@Grond0: Spell Revisions actually strengthens some disablers by adding save penalties (usually -2 for low-level spells and -4 for stronger ones), but Greater Malison in SR only imposes a -2 save penalty, and Chaos is replaced with Waves of Fatigue, which imposes combat and casting speed penalties for 5 rounds with no save.
Disablers are indeed useful in LoB mode, but the +5 bonus to enemy saves and the long duration of battles makes disablers significantly less effective than in normal mode, and any strategy that relies on even a small amount of luck will fail sooner or later in a no-reload run. Web and Stinking Cloud are good examples of effective disablers in no-reload runs, since they require a saving throw each round rather than one save for the whole duration, but SR removes the save penalty from Web.
Having bought all the available supplies in High Hedge, Carnival and FAI (Garl's temple does sell some Potions of Mind Focusing), Oranfal travels to Cloakwood.
Seniyad and his druids did us some damage with Insect Plague, but otherwise the journey to the mines was rather smooth, with spiders and ettercaps being held at bay with Protection from Poison as well as with newly acquired Spider's Bane (the SCS ability of giant spiders to cast single target webs is not to be underestimated here).
Drasus and his party called for a serious preparation, including Shield Amulet, Greenstone Amulet and potions of Heroism, Hill Giant Strength, Fire Resistance, Cold Resistance, Absorption for Drasus and Magic Protection against Skull Traps. Drasus' speed is his woe - he got separated from his comrades and stood little chance on his own, despite the buffs he applied.
Genthore remained alone at the compound bridge and soon suffered the same fate. The two spellcasters remained and Oranfal decided that it would be too risky to leave them unscathed. I was expecting them to open with Remove Magic, but instead the mages started to throw various enchantments (Chaos, Emotion: Hopelessnes, charms) followed with Monster Summoning.
The only damage being lightning (100 resistance) and fire (90 resistance), with no sequenced Skull Traps, there was not much to prevent Oranfal from cleaving through their defences.
Two hours (in-game) were not sufficient to reach Davaeorn and once inside his quarters, the buffs ran out. Oranfal had to delve once again into his potion and scroll cases (the lesson for the next run is to do the Drasus/Davaeorn fight the other way around to preserve the buffs). This time, I aimed for 100 cold resistance (for Cone of Cold and Blacktalons) and added potions of Invulnerability and Regeneration. Potions of Firebreath and Explosions were at the ready.
At first, the battle horrors were lured aside to be dealt with separately. Davaeron was about to follow. I still had a fresh memory of two of my characters dying here (mainly due to failure to rebuff after he removed their protections) and I wanted to make a different fate for Oranfal. Surprisingly, no Remove Magic came this time and he focused on direct damage. I knew that Cone of Cold is your favorite...
With his army of guards rushing in, they managed to press Oranfal against the wall, only to find fireballs and scorchers flying in their direction.
With his Stoneskins and Mirror Images finally gone, Davaeorn fell.
Some time ago my notes recorded that a 31st attempt was going well until a moment's lack of concentration proved costly. In the basilisk area I had lined up 5 basilisks to soften up with scorchers, but was looking at the targeting of the scorcher rather than what the basilisks were doing - the nearest one to Freya changed from gaze to melee and one-shotted her with a critical hit before I realised she was under attack. In the 32nd I forgot that I had blinded, but not killed, Xzar and was taken down by LMD when I happened by him some days later.
After leaving this challenge for quite a while I was motivated to pick it up again by semiticgod's experiences to see if I can make some decent progress in SoA. A 33rd attempt only lasted a couple of minutes though when I forgot how quickly darts run out when attacking a blinded Carbos and was too slow to react when Freya charged into melee.
For a 34th I couldn't remember how the Enhanced Edition treated Firebead getting killed. The advantage of doing that is you get a big boost on the way to getting to level 4 and invisibility. The disadvantage is that it sends Gorion hostile ...
For the 35th I've gone back to tried and trusted tactics. Blindness and a horde of darts saw off Shoal and a number of the ogre clan in her area and there were no ambushes on the way to Beregost - where the XP already gained made it possible to get to level 4.
With travel now safe Freya could go up to the FAI and get the Ring of Wizardry. The extra spells from that allowed magic missiles to contribute to damage rather than relying on just darts. Shortly afterwards Meilum's death also gave dart damage a big boost.
With the opening period completed (where a bit of luck is needed to avoid ambushes) Freya should now have a good chance to get through BG1 - if I don't lose concentration ...
Is there reason lots of entire posts are in spoiler tags?
I was a bit surprised about that too. I use spoilers to hide images, then people can decide for themselves if they want to see the images or not. Having the entire post in spoilers sort of defeats the object.
Is there reason lots of entire posts are in spoiler tags?
I was a bit surprised about that too. I use spoilers to hide images, then people can decide for themselves if they want to see the images or not. Having the entire post in spoilers sort of defeats the object.
I spoiler my updates since they can get prohibitively long, and it's already a lot of text to scroll through on each page here (if you're not interested in my updates, it's very easy to just scroll past them thanks to the spoiler). I do keep images in spoilers too, as those can take a while to load if you leave them "in plain sight" and cause the page to jump a bit when they pop up.
Taking no chances Freya worked her way down to the Cloudpeaks where killing Sendai got her to level 5. With web now allowing even enemies with distance attacks to be safely blinded Freya did most of the encounters in the mountains. Working her way north slightly she blinded the Doomsayer at the 11th attempt, but attacking with a non-proficient staff she needed a critical to hit and I didn't want to leave her attacking while I did something else as enemies sometimes react after a long while to melee attacks even when blinded. Freya therefore used magic missiles to kill it (resting invisibly between the 30 lots of those required).
The Revenant suffered a similar fate at the Valley of the Tombs, where Freya also picked up a wand of monster summoning. That's incredibly useful in LoB - I'm not intending to abuse it, but Freya did use a charge to help deal with the amazons and get up to level 6.
Now knowing skull trap she went to Durlag's Tower and bombarded a couple of battle horrors from out of sight. Doing that with the battle horror on the wall is easy on core as skull traps can quickly kill the skeletons. However, in LoB killing the skeletons requires quite a bit of patience - particularly as the text doesn't report for some reason whether skeletons are held by webs. On this occasion I didn't have enough patience and Freya got hit by a critical by a skeleton escaping from a web. That meant another hit would kill her, but the skeleton was shown as at near death so I thought a bunch of magic missiles had a good chance of finishing it. Freya fired those, but the skeleton still attacked. However, by using micro-movements she managed to get close enough to it to make it switch from bow to halberd and then move away just enough to prevent it getting an attack in. A number of those movements were necessary before she was able to fire another lot of magic missiles - but the skeleton refused to drop. I was getting a bit tired of this by now, but Freya soldiered on and successfully prevented the skeleton from attacking until she was able to fire a 3rd lot of magic missiles - but still the skeleton wouldn't die . I decided her next spell should be invisibility rather than magic missile, but just as she was starting to cast that the odds caught up with her when she moved fractionally too far away from the skeleton and it switched to bow and got a shot off.
I loaded the autosave and checked how many HPs the skeletons have - that's only 104, so if the game was reporting correctly they should have a maximum of 21 or 22 HPs available when shown at near death. 3 lots of magic missiles would do 18-45 damage, so either Freya was incredibly unlucky with her magic missiles (I wasn't checking damage on the text so can't be sure of that) or the skeleton wasn't actually at near death when I first checked it. I have noticed numerous instances in the past where that information has been mis-reported, so the latter seems more likely.
Aldain, Human Conjurer, BG2EE Update 7 (final update) Previous update found here
Woe is me. Aldain has fallen. And in a most un-heroic fashion, at that.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The party assisted Saemon in commandeering the Pirate Lord's ship, and even got through the subsequent Githyanki battle without casualties (I stripped the Githyanki captain of protections and focused him, knowing from experience the Gith boarding party can be deceptively dangerous if the fight drags on).
I had a lot of screenshots of the fights in the Sauhagin City, but really, there's not much point as there wasn't much strategy to it. They had a few low-level Mages and Clerics, but nothing we couldn't easily keep interrupted, and so it just came down to curing the occasional Poison (which they cause on hit) and letting Mazzy regenerate properly between fights. We sided with the Prince, as we've no real need for the Monk gauntlets you get from the King. A horde of powerful summons did for him.
Following our looting, we descended into the Underdark proper. We spoke with the Duergar, and my plan was to move to the Swirfneblin town first, helping them out. Afterwards we'd free Vithal and do his quest, then the imprisoned people/drow/liches etc.
This was not to be. I used Mazzy to scout ahead a little, wanting to know where the customary spawn of Mindflayers was located. She found them (3 of them), but they immediately cast Psionic Blast at her. Thankfully, she had the Boots of Speed and so ran back towards the party (not necessary as she made her saves). Had I been thinking, this would've been my cue to cast Chaotic Commands on the entire party, as it took a few rounds before the Mindflayers came running at us. I wasn't thinking.
So, the Mindflayers caught up. I had hoped they would've given up the chase, as Mazzy outpaced them rapidly, but no. In panic I got off a CC on Mazzy and Jaheira, and they moved to intercept. And the Mindflayers just started spamming Detonate on Mazzy. She was getting hit for 40-50 crushing damage every round with no save. Seems a bit over the top...
Anyway, she and Jaheira are somehow holding the line. Minsc gets a CC from Anomen and joins the fray. Then one of the BLOODY MINDFLAYERS decides hm, I'm not dangerous enough! Let's teleport to vulnerable party members!
So he does, popping out next to... Aldain and Imoen, of course. I guess he used his super-psionic powers to vibe where on the map they were, as they were well outside visual range of all enemies at the time. Eh. I try to go invisible, but Mindflayer's don't care about that in my install. And then he pops a Psionic Blast. Imoen makes her save, but not Aldain. His Contingency triggers (Improved Invisibility on Helpless status), but again, that's pointless with Mindflayers. Imoen and Anomen try to pitch in, but it's not enough. Mazzy, Minsc and Jaheira were redirected the moment the Mindflayer teleported, but it's literally over in a few seconds. Aldain is int-drained into the ground.
So! What's the lesson here? Well, apart from me grumbling at the prescience of SCS Mindflayers, you need to have CC on the entire party if you're going to engage them. I HAD PfMW on Aldain, but I'm not sure if their attacks count as magical... I'll have to test it at some point.
I was hoping the party, if we had to go down at all, would've met their demise in a heroic assault on the Elder Brain, or a futile attack on a Hive Mother, but nope. Bogstandard Mindflayers did us in. Damnit.
@Corey_Russell, my reason for the spoiler tags is that I got inspied by @aldain to do it. I tend to play for longer periods, and postpone the updating. As a consequence my updates are often rather drawn-out. So to make the walls of text concealable, I decided to spoiler everything, and within the spoiler use separate spoiler tags for screenshots.
@Blind_Visionary, thank you man! I'm glad you appreciated my last update, and that it taught you some new things Your updates are epic in their own way, great writing!
@Grond0, you're not the only one questioning the accuracy of the health status messages. I'm sorry it's been the likely cause of Freya's demise.
@aldain, my condolences to your namesake. You've had a very good run. SCS Mind Flayers are horrible creatures, especially if they can see through invisibility. Otiluke's Resilient Sphere might be a better Contingency than Improved Invisibility in case of helplessness, at least for the Underdark's Mind Flayers and Kuo-Toa. (Other creatures, like wizards and fiends, may cast Remove Magic on the sphere though.)
What bothers me most about Mind Flayers is their ability to go invisible at will. Even an illusion detecting Thief can only reveal them for a split second each round. My discovery in one playthrough that there were like twenty of them in the WK Illithid encampment, made me go with the lightest SCS variant of them (cannot see invisible, no damage resistance bonuses) in my current install.
I'd love to see you document an other no-reload run. Your updates have been insightful and entertaining to read.
@Corey_Russell, my reason for the spoiler tags is that I got inspied by @aldain to do it. I tend to play for longer periods, and postpone the updating. As a consequence my updates are often rather drawn-out. So to make the walls of text concealable, I decided to spoiler everything, and within the spoiler use separate spoiler tags for screenshots.
@Blind_Visionary, thank you man! I'm glad you appreciated my last update, and that it taught you some new things Your updates are epic in their own way, great writing!
@Grond0, you're not the only one questioning the accuracy of the health status messages. I'm sorry it's been the likely cause of Freya's demise.
@aldain, my condolences to your namesake. You've had a very good run. SCS Mind Flayers are horrible creatures, especially if they can see through invisibility. Otiluke's Resilient Sphere might be a better Contingency than Improved Invisibility in case of helplessness, at least for the Underdark's Mind Flayers and Kuo-Toa. (Other creatures, like wizards and fiends, may cast Remove Magic on the sphere though.)
What bothers me most about Mind Flayers is their ability to go invisible at will. Even an illusion detecting Thief can only reveal them for a split second each round. My discovery in one playthrough that there were like twenty of them in the WK Illithid encampment, made me go with the lightest SCS variant of them (cannot see invisible, no damage resistance bonuses) in my current install.
I'd love to see you document an other no-reload run. Your updates have been insightful and entertaining to read.
Thank you! My journey through BG2EE has been one of re-discovery, after a fashion: I know the base (non-SCS) game by heart, but haven't played it with SCS for a very long time, as I've been "stuck" in BG1EE, always restarting once I make a bit of progress... hence the near-misses and now, Mindflayer catastrophe.
I'm considering what to do next. I have a bit of a hangup on magic unfortunately, and just can't make myself play a protagonist without magic for long. A Cleric perhaps? Though they get more or less everything they're ever going to get by L14, which is a bit early. A multiclass is probably a better bet for me... need to think it over.
I've reflected a bit on NPC performance during my run. My primary finding is that Mazzy is made of awesome! 18 DEX for maximum AC bonus, 16 CON for good hitpoints and +4 Shorty saves, just enough strength to equip the heaviest armors, special abilities that are useful (her Lay on Hands is essentially 2 free healing potions per rest), and as she's a Fighter, she can eventually achieve Grand Mastery in ANY weapon of your choice, as long as you pick her up early. Finally, she levels fast, further improving her already splendid saves. I am going to make her a staple of my good-aligned parties. I was also pleasantly surprised by Jaheira. Not great at fighting, but competent. Sports a nice blend of lower-level healing and a few buffs, combined with the all-important CC/True Sight/Fire Elemental/Harm for her higher-level slots. And with 17 DEX and a shield she gets highly respectable AC. Very useful, all in all.
Trio Update (Corey_Russell, Grond0, Gate70) Last Update
So the Trio made it out of Candlekeep. This run, the bounty hunter traps are just making a mockery of everything.
A Vorgan dispel made sure Slythe and Krystin weren't able to do much (than die of course).
For once, the party actually buffed for the Duchal Palace fight - the dopplegangers fell fast.
Maze was no trouble.
But we ran into problems in the Undercity. For one, Corey_Russell's Skype kept crashing so he was using BG chat - as a result things were as clear. Corey_Russell suggested Vorgan just using his free action ring and clear the undead and make it to the Temple of Bhaal the long way, but Vorgan and Gremlin were having none of that. We tried arrows of explosions, but didn't do much - the ogre came and we finished him off. Apparently Gremlin was trying to lay traps - but didn't tell Corsen. As a result Corsen used arrows of explosions but Gremlin wasn't ready. Party was hit hard - we retreated to maze, where Corsen took down 3 guys and Gremlin and Vorgan took down one. Then we returned to finish off the mage, who couldn't do much thanks to Vorgan's true seeing.
Even though Gremlin managed to pull Sarevok by himself, the fight against him was extremely difficult even so. We actually ran out of heal potions even, and Corsen accidentally triggered a battle horror. Corey_Russell paused, used TAB on Sarevok - he was near death! Corsen melee attacked, got hit hard by Sarevok and down to 1/4 life maybe, then Sarevok gives it up! The battle horror however, does not give up. Eventually Corsen just used an invis potion to leave the battle horror behind and the party made it back to Belt.
The first level of Irenicus dungeon was very smooth, in large part due to the bounty hunter traps of Gremlin. We ran out of time once we got to the 2nd level, so ended session here.
Screenshots of our adventure:
Party Stats: Corsen - human berserker, 88 HP (5 from HoB), 176 kills, Davaeorn Gremlin - halfling bounty hunter, 53 HP, 133 kills, Jalantha Mystmyr Vorgan - human inquisitor, 74 HP, 204 kills, Greater Basilisk
Origin | Previous | Next Ajantis looked at Talanis across the campfire. "Why did you become a Priestess of Tyr, my Lady?"
"To learn and to bear witness."
"To what?"
"The truth of our existence."
Imoen sniggered. "She follows a blind god because she wants to see... Never made much sense to me."
"Close your eyes for a while, Imoen. There are things in this world that one cannot understand through vision alone."
*******
Talanis, yawning, walked into the Burning Sheaf Inn at Beregost. A grim-faced dwarf looked up, picked a battered axe off of the table, and strode toward her.
"It's time, wench," the dwarf said, preparing to strike.
Ajantis stepped forward and took the first blow on his shield. Imoen nocked an arrow, fired and missed.
Talanis lifted her mace and called upon her god for aid. She closed her eyes and concentrated on a vision of the dwarf frozen in place. The dwarf coughed once and was paralyzed, held in mid-swing. He could speak, but he could no longer fight. He blinked in surprise and began to sweat.
"Why do you attack me, dwarf?" Talanis said.
"It's nothing personal," he grumbled. "Work is work."
"Disgusting and evil," Ajantis exclaimed. "Who hired you?"
"You'll let me go if I tell you?"
Talanis shrugged. "Would you have given me the same chance?"
The dwarf squirmed and began to panic. "Please my lady, I'll tell you everything. Just let me walk away."
"Tell me, and then I'll decide what to do with you."
"I was hired by a band of mercenaries. The Black Talon."
"Why?"
"No reason given. Look in my belt pouch and you'll find the paperwork."
Imoen lifted a paper from the dwarf's pouch. "Says here that you're to be killed, Talanis. They've got a pretty good artist, too. The sketch looks just like you! But it doesn't say why."
Talanis frowned. "Are you sure you don't know any more?"
"Nothing," the dwarf grunted.
Ajantis lifted his blade. "Helm calls for justice."
"Wait," said Talanis. "We're not barbarians. Let's take him to the Flaming Fist magistrate and allow him to plead his case in a court of law."
Freya{35} - LoB sorcerer (2nd and final update) I have noticed numerous instances in the past where that information has been mis-reported, so the latter seems more likely.
I have noted that a number of enemies are brought to near death quite easily, but they just won't die. To kill them, I seem to have to change to a different form of attack. Has anyone else noticed this?
Origin | Previous | You Must Quit the Game Talanis lead the bound dwarf down the steps and into the dusty streets of Beregost.
A party of four were waiting at the end of the lane. Two mailed warriors and two mysterious robed figures.
"Talanis, your journey ends here," the biggest of them said.
Ajantis stepped forward. "I beg to differ. Stand aside or feel the righteous wrath of Helm."
The warrior laughed. "I'll take great pleasure in beating your righteous attitude down into the dust."
Ajantis ran forward, blade swinging. The second warrior stepped up to meet him with his axe, and the two robed figures began chanting.
Talanis closed her eyes and called on the dead to rise. Two skeletons assembled out of the dust and shambled into the fray.
When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see the giant warrior standing in front of her, swinging a huge war hammer. It connected solidly with her head, and she never closed her eyes again.
(What actually happened there was that Talanis had fought her way to Drasus & Co, but took them too lightly. A mistake that will get you every time. Talanis was a good tank, but a couple of criticals and ... its back to Candlekeep.)
@Corey_Russell, @Grond0, and @Gate70, congrats on defeating Sarevok! I'm looking forward to seeing the trio in action in Amn. @Blind_Visionary, condolences! Talanis's story was so nice... Hope your random selection results in another cool character! Edit: I see it already did! Great portrait, promising introduction. Have fun!
Man, I'm really having a blast with SoD! I can barely be bothered with writing a proper update. I just wanna play haha. Anyway, here goes...
Having soloed BG1, Addi arrives on his own in the starting dungeon. This is a bit scary because of traps. Thankfully Stoneskin, MSD, MI, and MGoI counter all the traps. Addi still has a wand of fire (among other wands) from BG1. He uses it to kill the last of Sarevok's followers that attack him. He also encounters mobs of undead creatures, but leaves them alone out of frugality with his wands and because AoE damage spells aren't his specialism. Korlasz, his quarry, is rather quick to surrender when Addi casts a Cloudkill at her.
She still has more than 50% of her health.
Next, we find ourselves in the troubled city of Baldur's Gate, replete with refugees fleeing Caelar Argent's crusade. Addi, ecorted by captain Corwin, gets some time to buy supplies (with not much gold) and to recruit companions to join him in the city's campaign against the crusade. He recruits Safana who helps him to some gold, but on the second floor of the Sorcerous Sundries, Wistak, a Drow Elf's spider pet, poisons her and Addi. Its poison is very damaging and stays active for a long time. For lack of antidotes and elixirs of health, Addi saves himself with a green PfPoison scroll. But Safana isn't so lucky; she falls. Addi manages to go invisible and heal, and he avenges the rogue with a Cloudkill.
We leave the city without any other recruits because it is our intention to play with the new NPCs.
Addi reaches the Coastway Crossing, where he is joined by Glint and Corwin. Mizhena raises Safana, so she can leave the party on her feet instead of on her back. Glint and Corwin's joining couldn't have been timed better. They save Addi from Phase Spiders and a Gargantuan Spider that not only webs him (undone by Glint casting Free Action) but also puts him to sleep.
Thank you Corwin!
Addi buys several scrolls from the quartermaster and scribes them into his spellbook. One of those spells is Invisibility 10' Radius, which we will be using almost all the time. That spell cancels a battle that's surely supposed to take place at the bridge. A hostile group of crusaders place a magical ward behind us that prevents us from retreating. They can't see us though. A Cleric casts Invisibility Purge, and reveals Glint,
whose response is to quaff an invisibility potion. Glint and Addi start buffing to get ready for the fight, when Caelar Argent appears and compellingly argues her cause. We try to be as sympathetic to her as the game allows us to.
We buy a Golem from one Telenia, and have it delivered at the camp. Glint pickpockets some Stone to Flesh scrolls she was bound to have and purloins a nice Golem figurine as well. A fourth member joins the party: M'khiin.
Some Dwarves led by Brother Deepvain ask us to help them contain an undead plague at their dig site. We oblige, but we kind of regret it. There's so many creatures in there, with very nasty abilities such as the ability to see through invisibility, to level drain, or to stun as Corwin finds out the hard way.
At the second level we have to retreat several times, and rest. M'khiin's summons are nice but they don't last long enough. Her Spirit Fire spells, Addi's wand fireballs/scorchers, and Glint's wand flamestrikes eventually clear the way.
We witness an Abatthor serving Dwarf attain lichdom, but we make sure he doesn't get to enjoy his new status for long. A 'Secret Revealed' gemstone we get from Brother Deepvain at the entrance weakens the Coldhearth Lich badly, and removes all his buffs just as he removes ours.
Corwin then just slays him. First she launches an arrow of anti-magic at the Lich (inflicting 50% spell failure), and then her acid arrows finish the creature.
Addi, shod with the Boots of Speed, finds the Lich's phylactery and rushes to a portal to the plane of fire (where he had previously slain several denizens of that plane with his wand of frost). He destroys the phylactery, to make sure the Lich will stay dead. Oddly, we had a lot more trouble with the dungeon's goons (especially due to their large numbers) than we did with the boss.
At a scrying pool we have visions of Caelar Argent, of Imoen, and of the Hooded man and Caelar's right-hand Hephernaan.
Our next stop: the Troll Claw Woods. We don't do much in this area other than recruiting Voghiln, shunning hostile encounters with monsters. Considering our struggle at the Dwarven Dig site with large groups of monsters (and the fact that I find myself more immersed in the story than interested in combat at this point), we prefer a more surreptious approach. We still enter several caves in and around the Troll Claw Woods, and we have Glint loot them under Sanctuary, leaving Trolls and Myconids and Goblins none the wiser.
There's some very good loot there, including a suit of Elven Chainmail for Voghiln, who joined us with no armor.
This sneaky approach isn't always effective though. We enter what turns out to be a dragon's lair, and our presence somehow awakes the resident dragon, Morentherene who is about to teach us a very, very hard lesson. We get out as fast as we can, and buff outside. When we enter again, Morentherene closes in on us in no time (coming from beyond the fog of war it seems), flanked by two hasted Greater Wyverns. Glint gets off a Flamestrike on Morentherene before her wing buffet knocks him, Voghiln, and Corwin unconscious.
Only M'Khiin and Addi either resist or are lucky to be out of the buffet's range. What they do not escape though, is her breath attack, which instantly kills Voghiln and Glint and leaves all the others critically wounded as well as poisoned.
It also injures the Greater Wyverns. Corwin, still unconscious, is a goner as well, so that leaves only Addi and M'khiin. Both try to run past their foes, but the latter suddenly panics (apparently our buffs did not include Remove Fear, my mistake). Being a slow walker, slightly slower than other characters with normal walking speed, M'Khiin too falls. Meanwhile Addi has gulped an elixir of health. He discerns a passage deeper into the cave, quaffs an invisibility potion, and runs through it, escaping another wing buffet. On the other side of the tunnel he encounters a community of Bugbears.
A Shamanic Bugbear starts to cast a detection spell, but Addi manages to remove himself from its AoE. The Gnome heals, rebuffs, and gulps a regen potion, and he also protects himself from both poison and acid. Although a green PfPoison is supposed to render the reader immune to poison, Morentherene answers a charge with the wand of lightning with another brutal poison breath attack.
This is pretty crazy: a poison attack that ignores poison immunity. I'm just glad we're playing on core difficulty, anything harder would have ended this run. Addi prevails however, thanks to his wand of lightning. He also slays the Greater Wyverns. We store the equipment of our fallen in the dragon's stash, and travel back to the camp. On the way a Young Green Dragon begs Addi for help against two giants. Addi is very low on spells and buffs but wand of fire scorchers and some deft maneuvering enable him to slay the giants and save the dragon. Mizhena raises M'khiin. The goblin by now (level 10) has a raise dead spell 'Recall Spirit', which she uses to raise Glint, Corwin, and Voghiln. I was relieved that Corwin was restored to life normally. Unlike her fallen comrades who had 0 HPs, dead Corwin had -9 HPs so I feared for her "raisability".
I must say I find SoD a lot of fun.
- The story feels like a logical continuation of BG1 while aptly foreshadowing events in BG2 - Stylistically the setting is on point: areas look beautiful and different but still very Baldur's Gate, the place rightly looks like the Sword Coast and not like steampunky BG2 which is set in a different region. - The cutscenes are well done. - I've found a number of really cool items (many of which I haven't much use for in this particular run, but that's ok.) - The NPCs are great. Corwin's no-nonsense personality reminds me of many of my own characters. But she also shows her vulnerable side, as a single mother away from her child. Glint's enthusiasm makes me smile all the time. I also like that while goofy he's not as bizarre a character as the other Gnome NPCs in the saga. M'khiin is a bit silent, but that fits her outcast status. And when she does speak, she's quite witty. I'm a bit lukewarm regarding Voghiln. I've nothing against him, but he hasn't made a big impact yet, personality-wise. They're all well-voiced, and mechanically useful. I would have liked a good tank though, a Fighter/Cleric, maybe a Dwarven Defender from the dig site. Even with the Bioware NPCs there's no real tank in this game (unless Charname is one). - likable Caelar Argent and creepy Hephernaan are interesting antagonists. - There's a wide variety of enemy creatures that act more intelligently than in vanilla BGEE and BG2EE. - And there's probably a lot more I could say, but I've already spent too much time on my laptop as it is lol.
Vada's life was a short one. I had installed the old SCS behavior of making the assassin parties very unpredictable. (I really really like that addition to the game, but it is a serious challenge since it becomes very difficult to prepare.)
Molkar & Co. caught up with her when she arrived back in Beregost, depleted of abilities. She would have survived... but for a misclick that allowed Drakar to get just a little too close.
Starting in BG1EE. Core rules at all times, with the exception of having Max HP on level-up enabled. I won't get easter eggs (extra Ankheg Plate, Ring of Evermemory, Firebead 300 gold trick etc) but everything else as far as behaviour goes is fair game, including provoking NPC's into attacking so I can take their belongings, and stealing some poor commoner's Silver Necklace in front of them. Only SCS for mods, WeiDu below:
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods // The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod // ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version] ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1910 // Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2020 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2030 // Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2111 // Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3000 // Replace BG1-style elemental arrows with BG2 versions: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3010 // Replace +1 arrows with nonmagical "fine" ones: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3022 // Replace many +1 magical weapons with Fine ones -> Fine weapons are affected by the iron crisis: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4010 // Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4040 // Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4093 // Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4120 // NPCs go to inns: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5010 // Move Boo into Minsc's pack: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5020 // Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5060 // Ensure Shar-Teel doesn't die in the original challenge: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6104 // Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly harder carrion crawlers: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Dark Side-based kobold upgrade: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity party: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: v30 ~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: v30
My chosen character: Adamant (... just never mind about the name), the mighty Half-Elf Fighter/Mage!
I feel a little dirty starting with 3 WIS (though Adamant is too oblivious of his surroundings to notice if he's dirty), but I got an excellent roll of 93 and felt compelled to make a charismatic lead-from-the-front type of fellow. Adamant has opted to put ++ in Longswords and ++ in Two Weapon Style. He will be dual-wielding Varscona +2 and any +1 Longsword he can find (once he reaches L3 and gets +++ in Two Weapon Style). For BG2EE my intent is to have him use Kundane in the off-hand (so at least + in Short Swords, though it's not really necessary) and then branch out into Bastard Swords! Because Foebane deserves better than being sold off, damnit. For starting spells, he has chosen Find Familiar and Sleep, and memorized Find Familiar.
Why not a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist? They're undeniably much more powerful. Unfortunately, they also have a really silly sprite (to my eyes), and though you can easily change it, it wouldn't sit right with me. I also figure a Half-Elf is a fairly reasonable race for Gorion's Ward (along with Human and Halfling), and even with our sub-optimal race/weapon choices, we'll be plenty powerful come BG2EE.
So, let's get started.
Adamant, Half-Elf Fighter/Mage, BG1EE Update 1 Next update found here
Adamant starts by stealing more than you'd expect in Candlekeep. With exceptional strength and a familiar, he is capable of forcing open both the chest containing the Clarity potion and the one with about 80 gold and a Flamedance ring. Normally you'd be caught trying to escape afterwards, but with the familiar standing by at the stairs, he can make a quick escape! You can also steal an extra Potion of Healing in the hospital in the same fashion.
The ill-gotten gains are spent on 4 Longswords, a Splint Mail and a Large Shield. Carbos and Shanks are easily dispatched, as they can only hit on a critical. Adamant follows Gorion outside Candlekeep, and the game is afoot.
Our intended party is: Adamant as principal tank (buffing up with protection spells later on, but only for key fights as his spell slots will be limited in number to say the least). Ajantis with Brawling Hands and the Spider's Bane for a nice off-tank with decent damage potential and immunity to several nasty effects. Khalid as archer. Granted, at max level he'll still be 2 THAC0 behind Coran, but he'll do the job well regardless. It's just to shake things up, really. Jaheira as healer, doing what little good she can with a sling. Branwen as walking dispenser of Animate Dead, Command, Hold Person and Free Action. Imoen to cover our thieving needs and utility Mage spells (I'll dual her at L6).
Rather a beefy collection. Everyone apart from Imoen can and will wear heavy armor. Alright, we need to gather our party before venturing forth!
Imoen joins, and after looting the battle site, we pick up Xzar and Montaron. Proceeding to the FAI without incident, Tarnesh succeeds in killing off both Xzar and Montaron, but is completely out of spells thereafter (Xzar got hit with a Sleep, Montaron actually saved against 2 Horror, but couldn't withstand 2 Magic Missiles) and hence Adamant chops him up.
We recruit Khalid and Jaheira, and following a quick visit to the farmsteads north of the FAI, Ajantis is also brought on board, and we pick up Joia's Flamedance ring, to be turned in later. Our journey towards Nashkel is uneventful: We successfully clear the Belt Ogre, the two halfling-murdering Ogrillions, the Boots of Stealth Hobgoblins, and pick up Colquetle's Amulet, putting Adamant's single Sleep to good use, along with Entangle from Jaheira. Branwen is de-petrified, and joins. Huzzah! Time for adventure!
Normally, I'd probably do the areas west of Beregost first, but I've come to enjoy doing the "easier" areas west of Nashkel instead. They're all but impossible to die during and have some useful treasure. We head towards the Mines to trigger Dorn's ambush, and pick up the platemail. I actually went ahead and killed Greywolf too: Ajantis kited him a little, and he eventually failed to save against two Command in a row, sealing his fate.
Our first stop is the Xvart village. OK, this doesn't really have much in the way of useful treasure, but it's on the way. Adamant pops an Armor scroll to ensure he has some protection for going into melee, as I want him to hold off casting his solitary Sleep until we have as many Xvarts as possible in the area of effect. A near perfectly targetted cast later, we pretty much clear the entire village at once.
We leave the area north of the Gnoll Fortress alone for now. The Ogre Berserkers on the bridge, in particular, can be quite dangerous at these levels. Our target is the Gnoll Fortress proper, for the Brawling Hands (delicious!) as well as a small XP reward for saving Dynaheir, and the Charisma Tome (though it's hardly that important, we might as well get it while we're there). Adamant proves his worth once more, and a number of Gnolls are put to (permanent) sleep.
It should be noted that, unless you accept Dynaheir into your party, it seems you no longer get any experience for saving her. It works to accept her, and then immediately remove her when you're forced to kick someone out though, which is what we do.
On our way back to Nashkel, we pass by the Cloud Peaks, killing Ingot, assorted other Gnolls, and the two numb-nuts pestering the Dryad (they're all highly susceptible to Command, so there's really not much to it). Once we've rested up, we make a quick detour to Captain Brage's area. This is actually a nice, very easy chunk of quick XP: We do the Kozah quest, but leave the cursed figurine where it is. That's 1000 experience. Talk to Brage and escort him back to the temple of Helm, that's another 1000 experience, as well as a good bit of gold and a Stone Giant Strength potion. Nice!
Now we are good to do some stuff around Beregost. The area south of Bassilus goes well: We get some fancy jewelry off Drizzt's Gnolls (and a scroll of Melf's Acid Arrow. Cute, but we won't get a lot of use out of it), and Teyngan/Jemby/Zekar are dealt with in standard fashion: Command Jemby, kill Jemby while tank charges Zekar, command Zekar, kill Zekar, kite Teyngan around til he drops since he hits impossibly hard at times.
The half-ogres in the area are easily handled via Sleep.
Moving north, I opt to leave Bassilus alone for now. I'm not confident in our ability to keep him interrupted just yet. Zargal and friends are relieved of their goodies however (Sleep/Command.. no revolutionary tactics), and we rescue Melicamp. Unfortunately, upon being delivered to Thalantyr at High Hedge, Melicamp comes down with a mild case of being exploded into bits, and so we get no experience reward. Pfeh. We take our frustration out on the (by now quite outmatched) Gnolls and swipe Perdue's Short Sword.
Next, we clear all the little Beregost side quests. Silke proves a nuisance (going invisible twice and saving against Command a few times), but other than putting Adamant to sleep doesn't really accomplish anything.
Somewhere before that screenshot, Adamant leveled both as Fighter and Mage, hence his almost respectable HP pool (he's also got a LMD active, his base HP at the time was 28). Normally I'm very restrictive about scribing, and only do so when attaining a new spell level, using potions to ensure 100% success rate. However, first level spell scrolls aren't rare, and I want to get started on identifying our gear already. We've gotten 2 Identify scrolls as random loot, so I scribe those (failing the first, succeeding on the second) along with Friends and LMD. Hooray! We can identify and use Varscona now!
At this point I made a quick detour north: We killed a single Ankheg (I want to save the brunt of them for when Imoen needs some quick XP after dualing) and pick up its scales, and a sanctuaried Branwen is sent into the nest to retrieve the treasure hoard. Most notably: We get a Wand of Fire. Excellent. Taerom is put to work forging our Ankheg Plate, and we go to finish a few more easy areas meanwhile.
The aforementioned wand is identified and put to use in Arghain's area, when we have to deal with an Ogre Berserker. We could've just kited him, I suppose, but I've not the patience for it. A fun part about Fighter/Mages is you don't really have to worry about positioning so much: It's fine to use Scorcher, or Wands of Frost, or later on Sunfire without buffing to the hilt. They can take a little beating if necessary.
Next up: Valley of Tombs. Narcillicus is left for later (he doesn't have anything of any real value as I recall... scroll of Lightning Bolt isn't that awe-inspiring), but we do clear the tombs. I indulged myself and let Adamant pop a Protection from Undead scroll which we got from Drienne when returning her dead cat. Adamant thus easily deals with the Revenant, and ghasts to boot, being untargettable by them.
Alright, there's not much else to do that's stupendously easy! Meilum is convinced to give up his gauntlets:
And following that, we rescue Samuel and pick up a scroll of Protection from Magic while at it. On the way back south from the FAI, we pick up our lovely Ankheg mail for Adamant. Now seems a good time to progress the plot a bit.
Of course, with the entire party (sans Adamant) L4, the kobolds literally don't know what hit them. We cleave through them in no time, and Mulahey gets a dose of fiery justice. We also get the very important Web scroll from Mulahey's chest.
Upon our return to Nashkel, Nimbul is similarly outmatched. He tosses a 2x Chromatic Orb sequencer at Adamant, but is silenced immediately thereafter and accomplishes nothing.
Retreating to the Nashkel Inn, the party is preparing to identify a few more key pieces of equipment (Ring of Holiness and Boots of Avoidance), and thereafter, in all probability, attempt to trigger the Assassin ambushes so we won't have to worry about them springing on us at an inopportune time. That is for later, however. As we leave our adventurers, Adamant is now a L3/L2 Fighter/Mage. His proficiency point at Fighter L3 went towards Two Weapon Style, and he now has ++ Longswords, +++ Two Weapon Style.
Before starting again I rerolled Freya for a 36th attempt. The main reason for that was to give her proficiency in sling rather than dart - that's a bit less efficient in terms of inflicting damage, but almost eliminates one of my favourite ways of dying in this challenge, i.e. charging enemies after a stock of darts is used up (also making inventory management easier). The re-roll didn't help too much though - Freya got up to level 3 by killing Shoal and finished off a lot of the nearby ogre clan, as well as a number of dire wolves ambushing during attempted rests. Eventually though I got a tad careless and didn't run back quickly enough after blinding another ambushing dire wolf and its single attack swallowed poor Freya whole.
Number 37 was a bit better, but Freya eventually perished at level 6 when a web extended a bit beyond its apparent diameter and held her to be savaged by a polar bear.
For number 38 Freya died to a bug when she shot Imoen, but appeared to be so overcome with remorse that the damage affected her.
Freya hit the road once more in attempt 39 and for quite a while took a risk-free approach. However, eventually I got sucked back into bad habits when deciding for some reason Freya needed to kill everything at Durlag's Tower. As the skeletons there move around so much they need patience to deal with safely and after killing nearly all of them I ran out of that - as a result dying in a similar fashion to an earlier run. With one of the bow-wielding skeletons showing at near death, rather than fire from extreme range, I used a magic missile from close up. It managed to respond with an arrow shot very quickly, taking Freya down to 20 HPs. She got a staff attack in as well for 11 damage, but that also failed to kill the skeleton. I expected to be able to move it around for a couple of seconds until Freya could magic missile it again, but obviously mis-judged slightly the reach of its halberd and an attack with that exactly removed her remaining HPs.
As a result of dying in a similar fashion twice in quick succession I decided to run a quick check on the status indicators for those skeletons to remind myself of how those work. That showed the following: Text indicator (when mousing over or pressing tab key) Full health - 104 (100%) Barely injured - 103-80 Injured - 79-54 (76%) Badly injured - 53-28 (51%) Near death - 27-1 (26%)
Heads-up bar Full health - 104 (100%) Barely injured - 103-78 Injured - 77-52 (74%) Badly injured - 51-26 (49%) Near death - 25-1 (24%)
Both methodologies thus appear to be following essentially the same rules with status breaks measured at 75%, 50% and 25% of starting health. However, it appears that the text indicator is set such that the break always occurs with HPs one above the level indicated by the % and the heads-up bar with HPs one below the level indicated by the %. The methodology for the heads-up bar seems defensible to me, though I would probably have gone for using the exact %s: I don't though understand the rationale for using HPs above the % cut-offs ...
Grim Tales - of Grim Face & Co. (Gnome, Chaotic Good Cleric/Illusionist, BG1/ToSC) Chapter III - Night of the Wolf ("Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!")
First we tried our luck in saving Melicamp The Chicken. I often see the result as some kind of omen for the future of the run. So through the High Hedge we went (gaining Perdue's sword en-route) onto Red Canyons. Melicamp was duly saved from the lone wolf and we purified the area from various undead and other inhabitants. Mad cleric Bassilus was left alone for the time being as I was afraid he could easily chunk some Crew members with well placed Flame Strike (not to mention the possible Death Dreadnought aka aTweaks' Aerial Servant...).
Back in High Hedge Melicamp successfully survived the Antichickenator spell but we were advised by Thalantyr not to rely on luck too much. We heed the wise words and so Imoen carefuly scouted the entire area before we were ready to attack.
To return Perdue his sword we need to deal with Karlat. He fell unconscious due to my Command spell but saved vs following Hold Person by Viconia. And my Hold Person as well. But even though he quaffed the Potion of Heroism he soon ran as a headless chicken all over the place. Imoen ended his agony with well placed coup de grace shot.
Returning Perdue's sword gain me a long waited level up and we agreed to assist Garrick in his bodyguard mission. As soon turned out Silke tried to use us blindfolded to kill innocent people. This is not going to happen unpunished. Silke was prebuffed with Stoneskins, immediately cast Haste on herself and stubbornly chased our weakest Crew member Dynaheir who tried to hide in nearby house. She saved vs my Command and ran out of Viconia's Silence area of effect. But as she stayed in place for few seconds to cast a Mirror Images both me and Viconia fired Hold Person. Both connected proving her doom. Gauntlets of Dexterity were our reward and Jaheira gratefully accepted them which substantially increased her AC and rock-throwing skills.
Fisherman's Lake was our next destination. Half-Ogres were duly treated as well as some wanna-be-marauders. Jemby cast a Sleep spell and Jaheira took a nap under nearby rocks. Dynaheir fired Web, I - Silence on Jemby and Teyngan saved vs Viconia's Hold Person while Jemby put to Sleep both our snipers and tried to Dire Charm me. 'No way! And what is that smell?! Eww! Shut your mouth, just close it!'
Meanwhile Jaheira woke up and shut her up for all eternity. Imoen showed Zekar who's Mommy and I, tired already of 'catch me up' with Teyngan, held him still.
We cleared the area of Gnolls etc. and then...
...and then we've met Drizzt:
Here I should note that this is the very first time ever I play with BG1NPC Project and truth be told I was shocked at first... Naturally I'm very curious of Drow culture so I've a small collection of Drow pictures/portraits but man, I've always thought this particular one is a female portrait! And while I might be wrong, I just can't envision the famous dark hero looks like ... this. Well, for the Tale I'll just pretend that Nashkel storekeeper somehow managed to foist Drizzt the Girdle of Masculinity/Feminity we've sold him some days ago. OK, back to the tale. We have some more cases unfinished so headed to the Xvart village. There we once again met Drizzt (as a part of Dynaheir personal quest) and accepted his aid in finding the missing journal. Then we tried to pass through the village but its inhabitants were not so friendly. Their leader, Nexlit the Xvart even called for a fearsome Usra the Cave Bear but paid an ultimate price for that. With me and Jaheira holding the line our archers/slingers haven't too much difficulties on dealing with little wretches. In nearby cave we found a useful potion and magical quarterstaff.
En route to Bear River we were ambushed by a pair of Ogre Mages but were in no mood to fight them. Khalid mysteriously saved vs a double Charm Person and we fled. Why they choose Khalid as a target I have no idea. Imoen proved not once and not even twice that she is an excellent archer.
Upon reaching our destination point we were greeted one last time by Drizzt, who have recovered Dynaheir's journal, and we cleared the area of Neville, the fairest of all fair bandits, who dropped a very valuable scroll, Ogre Berserkers, Mountain Bear and Gibberling horde.
To ensure of gaining the Boots of North we decided to increase our reputation to the max so headed to the nearby Archaeological Site.
This whole area was also cleared but we had little means to fight a Doomsayer fairly at the moment so just dropped a pair of skeletons to distract him and took a lift to Nashkel with Brage. Unfortunately our inventories are pretty condensed so his sword was dropped and we were forced to return to the site once again to pick it. But all that resulted with our reputation reached max and Jaheira got a warm footwear. This was put in good use vs a pair of Winter Wolves in Dryad Falls and some more of them in Fire Leaf Forest where they joined Vax and Zal. Web and Hold Person proved a demise of those and we finally have a serious source of destruction - a Wand of Fire, yay! And in the fields we picked up another valuable scroll.
We reunited an odd-looking boy with his fuzzy-wuzzy doggy and obtained an autograph of the still novice but promising rock stars which, for whatever reason, caused an odd look from Dynaheir:
As calm as I am but I can't stand the insults of some pompous jerks and so we've fought Sendai & Co. Web/Stinking Cloud neutralised Delgod while Sendai was Held and they fell one by one. Boots of Grounding and Scimitar +1 were our reward:
Rumors of strange howlings during the nights in the Beregost Temple area, the ones of not an ordinary wolves brought us there to investigate. Imoen scouted the area carefully and finally stumbled upon a pack of huge, fearsome looking creatures. We unloaded all spells we could that might incapacitate those creatures and I fried them from afar with cleansing fire of my new wand:
Now to the Carnival for some revenge. 'Remember me, dirty scums?'
And to the Lonely Peaks we go:
followed with Valley of the Tombs where we cleared all the tombs (found nothing special there), killed some Ankhegs (and weren't able to carry their shells due to overloading/lacking of strength) but avoided Narcillicus for the moment:
Now pondering where to go next as the number of relatively safe areas are running low already.
@Blackraven Isn't the future of all all our runs always the same? The game ends. Would be a nice to teach Melissan a lesson first, before getting there though...
Deciding to have one more attempt in this series, Freya has hit the road once more. So far I've resisted the temptation to do anything risky and just stuck to plans patiently - even persevering when it took 23 attempts to blind Meilum.
The most significant damage Freya has taken to date was when she was skull trapping the amazons. They don't specifically attack in reaction to that, but they do shift position among themselves and Telka must have got bumped out enough to catch sight of Freya - fortunately I reacted just in time to run out of sight and avoid a second shot.
After recent events I did feel compelled to kill all the skeletons at Durlag's Tower, but this time aimed to ensure Freya only attacked from range where she was exposed to at most 1 shot (with HPs just above the maximum damage from that). The skeletons armed with bows are still a formidable challenge, but she finished them off eventually. She also laboriously killed the ghasts in the upper tower and the basilisks on the roof - using no protection against petrification, but just web and blind to prevent them attacking.
Those basilisks got Freya up to level 8. She will probably do Mutamin's garden next, then (all being well) the sirines at the lighthouse will push her up to her final BG1 level before cracking on with the main quest.
Well, 90% of my games end up in limbo. Restartitis
Still in progress of making my monk kit but modding is tricky sometimes especially when you have no pc around for a while and have to pick up from last time. Meanwhile I am reading all this awesome progress here!
Rather than take the time to web and blind all the basilisks Freya bought the green scroll. To make sure that didn't run out too quickly she used the wand of fire from the ankheg nest for the first time to do some scorcher damage to groups of the monsters. There was a near escape with the final greater basilisk though when Freya unexpectedly ran out of sling bullets and moved into sight of Mutamin as a result of auto-attacking with her staff. That turned the basilisk hostile and Freya's green scroll had just worn off - and she had no alternative protection. Fortunately the basilisk was a bit slow to focus its gaze and a potion of speed allowed her to get out of sight without being attacked. Skull traps then finished off the basilisk and did the same for Mutamin. After blinding Baerin and Lindin I thought Korax would have a good chance of handling the others, but for some reason he wouldn't talk to Freya - so she dealt with them using wand fireballs to top up her skull traps.
With reputation at 19 Freya decided to do the Nashkel Mine before going to the Lighthouse. After sneaking past most of the kobolds Freya webbed and skull trapped Mulahey a few times until he called his minions. Her stoneskin meant Freya was in no danger, but she was able to go invisible without being attacked anyway. That caused the kobolds and skeletons to cluster round Mulahey - allowing easy disposal of those.
After Nimbul was webbed and blinded to provide Freya with a familiar, she used her reputation of 20 to do some shopping. With a strength scroll purchased she gave back Joseph's ring - getting her final BG1 level there.
At the Lighthouse area Freya used the Amulet of Shielding for the first time to ensure the sirines would need a critical to hit her. Improved invisibility and minor spell deflection then protected against their charms while she bombarded them with spell and wand damage. To round things off I thought she should also kill the golems. That took a while of running them round, but 74 bullets of fire later all 3 lay dead without laying any of their fat fingers on her (though with stoneskin that wasn't a great concern anyway).
Tranzig had no answer to improved invisibility, opening the way to the Bandit Camp. I used up several wands there taking on the bandits outside without resting, including Taurgosz. Inside the tent, Freya tried out blindness, expecting to have to use something else as well (such as summoned monsters), but found her luck was in as all 4 opponents were rendered sightless and finished off before they recovered.
After passing invisibly through the Cloakwood Kysus was blinded and shot down. A number of attempts were made to blind Rezdan as well, but those were unsuccessful and Freya resorted to the use of summoned monsters to finish him off. The normal web and blindness were then sufficient for Genthore and Drasus. After sneaking through the mine Freya used skull traps to kill the battle horrors from out of sight (resting once in the area during that). Rather than risking another rest she just used wand fireballs to wear down Davaeorn to single figure HPs before taking extra style points for finishing him off with an invisible attack from her staff.
Regrettably I then got sucked into my bad habits again when, despite being low on spells, I went after the mustard jelly. It wore through remaining stoneskins and then poisoned Freya - forcing her to take a potion of regeneration. As the mustard jelly was almost dead though Freya used her remaining spell buffs and went back in again - only to be hit with a vicious critical that both put her near death and poisoned her.
I thought going invisible would have led to death by poison before she had a chance to cure herself, so she used a green scroll to cure the poison immediately - surviving one attack roll with an 18 while that activated. She then attacked herself hoping to kill the jelly (which was down to just 8 HPs), but missed and clicked to use her invisibility ring. While waiting for that to trigger she survived two more attacks (with attack rolls of 16 and 12) and must have been on the cusp of going invisible - but chose to disappear in a different fashion when the mustard jelly got a final attack in. Looking at the screenshot its final attack hit with a 16, so at least one of her buffs ran out at exactly the wrong moment!
Sneaky Blueskin got all the way to the ducal palace after finishing all the ToSC content. However both dukes died. GoG seem to have made a change in my installation. (There were two updates) Previously the limit on summons did not apply in the palace. Now it does. It makes a considerable difference!! I can't argue about the change though. It corrects a mistake in the original game.
Comments
Disablers are indeed useful in LoB mode, but the +5 bonus to enemy saves and the long duration of battles makes disablers significantly less effective than in normal mode, and any strategy that relies on even a small amount of luck will fail sooner or later in a no-reload run. Web and Stinking Cloud are good examples of effective disablers in no-reload runs, since they require a saving throw each round rather than one save for the whole duration, but SR removes the save penalty from Web.
1st entry: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/828724/#Comment_828724
2nd entry: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/829521/#Comment_829521
3rd entry: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/831696/#Comment_831696
Seniyad and his druids did us some damage with Insect Plague, but otherwise the journey to the mines was rather smooth, with spiders and ettercaps being held at bay with Protection from Poison as well as with newly acquired Spider's Bane (the SCS ability of giant spiders to cast single target webs is not to be underestimated here).
Drasus and his party called for a serious preparation, including Shield Amulet, Greenstone Amulet and potions of Heroism, Hill Giant Strength, Fire Resistance, Cold Resistance, Absorption for Drasus and Magic Protection against Skull Traps. Drasus' speed is his woe - he got separated from his comrades and stood little chance on his own, despite the buffs he applied.
Genthore remained alone at the compound bridge and soon suffered the same fate. The two spellcasters remained and Oranfal decided that it would be too risky to leave them unscathed. I was expecting them to open with Remove Magic, but instead the mages started to throw various enchantments (Chaos, Emotion: Hopelessnes, charms) followed with Monster Summoning.
The only damage being lightning (100 resistance) and fire (90 resistance), with no sequenced Skull Traps, there was not much to prevent Oranfal from cleaving through their defences.
Two hours (in-game) were not sufficient to reach Davaeorn and once inside his quarters, the buffs ran out. Oranfal had to delve once again into his potion and scroll cases (the lesson for the next run is to do the Drasus/Davaeorn fight the other way around to preserve the buffs). This time, I aimed for 100 cold resistance (for Cone of Cold and Blacktalons) and added potions of Invulnerability and Regeneration. Potions of Firebreath and Explosions were at the ready.
At first, the battle horrors were lured aside to be dealt with separately. Davaeron was about to follow. I still had a fresh memory of two of my characters dying here (mainly due to failure to rebuff after he removed their protections) and I wanted to make a different fate for Oranfal. Surprisingly, no Remove Magic came this time and he focused on direct damage. I knew that Cone of Cold is your favorite...
With his army of guards rushing in, they managed to press Oranfal against the wall, only to find fireballs and scorchers flying in their direction.
With his Stoneskins and Mirror Images finally gone, Davaeorn fell.
Coming up next, the city of Baldur's Gate.
Regards,
B.
Some time ago my notes recorded that a 31st attempt was going well until a moment's lack of concentration proved costly. In the basilisk area I had lined up 5 basilisks to soften up with scorchers, but was looking at the targeting of the scorcher rather than what the basilisks were doing - the nearest one to Freya changed from gaze to melee and one-shotted her with a critical hit before I realised she was under attack. In the 32nd I forgot that I had blinded, but not killed, Xzar and was taken down by LMD when I happened by him some days later.
After leaving this challenge for quite a while I was motivated to pick it up again by semiticgod's experiences to see if I can make some decent progress in SoA. A 33rd attempt only lasted a couple of minutes though when I forgot how quickly darts run out when attacking a blinded Carbos and was too slow to react when Freya charged into melee.
For a 34th I couldn't remember how the Enhanced Edition treated Firebead getting killed. The advantage of doing that is you get a big boost on the way to getting to level 4 and invisibility. The disadvantage is that it sends Gorion hostile ...
For the 35th I've gone back to tried and trusted tactics. Blindness and a horde of darts saw off Shoal and a number of the ogre clan in her area and there were no ambushes on the way to Beregost - where the XP already gained made it possible to get to level 4.
With travel now safe Freya could go up to the FAI and get the Ring of Wizardry. The extra spells from that allowed magic missiles to contribute to damage rather than relying on just darts. Shortly afterwards Meilum's death also gave dart damage a big boost.
With the opening period completed (where a bit of luck is needed to avoid ambushes) Freya should now have a good chance to get through BG1 - if I don't lose concentration ...
Sorcerer L4, 21 HPs, 29 kills
Taking no chances Freya worked her way down to the Cloudpeaks where killing Sendai got her to level 5. With web now allowing even enemies with distance attacks to be safely blinded Freya did most of the encounters in the mountains. Working her way north slightly she blinded the Doomsayer at the 11th attempt, but attacking with a non-proficient staff she needed a critical to hit and I didn't want to leave her attacking while I did something else as enemies sometimes react after a long while to melee attacks even when blinded. Freya therefore used magic missiles to kill it (resting invisibly between the 30 lots of those required).
The Revenant suffered a similar fate at the Valley of the Tombs, where Freya also picked up a wand of monster summoning. That's incredibly useful in LoB - I'm not intending to abuse it, but Freya did use a charge to help deal with the amazons and get up to level 6.
Now knowing skull trap she went to Durlag's Tower and bombarded a couple of battle horrors from out of sight. Doing that with the battle horror on the wall is easy on core as skull traps can quickly kill the skeletons. However, in LoB killing the skeletons requires quite a bit of patience - particularly as the text doesn't report for some reason whether skeletons are held by webs. On this occasion I didn't have enough patience and Freya got hit by a critical by a skeleton escaping from a web. That meant another hit would kill her, but the skeleton was shown as at near death so I thought a bunch of magic missiles had a good chance of finishing it. Freya fired those, but the skeleton still attacked. However, by using micro-movements she managed to get close enough to it to make it switch from bow to halberd and then move away just enough to prevent it getting an attack in. A number of those movements were necessary before she was able to fire another lot of magic missiles - but the skeleton refused to drop. I was getting a bit tired of this by now, but Freya soldiered on and successfully prevented the skeleton from attacking until she was able to fire a 3rd lot of magic missiles - but still the skeleton wouldn't die
I loaded the autosave and checked how many HPs the skeletons have - that's only 104, so if the game was reporting correctly they should have a maximum of 21 or 22 HPs available when shown at near death. 3 lots of magic missiles would do 18-45 damage, so either Freya was incredibly unlucky with her magic missiles (I wasn't checking damage on the text so can't be sure of that) or the skeleton wasn't actually at near death when I first checked it. I have noticed numerous instances in the past where that information has been mis-reported, so the latter seems more likely.
Previous update found here
Woe is me. Aldain has fallen. And in a most un-heroic fashion, at that.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The party assisted Saemon in commandeering the Pirate Lord's ship, and even got through the subsequent Githyanki battle without casualties (I stripped the Githyanki captain of protections and focused him, knowing from experience the Gith boarding party can be deceptively dangerous if the fight drags on).
I had a lot of screenshots of the fights in the Sauhagin City, but really, there's not much point as there wasn't much strategy to it. They had a few low-level Mages and Clerics, but nothing we couldn't easily keep interrupted, and so it just came down to curing the occasional Poison (which they cause on hit) and letting Mazzy regenerate properly between fights.
We sided with the Prince, as we've no real need for the Monk gauntlets you get from the King. A horde of powerful summons did for him.
Following our looting, we descended into the Underdark proper. We spoke with the Duergar, and my plan was to move to the Swirfneblin town first, helping them out. Afterwards we'd free Vithal and do his quest, then the imprisoned people/drow/liches etc.
This was not to be. I used Mazzy to scout ahead a little, wanting to know where the customary spawn of Mindflayers was located. She found them (3 of them), but they immediately cast Psionic Blast at her.
Thankfully, she had the Boots of Speed and so ran back towards the party (not necessary as she made her saves). Had I been thinking, this would've been my cue to cast Chaotic Commands on the entire party, as it took a few rounds before the Mindflayers came running at us. I wasn't thinking.
So, the Mindflayers caught up. I had hoped they would've given up the chase, as Mazzy outpaced them rapidly, but no. In panic I got off a CC on Mazzy and Jaheira, and they moved to intercept. And the Mindflayers just started spamming Detonate on Mazzy. She was getting hit for 40-50 crushing damage every round with no save. Seems a bit over the top...
Anyway, she and Jaheira are somehow holding the line. Minsc gets a CC from Anomen and joins the fray. Then one of the BLOODY MINDFLAYERS decides hm, I'm not dangerous enough! Let's teleport to vulnerable party members!
So he does, popping out next to... Aldain and Imoen, of course. I guess he used his super-psionic powers to vibe where on the map they were, as they were well outside visual range of all enemies at the time. Eh.
I try to go invisible, but Mindflayer's don't care about that in my install. And then he pops a Psionic Blast. Imoen makes her save, but not Aldain. His Contingency triggers (Improved Invisibility on Helpless status), but again, that's pointless with Mindflayers. Imoen and Anomen try to pitch in, but it's not enough. Mazzy, Minsc and Jaheira were redirected the moment the Mindflayer teleported, but it's literally over in a few seconds. Aldain is int-drained into the ground.
So! What's the lesson here? Well, apart from me grumbling at the prescience of SCS Mindflayers, you need to have CC on the entire party if you're going to engage them. I HAD PfMW on Aldain, but I'm not sure if their attacks count as magical... I'll have to test it at some point.
I was hoping the party, if we had to go down at all, would've met their demise in a heroic assault on the Elder Brain, or a futile attack on a Hive Mother, but nope. Bogstandard Mindflayers did us in. Damnit.
@Blind_Visionary, thank you man! I'm glad you appreciated my last update, and that it taught you some new things
@Grond0, you're not the only one questioning the accuracy of the health status messages. I'm sorry it's been the likely cause of Freya's demise.
@aldain, my condolences to your namesake.
SCS Mind Flayers are horrible creatures, especially if they can see through invisibility. Otiluke's Resilient Sphere might be a better Contingency than Improved Invisibility in case of helplessness, at least for the Underdark's Mind Flayers and Kuo-Toa. (Other creatures, like wizards and fiends, may cast Remove Magic on the sphere though.)
What bothers me most about Mind Flayers is their ability to go invisible at will. Even an illusion detecting Thief can only reveal them for a split second each round. My discovery in one playthrough that there were like twenty of them in the WK Illithid encampment, made me go with the lightest SCS variant of them (cannot see invisible, no damage resistance bonuses) in my current install.
I'd love to see you document an other no-reload run. Your updates have been insightful and entertaining to read.
I'm considering what to do next. I have a bit of a hangup on magic unfortunately, and just can't make myself play a protagonist without magic for long. A Cleric perhaps? Though they get more or less everything they're ever going to get by L14, which is a bit early. A multiclass is probably a better bet for me... need to think it over.
I've reflected a bit on NPC performance during my run. My primary finding is that Mazzy is made of awesome! 18 DEX for maximum AC bonus, 16 CON for good hitpoints and +4 Shorty saves, just enough strength to equip the heaviest armors, special abilities that are useful (her Lay on Hands is essentially 2 free healing potions per rest), and as she's a Fighter, she can eventually achieve Grand Mastery in ANY weapon of your choice, as long as you pick her up early. Finally, she levels fast, further improving her already splendid saves. I am going to make her a staple of my good-aligned parties.
I was also pleasantly surprised by Jaheira. Not great at fighting, but competent. Sports a nice blend of lower-level healing and a few buffs, combined with the all-important CC/True Sight/Fire Elemental/Harm for her higher-level slots. And with 17 DEX and a shield she gets highly respectable AC. Very useful, all in all.
Last Update
So the Trio made it out of Candlekeep. This run, the bounty hunter traps are just making a mockery of everything.
A Vorgan dispel made sure Slythe and Krystin weren't able to do much (than die of course).
For once, the party actually buffed for the Duchal Palace fight - the dopplegangers fell fast.
Maze was no trouble.
But we ran into problems in the Undercity. For one, Corey_Russell's Skype kept crashing so he was using BG chat - as a result things were as clear. Corey_Russell suggested Vorgan just using his free action ring and clear the undead and make it to the Temple of Bhaal the long way, but Vorgan and Gremlin were having none of that. We tried arrows of explosions, but didn't do much - the ogre came and we finished him off. Apparently Gremlin was trying to lay traps - but didn't tell Corsen. As a result Corsen used arrows of explosions but Gremlin wasn't ready. Party was hit hard - we retreated to maze, where Corsen took down 3 guys and Gremlin and Vorgan took down one. Then we returned to finish off the mage, who couldn't do much thanks to Vorgan's true seeing.
Even though Gremlin managed to pull Sarevok by himself, the fight against him was extremely difficult even so. We actually ran out of heal potions even, and Corsen accidentally triggered a battle horror. Corey_Russell paused, used TAB on Sarevok - he was near death! Corsen melee attacked, got hit hard by Sarevok and down to 1/4 life maybe, then Sarevok gives it up! The battle horror however, does not give up. Eventually Corsen just used an invis potion to leave the battle horror behind and the party made it back to Belt.
The first level of Irenicus dungeon was very smooth, in large part due to the bounty hunter traps of Gremlin. We ran out of time once we got to the 2nd level, so ended session here.
Screenshots of our adventure:
Party Stats:
Corsen - human berserker, 88 HP (5 from HoB), 176 kills, Davaeorn
Gremlin - halfling bounty hunter, 53 HP, 133 kills, Jalantha Mystmyr
Vorgan - human inquisitor, 74 HP, 204 kills, Greater Basilisk
Talanis
Priestess of TyrAjantis looked at Talanis across the campfire. "Why did you become a Priestess of Tyr, my Lady?"
"To learn and to bear witness."
"To what?"
"The truth of our existence."
Imoen sniggered. "She follows a blind god because she wants to see... Never made much sense to me."
"Close your eyes for a while, Imoen. There are things in this world that one cannot understand through vision alone."
*******
Talanis, yawning, walked into the Burning Sheaf Inn at Beregost. A grim-faced dwarf looked up, picked a battered axe off of the table, and strode toward her.
"It's time, wench," the dwarf said, preparing to strike.
Ajantis stepped forward and took the first blow on his shield. Imoen nocked an arrow, fired and missed.
Talanis lifted her mace and called upon her god for aid. She closed her eyes and concentrated on a vision of the dwarf frozen in place. The dwarf coughed once and was paralyzed, held in mid-swing. He could speak, but he could no longer fight. He blinked in surprise and began to sweat.
"Why do you attack me, dwarf?" Talanis said.
"It's nothing personal," he grumbled. "Work is work."
"Disgusting and evil," Ajantis exclaimed. "Who hired you?"
"You'll let me go if I tell you?"
Talanis shrugged. "Would you have given me the same chance?"
The dwarf squirmed and began to panic. "Please my lady, I'll tell you everything. Just let me walk away."
"Tell me, and then I'll decide what to do with you."
"I was hired by a band of mercenaries. The Black Talon."
"Why?"
"No reason given. Look in my belt pouch and you'll find the paperwork."
Imoen lifted a paper from the dwarf's pouch. "Says here that you're to be killed, Talanis. They've got a pretty good artist, too. The sketch looks just like you! But it doesn't say why."
Talanis frowned. "Are you sure you don't know any more?"
"Nothing," the dwarf grunted.
Ajantis lifted his blade. "Helm calls for justice."
"Wait," said Talanis. "We're not barbarians. Let's take him to the Flaming Fist magistrate and allow him to plead his case in a court of law."
Talanis
Priestess of TyrTalanis lead the bound dwarf down the steps and into the dusty streets of Beregost.
A party of four were waiting at the end of the lane. Two mailed warriors and two mysterious robed figures.
"Talanis, your journey ends here," the biggest of them said.
Ajantis stepped forward. "I beg to differ. Stand aside or feel the righteous wrath of Helm."
The warrior laughed. "I'll take great pleasure in beating your righteous attitude down into the dust."
Ajantis ran forward, blade swinging. The second warrior stepped up to meet him with his axe, and the two robed figures began chanting.
Talanis closed her eyes and called on the dead to rise. Two skeletons assembled out of the dust and shambled into the fray.
When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see the giant warrior standing in front of her, swinging a huge war hammer. It connected solidly with her head, and she never closed her eyes again.
Now for another randomly selected character....
Mazzy is indeed really nice to have around. Just buff with strength gear, spells or potions and she is just awesome.
Vada. Human female Dark Moon Monk. Lawful evil.
She is methodical. Dangerous. And intent on installing herself as a Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate, to rule the night in the name of Shar.
@Blind_Visionary, condolences! Talanis's story was so nice... Hope your random selection results in another cool character! Edit: I see it already did! Great portrait, promising introduction. Have fun!
Addi, Gnome Illusionist, 1st SoD report
Previous update
Having soloed BG1, Addi arrives on his own in the starting dungeon. This is a bit scary because of traps. Thankfully Stoneskin, MSD, MI, and MGoI counter all the traps. Addi still has a wand of fire (among other wands) from BG1. He uses it to kill the last of Sarevok's followers that attack him. He also encounters mobs of undead creatures, but leaves them alone out of frugality with his wands and because AoE damage spells aren't his specialism. Korlasz, his quarry, is rather quick to surrender when Addi casts a Cloudkill at her.
Next, we find ourselves in the troubled city of Baldur's Gate, replete with refugees fleeing Caelar Argent's crusade. Addi, ecorted by captain Corwin, gets some time to buy supplies (with not much gold) and to recruit companions to join him in the city's campaign against the crusade. He recruits Safana who helps him to some gold, but on the second floor of the Sorcerous Sundries, Wistak, a Drow Elf's spider pet, poisons her and Addi. Its poison is very damaging and stays active for a long time. For lack of antidotes and elixirs of health, Addi saves himself with a green PfPoison scroll. But Safana isn't so lucky; she falls. Addi manages to go invisible and heal, and he avenges the rogue with a Cloudkill.
Addi reaches the Coastway Crossing, where he is joined by Glint and Corwin. Mizhena raises Safana, so she can leave the party on her feet instead of on her back. Glint and Corwin's joining couldn't have been timed better. They save Addi from Phase Spiders and a Gargantuan Spider that not only webs him (undone by Glint casting Free Action) but also puts him to sleep.
Addi buys several scrolls from the quartermaster and scribes them into his spellbook. One of those spells is Invisibility 10' Radius, which we will be using almost all the time. That spell cancels a battle that's surely supposed to take place at the bridge. A hostile group of crusaders place a magical ward behind us that prevents us from retreating. They can't see us though. A Cleric casts Invisibility Purge, and reveals Glint,
We buy a Golem from one Telenia, and have it delivered at the camp. Glint pickpockets some Stone to Flesh scrolls she was bound to have and purloins a nice Golem figurine as well. A fourth member joins the party: M'khiin.
Some Dwarves led by Brother Deepvain ask us to help them contain an undead plague at their dig site. We oblige, but we kind of regret it. There's so many creatures in there, with very nasty abilities such as the ability to see through invisibility, to level drain, or to stun as Corwin finds out the hard way.
At a scrying pool we have visions of Caelar Argent, of Imoen, and of the Hooded man and Caelar's right-hand Hephernaan.
Our next stop: the Troll Claw Woods. We don't do much in this area other than recruiting Voghiln, shunning hostile encounters with monsters. Considering our struggle at the Dwarven Dig site with large groups of monsters (and the fact that I find myself more immersed in the story than interested in combat at this point), we prefer a more surreptious approach. We still enter several caves in and around the Troll Claw Woods, and we have Glint loot them under Sanctuary, leaving Trolls and Myconids and Goblins none the wiser.
This sneaky approach isn't always effective though. We enter what turns out to be a dragon's lair, and our presence somehow awakes the resident dragon, Morentherene who is about to teach us a very, very hard lesson.
We get out as fast as we can, and buff outside. When we enter again, Morentherene closes in on us in no time (coming from beyond the fog of war it seems), flanked by two hasted Greater Wyverns. Glint gets off a Flamestrike on Morentherene before her wing buffet knocks him, Voghiln, and Corwin unconscious.
On the way a Young Green Dragon begs Addi for help against two giants. Addi is very low on spells and buffs but wand of fire scorchers and some deft maneuvering enable him to slay the giants and save the dragon.
Mizhena raises M'khiin. The goblin by now (level 10) has a raise dead spell 'Recall Spirit', which she uses to raise Glint, Corwin, and Voghiln. I was relieved that Corwin was restored to life normally. Unlike her fallen comrades who had 0 HPs, dead Corwin had -9 HPs so I feared for her "raisability".
I must say I find SoD a lot of fun.
- The story feels like a logical continuation of BG1 while aptly foreshadowing events in BG2
- Stylistically the setting is on point: areas look beautiful and different but still very Baldur's Gate, the place rightly looks like the Sword Coast and not like steampunky BG2 which is set in a different region.
- The cutscenes are well done.
- I've found a number of really cool items (many of which I haven't much use for in this particular run, but that's ok.)
- The NPCs are great. Corwin's no-nonsense personality reminds me of many of my own characters. But she also shows her vulnerable side, as a single mother away from her child. Glint's enthusiasm makes me smile all the time. I also like that while goofy he's not as bizarre a character as the other Gnome NPCs in the saga. M'khiin is a bit silent, but that fits her outcast status. And when she does speak, she's quite witty. I'm a bit lukewarm regarding Voghiln. I've nothing against him, but he hasn't made a big impact yet, personality-wise. They're all well-voiced, and mechanically useful. I would have liked a good tank though, a Fighter/Cleric, maybe a Dwarven Defender from the dig site. Even with the Bioware NPCs there's no real tank in this game (unless Charname is one).
- likable Caelar Argent and creepy Hephernaan are interesting antagonists.
- There's a wide variety of enemy creatures that act more intelligently than in vanilla BGEE and BG2EE.
- And there's probably a lot more I could say, but I've already spent too much time on my laptop as it is lol.
Molkar & Co. caught up with her when she arrived back in Beregost, depleted of abilities. She would have survived... but for a misclick that allowed Drakar to get just a little too close.
Trying again.
Starting in BG1EE.
Core rules at all times, with the exception of having Max HP on level-up enabled.
I won't get easter eggs (extra Ankheg Plate, Ring of Evermemory, Firebead 300 gold trick etc) but everything else as far as behaviour goes is fair game, including provoking NPC's into attacking so I can take their belongings, and stealing some poor commoner's Silver Necklace in front of them.
Only SCS for mods, WeiDu below:
// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1910 // Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2020 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2030 // Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2111 // Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3000 // Replace BG1-style elemental arrows with BG2 versions: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3010 // Replace +1 arrows with nonmagical "fine" ones: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3022 // Replace many +1 magical weapons with Fine ones -> Fine weapons are affected by the iron crisis: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4010 // Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4040 // Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4093 // Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4120 // NPCs go to inns: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5000 // Ease-of-use party AI: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5010 // Move Boo into Minsc's pack: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5020 // Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5060 // Ensure Shar-Teel doesn't die in the original challenge: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6104 // Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly harder carrion crawlers: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Dark Side-based kobold upgrade: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity party: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: v30
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: v30
My chosen character: Adamant (... just never mind about the name), the mighty Half-Elf Fighter/Mage!
I feel a little dirty starting with 3 WIS (though Adamant is too oblivious of his surroundings to notice if he's dirty), but I got an excellent roll of 93 and felt compelled to make a charismatic lead-from-the-front type of fellow. Adamant has opted to put ++ in Longswords and ++ in Two Weapon Style. He will be dual-wielding Varscona +2 and any +1 Longsword he can find (once he reaches L3 and gets +++ in Two Weapon Style). For BG2EE my intent is to have him use Kundane in the off-hand (so at least + in Short Swords, though it's not really necessary) and then branch out into Bastard Swords! Because Foebane deserves better than being sold off, damnit.
For starting spells, he has chosen Find Familiar and Sleep, and memorized Find Familiar.
Why not a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist? They're undeniably much more powerful. Unfortunately, they also have a really silly sprite (to my eyes), and though you can easily change it, it wouldn't sit right with me.
I also figure a Half-Elf is a fairly reasonable race for Gorion's Ward (along with Human and Halfling), and even with our sub-optimal race/weapon choices, we'll be plenty powerful come BG2EE.
So, let's get started.
Adamant, Half-Elf Fighter/Mage, BG1EE Update 1
Next update found here
Adamant starts by stealing more than you'd expect in Candlekeep. With exceptional strength and a familiar, he is capable of forcing open both the chest containing the Clarity potion and the one with about 80 gold and a Flamedance ring. Normally you'd be caught trying to escape afterwards, but with the familiar standing by at the stairs, he can make a quick escape! You can also steal an extra Potion of Healing in the hospital in the same fashion.
The ill-gotten gains are spent on 4 Longswords, a Splint Mail and a Large Shield. Carbos and Shanks are easily dispatched, as they can only hit on a critical. Adamant follows Gorion outside Candlekeep, and the game is afoot.
Our intended party is:
Adamant as principal tank (buffing up with protection spells later on, but only for key fights as his spell slots will be limited in number to say the least).
Ajantis with Brawling Hands and the Spider's Bane for a nice off-tank with decent damage potential and immunity to several nasty effects.
Khalid as archer. Granted, at max level he'll still be 2 THAC0 behind Coran, but he'll do the job well regardless. It's just to shake things up, really.
Jaheira as healer, doing what little good she can with a sling.
Branwen as walking dispenser of Animate Dead, Command, Hold Person and Free Action.
Imoen to cover our thieving needs and utility Mage spells (I'll dual her at L6).
Rather a beefy collection. Everyone apart from Imoen can and will wear heavy armor. Alright, we need to gather our party before venturing forth!
Imoen joins, and after looting the battle site, we pick up Xzar and Montaron. Proceeding to the FAI without incident, Tarnesh succeeds in killing off both Xzar and Montaron, but is completely out of spells thereafter (Xzar got hit with a Sleep, Montaron actually saved against 2 Horror, but couldn't withstand 2 Magic Missiles) and hence Adamant chops him up.
We recruit Khalid and Jaheira, and following a quick visit to the farmsteads north of the FAI, Ajantis is also brought on board, and we pick up Joia's Flamedance ring, to be turned in later. Our journey towards Nashkel is uneventful: We successfully clear the Belt Ogre, the two halfling-murdering Ogrillions, the Boots of Stealth Hobgoblins, and pick up Colquetle's Amulet, putting Adamant's single Sleep to good use, along with Entangle from Jaheira. Branwen is de-petrified, and joins. Huzzah! Time for adventure!
Normally, I'd probably do the areas west of Beregost first, but I've come to enjoy doing the "easier" areas west of Nashkel instead. They're all but impossible to die during and have some useful treasure.
We head towards the Mines to trigger Dorn's ambush, and pick up the platemail. I actually went ahead and killed Greywolf too: Ajantis kited him a little, and he eventually failed to save against two Command in a row, sealing his fate.
Our first stop is the Xvart village. OK, this doesn't really have much in the way of useful treasure, but it's on the way. Adamant pops an Armor scroll to ensure he has some protection for going into melee, as I want him to hold off casting his solitary Sleep until we have as many Xvarts as possible in the area of effect.
A near perfectly targetted cast later, we pretty much clear the entire village at once.
We leave the area north of the Gnoll Fortress alone for now. The Ogre Berserkers on the bridge, in particular, can be quite dangerous at these levels. Our target is the Gnoll Fortress proper, for the Brawling Hands (delicious!) as well as a small XP reward for saving Dynaheir, and the Charisma Tome (though it's hardly that important, we might as well get it while we're there).
Adamant proves his worth once more, and a number of Gnolls are put to (permanent) sleep.
It should be noted that, unless you accept Dynaheir into your party, it seems you no longer get any experience for saving her. It works to accept her, and then immediately remove her when you're forced to kick someone out though, which is what we do.
On our way back to Nashkel, we pass by the Cloud Peaks, killing Ingot, assorted other Gnolls, and the two numb-nuts pestering the Dryad (they're all highly susceptible to Command, so there's really not much to it).
Once we've rested up, we make a quick detour to Captain Brage's area. This is actually a nice, very easy chunk of quick XP: We do the Kozah quest, but leave the cursed figurine where it is. That's 1000 experience. Talk to Brage and escort him back to the temple of Helm, that's another 1000 experience, as well as a good bit of gold and a Stone Giant Strength potion. Nice!
Now we are good to do some stuff around Beregost. The area south of Bassilus goes well: We get some fancy jewelry off Drizzt's Gnolls (and a scroll of Melf's Acid Arrow. Cute, but we won't get a lot of use out of it), and Teyngan/Jemby/Zekar are dealt with in standard fashion: Command Jemby, kill Jemby while tank charges Zekar, command Zekar, kill Zekar, kite Teyngan around til he drops since he hits impossibly hard at times.
The half-ogres in the area are easily handled via Sleep.
Moving north, I opt to leave Bassilus alone for now. I'm not confident in our ability to keep him interrupted just yet. Zargal and friends are relieved of their goodies however (Sleep/Command.. no revolutionary tactics), and we rescue Melicamp. Unfortunately, upon being delivered to Thalantyr at High Hedge, Melicamp comes down with a mild case of being exploded into bits, and so we get no experience reward. Pfeh. We take our frustration out on the (by now quite outmatched) Gnolls and swipe Perdue's Short Sword.
Next, we clear all the little Beregost side quests. Silke proves a nuisance (going invisible twice and saving against Command a few times), but other than putting Adamant to sleep doesn't really accomplish anything.
Somewhere before that screenshot, Adamant leveled both as Fighter and Mage, hence his almost respectable HP pool (he's also got a LMD active, his base HP at the time was 28).
Normally I'm very restrictive about scribing, and only do so when attaining a new spell level, using potions to ensure 100% success rate. However, first level spell scrolls aren't rare, and I want to get started on identifying our gear already. We've gotten 2 Identify scrolls as random loot, so I scribe those (failing the first, succeeding on the second) along with Friends and LMD. Hooray! We can identify and use Varscona now!
At this point I made a quick detour north: We killed a single Ankheg (I want to save the brunt of them for when Imoen needs some quick XP after dualing) and pick up its scales, and a sanctuaried Branwen is sent into the nest to retrieve the treasure hoard. Most notably: We get a Wand of Fire. Excellent. Taerom is put to work forging our Ankheg Plate, and we go to finish a few more easy areas meanwhile.
The aforementioned wand is identified and put to use in Arghain's area, when we have to deal with an Ogre Berserker. We could've just kited him, I suppose, but I've not the patience for it. A fun part about Fighter/Mages is you don't really have to worry about positioning so much: It's fine to use Scorcher, or Wands of Frost, or later on Sunfire without buffing to the hilt. They can take a little beating if necessary.
Next up: Valley of Tombs. Narcillicus is left for later (he doesn't have anything of any real value as I recall... scroll of Lightning Bolt isn't that awe-inspiring), but we do clear the tombs. I indulged myself and let Adamant pop a Protection from Undead scroll which we got from Drienne when returning her dead cat.
Adamant thus easily deals with the Revenant, and ghasts to boot, being untargettable by them.
Alright, there's not much else to do that's stupendously easy! Meilum is convinced to give up his gauntlets:
And following that, we rescue Samuel and pick up a scroll of Protection from Magic while at it.
On the way back south from the FAI, we pick up our lovely Ankheg mail for Adamant. Now seems a good time to progress the plot a bit.
Of course, with the entire party (sans Adamant) L4, the kobolds literally don't know what hit them.
We cleave through them in no time, and Mulahey gets a dose of fiery justice. We also get the very important Web scroll from Mulahey's chest.
Upon our return to Nashkel, Nimbul is similarly outmatched. He tosses a 2x Chromatic Orb sequencer at Adamant, but is silenced immediately thereafter and accomplishes nothing.
Retreating to the Nashkel Inn, the party is preparing to identify a few more key pieces of equipment (Ring of Holiness and Boots of Avoidance), and thereafter, in all probability, attempt to trigger the Assassin ambushes so we won't have to worry about them springing on us at an inopportune time. That is for later, however.
As we leave our adventurers, Adamant is now a L3/L2 Fighter/Mage. His proficiency point at Fighter L3 went towards Two Weapon Style, and he now has ++ Longswords, +++ Two Weapon Style.
Before starting again I rerolled Freya for a 36th attempt. The main reason for that was to give her proficiency in sling rather than dart - that's a bit less efficient in terms of inflicting damage, but almost eliminates one of my favourite ways of dying in this challenge, i.e. charging enemies after a stock of darts is used up (also making inventory management easier). The re-roll didn't help too much though - Freya got up to level 3 by killing Shoal and finished off a lot of the nearby ogre clan, as well as a number of dire wolves ambushing during attempted rests. Eventually though I got a tad careless and didn't run back quickly enough after blinding another ambushing dire wolf and its single attack swallowed poor Freya whole.
Number 37 was a bit better, but Freya eventually perished at level 6 when a web extended a bit beyond its apparent diameter and held her to be savaged by a polar bear.
For number 38 Freya died to a bug when she shot Imoen, but appeared to be so overcome with remorse that the damage affected her.
Freya hit the road once more in attempt 39 and for quite a while took a risk-free approach. However, eventually I got sucked back into bad habits when deciding for some reason Freya needed to kill everything at Durlag's Tower. As the skeletons there move around so much they need patience to deal with safely and after killing nearly all of them I ran out of that - as a result dying in a similar fashion to an earlier run. With one of the bow-wielding skeletons showing at near death, rather than fire from extreme range, I used a magic missile from close up. It managed to respond with an arrow shot very quickly, taking Freya down to 20 HPs. She got a staff attack in as well for 11 damage, but that also failed to kill the skeleton. I expected to be able to move it around for a couple of seconds until Freya could magic missile it again, but obviously mis-judged slightly the reach of its halberd and an attack with that exactly removed her remaining HPs.
As a result of dying in a similar fashion twice in quick succession I decided to run a quick check on the status indicators for those skeletons to remind myself of how those work. That showed the following:
Text indicator (when mousing over or pressing tab key)
Full health - 104 (100%)
Barely injured - 103-80
Injured - 79-54 (76%)
Badly injured - 53-28 (51%)
Near death - 27-1 (26%)
Heads-up bar
Full health - 104 (100%)
Barely injured - 103-78
Injured - 77-52 (74%)
Badly injured - 51-26 (49%)
Near death - 25-1 (24%)
Both methodologies thus appear to be following essentially the same rules with status breaks measured at 75%, 50% and 25% of starting health. However, it appears that the text indicator is set such that the break always occurs with HPs one above the level indicated by the % and the heads-up bar with HPs one below the level indicated by the %. The methodology for the heads-up bar seems defensible to me, though I would probably have gone for using the exact %s: I don't though understand the rationale for using HPs above the % cut-offs ...
Chapter III - Night of the Wolf ("Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!")
TOC:
1. Einleitung.
2. Chapter I - Trapped and Scared.
3. Chapter II - Damsels In Distress.
First we tried our luck in saving Melicamp The Chicken. I often see the result as some kind of omen for the future of the run. So through the High Hedge we went (gaining Perdue's sword en-route) onto Red Canyons. Melicamp was duly saved from the lone wolf and we purified the area from various undead and other inhabitants. Mad cleric Bassilus was left alone for the time being as I was afraid he could easily chunk some Crew members with well placed Flame Strike (not to mention the possible Death Dreadnought aka aTweaks' Aerial Servant...).
Back in High Hedge Melicamp successfully survived the Antichickenator spell but we were advised by Thalantyr not to rely on luck too much. We heed the wise words and so Imoen carefuly scouted the entire area before we were ready to attack.
To return Perdue his sword we need to deal with Karlat. He fell unconscious due to my Command spell but saved vs following Hold Person by Viconia. And my Hold Person as well. But even though he quaffed the Potion of Heroism he soon ran as a headless chicken all over the place. Imoen ended his agony with well placed coup de grace shot.
Returning Perdue's sword gain me a long waited level up and we agreed to assist Garrick in his bodyguard mission. As soon turned out Silke tried to use us blindfolded to kill innocent people. This is not going to happen unpunished. Silke was prebuffed with Stoneskins, immediately cast Haste on herself and stubbornly chased our weakest Crew member Dynaheir who tried to hide in nearby house. She saved vs my Command and ran out of Viconia's Silence area of effect. But as she stayed in place for few seconds to cast a Mirror Images both me and Viconia fired Hold Person. Both connected proving her doom. Gauntlets of Dexterity were our reward and Jaheira gratefully accepted them which substantially increased her AC and rock-throwing skills.
Fisherman's Lake was our next destination. Half-Ogres were duly treated as well as some wanna-be-marauders. Jemby cast a Sleep spell and Jaheira took a nap under nearby rocks. Dynaheir fired Web, I - Silence on Jemby and Teyngan saved vs Viconia's Hold Person while Jemby put to Sleep both our snipers and tried to Dire Charm me. 'No way! And what is that smell?! Eww! Shut your mouth, just close it!'
Meanwhile Jaheira woke up and shut her up for all eternity. Imoen showed Zekar who's Mommy and I, tired already of 'catch me up' with Teyngan, held him still.
We cleared the area of Gnolls etc. and then...
...and then we've met Drizzt:
Here I should note that this is the very first time ever I play with BG1NPC Project and truth be told I was shocked at first... Naturally I'm very curious of Drow culture so I've a small collection of Drow pictures/portraits but man, I've always thought this particular one is a female portrait! And while I might be wrong, I just can't envision the famous dark hero looks like ... this. Well, for the Tale I'll just pretend that Nashkel storekeeper somehow managed to foist Drizzt the Girdle of Masculinity/Feminity we've sold him some days ago.
OK, back to the tale. We have some more cases unfinished so headed to the Xvart village. There we once again met Drizzt (as a part of Dynaheir personal quest) and accepted his aid in finding the missing journal. Then we tried to pass through the village but its inhabitants were not so friendly. Their leader, Nexlit the Xvart even called for a fearsome Usra the Cave Bear but paid an ultimate price for that. With me and Jaheira holding the line our archers/slingers haven't too much difficulties on dealing with little wretches. In nearby cave we found a useful potion and magical quarterstaff.
En route to Bear River we were ambushed by a pair of Ogre Mages but were in no mood to fight them. Khalid mysteriously saved vs a double Charm Person and we fled. Why they choose Khalid as a target I have no idea. Imoen proved not once and not even twice that she is an excellent archer.
Upon reaching our destination point we were greeted one last time by Drizzt, who have recovered Dynaheir's journal, and we cleared the area of Neville, the fairest of all fair bandits, who dropped a very valuable scroll, Ogre Berserkers, Mountain Bear and Gibberling horde.
To ensure of gaining the Boots of North we decided to increase our reputation to the max so headed to the nearby Archaeological Site.
This whole area was also cleared but we had little means to fight a Doomsayer fairly at the moment so just dropped a pair of skeletons to distract him and took a lift to Nashkel with Brage. Unfortunately our inventories are pretty condensed so his sword was dropped and we were forced to return to the site once again to pick it. But all that resulted with our reputation reached max and Jaheira got a warm footwear. This was put in good use vs a pair of Winter Wolves in Dryad Falls and some more of them in Fire Leaf Forest where they joined Vax and Zal. Web and Hold Person proved a demise of those and we finally have a serious source of destruction - a Wand of Fire, yay! And in the fields we picked up another valuable scroll.
We reunited an odd-looking boy with his fuzzy-wuzzy doggy and obtained an autograph of the still novice but promising rock stars which, for whatever reason, caused an odd look from Dynaheir:
As calm as I am but I can't stand the insults of some pompous jerks and so we've fought Sendai & Co. Web/Stinking Cloud neutralised Delgod while Sendai was Held and they fell one by one. Boots of Grounding and Scimitar +1 were our reward:
Rumors of strange howlings during the nights in the Beregost Temple area, the ones of not an ordinary wolves brought us there to investigate. Imoen scouted the area carefully and finally stumbled upon a pack of huge, fearsome looking creatures. We unloaded all spells we could that might incapacitate those creatures and I fried them from afar with cleansing fire of my new wand:
Now to the Carnival for some revenge. 'Remember me, dirty scums?'
And to the Lonely Peaks we go:
followed with Valley of the Tombs where we cleared all the tombs (found nothing special there), killed some Ankhegs (and weren't able to carry their shells due to overloading/lacking of strength) but avoided Narcillicus for the moment:
Now pondering where to go next as the number of relatively safe areas are running low already.
Current state:
Grim Face: Cleric (4) / Illusionist (4), 109 kills (Revenant);
Jaheira: Fighter (4) / Druid (4), 114 kills (Winter Wolf);
Khalid: Fighter (5), 306 kills (Vampiric Wolf);
Imoen: Thief (6), 187 kills (Greywolf);
Dynaheir: Invoker (5), 42 kills (Ankheg);
Viconia: Cleric (5), 48 kills (Winter Wolf).
to be continued...
Nice Dracula reference btw, keep up the good work!
Deciding to have one more attempt in this series, Freya has hit the road once more. So far I've resisted the temptation to do anything risky and just stuck to plans patiently - even persevering when it took 23 attempts to blind Meilum.
The most significant damage Freya has taken to date was when she was skull trapping the amazons. They don't specifically attack in reaction to that, but they do shift position among themselves and Telka must have got bumped out enough to catch sight of Freya - fortunately I reacted just in time to run out of sight and avoid a second shot.
After recent events I did feel compelled to kill all the skeletons at Durlag's Tower, but this time aimed to ensure Freya only attacked from range where she was exposed to at most 1 shot (with HPs just above the maximum damage from that). The skeletons armed with bows are still a formidable challenge, but she finished them off eventually. She also laboriously killed the ghasts in the upper tower and the basilisks on the roof - using no protection against petrification, but just web and blind to prevent them attacking.
Sorcerer L8, 41 HPs, 125 kills
Still in progress of making my monk kit but modding is tricky sometimes especially when you have no pc around for a while and have to pick up from last time.
Meanwhile I am reading all this awesome progress here!
Previous updates at:
Rather than take the time to web and blind all the basilisks Freya bought the green scroll. To make sure that didn't run out too quickly she used the wand of fire from the ankheg nest for the first time to do some scorcher damage to groups of the monsters. There was a near escape with the final greater basilisk though when Freya unexpectedly ran out of sling bullets and moved into sight of Mutamin as a result of auto-attacking with her staff. That turned the basilisk hostile and Freya's green scroll had just worn off - and she had no alternative protection. Fortunately the basilisk was a bit slow to focus its gaze and a potion of speed allowed her to get out of sight without being attacked. Skull traps then finished off the basilisk and did the same for Mutamin. After blinding Baerin and Lindin I thought Korax would have a good chance of handling the others, but for some reason he wouldn't talk to Freya - so she dealt with them using wand fireballs to top up her skull traps.
With reputation at 19 Freya decided to do the Nashkel Mine before going to the Lighthouse. After sneaking past most of the kobolds Freya webbed and skull trapped Mulahey a few times until he called his minions. Her stoneskin meant Freya was in no danger, but she was able to go invisible without being attacked anyway. That caused the kobolds and skeletons to cluster round Mulahey - allowing easy disposal of those.
After Nimbul was webbed and blinded to provide Freya with a familiar, she used her reputation of 20 to do some shopping. With a strength scroll purchased she gave back Joseph's ring - getting her final BG1 level there.
At the Lighthouse area Freya used the Amulet of Shielding for the first time to ensure the sirines would need a critical to hit her. Improved invisibility and minor spell deflection then protected against their charms while she bombarded them with spell and wand damage. To round things off I thought she should also kill the golems. That took a while of running them round, but 74 bullets of fire later all 3 lay dead without laying any of their fat fingers on her (though with stoneskin that wasn't a great concern anyway).
Tranzig had no answer to improved invisibility, opening the way to the Bandit Camp. I used up several wands there taking on the bandits outside without resting, including Taurgosz. Inside the tent, Freya tried out blindness, expecting to have to use something else as well (such as summoned monsters), but found her luck was in as all 4 opponents were rendered sightless and finished off before they recovered.
After passing invisibly through the Cloakwood Kysus was blinded and shot down. A number of attempts were made to blind Rezdan as well, but those were unsuccessful and Freya resorted to the use of summoned monsters to finish him off. The normal web and blindness were then sufficient for Genthore and Drasus. After sneaking through the mine Freya used skull traps to kill the battle horrors from out of sight (resting once in the area during that). Rather than risking another rest she just used wand fireballs to wear down Davaeorn to single figure HPs before taking extra style points for finishing him off with an invisible attack from her staff.
Regrettably I then got sucked into my bad habits again when, despite being low on spells, I went after the mustard jelly. It wore through remaining stoneskins and then poisoned Freya - forcing her to take a potion of regeneration. As the mustard jelly was almost dead though Freya used her remaining spell buffs and went back in again - only to be hit with a vicious critical that both put her near death and poisoned her.
Journal of Sneaky Blueskin
Sneaky Blueskin got all the way to the ducal palace after finishing all the ToSC content. However both dukes died.