The fight with Tranzig was uneventful. We let him live because an Undertale-themed run has to at least be nonviolent when prompted, if nowhere else. I'm not willing to try a pacifist no-reload run because it's not really feasible (certainly not when the party is so thoroughly crippled by the 75% XP tax), but it would be weird to say no when the enemy asks for mercy.
We get ambushed on the way out of town. Chara uses a Potion of Invisibility at the beginning, since Mur'Neth can create an unlimited number of Potions of Invisibility, and many other potions, at no cost, thanks to his Alchemist thief kit.
We apply heavy pressure to the enemy cleric, and though Xan fails a save against Hold Person, Finch resists it, allowing her to free him.
Xan gets knocked out by Sleep...
...but because I'm an idiot and don't remember that SR sleep effects cancel on hit, I don't consider simply having Frisk wake him up by hitting him. Instead, they use Hypnosis to keep the enemies from stomping on his mopey face. Chara prepares to enter combat and help out.
The enemy mage proves hard to pin down. Somehow, Frisk gets charmed despite the Seducer kit granting immunity to it.
Turns out I accidentally included the wrong spell file in my Seducer kit, one which canceled some Seducer benefits because a Cast Spell on Condition opcode was at the beginning of the spell effects instead of at the end. I'll fix the bug and post the new version.
We manage to cut through the mage's illusions. Our reward is quite special.
Before we head out to the bandit camp, I decide to try out the Red Wizard encounter, which I've only fought once and do not remember at all besides the fact that I died horribly last time--when I was at a much higher level. It's pretty easy to see why.
Now that Chara is level 4, however, they have a spectacular anti-mage option in the form of Pressurized Gas. First, Kagain absorbs the enemy's initial spells and Frisk disables the slimes.
Then Finch throws out a canister of Pressurized Gas. The enemy's MGOI spells are no defense, and though the gas offers a saving throw, BG1 mages have pretty lousy saves vs. death.
I nerf the Pressurized Gas in the Alchemist mage kit update, but it's still very effective against mages. Like most of the Alchemist's items, it ignores the victim's magic resistance and spell protections, and because it strikes multiple times, it's more reliable for no-reload purposes. Also, if you're willing to shell out the gold for it, anyone in the party can use it.
Whenever somebody gets slowed, they drink a Potion of Speed courtesy of Mur'Neth's Alchemist thief kit. Kagain struggles to survive, but most of the enemies are in no condition to fight. One, however, manages to slip past the slimes and escape the cloud.
It takes some work, but Chara manages to disable that mage using a grenade.
Kagain and the other mages slowly die while the rest of the party keeps up the pressure on Denak.
Two mages just barely survive the assault, but Kagain wandered into the cloud when he got confused, and with Slow active, he didn't have time to heal himself with a potion.
Diana deals heavy damage with Flame Arrow, but Frisk manages to finish her off using a Bottle of Sludge.
Denak heals himself with a potion while invisible, but his defenses don't hold long enough for him to do much damage.
The loot is pricy, but nothing we don't already have. We proceed to the bandit camp.
Before we enter the main tent, we all drink a bunch of Chara's potions: Musk Wine to boost our STR and movement rate, Brine Solutions to boost our saves vs. spell, Radiant Philters to increase our resistance to fire and cold and acid, Bitter Tonics to increase increase our HP and saves vs. death, and some Bonemeal Eyedrops to increase Frisk's chances of dispelling enemy illusions.
Finch uses Sleep to knock out some of the enemies; Frisk disables some others using Hypnosis. It quickly gives us the upper hand.
We can't stop the mage from landing a Dispel Magic, but the neat thing about Alchemist potions is that they cannot be dispelled.
Since Alchemists are Transmuters and can't cast Spell Immunity or SR's Dispelling Screen, they'd be hopelessly underpowered if their potions were dispellable. Chara stuns the mage with a grenade, granting the rest of the party automatic hits. The biggest threat goes down.
Unfortunately, I have Chara attack the other enemies without switching to Bottles of Sludge. Grenades are very party-unfriendly, and the stun effect kills Finch in seconds.
Once the tent is clear of enemies, we drink another round of Radiant Philters to prepare for the Black Talon Elites' ice arrows. Chara passes out canisters of Pressurized Gas to throw at the enemy. And since most of the enemies here are all ranged attackers who cluster in groups, Pressurized Gas is ideal for taking them down.
It cost a lot of money to buy all those canisters, but it's a strong replacement for the Wand of Fire charges I'd normally use in this fight, if the Item Randomizer didn't get in the way. Sleep would also work, since SR lets it scale with level.
For some reason, I have Kagain use a Radiant Philter to tank the lightning trap rather than have Mur'Neth try to disarm it--as he surely could, at least if he created and drank a Potion of Perception, maybe with Bonemeal Eyedrops to help. The Radiant Philter doesn't seem to block any of the damage, however.
We only get a single notable item for our trouble.
This would be very valuable if Frisk couldn't already use Chara's perfume to hit 20 Charisma.
The Cloakwood is next. Frisk pours everyone a cup of spiders. We are filled with determination.
Okay. I got this. Slythe and Kristin were taken care of with one arrow of Dispelling after Kristin's PfMW had wore off and a lot of running away (it's our main tactic), the Palace fight was actually pretty easy, well, after a Greater Malisson + Slow and Invisibility on Liia, the Dopplegangers failed to even kill Belt, and the Mage vanished mid fight just to hide in the back, I think he wanted to die alone (not sure tho).
The Maze is always straightforward, free XP. Sarevok's acolytes outside the Temple of Bhaal were taken care of with a Skull Trap to begin the fight, several charges from the Wand of Paralyzation, Cold and Summoning and resting once or twice to deal with the Mage (the rest of the group was separated and killed before the witch). After doing this, I recalled never picking up the DEX Tome, and went off on a quest to find it in the least possible amount of time. I checked the Item Randomiser's spoilers of the locations of the items, and there was a chance Sunin had it hidden in his house. And he was. And then he was dead as well. Now with 19/19/19/19/5/12, we're ready to end the game!
For the Final Battle, I lured Angelo and killed him (I was hoping to lure Tazok as well, but he preferred to continue molesting the summons). Honestly, he's the toughest since he's a good melee fighter AND a competent wizard. Semaj was blasted off this world with several Arrows of Detonation paired with the Remove Protections ability from the Wizard Slayer (WSR introduces this), which would have been godly if I could have used it on Angelo as well at the same time (AoE buff dispelling!), but anyway, the Arrows of Detonation also got Tazok to Near Death, and with another barrage of them, both him and Diarmid went down.
Sarevok, uhm... Let's just say this: kiting, Wand of Monster Summoning, Potions of Extra-Healing and the almighty Wand of Cold. That's what it takes to kill a Bhaalspawn. I've just recruited Imoen and Minsc, saved the game and I'm off to eat dinner. Also, I've just realised you can use your familiar to smuggle items into Athkatla... If I had figured that out ten minutes ago I could have had all of my stuff.
@CrevsDaak You said: I've just realised you can use your familiar to smuggle items into Athkatla... If I had figured that out ten minutes ago I could have had all of my stuff.
I didn't know that. That would be worth posting in the "Did you know?" thread.
EE familiars are not great for carrying items. You can only steal them once, i.e. if stolen and then given back to you the familiar will never steal them again. If you put the familiar into your backpack then all the items it was carrying are automatically given back to you.
Nice to see everyone keeping busy . I've idly made up another installation and randomised a character for when I'm in the mood only to get something rather odd... a Paladin/thief multi or dual! I've toyed with a few ideas as to how to handle these sides simultaneously. One might be to be a kleptomaniac Blackguard, or perhaps a LG Ranger, or a Jekyll & Hyde character who is virtous by day but extortionate by night. However I think I may go sequential, beginning as a grim Undead Hunter who knows somehow that he is someday doomed to hunt the living as an assassin- basically dualing after something goes horribly wrong or possibly the end of SoD. Definitely will have to have Xan along . Now I've thought this far he'll get an arrow down the throat second screen in .
Again away from my computer with screenshots, and I'll try to get them in... But Barl has fallen in a very ill-advised attempt to take on the Chosen of Cyric encounter after killing Bodhi instead of talking our way out like I've done in the... two times I've gotten there before. It wasn't even a close battle; we were slaughtered. I'll probably try to create a new install, see if I can find the shapeshifting tokens component in BWS. Or maybe I'll go against my grain and play a mage of some sort, maybe a Dragon Disciple.
doesn't Tor'Gal have attack that makes you drop armour (to the floor) in that mod Grond0?
good run dispite the end mate.
It's Cloak of Fear spell. Vanilla version makes you "randomly" drop items. 99% of time, it's your armor you'll be dropping (figures). I don't know if EE fixed it, but on original BG2 Pro Fear stuff doesn't protect your from item dropping.
I like to defend at the first bridge which funnels the undead in manageable numbers, we collected the gold ammo and used it to kill the alter... then Pat and finally the Lord.
·Jan was happy to deal with his illusions... speeds it up a bit. ·Viconia put up repulse to keep the shadows out of play until we finished their boss.
So here's the events before Barl's demise: We dealt with the "Back to Brynnlaw" questpack; these mages, even without prebuffs, are terrifying with ADHW's in Chain contingencies, and with no easy immunity to magic damage on us, it's a potential insta-kill for some of us. We manage it, though, with only a couple deaths. We used a bit of gold to restore reputation, as I purposefully kill someone I thought was evil and apparently wasn't.
Next up is Firkraag's quest. The Ruhk transmuter's not nearly as scary with higher level characters.
Vampires aren't so bad either with a higher level Cleric.
And I'm missing the screenshots, but we cleared the rest of the dungeon with no deaths until Firkraag himself. We prebuffed with lots of Fire Resistance, over 100% for Barl, Valygar, and Mazzy; everyone else was in the back of the room. And then Firkraag deals a critical hit to Valygar doing something like 70 damage; he died very quickly after, and Mazzy took over tanking duties. Barl's not having much luck hitting, so a potion of Heroism is drunk, but eventually I mess something else up with Mazzy and she dies. Barl grabs the Boots of Lightning Speed on top of a Potion of Speed, and kites Firkraag to near death and without stoneskins, and finally lure him back to Imoen's final trap for the kill.
Confident over our second dragon kill, we go for the 3rd and last one before Nizzy. Same tactics, though no deaths this time. Well, Valygar was drained to level 3 at one point, but he ran while Mazzy, Barl, and Rasaad fought the Shadow dragon. Imoen claims the kill again with another trap.
We also go lich hunting, just because. The City Gate's lich is my least favorite, simply due to the tight quarters: his AoE spells can really do a number on the group. But it dies, as well, taking out only Valygar first.
Into the sewers we go, for two of the last 3 major quests. First, we rescue HaerDalis. I had to do this battle two times: the first, something caused my graphics card to spazz out, I think two Fireballs hitting an area at the same time? The second, I 100% metagamed and hit the area with a Death Fog instead of fighting the 3 mages.
The Imp isn't really a problem anymore. The Beholder teleport gank in the sewers is also thwarted.
Unseeing Eye: the large group of beholders in the temple are bombed by three cloudkills, all from wand. Turn Undead takes care of everything besides a Lich, which we fight successfully with no losses. Four Skeleton Warriors help clear the rest of the Beholder lair, and then they take down the Unseeing Eye itself after the Rift Device is used. Even without them, Imoen would've cleanly cleared it. Gaal and his henchmen are thereafter executed, the Shade Lich killed, and the Rift device returned.
Ullithids. YAY. Rasaad is permanently killed by a high damage roll from an aerial servant.
Mazzy and Valygar all die at least twice each in the Mindflayer fight, to speak nothing of the Alhoon at the end. Barl and Imoen kite for their lives, and Nalia ends up Dominated, but Barl's arrows save the day. We recruit Korgan for the heck of it, putting us back at 6.
Mazzy refuses to let Drizzt killsteal 91k experience from us. A remarkably easy battle, all things considered.
... Which leads me to think I stand a chance against the Chosen of Cyric. By here, my doom is already easy to see.
I've actually decided to restart Benoni, my roleplaying run from a year back or so. The old records; I've apparently not gotten much further than the Slavers in the past: https://pastebin.com/JgiJs1vu
With a mod-heavy install I would recommend keeping a teleport item around just in case your party gets overmatched or you are unexpectedly transported to an area which will take too long to do. There are many of these, such as a note from Romantic Encounters, the golden globe from the Ajantis mod, or These Boots Are Made for Walking from Aurora. Having this kind of plan B helps me to feel safer dealing with unknown content and gives me an ingame way of dealing with some bugs.
It's quite a while since I tried this challenge, so decided it was time to have another go. Biff can use any tactics he wants, but must never directly cause death by any means except his own melee attacks. A summons killing something would thus be a game-ender, although confused enemies killing each other would not be.
In the past I've played this unmodded, but I thought I'd have a go with an SCS/Ascension installation to add a bit of extra spice. That led to an early end to one run when Biff found he couldn't safely attack Mirianne's ogrillons - they would react when he got close to them even when blinded. As an alternative he used Algernon's cloak to charm them, so they could be killed by enemies - but I didn't control the ogrillon closely enough and it killed an attacking hobgoblin.
Starting again: - care was needed immediately against Carbos (who has an assassin kit), but a third attempt at blinding him succeeded in making him vulnerable. - Shoal runs around when blinded, so is not an easy target for this challenge and was left until later. Biff took his frustration out by beginning a programme of NPC eradication - Imoen, Xzar and Montaron all being blinded and struck down from outside their sight range. - normally I go south after burying Gorion in order to get to Shoal. However, there is a potentially deadly archer ambush on that route, so Biff took the eastern route. While there he blinded the ogre and wore him down with darts and LMD before coming in for the finish. The ogre runs round, but most creatures like that can be made to hold still briefly by starting to attack and then retreating when they respond. That allowed Biff to get free attacks in and he eventually made one of those count.
- in Beregost Algernon's killing hurt Biff's reputation. His new cloak though opened up additional possibilities. For instance the spiders are one of the creatures that are able to detect Biff when he gets close, meaning he couldn't safely attack them even when blinded. Two of them were charmed and killed by their fellows. A third was then charmed while the final one was blinded and reduced to low HPs. The charmed one was then micro-managed to get killed by the last one's poison while offering a distraction for Biff to attack. He missed with his first whack, but got a fatal blow in as the spider turned to attack him.
- travelling north again, Biff picked up the Ring of Wizardry. Some fishermen were blinded and killed and a reward collected from Tenya. Biff chose not to level up for the moment though as that would lose his level 1 protection in case of an archer ambush. He showed himself at extreme range to the ankheg nearby to pull it away from the route to Ulgoth's Beard. There, Dushai was charmed and pulled away from spectators. His saves are pretty good, so Biff was ready to run away if necessary. However, blindness worked at the 3rd attempt while Dushai was still gearing himself up to fight.
I'd forgotten though that he was one of those that run around when blinded, so Biff had to work quicker than he might have. Dushai landed one hefty blow, but the response from Biff was fatal.
- back in Beregost I realised I had not yet killed Neera and attempted to do that. I've noticed before that even when blinded and hostile she has a nasty habit of starting her quest conversation. It is possible to get into attack range without triggering that, but I didn't manage it this time (I should really have fed her to the spiders earlier). I don't allow NPC recruitment and she saved against a final attempt to charm her and disappeared with her gem bag - also leaving an enemy wizard loose in the town . - Biff did get a scroll case from Firebead before moving south. The same sort of trick as with the spiders allowed him to kill one ogrillon and there were no mistakes this time while getting the boots from the hobgoblin.
Biff's initial attack on the charmed ogrillon failed, but he took a chance by relying on level 1 protection (which does not always work) to attack again.
That gave him the XP for level 3 and he levelled up.
At High Hedge Biff beat up some gnolls - they react to being approached when blinded, but also have a slow weapon speed so Biff was able to attack them without retaliation. An attempt to restore Melicamp failed (has anyone else noticed that success in this seems to go in sequences. I had a long run of success until recently, but have now had 7 or 8 failures in a row).
Heading south Biff had charmed Geltik and was using a blinded wolf to wear him down a bit before attacking himself. I hadn't taken account in doing that though of the possibility of morale failure at low HPs and Geltik went berserk. Biff missed with an attempted kill shot and Geltik struck down the wolf.
My immediate reaction was that was game over. However, after thinking about it a bit I decided I could give myself a break in that the death could reasonably be treated in the same way as confusion, i.e. the death was caused by Biff's actions but only indirectly as he had no control over Geltik when he struck the fatal blow. Malkax was soon charmed and killed as well, before Zargal was blinded and worked over with LMD. He also went berserk - which was helpful as he couldn't see his attacker and the berserk seemed to prevent his detection of nearby creatures from working, giving Biff time to find a decent finishing strike.
At the Lighthouse, blinded worgs were another enemy able to sense Biff's presence and attack before he could get a strike in. However, by using LMD to buff his HPs he was able to take them down.
Looking for a bit more reputation Biff went in search of Bjornin's half-ogres. I expected them to wander around when blinded, but they didn't. As they also have a pretty slow weapon speed Biff was able to dispose of them without being attacked at all.
Back at Beregost Biff charmed Silke and wasted her damaging spells before going into the Red Sheaf Inn. Karlat refused to follow her out, so he got blinded and worn down with LMDs before the crack of a descending staff cut short his morale failure.
Returning Perdue's sword was then enough for Biff to get to level 4 and gain invisibility. After resting, Biff emerged from the inn to find Silke still patiently waiting. After going to find the Thayan mage Silke absorbed all his spells while Biff watched invisibly before coming to finish the job.
Biff then had a go at finishing off Silke - using the other Thayan bodyguard to wear her HPs down first. Before Biff could strike a blow though Silke had a skin transplant.
Although out of spells that was still a dangerous situation as she could have an undisclosed minor sequencer available and Biff should really have played safe and immediately gone invisible and come back later once the stone skin had worn off. However, he waited to see what Silke would produce - and paid for that with a double dose of acid arrows.
Like all my characters Biff wasn't allowed to take any of his healing potions, but his previous use of LMDs meant he somehow survived to reach the Beregost Temple with 1 HP left.
I was thinking he would safe after he talked to the priest on the grounds that time would not pass while he was in the store - but before he could activate healing from the priest I found I was wrong again ...
Ah @Grondo, that looked like the perfect escape! Very sorry about. I find your melee sorcerer one of your most interesting returning characters. Hopefully this won't be the last we've seen of Biff.
Thanks @Blackraven. Biff just had another try, but again with a slightly unfortunate ending just as things were becoming much easier. However, it's been a fun challenge this morning, so I will give him at least one more try to see if he can crack on further.
Undaunted by his memories of past lives, Biff pulled himself out of his coffin bed in Candlekeep and hit the road again. He safely arrived in Beregost where he had a few attempts to charm Neera, but her elf heritage was protecting her and Biff decided to wait until he had invisibility to deal with her.
Heading north, this time he didn't blind Dushai, but several LMDs provided an unneeded HP cushion for a melee finish.
Some smooth work in Beregost got him to level 3 and Lady Luck was obviously listening to my complaint in the last update as Melicamp survived this time. That meant that beating up Bjornin's half-ogres was enough for level 4 and Biff had the comfort of travelling back to Beregost invisibly - where this time there was no mistake in getting Neera's bag.
He then briefly hit a record 56 HPs in the course of using LMD to provide a HP cushion for finishing off Karlat without needing to worry about invisibility or positioning.
Travelling down to Nashkel, Biff thumbed his (invisible) nose at a large group of bandits. That travel was a mistake though in the sense that I had intended to take CLW as a Bhaal power rather than yet another LMD, but hadn't monitored reputation properly. Oh well, it's not really a significant difference for this character.
At the Carnival a bit of work included finishing off Vitiare - attacking from invisibility to make quite sure he wouldn't be picking Biff's pockets at the last minute. Greywolf was worn down by 8 magic missiles and 4 LMDs before a first invisible attack proved sufficient.
After returning Samuel to the FAI I got lucky against Tarnesh. When playing LoB I typically use a charmed guard to wear him down and started doing that by reflex - only to realise as the guard made his first attack that Tarnesh wouldn't have quite so many HPs as in LoB . Fortunately the strike left him with 1
and Biff was able to complete the job.
Robbing the ankhegs started a new sequence of reputation quests and Biff got to level 5 with the death of Gallor after helping out Charleston Nib.
I then started to attack the Doomsayer - only to realise that I didn't have a magic weapon to finish him off .
With web now available to complement the ring of free action, things became much easier. Neira was the first victim of that combination,
but there should have been plenty more as Biff made his way through the Cloud Peaks. Unfortunately, Biff didn't get to the end of those. After drawing Vax away for disposal, Biff rested and tried to do the same to Zal - choosing to charm him initially precisely to avoid getting drawn into a battle with kobolds. As soon as the charm succeeded I was clicking rapidly for Zal to move away, but the screenshot shows how successful that was.
I feel rather the same way as the kobold . The mistake there was that I had both Biff and Zal selected at once. I've noticed before that charmed creatures (and NPCs if AI is on) are much more likely to over-ride commands if they are part of a group selection rather than being selected on their own. Zal's speed factor would be zero with darts, so he did only need to take control of himself for an instant to release a dart.
I got back to trademeet to have two family emergencies pop up... then we sorted the red wizards with ease for some wands. the party needed another replacement so we popped into the cirrus and walked out as heroes with a winged elf willing to help us fight the vampires next.
·The boss is a powerful fire starter but she knows that and it makes her cocky,
·Jan had to go home... a local Druid agreed to help with a bit of mage thumbing then he started getting pushy so we asked Aerie to step in. Tip; once the city legionary leave I just go rest at the inn outside and Lanneth always teleports into the fay without her guards to help.
Taking advantage of the bank holiday today Biff was straight back into the action - and has once more successfully got to level 5. This time I managed to get the Bhaal power desired, though there have been a couple of minor errors: - a slight movement failure that allowed the blinded belt ogre to get an attack in (level 1 protection allowing Biff to resist 23 damage from the critical hit that resulted ). - briefly visiting the location of Mr Colquetle's amulet while travelling elsewhere, resulting in it not being there when travelling back for it some time later.
One slight difference from the earlier run is that Biff has made no use of Algernon's Cloak to date, in order to avoid the extra complications associated with controlling charmed creatures.
The loss of the reputation point from Mr Colquetle meant Biff couldn't get to 20 reputation before going to the Nashkel Mines. Fortunately that was not too much of a problem. Biff went down invisibly to the lowest level and cleared the area around Mulahey's cave using webs. After killing the kobolds inside he triple-webbed Mulahey and the cleric failed in his attempts to break free.
Nimbul also got stuck in webs and kindly left behind a find familiar scroll to give Biff a slight HP boost. Tranzig's much better saves meant Biff needed to try 3 times to stick him webs for long enough to deal with him, but eventually he was successful.
Looking to upgrade equipment, Biff travelled up to Ulgoth's Beard - waving at both the amazon and Molkar's ambushes on the way, but deciding they would be too risky to fight. Purchases made there, after using a friends scroll to get the best discount, included the +3 staff. That gives not only major benefits from THAC0 and damage improvement, but also a speed factor of 1 making it much more likely to be able to attack active enemies without them retaliating.
The new staff got a workout at the basilisk area, while Biff was protected by the green scroll. He soon got up to level 6 there fighting basilisks before going to take on Mutamin.
He tried webs agains the mage, but Mutamin's saves were too good to get stuck very often and Biff got hit by a couple of magic missiles himself before using his last invisibility to ambush the mage and take his final HP away.
After dealing with Mutamin's special pets, Biff rested and then recruited Korax. A combination of stinking cloud and ghoul paralysation allowed Biff to blind everyone while they were disabled
and he made sure Korax wouldn't kill anyone accidentally
before finishing the last of them off.
Battle horrors don't have particularly good saving throws, so there was some easy XP available at Durlag's Tower by webbing those - the first of them taking Biff to level 7.
Using webs to blind the basilisks on the roof is a bit trickier, but they soon rack up the XP and Biff got to level 8 with the last of those.
His newly learned stoneskin made Riggilo pretty much risk free - though the thief failed to break free from webs anyway.
After buying a Robe of the Archmagi and clearing the Valley of the Tombs, Biff returned to the Lighthouse area in search of more quick XP. He used Algernon's Cloak there for the first time to charm two of the sirines in the first group - though once they'd been worn down by arrows of biting from other ones Biff stole the XP.
The third one was helpless in the face of MSD and invisibility. Sil's friends soon went in a similar way and, although Sil moved around a lot and hid in the cave, Biff eventually took her down using invisible attacks. With both stoneskins and mirrors available the golems then stood no chance.
We head back to Beregost for our reward from the mayor. A little poking around reveals a ghost by the bridge.
Basically, the story is that two lovers are separated by the bridge, and the guy wants us to take something across the bridge so they can be together again. But there's something weird about this quest.
The guy says that his girlfriend lies about never loving him. And, when we head across the bridge and talk to her ghost, she says that she's afraid of him, she wants to stay away from him, and she not-so-subtly implies that if we bring him over to her, he's going to hurt her.
Obviously the male ghost was abusive to her, so we decide not to unite them. But there's no clear way to explain to him the problem. In the end, we slay the ghost.
Yvonne is still there, and the quest remains unfinished. I'm not entirely sure how we were supposed to complete this quest, so I try attacking her as well. That's often the solution to quests involving ghosts.
Bad move.
I've never lost that much reputation before in a single blow.
I would later learn that the right way to resolve this quest is to unite the two. Then the girl suddenly declares her love for the guy and they're happy and whatever. Problem is, when you have a storyline that starts like this...
Guy: Help me get back to my beloved! She says she doesn't love me, but she's lying! She really does love me, I swear! Girl: Don't let him come over here! If he does, he's going to hurt me!
...then you can't really end it like this:
Girl: Oh, honey! I'm so sorry I lied about not loving you! Guy: It's okay; we're together now! I love you! Girl: I love you, too! I am so silly and dishonest for no reason!
Because that's not "playing hard to get." That just screams "abusive relationship." What exactly was the writer thinking when they wrote this? Is the solution supposed to be a bizarre plot twist, or this somehow supposed to make sense?
Regardless, our attempts to resolve the problem have failed. We head to the temple and shell out thousands of gold to atone for the sin of listening to a woman's pleas for help.
Thus ends a weirdly misogynistic and rapey questline.
Earlier on, we found a set of plate mail on a Duergar bounty hunter in the Nashkel mine, but nobody could use it at the time. Xan, however, can wear it, granting him the AC to ward off enemy attacks even when we get caught off-guard without our defenses active.
The enemy applies lots of pressure on Frisk, whose AC makes them a prime target for SCS enemies--this is why I made Chara our main character instead of Frisk--but the only real source of danger in this fight is Hold Person, which Finch can cure easily.
We get our hands on the Protector of the Second, a very important armor for thieves in Item Revisions.
Immunity to critical hits is hard to come by in IR. Unfortunately, Frisk cannot wear armor due to their Seducer kit, so the leather goes to Mur'Neth instead.
I decide to pay a visit to Ulcaster, for the sole reason that I didn't remember it wasn't the same thing as the Firewine Ruins. I remember basically nothing about this area, so it's quite surprising when a skeleton is able to instantly heal himself and cast Call Lightning at will.
We try using Shatter to speed things up. Turns out Icharyd has such amazing saving throws that he can make 20 successful saves against a single spell.
Shatter is supposed to offer no saving throw to undead, so I think this is yet another mod-introduced spell that doesn't work properly.
Chara already brewed a whole bunch of Sour Draughts (which heal 4d8 HP per potion), so we have the healing power to survive the lengthy battle. It's a long, slow grind, but the Alchemist kit's ability to stock up lots of extra potions means they can help the party stay afloat in long battles like this one.
We meet a barbarian named White and bring him into the party to replace Xan, just to see how he turns out. White is kind of boring and I have little use for a barbarian since Kagain is already a perfect tank, but White does come with a Cloak of Displacement, one of many situationally useful items that Item Revisions makes more practical.
We run through the Ulcaster ruins, facing little resistance until we confront the Wolf of Ulcaster. Turns out it can cast Horror, and thanks to my many mods, Finch cannot cast Resist Fear. Everyone fails their save but Mur'Neth and Chara.
Knowing that another Horror spell could be imminent, Chara turns invisible.
As long as you keep the main character alive, you can bounce back from almost anything. Dead party members can always be raised if you've saved the gold for it, and with the Turqoise Bag of Holding from Thalantyr, we can haul back any amount of dropped equipment.
But in an area with tight hallways like this, with enemies flooding the place, Chara could get stuck behind a wall of wolves--an potentially fatal situation, as they could only escape by breaking invisibility.
Against all reason, the enemy decides to cast Dispel Magic, but Kagain has run away and does not get Horror dispelled.
Finch fails a save and gets paralyzed by a Ghoul. There's no way we can save her; all I can do is have White use his rage ability to help take down the Ghouls before they can kill anyone else.
Mur'Neth fails a save against Horror just as Kagain recovers from it. Now we can start making progress.
Suddenly, I realize that we have a supply of Potions of Clarity that Mur'Neth created a while ago courtesy of his Alchemist thief kit. Item Revisions weakens potion buffs in some places, but it also makes them undispellable. For 50 rounds, our party can remain immune to fear.
Of course, Potions of Clarity have never granted immunity to paralysis, and unfortunately Mur'Neth cannot create Potions of Freedom. And White's Barbarian rage only lasts so long.
Kagain is holding strong over to the west, but things are looking ugly. A cluster of wolves is gathering behind us--cutting off Chara's only means of escape if the battle proves unwinnable.
Kagain and Frisk drink some spare Potions of Freedom--not from Mur'Neth, but just potions we collected over time--just to make sure our numbers don't shrink any further.
But Mur'Neth is still panicking, so his only defense is his AC and his saving throws. They're not enough; a Ghast takes him down.
Only Frisk, Chara, and Kagain survive. Frisk is weak on their own and Chara is too valuable to risk by putting them in melee combat, so the burden falls on Kagain to save the party.
Once he finishes off the wolves to the west, Kagain marches to the east and activates Defensive Stance to engage the Wolves of Ulcaster. Frisk lingers behind, using Hypnosis to decrease the pressure on Kagain.
Kagain downs an Oil of Speed. It only lasts 10 rounds in Item Revisions, but Mur'Neth already created plenty for us. The Wolves of Ulcaster are breaking down, but more wolves are coming in to flank Frisk, and Hypnosis applies a steep -3 AC penalty to Frisk--which is especially nasty considering Seducers cannot wear armor. Hypnosis isn't reliable enough to keep off the wolves. Frisk only disables a single one.
I know Frisk isn't strong enough to survive this much pressure, so I have them drink a Potion of Invisibility instead. Kagain will have to fight everyone on his own. But I think he can handle it.
Kagain cuts through the horde, using our many potions to keep himself afloat and winning the party some precious XP.
We try using Pressurized Gas against the wolves, but apparently Dread Wolves are undead, which means the poison cannot touch them.
The wolves have far more HP than Kagain and far more APR, but Kagain has the advantage of strong AC and very deep pockets full of potions. Those potions can't protect him from everything, but this is a slow fight over a long period of time, a situation where a party with an Alchemist has the upper hand.
We raise everybody with CTRL-R, I add the gold value of the resurrections to the counter in my head (it's just a drop in the bucket at this point), and White dies again because I forgot to have Mur'Neth look for traps.
We loot the hoard. We find a weird ring for White...
...but since he's utterly inferior to Xan and everyone else in the party, even Frisk, I decide to dump him in favor of Xan. But that ring wasn't the only prize in the area.
Once we find a Wand of Lightning, I will use it to boost Chara's STR by 3 points, up to 19.
We return to the ruins to look for more loot. But we get surprised by a new enemy I don't recognize, who quickly consolidates a massive advantage over the party.
We're not in any condition to handle a mage bolstered by a gang of Shadows, certainly not without Kagain. But it turns out this mage has virtually no defensive buffs.
I often use CTRL-4 to hasten trapfinding, and in the process of poking around the rest of the ruins, I end up spotting something new.
There's an entrance to a new area at the far south end of the ruins. I've never seen it before--to my knowledge, the Ulcaster underground was only ever this one single area. This is the first time I've visited Ulcaster in years; I don't even know if this place is from BG1 or from one of my mods. I've never even played most of the mods in my install, so this new area could be quite literally anything.
We continue to the new area without buffing the party, marching into the unknown. We are filled with determination.
Biff persuaded Raiken to give him access to the Bandit Camp and charmed Taurgosz before resting. A black talon was then charmed and pulled away for disposal, which seemed to go well - with no apparent alarm given and all the bandits still neutral. However, someone had obviously pressed a silent alarm button ...
The rest of the enemies from the main tent quickly followed Venkt, but all the external bandits were still neutral. Biff took advantage of that by having Taurgosz show himself to Britik and successfully drew him away for disposal. He tried the same thing with Venkt and got him to use all his spells up on Taurgosz, but then Raemon followed and raised the alarm.
To my surprise though Taurgosz and the others still didn't turn hostile and Venkt was soon killed.
Taurgosz soaked up some more arrows while Biff used slow and web to work his way through some of the enemies.
Without area damage he couldn't restrain the attackers for long enough to kill too many of them and eventually had to run away, but with the hardest part of the job already done finishing the combat next time was easy enough - he didn't bother killing all the bandits that stayed neutral.
Up to this point Biff had not sought out bracers of weapon expertise due to the increased danger of killing things with missile attacks. However, as using missiles will be pretty rare in future he did put on the bracers from the Bandit Camp before entering the Cloakwood. He passed through that rapidly though without troubling the inhabitants on his way to the mine. There he charmed Genthore and drew him away for disposal in webs. Biff did the same against Kysus - first wasting all his spells, although he failed to break free from the webs anyway.
Rezdan was next - he didn't even have stoneskin in his pre-buffs, so it was not surprising he failed to escape from webs. The XP from that got Biff his 9th and final BG1 level before it was the turn of Drasus. On his own he was no real danger - even less after being webbed and blinded!
Biff progressed down through the mine without trouble - not bothering with the mages on the way. Biff made a first use of a wand in the run to date to activate the battle horrors with a fireball - killing them when they ventured near to the exit. They didn't want to be webbed, but went down eventually anyway.
Biff then summoned some monsters and sent them to find Davaeorn. After his minor sequencer was triggered Davaeorn carelessly wandered into it and fell down. That gave Biff the opportunity to try blinding him - and he succeeded at the second attempt.
However, with the guards starting to pile in Biff was unable to keep enough pressure on Davaeorn to have a chance of killing him.
With all the guards arrived Biff tried luring them away, but most of them wouldn't play that game - the Black Talons would happily shoot him, but not leave Davaeorn's side, although he did pull away the odd standard guard to their doom. After resting he killed some more using webs and a few more with in and out attacks.
After another rest (which had to be done upstairs as all available spots in that area were filled by ambushing guards) Biff went back down, but this time stayed by the exit and dodged Davaeorn's spells. He also got a bit of help killing the guards with dashes in and out from the mage.
Switching the ring of free action for fire resistance when fireballed nearly proved fatal when Biff forgot to switch back and was held in the web
- but MSD and stoneskins reduced the incoming damage enough to keep him alive until he could move again.
Biff still needed to dodge a couple more spells, but then Davaeorn was hunted down.
Biff flooded the mine and has just arrived in Baldur's Gate where he's looking for a good night's rest (as am I).
The moment we enter the new area deeper in the Ulcaster ruins, we run into a blurry mage, Arch Mage Arias, and a group of Ghasts. The Ghasts are one thing, but that mage--an Arch Mage?--could nuke us in seconds. Chara drinks a Potion of Invisibility and flees to the northeast while Kagain runs up to the mage. More undead enter the fray and Arch Mage Arias blasts Kagain with 5 Magic Missiles.
Arias is at least level 9. That's not a good sign. Worse yet, I'd wager he's also undead, and has all the immunities that come with it.
Frisk reveals Arias using Detect Illusions while Kagain struggles to survive. He dons the Ring of Energy for 20% magic damage resistance, but all it does is block a single point of damage when Arias rolls for 5.
Kagain has a lot of potions, but he can only use one per round. This means that while he can survive low-intensity battles almost indefinitely...
...blitzkrieg-style attacks that deal lots of damage in a short period of time...
...are more than capable...
...of obliterating his massive HP pool.
But Kagain has bought us enough time to break through Arias' Stoneskins. He manages to fire off a single deadly Flame Arrow before he falls.
Finch gradually breaks down the remaining undead. The Greenstone Amulet protects her from the Ghouls' paralysis.
Arias drops a very, very special dagger.
We have little use for an extra Dagger of Venom, or any dagger for that matter, but it does grant an extra attack per round. It'll make Mur'Neth or Frisk a little bit stronger in melee combat.
Speaking of Mur'Neth, his ability to create Potions of Perception allows him to get a 25% boost to trap detection. Unfortunately, it means very little if he forgets to drink one before tackling a difficult trap.
Once again, I use CTRL-R and add another 400 gold (since Mur'Neth is still at a pathetic level 4) to our resurrection tally.
Further poking around the area introduces us to another new enemy, the Burning Dead. This place is definitely not in vanilla BG1. The Burning Dead drops a couple Arrows of Detonation and a huge chunk of XP, enough to bring Xan up another level.
This area looks very dangerous, but I desperately need these kinds of rewards. Getting Xan to mage level 3 nets us two very big prizes.
Xan finally can engage in melee without instantly exploding, and finally we can give the whole party immunity to fear without using Potions of Clarity.
Also, we get an axe that's no better than Kagain's current one, the ghoul killing axe from the Gnoll fortress ambush that doesn't kill ghouls.
We keep poking around, and spot a trio of enemies to the northwest.
The names and sprites alone make it obvious these guys are dangerous. Two fighters that probably have lots of immunities and resistances, and another high-level mage.
Kagain runs up to whomp on the mage while the rest of the party makes their getaway. Turns out both the enemy skeleton utterly outclasses Kagain.
It hit him on a roll of 3. There's no way Kagain can compete with that. I send him away, but he gets charmed. We can't leave until he's either dead or back under our control. But I can't put Frisk in harm's way by sending them back to use Dispel Charm. We keep running.
We use Bonemeal Eyedrops to improve our THAC0 against the Death Knight chasing the party...
...but we just can't land a hit on him. Finally, Chara just switches to grenades. They could easily stun and kill a party member if I'm not careful, but they hit the target automatically, and it turns out the Death Knight doesn't have all the immunities I thought it did.
You can only throw a single grenade per round regardless of class or haste or what have you, and the stun effect offers a save, but grenades can have a huge impact if you get lucky.
Kagain recovers from Dire Charm, but I don't know where that mage is lurking.
I suppose I could use a Protection from Magic scroll on the mage, but I am loathe to use up non-renewable resources. And though I wouldn't know it until later, Protection from Magic scrolls in my install only affect the user.
We find the Skeleton Warrior, and though it proves immune to the grenades' stun effect, it's still perfectly easy to kite the thing, as it has no ranged attacks.
Notice the grenade doing crushing damage. Grenades will do crushing or piercing damage; whichever is higher.
We keep kiting the Skeleton Warrior, but Finch nearly dies when she gets too close to the blast radius.
I decide to hold off on the grenades and just use other weapons. Frisk lands the final blow with the 5 APR dagger we got from Tristan or Isolde north of Beregost. A second one shows up and meets the same fate, and we get another awesome weapon for which we have no use.
Bad grammar in the description. A lot of item mods in my install have poor writing or effects that don't work.
We find Anton Valor loitering in the center of the map. He boosts his AC with Ghost Armor, but AC is meaningless to Chara's grenades. We get lucky on the second round. It's enough to win the fight.
Chara gets a neat defensive dagger, we get another bastard sword we'll never use, and Finch hits level 5, gaining access to the single best SR spell for no-reload runs: Break Enchantment.
It'll free us from almost any status effect in the game.
This dungeon is very, very rewarding. I've been hunting down every scrap of XP I could possibly find across the Sword Coast, and the critters here give almost as much XP as vanilla Ankhegs.
We move on to the next area. My excitement is short-lived. I don't think things are going to be so easy anymore.
Kagain and Mur'Neth engages the Ghost Knights while Chara and the rest of the party use missile weapons on Garrett, the enemy mage. But Garrett keeps making his saves vs. breath, avoiding stun or deafness.
Round after round, we fail to disable Garrett. He just keeps making those saves against Chara's grenades and Frisk's Hypnosis. He successfully raises all of his defenses and turns his attention to attacking us.
Chara keeps lobbing grenades at Garrett, but accidentally kills Frisk while Frisk is trying to remove Garrett's Mirror Images. Kagain isn't much luckier.
But after many rounds of trying, Chara finally gets Garrett to fail a save.
We get 6 seconds of automatic hits, which is enough to get through his Stoneskins. Garretts fails another save, and just like Arch Mage Arias, he only lives long enough to cast a single Flame Arrow.
The Ghost Knights are a nuisance, but they're not life-threatening. We cut them down and collect several hundred XP for every party member.
Garrett drops another amazing item we do not need!
We run into more Burning Dead, but they're nothing we can't handle at this point. The containers in this dungeon are just loaded with valuable crap... including what HAS to be the best ring in the game.
But there's one item that really stands out.
The most stupidly overpowered item I've ever seen. Ever.
The Amulet of Wyvren Summoning. Not Wyvern Summoning, but Wyvren. And when it says you can summon Greater Wyvrens at will...
...it really does mean at will. It never runs out of charges. You can summon an infinite number of Greater Wyverns, each of which does massive damage and is a spectacular tank in its own right. They even drop Wyvern Heads, making them a source of infinite gold.
Of course, if we antagonize them, they can do horrible things to the party.
I test out the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning against the next couple groups of enemies. It obliterates enemies that we previously had to kite.
Who is that Arch Mage Nalas mentioned in the dialogue box? I'd rather not find out while he's still alive. I let him tangle with the wyvrens.
He disables the party from afar, so I pull back Chara into the hallway.
Kagain remains webbed and Nalas nearly kills him, still out of sight, until Finch rescues him using Invisibility.
Unable to take down an endless horde of wyvrens, Nalas runs out of spells and is forced to engage in melee. The wyvrens stomp him.
We step over his body and loot the container behind him for even more overpowered items.
That amulet doesn't actually give any magic resistance, but it does give those extra spell slots.
Chara hits level 5. We're still a long way away from the critical level 7 when Chara gets the next round of potions, but the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning can actually win every single battle in the main quest, all the way to Sarevok. It could probably take down everything in Siege of Dragonspear, too, except for the final battle.
But knowing me, I probably won't use it more than once or twice a day unless it's against an enemy I think isn't worth fighting normally. Because infinite wyvrens is just silly.
We get attacked on the way out. This is basically what the fight looks like.
The wizards drop some robes we can't use and some Bullets of Detonation--which are just like Arrows of Detonation, except they don't hit automatically; they just get +1 to hit.
Officer Vai will buy almost anything in my install for some reason, and she buys everything at full price. The only disadvantage is that you can't buy anything back from her. This means that all those big-ticket items we don't need will vastly expand our gold supply.
We sell only a fraction of the contents of our Bag of Holding and still jump from 30,000 gold to 80,000. Too bad there's almost nothing to buy with all that money. Not until Chara hits level 7, which requires three times as much XP as we've gathered so far.
With our new amulet in hand, we finally head to the Cloakwood. Deliberately misspelling wyvrens fills us with determination.
We fight for the druids in the Cloakwood, but as usual, nothing happens when the fight is over. Seniyad doesn't say anything new. I think the quest is bugged somehow.
The web traps in the Cloakwood are a pain, so I use my normal method of dealing with them: I just turn Finch invisible, locate all the trap triggers with CTRL-4, and then teleport her around the map. It's faster than having her walk everywhere.
With the web traps gone, and with Sweet Elixirs from Chara to cure poison, the spiders are little problem. Despite the 75% XP tax, we still manage to get enough for another level up.
There's a dragon around here for some reason, but it's nothing Kagain and a Greater Wyvern can't handle. Some druids reward us just enough to bump up Frisk to level 6.
It takes so, so much work just to hear that sound in my install. Frisk's Hypnosis now only offers a +2 save vs. spell. We also get a Ring of Protection +2, which naturally goes on Chara to improve their saves.
I want some Bitter Tonics to improve our saves vs. death before we tackle Centeol. Since we got up to 80,000 gold after selling the Ulcaster stuff to Officer Vai and we've got some potentially nasty fights coming up, I have Chara brew a bunch of potions, including enough canisters of Pressurized Gas to wipe out half of Baldur's Gate.
The spiders turn out to be very simple. Chara breaks their strength using grenades.
We find the Gauntlets of Dexterity amongst the loot, as well as a journal that suggests that Tanova, the vampire mage from BG2, knew Jon-bon back in Suldannessellar.
I return to the Friendly Arm Inn and get ambushed by some paladins on the way. Chara drinks a Potion of Invisibility to get away, but it turns out the enemy isn't a big threat; they don't have any big spells that could break the party. I use the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning to speed things up.
I won't use the amulet often, but it does save me a lot of time and micromanagement for minor skirmishes like this one. Najara and her friends drop a massive trove of magical items. None are as powerful as the amulet--what could be?--but we do get another at-will spell in the form of Cure Critical Wounds.
That morningstar gives 3 attacks per round to Finch. Suddenly, she becomes a solid damage dealer in her own right.
We head into the Friendly Arm Inn and meet up with Ender Sai from the bandit camp. He said he wanted to reward us for saving him, though the reward isn't quite what I was expecting.
Good to know, at least, that not everything in the Romantic Encounters is smutty. Some of it is quite sweet! Especially if Alex from Candlekeep is part of that mod; I don't really know.
We head back to the Cloakwood and bring Faldorn into the party, replacing Xan, but her spellbook is bugged and she doesn't get the proper amount of spell slots. I dump her from the party, bringing Xan back into the fold, until I find a special pair of APR-boosting bracers that no one else in the party can use. I deem the gauntlets just important enough to make her worth another shot. I boot Xan once more and keep Faldorn.
That's the problem with all these mod-introduced items. They're awfully powerful, but since I have no idea what they are, I can't structure my party or plan ahead to make the most use of them.
Just for giggles, I turn the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning against the local wyverns.
I start to reconsider Faldorn's place in the party when she displays her fervor for nature.
We approach the first fight of the Cloakwood mines, Drasus and his friends. Kagain activates Defensive Stance and soaks up the enemy's Dispel Magic spells, allowing the rest of the party to hold onto their defenses.
Frisk uses Hypnosis and Chara throws a grenade, but their efforts make little impact. Luck is always against you in a no-reload run.
I decide to play things a little more safely, and use Pressurized Gas to get past those MGOI spells.
The enemy loses a lot of HP, but the poison damage is not stopping the mages from casting spells. More summoned critters enter the fight.
But Rezdan should have drank a potion instead. That Mirror Image won't protect him from the cloud.
We stand at the edge of the cloud and use missile weapons. Kysus falls along with the other enemies.
I'm going to nerf Pressurized Gas in the next update to the Alchemist kit, but this will still be possible--it's just going to be more expensive and shorter-lived.
One of our rewards is the Ring of Clumsiness, which for some reason makes the user less clumsy in Item Revisions.
By chance, Faldorn loses absolutely nothing from those penalties, so I give her the ring, improving her THAC0 when using Bottles of Sludge.
Before I enter the mine, I head back to Thalantyr and have him forge some items for me. Chara gets better defenses and Mur'Neth gets a better melee weapon.
Hareishan is a major threat, but we have some strong tools to use against her. Kagain absorbs her Dispel Magic and relies on his undispellable Defensive Stance to protect him from the fighters...
...Frisk fixes up Kagain from a distance when he fails a save against charm...
...and although Chara fails to stun Hareishan with a grenade, and manages to confuse Kagain...
[spoiler]
...Kagain still keeps the enemy fighters distracted, allowing Frisk to summon a Greater Wyvern.
The wyvern thins the enemy herd while Kagain recovers from confusion. With Hareishan's best spells wasted and her allies slain, we can advance on her directly.
Hareishan uses a Potion of Invisibility to escape, but it's nothing Frisk can't dispel with Detect Illusions. We put Hareishan down.
I bring Yeslick into the party and realize that he would be a very powerful asset. I ditch Faldorn, even using Break Enchantment to take away the cursed ring she was using--which we don't even need--and get Yeslick fitted with some of the equipment the rest of the party hadn't been using. With Najara's armor and the Strength of Stone spell, Yeslick can maintain 19 STR for 50 rounds--which is especially useful considering he can use Doufas' Saber to boost his APR to 3. He has no proficiencies with katanas, but it won't matter so much with 19 STR and 3 APR.
As a fighter/cleric, Yeslick does not suffer from cleric-related item restrictions in my install. I don't much like Yeslick's voice, much like Kagain, but their interactions are nice, and Yeslick does have some good lines of his own.
Natasha blasts us with Fireburst, but with Yeslick in the party, we have very high APR. Natasha's Stoneskin don't last long.
Doufas' Saber can paralyze targets on a failed save, but the effect strikes as a level 3 spell, which means Natasha's MGOI could block it. The Ogre Mage, however, does not have that defense.
Only Davaeorn remains.
When Yeslick isn't looking, Frisk puts a snail in his beard. We are filled with determination.
With a couple more friends scrolls on sale at Sorcerous Sundries Biff went to buy the Dagger of Venom and Claw of Kazgaroth. Back in the City the first fight was with Jalantha and I realised there after disrupting one of her spells with a magic missile that I hadn't monitored her HPs. As it happened the magic missile couldn't quite have killed her even if it had done maximum damage, but it was still a reminder to be careful.
However, reminder or not I was obviously still half asleep as the very next encounter was with Lothander and I thought it would be nice to get his items. With brain still disengaged I used the standard tactic of surrounding him with summons and attacking with them after talking to him - and was not lucky enough for Biff to get the killing blow.
As indicated in the last post, run 33 ended first thing this morning. Although redoing all the encounters up to Baldur's Gate seemed a little bit daunting, my internet connection was down so I couldn't do the post immediately. Also, I didn't really want to leave this challenge with such a poor finish - so Biff found himself once more setting out from Candlekeep. This time though I've emphasised the speed of the run rather than efficiency and natural progression of XP. That meant doing far fewer encounters early on and going to find the basilisks as soon as invisibility was available - getting up to level 6 there.
A quick tour to maximise reputation (having boosted that several points at the temple while that was cheapest - which is around reputation 7) and Biff's own friends spell allowed the cheap purchase of not just the +3 staff, but the dagger of venom. Against disabled opponents dual-wielding that gives the best available melee damage for a mage (better than chill touch in the EE).
Durlag's Tower provided some more quick XP, though I was attacking aggressively there and got taken down to 2 HPs at one point by a critical from a ghast. A similarly aggressive approach saw Biff take down the sirines rapidly - none of them escaping from webs long enough to hit back at him. He didn't have mirrors or magic ammunition available this time, but stoneskins were still more than enough to deal with the golems.
Biff webbed Mulahey and Tranzig again, but this time at the Bandit Camp he just grabbed the letters, turned invisible and left. On arriving at the FAI though he noticed the Cloakwood map wasn't available. Presuming he'd left a bit too quickly he went back to the tent in the Bandit Camp and, indeed, the chapter change then triggered.
After running through the Cloakwood, Biff kept up the more minimalist approach by webbing and charming Drasus and pulling him away for a web disposal. Leaving the others, Biff made his way invisibly through the mine to find Davaeorn. I tried a couple of different tactics out there, but didn't find anything promising for dealing with him quickly and eventually settled for whittling away at him in a similar way to the previous run. That took quite a while and Biff also used a potion of regeneration towards the end to avoid resting and allowing Davaeorn to recover his multitude of spells. Eventually though the job was done and the XP from that gave Biff his final BG1 level.
Upon leaving Candlekeep, Imoen very quickly caught up to me and insisted on sticking around. I didn't have any spare arrows, so it's a high priority to reach some sort of town or trading post so that we have a stock. We also ran into a halfling thief and a human mage on the road. They offered potions and asked me to accompany them as payment. Imoen and I both got bad vibes from the duo, but there's safety in numbers and my's thinking is that if they're with me then they're NOT out terrorizing innocent people.
Ran into a strange old wizard in red on the Lion's Way. I asked him which way the Friendly Arm Inn was, and he obliged by directing me northwards. We also ran into a ranger named Aoln who asked us to keep it quiet. We asked him what to be wary of in his range and he warned us of increased wolf activity, which he attributed to the iron shortage driving civilized folk more to hunting. Makes me glad I prefer staves, they're cheap and - more importantly - not made of iron.
We reached the Friendly Arm Inn that night, and what a welcoming party it was! We were accosted by a mage who knew my name and seemed to be expecting me, but rather than taking me inside he tried to attack me. Tried being the operative word - I knocked the magic out of his hands, and before he had a chance to realize that Imoen had finished him off with a well placed arrow. But the interesting thing is that he wanted to kill me because of a bounty notice - someone is offering 200 gold for my head. Why me, specifically? I'm not the real Pella Ardinay, I'm very definitely NOT possessed by Uthorion!
We got inside the inn and holed up for the night, too unnerved by the attack to really converse with anyone else - Ragefast's nephew tried to talk with us, but we waved him off. We were watched rather closely by a couple of Calishite elves. I'll speak with them in the morning once we've recovered from the surprise attack.
Let this moment be forever recorded in the archives of Abeir-Toril.
Meta Stuff: I'm running this on Normal Difficulty instead of my standard Core Rules difficulty.
Mouse scrolling in windowed mode is still broken, which means keyboard scrolling while I'm playing this save on my laptop since I don't actually have a middle mouse button or equivalent. Blah.
I more-or-less went with the first 90 I got. Quarterstaff+2HW were taken because (1) Paladins are capped at Specialization, (2) Every character starts with a free Quarterstaff, and (3) Silke has a Quarterstaff +1
I haven't yet decided if I'm going to do all of the ToTSC content or if I'm going to ignore Werewolf Island as best I can - Silvered weapons are still as scarce as hens' teeth, though I'll be taking Bastard Swords next so that I know I have at least Proficiency with it by the time ToTSC comes up.
I've had issues with Tarnesh in the past, regardless of starting Character, so I'm taking Monty and Xzar for protection more than anything else. I'm running an unmodded game, so Monty doesn't get Poison Weapon (also blah, but he has crap THAC0 anyway so it's not like it ever helped). I was very strongly tempted to throw them at the belt ogre, but there was no in-character reason to track down that Ogre since Aoln doesn't mention him. I also skipped over Evermemory and Ring of the Princes for the same reason (I know there either was or is a conversation that hints toward them, but I don't have UB installed so if they were dummied out then all the worse for me).
I'm waiting to start Joia's quest until after I've beaten down Mulahey - the extra manpower will help immensely, plus I kinda want to get to Nashkel ASAP to disable K&J's anger timer. I am planning on taking Minsc & Dynaheir, but there's little point while Xzar & Monty are still in tow. I also want to swap Imoen for Safana at some point to start prepping for SoD.
...actually, Tarnesh went down stupidly easy. Maybe this is a sign of things to come? I know that Jaheira isn't Calishite but Pella assumed they're both Calishite and hasn't spoken with them yet.
A delayed start saw the session reduced to 95 minutes, long enough for a couple of party deaths.
After beating down some doppelgangers, Prat and his gang were encountered. Dreen was stunned and could not be saved. We picked up his body and a few choice items but much of his gear remained at the battle scene due to inventory overload.
Nugget and Nerd soon reached a temple to raise their companion and immediately got him back into action against Krystin and Slythe then the Coronation. Nugget demonstrated how not to use nymph domination, getting held as one dominated herself and attacked. A minor setback through, and True Sight plus insect plagues helped keep the dukes alive.
Without a moment's waste, the trio raced through the Thieves Maze and used summons against Rahvin and his gang.
Matters started off well against Sarevok but Dreen got a dose of multiplayer lag and collapsed to the ground. Nugget and Nerd made sure Sarevok soon followed him and left one temple in search of another to re-raise Dreen.
Belt contratulated the trio, looked them over and sent them on their way to Amn.
Needless to say, we woke up in a dungeon and have started to make good our escape. We've cleared most of the first area and are almost ready to venture on, but we may as well check north of the library first.
Comments
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 10
Previous posts here:https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860188/#Comment_860188
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860578/#Comment_860578
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/861123/#Comment_861123
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/861538/#Comment_861538
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864004/#Comment_864004
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864065/#Comment_864065
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864387/#Comment_864387
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864400/#Comment_864400
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864816/#Comment_864816
The fight with Tranzig was uneventful. We let him live because an Undertale-themed run has to at least be nonviolent when prompted, if nowhere else. I'm not willing to try a pacifist no-reload run because it's not really feasible (certainly not when the party is so thoroughly crippled by the 75% XP tax), but it would be weird to say no when the enemy asks for mercy.
We get ambushed on the way out of town. Chara uses a Potion of Invisibility at the beginning, since Mur'Neth can create an unlimited number of Potions of Invisibility, and many other potions, at no cost, thanks to his Alchemist thief kit.
We apply heavy pressure to the enemy cleric, and though Xan fails a save against Hold Person, Finch resists it, allowing her to free him.
Xan gets knocked out by Sleep...
...but because I'm an idiot and don't remember that SR sleep effects cancel on hit, I don't consider simply having Frisk wake him up by hitting him. Instead, they use Hypnosis to keep the enemies from stomping on his mopey face. Chara prepares to enter combat and help out.
The enemy mage proves hard to pin down. Somehow, Frisk gets charmed despite the Seducer kit granting immunity to it.
Turns out I accidentally included the wrong spell file in my Seducer kit, one which canceled some Seducer benefits because a Cast Spell on Condition opcode was at the beginning of the spell effects instead of at the end. I'll fix the bug and post the new version.
We manage to cut through the mage's illusions. Our reward is quite special.
Before we head out to the bandit camp, I decide to try out the Red Wizard encounter, which I've only fought once and do not remember at all besides the fact that I died horribly last time--when I was at a much higher level. It's pretty easy to see why.
Now that Chara is level 4, however, they have a spectacular anti-mage option in the form of Pressurized Gas. First, Kagain absorbs the enemy's initial spells and Frisk disables the slimes.
Then Finch throws out a canister of Pressurized Gas. The enemy's MGOI spells are no defense, and though the gas offers a saving throw, BG1 mages have pretty lousy saves vs. death.
I nerf the Pressurized Gas in the Alchemist mage kit update, but it's still very effective against mages. Like most of the Alchemist's items, it ignores the victim's magic resistance and spell protections, and because it strikes multiple times, it's more reliable for no-reload purposes. Also, if you're willing to shell out the gold for it, anyone in the party can use it.
Whenever somebody gets slowed, they drink a Potion of Speed courtesy of Mur'Neth's Alchemist thief kit. Kagain struggles to survive, but most of the enemies are in no condition to fight. One, however, manages to slip past the slimes and escape the cloud.
It takes some work, but Chara manages to disable that mage using a grenade.
Kagain and the other mages slowly die while the rest of the party keeps up the pressure on Denak.
Two mages just barely survive the assault, but Kagain wandered into the cloud when he got confused, and with Slow active, he didn't have time to heal himself with a potion.
Diana deals heavy damage with Flame Arrow, but Frisk manages to finish her off using a Bottle of Sludge.
Denak heals himself with a potion while invisible, but his defenses don't hold long enough for him to do much damage.
The loot is pricy, but nothing we don't already have. We proceed to the bandit camp.
Before we enter the main tent, we all drink a bunch of Chara's potions: Musk Wine to boost our STR and movement rate, Brine Solutions to boost our saves vs. spell, Radiant Philters to increase our resistance to fire and cold and acid, Bitter Tonics to increase increase our HP and saves vs. death, and some Bonemeal Eyedrops to increase Frisk's chances of dispelling enemy illusions.
Finch uses Sleep to knock out some of the enemies; Frisk disables some others using Hypnosis. It quickly gives us the upper hand.
We can't stop the mage from landing a Dispel Magic, but the neat thing about Alchemist potions is that they cannot be dispelled.
Since Alchemists are Transmuters and can't cast Spell Immunity or SR's Dispelling Screen, they'd be hopelessly underpowered if their potions were dispellable.
Chara stuns the mage with a grenade, granting the rest of the party automatic hits. The biggest threat goes down.
Unfortunately, I have Chara attack the other enemies without switching to Bottles of Sludge. Grenades are very party-unfriendly, and the stun effect kills Finch in seconds.
Once the tent is clear of enemies, we drink another round of Radiant Philters to prepare for the Black Talon Elites' ice arrows. Chara passes out canisters of Pressurized Gas to throw at the enemy. And since most of the enemies here are all ranged attackers who cluster in groups, Pressurized Gas is ideal for taking them down.
It cost a lot of money to buy all those canisters, but it's a strong replacement for the Wand of Fire charges I'd normally use in this fight, if the Item Randomizer didn't get in the way. Sleep would also work, since SR lets it scale with level.
For some reason, I have Kagain use a Radiant Philter to tank the lightning trap rather than have Mur'Neth try to disarm it--as he surely could, at least if he created and drank a Potion of Perception, maybe with Bonemeal Eyedrops to help. The Radiant Philter doesn't seem to block any of the damage, however.
We only get a single notable item for our trouble.
This would be very valuable if Frisk couldn't already use Chara's perfume to hit 20 Charisma.
The Cloakwood is next. Frisk pours everyone a cup of spiders. We are filled with determination.
good run dispite the end mate.
The Maze is always straightforward, free XP. Sarevok's acolytes outside the Temple of Bhaal were taken care of with a Skull Trap to begin the fight, several charges from the Wand of Paralyzation, Cold and Summoning and resting once or twice to deal with the Mage (the rest of the group was separated and killed before the witch). After doing this, I recalled never picking up the DEX Tome, and went off on a quest to find it in the least possible amount of time. I checked the Item Randomiser's spoilers of the locations of the items, and there was a chance Sunin had it hidden in his house. And he was. And then he was dead as well. Now with 19/19/19/19/5/12, we're ready to end the game!
For the Final Battle, I lured Angelo and killed him (I was hoping to lure Tazok as well, but he preferred to continue molesting the summons). Honestly, he's the toughest since he's a good melee fighter AND a competent wizard. Semaj was blasted off this world with several Arrows of Detonation paired with the Remove Protections ability from the Wizard Slayer (WSR introduces this), which would have been godly if I could have used it on Angelo as well at the same time (AoE buff dispelling!), but anyway, the Arrows of Detonation also got Tazok to Near Death, and with another barrage of them, both him and Diarmid went down.
Sarevok, uhm... Let's just say this: kiting, Wand of Monster Summoning, Potions of Extra-Healing and the almighty Wand of Cold. That's what it takes to kill a Bhaalspawn.
I've just recruited Imoen and Minsc, saved the game and I'm off to eat dinner. Also, I've just realised you can use your familiar to smuggle items into Athkatla... If I had figured that out ten minutes ago I could have had all of my stuff.
I didn't know that. That would be worth posting in the "Did you know?" thread.
GJ everyone, I hope I'll join in soon.
ABT-12,
Shade Lord,I like to defend at the first bridge which funnels the undead in manageable numbers, we collected the gold ammo and used it to kill the alter... then Pat and finally the Lord.
·Jan was happy to deal with his illusions... speeds it up a bit.
·Viconia put up repulse to keep the shadows out of play until we finished their boss.
We dealt with the "Back to Brynnlaw" questpack; these mages, even without prebuffs, are terrifying with ADHW's in Chain contingencies, and with no easy immunity to magic damage on us, it's a potential insta-kill for some of us. We manage it, though, with only a couple deaths. We used a bit of gold to restore reputation, as I purposefully kill someone I thought was evil and apparently wasn't.
Next up is Firkraag's quest. The Ruhk transmuter's not nearly as scary with higher level characters.
Vampires aren't so bad either with a higher level Cleric.
And I'm missing the screenshots, but we cleared the rest of the dungeon with no deaths until Firkraag himself. We prebuffed with lots of Fire Resistance, over 100% for Barl, Valygar, and Mazzy; everyone else was in the back of the room. And then Firkraag deals a critical hit to Valygar doing something like 70 damage; he died very quickly after, and Mazzy took over tanking duties. Barl's not having much luck hitting, so a potion of Heroism is drunk, but eventually I mess something else up with Mazzy and she dies. Barl grabs the Boots of Lightning Speed on top of a Potion of Speed, and kites Firkraag to near death and without stoneskins, and finally lure him back to Imoen's final trap for the kill.
Confident over our second dragon kill, we go for the 3rd and last one before Nizzy. Same tactics, though no deaths this time. Well, Valygar was drained to level 3 at one point, but he ran while Mazzy, Barl, and Rasaad fought the Shadow dragon. Imoen claims the kill again with another trap.
We also go lich hunting, just because. The City Gate's lich is my least favorite, simply due to the tight quarters: his AoE spells can really do a number on the group. But it dies, as well, taking out only Valygar first.
Into the sewers we go, for two of the last 3 major quests. First, we rescue HaerDalis. I had to do this battle two times: the first, something caused my graphics card to spazz out, I think two Fireballs hitting an area at the same time? The second, I 100% metagamed and hit the area with a Death Fog instead of fighting the 3 mages.
The Imp isn't really a problem anymore. The Beholder teleport gank in the sewers is also thwarted.
Unseeing Eye: the large group of beholders in the temple are bombed by three cloudkills, all from wand. Turn Undead takes care of everything besides a Lich, which we fight successfully with no losses.
Four Skeleton Warriors help clear the rest of the Beholder lair, and then they take down the Unseeing Eye itself after the Rift Device is used. Even without them, Imoen would've cleanly cleared it. Gaal and his henchmen are thereafter executed, the Shade Lich killed, and the Rift device returned.
Ullithids. YAY. Rasaad is permanently killed by a high damage roll from an aerial servant.
Mazzy refuses to let Drizzt killsteal 91k experience from us. A remarkably easy battle, all things considered.
... Which leads me to think I stand a chance against the Chosen of Cyric. By here, my doom is already easy to see.
I've actually decided to restart Benoni, my roleplaying run from a year back or so. The old records; I've apparently not gotten much further than the Slavers in the past: https://pastebin.com/JgiJs1vu
It's quite a while since I tried this challenge, so decided it was time to have another go. Biff can use any tactics he wants, but must never directly cause death by any means except his own melee attacks. A summons killing something would thus be a game-ender, although confused enemies killing each other would not be.
In the past I've played this unmodded, but I thought I'd have a go with an SCS/Ascension installation to add a bit of extra spice. That led to an early end to one run when Biff found he couldn't safely attack Mirianne's ogrillons - they would react when he got close to them even when blinded. As an alternative he used Algernon's cloak to charm them, so they could be killed by enemies - but I didn't control the ogrillon closely enough and it killed an attacking hobgoblin.
Starting again:
- care was needed immediately against Carbos (who has an assassin kit), but a third attempt at blinding him succeeded in making him vulnerable.
- Shoal runs around when blinded, so is not an easy target for this challenge and was left until later. Biff took his frustration out by beginning a programme of NPC eradication - Imoen, Xzar and Montaron all being blinded and struck down from outside their sight range.
- normally I go south after burying Gorion in order to get to Shoal. However, there is a potentially deadly archer ambush on that route, so Biff took the eastern route. While there he blinded the ogre and wore him down with darts and LMD before coming in for the finish. The ogre runs round, but most creatures like that can be made to hold still briefly by starting to attack and then retreating when they respond. That allowed Biff to get free attacks in and he eventually made one of those count.
- Biff did get a scroll case from Firebead before moving south. The same sort of trick as with the spiders allowed him to kill one ogrillon and there were no mistakes this time while getting the boots from the hobgoblin.
Sorcerer L3, 16 HPs, 21 kills
Previous updates:
At High Hedge Biff beat up some gnolls - they react to being approached when blinded, but also have a slow weapon speed so Biff was able to attack them without retaliation. An attempt to restore Melicamp failed (has anyone else noticed that success in this seems to go in sequences. I had a long run of success until recently, but have now had 7 or 8 failures in a row).
Heading south Biff had charmed Geltik and was using a blinded wolf to wear him down a bit before attacking himself. I hadn't taken account in doing that though of the possibility of morale failure at low HPs and Geltik went berserk. Biff missed with an attempted kill shot and Geltik struck down the wolf.
At the Lighthouse, blinded worgs were another enemy able to sense Biff's presence and attack before he could get a strike in. However, by using LMD to buff his HPs he was able to take them down.
Back at Beregost Biff charmed Silke and wasted her damaging spells before going into the Red Sheaf Inn. Karlat refused to follow her out, so he got blinded and worn down with LMDs before the crack of a descending staff cut short his morale failure.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867650/#Comment_867650
Undaunted by his memories of past lives, Biff pulled himself out of his
coffinbed in Candlekeep and hit the road again. He safely arrived in Beregost where he had a few attempts to charm Neera, but her elf heritage was protecting her and Biff decided to wait until he had invisibility to deal with her.Heading north, this time he didn't blind Dushai, but several LMDs provided an unneeded HP cushion for a melee finish.
Some smooth work in Beregost got him to level 3 and Lady Luck was obviously listening to my complaint in the last update as Melicamp survived this time. That meant that beating up Bjornin's half-ogres was enough for level 4 and Biff had the comfort of travelling back to Beregost invisibly - where this time there was no mistake in getting Neera's bag.
Travelling down to Nashkel, Biff thumbed his (invisible) nose at a large group of bandits. That travel was a mistake though in the sense that I had intended to take CLW as a Bhaal power rather than yet another LMD, but hadn't monitored reputation properly. Oh well, it's not really a significant difference for this character.
At the Carnival a bit of work included finishing off Vitiare - attacking from invisibility to make quite sure he wouldn't be picking Biff's pockets at the last minute. Greywolf was worn down by 8 magic missiles and 4 LMDs before a first invisible attack proved sufficient.
After returning Samuel to the FAI I got lucky against Tarnesh. When playing LoB I typically use a charmed guard to wear him down and started doing that by reflex - only to realise as the guard made his first attack that Tarnesh wouldn't have quite so many HPs as in LoB
Robbing the ankhegs started a new sequence of reputation quests and Biff got to level 5 with the death of Gallor after helping out Charleston Nib.
With web now available to complement the ring of free action, things became much easier. Neira was the first victim of that combination,
ABT-13,
Honor among us,I got back to trademeet to have two family emergencies pop up... then we sorted the red wizards with ease for some wands. the party needed another replacement so we popped into the cirrus and walked out as heroes with a winged elf willing to help us fight the vampires next.
·The boss is a powerful fire starter but she knows that and it makes her cocky,
·Jan had to go home... a local Druid agreed to help with a bit of mage thumbing then he started getting pushy so we asked Aerie to step in.
Tip; once the city legionary leave I just go rest at the inn outside and Lanneth always teleports into the fay without her guards to help.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867650/#Comment_867650
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867699/#Comment_867699
Taking advantage of the bank holiday today Biff was straight back into the action - and has once more successfully got to level 5. This time I managed to get the Bhaal power desired, though there have been a couple of minor errors:
- a slight movement failure that allowed the blinded belt ogre to get an attack in (level 1 protection allowing Biff to resist 23 damage from the critical hit that resulted
- briefly visiting the location of Mr Colquetle's amulet while travelling elsewhere, resulting in it not being there when travelling back for it some time later.
One slight difference from the earlier run is that Biff has made no use of Algernon's Cloak to date, in order to avoid the extra complications associated with controlling charmed creatures.
Sorcerer L5, 28 HPs, 67 kills
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867650/#Comment_867650
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867699/#Comment_867699
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867752/#Comment_867752
The loss of the reputation point from Mr Colquetle meant Biff couldn't get to 20 reputation before going to the Nashkel Mines. Fortunately that was not too much of a problem. Biff went down invisibly to the lowest level and cleared the area around Mulahey's cave using webs. After killing the kobolds inside he triple-webbed Mulahey and the cleric failed in his attempts to break free.
Nimbul also got stuck in webs and kindly left behind a find familiar scroll to give Biff a slight HP boost. Tranzig's much better saves meant Biff needed to try 3 times to stick him webs for long enough to deal with him, but eventually he was successful.
Looking to upgrade equipment, Biff travelled up to Ulgoth's Beard - waving at both the amazon and Molkar's ambushes on the way, but deciding they would be too risky to fight. Purchases made there, after using a friends scroll to get the best discount, included the +3 staff. That gives not only major benefits from THAC0 and damage improvement, but also a speed factor of 1 making it much more likely to be able to attack active enemies without them retaliating.
The new staff got a workout at the basilisk area, while Biff was protected by the green scroll. He soon got up to level 6 there fighting basilisks before going to take on Mutamin.
Battle horrors don't have particularly good saving throws, so there was some easy XP available at Durlag's Tower by webbing those - the first of them taking Biff to level 7.
After buying a Robe of the Archmagi and clearing the Valley of the Tombs, Biff returned to the Lighthouse area in search of more quick XP. He used Algernon's Cloak there for the first time to charm two of the sirines in the first group - though once they'd been worn down by arrows of biting from other ones Biff stole the XP.
Sorcerer L8, 52 HPs, 150 kills
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 11
Previous posts here:https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860188/#Comment_860188
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860578/#Comment_860578
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/861123/#Comment_861123
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/861538/#Comment_861538
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864004/#Comment_864004
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864065/#Comment_864065
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864387/#Comment_864387
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864400/#Comment_864400
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864816/#Comment_864816
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/865869/#Comment_865869
We head back to Beregost for our reward from the mayor. A little poking around reveals a ghost by the bridge.
Basically, the story is that two lovers are separated by the bridge, and the guy wants us to take something across the bridge so they can be together again. But there's something weird about this quest.
The guy says that his girlfriend lies about never loving him. And, when we head across the bridge and talk to her ghost, she says that she's afraid of him, she wants to stay away from him, and she not-so-subtly implies that if we bring him over to her, he's going to hurt her.
Obviously the male ghost was abusive to her, so we decide not to unite them. But there's no clear way to explain to him the problem. In the end, we slay the ghost.
Yvonne is still there, and the quest remains unfinished. I'm not entirely sure how we were supposed to complete this quest, so I try attacking her as well. That's often the solution to quests involving ghosts.
Bad move.
I've never lost that much reputation before in a single blow.
I would later learn that the right way to resolve this quest is to unite the two. Then the girl suddenly declares her love for the guy and they're happy and whatever. Problem is, when you have a storyline that starts like this...
Guy: Help me get back to my beloved! She says she doesn't love me, but she's lying! She really does love me, I swear!
Girl: Don't let him come over here! If he does, he's going to hurt me!
...then you can't really end it like this:
Girl: Oh, honey! I'm so sorry I lied about not loving you!
Guy: It's okay; we're together now! I love you!
Girl: I love you, too! I am so silly and dishonest for no reason!
Because that's not "playing hard to get." That just screams "abusive relationship." What exactly was the writer thinking when they wrote this? Is the solution supposed to be a bizarre plot twist, or this somehow supposed to make sense?
Regardless, our attempts to resolve the problem have failed. We head to the temple and shell out thousands of gold to atone for the sin of listening to a woman's pleas for help.
Thus ends a weirdly misogynistic and rapey questline.
Earlier on, we found a set of plate mail on a Duergar bounty hunter in the Nashkel mine, but nobody could use it at the time. Xan, however, can wear it, granting him the AC to ward off enemy attacks even when we get caught off-guard without our defenses active.
The enemy applies lots of pressure on Frisk, whose AC makes them a prime target for SCS enemies--this is why I made Chara our main character instead of Frisk--but the only real source of danger in this fight is Hold Person, which Finch can cure easily.
We get our hands on the Protector of the Second, a very important armor for thieves in Item Revisions.
Immunity to critical hits is hard to come by in IR. Unfortunately, Frisk cannot wear armor due to their Seducer kit, so the leather goes to Mur'Neth instead.
I decide to pay a visit to Ulcaster, for the sole reason that I didn't remember it wasn't the same thing as the Firewine Ruins. I remember basically nothing about this area, so it's quite surprising when a skeleton is able to instantly heal himself and cast Call Lightning at will.
We try using Shatter to speed things up. Turns out Icharyd has such amazing saving throws that he can make 20 successful saves against a single spell.
Shatter is supposed to offer no saving throw to undead, so I think this is yet another mod-introduced spell that doesn't work properly.
Chara already brewed a whole bunch of Sour Draughts (which heal 4d8 HP per potion), so we have the healing power to survive the lengthy battle. It's a long, slow grind, but the Alchemist kit's ability to stock up lots of extra potions means they can help the party stay afloat in long battles like this one.
We meet a barbarian named White and bring him into the party to replace Xan, just to see how he turns out. White is kind of boring and I have little use for a barbarian since Kagain is already a perfect tank, but White does come with a Cloak of Displacement, one of many situationally useful items that Item Revisions makes more practical.
We run through the Ulcaster ruins, facing little resistance until we confront the Wolf of Ulcaster. Turns out it can cast Horror, and thanks to my many mods, Finch cannot cast Resist Fear. Everyone fails their save but Mur'Neth and Chara.
Knowing that another Horror spell could be imminent, Chara turns invisible.
As long as you keep the main character alive, you can bounce back from almost anything. Dead party members can always be raised if you've saved the gold for it, and with the Turqoise Bag of Holding from Thalantyr, we can haul back any amount of dropped equipment.
But in an area with tight hallways like this, with enemies flooding the place, Chara could get stuck behind a wall of wolves--an potentially fatal situation, as they could only escape by breaking invisibility.
Against all reason, the enemy decides to cast Dispel Magic, but Kagain has run away and does not get Horror dispelled.
Finch fails a save and gets paralyzed by a Ghoul. There's no way we can save her; all I can do is have White use his rage ability to help take down the Ghouls before they can kill anyone else.
Mur'Neth fails a save against Horror just as Kagain recovers from it. Now we can start making progress.
Suddenly, I realize that we have a supply of Potions of Clarity that Mur'Neth created a while ago courtesy of his Alchemist thief kit. Item Revisions weakens potion buffs in some places, but it also makes them undispellable. For 50 rounds, our party can remain immune to fear.
Of course, Potions of Clarity have never granted immunity to paralysis, and unfortunately Mur'Neth cannot create Potions of Freedom. And White's Barbarian rage only lasts so long.
Kagain is holding strong over to the west, but things are looking ugly. A cluster of wolves is gathering behind us--cutting off Chara's only means of escape if the battle proves unwinnable.
Kagain and Frisk drink some spare Potions of Freedom--not from Mur'Neth, but just potions we collected over time--just to make sure our numbers don't shrink any further.
But Mur'Neth is still panicking, so his only defense is his AC and his saving throws. They're not enough; a Ghast takes him down.
Only Frisk, Chara, and Kagain survive. Frisk is weak on their own and Chara is too valuable to risk by putting them in melee combat, so the burden falls on Kagain to save the party.
Once he finishes off the wolves to the west, Kagain marches to the east and activates Defensive Stance to engage the Wolves of Ulcaster. Frisk lingers behind, using Hypnosis to decrease the pressure on Kagain.
Kagain downs an Oil of Speed. It only lasts 10 rounds in Item Revisions, but Mur'Neth already created plenty for us. The Wolves of Ulcaster are breaking down, but more wolves are coming in to flank Frisk, and Hypnosis applies a steep -3 AC penalty to Frisk--which is especially nasty considering Seducers cannot wear armor. Hypnosis isn't reliable enough to keep off the wolves. Frisk only disables a single one.
I know Frisk isn't strong enough to survive this much pressure, so I have them drink a Potion of Invisibility instead. Kagain will have to fight everyone on his own. But I think he can handle it.
Kagain cuts through the horde, using our many potions to keep himself afloat and winning the party some precious XP.
We try using Pressurized Gas against the wolves, but apparently Dread Wolves are undead, which means the poison cannot touch them.
The wolves have far more HP than Kagain and far more APR, but Kagain has the advantage of strong AC and very deep pockets full of potions. Those potions can't protect him from everything, but this is a slow fight over a long period of time, a situation where a party with an Alchemist has the upper hand.
We raise everybody with CTRL-R, I add the gold value of the resurrections to the counter in my head (it's just a drop in the bucket at this point), and White dies again because I forgot to have Mur'Neth look for traps.
We loot the hoard. We find a weird ring for White...
...but since he's utterly inferior to Xan and everyone else in the party, even Frisk, I decide to dump him in favor of Xan. But that ring wasn't the only prize in the area.
Once we find a Wand of Lightning, I will use it to boost Chara's STR by 3 points, up to 19.
We return to the ruins to look for more loot. But we get surprised by a new enemy I don't recognize, who quickly consolidates a massive advantage over the party.
We're not in any condition to handle a mage bolstered by a gang of Shadows, certainly not without Kagain. But it turns out this mage has virtually no defensive buffs.
I often use CTRL-4 to hasten trapfinding, and in the process of poking around the rest of the ruins, I end up spotting something new.
There's an entrance to a new area at the far south end of the ruins. I've never seen it before--to my knowledge, the Ulcaster underground was only ever this one single area. This is the first time I've visited Ulcaster in years; I don't even know if this place is from BG1 or from one of my mods. I've never even played most of the mods in my install, so this new area could be quite literally anything.
We continue to the new area without buffing the party, marching into the unknown. We are filled with determination.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867650/#Comment_867650
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867699/#Comment_867699
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867752/#Comment_867752
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867849/#Comment_867849
Biff persuaded Raiken to give him access to the Bandit Camp and charmed Taurgosz before resting. A black talon was then charmed and pulled away for disposal, which seemed to go well - with no apparent alarm given and all the bandits still neutral. However, someone had obviously pressed a silent alarm button ...
The rest of the enemies from the main tent quickly followed Venkt, but all the external bandits were still neutral. Biff took advantage of that by having Taurgosz show himself to Britik and successfully drew him away for disposal. He tried the same thing with Venkt and got him to use all his spells up on Taurgosz, but then Raemon followed and raised the alarm.
Up to this point Biff had not sought out bracers of weapon expertise due to the increased danger of killing things with missile attacks. However, as using missiles will be pretty rare in future he did put on the bracers from the Bandit Camp before entering the Cloakwood. He passed through that rapidly though without troubling the inhabitants on his way to the mine. There he charmed Genthore and drew him away for disposal in webs. Biff did the same against Kysus - first wasting all his spells, although he failed to break free from the webs anyway.
Biff progressed down through the mine without trouble - not bothering with the mages on the way. Biff made a first use of a wand in the run to date to activate the battle horrors with a fireball - killing them when they ventured near to the exit. They didn't want to be webbed, but went down eventually anyway.
With all the guards arrived Biff tried luring them away, but most of them wouldn't play that game - the Black Talons would happily shoot him, but not leave Davaeorn's side, although he did pull away the odd standard guard to their doom. After resting he killed some more using webs and a few more with in and out attacks.
Biff flooded the mine and has just arrived in Baldur's Gate where he's looking for a good night's rest (as am I).
Sorcerer L9, 57 HPs, 207 kills
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 12
Previous posts here:https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860188/#Comment_860188
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860578/#Comment_860578
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/861123/#Comment_861123
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/861538/#Comment_861538
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864004/#Comment_864004
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864065/#Comment_864065
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864387/#Comment_864387
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864400/#Comment_864400
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864816/#Comment_864816
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/865869/#Comment_865869
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867867/#Comment_867867
The moment we enter the new area deeper in the Ulcaster ruins, we run into a blurry mage, Arch Mage Arias, and a group of Ghasts. The Ghasts are one thing, but that mage--an Arch Mage?--could nuke us in seconds. Chara drinks a Potion of Invisibility and flees to the northeast while Kagain runs up to the mage. More undead enter the fray and Arch Mage Arias blasts Kagain with 5 Magic Missiles.
Arias is at least level 9. That's not a good sign. Worse yet, I'd wager he's also undead, and has all the immunities that come with it.
Frisk reveals Arias using Detect Illusions while Kagain struggles to survive. He dons the Ring of Energy for 20% magic damage resistance, but all it does is block a single point of damage when Arias rolls for 5.
Kagain has a lot of potions, but he can only use one per round. This means that while he can survive low-intensity battles almost indefinitely...
...blitzkrieg-style attacks that deal lots of damage in a short period of time...
...are more than capable...
...of obliterating his massive HP pool.
But Kagain has bought us enough time to break through Arias' Stoneskins. He manages to fire off a single deadly Flame Arrow before he falls.
Finch gradually breaks down the remaining undead. The Greenstone Amulet protects her from the Ghouls' paralysis.
Arias drops a very, very special dagger.
We have little use for an extra Dagger of Venom, or any dagger for that matter, but it does grant an extra attack per round. It'll make Mur'Neth or Frisk a little bit stronger in melee combat.
Speaking of Mur'Neth, his ability to create Potions of Perception allows him to get a 25% boost to trap detection. Unfortunately, it means very little if he forgets to drink one before tackling a difficult trap.
Once again, I use CTRL-R and add another 400 gold (since Mur'Neth is still at a pathetic level 4) to our resurrection tally.
Further poking around the area introduces us to another new enemy, the Burning Dead. This place is definitely not in vanilla BG1. The Burning Dead drops a couple Arrows of Detonation and a huge chunk of XP, enough to bring Xan up another level.
This area looks very dangerous, but I desperately need these kinds of rewards. Getting Xan to mage level 3 nets us two very big prizes.
Xan finally can engage in melee without instantly exploding, and finally we can give the whole party immunity to fear without using Potions of Clarity.
Also, we get an axe that's no better than Kagain's current one, the ghoul killing axe from the Gnoll fortress ambush that doesn't kill ghouls.
We keep poking around, and spot a trio of enemies to the northwest.
The names and sprites alone make it obvious these guys are dangerous. Two fighters that probably have lots of immunities and resistances, and another high-level mage.
Kagain runs up to whomp on the mage while the rest of the party makes their getaway. Turns out both the enemy skeleton utterly outclasses Kagain.
It hit him on a roll of 3. There's no way Kagain can compete with that. I send him away, but he gets charmed. We can't leave until he's either dead or back under our control. But I can't put Frisk in harm's way by sending them back to use Dispel Charm. We keep running.
We use Bonemeal Eyedrops to improve our THAC0 against the Death Knight chasing the party...
...but we just can't land a hit on him. Finally, Chara just switches to grenades. They could easily stun and kill a party member if I'm not careful, but they hit the target automatically, and it turns out the Death Knight doesn't have all the immunities I thought it did.
You can only throw a single grenade per round regardless of class or haste or what have you, and the stun effect offers a save, but grenades can have a huge impact if you get lucky.
Kagain recovers from Dire Charm, but I don't know where that mage is lurking.
I suppose I could use a Protection from Magic scroll on the mage, but I am loathe to use up non-renewable resources. And though I wouldn't know it until later, Protection from Magic scrolls in my install only affect the user.
We find the Skeleton Warrior, and though it proves immune to the grenades' stun effect, it's still perfectly easy to kite the thing, as it has no ranged attacks.
Notice the grenade doing crushing damage. Grenades will do crushing or piercing damage; whichever is higher.
We keep kiting the Skeleton Warrior, but Finch nearly dies when she gets too close to the blast radius.
I decide to hold off on the grenades and just use other weapons. Frisk lands the final blow with the 5 APR dagger we got from Tristan or Isolde north of Beregost. A second one shows up and meets the same fate, and we get another awesome weapon for which we have no use.
Bad grammar in the description. A lot of item mods in my install have poor writing or effects that don't work.
We find Anton Valor loitering in the center of the map. He boosts his AC with Ghost Armor, but AC is meaningless to Chara's grenades. We get lucky on the second round. It's enough to win the fight.
Chara gets a neat defensive dagger, we get another bastard sword we'll never use, and Finch hits level 5, gaining access to the single best SR spell for no-reload runs: Break Enchantment.
It'll free us from almost any status effect in the game.
This dungeon is very, very rewarding. I've been hunting down every scrap of XP I could possibly find across the Sword Coast, and the critters here give almost as much XP as vanilla Ankhegs.
We move on to the next area. My excitement is short-lived. I don't think things are going to be so easy anymore.
Kagain and Mur'Neth engages the Ghost Knights while Chara and the rest of the party use missile weapons on Garrett, the enemy mage. But Garrett keeps making his saves vs. breath, avoiding stun or deafness.
Round after round, we fail to disable Garrett. He just keeps making those saves against Chara's grenades and Frisk's Hypnosis. He successfully raises all of his defenses and turns his attention to attacking us.
Chara keeps lobbing grenades at Garrett, but accidentally kills Frisk while Frisk is trying to remove Garrett's Mirror Images. Kagain isn't much luckier.
But after many rounds of trying, Chara finally gets Garrett to fail a save.
We get 6 seconds of automatic hits, which is enough to get through his Stoneskins. Garretts fails another save, and just like Arch Mage Arias, he only lives long enough to cast a single Flame Arrow.
The Ghost Knights are a nuisance, but they're not life-threatening. We cut them down and collect several hundred XP for every party member.
Garrett drops another amazing item we do not need!
We run into more Burning Dead, but they're nothing we can't handle at this point. The containers in this dungeon are just loaded with valuable crap... including what HAS to be the best ring in the game.
But there's one item that really stands out.
The most stupidly overpowered item I've ever seen. Ever.
The Amulet of Wyvren Summoning. Not Wyvern Summoning, but Wyvren. And when it says you can summon Greater Wyvrens at will...
...it really does mean at will. It never runs out of charges. You can summon an infinite number of Greater Wyverns, each of which does massive damage and is a spectacular tank in its own right. They even drop Wyvern Heads, making them a source of infinite gold.
Of course, if we antagonize them, they can do horrible things to the party.
I test out the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning against the next couple groups of enemies. It obliterates enemies that we previously had to kite.
Who is that Arch Mage Nalas mentioned in the dialogue box? I'd rather not find out while he's still alive. I let him tangle with the wyvrens.
He disables the party from afar, so I pull back Chara into the hallway.
Kagain remains webbed and Nalas nearly kills him, still out of sight, until Finch rescues him using Invisibility.
Unable to take down an endless horde of wyvrens, Nalas runs out of spells and is forced to engage in melee. The wyvrens stomp him.
We step over his body and loot the container behind him for even more overpowered items.
That amulet doesn't actually give any magic resistance, but it does give those extra spell slots.
Chara hits level 5. We're still a long way away from the critical level 7 when Chara gets the next round of potions, but the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning can actually win every single battle in the main quest, all the way to Sarevok. It could probably take down everything in Siege of Dragonspear, too, except for the final battle.
But knowing me, I probably won't use it more than once or twice a day unless it's against an enemy I think isn't worth fighting normally. Because infinite wyvrens is just silly.
We get attacked on the way out. This is basically what the fight looks like.
The wizards drop some robes we can't use and some Bullets of Detonation--which are just like Arrows of Detonation, except they don't hit automatically; they just get +1 to hit.
Officer Vai will buy almost anything in my install for some reason, and she buys everything at full price. The only disadvantage is that you can't buy anything back from her. This means that all those big-ticket items we don't need will vastly expand our gold supply.
We sell only a fraction of the contents of our Bag of Holding and still jump from 30,000 gold to 80,000. Too bad there's almost nothing to buy with all that money. Not until Chara hits level 7, which requires three times as much XP as we've gathered so far.
With our new amulet in hand, we finally head to the Cloakwood. Deliberately misspelling wyvrens fills us with determination.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 13
Previous posts here:https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860188/#Comment_860188
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/860578/#Comment_860578
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/861123/#Comment_861123
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/861538/#Comment_861538
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864004/#Comment_864004
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864065/#Comment_864065
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864387/#Comment_864387
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864400/#Comment_864400
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/864816/#Comment_864816
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/865869/#Comment_865869
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867867/#Comment_867867
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867893/#Comment_867893
We fight for the druids in the Cloakwood, but as usual, nothing happens when the fight is over. Seniyad doesn't say anything new. I think the quest is bugged somehow.
The web traps in the Cloakwood are a pain, so I use my normal method of dealing with them: I just turn Finch invisible, locate all the trap triggers with CTRL-4, and then teleport her around the map. It's faster than having her walk everywhere.
With the web traps gone, and with Sweet Elixirs from Chara to cure poison, the spiders are little problem. Despite the 75% XP tax, we still manage to get enough for another level up.
There's a dragon around here for some reason, but it's nothing Kagain and a Greater Wyvern can't handle. Some druids reward us just enough to bump up Frisk to level 6.
It takes so, so much work just to hear that sound in my install. Frisk's Hypnosis now only offers a +2 save vs. spell. We also get a Ring of Protection +2, which naturally goes on Chara to improve their saves.
I want some Bitter Tonics to improve our saves vs. death before we tackle Centeol. Since we got up to 80,000 gold after selling the Ulcaster stuff to Officer Vai and we've got some potentially nasty fights coming up, I have Chara brew a bunch of potions, including enough canisters of Pressurized Gas to wipe out half of Baldur's Gate.
The spiders turn out to be very simple. Chara breaks their strength using grenades.
We find the Gauntlets of Dexterity amongst the loot, as well as a journal that suggests that Tanova, the vampire mage from BG2, knew Jon-bon back in Suldannessellar.
I return to the Friendly Arm Inn and get ambushed by some paladins on the way. Chara drinks a Potion of Invisibility to get away, but it turns out the enemy isn't a big threat; they don't have any big spells that could break the party. I use the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning to speed things up.
I won't use the amulet often, but it does save me a lot of time and micromanagement for minor skirmishes like this one. Najara and her friends drop a massive trove of magical items. None are as powerful as the amulet--what could be?--but we do get another at-will spell in the form of Cure Critical Wounds.
That morningstar gives 3 attacks per round to Finch. Suddenly, she becomes a solid damage dealer in her own right.
We head into the Friendly Arm Inn and meet up with Ender Sai from the bandit camp. He said he wanted to reward us for saving him, though the reward isn't quite what I was expecting.
Good to know, at least, that not everything in the Romantic Encounters is smutty. Some of it is quite sweet! Especially if Alex from Candlekeep is part of that mod; I don't really know.
We head back to the Cloakwood and bring Faldorn into the party, replacing Xan, but her spellbook is bugged and she doesn't get the proper amount of spell slots. I dump her from the party, bringing Xan back into the fold, until I find a special pair of APR-boosting bracers that no one else in the party can use. I deem the gauntlets just important enough to make her worth another shot. I boot Xan once more and keep Faldorn.
That's the problem with all these mod-introduced items. They're awfully powerful, but since I have no idea what they are, I can't structure my party or plan ahead to make the most use of them.
Just for giggles, I turn the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning against the local wyverns.
I start to reconsider Faldorn's place in the party when she displays her fervor for nature.
We approach the first fight of the Cloakwood mines, Drasus and his friends. Kagain activates Defensive Stance and soaks up the enemy's Dispel Magic spells, allowing the rest of the party to hold onto their defenses.
Frisk uses Hypnosis and Chara throws a grenade, but their efforts make little impact. Luck is always against you in a no-reload run.
I decide to play things a little more safely, and use Pressurized Gas to get past those MGOI spells.
The enemy loses a lot of HP, but the poison damage is not stopping the mages from casting spells. More summoned critters enter the fight.
But Rezdan should have drank a potion instead. That Mirror Image won't protect him from the cloud.
We stand at the edge of the cloud and use missile weapons. Kysus falls along with the other enemies.
I'm going to nerf Pressurized Gas in the next update to the Alchemist kit, but this will still be possible--it's just going to be more expensive and shorter-lived.
One of our rewards is the Ring of Clumsiness, which for some reason makes the user less clumsy in Item Revisions.
By chance, Faldorn loses absolutely nothing from those penalties, so I give her the ring, improving her THAC0 when using Bottles of Sludge.
Before I enter the mine, I head back to Thalantyr and have him forge some items for me. Chara gets better defenses and Mur'Neth gets a better melee weapon.
Hareishan is a major threat, but we have some strong tools to use against her. Kagain absorbs her Dispel Magic and relies on his undispellable Defensive Stance to protect him from the fighters...
...Frisk fixes up Kagain from a distance when he fails a save against charm...
...and although Chara fails to stun Hareishan with a grenade, and manages to confuse Kagain...
[spoiler]
...Kagain still keeps the enemy fighters distracted, allowing Frisk to summon a Greater Wyvern.
The wyvern thins the enemy herd while Kagain recovers from confusion. With Hareishan's best spells wasted and her allies slain, we can advance on her directly.
Hareishan uses a Potion of Invisibility to escape, but it's nothing Frisk can't dispel with Detect Illusions. We put Hareishan down.
I bring Yeslick into the party and realize that he would be a very powerful asset. I ditch Faldorn, even using Break Enchantment to take away the cursed ring she was using--which we don't even need--and get Yeslick fitted with some of the equipment the rest of the party hadn't been using. With Najara's armor and the Strength of Stone spell, Yeslick can maintain 19 STR for 50 rounds--which is especially useful considering he can use Doufas' Saber to boost his APR to 3. He has no proficiencies with katanas, but it won't matter so much with 19 STR and 3 APR.
As a fighter/cleric, Yeslick does not suffer from cleric-related item restrictions in my install. I don't much like Yeslick's voice, much like Kagain, but their interactions are nice, and Yeslick does have some good lines of his own.
Natasha blasts us with Fireburst, but with Yeslick in the party, we have very high APR. Natasha's Stoneskin don't last long.
Doufas' Saber can paralyze targets on a failed save, but the effect strikes as a level 3 spell, which means Natasha's MGOI could block it. The Ogre Mage, however, does not have that defense.
Only Davaeorn remains.
When Yeslick isn't looking, Frisk puts a snail in his beard. We are filled with determination.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867650/#Comment_867650
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867699/#Comment_867699
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867752/#Comment_867752
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867849/#Comment_867849
With a couple more friends scrolls on sale at Sorcerous Sundries Biff went to buy the Dagger of Venom and Claw of Kazgaroth. Back in the City the first fight was with Jalantha and I realised there after disrupting one of her spells with a magic missile that I hadn't monitored her HPs. As it happened the magic missile couldn't quite have killed her even if it had done maximum damage, but it was still a reminder to be careful.
However, reminder or not I was obviously still half asleep as the very next encounter was with Lothander and I thought it would be nice to get his items. With brain still disengaged I used the standard tactic of surrounding him with summons and attacking with them after talking to him - and was not lucky enough for Biff to get the killing blow.
As a kobold might say, Grrrrr ...
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867650/#Comment_867650
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867699/#Comment_867699
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867752/#Comment_867752
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867849/#Comment_867849
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868044/#Comment_868044
As indicated in the last post, run 33 ended first thing this morning. Although redoing all the encounters up to Baldur's Gate seemed a little bit daunting, my internet connection was down so I couldn't do the post immediately. Also, I didn't really want to leave this challenge with such a poor finish - so Biff found himself once more setting out from Candlekeep. This time though I've emphasised the speed of the run rather than efficiency and natural progression of XP. That meant doing far fewer encounters early on and going to find the basilisks as soon as invisibility was available - getting up to level 6 there.
A quick tour to maximise reputation (having boosted that several points at the temple while that was cheapest - which is around reputation 7) and Biff's own friends spell allowed the cheap purchase of not just the +3 staff, but the dagger of venom. Against disabled opponents dual-wielding that gives the best available melee damage for a mage (better than chill touch in the EE).
Durlag's Tower provided some more quick XP, though I was attacking aggressively there and got taken down to 2 HPs at one point by a critical from a ghast. A similarly aggressive approach saw Biff take down the sirines rapidly - none of them escaping from webs long enough to hit back at him. He didn't have mirrors or magic ammunition available this time, but stoneskins were still more than enough to deal with the golems.
Biff webbed Mulahey and Tranzig again, but this time at the Bandit Camp he just grabbed the letters, turned invisible and left. On arriving at the FAI though he noticed the Cloakwood map wasn't available. Presuming he'd left a bit too quickly he went back to the tent in the Bandit Camp and, indeed, the chapter change then triggered.
After running through the Cloakwood, Biff kept up the more minimalist approach by webbing and charming Drasus and pulling him away for a web disposal. Leaving the others, Biff made his way invisibly through the mine to find Davaeorn. I tried a couple of different tactics out there, but didn't find anything promising for dealing with him quickly and eventually settled for whittling away at him in a similar way to the previous run. That took quite a while and Biff also used a potion of regeneration towards the end to avoid resting and allowing Davaeorn to recover his multitude of spells. Eventually though the job was done and the XP from that gave Biff his final BG1 level.
Sorcerer L9, 54 HPs, 148 kills
Progress Stuff:
Ran into a strange old wizard in red on the Lion's Way. I asked him which way the Friendly Arm Inn was, and he obliged by directing me northwards. We also ran into a ranger named Aoln who asked us to keep it quiet. We asked him what to be wary of in his range and he warned us of increased wolf activity, which he attributed to the iron shortage driving civilized folk more to hunting. Makes me glad I prefer staves, they're cheap and - more importantly - not made of iron.
We reached the Friendly Arm Inn that night, and what a welcoming party it was! We were accosted by a mage who knew my name and seemed to be expecting me, but rather than taking me inside he tried to attack me. Tried being the operative word - I knocked the magic out of his hands, and before he had a chance to realize that Imoen had finished him off with a well placed arrow. But the interesting thing is that he wanted to kill me because of a bounty notice - someone is offering 200 gold for my head. Why me, specifically? I'm not the real Pella Ardinay, I'm very definitely NOT possessed by Uthorion!
We got inside the inn and holed up for the night, too unnerved by the attack to really converse with anyone else - Ragefast's nephew tried to talk with us, but we waved him off. We were watched rather closely by a couple of Calishite elves. I'll speak with them in the morning once we've recovered from the surprise attack.
Let this moment be forever recorded in the archives of Abeir-Toril.
Meta Stuff:
I'm running this on Normal Difficulty instead of my standard Core Rules difficulty.
Mouse scrolling in windowed mode is still broken, which means keyboard scrolling while I'm playing this save on my laptop since I don't actually have a middle mouse button or equivalent. Blah.
I more-or-less went with the first 90 I got. Quarterstaff+2HW were taken because (1) Paladins are capped at Specialization, (2) Every character starts with a free Quarterstaff, and (3) Silke has a Quarterstaff +1
I haven't yet decided if I'm going to do all of the ToTSC content or if I'm going to ignore Werewolf Island as best I can - Silvered weapons are still as scarce as hens' teeth, though I'll be taking Bastard Swords next so that I know I have at least Proficiency with it by the time ToTSC comes up.
I've had issues with Tarnesh in the past, regardless of starting Character, so I'm taking Monty and Xzar for protection more than anything else. I'm running an unmodded game, so Monty doesn't get Poison Weapon (also blah, but he has crap THAC0 anyway so it's not like it ever helped). I was very strongly tempted to throw them at the belt ogre, but there was no in-character reason to track down that Ogre since Aoln doesn't mention him. I also skipped over Evermemory and Ring of the Princes for the same reason (I know there either was or is a conversation that hints toward them, but I don't have UB installed so if they were dummied out then all the worse for me).
I'm waiting to start Joia's quest until after I've beaten down Mulahey - the extra manpower will help immensely, plus I kinda want to get to Nashkel ASAP to disable K&J's anger timer. I am planning on taking Minsc & Dynaheir, but there's little point while Xzar & Monty are still in tow. I also want to swap Imoen for Safana at some point to start prepping for SoD.
...actually, Tarnesh went down stupidly easy. Maybe this is a sign of things to come? I know that Jaheira isn't Calishite but Pella assumed they're both Calishite and hasn't spoken with them yet.
To part 2
A delayed start saw the session reduced to 95 minutes, long enough for a couple of party deaths.
After beating down some doppelgangers, Prat and his gang were encountered. Dreen was stunned and could not be saved. We picked up his body and a few choice items but much of his gear remained at the battle scene due to inventory overload.
Needless to say, we woke up in a dungeon and have started to make good our escape. We've cleared most of the first area and are almost ready to venture on, but we may as well check north of the library first.