaking. His chicken body began to quiver and twitch, faster than any living thing should be able to move. Then abruptly, all motion stopped. The chicken slumped to the floor, still.
"And that, as they say, is that," said Thalantyr, wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow.
"I beg to differ," said Smielkest, picking up the chicken corpse by the neck. "It's time for lunch. Care for some roast chicken?"
Smielkest Gophereater
Smielkest walked into the inn at Nashkel. A bounty hunter promptly assaulted him.
"Ho, what's this?" Smielkest bellowed.
"The end of your days," Neira responded, chanting a spell.
Sparks flew. Smielkest ended up paralyzed, and Neira ended up blind.
Neira's spell ended first, and then so did her life.
Smielkest found Brage near an overturned wagon, deep in the woods. He decided the man's corpse would make a fine prize.
His guardian cleric, Laryssa, had other plans in mind. She paralyzed the dark gnome and proceeded to swipe her mace through his illusions, one by one.
As he died, Smielkest dreamed of all the future meals he'd never have.
@Blackraven I'm counting on your gnome to represent now... the portrait is all yours
Introducing Talanis, a female elven Priest of Tyr. Neutral good (so hopefully longer lived!)
Core rules, SCS, item randomizer (didn't re-randomize since my last run was so short.)
I'm going to tell her story with random snippets of dialog again....
Talanis
Priestess of Tyr"But, Portal Keeper, you've known me for years!" Talanis cried. "It's not safe out here!"
"I know this is hard to hear, child," The massive knight said as he leaned on his greatsword, the tip gouging into the ground. "But you are safer out in the wilderness than you would be inside this keep."
"How could that be?" Talanis whispered. "Only a few miles from here, Gorion was cut down in cold blood!"
"And the same fate awaits you here, child," the knight said. "The order comes from Ulraunt himself."
Talanis looked at the Keeper in confusion. "But, why? I've done nothing."
The Keeper said, "Go, before one of the watchers sees you. Only your god can help you now."