As usual, after the short and sour end to one run we aimed to take away the taste by diving straight into the next delicious treat. Once more I rolled up an arcane type, but this time paired with something a bit more slippery than a fighter.
Things didn't get off to too promising a start when the noble upstairs in the inn appeared to have installed a silent alarm button to the local cop shop. That meant that Feldris hadn't bothered hiding before going back down the stairs and ran into a waiting guard. In the EE that's a bad position to find a guard even in single player as it's difficult to find space to dodge and the guard is able to follow you up and down the stairs - but arriving in front of you to prevent you from running out of the inn. It was therefore no surprise when Feldris racked up an early death.
Even with our record that wasn't a great start, but things improved from there. Del had already talked to Firebead (and talked ... and talked) to get an additional 300 gold, so there was no problem raising Feldris before leaving Candlekeep. Shoal resisted a couple of attempts to blind her, but not the stream of arrows and throwing daggers targeting her and soon provided our first levels.
Beregost, Nashkel and Meilum were visited on the way to the basilisk area where the monsters were soon dispatched. By that time Feldris was up to level 5 and his poison weapon ability was at its second stage - that quickly proved too much for Mutamin.
Del blinded Peter and Lindin and scared the others to provide a bit of payback there.
Various reputation tasks followed, with the revival of Melicamp pushing that up to 20. I don't normally use chromatic orb much, but Del had failed to learn several magic missile scrolls and tried a few orbs out during that sequence. One of them successfully stunned Greywolf - at level 5 the effect only lasts 3 rounds, but that proved just enough.
During that period Feldris did have one narrow escape. He suggested taking on Silke while passing through Beregost, but at a time when Del had no spells available to help out. He therefore stood back and watched to see if poison could prevent Silke getting a spell off - it didn't, but she found the effort of producing the spell just too much for her .
On the way to Ulgoth's Beard we stopped off at the ankheg nest. Feldris had disdained the idea of buying the Cloak of Displacement before taking on the ankhegs - after all a critical would have a good chance of killing him however good his AC was . As it happened though he completed the nest untouched by human hand (or indeed ankheg spittle). Del was wearing the Ring of Wizardry and had 10 sleeps available - 9 of which were successful. That meant that only the last ankheg couldn't be disabled - and he found there was a sudden chill in the area.
Del, diviner 5, 27 HPs, 33 kills Feldris, assassin 6, 36 HPs, 78 kills, 1 death
@Arctodus: BG2 and TOB aren't my only no-reloads. There was also a single no-reload run of SOD (Poppy the Cleric/Illusionist), IWD:EE (I forget who was in it), and IWD2 (Frisk, Chara, and Asriel, the "Underdale" run).
I've only tried no-reload for BG1 twice. The first time was with a character who had the advantages and disadvantages of every kit in the game, but it turned out to be extremely powerful despite having zero spellcasting and being unable to use basically any items at all--it just smashed everything with werewolf form and innate abilities. I gave that one up.
I also tried out a party of a Fighter/Illusionist, War Hulk, Seducer, and Alchemist with SCS, SR, and IR--mostly just to stress-test my new custom kits in BG1, since I didn't much understand the game balance in BG1. I got all the way through the main quest and all of the Tales of the Sword Coast questlines, but it didn't count as a full no-reload because I reloaded a couple times very early in the game. If I had just started over instead of reloading, which would have only cost me an hour or two at most, it would have been a successful BG1 no-reload run, but I did not.
@semiticgod : Yeah, I know about those too. I read them all, except your SoD playthough, because I hadn't played it at that time and wanted to avoid spoilers.
It does raise a question, though : should these memorable non-complete runs be documented somewhere ? Probably, but not in the Hall of Heroes, because the challenge clearly stated in the OP is about the BG trilogy/tetralogy. Hence, why even an IWD1-2 no-reload success, while welcome in the thread, shouldn't be in the Hall. Also, hunting down all those memorable runs, like the @JuliusBorisov's Totemic Druid, @Blackraven's Bounty Hunters or your Party of Spiders (and many others), would be a lot more time consuming -- and harder to identify : which non-complete run really deserve to be remembered ? Not always easy to identify...
On the other hand, if you would actually take the time to go through BG1, I'm pretty sure you would have already a few success under your belt...
Expectedly, the Hall of Heroes may be incomplete. If you tag me with your amendments (in the same format as in the OP), I will be happy to edit them in.
Legacy of Bhaal Genocide Run: Carl the Llama in BG2 (first post here)
SIEGE OF UST NATHA: PART 11
The siege drags on. Carl has maintained all of his buffs, but our other party members have been weakened somewhat. Our situation in the sanctuary room is quite solid, but things look ugly outside.
Wish is our best defensive option and best offensive option, so Carl casts it constantly.
We need Hardiness so Stan and Viconia can withstand the enemy's massive pressure, and we need Wish-resting to restore our HLAs, as Storm of Vengeance and Dragon's Breath are one of our few means of getting past the drow's magic resistance.
Viconia casts Farsight on the temple entrance to give us some advance notice of future enemy waves. Carl sends his Simulacrum clone out to smash the drow horde with Comet, but since it does crushing damage, it will do precious little to the enemy mages.
Anxious about Remove Magic, Carl prepares a Chain Contingency that should trigger if he gets dispelled.
The PFMW part of that contingency can get dispelled, but not Spell Deflection or Moment of Prescience. He'll still be vulnerable to critical hits, but SR Spell Deflection will block area-effect as well as single-target spells, and Moment of Prescience, with its +20 to AC and saving throws, will keep him mostly safe from attacks and nonmagical abilities like Demon Fear and Death Gaze (though he'll still take some minor fire damage from the latter).
Of course, any hostile attack can trigger this Chain Contingency, so Carl will need to stay out of the way until the demons arrive to make sure the contingency isn't wasted. He also prepares an extremely important, SR-exclusive contingency.
Break Enchantment dispels practically all disabling effects, regardless of their source. It's a marvelous option for no-reload runs, especially in a contingency.
Edwin's clone hurls out Dragon's Breath while Edwin himself uses the Book of Daily Spell to cast True Seeing. This will allow him to nail the enemy mages with Pierce Shield.
SR Pierce Shield is almost a guaranteed kill against enemy mages, but you need True Seeing to get past their invisibility spells, and Edwin's Conjurer kit forbids that. But the Book of Daily Spell circumvents that limitation.
Edwin isn't quite ready to march into the fray, so the enemy mages waste their time trying to debuff our celestials. With the help of Carl and Edwin's clones and their HLAs, the celestials are making strong progress against the drow cluster in the center of the map.
An enemy mage spawns in our sanctuary room, putting Edwin and Carl in danger. We use Harm and Energy Blades to take him down quickly, but he still forces Edwin to re-cast Dispelling Screen.
More enemies spawn in the sanctuary room, costing Carl his Chain Contingency.
Drow spawn in all locations in this fight, so even the northwest room isn't truly safe, despite its choke point to the central chamber.
While Edwin and Carl summon more celestials thanks to Wish-resting, Flowey fails to charm a faraway mage and is punished with a very nasty Flame Arrow Spell Sequencer. Even Flowey's sky-high resistances are no guarantee of safety. Edwin hurries over to bump his energy resistances up to 100.
Three mages are on the map with Prismatic Mantle active, making melee attacks dangerous even for our Planetar. Edwin has run out of his True Seeing already, but Flowey removes the drow's illusions with Detect Illusions. Still, with three drow mages active in one group, I decide to keep Edwin in the sanctuary room summoning celestials, rather than send him out to cast Pierce Shield where he might get hit by three Remove Magic spells in the same round.
Our celestials are in decent condition, so I let them tank the mages on their own. Meanwhile, we focus on our defenses. Carl is nearly level 35, at which point his Simulacrum clone will be able to cast Wish.
Finally, Flowey manages to charm an enemy mage. He begins to set traps in our sanctuary room.
We have reasserted control over the battlefield. With low enemy pressure, we can spend our precious rounds preparing for the next wave.
We'll need it. Because things are going to get ugly.
Legacy of Bhaal Genocide Run: Carl the Llama in BG2 (first post here)
SIEGE OF UST NATHA: PART 12
Rather than have Flowey lay more traps, I decide to re-cast Charm. A Seducer's Charm lowers the enemy's save vs. spell by 1 with every successful Charm, so charming them becomes slightly easier if they're already under the Seducer's control.
It takes 6 seconds before the dialogue box actually says if the charm was successful, but I know it worked because there's no line saying the drow made its save.
Edwin's Protection from Energy will only last 40 rounds on Flowey, and the fight might last longer than that, so Stan and Viconia give him immunity to fire and acid to block Flame Arrows and Acid Arrows. Carl casts Simulacrum, as he has hit level 35 and now his clone can cast Wish.
Our safety is short-lived. More drow spawn in the main chamber, and our old Farsight spell wears off, putting the area in the fog of war. Viconia re-casts Farsight to clear the area.
Our celestials can handle the new enemies for now. I keep the party focused on fortifying our defenses. Viconia and Stan bring out more Fallen Devas and Flowey sets more traps in the sanctuary room. Demons can teleport at will, but they won't be able to do much if they teleport right onto a pile of traps.
Unfortunately, anyone can trigger those traps, even enemies we can easily take down without traps.
We've put a huge group of celestials on the map. The drow horde disintegrates in record time.
Another Wish-rest lets us reinforce that advantage. Everyone in the party but Flowey starts bringing out another celestial, and I reposition our celestial army to make sure they engage the next drow wave, wherever it comes from.
Our old celestials start vanishing; their time is running out. But I have a fresh round of them that will last for another 23 rounds each. Just as the next drow wave appears, Carl lands a Wish Heal that puts the whole army back to full health.
They obliterate the next wave of drow, and all enemies vanish from the map. I have a moment of respite from the horde. Wary of another crash, I quick-save while the coast is clear.
While I wait for the next wave, I have the party focus on restoring its defenses. Flowey saturates the sanctuary room with Spike Traps, and our older celestials keep disappearing.
The next wave finally arrives. Matron Mother Ellaviir shows up on the map, soaked with pre-buffs.
Our celestial army clashes with the drow, bolstered by Stan and Viconia's Storm of Vengeance spells. Ellaviir fails a save against Charm, and a random drow tries to break into the sanctuary room, only to die before triggering all of Flowey's traps.
The situation looks good. But as I Breach Ellaviir, I notice the first demon on the map, a Glabrezu to the southwest.
It won't be long before a Nabassu and a Balor arrive. Those are the most dangerous enemies on the map.
They're the only ones who can take down Carl's defenses before he can restore them. If that happens, the run is over.
Legacy of Bhaal Genocide Run: Carl the Llama in BG2 (first post here)
SIEGE OF UST NATHA: PART 13
Lucky number 13. This is the last part of the Siege of Ust Natha.
We continue fortifying our position in the sanctuary room. More celestials and more traps. This will be our bulwark against a blitzkrieg attack from the demons--if they hunt down Carl, they will be under massive pressure in moments.
We just need to make sure no one else wanders into the sanctuary and triggers those traps. That will require tackling the drow horde in the main chamber before they grind down our celestials. When a few drow approach the choke point leading to the sanctuary room where Carl churns out Wish-rests, we send in a contingent of celestials to pulverize them.
The Nabassu appears to the far south. Now we have two demons on the map with instant-casting Remove Magic spells at will--we still haven't dealt with the Glabrezu.
Stan keeps flinging Energy Blades at the Glabrezu, shearing away its Mirror Images. Viconia manages to get Implosion off the ground without being interrupted, crushing the first demon.
The Drow Archmage, an epic-level mage, appears alongside some Stone Golems. Carl's clone deploys a Dragon's Breath spell, breaking through the golems' magic resistance. But SR Protection from Fire grants the Drow Archmage total immunity to the spell.
It takes several attempts, but Viconia manages to disrupt one of the Drow Archmage's spells with her Energy Blades.
Carl's new clone, protected only by a Moment of Prescience and Spell Trap but not Stoneskin, hurries to hit the Drow Archmage with a Pierce Shield. His defenses go down, and Viconia's Energy Blades can finally do real damage.
He's still highly resilient thanks to LoB HP bonuses, but we spend a lot of pressure on the mage to take him down before he can recover.
One of the primary threats is gone. But things are even worse than I expected.
There isn't just one Balor. There are two of them, along with two more Glabrezus and a new Nabassu, all of them appearing simultaneously.
This is serious. If I let them wander around the map, even Flowey's traps won't keep Carl safe. I need to break them down fast.
I take all the celestials I can afford to use and send them to engage the demons. I focus on the Balor first; they're higher-level and therefore have more dangerous Remove Magic spells.
Without Farsight on that area, I have to have Viconia linger nearby, exposing her to a Remove Magic spell. It's a disturbing sign, and we still have a Nabassu to the southeast who might cause problems later--we don't have nearly as much pressure focused on that demon.
It's hard to keep the celestials focused on the same target; they have their own scripts and targeting is difficult in chaotic situations like this. I want them to take down the Balors first, but they kill a Glabrezu instead.
Now that the Glabrezu is dead, however, the celestials can break through the wall and flank the remaining demons, allowing more of them to attack at once. Meanwhile, a Nabassu somehow fails to cast a spell--I think this is a frame-perfect spell disruption.
With the increased APR from flanking the demons, the celestials manage to take down the next Balor.
With every dead demon, more of our celestials can crowd around the rest. They encircle the last Glabrezu and put it down in seconds.
Flowey Charms the remaining Nabassu to the west. Viconia pins it down with Implosion and we smash it.
All that's left are a few drow. The battle is won.
The battlefield is littered with potions and armor and weapons. We scavenge all the potions we can find. It takes a long time, but it feels very rewarding to collect every last piece.
Our last task is to wipe out the rest of the city. The remaining drow are no challenge.
@Arctodus: I'll probably discuss class choices for a solo no-reload Ust Natha run in a future post. I plan on discussing the fight in more conceptual detail, and describe how it might be won without using the tricks that I used.
I actually lost track of the screenshots for the rest of Carl's run (I moved to a new computer), and though I could probably track them down, it's not really worth it. After the Siege of Ust Natha, the rest of the run was kind of a letdown.
It wasn't easy, and I didn't rely so heavily on celestials or Wish-resting (I got tired of both), but the party had grown to the point where it could still simply trample the enemy with brute force. SR's Negative Plane Protection rendered the vampires nearly harmless, Pierce Shield took down Manasseh and Hazzerbazzer in the fight with Bodhi, we bulldozed over everything in Suldannessellar, Pierce Shield took down Irenicus in the Tree of Life, and we handled Irenicus in the Nine Hells by staying well out of his way until the demons were gone, at which point we broke down his defenses and pummeled him to death. I think he used a Remove Magic Spell Sequencer, but Carl was nowhere to be seen when he used it (otherwise it could have proved fatal).
I had plans to bring Haer'Dalis into the party in ToB and have him use the Chaos Blade to get DEX drain kills on various enemies, but with the rest of the party already at max levels and equipped with the best gear in the game... Well, when the party is already at full strength, combat no longer offers any rewards. It's just a chore.
So I won't be taking Carl into ToB.
One Legacy of Bhaal mode run of Shadows of Amn, complete. It was a long slog, but it feels good to take down SCS Ust Natha.
A couple of people suggested they would like to see more of my archer party - so here we go. Part of the reason I'd been willing to take an (as it turned out) fatal risk in the last documented run was that progress had seemed too easy - I hadn't been trying particularly to avoid casualties, but only Shoal's kiss had killed anyone up to entering Baldur's Gate. In one way that should have been fine as the original idea behind restarting the archers was to see how they performed at higher levels, but it still didn't feel right to me. To keep more of a sense of challenge I restarted in an SCS modded version of BGEE and with a specific aim to try and avoid casualties as well as being more comprehensive about taking on all encounters. That brought the terms of this run more into line with my long-term monk challenge, but behaving in a similar way to that challenge with the archers immediately got them into trouble in the 5th attempt when I murdered both Algernon and Dushai early on - forgetting that rangers are subject to falling!
Restarting again, the boys quickly shot down Shoal (the prohibition on deaths meaning this time they didn't get the helm) and the rest of that area was cleaned up as well to get everyone to level 2. Attacking the sirines at level 1 carries a bit of risk and Cupid (who sneaked in to attack in melee initially) was immediately charmed - fortunately though she was also feeble-minded, so didn't attack the others. A couple of the other boys were charmed as well and Artemis was a potential problem with her bow in hand - but she failed to land any criticals and everyone survived.
In Beregost Algernon found he no longer had any need for his cloak (or anything else come to that), but this time the boys immediately repented of their sins at the Beregost Temple before going up to Ulgoth's Beard and separating Dushai from his ring. After fertilising a farmer's fields with some zombies the boys took on the ankheg nest. Ankhegs have a slow attack speed and often failed to launch an attack, let alone hit, before being shot down. The boys were quickly up to level 3 there and cleared the rest of the nest without injury. The outside area is more dangerous due to the possibility of fighting several ankhegs at once, but they still only took 1 hit.
*Scrambles to find notes of latest character* As I mentioned at the end of Zeru's run, I was planning on taking advantage of... either Divine Remix or Item Revisions, allowing multiclassed Clerics access to their other half's weaponry, albeit at half proficiency. So C/M can use darts, F/C can use anything, and for a safer CHARNAME, Archer -> Cleric can still use bows. I plan at dualing at level 9 for the final proficiency point, another damage increase, and max hitpoints. Barl: 15/18/18/11/18/10, Archer, 2 points in Shortbow, 1 point in spear, 1 point in something else I obviously haven't used yet
Seeing as how Zeru was a solo run, I wanted companions this time, but I absolutely hate really early game with a bunch of NPCs that'll all die to a single arrow. So still solo, Barl killed Shoal, did the Friendly Arm Inn fetch quests, did a couple of Beregost and Nashkel quests, purchased Protection from Alterations and cleared the basilisks for level 6. Now all NPCs start with 32k experience, making life considerably easier.
The crew's Neera, Imoen, Ajantis, and Branwen. Notable events: Ajantis was the first death at the Ankhegs, as he went unscratched in the caves but took a double critical by a pair outside before I could react. Neera died in a single hit during her own quest at Adoy's Enclave, taking a single melee attack with a sling still equipped. I seemingly forgot to actually loot Mulahey's body, and thus do not have the Ring of Holiness or Boots of grounding; by the time I returned, everything was gone.
Bandit camp was a bit of a mess; we took it head-on, but my Cloudkill was misplaced, and did far less than it could've. Neera was level 7 by now, and had fortunately learned Stoneskin from the red mage in her quest, but the skins were broken down by a hail of arrows and I couldn't manage to stop her from dying. Imoen took over the wand duties for the rest of the fight, a feature from IR allowing thieves to use wands at sufficiently high intelligence. Fear and Fireballs helped control the western front while Ajantis and Barl tackled the east, but Branwen, despite her critical hit immunity thanks to the Mail of the Dead, falls in the west. The rest is mopped up by the remaining trio.
Accidentally chose the wrong option for Chelak in the Spiderwoods, and got a small tonguelashing from Ajantis about being heartless. Oops. Anyways, Drasus' party: a good Mental Domination on Gelthore gets the enemy mages to waste a metric ton of spells of their own party member, as the Chaos and Slow that they packed weren't in range of the main party. Imoen's detecting illusions throughout this fight, trying to keep the Mirror Images and Shadow Doors down. Drasus falls first, and then one of the mages, without doing much. Imoen is hit by both Glitterdust and Dire charm, so they have a blind thief with a crossbow that can't actually help them. At the end of the fight, though, a lucky Summon Monster + Dire charm at the exact wrong time kill Branwen. It summoned an Ettercap, and it poisoned Branwen right before she was Charmed... The poison killed her before I could get Barl's Remove Poison on her.
There were no problems with any of the inside mage fights, though. Hareishan's stoneskins were taken down via stealth shots by Barl, and arrows of ice guaranteed her demise soon after. Both the ogre mage and the other mage on the 3rd floor died relatively quickly as well, with no offensive spells other than Glitterdust hitting anybody.
Daveaorn: Neera hid everyone with Invis 10", and Ajantis buffed with a fire giant strength potion and haste and Protection from Magic, and Ajantis dueled the Battle Horrors. After that, Barl took his Acid Arrows, Imoen started Detecting Illusions, and Neera used a charge of the Wand of Summon Monsters. Davaeorn didn't last long, also failing to get a spell off the ground. We're now in Baldur's Gate, having killed an Ogre Mage, several Doppelgangers, and gotten ourselves poisoned for both 10k experience and the second Tome of Wisdom in the game.
The boys travelled back to Beregost and cleaned up the town there. That included taking on Silke, which I decided wouldn't be much of a risk as SCS virtually always requires mages to use a buffing spell first. In this case it wouldn't have made any difference anyway as Robin interrupted her opening cast by poisoning her with one of the arrows of biting taken from the sirines and she was dead before she could try another spell.
Rather than going straight to Nashkel the boys detoured to the Lighthouse, where more sirines were killed despite the interference of a bunch of hobgoblins.
While resting to cure the damage taken in that encounter a couple more sirines tried ambushes - getting everyone up to level 4.
Clearing the area of hobgoblins required quite a bit more resting before Sil's group were shot down before any of them could turn invisible.
Even though it was a bit wasteful Robin used some of the arrows of biting to shoot down the golems as they hadn't picked up any standard +1 arrows yet.
Brage offered a lift to Nashkel (after being pulled out of range of Laryssa, so that she could still be killed later). After disposing of Neira, resting provided Robin with the group's first healing ability.
Next up the boys cleared the Cloudpeaks, achieving level 5 in the process.
A decent set of rolls there got everyone to at or above their 'average'. A few more areas were cleared on the way to Firewine. Kahrk and the ruins were left for now, but Meilum's bracers were grabbed as well as using Algernon's Cloak for the first time to get Bentan's scroll and Poe's spear (without suffering reputation losses). The spear meant everyone now had a magic melee weapon they are proficient with, but most of them still needed a critical to hit when they went back to find the Doomsayer - and Robin had to finish that off with a series of stealth attacks while the others hid.
Melicamp died, but there was plenty more reputation out there and when that hit 20 the boys treated themselves to some equipment upgrades. They didn't have quite enough money to buy everything potentially useful - but a quick trip to the Bank of Bassilus sorted that out .
With green scroll to hand Robin led the way to the basilisk area where he made short work of soloing most of the monsters. Mutamin's special pets caused a bit more concern after Mutamin blinded, then charmed, Robin. I thought that might cause Mutamin to leave him alone, but he threw in an acid arrow and attacked in melee as well - so the others had to do a ticklish rescue while staying just out of sight of the greater basilisk.
Once Robin was back in control of himself he meleed the basilisk without trouble despite his blindness. After resting, the boys tried out their called shots against Kirian's party. Peter went down quickly, but Kirian proved harder to hit and managed to get a couple of chromatic orbs off before being downed.
Trio No Reload, Gate70 / Grond0 / Corey_Russell (continued) Session Two Dreen led the way round the basilisk loop before Mutamin was caught out with a True Sight. Kirian and her gang were the final encounter, but unable to hurt the party too much as Korax helped out and held three of the four opponents before we rewarded him with true death.
With an eye on reputation, the next stop was to help Charleston Nib with his dig, and a Doomsayer which proved unable to injure a spirit animal.
Captain Brage provided a quick return to Nashkel, where Neira was removed from the inn. A +2 dagger was picked up, and a Revenant tried several times to take it but failed. Narcillicus Harwilliger-Neen and his jellies caught the party off-guard, Dreen pausing to cast a spell while Nugget assumed his sling was loaded but instead moved in with his dagger. A potion of absorbtion was taken and just managed to beat the lightning bolt heading his way.
Nugget believed the Amazons were a no-show but Nerd and Dreen were able to spot them and kill them off without any resistance (possibly a multiplayer bug as we went to them before entering the mine).
Dreen was keen to buy the best (most expensive!) armour in town before farming ankhegs, so Nugget relented. He treated himself to the Dagger of Venom at the same time. The angkeg nest was rapidly cleared.
Durlag's Tower was briefly visited, with a Tome of Understanding retrieved. The way in had seen a pair of battle horrors beaten down without too much of a struggle.
Time for Mulahey to pay for his sins.
Nimbul could see summons converging on him but failed to look up in time to spot Nerd's calling of lightning.
A mass of bandits ambushed the party en-route to Beregost, Nerd taking minor damage but the trio declined to fight and moved on, with more important matters to deal with. Nugget poisoned Tranzig with his dagger before heading to the bandit camp. Taugosz Khosann was not amused at the spirit animal chomping through his minions but a double-druid helping of call lightning separated him from his armour.
Inside the largest bandit tent a fierce battle broke out, Nerd getting poisoned by Hakt. Dreen tried to pass a potion to help but Nerd had anticipated such aid and wishing no part of it had made sure his inventory was full. Nugget used a memorised slow poison spell instead, figuring this would be more acceptable to the tee-total fighter/druid.
Nugget then moved in to distract Hakt, as did Dreen.
A few moments later Nugget was able to summon a spirit animal but the battle had already turned by that stage.
Meilum proved the fastest swordsman in the land, but failed to survive one call of lightning and was not brought back into life by a second strike moments later. Nugget considered looking for the Bracers of Archery but the two hour timer was closing in so instead we headed to Cloakwood where we picked up a cloak from some tasloi and a sword from the corpse of Aldeth Sashenstar.
With Carl finally out of the way, I can start a new run. I have decided to try my hand at a real no-reload of BG1. I have used BWS (with the standard "tactical" mod list) to install a massive number of mods--not just SCS, IR, and SR, but a whole bunch of other mods, including quest mods, that I have never tried.
So I'll be going in practically blind. My WeiDu log is so freakishly long that it cannot fit in a single post; I've attached it to the bottom of this comment.
I am going to use my own custom kits, the Alchemist kit for mages and the Seducer kit for thieves. Something in the BWS mod list caused a problem during character creation (my Alchemist couldn't select all of their level 1 spells), so I fixed it by starting with a Transmuter and then using EEKeeper and a custom item to apply the kit.
I want to take this through the entire trilogy, so I plan on restarting if I die somewhere along the way. To make sure I stay interested, I am using two characters I know I will not get tired of: Chara and Frisk, of Undertale.
Chara has a 97 roll because I bumped up their Charisma (a dump stat during rerolling) to 10 for cosmetic reasons. I can dual-class Chara later on to cleric, fighter, or thief, but I'm not sure it will be worth it, because higher-level Alchemists get much cooler potions and grenades.
Chara's backstory fit in with the Alchemist concept, and Frisk's history of making friends (and their fanonical status as an incorrigible flirt) fit in with the Seducer concept. Normally I'd pick Frisk as the main character, but the Seducer kit, with its 4 HP per level, inability to wear armor, and AC penalties when using psionic powers, is far too fragile. The Alchemist kit is much sturdier, with 6 HP per level and extra bonuses from its potions.
Stepping out into the unknown fills us with determination.
Before we begin, I will clarify that some time has passed since the events of Undertale, and both Frisk and Chara are the canonical age for the Bhaalspawn of the Baldur's Gate saga: roughly 20 years old.
Just so we're clear on that.
Anyway, we start with 100 gold, which I first use to create some new items courtesy of Chara's Alchemist kit:
1. Rainwater Brews (8 gold, heals 2d6 HP) 2. Smoke Bombs (10 gold, invisibility for 4-7 seconds) 3. Bottles of Sludge (10 for 1 gold, ranged weapons, +2 to hit, 1d4 slashing and 2d4 acid damage, random but weak on-hit effects) 4. Grenades (20 gold for 10 grenades, automatically hits for 1d6 damage and 1 round of stun and 2 rounds of deafness on a failed save vs. breath at +3)
Alchemists get stronger potions and grenades at level 4, 7, 11, 15, and 19. Chara will be able to give us some really neat toys, but funding their projects will cost us a LOT of money over the course of the game.
Where do we get money fast? Well, I've heard you can loot a Potion of Clarity from upstairs in the Candlekeep Inn, so I've spent all of Frisk's skill points in lockpicking. As an Alchemist, Chara can "recycle" potions for almost their full value (you sell them back to the summonable shop where you buy your potions), so a Potion of Clarity would give a hefty windfall.
We sneak upstairs and Frisk finds the right chest. They manage to open the lock!
But we're in trouble. When Frisk picks another lock and steals a pearl in hopes of making a new necklace, a guard appears from nowhere and confronts us, threatening to tell Gorion about our petty thieving. I don't know what the consequences for getting caught are (there are so many mods installed that I don't know anything about), so Frisk plays it coy, pretending to be innocent.
But the guard isn't fooled. The dialogue is actually quite colorful.
I keep trying to weasel my way out, and after several rounds of dialogue, I discover that yes, maybe there is a way to get out of this scot-free.
Frisk, being who they are, has no problem with this. And personally, I'm not entirely sure I do, either.
The dialogue... lasts a bit longer than I expected. And also goes a bit farther than I expected.
...What exactly did I download here? Frisk is curious, but I'm starting to wonder how this ended up in a standardized BWS installation.
Well, maybe it's wrong for me to place the blame on whoever wrote whatever mod this came from. I mean, it's not like they didn't provide other dialogue options...
It would be different if we were getting blackmailed by Tethtoril or Firebead Elvenhair or ideally Imoen, but we don't even know this guy's name.
Frisk isn't complaining, but I keep wondering how far this is really going to go. Because it doesn't appear to be slowing down.
In fact, it seems to be accelerating. And we are doing absolutely nothing to stop it.
Seriously, what did I install? Does anybody know? @Buttercheese? Anybody? I'm not even posting the full dialogue here; there's a lot more.
Gradually, I realize that this conversation is more than just innuendo.
In fact, it's pretty obvious that something is happening. Frisk gets to add another notch to their belt! Chara rolls their eyes and the game continues.
This is so inappropriate. I love it.
It also feels weirdly icky. We don't know this guy. Is he a playful rascal who just wanted an excuse to flirt with us, or was he a genuine scumbag who was seriously blackmailing us? Because one of those things is a lot more likely than the other.
Either way, the affair finally ends, and we part on amicable terms.
Frisk is filled with determination.
Ickiness or no, I suppose it worked out. Ideally, encounters like this should be mutually rewarding, economically productive, and leave you with that strange mix of fatigue and confusion that lets you know that tonight, you learned something truly special.
After the guard leaves, Frisk steals a pearl and hands it over to Chara. Chara sighs and gets to work, converting the Potion of Clarity and the pearl into 540 gold, of which they spend 11 coins to brew a Sweet Elixir, because a Sweet Elixir can cure intoxication, poison, and disease.
Notice that I gave the Sweet Elixir to the wrong person in that screenshot. Later on, I would remember to have Frisk drink one as well.
Enjoying novel dialogue from strange new mods fills us with... determination.
After clearing the exterior of Gullykin the boys found the back entrance to the Firewine Ruins. A stealthy entrance there allowed them to shoot down an ogre mage and Lendarn before they could buff
and shortly after that the last of them got to level 6 - an excellent set of rolls there, with the lowest of them getting 12 HPs . Robin then used fire and lightning protection to essentially solo the maze.
Looking for some more high-value targets the boys went to Durlag's Tower. Mobbing the battle horrors allowed reasonably easy victories, while plenty of ghasts were just shot down. On the roof Robin used a couple of potions to protect him while shooting the basilisks, while upstairs the ghost failed to spot the boys sneaking into position for the kill.
Looking to tie up another loose end they returned to Firewine where Kahrk also failed to spot them - and failed to complete a spell.
Next up was Ulcaster. I was surprised there how easily Icharyd was shot down and the boys followed that up with a successful assault on the Wolf - a full round of fireballs followed up by shots using their best ammunition successfully killing it before it could howl.
Up to this point everyone's non-magical ammunition had all come from Candlekeep, but stocks were finally getting low so they went to buy a bit more before heading for the Nashkel Mine. They zipped through there quickly - only using stealth to get the drop on the kobold shaman. After resting in Mulahey's cave they attacked him - he just had time to summon some friends, but they did him no good.
In Nashkel, Nimbul was given no time to buff and Tranzig suffered the same fate. After clearing Larswood they accepted a lift to the Bandit Camp and confirmed beyond any doubt that, in my installation at least, Tazok is now unkillable at this stage. They sneaked into the main tent and shot down Venkt before running out again.
Taurgosz was waiting there and seemed to be angry for some reason, but after he switched sides the external bandits were quickly subdued and Taurgosz was given the traditional pay-off for his help.
In the Cloakwood, Robin's ring of free action made webs much less of a threat and the first 2 areas were cleared without problems. While journeying to the next they were ambushed by the amazons. I haven't fought those recently as their follow-me script makes them difficult for solo characters (you can't buff up out of sight), but the archers weight of shot meant the amazons only managed a couple of invisible backstabs.
Soon after that Molkar's crew had a go as well, but didn't fare too much better.
The Archdruid in the 3rd area is a significant challenge to my monks, but a sneak attack by archers was too much for him.
Moving on, they sneak attacked one mage at the mine before using weight of shot to pick off the others one by one.
It IS Romantic Encounters with the option of ALL the encounters being installed. If you were wanting an installation that your kids can play, don't install the adult version.
Most of that dialogue can be easily skipped. YOU chose the options.
However I think that with those options installed it should be called lustful encounters, not romantic encounters. No romance at all, just lust.
If you are male, the guard doesn't turn up. Clearly the mod writer didn't feel comfortable with it being a male-male encounter or with a similar dialogue with the guard being female.
Today's session was a bit of a struggle - largely due to a poor connection making the usual multi-layer lag particularly bad. The first major problem though was self-inflicted when, after Feldris used a potion of clarity against the sirines at the Lighthouse, the duo entered the pirate cave. Del looked in his inventory to find a potion of speed for Feldris and Feldris looked in his inventory to check what magic arrows he had - and a golem coming round the corner looked at the two static bodies and couldn't believe its luck .
After finally arriving back from the Temple Feldris shot the golems, with Del making things a bit easier by acting as an invisible blocker.
With desired equipment pretty much all purchased the next logical step seemed to be the Nashkel Mine. Most of that was just sneaked through, though Feldris couldn't resist giving the spiders a taste of their own medicine with poisoned backstabs. Inside the cave Mulahey was about to die from a 3rd skull trap, but Feldris beat Del to it with a poisoned arrow - and got his reward by having to walk through the skull trap himself.
Outside the mine just the 2 skull traps were quite sufficient for the amazons.
Nimbul was one-shotted by a backstab, while Tranzig survived the initial blow - but still died shortly afterwards from the continuing poison damage.
At the Bandit Camp a few backstabs and a few sleeps helped reduce the bandit population. Taurgosz didn't go quietly though - some severe lag meaning Feldris was slow to react to his patented extendable hammer.
After taking revenge
and completing another temple trip the enemies in the main tent proved no problem - blind, stinking cloud and skull traps making short work of them. There was a problem though when Feldris fiddled with the chest and set off a lightning bolt trap - luckily Del was wearing Mulahey's boots or that would have been a shocking end to the run.
After skipping encounters in the Cloakwood, skull traps killed the mages guarding the mine and the others didn't last much longer.
Feldris used the boots of speed to allow him to do a few extra backstabs in the mine while Del just toggled along quietly invisibly on the way down to Davaeorn. He was incapacitated by a poisoned backstab and a few magic missiles saw him on his way.
The only work done so far in Baldur's Gate was starting the poison quest in order to allow Del to get his own Boots of Speed.
Barl, Human Archer (to Cleric in BG2) second update: A couple of quests were undertaken in Baldur's Gate, including investigating the Merchant's league for Ajantis' final weapon upgrade, barfighting, invading the house of a paladin and taking his helm of glory... Raiding Ramazith's tower proved incredibly irritating as non-magical armor can break in this installation, and Ajantis' full plate decided to disintegrate to a Mustard Jelly. A couple of trips back to kill Ankhegs later, we finish and give the INT tome to Neera.
I've noticed a bug and for the life of me can't figure out where it's coming from. Randomly two or three characters of mine will get a Shielded icon on their portrait, and when I look at the character record their AC's either 2 or 6 better than it ought to be. Checking all the gear got me nowhere, so... Legitimately confused on what caused this bug.
Regardless, no problems were had during any of the minor fights in the Gate, with the mages going down to magic arrows disrupting their spells and Imoen Detecting Illusions, and if enemies started invisibly by script, Detect Invisibility from Branwen or Imoen, since Detect Illusions doesn't work against non-spell, non-potion invisibility.
Iron Throne Fight was handled by luring members down the stairs one by one until there were only 3 or 4 left upstairs, at which point we simply took the head-on fight. Ajantis and Branwen ran interference as Neera and Imoen found the two assassins, with Barl shooting them whenever they became visible. No deaths here either.
In Candlekeep, the ambush fails horribly as a Wand of Fear charge disables two Ogre Mages and a Detect Invisibility leaves the Ogres fairly weak. I had to use a Potion of Magic Blocking (or it's IR equivalent, Magic Nullifying or something) on Branwen due to the MAA Sequencer landed on her, though. We left Rieltar and co. alive, and run the dungeon, giving the last Tome of Understanding and the Manual of Gainful Exercise to Barl to give him an extra level 5 slot and the ability to use Compound Short Bows respectively. Pratt and his friends are weakened by fireballs before being taken out by swords and arrows and the occasional Magic Missile, and the two Basilisks are killed under a Potion of Mirrored Eyes.
In search of easy-ish experience, Barl elects to tackle the Ulcaster Ruins. A mod-added ghost within the ruins insta-killed Branwen similarly to Shoal: I think the ghost wants a body to inhabit to do something with? Nonetheless... A Scroll of Raise Dead (Thank you, Item Revisions! I think. Might be Divine remix.) is used and the Wolf of Ulcaster is dismayingly easy, as the Ghouls and Dread wolves that it summons can actually be outright killed by a level 7 Cleric Turning undead, and a hail of +1 arrows from an Archer?
Finally, we save Duke Eltan and fight Cythandria, with Branwen dying yet again after a Golem Slow connected and her AC wasn't enough to save her. Slythe and Kristin were an exercise in patience: I lured Slythe out with Barl and Imoen, and IR allows Thieves to wear robes AND makes Knave's Robe give immunity to Backstab. Barl was under the effects of Potion of Stone Form (5 Stoneskin skins via potion.) Slythe was dogpiled and killed.
Kristin, on the other hand, has something weird going on with her script. She would randomly turn invisible in front of me right with a dirty aura, and since it's invisibility by script, I can't use Imoen's Detect Illusions to find her. Kristin cast Chaos at Neera, but I didn't feel bad about shifting the Greenstone Amulet around the people affected since Kristin was pretty blatantly cheating anyways.
Ducal palace: if I could do three things, I guaranteed a win. If I got Liia Janneth invisible, AND stopped the mage from casting Chaos, and never have Neera cast, I don't think I could've lost. Not wanting to risk a Surge from Neera in the palace, we buffed in the above room (Haste, Chant, a potion of strength for Ajantis, DuHM for Barl...) and Imoen waltzed up to Liia, still invisible, and started casting Invisibility from scroll. Thieves can also do that via IR, which is kinda/sorta broken, but whatever.
Ajantis and summons via Wand fought off some of the assassins and Greater Doppels while the others dogpiled the Mage with elemental damage, trying to ensure that no spell would be gotten off: Acid Arrows, Bolts of Lightning, Wand of the Heavens... And were successful. The mage didn't do anything useful. While Belt still died, Liia was safely invisible the entire time.
The Thieve's Maze was stupidly dangerous, as the Skeleton Warriors insisted on almost killing Ajantis and Branwen like three times each, but no casualties. The Undercity party and Tamoko had Barl at 146k experience, so he'd level up in the temple fight, and possible hit the level cap from Sarevok. Perfect.
I don't think I've ever fought the full SCS undercity temple fight with a party before, and even in Vanilla I usually ended up with one or two dead. This time, though... Barl buffed lightly under Pro. from magic, and the standard array of buffs were dispensed by Neera. The fight was kind of really fractured, with Neera using the Wand of Summoning to pin a mage (Semaj, I think?) to the west corner with Barl, while the other four scrambled to avoid death via Sarevok, and avoid bringing Barl attention. Semaj fell, but Angelo then went to that same corner and cast a Teleport Field; Ajantis went to harry him under a Potion of Magic Shielding while Barl went to try to snipe Diarmid.
Things went south fairly quickly, with Imoen and Branwen pretty injured and Sarevok turning to Barl. Branwen ran to the northeast, Neera bought time with more wand charges and a Shadow Door, and Imoen and Barl reset by both turning invisible. Twice, actually, as the first one was canceled by a Divination spell of their own. Still under her Stoneskins and Mirror images, Neera walked up to Branwen and successfully cast her invisibility 10' while under pressure by the skeleton warrior, Diarmid, and Tazok. Everyone besides Ajantis was invisible, and he was under a Potion of Defense (-4 AC), a potion of Invulnerability, a potion of Magic Shielding. Sarevok was still in the bottom left corner, his script confused after Imoen and Barl became invisible and left.
Using Potions of Regeneration, and rebuffing Neera's defensive spells, Diarmid, Tazok, and now 3 skeleton warriors were killed in the top right corner. Branwen took a bunch of damage, but survived. Barl started using stealth shots on Angelo, but ultimately was seen and chased by Sarevok. After taking two hits due to poor kiting skills, I had him drink another Invisibility potion as the others ganged up against the last acolyte. Ajantis was charmed as Angelo dies, so Branwen is kept moving around for awhile. It doesn't matter, though, as Neera still has summons left to tank for Barl as Acid Arrows become like an acid rain down on Sarevok's thick skull. Ajantis snaps out of it just in time for Barl to land the killing blow.
Final stats: 16/19/19/11/21/10. 4 points in Shortbow, 1 point in Crossbow, 1 point in Spears. Edit: 102 maximum health. That's... honestly incredible at level 8. The average is 88.5...
Stealth allowed the upper levels of the mine to be cleared without trouble. At the bottom Robin successfully used stealth and fast movement to draw one of the battle horrors away from Davaeorn without him noticing. For the second one I decided to send the whole group forward rather than pull the battle horror back - but Davaeorn noticed them clumping past him. As his stinking cloud / web sequencer is scripted he was also able to cast that immediately after detect invisibility - leaving 2 of the boys trapped in the web in a nasty situation.
William managed to poison Davaeorn with a bolt of biting as Robin took a potion of magic blocking and ran through the trapped area ahead of the first batch of guards arriving.
Cupid was throwing darts of wounding (non-proficient, but still useful with the extra APR) and also poisoned Davaeorn before his stoneskins ran out and his life swiftly followed - that got everyone up to level 7.
Outside, they dodged the slave before returning to Beregost where a spot of murder and thieving ensured Robin would get horror as a Bhaal ability.
Before going on to Baldur's Gate there was a bit of wilderness exploration to finish. Peldvale and the Red Wizard area were soon done leaving only the Lake area. That had been left as I was thinking it was a long time since I'd killed Drizzt with a party. After going to Baldur's Gate to buy a potion of magic shielding the boys took a trip to the Lake where Robin used magic shielding to ensure that Drizzt couldn't catch him (for instance by charming him or sticking him in an entangle). He then ran Drizzt round while the others killed him and I took a screenshot - which froze the computer. That's a perennial (and annoying) glitch with a few encounters in the game, so next time after the battle I used the windows key + PrtScrn. That saves a screenshot as a file in Pictures/Screenshots and avoids the problems sometimes encountered with the standard game functionality.
Back in the City they worked through all the encounters without particular difficulty. There was one minor annoyance when the Halruaan mage fell in a position where whatever he was carrying was placed into a locked cabinet, but I don't think he has anything much anyway.
With reputation back up to 20 the boys bought up all remaining useful equipment before putting their new exploding arrows to good use at the Iron Throne - a single round of those killed everyone except Gardush (including both Shannaras).
After reporting to Duke Eltan they were sent to Candlekeep to be greeted by a group of ogre magi. All of them except Legolas scattered on arrival to avoid the possibility of everyone being incapacitated.
Legolas fired an Arrow of Slaying with the aim of killing one of the attackers - but it appeared to do nothing (presumably mirror image protects against its effect). However, using a few arrows of dispelling helped finish the battle pretty quickly anyway without too much danger (so there was no need to use arrows of dispelling on themselves).
Edit: 102 maximum health. That's... honestly incredible at level 8. The average is 88.5...
It would be if you were playing vanilla or BGT, but in EE it's not that unusual. I haven't been able to work out exactly what causes it, but there is a consistent tendency within the game to give above 'average' HPs - I've never had an EE character at high enough level to have all their HD with below average HPs (and I've played a lot ).
Micro-update of Corewild and his band of wild mages:
The party took on Mencar and his gang. They (Mencar's group) clearly looked like trouble so the party used invis 10' to get the mages into position then unloaded lots of mojo on Mencar's troope (stinking cloud, cloudkill, fireball, greater malison, web, emotion, etc.) The enemies could not escape being disabled, thus could not even attack. Corewild and Joshua just waited it out and let our wild mages do their thing. No surges oddly enough despite the massive # of spells being cast.
We then made our way to the Sewers of the Unseeing Eye. We battled to Gaal and agreed to "help" him. We cleared the undead on the way to the lower level an needed to save here.
Still hot and bothered by our brush with the law, we say hello to Alec, the elf just outside the inn who apparently is another mod character I'm not familiar with. He invites us over to talk at the temple of Oghma, where we discover that he is a longtime friend of ours--although, unfortunately, no more than that.
Not yet, anyway. Though apparently he too has longed to be something more than just a friend.
For the purposes of this run, we shall consider Frisk to be acting in Chara's stead whenever Chara is roped up in romantic nonsense, since Frisk is unfortunately not our main character due to safety issues. Frisk does have a history of dying incessantly to weak enemies.
There's a strange bug that appears to block saving throw messages. Frisk Charms Shank and Shank appears to make no saving throw...
...but he does not get charmed the next round as he's supposed to. So Chara just one-shots him with a Bottle of Sludge. Carbos suffers the same fate.
I like how the Bottles of Sludge turned out. They're powerful enough to be useful, but not so much that fighters would bother using them over their normal weapons, or that non-fighters would use them in favor of higher-quality ammunition.
We suck a little money out of Firebead Elvenhair by speaking to him about 30 times before heading out to watch Gorion die horribly.
We make fast friends with Xzar and Montaron further down the road. Their potions will net us a lot more money, and they'll prove instrumental in taking down Tarnesh. On the way, Montaron demonstrates his skill as an assassin by screaming bloody murder before launching a stealth attack. He bravely slaughters a small blue child.
We hunt down the ogre to the east and kite him with Bottles of Sludge. The bottles have poor range that weakens them as kiting tools, but ogres have horrible movement rates due to using a BG1 sprite--even in EE, sprites that date back to BG1 move just as slow as they always have.
My favorite way of taking down Tarnesh is to use Xzar and Montaron to soak up his Melf's Acid Arrow and Horror spells while the rest of the party putters around elsewhere. But Montaron manages to kill the poor mage in one shot...
...leaving me with the question of what to do with the Zhentish agents now that they survived. I decide that they are still worth sacrificing against the Ankhegs further north. I bring Helarine into the party, a nondescript cleric of Kelemvor that gets an astounding number of spells.
I don't know which mod does this, but those are some pretty neat options. Unfailing Endurance was a level 3 or 4 spell in Icewind Dale and IWD2, but now it's available at level 1. Not that it's especially useful; Haste doesn't use the fatigue opcode in Spell Revisions, and Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, the outrageously overpowered level 5 cleric spell from Icewind Dale, erroneously imposes no fatigue penalty whatsoever.
When I arrive in the Ankheg area, the entire map is unselectable... I can't click anywhere and nobody can move, as if the entire map was a solid wall. A reload solves the problem, but I find it very strange; I don't know why a mod would cause it.
Anyway, a bandit appears out of nowhere and nearly kills Chara in one hit. But as a level 1 character with less than 14 HP, they can't die from a single blow.
I'm surprised, however, that the bandit could deal 7 damage, since a shortbow should only do 1d6. I guess they have 2 pips in bows or something. At any rate, Chara can bring themself back to full HP with a single Rainwater Brew.
Each one heals 2d6 HP, so they're not very reliable for no-reload purposes (you might only heal 2 HP from it), but as an Alchemist, Chara gets an extra 1d3 HP.
We use Command on our first Ankheg, but in SR, enemies below level 5 get a saving throw, and unlike normal BG:EE, SR Command allows the target to wake up when it is struck.
And although Helarine cannot die in one hit due to being a level 1 character with under 14 HP, an Ankheg's attack actually counts as two strikes: one dealing missile damage, and the other dealing acid damage. Helarine croaks.
We manage to slay it before it kills again, though it takes a charge from Imoen's Wand of Missiles--which IR boosts to striking 3 times instead of once (10.5 damage instead of 3.5). Unfortunately, the XP reward is extremely disappointing.
It seems that I unintentionally installed a mod that drastically lowers all XP rewards. It will take far, far more work to gain levels in my install than would otherwise be necessary.
We move on to the next Ankheg, only to find that our low levels are still crippling.
It only takes 100 gold to raise a character and Ankheg shells can be sold in Beregost for 500 a pop, but that's still a 20% drop in net profit.
Or 40%, since we're not always that lucky.
Or sometimes 100%. Plus the cost of a charge from the Wand of Missiles.
I dump Xzar to make room for Ajantis (who starts at level 2!) so he can help Chara carry our equipment back to the Friendly Arm Inn. I move the Ankheg shells by moving them from Ajantis to Chara and back, since the game only checks your encumbrance when you try to move, not when you try to pass something to another character.
After raising Helarine, Frisk, and Imoen, we use a Command to subdue the Ankheg just long enough for Chara, who normally stays out of combat completely for safety's sake, to throw a single grenade. Unfortunately, the Ankheg doesn't get stunned, and a bug prevents us from seeing the successful saving throw.
The weakest grenades only deal 1d6 damage and stun for 6 seconds on a failed save vs. breath at +3. That's actually not bad for BG1, but they are rather slow (speed factor 5), only get 1 APR even when the character is hasted, and their range is subpar. This means the Alchemist has to spend 3 seconds very close to the enemy to land a hit, and if a party member is fighting the enemy, he or she might also get stunned--a potentially fatal situation. So grenades are really dangerous. Hence the need for a Command spell.
Why not have Ajantis throw the grenade? He can use them, but as a non-Alchemist, he suffers a 15% chance per throw of blowing himself up for triple damage and a much stronger stun effect (save at -4 to avoid it). It's a decent option for suicidal charges, but usually, grenades are best left to Alchemists.
Helarine gets hit, but survives due to making her save vs. death (negating the acid damage) and drinking a Rainwater Brew. But somehow, she dies in a single hit round afterwards.
I recoup our losses by heading to Taerom Fuiruim (how do you pronounce that name) and selling him Ankheg shells. I think he can take multiple Ankheg shells at a time while only paying once, so I leave some on the floor before I speak with him.
It's not just XP from kills that got severely nerfed in my install. Quest-related XP also suffered horribly.
We should have reached level 2 or 3 by now. But we have yet to gain even a single level up.
We're not even close to one.
Seeing little use for Montaron, I dump his body in the middle of town and recruit Tiax (also level 2!), whom SCS moves to Beregost for easier access. His Summon Ghast ability gives us a priceless tank.
We get ambushed by 10 bandits at once on the way back to the Ankheg farms. But we have already shelled out lots of gold for Smoke Bombs, which last just long enough for us to escape.
Those green clouds are supposed to be gray; I'm not sure why they look like that.
Tiax's ghast proves extremely useful, soaking up 2 potentially fatal blows for us in the next fight.
Slowly and painfully collecting tiny bits of XP fills us with determination.
Another micro-update, but it's Circe and her newly recruited band of, err, Halfling and Drow companions instead.
Since solo'ing the game as a Sorceress was getting pretty tough (mostly because I've chosen Daggers as my first weapon, and Blindness was replaced by SR with a spell that looks pretty useless), and I haven't used Montaron in a very loooong time, I decided to recruit him, and Viconia. We killed Zordal, got the Ring of Energy from somewhere (Item Randomiser ftw!), besides a lot of magical loot I sold (we have like five thousand gold right now I believe).
Having Montaron meant we could do the Basilisks, and that's the biggest accomplishment this party's done so far.
Currently, PC is sitting at level 4, Montaron is Fighter 3/Thief 4 but he needs less than 400 XP to gain his fourth Fighter level, and Viconia is a level Cleric 5. Spells are: MM, Shield, Grease and Battering Ram (SR's improved version of Knock, maybe not the greatest choice atm, but I'll need it if I want to solo SoA). Grease is very powerful because it gives enemies an unavoidable movement speed penalty of around 75% as long as they're in the AoE (which is small but that's ok anyway, I can cast it 6 times per day anyway). Montaron's Thieving points are allocated mostly on Pick Pockets, which means we'll take care of Dushai's ring very, very soon.
Comments
Del, elf diviner (Grond0) & Feldris, dwarf assassin (Gate70)
As usual, after the short and sour end to one run we aimed to take away the taste by diving straight into the next delicious treat. Once more I rolled up an arcane type, but this time paired with something a bit more slippery than a fighter.
Things didn't get off to too promising a start when the noble upstairs in the inn appeared to have installed a silent alarm button to the local cop shop. That meant that Feldris hadn't bothered hiding before going back down the stairs and ran into a waiting guard. In the EE that's a bad position to find a guard even in single player as it's difficult to find space to dodge and the guard is able to follow you up and down the stairs - but arriving in front of you to prevent you from running out of the inn. It was therefore no surprise when Feldris racked up an early death.
Even with our record that wasn't a great start, but things improved from there. Del had already talked to Firebead (and talked ... and talked) to get an additional 300 gold, so there was no problem raising Feldris before leaving Candlekeep. Shoal resisted a couple of attempts to blind her, but not the stream of arrows and throwing daggers targeting her and soon provided our first levels.
Beregost, Nashkel and Meilum were visited on the way to the basilisk area where the monsters were soon dispatched. By that time Feldris was up to level 5 and his poison weapon ability was at its second stage - that quickly proved too much for Mutamin.
Various reputation tasks followed, with the revival of Melicamp pushing that up to 20. I don't normally use chromatic orb much, but Del had failed to learn several magic missile scrolls and tried a few orbs out during that sequence. One of them successfully stunned Greywolf - at level 5 the effect only lasts 3 rounds, but that proved just enough.
On the way to Ulgoth's Beard we stopped off at the ankheg nest. Feldris had disdained the idea of buying the Cloak of Displacement before taking on the ankhegs - after all a critical would have a good chance of killing him however good his AC was
Del, diviner 5, 27 HPs, 33 kills
Feldris, assassin 6, 36 HPs, 78 kills, 1 death
My thanks to @Arctodus for compiling it.
I've only tried no-reload for BG1 twice. The first time was with a character who had the advantages and disadvantages of every kit in the game, but it turned out to be extremely powerful despite having zero spellcasting and being unable to use basically any items at all--it just smashed everything with werewolf form and innate abilities. I gave that one up.
I also tried out a party of a Fighter/Illusionist, War Hulk, Seducer, and Alchemist with SCS, SR, and IR--mostly just to stress-test my new custom kits in BG1, since I didn't much understand the game balance in BG1. I got all the way through the main quest and all of the Tales of the Sword Coast questlines, but it didn't count as a full no-reload because I reloaded a couple times very early in the game. If I had just started over instead of reloading, which would have only cost me an hour or two at most, it would have been a successful BG1 no-reload run, but I did not.
It does raise a question, though : should these memorable non-complete runs be documented somewhere ? Probably, but not in the Hall of Heroes, because the challenge clearly stated in the OP is about the BG trilogy/tetralogy. Hence, why even an IWD1-2 no-reload success, while welcome in the thread, shouldn't be in the Hall. Also, hunting down all those memorable runs, like the @JuliusBorisov's Totemic Druid, @Blackraven's Bounty Hunters or your Party of Spiders (and many others), would be a lot more time consuming -- and harder to identify : which non-complete run really deserve to be remembered ? Not always easy to identify...
On the other hand, if you would actually take the time to go through BG1, I'm pretty sure you would have already a few success under your belt...
(first post here)
SIEGE OF UST NATHA: PART 11
The siege drags on. Carl has maintained all of his buffs, but our other party members have been weakened somewhat. Our situation in the sanctuary room is quite solid, but things look ugly outside.
Wish is our best defensive option and best offensive option, so Carl casts it constantly.
We need Hardiness so Stan and Viconia can withstand the enemy's massive pressure, and we need Wish-resting to restore our HLAs, as Storm of Vengeance and Dragon's Breath are one of our few means of getting past the drow's magic resistance.
Viconia casts Farsight on the temple entrance to give us some advance notice of future enemy waves. Carl sends his Simulacrum clone out to smash the drow horde with Comet, but since it does crushing damage, it will do precious little to the enemy mages.
Anxious about Remove Magic, Carl prepares a Chain Contingency that should trigger if he gets dispelled.
The PFMW part of that contingency can get dispelled, but not Spell Deflection or Moment of Prescience. He'll still be vulnerable to critical hits, but SR Spell Deflection will block area-effect as well as single-target spells, and Moment of Prescience, with its +20 to AC and saving throws, will keep him mostly safe from attacks and nonmagical abilities like Demon Fear and Death Gaze (though he'll still take some minor fire damage from the latter).
Of course, any hostile attack can trigger this Chain Contingency, so Carl will need to stay out of the way until the demons arrive to make sure the contingency isn't wasted. He also prepares an extremely important, SR-exclusive contingency.
Break Enchantment dispels practically all disabling effects, regardless of their source. It's a marvelous option for no-reload runs, especially in a contingency.
Edwin's clone hurls out Dragon's Breath while Edwin himself uses the Book of Daily Spell to cast True Seeing. This will allow him to nail the enemy mages with Pierce Shield.
SR Pierce Shield is almost a guaranteed kill against enemy mages, but you need True Seeing to get past their invisibility spells, and Edwin's Conjurer kit forbids that. But the Book of Daily Spell circumvents that limitation.
Edwin isn't quite ready to march into the fray, so the enemy mages waste their time trying to debuff our celestials. With the help of Carl and Edwin's clones and their HLAs, the celestials are making strong progress against the drow cluster in the center of the map.
An enemy mage spawns in our sanctuary room, putting Edwin and Carl in danger. We use Harm and Energy Blades to take him down quickly, but he still forces Edwin to re-cast Dispelling Screen.
More enemies spawn in the sanctuary room, costing Carl his Chain Contingency.
Drow spawn in all locations in this fight, so even the northwest room isn't truly safe, despite its choke point to the central chamber.
While Edwin and Carl summon more celestials thanks to Wish-resting, Flowey fails to charm a faraway mage and is punished with a very nasty Flame Arrow Spell Sequencer. Even Flowey's sky-high resistances are no guarantee of safety. Edwin hurries over to bump his energy resistances up to 100.
Three mages are on the map with Prismatic Mantle active, making melee attacks dangerous even for our Planetar. Edwin has run out of his True Seeing already, but Flowey removes the drow's illusions with Detect Illusions. Still, with three drow mages active in one group, I decide to keep Edwin in the sanctuary room summoning celestials, rather than send him out to cast Pierce Shield where he might get hit by three Remove Magic spells in the same round.
Our celestials are in decent condition, so I let them tank the mages on their own. Meanwhile, we focus on our defenses. Carl is nearly level 35, at which point his Simulacrum clone will be able to cast Wish.
Finally, Flowey manages to charm an enemy mage. He begins to set traps in our sanctuary room.
We have reasserted control over the battlefield. With low enemy pressure, we can spend our precious rounds preparing for the next wave.
We'll need it. Because things are going to get ugly.
(first post here)
SIEGE OF UST NATHA: PART 12
Rather than have Flowey lay more traps, I decide to re-cast Charm. A Seducer's Charm lowers the enemy's save vs. spell by 1 with every successful Charm, so charming them becomes slightly easier if they're already under the Seducer's control.
It takes 6 seconds before the dialogue box actually says if the charm was successful, but I know it worked because there's no line saying the drow made its save.
Edwin's Protection from Energy will only last 40 rounds on Flowey, and the fight might last longer than that, so Stan and Viconia give him immunity to fire and acid to block Flame Arrows and Acid Arrows. Carl casts Simulacrum, as he has hit level 35 and now his clone can cast Wish.
Our safety is short-lived. More drow spawn in the main chamber, and our old Farsight spell wears off, putting the area in the fog of war. Viconia re-casts Farsight to clear the area.
Our celestials can handle the new enemies for now. I keep the party focused on fortifying our defenses. Viconia and Stan bring out more Fallen Devas and Flowey sets more traps in the sanctuary room. Demons can teleport at will, but they won't be able to do much if they teleport right onto a pile of traps.
Unfortunately, anyone can trigger those traps, even enemies we can easily take down without traps.
We've put a huge group of celestials on the map. The drow horde disintegrates in record time.
Another Wish-rest lets us reinforce that advantage. Everyone in the party but Flowey starts bringing out another celestial, and I reposition our celestial army to make sure they engage the next drow wave, wherever it comes from.
Our old celestials start vanishing; their time is running out. But I have a fresh round of them that will last for another 23 rounds each. Just as the next drow wave appears, Carl lands a Wish Heal that puts the whole army back to full health.
They obliterate the next wave of drow, and all enemies vanish from the map. I have a moment of respite from the horde. Wary of another crash, I quick-save while the coast is clear.
While I wait for the next wave, I have the party focus on restoring its defenses. Flowey saturates the sanctuary room with Spike Traps, and our older celestials keep disappearing.
The next wave finally arrives. Matron Mother Ellaviir shows up on the map, soaked with pre-buffs.
Our celestial army clashes with the drow, bolstered by Stan and Viconia's Storm of Vengeance spells. Ellaviir fails a save against Charm, and a random drow tries to break into the sanctuary room, only to die before triggering all of Flowey's traps.
The situation looks good. But as I Breach Ellaviir, I notice the first demon on the map, a Glabrezu to the southwest.
It won't be long before a Nabassu and a Balor arrive. Those are the most dangerous enemies on the map.
They're the only ones who can take down Carl's defenses before he can restore them. If that happens, the run is over.
(first post here)
SIEGE OF UST NATHA: PART 13
Lucky number 13. This is the last part of the Siege of Ust Natha.
We continue fortifying our position in the sanctuary room. More celestials and more traps. This will be our bulwark against a blitzkrieg attack from the demons--if they hunt down Carl, they will be under massive pressure in moments.
We just need to make sure no one else wanders into the sanctuary and triggers those traps. That will require tackling the drow horde in the main chamber before they grind down our celestials. When a few drow approach the choke point leading to the sanctuary room where Carl churns out Wish-rests, we send in a contingent of celestials to pulverize them.
The Nabassu appears to the far south. Now we have two demons on the map with instant-casting Remove Magic spells at will--we still haven't dealt with the Glabrezu.
Stan keeps flinging Energy Blades at the Glabrezu, shearing away its Mirror Images. Viconia manages to get Implosion off the ground without being interrupted, crushing the first demon.
The Drow Archmage, an epic-level mage, appears alongside some Stone Golems. Carl's clone deploys a Dragon's Breath spell, breaking through the golems' magic resistance. But SR Protection from Fire grants the Drow Archmage total immunity to the spell.
It takes several attempts, but Viconia manages to disrupt one of the Drow Archmage's spells with her Energy Blades.
Carl's new clone, protected only by a Moment of Prescience and Spell Trap but not Stoneskin, hurries to hit the Drow Archmage with a Pierce Shield. His defenses go down, and Viconia's Energy Blades can finally do real damage.
He's still highly resilient thanks to LoB HP bonuses, but we spend a lot of pressure on the mage to take him down before he can recover.
One of the primary threats is gone. But things are even worse than I expected.
There isn't just one Balor. There are two of them, along with two more Glabrezus and a new Nabassu, all of them appearing simultaneously.
This is serious. If I let them wander around the map, even Flowey's traps won't keep Carl safe. I need to break them down fast.
I take all the celestials I can afford to use and send them to engage the demons. I focus on the Balor first; they're higher-level and therefore have more dangerous Remove Magic spells.
Without Farsight on that area, I have to have Viconia linger nearby, exposing her to a Remove Magic spell. It's a disturbing sign, and we still have a Nabassu to the southeast who might cause problems later--we don't have nearly as much pressure focused on that demon.
It's hard to keep the celestials focused on the same target; they have their own scripts and targeting is difficult in chaotic situations like this. I want them to take down the Balors first, but they kill a Glabrezu instead.
Now that the Glabrezu is dead, however, the celestials can break through the wall and flank the remaining demons, allowing more of them to attack at once. Meanwhile, a Nabassu somehow fails to cast a spell--I think this is a frame-perfect spell disruption.
With the increased APR from flanking the demons, the celestials manage to take down the next Balor.
With every dead demon, more of our celestials can crowd around the rest. They encircle the last Glabrezu and put it down in seconds.
Flowey Charms the remaining Nabassu to the west. Viconia pins it down with Implosion and we smash it.
All that's left are a few drow. The battle is won.
The battlefield is littered with potions and armor and weapons. We scavenge all the potions we can find. It takes a long time, but it feels very rewarding to collect every last piece.
Our last task is to wipe out the rest of the city. The remaining drow are no challenge.
Ust Natha is no more.
... so, when are you gonna solo no-reload Ust Natha ?
I actually lost track of the screenshots for the rest of Carl's run (I moved to a new computer), and though I could probably track them down, it's not really worth it. After the Siege of Ust Natha, the rest of the run was kind of a letdown.
It wasn't easy, and I didn't rely so heavily on celestials or Wish-resting (I got tired of both), but the party had grown to the point where it could still simply trample the enemy with brute force. SR's Negative Plane Protection rendered the vampires nearly harmless, Pierce Shield took down Manasseh and Hazzerbazzer in the fight with Bodhi, we bulldozed over everything in Suldannessellar, Pierce Shield took down Irenicus in the Tree of Life, and we handled Irenicus in the Nine Hells by staying well out of his way until the demons were gone, at which point we broke down his defenses and pummeled him to death. I think he used a Remove Magic Spell Sequencer, but Carl was nowhere to be seen when he used it (otherwise it could have proved fatal).
I had plans to bring Haer'Dalis into the party in ToB and have him use the Chaos Blade to get DEX drain kills on various enemies, but with the rest of the party already at max levels and equipped with the best gear in the game... Well, when the party is already at full strength, combat no longer offers any rewards. It's just a chore.
So I won't be taking Carl into ToB.
One Legacy of Bhaal mode run of Shadows of Amn, complete. It was a long slog, but it feels good to take down SCS Ust Natha.
A couple of people suggested they would like to see more of my archer party - so here we go. Part of the reason I'd been willing to take an (as it turned out) fatal risk in the last documented run was that progress had seemed too easy - I hadn't been trying particularly to avoid casualties, but only Shoal's kiss had killed anyone up to entering Baldur's Gate. In one way that should have been fine as the original idea behind restarting the archers was to see how they performed at higher levels, but it still didn't feel right to me. To keep more of a sense of challenge I restarted in an SCS modded version of BGEE and with a specific aim to try and avoid casualties as well as being more comprehensive about taking on all encounters. That brought the terms of this run more into line with my long-term monk challenge, but behaving in a similar way to that challenge with the archers immediately got them into trouble in the 5th attempt when I murdered both Algernon and Dushai early on - forgetting that rangers are subject to falling!
Restarting again, the boys quickly shot down Shoal (the prohibition on deaths meaning this time they didn't get the helm) and the rest of that area was cleaned up as well to get everyone to level 2. Attacking the sirines at level 1 carries a bit of risk and Cupid (who sneaked in to attack in melee initially) was immediately charmed - fortunately though she was also feeble-minded, so didn't attack the others. A couple of the other boys were charmed as well and Artemis was a potential problem with her bow in hand - but she failed to land any criticals and everyone survived.
In Beregost Algernon found he no longer had any need for his cloak (or anything else come to that), but this time the boys immediately repented of their sins at the Beregost Temple before going up to Ulgoth's Beard and separating Dushai from his ring. After fertilising a farmer's fields with some zombies the boys took on the ankheg nest. Ankhegs have a slow attack speed and often failed to launch an attack, let alone hit, before being shot down. The boys were quickly up to level 3 there and cleared the rest of the nest without injury. The outside area is more dangerous due to the possibility of fighting several ankhegs at once, but they still only took 1 hit.
Robin (longbow) - L3, 40 HPs, 27 kills
William (crossbow) - L3, 32 HPs, 24 kills, 0 deaths
Legolas (longbow) - L3, 38 HPs, 21 kills, 0 deaths
Cupid (shortbow) - L3, 31 HPs, 23 kills, 0 deaths
Artemis (shortbow) - L3, 31 HPs, 12 kills, 0 deaths
David (sling) - L3, 39 HPs, 22 kills, 0 deaths
As I mentioned at the end of Zeru's run, I was planning on taking advantage of... either Divine Remix or Item Revisions, allowing multiclassed Clerics access to their other half's weaponry, albeit at half proficiency. So C/M can use darts, F/C can use anything, and for a safer CHARNAME, Archer -> Cleric can still use bows. I plan at dualing at level 9 for the final proficiency point, another damage increase, and max hitpoints.
Barl: 15/18/18/11/18/10, Archer, 2 points in Shortbow, 1 point in spear, 1 point in something else I obviously haven't used yet
Seeing as how Zeru was a solo run, I wanted companions this time, but I absolutely hate really early game with a bunch of NPCs that'll all die to a single arrow. So still solo, Barl killed Shoal, did the Friendly Arm Inn fetch quests, did a couple of Beregost and Nashkel quests, purchased Protection from Alterations and cleared the basilisks for level 6. Now all NPCs start with 32k experience, making life considerably easier.
The crew's Neera, Imoen, Ajantis, and Branwen. Notable events: Ajantis was the first death at the Ankhegs, as he went unscratched in the caves but took a double critical by a pair outside before I could react. Neera died in a single hit during her own quest at Adoy's Enclave, taking a single melee attack with a sling still equipped. I seemingly forgot to actually loot Mulahey's body, and thus do not have the Ring of Holiness or Boots of grounding; by the time I returned, everything was gone.
Bandit camp was a bit of a mess; we took it head-on, but my Cloudkill was misplaced, and did far less than it could've. Neera was level 7 by now, and had fortunately learned Stoneskin from the red mage in her quest, but the skins were broken down by a hail of arrows and I couldn't manage to stop her from dying. Imoen took over the wand duties for the rest of the fight, a feature from IR allowing thieves to use wands at sufficiently high intelligence. Fear and Fireballs helped control the western front while Ajantis and Barl tackled the east, but Branwen, despite her critical hit immunity thanks to the Mail of the Dead, falls in the west. The rest is mopped up by the remaining trio.
Accidentally chose the wrong option for Chelak in the Spiderwoods, and got a small tonguelashing from Ajantis about being heartless. Oops. Anyways, Drasus' party: a good Mental Domination on Gelthore gets the enemy mages to waste a metric ton of spells of their own party member, as the Chaos and Slow that they packed weren't in range of the main party. Imoen's detecting illusions throughout this fight, trying to keep the Mirror Images and Shadow Doors down. Drasus falls first, and then one of the mages, without doing much. Imoen is hit by both Glitterdust and Dire charm, so they have a blind thief with a crossbow that can't actually help them. At the end of the fight, though, a lucky Summon Monster + Dire charm at the exact wrong time kill Branwen. It summoned an Ettercap, and it poisoned Branwen right before she was Charmed... The poison killed her before I could get Barl's Remove Poison on her.
There were no problems with any of the inside mage fights, though. Hareishan's stoneskins were taken down via stealth shots by Barl, and arrows of ice guaranteed her demise soon after. Both the ogre mage and the other mage on the 3rd floor died relatively quickly as well, with no offensive spells other than Glitterdust hitting anybody.
Daveaorn: Neera hid everyone with Invis 10", and Ajantis buffed with a fire giant strength potion and haste and Protection from Magic, and Ajantis dueled the Battle Horrors. After that, Barl took his Acid Arrows, Imoen started Detecting Illusions, and Neera used a charge of the Wand of Summon Monsters. Davaeorn didn't last long, also failing to get a spell off the ground. We're now in Baldur's Gate, having killed an Ogre Mage, several Doppelgangers, and gotten ourselves poisoned for both 10k experience and the second Tome of Wisdom in the game.
Previous updates:
The boys travelled back to Beregost and cleaned up the town there. That included taking on Silke, which I decided wouldn't be much of a risk as SCS virtually always requires mages to use a buffing spell first. In this case it wouldn't have made any difference anyway as Robin interrupted her opening cast by poisoning her with one of the arrows of biting taken from the sirines and she was dead before she could try another spell.
Rather than going straight to Nashkel the boys detoured to the Lighthouse, where more sirines were killed despite the interference of a bunch of hobgoblins.
Brage offered a lift to Nashkel (after being pulled out of range of Laryssa, so that she could still be killed later). After disposing of Neira, resting provided Robin with the group's first healing ability.
Next up the boys cleared the Cloudpeaks, achieving level 5 in the process.
Melicamp died, but there was plenty more reputation out there and when that hit 20 the boys treated themselves to some equipment upgrades. They didn't have quite enough money to buy everything potentially useful - but a quick trip to the Bank of Bassilus sorted that out
With green scroll to hand Robin led the way to the basilisk area where he made short work of soloing most of the monsters. Mutamin's special pets caused a bit more concern after Mutamin blinded, then charmed, Robin. I thought that might cause Mutamin to leave him alone, but he threw in an acid arrow and attacked in melee as well - so the others had to do a ticklish rescue while staying just out of sight of the greater basilisk.
Robin (longbow) - L5, 59 HPs, 225 kills
William (crossbow) - L5, 52 HPs, 124 kills, 0 deaths
Artemis (shortbow) - L5, 62 HPs, 157 kills, 0 deaths
Cupid (shortbow) - L5, 53 HPs, 138 kills, 0 deaths
Legolas (longbow) - L5, 62 HPs, 167 kills, 0 deaths
David (sling) - L5, 54 HPs, 98 kills, 0 deaths
Session Two
Dreen led the way round the basilisk loop before Mutamin was caught out with a True Sight. Kirian and her gang were the final encounter, but unable to hurt the party too much as Korax helped out and held three of the four opponents before we rewarded him with true death.
Time for Mulahey to pay for his sins.
Inside the largest bandit tent a fierce battle broke out, Nerd getting poisoned by Hakt. Dreen tried to pass a potion to help but Nerd had anticipated such aid and wishing no part of it had made sure his inventory was full. Nugget used a memorised slow poison spell instead, figuring this would be more acceptable to the tee-total fighter/druid.
Nugget then moved in to distract Hakt, as did Dreen.
Meilum proved the fastest swordsman in the land, but failed to survive one call of lightning and was not brought back into life by a second strike moments later. Nugget considered looking for the Bracers of Archery but the two hour timer was closing in so instead we headed to Cloakwood where we picked up a cloak from some tasloi and a sword from the corpse of Aldeth Sashenstar.
Nugget, druid 7. 42 kills.
Nerd, fighter 5 / druid 6. 92 kills.
Dreen, inquisitor 6. 97 kills.
So I'll be going in practically blind. My WeiDu log is so freakishly long that it cannot fit in a single post; I've attached it to the bottom of this comment.
I am going to use my own custom kits, the Alchemist kit for mages and the Seducer kit for thieves. Something in the BWS mod list caused a problem during character creation (my Alchemist couldn't select all of their level 1 spells), so I fixed it by starting with a Transmuter and then using EEKeeper and a custom item to apply the kit.
I want to take this through the entire trilogy, so I plan on restarting if I die somewhere along the way. To make sure I stay interested, I am using two characters I know I will not get tired of: Chara and Frisk, of Undertale.
Chara has a 97 roll because I bumped up their Charisma (a dump stat during rerolling) to 10 for cosmetic reasons. I can dual-class Chara later on to cleric, fighter, or thief, but I'm not sure it will be worth it, because higher-level Alchemists get much cooler potions and grenades.
Chara's backstory fit in with the Alchemist concept, and Frisk's history of making friends (and their fanonical status as an incorrigible flirt) fit in with the Seducer concept. Normally I'd pick Frisk as the main character, but the Seducer kit, with its 4 HP per level, inability to wear armor, and AC penalties when using psionic powers, is far too fragile. The Alchemist kit is much sturdier, with 6 HP per level and extra bonuses from its potions.
Stepping out into the unknown fills us with determination.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 1
Before we begin, I will clarify that some time has passed since the events of Undertale, and both Frisk and Chara are the canonical age for the Bhaalspawn of the Baldur's Gate saga: roughly 20 years old.Just so we're clear on that.
Anyway, we start with 100 gold, which I first use to create some new items courtesy of Chara's Alchemist kit:
1. Rainwater Brews (8 gold, heals 2d6 HP)
2. Smoke Bombs (10 gold, invisibility for 4-7 seconds)
3. Bottles of Sludge (10 for 1 gold, ranged weapons, +2 to hit, 1d4 slashing and 2d4 acid damage, random but weak on-hit effects)
4. Grenades (20 gold for 10 grenades, automatically hits for 1d6 damage and 1 round of stun and 2 rounds of deafness on a failed save vs. breath at +3)
Alchemists get stronger potions and grenades at level 4, 7, 11, 15, and 19. Chara will be able to give us some really neat toys, but funding their projects will cost us a LOT of money over the course of the game.
Where do we get money fast? Well, I've heard you can loot a Potion of Clarity from upstairs in the Candlekeep Inn, so I've spent all of Frisk's skill points in lockpicking. As an Alchemist, Chara can "recycle" potions for almost their full value (you sell them back to the summonable shop where you buy your potions), so a Potion of Clarity would give a hefty windfall.
We sneak upstairs and Frisk finds the right chest. They manage to open the lock!
But we're in trouble. When Frisk picks another lock and steals a pearl in hopes of making a new necklace, a guard appears from nowhere and confronts us, threatening to tell Gorion about our petty thieving. I don't know what the consequences for getting caught are (there are so many mods installed that I don't know anything about), so Frisk plays it coy, pretending to be innocent.
But the guard isn't fooled. The dialogue is actually quite colorful.
I keep trying to weasel my way out, and after several rounds of dialogue, I discover that yes, maybe there is a way to get out of this scot-free.
Frisk, being who they are, has no problem with this. And personally, I'm not entirely sure I do, either.
The dialogue... lasts a bit longer than I expected. And also goes a bit farther than I expected.
...What exactly did I download here? Frisk is curious, but I'm starting to wonder how this ended up in a standardized BWS installation.
Well, maybe it's wrong for me to place the blame on whoever wrote whatever mod this came from. I mean, it's not like they didn't provide other dialogue options...
It would be different if we were getting blackmailed by Tethtoril or Firebead Elvenhair or ideally Imoen, but we don't even know this guy's name.
Frisk isn't complaining, but I keep wondering how far this is really going to go. Because it doesn't appear to be slowing down.
In fact, it seems to be accelerating. And we are doing absolutely nothing to stop it.
Seriously, what did I install? Does anybody know? @Buttercheese? Anybody? I'm not even posting the full dialogue here; there's a lot more.
Gradually, I realize that this conversation is more than just innuendo.
In fact, it's pretty obvious that something is happening. Frisk gets to add another notch to their belt! Chara rolls their eyes and the game continues.
This is so inappropriate. I love it.
It also feels weirdly icky. We don't know this guy. Is he a playful rascal who just wanted an excuse to flirt with us, or was he a genuine scumbag who was seriously blackmailing us? Because one of those things is a lot more likely than the other.
Either way, the affair finally ends, and we part on amicable terms.
Frisk is filled with determination.
Ickiness or no, I suppose it worked out. Ideally, encounters like this should be mutually rewarding, economically productive, and leave you with that strange mix of fatigue and confusion that lets you know that tonight, you learned something truly special.
After the guard leaves, Frisk steals a pearl and hands it over to Chara. Chara sighs and gets to work, converting the Potion of Clarity and the pearl into 540 gold, of which they spend 11 coins to brew a Sweet Elixir, because a Sweet Elixir can cure intoxication, poison, and disease.
Notice that I gave the Sweet Elixir to the wrong person in that screenshot. Later on, I would remember to have Frisk drink one as well.
Enjoying novel dialogue from strange new mods fills us with... determination.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860005/#Comment_860005
After clearing the exterior of Gullykin the boys found the back entrance to the Firewine Ruins. A stealthy entrance there allowed them to shoot down an ogre mage and Lendarn before they could buff
Looking for some more high-value targets the boys went to Durlag's Tower. Mobbing the battle horrors allowed reasonably easy victories, while plenty of ghasts were just shot down. On the roof Robin used a couple of potions to protect him while shooting the basilisks, while upstairs the ghost failed to spot the boys sneaking into position for the kill.
Next up was Ulcaster. I was surprised there how easily Icharyd was shot down and the boys followed that up with a successful assault on the Wolf - a full round of fireballs followed up by shots using their best ammunition successfully killing it before it could howl.
Up to this point everyone's non-magical ammunition had all come from Candlekeep, but stocks were finally getting low so they went to buy a bit more before heading for the Nashkel Mine. They zipped through there quickly - only using stealth to get the drop on the kobold shaman. After resting in Mulahey's cave they attacked him - he just had time to summon some friends, but they did him no good.
In Nashkel, Nimbul was given no time to buff and Tranzig suffered the same fate. After clearing Larswood they accepted a lift to the Bandit Camp and confirmed beyond any doubt that, in my installation at least, Tazok is now unkillable at this stage. They sneaked into the main tent and shot down Venkt before running out again.
In the Cloakwood, Robin's ring of free action made webs much less of a threat and the first 2 areas were cleared without problems. While journeying to the next they were ambushed by the amazons. I haven't fought those recently as their follow-me script makes them difficult for solo characters (you can't buff up out of sight), but the archers weight of shot meant the amazons only managed a couple of invisible backstabs.
Robin (longbow) - L6, 73 HPs, 413 kills
William (crossbow) - L6, 66 HPs, 230 kills, 0 deaths
Artemis (shortbow) - L6, 76 HPs, 269 kills, 0 deaths
Cupid (shortbow) - L6, 65 HPs, 251 kills, 0 deaths
Legolas (longbow) - L6, 75 HPs, 300 kills, 0 deaths
David (sling) - L6, 68 HPs, 167 kills, 0 deaths
It IS Romantic Encounters with the option of ALL the encounters being installed. If you were wanting an installation that your kids can play, don't install the adult version.
Most of that dialogue can be easily skipped. YOU chose the options.
However I think that with those options installed it should be called lustful encounters, not romantic encounters. No romance at all, just lust.
If you are male, the guard doesn't turn up. Clearly the mod writer didn't feel comfortable with it being a male-male encounter or with a similar dialogue with the guard being female.
Del, elf diviner (Grond0) & Feldris, dwarf assassin (Gate70)
Previous updates:
Today's session was a bit of a struggle - largely due to a poor connection making the usual multi-layer lag particularly bad. The first major problem though was self-inflicted when, after Feldris used a potion of clarity against the sirines at the Lighthouse, the duo entered the pirate cave. Del looked in his inventory to find a potion of speed for Feldris and Feldris looked in his inventory to check what magic arrows he had - and a golem coming round the corner looked at the two static bodies and couldn't believe its luck
With desired equipment pretty much all purchased the next logical step seemed to be the Nashkel Mine. Most of that was just sneaked through, though Feldris couldn't resist giving the spiders a taste of their own medicine with poisoned backstabs. Inside the cave Mulahey was about to die from a 3rd skull trap, but Feldris beat Del to it with a poisoned arrow - and got his reward by having to walk through the skull trap himself.
Nimbul was one-shotted by a backstab, while Tranzig survived the initial blow - but still died shortly afterwards from the continuing poison damage.
At the Bandit Camp a few backstabs and a few sleeps helped reduce the bandit population. Taurgosz didn't go quietly though - some severe lag meaning Feldris was slow to react to his patented extendable hammer.
After skipping encounters in the Cloakwood, skull traps killed the mages guarding the mine and the others didn't last much longer.
The only work done so far in Baldur's Gate was starting the poison quest in order to allow Del to get his own Boots of Speed.
Del, diviner 7, 38 HPs, 64 kills
Feldris, assassin 7, 41 HPs, 136 kills, 3 deaths
A couple of quests were undertaken in Baldur's Gate, including investigating the Merchant's league for Ajantis' final weapon upgrade, barfighting, invading the house of a paladin and taking his helm of glory... Raiding Ramazith's tower proved incredibly irritating as non-magical armor can break in this installation, and Ajantis' full plate decided to disintegrate to a Mustard Jelly. A couple of trips back to kill Ankhegs later, we finish and give the INT tome to Neera.
I've noticed a bug and for the life of me can't figure out where it's coming from. Randomly two or three characters of mine will get a Shielded icon on their portrait, and when I look at the character record their AC's either 2 or 6 better than it ought to be. Checking all the gear got me nowhere, so... Legitimately confused on what caused this bug.
Regardless, no problems were had during any of the minor fights in the Gate, with the mages going down to magic arrows disrupting their spells and Imoen Detecting Illusions, and if enemies started invisibly by script, Detect Invisibility from Branwen or Imoen, since Detect Illusions doesn't work against non-spell, non-potion invisibility.
Iron Throne Fight was handled by luring members down the stairs one by one until there were only 3 or 4 left upstairs, at which point we simply took the head-on fight. Ajantis and Branwen ran interference as Neera and Imoen found the two assassins, with Barl shooting them whenever they became visible. No deaths here either.
In Candlekeep, the ambush fails horribly as a Wand of Fear charge disables two Ogre Mages and a Detect Invisibility leaves the Ogres fairly weak. I had to use a Potion of Magic Blocking (or it's IR equivalent, Magic Nullifying or something) on Branwen due to the MAA Sequencer landed on her, though. We left Rieltar and co. alive, and run the dungeon, giving the last Tome of Understanding and the Manual of Gainful Exercise to Barl to give him an extra level 5 slot and the ability to use Compound Short Bows respectively. Pratt and his friends are weakened by fireballs before being taken out by swords and arrows and the occasional Magic Missile, and the two Basilisks are killed under a Potion of Mirrored Eyes.
In search of easy-ish experience, Barl elects to tackle the Ulcaster Ruins. A mod-added ghost within the ruins insta-killed Branwen similarly to Shoal: I think the ghost wants a body to inhabit to do something with? Nonetheless... A Scroll of Raise Dead (Thank you, Item Revisions! I think. Might be Divine remix.) is used and the Wolf of Ulcaster is dismayingly easy, as the Ghouls and Dread wolves that it summons can actually be outright killed by a level 7 Cleric Turning undead, and a hail of +1 arrows from an Archer?
Finally, we save Duke Eltan and fight Cythandria, with Branwen dying yet again after a Golem Slow connected and her AC wasn't enough to save her. Slythe and Kristin were an exercise in patience: I lured Slythe out with Barl and Imoen, and IR allows Thieves to wear robes AND makes Knave's Robe give immunity to Backstab. Barl was under the effects of Potion of Stone Form (5 Stoneskin skins via potion.) Slythe was dogpiled and killed.
Kristin, on the other hand, has something weird going on with her script. She would randomly turn invisible in front of me right with a dirty aura, and since it's invisibility by script, I can't use Imoen's Detect Illusions to find her. Kristin cast Chaos at Neera, but I didn't feel bad about shifting the Greenstone Amulet around the people affected since Kristin was pretty blatantly cheating anyways.
Ducal palace: if I could do three things, I guaranteed a win. If I got Liia Janneth invisible, AND stopped the mage from casting Chaos, and never have Neera cast, I don't think I could've lost. Not wanting to risk a Surge from Neera in the palace, we buffed in the above room (Haste, Chant, a potion of strength for Ajantis, DuHM for Barl...) and Imoen waltzed up to Liia, still invisible, and started casting Invisibility from scroll. Thieves can also do that via IR, which is kinda/sorta broken, but whatever.
Ajantis and summons via Wand fought off some of the assassins and Greater Doppels while the others dogpiled the Mage with elemental damage, trying to ensure that no spell would be gotten off: Acid Arrows, Bolts of Lightning, Wand of the Heavens... And were successful. The mage didn't do anything useful. While Belt still died, Liia was safely invisible the entire time.
The Thieve's Maze was stupidly dangerous, as the Skeleton Warriors insisted on almost killing Ajantis and Branwen like three times each, but no casualties. The Undercity party and Tamoko had Barl at 146k experience, so he'd level up in the temple fight, and possible hit the level cap from Sarevok. Perfect.
I don't think I've ever fought the full SCS undercity temple fight with a party before, and even in Vanilla I usually ended up with one or two dead. This time, though... Barl buffed lightly under Pro. from magic, and the standard array of buffs were dispensed by Neera. The fight was kind of really fractured, with Neera using the Wand of Summoning to pin a mage (Semaj, I think?) to the west corner with Barl, while the other four scrambled to avoid death via Sarevok, and avoid bringing Barl attention. Semaj fell, but Angelo then went to that same corner and cast a Teleport Field; Ajantis went to harry him under a Potion of Magic Shielding while Barl went to try to snipe Diarmid.
Things went south fairly quickly, with Imoen and Branwen pretty injured and Sarevok turning to Barl. Branwen ran to the northeast, Neera bought time with more wand charges and a Shadow Door, and Imoen and Barl reset by both turning invisible. Twice, actually, as the first one was canceled by a Divination spell of their own. Still under her Stoneskins and Mirror images, Neera walked up to Branwen and successfully cast her invisibility 10' while under pressure by the skeleton warrior, Diarmid, and Tazok. Everyone besides Ajantis was invisible, and he was under a Potion of Defense (-4 AC), a potion of Invulnerability, a potion of Magic Shielding. Sarevok was still in the bottom left corner, his script confused after Imoen and Barl became invisible and left.
Using Potions of Regeneration, and rebuffing Neera's defensive spells, Diarmid, Tazok, and now 3 skeleton warriors were killed in the top right corner. Branwen took a bunch of damage, but survived. Barl started using stealth shots on Angelo, but ultimately was seen and chased by Sarevok. After taking two hits due to poor kiting skills, I had him drink another Invisibility potion as the others ganged up against the last acolyte. Ajantis was charmed as Angelo dies, so Branwen is kept moving around for awhile. It doesn't matter, though, as Neera still has summons left to tank for Barl as Acid Arrows become like an acid rain down on Sarevok's thick skull. Ajantis snaps out of it just in time for Barl to land the killing blow.
Final stats: 16/19/19/11/21/10. 4 points in Shortbow, 1 point in Crossbow, 1 point in Spears. Edit: 102 maximum health. That's... honestly incredible at level 8. The average is 88.5...
ABT-6,
side-quests come in threes,·Safana steps out to make room for a gnome... I'm struggling to find good characters.
Fights: I defeated a powerful Lich with an invisibility potion and fast shoes, found missing items for a halfling and scorched the earth of trolls.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860005/#Comment_860005
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860233/#Comment_860233
Stealth allowed the upper levels of the mine to be cleared without trouble. At the bottom Robin successfully used stealth and fast movement to draw one of the battle horrors away from Davaeorn without him noticing. For the second one I decided to send the whole group forward rather than pull the battle horror back - but Davaeorn noticed them clumping past him. As his stinking cloud / web sequencer is scripted he was also able to cast that immediately after detect invisibility - leaving 2 of the boys trapped in the web in a nasty situation.
Outside, they dodged the slave before returning to Beregost where a spot of murder and thieving ensured Robin would get horror as a Bhaal ability.
Before going on to Baldur's Gate there was a bit of wilderness exploration to finish. Peldvale and the Red Wizard area were soon done leaving only the Lake area. That had been left as I was thinking it was a long time since I'd killed Drizzt with a party. After going to Baldur's Gate to buy a potion of magic shielding the boys took a trip to the Lake where Robin used magic shielding to ensure that Drizzt couldn't catch him (for instance by charming him or sticking him in an entangle). He then ran Drizzt round while the others killed him and I took a screenshot - which froze the computer. That's a perennial (and annoying) glitch with a few encounters in the game, so next time after the battle I used the windows key + PrtScrn. That saves a screenshot as a file in Pictures/Screenshots and avoids the problems sometimes encountered with the standard game functionality.
Back in the City they worked through all the encounters without particular difficulty. There was one minor annoyance when the Halruaan mage fell in a position where whatever he was carrying was placed into a locked cabinet, but I don't think he has anything much anyway.
After reporting to Duke Eltan they were sent to Candlekeep to be greeted by a group of ogre magi. All of them except Legolas scattered on arrival to avoid the possibility of everyone being incapacitated.
Robin (longbow) - L7, 84 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 518 kills
William (crossbow) - L7, 76 HPs, 304 kills, 0 deaths
Artemis (shortbow) - L7, 88 HPs, 336 kills, 0 deaths
Cupid (shortbow) - L7, 73 HPs, 326 kills, 0 deaths
Legolas (longbow) - L7, 83 HPs, 375 kills, 0 deaths
David (sling) - L7, 79 HPs, 216 kills, 0 deaths
The party took on Mencar and his gang. They (Mencar's group) clearly looked like trouble so the party used invis 10' to get the mages into position then unloaded lots of mojo on Mencar's troope (stinking cloud, cloudkill, fireball, greater malison, web, emotion, etc.) The enemies could not escape being disabled, thus could not even attack. Corewild and Joshua just waited it out and let our wild mages do their thing. No surges oddly enough despite the massive # of spells being cast.
We then made our way to the Sewers of the Unseeing Eye. We battled to Gaal and agreed to "help" him. We cleared the undead on the way to the lower level an needed to save here.
Will keep at it.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 2
Previous posts here:https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860188/#Comment_860188
Still hot and bothered by our brush with the law, we say hello to Alec, the elf just outside the inn who apparently is another mod character I'm not familiar with. He invites us over to talk at the temple of Oghma, where we discover that he is a longtime friend of ours--although, unfortunately, no more than that.
Not yet, anyway. Though apparently he too has longed to be something more than just a friend.
For the purposes of this run, we shall consider Frisk to be acting in Chara's stead whenever Chara is roped up in romantic nonsense, since Frisk is unfortunately not our main character due to safety issues. Frisk does have a history of dying incessantly to weak enemies.
There's a strange bug that appears to block saving throw messages. Frisk Charms Shank and Shank appears to make no saving throw...
...but he does not get charmed the next round as he's supposed to. So Chara just one-shots him with a Bottle of Sludge. Carbos suffers the same fate.
I like how the Bottles of Sludge turned out. They're powerful enough to be useful, but not so much that fighters would bother using them over their normal weapons, or that non-fighters would use them in favor of higher-quality ammunition.
We suck a little money out of Firebead Elvenhair by speaking to him about 30 times before heading out to watch Gorion die horribly.
We make fast friends with Xzar and Montaron further down the road. Their potions will net us a lot more money, and they'll prove instrumental in taking down Tarnesh. On the way, Montaron demonstrates his skill as an assassin by screaming bloody murder before launching a stealth attack. He bravely slaughters a small blue child.
We hunt down the ogre to the east and kite him with Bottles of Sludge. The bottles have poor range that weakens them as kiting tools, but ogres have horrible movement rates due to using a BG1 sprite--even in EE, sprites that date back to BG1 move just as slow as they always have.
My favorite way of taking down Tarnesh is to use Xzar and Montaron to soak up his Melf's Acid Arrow and Horror spells while the rest of the party putters around elsewhere. But Montaron manages to kill the poor mage in one shot...
...leaving me with the question of what to do with the Zhentish agents now that they survived. I decide that they are still worth sacrificing against the Ankhegs further north. I bring Helarine into the party, a nondescript cleric of Kelemvor that gets an astounding number of spells.
I don't know which mod does this, but those are some pretty neat options. Unfailing Endurance was a level 3 or 4 spell in Icewind Dale and IWD2, but now it's available at level 1. Not that it's especially useful; Haste doesn't use the fatigue opcode in Spell Revisions, and Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, the outrageously overpowered level 5 cleric spell from Icewind Dale, erroneously imposes no fatigue penalty whatsoever.
When I arrive in the Ankheg area, the entire map is unselectable... I can't click anywhere and nobody can move, as if the entire map was a solid wall. A reload solves the problem, but I find it very strange; I don't know why a mod would cause it.
Anyway, a bandit appears out of nowhere and nearly kills Chara in one hit. But as a level 1 character with less than 14 HP, they can't die from a single blow.
I'm surprised, however, that the bandit could deal 7 damage, since a shortbow should only do 1d6. I guess they have 2 pips in bows or something. At any rate, Chara can bring themself back to full HP with a single Rainwater Brew.
Each one heals 2d6 HP, so they're not very reliable for no-reload purposes (you might only heal 2 HP from it), but as an Alchemist, Chara gets an extra 1d3 HP.
We use Command on our first Ankheg, but in SR, enemies below level 5 get a saving throw, and unlike normal BG:EE, SR Command allows the target to wake up when it is struck.
And although Helarine cannot die in one hit due to being a level 1 character with under 14 HP, an Ankheg's attack actually counts as two strikes: one dealing missile damage, and the other dealing acid damage. Helarine croaks.
We manage to slay it before it kills again, though it takes a charge from Imoen's Wand of Missiles--which IR boosts to striking 3 times instead of once (10.5 damage instead of 3.5). Unfortunately, the XP reward is extremely disappointing.
It seems that I unintentionally installed a mod that drastically lowers all XP rewards. It will take far, far more work to gain levels in my install than would otherwise be necessary.
We move on to the next Ankheg, only to find that our low levels are still crippling.
It only takes 100 gold to raise a character and Ankheg shells can be sold in Beregost for 500 a pop, but that's still a 20% drop in net profit.
Or 40%, since we're not always that lucky.
Or sometimes 100%. Plus the cost of a charge from the Wand of Missiles.
I dump Xzar to make room for Ajantis (who starts at level 2!) so he can help Chara carry our equipment back to the Friendly Arm Inn. I move the Ankheg shells by moving them from Ajantis to Chara and back, since the game only checks your encumbrance when you try to move, not when you try to pass something to another character.
After raising Helarine, Frisk, and Imoen, we use a Command to subdue the Ankheg just long enough for Chara, who normally stays out of combat completely for safety's sake, to throw a single grenade. Unfortunately, the Ankheg doesn't get stunned, and a bug prevents us from seeing the successful saving throw.
The weakest grenades only deal 1d6 damage and stun for 6 seconds on a failed save vs. breath at +3. That's actually not bad for BG1, but they are rather slow (speed factor 5), only get 1 APR even when the character is hasted, and their range is subpar. This means the Alchemist has to spend 3 seconds very close to the enemy to land a hit, and if a party member is fighting the enemy, he or she might also get stunned--a potentially fatal situation. So grenades are really dangerous. Hence the need for a Command spell.
Why not have Ajantis throw the grenade? He can use them, but as a non-Alchemist, he suffers a 15% chance per throw of blowing himself up for triple damage and a much stronger stun effect (save at -4 to avoid it). It's a decent option for suicidal charges, but usually, grenades are best left to Alchemists.
Helarine gets hit, but survives due to making her save vs. death (negating the acid damage) and drinking a Rainwater Brew. But somehow, she dies in a single hit round afterwards.
I recoup our losses by heading to Taerom Fuiruim (how do you pronounce that name) and selling him Ankheg shells. I think he can take multiple Ankheg shells at a time while only paying once, so I leave some on the floor before I speak with him.
It's not just XP from kills that got severely nerfed in my install. Quest-related XP also suffered horribly.
We should have reached level 2 or 3 by now. But we have yet to gain even a single level up.
We're not even close to one.
Seeing little use for Montaron, I dump his body in the middle of town and recruit Tiax (also level 2!), whom SCS moves to Beregost for easier access. His Summon Ghast ability gives us a priceless tank.
We get ambushed by 10 bandits at once on the way back to the Ankheg farms. But we have already shelled out lots of gold for Smoke Bombs, which last just long enough for us to escape.
Those green clouds are supposed to be gray; I'm not sure why they look like that.
Tiax's ghast proves extremely useful, soaking up 2 potentially fatal blows for us in the next fight.
Slowly and painfully collecting tiny bits of XP fills us with determination.
Since solo'ing the game as a Sorceress was getting pretty tough (mostly because I've chosen Daggers as my first weapon, and Blindness was replaced by SR with a spell that looks pretty useless), and I haven't used Montaron in a very loooong time, I decided to recruit him, and Viconia. We killed Zordal, got the Ring of Energy from somewhere (Item Randomiser ftw!), besides a lot of magical loot I sold (we have like five thousand gold right now I believe).
Having Montaron meant we could do the Basilisks, and that's the biggest accomplishment this party's done so far.
Currently, PC is sitting at level 4, Montaron is Fighter 3/Thief 4 but he needs less than 400 XP to gain his fourth Fighter level, and Viconia is a level Cleric 5. Spells are: MM, Shield, Grease and Battering Ram (SR's improved version of Knock, maybe not the greatest choice atm, but I'll need it if I want to solo SoA). Grease is very powerful because it gives enemies an unavoidable movement speed penalty of around 75% as long as they're in the AoE (which is small but that's ok anyway, I can cast it 6 times per day anyway). Montaron's Thieving points are allocated mostly on Pick Pockets, which means we'll take care of Dushai's ring very, very soon.