Is it possible to talk to Jan after you boot him out to send him elsewhere? Or potentially send someone else out to the Copper Coronet? Seems a bit risky to permanently lose a character here for no really spectacular reason...
Is it possible to talk to Jan after you boot him out to send him elsewhere? Or potentially send someone else out to the Copper Coronet? Seems a bit risky to permanently lose a character here for no really spectacular reason...
With my set-up you can, but mods affect how this happens. I'm not sure what happens in vanilla as I never used him much.
Is the Imoen XP thing a mod? Or maybe something new in EE v2? I have alway used EE and SCS, and had a run where we spawned her at level 11 with 400k XP. Since then I have taken great pains to show up with average party level 13. But I've also only played EE 1.3.
Which while I'm on the subject, is because my SCS chunk / perma-death resistance doesn't work with EE v2. Anyone else had a similar issue?
--
Also: WOW SCS HARM DOES CRUSHING DAMAGE? That's terrifying. I'm glad I leave it with the default magic damage -> 1hp.
If it's a mod thing, it has to be an undocumented part of SCS (which is unlikely) as that's the only mod I use. I'm fairly certain it didn't exist back in pre-2.0 BG2EE, as I remember arriving in Spellhold and finding same old under-leveled Imoen as always.
Yeah, it deals crushing damage. I guess because nothing is immune to it? Maybe I should have left it with default behaviour instead, but this way I can't be tempted to kill dragons with their 400ish+ HP in a single spell. On the other hand, if some random cleric or druid decides to Harm anyone but Mazzy with Belt of Fortitude active, the results won't be pretty... it'd be an insta-chunk and me raving at the screen.
Is it possible to talk to Jan after you boot him out to send him elsewhere? Or potentially send someone else out to the Copper Coronet? Seems a bit risky to permanently lose a character here for no really spectacular reason...
I tried talking to him, but the only options are to recruit him again or leave him stranded. Rather strange, since you can (obviously) ask Imoen to make it out on her own.
Only Imoen makes it out of Spellhold on her own. So if you intend to use her (and don't have Yoshimo in the party) then you should go to Spellhold with 5 characters, unless you want to leave someone behind permanently.
Is it possible to talk to Jan after you boot him out to send him elsewhere? Or potentially send someone else out to the Copper Coronet? Seems a bit risky to permanently lose a character here for no really spectacular reason...
With the BG2 tweaks mod, you can change things. However I am not sure whether it works there or not. The words "if accessible" might be very relevant.
Improved Multi-Player Kick-out Dialogues (Weimer)
This allows you to ask multi-player created NPCs to "wait here" or, if accessible, to go to the Copper Coronet (in SoA) or Pocket Plane (in ToB). For Tutu, BGEE, or the Baldur's Gate portion of BGT, the option to go to the Friendly Arm Inn is available. Without this they just disappear forever if you kick them out.
Just a quick note of Corewild the fighter/thief and his band of berserker and 4 wild mages:
We've killed Imoen, Xzar and Montaron (to get their stuff).
We need lots of experience. So we went and wiped out Shoal with range attacks (we had surrounded her first). No interesting surges yet, but we haven't cast many spells just yet. No levels from that either. Once we get 2nd level mage spells, will probably head to basilisks area to speed up our levels (we could use things like stinking cloud/web on Kirian's group once that was the case).
Corsen the Human Berserker (protagonist, controlled by Corey_Russell) Gremlin the Bounty Hunter (controlled by Grond0) Vorgan the Inquisitor (controlled by Gate70)
Trio was delayed due to a power outage in England. But after an hour, the Trio got under way after all.
We made some good progress, though not without the odd death. We made significant progress on the main quest (got to Candlekeep at end of session).
Dopplegangers could do nothing against this team (Seven Suns). When practical/needed, Gremlin has been putting traps/snares everywhere, which does make things quite easy. If opponents can confuse, then Corsen leads the way while being enraged. If the odd dispel is needed then Vorgan gets called into action.
For the Iron Throne 5th floor, our characters just didn't need anything from the enemies. Therefore, Gremlin sneaked his way to Thaldorn to talk to him, and thus fulfill the requirement of Duke Eltan.
We did have an issue when venturing into the sewers. The party did great to defeat the ogre mage and his pets. The left passage was duly looted. Since his enrage was still active, Corsen had a great idea to kill the carrion crawlers in the north passage. Unfortunately, Gremlin didn't follow the leader and thus was really, really close to the six carrion crawlers that then spawned where the Ogre Mage was - but Grond0 swears on his screen he was no where near them - but on Corey_Russell's screen he was (and Corey_Russell is the host). Gremlin's gnome saves did not save him. We were paused for a long while - Corsen was too far away (and his enrage wore off and was thus fatigued and couldn't enrage yet again). Vorgan had free action so he could dive in (which he did). Vorgan tried a dispel magic, but that did not get rid of the hold, though Gremlin did get hit by the dispel - probably the hold effect is not considered magic. Thus, Gremlin falls. Corsen range attacks and Vorgan leads the way in avenging our group mate.
We go to a temple to bring back Gremlin, Gremlin pays our hard earned gold to heal himself (why not, he saves us money by rarely using blue potions anyways). Then he goes back and loots his stuff.
Most of the other quests were pretty straight forward. We did have one problem though - after killing Jalantha Corey_Russell's game crashed - so we had to kill the priests of Umberlee again.
We battled Lothandar and Gremlin was pretty sneaky - he got real close to Lothander and Lothander got "caught" on him and couldn't move - this allowed an easy kill and thus two haste boots total for the group.
We have just entered the Keep of Candlekeep and will continue here next session.
Oranfal, halfling fighter: A quick note (spoilers ahead)
Sarevok has fallen and Oranfal is set for Amn (making him only my second character ever to do so in a no-reload play). I will, however, provide due coverage of his entire journey before embarking on the sequel (and I hereby apologize for taking away the thrill).
Congratulations Borco! Be careful of traps in BG 2 - some traps are no problem in parties, but big problems for solos. Good example is the maze trap guarding Horn of Valhalla. A maze ends a soloist's run. If you want to talk to someone who has been mazed many times while solo, you can talk to Grond0.
Origin | Previous | Next "Hold, bandits!" An armored knight stepped out of the shadows and into the center of the road, brandishing a battered-looking sword.
"We're no bandits," Talanis called back over the edge of her shield. "Put your sword down."
"Prove it."
"I am a priestess of Tyr. I serve justice and truth and goodness. Put your sword down and you'll have nothing to fear from me."
"Truly?" The knight relaxed, sheathing his sword. "I am Ajantis Ilvastarr, Paladin of Helm."
"Talanis. And this is my companion, Imoen."
"Well met. So what brings you out on the road at this dark hour?"
"Fleeing assassins, to tell you the truth."
"By Helm! Assassins? Who dares hunt a member of your most holy order? And why?!"
"I don't really know. I was cast out of my home ... and attacked repeatedly. In my bedroom. Outside Candlekeep. At the Friendly Arm Inn. Nothing makes any sense. I just need to find a place to hide for a while, and some time to figure out what is going on. We're headed to the Gate."
"Allow me to escort you, my Lady. I'll show any assassins the sharp side of my blade."
Imoen raised an eyebrow and whispered to Talanis, "Why not? He seems like a lunkhead, but if he wants to follow us around, it might actually help."
Talanis nodded. "Until we are settled in the Gate, we accept. Thank you, Ajantis."
"An honor to serve, my lady of Tyr. Until you are settled."
I headed south to the mines where I was ambushed by Zargos Flintblade. He shouldn’t have tried that single-handed!
After that, my sling quickly dealt with Greywolf.
I then cast an innate one-use spell that gave me the barbarian kit.
Heading East, I dealt with Vax and Zal. It turned out to be a bit hairy.
Silke did manage to kill all those that she wanted dead, but killed herself in the process.
I then killed some ogres at the gnoll stronghold followed by yet more assassins.
Heading north, I helped Jared against a polar bear and further north still I helped Charleston Nib.
I returned to Beregost and wiped out some spiders.
To the east Ashen helped me against some dogs. I was hoping that as he was in the Sword Coast on business, he would have some gold on him, but he didn't.
And further east still, I wiped out some powerful wolves.
Continuing East, I killed Peter and his cronies:
And then cleared the area of basilisks and medusae. Having used a protection from petrification scroll, they were no problem. Mutamin’s spells however were.
And upon arriving in the lighthouse area, I killed several Sirene and flesh golems.
I then visited the Ulcaster ruins where neither Icharyd, nor the wolves were a major problem:
North of the temple I tried to help Nim Furlwing but was unsuccessful.
Dealing with the assassins Tristan and Isolde was a major headache, but thankfully I survived.
I then looked for Gurke’s cloak and found it.
After which I raided Durlag’s Tower. I was unwise and fought one of the battle horrors, only just surviving despite using a number of healing potions.
I had a potion of mirrored eyes due to using a stone to flesh scroll on a petrified woman. Combining that with oil of speed enabled me to kill all the basilisks in the tower.
The skeleton warriors abetted by mustard jellies below ground were more of a problem.
I had raided the room where the doppelgangers had been using oil of speed and returned when their spells had expired. This was discovered to be a good tactic.
Upon leaving the keep I fought the other battle horror and upon being badly injured fled.
Good stuff @Borco and @Wise_Grimwald. Why are Basilisks called Medusas in your install? Are there other differences between the two?
Eager to play SoD and BG2EE, and therefore a bit impatient with a full party run through BG1 I’ve decided to go back to my core business: solo play, at least for BG1. I enjoyed my solo attempts last year I think it was, with single-class specialist mages, so I’m going back to that. For my style of play the best solo specialist mages are probably Invokers, Illusionists, and Diviners. Enchanters only with the SCS component that lets them learn sequencers, triggers, and contingencies (as in my install). I know most people don’t like Diviners much, but the best summons aren’t Conjuration spells (Skeleton Warriors, Mordy Swords, Planetars), and there are fine alternatives to the school’s few damage and armor spells. It’s only the PW spells that, depending on one’s play style, may be missed. Their counterparts, Conjurers, are fine too, but I think I’d miss detection spells more than PW spells. Abjurers, Necromancers and especially Transmuters give up very good defensive spells. I believe they will have a significantly harder time.
Charname is a TN Illusionist named Addi, which means something like ‘the sharp one’ in Gnomish. He does keep his daggers sharp indeed, and he tries to do the same with his mind. Meet Addi:
Addi’s true neutrality gives him a trap disarming rabbit familiar, and his specialization school is the school I’m most familiar with thanks to my love for Gnome multis. I know I’ll miss Skeleton Warriors in SoA and I hope spells like Comet and Dragon’s Breath are reasonably effective alternatives to ADHW even though their damage type is different. Mod install is basically a full SCS/Ascension install with the exception of item modifications (no non-magical, fine weapons instead of +1, no moving of SoA items into ToB, etc), and with the exception of SCS scripts for the final Ascension battle. Those scripts wouldn’t install. I’m unlikely to get that far but should I defy all odds, I could always use my save game in a non-EET install to play the Ascension final battle with SCS scripts.
I’m aware I’ll probably need companions in SoD as I still don’t know that part of the game. (Unfortunately my save of Owanna, shapeshifting Cleric/Illusionist was lost when I installed EET. Beh ) I’m keeping open the option of building a small (arcane oriented) party in BG2, especially if I find I enjoy party play in SoD. I can see Addi befriend Jan and romance Aerie.
1st BG1 report
The early game is the same for my solo characters regardless of their class: fetching things for easy XP, avoiding ranged enemies, kiting melee enemies, and if you’re a squishy character, hoping you are spared or survive any ambushes. Addi reached level 3 this way. He made sure he got the hidden rings (protection +1, wizardry), and the girdle of piercing, which I consider a key item for the early game because of possible bandit ambushes. He helped Tenya and Melicamp, and slew Shoal for level 4. Tenya is a bit of a risk at low levels. Bandit ambushes are common north of the FAI, and Tenya herself likes to cast Hold Person. This time she actually hit Addi once after she Commanded him, but he managed to injure her with his throwing daggers shortly after that. Melicamp is tricky for solo Mages, especially once they have a couple of levels under their belt, because Skeletons in the High Hedge area then start hanging around in groups rather than alone it seems. Addi Blinded both the wolf and a single skeleton he ran into, taking them down with his throwing daggers. Blindness is a great spell, especially when it’s an Illusionist casting it. We were lucky to see Thalantyr succeed at restoring Melicamp.
With only a slightly above average reputation, Addi was reluctant to start spending, but he did buy an Invisibility scroll and scribed it without drinking any INT boosters (which I normally don't do). At the FAI we took a bit of a risk with a Blindness cast at Tarnesh from the edge of his line sight. Addi would have had to retreat into Gellana’s temple and maybe go invisible if Tarnesh were to save, but the bounty hunter didn’t and was thus doomed.
To boost his reputation, Addi dealt with Charleston Nib’s diggers (lot of kiting without Sleep), Brage, Drienne, Greywolf (also prolonged kiting), Brun (using Invisibility in the Ankheg nest), and Samuel. He then bought pretty much all the scrolls he could scribe, including the ones sold in Ulgoth’s Beard, and drank two potions from Gellana to copy them into his spellbook.
Addi slew Meilum with the wand of fire because Blinding him would have caused the swordsman to wander and possibly alert Kobold Commandos or Skeleton archers. The bonuses of the Legacy of the Masters gauntlets combined with Addi’s damage bonus for his 16 STR help with his ranged attacks. We further improved Addi’s ranged firepower by doing something that solo purists will object to: we recruited Kivan. We traveled to the North Coast, and had the Elf’s presence trigger a minor quest from the BG1 NPC Project mod. Kivan and Addi agreed to protect Jozzi the Seasnake against three Sahuagin. The Sahuagin stunned Kivan with a paralytic bolt, but the Seasnake and another Elf managed to defeat the Sahuagin. Addi helped out with castings of Blindness. The reward was a +2 returning throwing dagger. It’s a powerful weapon and it helps with inventory management. The vanilla game doesn’t offer any enchanted or returning throwing daggers, unlike other weapons, so I considered this ok. We used the dagger to cheesily slay the Flesh Golems in Alaric’s cave, positioning invisible Rabbit on the narrow strip next to the southwest border of the pool so that it would keep the Golems from reaching Addi.
Drienne’s PfUndead scroll made the Valley of the Tombs a source of easy XP and cheap goodies. We stayed away from Narcillicus for the time being. Back in Nashkel Addi killed the Amazing Oopah to reach level 6, where Staves became his second weapon proficiency. We celebrated the achievement by buying the Robe of the Neutral Archmagi.
Addi looted two Xvart caves, and Blinded then killed Neville for his Dispel Magic scroll. We cleared Mutamin’s garden without difficulty thanks to Korax’ paralyzing attack on Mutamin made from invisibility. This was more than enough for Addi to reach level 7, especially now that both Greater Basilisks yield 7k XP each (in previous versions of the game one of them was worth only 4k XP). Korax failed to do much against Kirian and Co, but we were lucky to encounter the female wandering toward us alone. There was a real threat when she cast Horror at Addi. The Gnome’s aura was turbid from a Blindness that Kirian had saved against, and was just in time to quaff an invisibility potion before he actually made his save.
He slew his foe with wand Fireballs launched from afar.
Level 8 followed soon, courtesy of Durlag’s Tower’s Battle Horrors (wand scorchers) and Basilisks (Blindness & ranged attacks). While there, Addi also secured a tome of understanding.
At level 8, with some wands (fire, frost, monster summoning, paralyzation) and a pretty good spellbook at his disposal, Addi was finally ready to fight some of the more interesting enemies in BG1, and to fight them fairly.
@Blackraven Basilisks are not called medusae. There are both basilisks and medusae. The medusae look like yellow humans with green hair. I think that the green hair is supposed to represent serpents. Presumably they are supposed to represent the medusae of Greek Mythology. I think that they come from the Drizzt Saga. In my previous install they were more deadly than basilisks, not so in this install though I don't know why.
Journal of Sneaky Blueskin
I fought Teyngan and killed his party successfully before raiding the xvart village.
At the xvart village Neslit was killed by Ursa the bear despite Neslit thinking that Ursa would be an ally.
We subsequently killed Ursa.
I afterwards went to kill more sirens.
Bassilus and Zargal were next on the agenda.
I then returned to the Ulcaster ruins where with the help of a protection from undead scroll, I killed Mal-Kalen. Revenge is sweet.
It was then time for the mines and my sling proved trustworthy against the first assassins.
Mulahey proved not to be a problem.
Rigid thinking from Lamalha was however. To my relief I killed Lamalha eventually despite the effect of the spell.
Killing the Revenant was no problem.
Neither was killing Narcillicus.
Upon leaving Nashkel, Cru and Chop the lady ogres were quickly dealt with.
South of the Friendly Arms Inn another party of assassins were then dealt with.
Origin | Previous | Next "My Lady, the way to the Gate is closed," said Ajantis. "We must go South."
"What?" said Talanis. "Since when is Baldur's Gate not accepting visitors?"
"Since the Fist went South. The bandit plague has worsened. Despite the many I have slain, I have not found their leaders. Join me in hunting them down and we'll open the way to the Gate for you. And save this land from its troubles, as our gods would wish us to do."
"I have no love for bandits, but if I fall to an assassin's knife, I'll be of no service to justice, or to Tyr."
"With my blade by your side, My Lady, no harm shall come to you."
Imoen snickered, then covered her mouth with her hands. "Lunkhead," she whispered.
Talanis sighed. "Very well, Ajantis. South. But we travel cautiously, in the woods, not on the roads. We keep watch at night. We pray for safety and shelter. We flee if we encounter any dangerous foes."
We had time for a decent session today and were looking forward to making considerable progress in BG2 - which I suppose in one way we did ...
After upgrading the Mace of Disruption we agreed the next equipment upgrade on the agenda would be the Ring of Gaxx. As usual we decided to make sure access to all the tombs was pre-prepared so that we could whizz round the liches at the cost of a single PfU scroll each. Prit used Righteous Magic / DUHM to bash open the door to Kangaxx's tomb and the hiding place of the City Gates lich. Then it was off to the Bridge District where Prit carefully buffed up and opened the door with the petrification trap.
Before anyone sniggers too hard I'd like to point out that I was distracted by real life events at the time. I absolutely and definitively refute any suggestion that I could possibly have made that type of mistake without such a distraction .
As always you can find a silver lining if you look hard enough. In our case the early termination of our previous run left plenty of time to make inroads with a new random selection of classes - in this case the fighter and barbarian should be a good match and capable of making rapid progress.
The dwarves made the usual fast start courtesy of Shoal before passing through Beregost and down to Nashkel where Calis picked up some green armour. There was a bit of a hiccup next though when Juto got seduced by his maximum HP roll into standing and fighting against Meilum.
Calis had no missile weapon proficiency, but used up most of Imoen's wand to finish that fight and take Juto's remains to the temple.
Next there was a trip to the basilisk area. That nearly ended in tears again when Juto ran on ahead of Calis (the latter protected by green scroll) and approached a basilisk. Fortunately the monster appeared to be in the mood for melee and didn't bother gazing as Juto put the brakes on and performed a hand-brake turn to get out of sight again. The remaining basilisks soon died and Juto used his rage to nullify Mutamin's horror spell. To play safe Korax was recruited to sort out Kirian's party.
After doing a tour of the realms to push reputation up, that was maximised by chopping down all the inhabitants of an ankheg nest and a bit of shopping was done at Ulgoth's Beard.
Moving on to the Nashkel Mine Juto decided his idea of a fair fight was him raging against Mulahey while Calis ensured no-one interfered.
I'm not sure that was Mulahey's idea of a fair fight, but history is written by the victors . Outside the mine the Amazons faced a sudden attack from both directions. Maneira did manage to get a dart of wounding through Juto's defenses, but he had so many HPs that was never going to cause much concern.
At the Bandit Camp Taurgosz was persuaded to hand over an armour upgrade to Calis
before the duo burst into the leaders' tent. Venkt managed to survive a few blows, but as he commenced his horror spell Calis broke off the attack and went to brutalise Hakt instead - shortly afterwards the victory was complete.
In the Cloakwood there was a momentary concern when Juto ran through a web trap while Calis was attacking the final one of the group of ettercaps - fortunately though the ettercap died as the web was spinning into place.
Both the dwarves were also poisoned by ettercaps, but in both occasions resting was successful - thus ensuring there was no need for any tricky decisions about whether to use a potion or not.
At the Cloakwood Mine a couple of potions of explosion were thrown as a housewarming gift - killing one of the mages. The other managed to go invisible, but died in the act of trying a follow-up spell
and Drasus and Genthore soon followed. Inside the mine Hareishan was bypassed on the way down to find Davaeorn. His battle horrors didn't do to much damage, so there was no need for any resting. Calis was given the honour of using a potion of magic-blocking to chase down Davaeorn - which he duly did.
Calis, fighter 7, 81 HPs, 114 kills Juto, barbarian 7, 103 HPs, 145 kills, 1 death Juto has impressively got his century of HPs while only at level 7! He's used his barbarian speed advantage to rack up plenty of kills, though Calis is now wearing Boots of Speed which should allow him to compete better next time.
The screenshots don't show Juto's portrait as we didn't bother restarting after Gate70 sent me a new one. However, here are record screens for the pair (Juto looking a mite fresh-faced for a charisma 1 dwarf?):
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer trilogy attempt 115 - (6th and final update) Before anyone sniggers too hard I'd like to point out that I was distracted by real life events at the time. I absolutely and definitively refute any suggestion that I could possibly have made that type of mistake without such a distraction .
Wouldn't dream of making such a suggestion. Hope that the real life events were good rather than bad.
Aldain, Human Conjurer, BG2EE Update 6 Previous update found here Next update found here
Onward we press, into the depths of the Spellhold maze.
I have, as always, forgotten that there are a few trolls down here, but with Mazzy wielding the Frostreaver, it's no issue. We carve a path through the purely melee beasts in our way, and pick up the three paintings from the statues. I always forget what they do, so this time I wrote it down: The leftmost one casts Disintegrate (easily countered with Minor Spell Deflection), the middle one casts Incendiary Cloud, and the third one casts Fireball. Unfortunately I forgot to pack any anti-fire spells, but Imoen uses a scroll of Minor Spell Deflection to survive the Disintegrate, and actually makes her save against both fire spells. Good!
We double back and clear the Yuan-Ti out of the room with the painted doors. Here I actually get confirmation that SCS AI goes out of its way to interrupt casters: Even though it was previously attacking Imoen with its MMM's, the Yuan-Ti Mage switches to Jaheira as soon as the latter tries to cast Invisibility Purge. Not that it changed the outcome, but still very irritating.
We clear the Ulitharid, Troll and Noble Djinni in that order. Well-prepared as we are, a couple Chaotic Commands on Mazzy and Minsc nullify the Ulitharid, which only manages to land a single hit on Minsc a mere second before it expires from too much axe to the head. The troll likewise isn't much of a problem, mainly as it has a very difficult time landing hits on Mazzy. The Noble Djinni takes the longest, as he turns to mist and regenerates twice... and in the end, all he gives up is a Tchazzar gem. Pfeh.
More melee opponents... the bigger and badder Umber Hulk falls, as do the three Clay Golems guarding the Gesen Bow String, though they do deal a fair bit of damage to Mazzy. Amazingly I have actually come prepared even for this: A Remove Curse from Anomen clears up the Cursed Wounds on Mazzy, and she rapidly regenerates the damage suffered.
Fast-forward a few easy encounters (nothing worse than a Gauth and some Minotaur bodyguards), and it's time for Irenicus. Normally I don't overdo it on buffs, but as this is one of a few do-or-die fights (literally: We can't run away if things go badly), I decide to be prudent. Everyone gets a Death Ward, everyone (except Minsc, owing to Lilarcor) gets a Chaotic Commands, made possible thanks to Wondrous Recall. Aldain and Imoen load up on what spell protections they can memorize, and the rest of my slots goes to a mix of a few summons, elemental protection spells, Remove Paralysis/Zone of Sweet Air/True Sight/Invisibility Purge, and the mages spend what they have left on offensive stuff (mainly Magic Missile, Chaos and in Imoen's case, Chain Lightning) and spell protection removals/breach, which of course turns out to be completely useless as SCS Irenicus casts SI: Abjuration.
After quite a bit of pre-emptive buffing, we head upstairs and talk to Lonk. I opt to bribe him with 2000 gold: I want to be fully buffed when facing Irenicus, and really don't want to waste any spells on a henchman. We are teleported down to Irenicus by Wanev, and the fight starts.
We immediately retreat towards the corner of the room to dispose of our doubles. Mirror Aldain is smart enough to cast PfMW, but an Arrow of Biting from Imoen sees him permanently disrupted until he goes down to non-magical weapons. Meanwhile, mirror Jaheira, Imoen and Anomen are easily kept disrupted, while our own Mazzy tanks her duplicate and mirror Minsc. Aldain tosses out a Slow to make things even easier.
Here I thought things would actually go smoothly, for once. Having none of that, Dradeel decides to cast Summon Fiend literally on top of us. As we don't have PfE (and I doubt it would help here either as SCS changes summoned demon behaviour) the Glabrezu of course attacks us instantly. Cue a long, desperate fight to kill it before it chunks Mazzy. It's very magic resistant, and recasts Mirror Image (and I think even Remove Magic... I lost a lot of buffs here, with disastrous consequences presently) every few rounds. Thankfully, idiot Dradeel and his friends are keeping Irenicus busy, and Jaheira got off an Insect Plague at him. We are slowly grinding the demon down, but literally a moment before we finish it, Irenicus fires his clever (I guess..) spelltrigger of 3x Flesh to Stone at Mazzy, who fails her very first save and, well.
Afraid that Irenicus is going to drop a Fireball or something at us out of spite (and thus shatter Mazzy), I have Minsc immediately use his Ring of Earth Control to un-petrify her. This was apparently not advisable. Mazzy turns back to flesh, is still neutral, but for whatever reason runs after Irenicus and attacks him. Irenicus casts his force-scripted True Sight, killing all the inmates, gives his indignant villain speech, and buggers off. However, for whatever absurd reason, I can't talk to Mazzy. She's not silenced, not blinded or anything (I even cast Cure Disease on her), but whenever I try to talk to her, nothing happens.
I tried just saving and reloading, but to no avail. So, I CTRL-Q'd her back into the party, which seems to have worked. Cheating, maybe but this was a pretty blatant bug the way I see it. She survived the fight, after all. I just hope this doesn't mess with her variables or anything, I quite like her interjections.
After recovering Mazzy thusly, we head outside and take Saemon up on his offer (making sure to head back into the Asylum briefly to loot Irenicus' office). Somewhat the worse for wear, the party is still in shape to handle the pitiful Mists of various shapes and sizes (Anomen Turns most of them into smithereens) found out here, and make it back to Brynnlaw. Our final good deed this time around is freeing... the girl whose name I can't remember who's forced into prostitution, and her brother. Sure left an imprint on us, that quest.
Oh! I also remembered that there's a host of pirates with the ever-present Mage that spawn right next to Calahan when you return to Brynnlaw, so for once we didn't walk straight into that ambush. A double Chaos destroys them utterly, our last two Skeleton Warriors serving as ample distraction while the spells are being cast.
Following this, we sell off everything we gathered in Spellhold (we are now at over 50000 gold, nice!) and head to the Vulgar Monkey to fortify our flailing spirits with much mead and rum. Here we leave our party for now, battered, bruised and tired, but finally complete. Aldain is now a level 13 Human Conjurer.
the mages spend what they have left on offensive stuff (mainly Magic Missile, Chaos and in Imoen's case, Chain Lightning) and spell protection removals/breach, which of course turns out to be completely useless as SCS Irenicus casts SI: Abjuration.
Actually all spell removal spells, such as Secret Word, Pierce Magic, and even Spell Thrust get rid of SI:Abjuration. What I don't know is what other protections he was running that you would have to remove first. I can imagine him using at least Spell Shield. Spell Trap too, unless you were fighting a lower level Irenicus because your party was lower level as well.
@aldain For the paintings, if you have a divine caster in party, then death ward/protection from fire is all you need to weather them fine.
Yep, that would've worked too... if I'd remembered to memorize Death Ward and Protection from Fire Still need to get into the proper no-reload tendency of keeping protections against everything available. Or just plan ahead better, I suppose.
the mages spend what they have left on offensive stuff (mainly Magic Missile, Chaos and in Imoen's case, Chain Lightning) and spell protection removals/breach, which of course turns out to be completely useless as SCS Irenicus casts SI: Abjuration.
Actually all spell removal spells, such as Secret Word, Pierce Magic, and even Spell Thrust get rid of SI:Abjuration. What I don't know is what other protections he was running that you would have to remove first. I can imagine him using at least Spell Shield. Spell Trap too, unless you were fighting a lower level Irenicus because your party was lower level as well.
Oh, I didn't know that! I've all but given up on dispelling protections from SCS Mages until the party gets higher level (for Warding Whip and RRR). I just let summons soak up the dangerous stuff and move in once they're out of the most lethal spells.
I did get a lower level Irenicus, it seems. His protections were rather modest: Standard melee neutralizers (Stoneskin, Improved Mantle, Fireshield: Red, Improved Invisibility) along with Spell Turning and SI: Abjuration. I don't think he put up Spell Shield, but I'm not certain... it would certainly be in character for SCS to have him use that. He also pulled his punches a bit with his spell slots. The worst he did was a Time Stop, during which he just kind of roamed around and (to little effect) tried to kill off the crazies. I don't even think he tossed an ADHW at me... for which I am infinitely grateful, as it would've been a death sentence for Aldain had he failed the save.
We're still kind of low level, but we're getting there. It's unlikely we'll see 7th level Mage spells before we get out of the Underdark, however. 7th level Cleric spells (due to Anomen) are a possibility, but we'll only get 1 of those to play with. I'm contemplating Gate, for the sheer payback in sending a frenzied demon at SCS casters for a change (it's usually the other way around).
Although I’ve run into a number of bugs that I’ll mention below, Addi’s tale has not come to an end yet.
In my last post I gave an account of Addi’s rise to level 8. This involved quite a bit of XP farming, but it got Addi the spell slots (and the spells) desired to deal with enemies in a fun and fair way. By fun and fair I mean engaging enemies openly, relying on spells (and not just wands), no attacking of blue-circled enemies, no transitioning to escape spell effects, no abuse of AI limitations. It has taken me a couple of years but I’ve grown comfortable with pre-buffing, at least in an install that has the enemy do it as well. Addi’s standard pre-buffs at this point were Shield, Ghost Armor, MSD, PfE, MI, and II. I’ll discuss the most challenging encounters in chronological order.
Bassilus We thought that victory was at hand when Addi Malisoned and Blinded Bassilus, but the priest cast Heal to get his sight back. I liked that, and it didn’t really perturb Addi. Thanks to his pre-buffs he could not be Held and he’d be immune to Flamestrike, so he had some room to experiment. Bassilus saved against a Polymorph Other but was left defenseless when he suffered another Blindness.
Mulahey This priest too, was Blinded.
Unlike Bassilus he didn’t know how to react. He even failed to summon his Skeletons and Kobolds.
Nimbul Nimbul was tricky due to his II, which made him untargetable for single target spells. Addi Malisoned him and paralyzed him with his wand.
Tranzig, Silke Both failed to cope with Addi’s Malisons and Blindnesses.
Lamalha & Co Addi was invisible when the ladies waylaid him. He pre-buffed in a corner of the area, and he Malisoned the two rogues and Zeela, one of the priestesses. An Emotion: Hopelessness lulled the latter into a nightmarish sleep. He slew her and the two rogues through a combination of wand scorchers and ranged attacks with his throwing dagger.
Lamalha failed her save against a Blindness.
Bandit Camp Addi infiltrated the bandit encampment through Raiken. In Tazok’s tent he Blinded Venkt and wand-scorchered the opposition before their arrows would breach his defenses.
Drasus & Co This is where I noticed a first bug. I had changed something in my install (can’t really remember what) and now Genthore and generic Iron Throne guards were armorless. I reinstalled SCS and that solved the problem. Clearing the Cloakwood Spiders area saw Addi reach level 9 and gain access to level 5 spells. He only knew two level 5 spells: Cloudkill and Shadow Door. He memorized Cloudkill twice. Addi pre-buffed, triggered the dialogue with Drasus, cast Cloudkill on his foes, retreated, and cast another Cloudkill on the bridge. His foes did not have to fear instant death, but the poison damage of the second Cloudkill did kill Kysus, who is of a higher level than Rezdan (11 vs 9) but with fewer HPs due to lower CON.
Drasus was the only one to keep up with Addi as he retreated. The warrior enraged but that didn’t protect him against Addi’s Blindness. The gnome slew the man with his throwing dagger. A badly injured Rezdan Spooked Addi while Addi Blinded Rezdan. Addi didn’t run into any trouble and finished the enchanter with his throwing dagger.
Davaeorn We resorted to an old habit for this battle: using a scroll of PfMagic. Didn’t like it, but Addi had no MGoI yet, was vulnerable to Davaeorn’s Stinking Clouds and Webs and Remove Magic, and he was not allowed to dodge spells by area transitioning. He killed all the guards, including the Battle Horrors, with his wands, and felled Davaeorn with his returning throwing dagger.
Molkar & Co This party should have tracked tracked us down earlier. We pre-buffed invisibly and dispatched the four with two Cloudkills.
Marek We did the Marek and Lothander quest because of our interest in a tome of understanding. Addi removed Marek’s MGoI with a Spell Thrust,
and Blinded his opponent for easy disposal.
Ramazith Addi and Ramazith battled in the top chamber of the latter’s tower. They were both level 9, and similarly pre-buffed. Addi’s pre-buffs now included Blur and MGoI. When Ramazith started casting an Abjuration spell, we expected a Remove Magic. We used a wand to paralyze our foe before he could finish his casting.
Ice Island Rumor had it that one Dezkiel on a faraway ice island carried a Stoneskin scroll. Addi decided to investigate. He pre-buffed and went invisible, triggered the traps in the corridor that led to the scroll-bearing wizard, and then rested. He pre-buffed again, spoke with Andris, whose Remove Magic scroll was also of interest to us, and saw three Remove Magics strip him of pretty much all his buffs (everything but MSD).
Until Addi gets level 6 spells and until he learns Spell Immunity, his defenses will be lacking. Every self-respecting Mage opens with Remove Magic, and many of them are of higher levels than Addi. Plan B was to rely on invisibility and surprise attacks, almost like a rogue. A Cloudkill killed Marcellus and caused Beyn and Andris to split up. Beyn found us first. Addi paralyzed him but got Horrored in the process. He was fortunate to survive a Winter Wolf’s attacks
and so lived to finish Beyn. Andris was neutralizd by a Greater Malison and a Chaos (from scroll), and done in with wand scorchers. We found Dezkiel in an extra area - added by the Unfinished Business mod - that was inhabited by Winter Wolves and two Snow Golems. Two Cloudkills and ranged attacks with MMMs and throwing daggers sealed his fate.
Iron Throne We started this fight with a Cloudkill as well, and had to quaff an invisibility potion very shortly after that, when Alai or Naaman removed Addi’s buffs.
A second Cloudkill, cast from the corridor leading to Thaldorn, killed Alai, Diyab, and Naaman at different stages, while Aasim took some MMMs.
We never saw the Shennaras, not even after a casting of Detect Invisibility near the stairs, nor did they attack at any moment. (Was this a second bug?) The warriors remained. Addi Blinded Genthore and paralyzed Zhalimar. Remove Magic proved to be an issue again. It might be worth it to enter combat with minimal buffs, have them removed by the enemy, go invisible and buff properly. But this will only work if the enemy has but one casting of Remove Magic.
Prat & Co We first got rid of all the spiders with Cloudkills, rested and then separated Prat and his fellows with another Cloudkill. We confused Bor and Tam with a Chaos and slew them with the wand of fire. Addi waited out Sakul’s and Prat’s buffs. Sakul, at near death status from the Cloudkill, nearly killed Addi when a potion of magic blocking did not block the former’s Magic Missiles.
Surely this must be a bug (bug no. 2). I’m just glad it didn’t prove fatal. Addi finished his foe with his throwing dagger before he could do any more harm. He then tracked down Prat, shrugged off some Magic Missiles thanks to Shield, paralyzed him, and finished him with MMMs.
Slythe & Krystin In the Undercellars Addi used a Nymph’s cloak to convince a harlot to speak to a blurred rogue and see what he was up to. He was up to no good, that much became clear very soon. He slew the harlot, who promptly dropped the Cloak of Balduran. With Krystin it was pretty much the same story with Remove Magic. The Cloak of Balduran’s Magic Resistance bonus did nothing to change that.
Addi retreated into the inn and quaffed an invisibility potion. He kind of rebuffed (Stoneskin, Shield, PfE, MI) and was pleased to see the wand of paralyzation work on both his foes.
Ducal Palace Addi buffed with potions that made him stronger, nimbler and hardier, as well as with his usual buffing spells. As time was clearly not going to be on our side, Addi cast Invisibility on Liia Janneth. Even fully buffed, Addi did not have the muscle to quickly finish off the Doppelgangers. And he had no useful summons. (Wand summons are too weak and susceptible to Horror or worse, Confusion. Summons attacking Belt or the Fist could even have them turn against us. Hasted and Strengthened Skeleton Warriors would have been great, but Addi can’t summon those as an Illusionist). Our strategy was to try and slow the enemy down. Addi paralyzed the Doppelganger Shaman. We had several Greater Malison and Chaos scrolls from the Sorcerous Sundries, and used those. This did sort of work. Some Doppelgangers fought amongst themselves. But they got Belt pretty soon, and more and more Fist mercenaries after that. We also tried a Slow but that didn’t affect any of the Doppelgangers. The Mage predictably removed all our buffs, and an Assassin seemed to have waited for that moment. It delivered a vicious backstab.
Addi went invisible to recover. He confused two Greater Doppelgangers and the Assassin, and they injured each other. One of the Greater Doppelgangers even fell. Addi then managed to Malison and paralyze the Mage but didn’t get the chance to kill it because the Assassin kept pursuing him and saving against everything Addi threw at it. The Mage survived his paralysis, but when it wandered into one of the antechambers Addi paralyzed it again. This time he could kill the creature.
An attempt to confuse the Assassin and a remaining Greater Doppelganger with another Chaos scroll had to be aborted when the Assassin struck again (due in part to unspent MMMs).
With both casters out of the way, using our wand of summoning seemed opportune, and yes, it did help distract the Assassin and the Greater Doppelganger, allowing Addi to finish them. Liia Janneth didn’t move toward Addi but neither did she become visible as she spoke, so hostile Sarevok was no threat. A very close one this battle. Usually I worry about keeping Belt and Janneth safe, but this time it was all about Addi’s safety.
Final battle Fighting Sarevok and his men, plus their animated skeletons all at the same time was a bit much to ask. Diarmid is a major ranged threat. His arrows deal simultaneous poison and acid damage, perfect interrupters. And since he reads a PfMagic scroll, there is very little we can do to him for quite some time. Semaj is a level 12 Mage and Angelo a level 12/12 Fighter/Mage. Both are quite capable of removing our buffs. One of them removing protections and the other dropping a Chaos would be a recipe for disaster. Therefore we took things slowly. We used the wand of monster summoning to make Angelo reveal himself. He occupied himself with the summons and was almost done with them, thanks to an Improved Haste, when Addi Malisoned him. Angelo may be a level 12/12 Fighter/Mage, but Addi is an Illusionist. We successfully Blinded our opponent.
To keep him from going invisible we also tried to paralyze him, and that too we accomplished. One down. Addi read a PfUndead scroll to avoid undead harassment, and went looking for the others invisibly. The cronies always stay close to Sarevok. This made it quite easy for us to Malison them. We first tried to neutralize our foes with Webs and Stinking Clouds. Even Sarevok proved vulnerable.
Diarmid was Addi’s first target but he barely survived the Web / Stinking Cloud combo, and popped three extra healing potions, which was a bit disappointing. Unwilling to let a little setback dishearten us, we proceeded to bombard Sarevok and his clique with Fireballs. This worked very well. We got rid of Sarevok’s three remaining acolytes.
We then tried to slay Sarevok in style, with a Chaos and a Blindness preceded by a Malison,
but Sarevok was somehow unkillable (bug no. 3). Even ctr-y did nothing. Killing the Skeleton Warriors didn’t make him vulnerable either. The battle had been won though, so we paralyzed him, quick-saved, Keepered in a Shapechange Mindflayer innate, and devoured his brain. That ensured a smooth transition right into Siege of Dragonspear, which will be the subject of my next report.
After negotiating the location of the bandit camp with Tarnesh, we did some clean up of evil denizens around Beregost (Silke, Bassilus and vampiric wolves).
The idea was to reach level 7 as soon as possible, so that Oranfal can unleash his full fighting potential (with the extra 1/2 attack) against the bandits.
Therefore, we decided to pay a visit to Mutamin and his basilisk pets. Korax proved to be a valuable ally and invisibility potion provided total protection from their petrifying gaze. Considering Oranfal's alignment, Kirian and her party were spared.
Oranfal then managed to smuggle himself into the bandit camp, wherein he got tested by Tazok early on. After exchanging couple of heavy blows, the half-ogre yielded, leaving Oranfal with enough time to explore the surroundings and prepare his attack. With the Oil of Speed still running, he added a few more buffs (Shield Amulet, Potion of Stone Giant Strength, Greenstone Amulet) and stepped into the main tent. The battle was on!
Potion of Regeneration and Necklace of Missiles were used to guarantee us safe passage. Hakt, Raemon, Britik, Venkt... it took less than one turn to clear the room.
What awaited outside the tent was a crit-only fight with numerous archers that required quick disposal of individual enemies. Taurgosz was a non-issue due to Potion of Absorption. This could work.
Add in a few bit more fireballs to speed up the action...
In between posting on my previous "Icewind Gate 2" run, I've been playing on Legacy of Bhaal mode with Item Revisions and Spell Revisions. It was going well for a while, but I accidentally ran into a lich, and though we stayed out of its way for many rounds, eventually it caught up to us and nuked the party with magic damage. Instant death--Mirror Image has no chance of blocking spell damage in SR.
I kept going for a little while, hoping to finish it as a minimal reload run, but the pace has just gotten so incredibly slow. I ended up defeating the Yuan-ti Mages in Mekrath's lair by hiding in a separate room and wearing them down with summons. The fight lasted so long that even SR's extra-long buffing spells ran out--it was at least 60 rounds. I'm still only halfway to epic levels, and I have trouble imagining how I'm going to operate without relying so heavily on summons.
My Totemic Druid has been carrying the party this whole time. SR elementals and Spirit Animals get the vast majority of the party's kills. They're just plain better than my Dwarven Defender (never thought I'd use that class) or my Fighter/Mage/Cleric. My party spends most of its time hanging back, trying to avoid getting killed.
And even when we do hit epic levels, I know that our summons are still going to be the heart of the party.
I don't want to play that way. I don't mind if my Shadowdancer/Mage Charname spends her time watching from the shadows, but when the whole party is just playing a support role to nameless summons, it feels very unsatisfying.
I considered going with @Lord_Tansheron's advice and building a fighter-heavy party with one or two Archers, but it seems too alien to my magic-heavy playstyle. Problem is, if your party doesn't have high damage output or the resilience to stand up to enemy fire, using summons is basically the only alternative for LoB mode. With the enemy's massive HP, backstabbing is no longer a one-shot or two-shot kill, and with the enemy's +5 bonus to saves, disablers are even less reliable in a no-reload context.
I did consider some wacky alternatives, like using one or two Archers or Archer/Mages using the IR-nerfed Wand of Lightning or the quick save trick (saving and reloading refreshes your aura) to stack Called Shot and get STR drain kills on problem enemies. I even had a risky strategy for taking down Ascension Melissan:
1. Lure Melissan onto one of the side platforms, since the main platform has no fog of war. 2. Activate Smite and pin Melissan down. 3. Hurry away until Melissan is out of sight. 4. Activate Called Shot, then save. 5. Reload and use Called Shot once more. 6. Repeat 4 and 5 several times. 7. Reload and activate Critical Strike, then save. 8. Reload and activate Greater Whirlwind Attack. 9. Run back and attack Melissan, draining her STR to 0 in less than a round.
A level 28 Archer could drain over 70 STR that way. But that sounded kind of risky, and I didn't want to use an Archer/Mage (who could have drained over 120 STR using the WoL and Improved Alacrity), so I stuck with a more orthodox party: Dwarven Defender, FMC, Sorcerer, Shadowdancer/Mage, Totemic Druid, and a Seducer.
Completing the run doesn't seem as bright as it used to, even if we only suffered one measly reload. I'm not sure what I should do next.
And even when we do hit epic levels, I know that our summons are still going to be the heart of the party.
I don't want to play that way. I don't mind if my Shadowdancer/Mage Charname spends her time watching from the shadows, but when the whole party is just playing a support role to nameless summons, it feels very unsatisfying.
I considered going with @Lord_Tansheron's advice and building a fighter-heavy party with one or two Archers, but it seems too alien to my magic-heavy playstyle. Problem is, if your party doesn't have high damage output or the resilience to stand up to enemy fire, using summons is basically the only alternative for LoB mode. With the enemy's massive HP, backstabbing is no longer a one-shot or two-shot kill, and with the enemy's +5 bonus to saves, disablers are even less reliable in a no-reload context.
I haven't got far enough using LoB in BG2 to assess it properly, but I'm surprised that you don't seem to be trying to use disablers. I agree summons are even better in LoB than the regular game, but disablers certainly still work in LoB in BG1 and I don't see why that should change in SoA at least in vanilla.
Does spell revisions change the ability to use disablers from out of sight to make attempts safe in a no-reload context? For instance in vanilla malison + chaos give the opponents -8 to their spell save - even with the LoB bonus that will have a decent chance against most enemies. For the really tough ones you can add in doom and called shot if necessary.
Comments
Yeah, it deals crushing damage. I guess because nothing is immune to it? Maybe I should have left it with default behaviour instead, but this way I can't be tempted to kill dragons with their 400ish+ HP in a single spell. On the other hand, if some random cleric or druid decides to Harm anyone but Mazzy with Belt of Fortitude active, the results won't be pretty... it'd be an insta-chunk and me raving at the screen. I tried talking to him, but the only options are to recruit him again or leave him stranded. Rather strange, since you can (obviously) ask Imoen to make it out on her own.
Improved Multi-Player Kick-out Dialogues (Weimer)
This allows you to ask multi-player created NPCs to "wait here" or, if accessible, to go to the Copper Coronet (in SoA) or Pocket Plane (in ToB). For Tutu, BGEE, or the Baldur's Gate portion of BGT, the option to go to the Friendly Arm Inn is available. Without this they just disappear forever if you kick them out.http://gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/
We've killed Imoen, Xzar and Montaron (to get their stuff).
We need lots of experience. So we went and wiped out Shoal with range attacks (we had surrounded her first). No interesting surges yet, but we haven't cast many spells just yet. No levels from that either. Once we get 2nd level mage spells, will probably head to basilisks area to speed up our levels (we could use things like stinking cloud/web on Kirian's group once that was the case).
Will keep at it.
Corsen the Human Berserker (protagonist, controlled by Corey_Russell)
Gremlin the Bounty Hunter (controlled by Grond0)
Vorgan the Inquisitor (controlled by Gate70)
Trio was delayed due to a power outage in England. But after an hour, the Trio got under way after all.
We made some good progress, though not without the odd death. We made significant progress on the main quest (got to Candlekeep at end of session).
Dopplegangers could do nothing against this team (Seven Suns). When practical/needed, Gremlin has been putting traps/snares everywhere, which does make things quite easy. If opponents can confuse, then Corsen leads the way while being enraged. If the odd dispel is needed then Vorgan gets called into action.
For the Iron Throne 5th floor, our characters just didn't need anything from the enemies. Therefore, Gremlin sneaked his way to Thaldorn to talk to him, and thus fulfill the requirement of Duke Eltan.
We did have an issue when venturing into the sewers. The party did great to defeat the ogre mage and his pets. The left passage was duly looted. Since his enrage was still active, Corsen had a great idea to kill the carrion crawlers in the north passage. Unfortunately, Gremlin didn't follow the leader and thus was really, really close to the six carrion crawlers that then spawned where the Ogre Mage was - but Grond0 swears on his screen he was no where near them - but on Corey_Russell's screen he was (and Corey_Russell is the host). Gremlin's gnome saves did not save him. We were paused for a long while - Corsen was too far away (and his enrage wore off and was thus fatigued and couldn't enrage yet again). Vorgan had free action so he could dive in (which he did). Vorgan tried a dispel magic, but that did not get rid of the hold, though Gremlin did get hit by the dispel - probably the hold effect is not considered magic. Thus, Gremlin falls. Corsen range attacks and Vorgan leads the way in avenging our group mate.
We go to a temple to bring back Gremlin, Gremlin pays our hard earned gold to heal himself (why not, he saves us money by rarely using blue potions anyways). Then he goes back and loots his stuff.
Most of the other quests were pretty straight forward. We did have one problem though - after killing Jalantha Corey_Russell's game crashed - so we had to kill the priests of Umberlee again.
We battled Lothandar and Gremlin was pretty sneaky - he got real close to Lothander and Lothander got "caught" on him and couldn't move - this allowed an easy kill and thus two haste boots total for the group.
We have just entered the Keep of Candlekeep and will continue here next session.
Regards,
B.
Talanis
Priestess of Tyr"Hold, bandits!" An armored knight stepped out of the shadows and into the center of the road, brandishing a battered-looking sword.
"We're no bandits," Talanis called back over the edge of her shield. "Put your sword down."
"Prove it."
"I am a priestess of Tyr. I serve justice and truth and goodness. Put your sword down and you'll have nothing to fear from me."
"Truly?" The knight relaxed, sheathing his sword. "I am Ajantis Ilvastarr, Paladin of Helm."
"Talanis. And this is my companion, Imoen."
"Well met. So what brings you out on the road at this dark hour?"
"Fleeing assassins, to tell you the truth."
"By Helm! Assassins? Who dares hunt a member of your most holy order? And why?!"
"I don't really know. I was cast out of my home ... and attacked repeatedly. In my bedroom. Outside Candlekeep. At the Friendly Arm Inn. Nothing makes any sense. I just need to find a place to hide for a while, and some time to figure out what is going on. We're headed to the Gate."
"Allow me to escort you, my Lady. I'll show any assassins the sharp side of my blade."
Imoen raised an eyebrow and whispered to Talanis, "Why not? He seems like a lunkhead, but if he wants to follow us around, it might actually help."
Talanis nodded. "Until we are settled in the Gate, we accept. Thank you, Ajantis."
"An honor to serve, my lady of Tyr. Until you are settled."
Journal of Sneaky Blueskin
I headed south to the mines where I was ambushed by Zargos Flintblade. He shouldn’t have tried that single-handed!Journal of Sneaky Blueskin
In transit I killed a mustard jelly.I then looked for Gurke’s cloak and found it.
I was unwise and fought one of the battle horrors, only just surviving despite using a number of healing potions.
Eager to play SoD and BG2EE, and therefore a bit impatient with a full party run through BG1 I’ve decided to go back to my core business: solo play, at least for BG1. I enjoyed my solo attempts last year I think it was, with single-class specialist mages, so I’m going back to that.
For my style of play the best solo specialist mages are probably Invokers, Illusionists, and Diviners. Enchanters only with the SCS component that lets them learn sequencers, triggers, and contingencies (as in my install). I know most people don’t like Diviners much, but the best summons aren’t Conjuration spells (Skeleton Warriors, Mordy Swords, Planetars), and there are fine alternatives to the school’s few damage and armor spells. It’s only the PW spells that, depending on one’s play style, may be missed. Their counterparts, Conjurers, are fine too, but I think I’d miss detection spells more than PW spells. Abjurers, Necromancers and especially Transmuters give up very good defensive spells. I believe they will have a significantly harder time.
Charname is a TN Illusionist named Addi, which means something like ‘the sharp one’ in Gnomish. He does keep his daggers sharp indeed, and he tries to do the same with his mind. Meet Addi:
Addi’s true neutrality gives him a trap disarming rabbit familiar, and his specialization school is the school I’m most familiar with thanks to my love for Gnome multis. I know I’ll miss Skeleton Warriors in SoA and I hope spells like Comet and Dragon’s Breath are reasonably effective alternatives to ADHW even though their damage type is different.
Mod install is basically a full SCS/Ascension install with the exception of item modifications (no non-magical, fine weapons instead of +1, no moving of SoA items into ToB, etc), and with the exception of SCS scripts for the final Ascension battle. Those scripts wouldn’t install. I’m unlikely to get that far but should I defy all odds, I could always use my save game in a non-EET install to play the Ascension final battle with SCS scripts.
I’m aware I’ll probably need companions in SoD as I still don’t know that part of the game. (Unfortunately my save of Owanna, shapeshifting Cleric/Illusionist was lost when I installed EET. Beh
1st BG1 report
The early game is the same for my solo characters regardless of their class: fetching things for easy XP, avoiding ranged enemies, kiting melee enemies, and if you’re a squishy character, hoping you are spared or survive any ambushes. Addi reached level 3 this way. He made sure he got the hidden rings (protection +1, wizardry), and the girdle of piercing, which I consider a key item for the early game because of possible bandit ambushes.
He helped Tenya and Melicamp, and slew Shoal for level 4. Tenya is a bit of a risk at low levels. Bandit ambushes are common north of the FAI, and Tenya herself likes to cast Hold Person. This time she actually hit Addi once after she Commanded him, but he managed to injure her with his throwing daggers shortly after that. Melicamp is tricky for solo Mages, especially once they have a couple of levels under their belt, because Skeletons in the High Hedge area then start hanging around in groups rather than alone it seems. Addi Blinded both the wolf and a single skeleton he ran into, taking them down with his throwing daggers. Blindness is a great spell, especially when it’s an Illusionist casting it. We were lucky to see Thalantyr succeed at restoring Melicamp.
With only a slightly above average reputation, Addi was reluctant to start spending, but he did buy an Invisibility scroll and scribed it without drinking any INT boosters (which I normally don't do).
At the FAI we took a bit of a risk with a Blindness cast at Tarnesh from the edge of his line sight. Addi would have had to retreat into Gellana’s temple and maybe go invisible if Tarnesh were to save, but the bounty hunter didn’t and was thus doomed.
To boost his reputation, Addi dealt with Charleston Nib’s diggers (lot of kiting without Sleep), Brage, Drienne, Greywolf (also prolonged kiting), Brun (using Invisibility in the Ankheg nest), and Samuel. He then bought pretty much all the scrolls he could scribe, including the ones sold in Ulgoth’s Beard, and drank two potions from Gellana to copy them into his spellbook.
Addi slew Meilum with the wand of fire because Blinding him would have caused the swordsman to wander and possibly alert Kobold Commandos or Skeleton archers. The bonuses of the Legacy of the Masters gauntlets combined with Addi’s damage bonus for his 16 STR help with his ranged attacks.
We further improved Addi’s ranged firepower by doing something that solo purists will object to: we recruited Kivan. We traveled to the North Coast, and had the Elf’s presence trigger a minor quest from the BG1 NPC Project mod. Kivan and Addi agreed to protect Jozzi the Seasnake against three Sahuagin. The Sahuagin stunned Kivan with a paralytic bolt, but the Seasnake and another Elf managed to defeat the Sahuagin. Addi helped out with castings of Blindness. The reward was a +2 returning throwing dagger. It’s a powerful weapon and it helps with inventory management. The vanilla game doesn’t offer any enchanted or returning throwing daggers, unlike other weapons, so I considered this ok. We used the dagger to cheesily slay the Flesh Golems in Alaric’s cave, positioning invisible Rabbit on the narrow strip next to the southwest border of the pool so that it would keep the Golems from reaching Addi.
Drienne’s PfUndead scroll made the Valley of the Tombs a source of easy XP and cheap goodies. We stayed away from Narcillicus for the time being. Back in Nashkel Addi killed the Amazing Oopah to reach level 6, where Staves became his second weapon proficiency. We celebrated the achievement by buying the Robe of the Neutral Archmagi.
Addi looted two Xvart caves, and Blinded then killed Neville for his Dispel Magic scroll. We cleared Mutamin’s garden without difficulty thanks to Korax’ paralyzing attack on Mutamin made from invisibility. This was more than enough for Addi to reach level 7, especially now that both Greater Basilisks yield 7k XP each (in previous versions of the game one of them was worth only 4k XP). Korax failed to do much against Kirian and Co, but we were lucky to encounter the female wandering toward us alone. There was a real threat when she cast Horror at Addi. The Gnome’s aura was turbid from a Blindness that Kirian had saved against, and was just in time to quaff an invisibility potion before he actually made his save.
Level 8 followed soon, courtesy of Durlag’s Tower’s Battle Horrors (wand scorchers) and Basilisks (Blindness & ranged attacks). While there, Addi also secured a tome of understanding.
At level 8, with some wands (fire, frost, monster summoning, paralyzation) and a pretty good spellbook at his disposal, Addi was finally ready to fight some of the more interesting enemies in BG1, and to fight them fairly.
Journal of Sneaky Blueskin
I fought Teyngan and killed his party successfully before raiding the xvart village.Talanis
Priestess of Tyr"My Lady, the way to the Gate is closed," said Ajantis. "We must go South."
"What?" said Talanis. "Since when is Baldur's Gate not accepting visitors?"
"Since the Fist went South. The bandit plague has worsened. Despite the many I have slain, I have not found their leaders. Join me in hunting them down and we'll open the way to the Gate for you. And save this land from its troubles, as our gods would wish us to do."
"I have no love for bandits, but if I fall to an assassin's knife, I'll be of no service to justice, or to Tyr."
"With my blade by your side, My Lady, no harm shall come to you."
Imoen snickered, then covered her mouth with her hands. "Lunkhead," she whispered.
Talanis sighed. "Very well, Ajantis. South. But we travel cautiously, in the woods, not on the roads. We keep watch at night. We pray for safety and shelter. We flee if we encounter any dangerous foes."
"As you wish, my Lady."
Prit, half-elf cleric/ranger (Grond0) & Gorn, elf stalker (Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/825770/#Comment_825770
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/826405/#Comment_826405
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/827797/#Comment_827797
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/830371/#Comment_830371
We had time for a decent session today and were looking forward to making considerable progress in BG2 - which I suppose in one way we did ...
After upgrading the Mace of Disruption we agreed the next equipment upgrade on the agenda would be the Ring of Gaxx. As usual we decided to make sure access to all the tombs was pre-prepared so that we could whizz round the liches at the cost of a single PfU scroll each. Prit used Righteous Magic / DUHM to bash open the door to Kangaxx's tomb and the hiding place of the City Gates lich. Then it was off to the Bridge District where Prit
carefully buffed up andopened the door with the petrification trap.Before anyone sniggers too hard I'd like to point out that I was distracted by real life events at the time. I absolutely and definitively refute any suggestion that I could possibly have made that type of mistake without such a distraction
Calis, dwarf fighter (Grond0) & Juto, dwarf barbarian (Gate70)
As always you can find a silver lining if you look hard enough. In our case the early termination of our previous run left plenty of time to make inroads with a new random selection of classes - in this case the fighter and barbarian should be a good match and capable of making rapid progress.
The dwarves made the usual fast start courtesy of Shoal before passing through Beregost and down to Nashkel where Calis picked up some green armour. There was a bit of a hiccup next though when Juto got seduced by his maximum HP roll into standing and fighting against Meilum.
Next there was a trip to the basilisk area. That nearly ended in tears again when Juto ran on ahead of Calis (the latter protected by green scroll) and approached a basilisk. Fortunately the monster appeared to be in the mood for melee and didn't bother gazing as Juto put the brakes on and performed a hand-brake turn to get out of sight again. The remaining basilisks soon died and Juto used his rage to nullify Mutamin's horror spell. To play safe Korax was recruited to sort out Kirian's party.
After doing a tour of the realms to push reputation up, that was maximised by chopping down all the inhabitants of an ankheg nest and a bit of shopping was done at Ulgoth's Beard.
Moving on to the Nashkel Mine Juto decided his idea of a fair fight was him raging against Mulahey while Calis ensured no-one interfered.
At the Bandit Camp Taurgosz was persuaded to hand over an armour upgrade to Calis
In the Cloakwood there was a momentary concern when Juto ran through a web trap while Calis was attacking the final one of the group of ettercaps - fortunately though the ettercap died as the web was spinning into place.
At the Cloakwood Mine a couple of potions of explosion were thrown as a housewarming gift - killing one of the mages. The other managed to go invisible, but died in the act of trying a follow-up spell
Calis, fighter 7, 81 HPs, 114 kills
Juto, barbarian 7, 103 HPs, 145 kills, 1 death
Juto has impressively got his century of HPs while only at level 7! He's used his barbarian speed advantage to rack up plenty of kills, though Calis is now wearing Boots of Speed which should allow him to compete better next time.
The screenshots don't show Juto's portrait as we didn't bother restarting after Gate70 sent me a new one. However, here are record screens for the pair (Juto looking a mite fresh-faced for a charisma 1 dwarf?):
Most no-reload runs, and the associated narratives listed herein by hundreds of no-reloaders, are tributes to his prime maxim:
"Murder Your Darlings."
Previous update found here
Next update found here
Onward we press, into the depths of the Spellhold maze.
I have, as always, forgotten that there are a few trolls down here, but with Mazzy wielding the Frostreaver, it's no issue. We carve a path through the purely melee beasts in our way, and pick up the three paintings from the statues. I always forget what they do, so this time I wrote it down: The leftmost one casts Disintegrate (easily countered with Minor Spell Deflection), the middle one casts Incendiary Cloud, and the third one casts Fireball. Unfortunately I forgot to pack any anti-fire spells, but Imoen uses a scroll of Minor Spell Deflection to survive the Disintegrate, and actually makes her save against both fire spells. Good!
We double back and clear the Yuan-Ti out of the room with the painted doors. Here I actually get confirmation that SCS AI goes out of its way to interrupt casters: Even though it was previously attacking Imoen with its MMM's, the Yuan-Ti Mage switches to Jaheira as soon as the latter tries to cast Invisibility Purge. Not that it changed the outcome, but still very irritating.
We clear the Ulitharid, Troll and Noble Djinni in that order. Well-prepared as we are, a couple Chaotic Commands on Mazzy and Minsc nullify the Ulitharid, which only manages to land a single hit on Minsc a mere second before it expires from too much axe to the head. The troll likewise isn't much of a problem, mainly as it has a very difficult time landing hits on Mazzy. The Noble Djinni takes the longest, as he turns to mist and regenerates twice... and in the end, all he gives up is a Tchazzar gem. Pfeh.
More melee opponents... the bigger and badder Umber Hulk falls, as do the three Clay Golems guarding the Gesen Bow String, though they do deal a fair bit of damage to Mazzy. Amazingly I have actually come prepared even for this: A Remove Curse from Anomen clears up the Cursed Wounds on Mazzy, and she rapidly regenerates the damage suffered.
Fast-forward a few easy encounters (nothing worse than a Gauth and some Minotaur bodyguards), and it's time for Irenicus. Normally I don't overdo it on buffs, but as this is one of a few do-or-die fights (literally: We can't run away if things go badly), I decide to be prudent. Everyone gets a Death Ward, everyone (except Minsc, owing to Lilarcor) gets a Chaotic Commands, made possible thanks to Wondrous Recall.
Aldain and Imoen load up on what spell protections they can memorize, and the rest of my slots goes to a mix of a few summons, elemental protection spells, Remove Paralysis/Zone of Sweet Air/True Sight/Invisibility Purge, and the mages spend what they have left on offensive stuff (mainly Magic Missile, Chaos and in Imoen's case, Chain Lightning) and spell protection removals/breach, which of course turns out to be completely useless as SCS Irenicus casts SI: Abjuration.
After quite a bit of pre-emptive buffing, we head upstairs and talk to Lonk. I opt to bribe him with 2000 gold: I want to be fully buffed when facing Irenicus, and really don't want to waste any spells on a henchman.
We are teleported down to Irenicus by Wanev, and the fight starts.
We immediately retreat towards the corner of the room to dispose of our doubles. Mirror Aldain is smart enough to cast PfMW, but an Arrow of Biting from Imoen sees him permanently disrupted until he goes down to non-magical weapons. Meanwhile, mirror Jaheira, Imoen and Anomen are easily kept disrupted, while our own Mazzy tanks her duplicate and mirror Minsc. Aldain tosses out a Slow to make things even easier.
Here I thought things would actually go smoothly, for once. Having none of that, Dradeel decides to cast Summon Fiend literally on top of us. As we don't have PfE (and I doubt it would help here either as SCS changes summoned demon behaviour) the Glabrezu of course attacks us instantly. Cue a long, desperate fight to kill it before it chunks Mazzy. It's very magic resistant, and recasts Mirror Image (and I think even Remove Magic... I lost a lot of buffs here, with disastrous consequences presently) every few rounds.
Thankfully, idiot Dradeel and his friends are keeping Irenicus busy, and Jaheira got off an Insect Plague at him. We are slowly grinding the demon down, but literally a moment before we finish it, Irenicus fires his clever (I guess..) spelltrigger of 3x Flesh to Stone at Mazzy, who fails her very first save and, well.
Afraid that Irenicus is going to drop a Fireball or something at us out of spite (and thus shatter Mazzy), I have Minsc immediately use his Ring of Earth Control to un-petrify her. This was apparently not advisable. Mazzy turns back to flesh, is still neutral, but for whatever reason runs after Irenicus and attacks him.
Irenicus casts his force-scripted True Sight, killing all the inmates, gives his indignant villain speech, and buggers off. However, for whatever absurd reason, I can't talk to Mazzy. She's not silenced, not blinded or anything (I even cast Cure Disease on her), but whenever I try to talk to her, nothing happens.
I tried just saving and reloading, but to no avail. So, I CTRL-Q'd her back into the party, which seems to have worked. Cheating, maybe but this was a pretty blatant bug the way I see it. She survived the fight, after all. I just hope this doesn't mess with her variables or anything, I quite like her interjections.
After recovering Mazzy thusly, we head outside and take Saemon up on his offer (making sure to head back into the Asylum briefly to loot Irenicus' office). Somewhat the worse for wear, the party is still in shape to handle the pitiful Mists of various shapes and sizes (Anomen Turns most of them into smithereens) found out here, and make it back to Brynnlaw. Our final good deed this time around is freeing... the girl whose name I can't remember who's forced into prostitution, and her brother. Sure left an imprint on us, that quest.
Oh! I also remembered that there's a host of pirates with the ever-present Mage that spawn right next to Calahan when you return to Brynnlaw, so for once we didn't walk straight into that ambush. A double Chaos destroys them utterly, our last two Skeleton Warriors serving as ample distraction while the spells are being cast.
Following this, we sell off everything we gathered in Spellhold (we are now at over 50000 gold, nice!) and head to the Vulgar Monkey to fortify our flailing spirits with much mead and rum. Here we leave our party for now, battered, bruised and tired, but finally complete.
Aldain is now a level 13 Human Conjurer.
I did get a lower level Irenicus, it seems. His protections were rather modest: Standard melee neutralizers (Stoneskin, Improved Mantle, Fireshield: Red, Improved Invisibility) along with Spell Turning and SI: Abjuration. I don't think he put up Spell Shield, but I'm not certain... it would certainly be in character for SCS to have him use that.
He also pulled his punches a bit with his spell slots. The worst he did was a Time Stop, during which he just kind of roamed around and (to little effect) tried to kill off the crazies. I don't even think he tossed an ADHW at me... for which I am infinitely grateful, as it would've been a death sentence for Aldain had he failed the save.
We're still kind of low level, but we're getting there. It's unlikely we'll see 7th level Mage spells before we get out of the Underdark, however. 7th level Cleric spells (due to Anomen) are a possibility, but we'll only get 1 of those to play with. I'm contemplating Gate, for the sheer payback in sending a frenzied demon at SCS casters for a change (it's usually the other way around).
In my last post I gave an account of Addi’s rise to level 8. This involved quite a bit of XP farming, but it got Addi the spell slots (and the spells) desired to deal with enemies in a fun and fair way. By fun and fair I mean engaging enemies openly, relying on spells (and not just wands), no attacking of blue-circled enemies, no transitioning to escape spell effects, no abuse of AI limitations.
It has taken me a couple of years but I’ve grown comfortable with pre-buffing, at least in an install that has the enemy do it as well. Addi’s standard pre-buffs at this point were Shield, Ghost Armor, MSD, PfE, MI, and II. I’ll discuss the most challenging encounters in chronological order.
Bassilus
We thought that victory was at hand when Addi Malisoned and Blinded Bassilus, but the priest cast Heal to get his sight back. I liked that, and it didn’t really perturb Addi. Thanks to his pre-buffs he could not be Held and he’d be immune to Flamestrike, so he had some room to experiment. Bassilus saved against a Polymorph Other but was left defenseless when he suffered another Blindness.
Mulahey
This priest too, was Blinded.
Nimbul
Nimbul was tricky due to his II, which made him untargetable for single target spells. Addi Malisoned him and paralyzed him with his wand.
Tranzig, Silke
Both failed to cope with Addi’s Malisons and Blindnesses.
Lamalha & Co
Addi was invisible when the ladies waylaid him. He pre-buffed in a corner of the area, and he Malisoned the two rogues and Zeela, one of the priestesses. An Emotion: Hopelessness lulled the latter into a nightmarish sleep. He slew her and the two rogues through a combination of wand scorchers and ranged attacks with his throwing dagger.
Bandit Camp
Addi infiltrated the bandit encampment through Raiken. In Tazok’s tent he Blinded Venkt and wand-scorchered the opposition before their arrows would breach his defenses.
Drasus & Co
This is where I noticed a first bug. I had changed something in my install (can’t really remember what) and now Genthore and generic Iron Throne guards were armorless. I reinstalled SCS and that solved the problem.
Clearing the Cloakwood Spiders area saw Addi reach level 9 and gain access to level 5 spells. He only knew two level 5 spells: Cloudkill and Shadow Door. He memorized Cloudkill twice.
Addi pre-buffed, triggered the dialogue with Drasus, cast Cloudkill on his foes, retreated, and cast another Cloudkill on the bridge. His foes did not have to fear instant death, but the poison damage of the second Cloudkill did kill Kysus, who is of a higher level than Rezdan (11 vs 9) but with fewer HPs due to lower CON.
Davaeorn
We resorted to an old habit for this battle: using a scroll of PfMagic. Didn’t like it, but Addi had no MGoI yet, was vulnerable to Davaeorn’s Stinking Clouds and Webs and Remove Magic, and he was not allowed to dodge spells by area transitioning. He killed all the guards, including the Battle Horrors, with his wands, and felled Davaeorn with his returning throwing dagger.
Molkar & Co
This party should have tracked tracked us down earlier. We pre-buffed invisibly and dispatched the four with two Cloudkills.
Marek
We did the Marek and Lothander quest because of our interest in a tome of understanding. Addi removed Marek’s MGoI with a Spell Thrust,
Ramazith
Addi and Ramazith battled in the top chamber of the latter’s tower. They were both level 9, and similarly pre-buffed. Addi’s pre-buffs now included Blur and MGoI. When Ramazith started casting an Abjuration spell, we expected a Remove Magic. We used a wand to paralyze our foe before he could finish his casting.
Ice Island
Rumor had it that one Dezkiel on a faraway ice island carried a Stoneskin scroll. Addi decided to investigate. He pre-buffed and went invisible, triggered the traps in the corridor that led to the scroll-bearing wizard, and then rested.
He pre-buffed again, spoke with Andris, whose Remove Magic scroll was also of interest to us, and saw three Remove Magics strip him of pretty much all his buffs (everything but MSD).
Plan B was to rely on invisibility and surprise attacks, almost like a rogue. A Cloudkill killed Marcellus and caused Beyn and Andris to split up. Beyn found us first. Addi paralyzed him but got Horrored in the process. He was fortunate to survive a Winter Wolf’s attacks
We found Dezkiel in an extra area - added by the Unfinished Business mod - that was inhabited by Winter Wolves and two Snow Golems. Two Cloudkills and ranged attacks with MMMs and throwing daggers sealed his fate.
Iron Throne
We started this fight with a Cloudkill as well, and had to quaff an invisibility potion very shortly after that, when Alai or Naaman removed Addi’s buffs.
The warriors remained. Addi Blinded Genthore and paralyzed Zhalimar.
Remove Magic proved to be an issue again. It might be worth it to enter combat with minimal buffs, have them removed by the enemy, go invisible and buff properly. But this will only work if the enemy has but one casting of Remove Magic.
Prat & Co
We first got rid of all the spiders with Cloudkills, rested and then separated Prat and his fellows with another Cloudkill. We confused Bor and Tam with a Chaos and slew them with the wand of fire.
Addi waited out Sakul’s and Prat’s buffs. Sakul, at near death status from the Cloudkill, nearly killed Addi when a potion of magic blocking did not block the former’s Magic Missiles.
Slythe & Krystin
In the Undercellars Addi used a Nymph’s cloak to convince a harlot to speak to a blurred rogue and see what he was up to. He was up to no good, that much became clear very soon. He slew the harlot, who promptly dropped the Cloak of Balduran. With Krystin it was pretty much the same story with Remove Magic. The Cloak of Balduran’s Magic Resistance bonus did nothing to change that.
Ducal Palace
Addi buffed with potions that made him stronger, nimbler and hardier, as well as with his usual buffing spells. As time was clearly not going to be on our side, Addi cast Invisibility on Liia Janneth. Even fully buffed, Addi did not have the muscle to quickly finish off the Doppelgangers. And he had no useful summons. (Wand summons are too weak and susceptible to Horror or worse, Confusion. Summons attacking Belt or the Fist could even have them turn against us. Hasted and Strengthened Skeleton Warriors would have been great, but Addi can’t summon those as an Illusionist).
Our strategy was to try and slow the enemy down. Addi paralyzed the Doppelganger Shaman. We had several Greater Malison and Chaos scrolls from the Sorcerous Sundries, and used those. This did sort of work. Some Doppelgangers fought amongst themselves. But they got Belt pretty soon, and more and more Fist mercenaries after that. We also tried a Slow but that didn’t affect any of the Doppelgangers.
The Mage predictably removed all our buffs, and an Assassin seemed to have waited for that moment. It delivered a vicious backstab.
A very close one this battle. Usually I worry about keeping Belt and Janneth safe, but this time it was all about Addi’s safety.
Final battle
Fighting Sarevok and his men, plus their animated skeletons all at the same time was a bit much to ask. Diarmid is a major ranged threat. His arrows deal simultaneous poison and acid damage, perfect interrupters. And since he reads a PfMagic scroll, there is very little we can do to him for quite some time. Semaj is a level 12 Mage and Angelo a level 12/12 Fighter/Mage. Both are quite capable of removing our buffs. One of them removing protections and the other dropping a Chaos would be a recipe for disaster.
Therefore we took things slowly. We used the wand of monster summoning to make Angelo reveal himself. He occupied himself with the summons and was almost done with them, thanks to an Improved Haste, when Addi Malisoned him. Angelo may be a level 12/12 Fighter/Mage, but Addi is an Illusionist. We successfully Blinded our opponent.
Addi read a PfUndead scroll to avoid undead harassment, and went looking for the others invisibly. The cronies always stay close to Sarevok. This made it quite easy for us to Malison them. We first tried to neutralize our foes with Webs and Stinking Clouds. Even Sarevok proved vulnerable.
1st entry: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/828724/#Comment_828724
2nd entry: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/829521/#Comment_829521
The idea was to reach level 7 as soon as possible, so that Oranfal can unleash his full fighting potential (with the extra 1/2 attack) against the bandits.
Therefore, we decided to pay a visit to Mutamin and his basilisk pets. Korax proved to be a valuable ally and invisibility potion provided total protection from their petrifying gaze. Considering Oranfal's alignment, Kirian and her party were spared.
Oranfal then managed to smuggle himself into the bandit camp, wherein he got tested by Tazok early on. After exchanging couple of heavy blows, the half-ogre yielded, leaving Oranfal with enough time to explore the surroundings and prepare his attack. With the Oil of Speed still running, he added a few more buffs (Shield Amulet, Potion of Stone Giant Strength, Greenstone Amulet) and stepped into the main tent. The battle was on!
Potion of Regeneration and Necklace of Missiles were used to guarantee us safe passage. Hakt, Raemon, Britik, Venkt... it took less than one turn to clear the room.
What awaited outside the tent was a crit-only fight with numerous archers that required quick disposal of individual enemies. Taurgosz was a non-issue due to Potion of Absorption. This could work.
Add in a few bit more fireballs to speed up the action...
...and it could be over in no-time.
Next time: Cloakwook Forest.
Regards,
B.
In between posting on my previous "Icewind Gate 2" run, I've been playing on Legacy of Bhaal mode with Item Revisions and Spell Revisions. It was going well for a while, but I accidentally ran into a lich, and though we stayed out of its way for many rounds, eventually it caught up to us and nuked the party with magic damage. Instant death--Mirror Image has no chance of blocking spell damage in SR.
I kept going for a little while, hoping to finish it as a minimal reload run, but the pace has just gotten so incredibly slow. I ended up defeating the Yuan-ti Mages in Mekrath's lair by hiding in a separate room and wearing them down with summons. The fight lasted so long that even SR's extra-long buffing spells ran out--it was at least 60 rounds. I'm still only halfway to epic levels, and I have trouble imagining how I'm going to operate without relying so heavily on summons.
My Totemic Druid has been carrying the party this whole time. SR elementals and Spirit Animals get the vast majority of the party's kills. They're just plain better than my Dwarven Defender (never thought I'd use that class) or my Fighter/Mage/Cleric. My party spends most of its time hanging back, trying to avoid getting killed.
And even when we do hit epic levels, I know that our summons are still going to be the heart of the party.
I don't want to play that way. I don't mind if my Shadowdancer/Mage Charname spends her time watching from the shadows, but when the whole party is just playing a support role to nameless summons, it feels very unsatisfying.
I considered going with @Lord_Tansheron's advice and building a fighter-heavy party with one or two Archers, but it seems too alien to my magic-heavy playstyle. Problem is, if your party doesn't have high damage output or the resilience to stand up to enemy fire, using summons is basically the only alternative for LoB mode. With the enemy's massive HP, backstabbing is no longer a one-shot or two-shot kill, and with the enemy's +5 bonus to saves, disablers are even less reliable in a no-reload context.
I did consider some wacky alternatives, like using one or two Archers or Archer/Mages using the IR-nerfed Wand of Lightning or the quick save trick (saving and reloading refreshes your aura) to stack Called Shot and get STR drain kills on problem enemies. I even had a risky strategy for taking down Ascension Melissan:
1. Lure Melissan onto one of the side platforms, since the main platform has no fog of war.
2. Activate Smite and pin Melissan down.
3. Hurry away until Melissan is out of sight.
4. Activate Called Shot, then save.
5. Reload and use Called Shot once more.
6. Repeat 4 and 5 several times.
7. Reload and activate Critical Strike, then save.
8. Reload and activate Greater Whirlwind Attack.
9. Run back and attack Melissan, draining her STR to 0 in less than a round.
A level 28 Archer could drain over 70 STR that way. But that sounded kind of risky, and I didn't want to use an Archer/Mage (who could have drained over 120 STR using the WoL and Improved Alacrity), so I stuck with a more orthodox party: Dwarven Defender, FMC, Sorcerer, Shadowdancer/Mage, Totemic Druid, and a Seducer.
Completing the run doesn't seem as bright as it used to, even if we only suffered one measly reload. I'm not sure what I should do next.
Does spell revisions change the ability to use disablers from out of sight to make attempts safe in a no-reload context? For instance in vanilla malison + chaos give the opponents -8 to their spell save - even with the LoB bonus that will have a decent chance against most enemies. For the really tough ones you can add in doom and called shot if necessary.