Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer trilogy attempt 123. BG:EE part 5 (1234) Daorem (dark moon monk, Gate70) and Char (blackguard, Grond0)
Attempt 123 nearly ended due to a save game issue (namely I deleted a lot of files to clear up disk space and forgot I needed my MPSODSAVE ones). I managed to recover a few quicksaves from the disk and only lost about 5 minutes of dialogue time so re-did that to leave us back where we should be.
Siege of Dragonspear, so
Where had we got to? Oh yes, spoke to Khalid, on our way back to our massed troops. Cue an ambush area, and for a change we investigated and almost fell foul of some dodgy mushrooms.
Daorem held back as our forces attempted to re-take Boareskyr Bridge, while Char got stuck in. At one point he got stuck in too much and the Barghest made him pay dearly. Daorem left to find a healer and soon had Char on his feet. The Barghest was blinded, and the duo moved in to see if they could cut or kick him into submission. Then on to the bridge where Daorem told Char to kill the mage at any cost.
Daorem had a moment on the bridge, dreaming of Bhaal, then threw a spear down a nearby well to see what would happen. Another ambush area beckoned and the tactic of Char meleeing as Daorem picked off archers worked well until an assassin struck. Even dragging the corpse of her companion, Daorem was able to evade her attackers.
Char was raised again, and to celebrate the duo headed to Dragonspear Castle where they would be able to pick on some bullies.
With Skie, rescued, it was time to investigate an underground river to the east. Running into and away from Crusaders didn't quite work and Daorem once again found herself dragging Char back to camp.
Grond0 was heard to ask about AC of enemies during one combat as Char struggled to wear them down. Without looking too deeply I suspect the combination of grouped enemies with decent hit points, and their use of potions plus AI in a multiplayer environment is a factor. Plus I'm not really telling him what's going on
Before we fight Davaeorn, there's apparently a group of lesser enemies we have to deal with first. One of them is shooting Arrows of Detonation, and deals massive damage before Kagain chops him in two.
We've still got a backstabbing thief and a mage to deal with. Kagain fails a save against SR's nerfed Ray of Enfeeblement. Like a lot of mod-edited spells, it displays the wrong string, though this particular one is kind of funny.
Hypnosis and grenades both fail to disable the mage, but Finch manages to bash in the enemy thief's skull.
Where Frisk and Chara failed, Mur'Neth succeeds, poisoning the mage with Thalantyr's upgraded Dagger of Venom, bringing an end to a very fast and very vicious fight.
The loot is pretty interesting, though not all of it is great. We get a ring that doesn't do anything, a redundant dagger, some acid bombs I'll probably never use, and a wand that only Frisk can use but which would make no sense for a Seducer to rely on...
...but we also get a pair of boots for Yeslick that grant full haste, including a whole extra attack, as well as a cloak that will improve Yeslick's poor THAC0.
I would later learn that the cloak is bugged: instead of giving +1 to all five saving throw types, it just gives +5 to Yeslick's save vs. death.
Yeslick now has 4 APR at 11 THAC0 with the strongest BG1 weapon I've ever seen, Doufas' Saber. It'll be even better when he finally has a pip in katanas.
Kagain remains our primary tank, but unfortunately, his dwarf saving throws aren't so useful with SR installed, as Web now requires a save vs. breath instead of a save vs. spell. He quickly gets webbed when we attack Davaeorn. Thankfully, I anticipated that the Battle Horrors would use fire damage and therefore buffed Kagain with a Potion of Fire Resistance.
Chara uses Poison Weapon and Bottles of Sludge to get past Davaeorn's Stoneskins; Yeslick just has to use Doufas' Saber.
Kagain keeps getting webbed, and though he has high fire resistance, the little hits build up over time.
Davaeorn vanishes for a moment, so we turn our attention to the Battle Horrors. The rest of the party stays out of the web; we're not nearly high enough level to cast Free Action, and Mur'Neth cannot create any Potions of Freedom.
Frisk's Hypnosis helps Kagain stave off their fire attacks long enough for us to break them down.
I understand that many people use a Protection from Magic scroll against Davaeorn, but I decide to save it, even though I have multiple copies.
We find Davaeorn in another room, but he hits us with a Fireball and Dispel Magic before teleporting away. Some guards approach from the northeast, but Chara has managed to hang onto their buffs, against the odds.
We hunt down the mage and keep up the pressure. Davaeorn has lost his MGOI, but although Frisk can easily dispel any of his illusion spells, he still manages to cast Stoneskin before we can take him down.
Mur'Neth is hurt and has to drink a potion and flee, but the rest of the party is in good condition. Davaeorn tries to escape using a Potion of Invisibility, but Frisk reveals him the next round.
We're having trouble boxing him in, so Frisk tries to wound him with the Wand of Fire. Davaeorn keeps running and manages to heal himself, but his attempts to hide are futile; Frisk's skill points are all invested in Detect Illusions and Open Locks due to them not being able to set traps or invest in trap detection. Being able to use Potions of Perception also helps their Detect Illusions skill.
Finally, Davaeorn's Stoneskins run out and we claim a very nice robe, plus a Dexterity tome.
Freeing the slaves bumps out reputation to 20 and gives us an amazing 83 XP apiece.
There's a little boy outside named Perwell that we need to escort home. Naturally, we get attacked moments after he joins us, but we do get a really incredible staff we have absolutely no need for.
Escort missions are no fun. Especially when we get ambushed by wyverns, one of which spawns right next to the little boy we're supposed to be protecting.
There's nothing we can do. Saving him is flat-out impossible.
The only conceivable way we could have prevented this would be to have cast Invisibility on him before we left. But casting Invisibility on a follower isn't normally a good idea, because you won't know if they get stuck and you leave them behind somewhere.
We stop by Kieran at a bridge in the Cloakwood and discover that he sells some really amazing items, including almost all types of wands. Frisk uses Chara's perfume to bump their Charisma up to 20, saving us thousands of gold and allowing us to buy a Wand of Paralyzation, a Wand of Monster Summoning (so we have an alternative to the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning), a Wand of Lightning, and 60 Arrows of Detonation. It costs us 45,000 gold, but it's worth it.
With Item Revisions installed, the Wand of Lightning trick finally works in BG1. Chara and Frisk don't even need it for various reasons, but I think there's something really special about boosting their stats to unnatural levels.
Frisk now has 22 Charisma, obviating the need for perfume, which only cost us 1 gold per use anyway. But Chara's stats are just silly.
That makes a stat total of 116, but it's actually supposed to be 109; I bumped Chara's Charisma from 3 to 10 for cosmetic reasons.
Selling off our excess equipment to Officer Vai gives us over 70,000 gold, bumping us all the way up to 100,000 total. If we make it to Siege of Dragonspear, we will basically never need to collect any gold ever again. But our gold supply has never been our problem in this run. Our problem is XP.
If it weren't for our mods, Chara would be at level 8 by now. But with all sources of XP cut down to 25% of their normal value, we might not reach it even at the end of the game.
We head to Baldur's Gate at level 5. We are filled with determination.
I got a Black Spider Figurine by using the door trick i.e, concentrate fire on one target then leave a summon behind as you retreat so nothing bad follows you out.
·The vampire sub-boss is a powerful mage named Tanova but my pet socked up all the nasty spells then we sent in the fire Elementals to finish it, easy pessy.
·Neera had 3 tries to Summon a Hakeashar on purpose... not a bad trick for a level 12 mage. ·Aerie needs to know what her uncle needs but we put that on hold until we get Imoen back. Bug; once again the same missing portraid bug... only fix is a reload.
We get attacked outside Baldur's Gate by elves for some reason. Does it even matter why?
The head guy doesn't last long against a Greater Wyvern. It's much better to use the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning only once or twice a day; it keeps the thing from dominating gameplay while still keeping it really powerful. The elves here have some really nasty arrows. They can actually paralyze the target on a failed save, but with two clerics, Yeslick can fix Finch when she gets disabled.
The loot is quite respectable, though none of it will change our strategy much.
There's another elf on the other side of the bridge with some wolves, but he's not hostile and offers no quest, so we just walk past him.
On the way to Sorcerous Sundries, we get accosted by a woman with a thing for dwarves. Unfortunately, she's barking up the wrong tree.
I assume this is from Romantic Encounters. Maybe you need to have a dwarven Charname for it to go anywhere.
We head into Sorcerous Sundries and upgrade an egg ioun stone thing of Chara's, but we can't equip it.
Chara's Charisma is 10, but it's supposed to be 3, which means equipping the egg would normally be fatal. But Chara gets other, far more useful items from the shop, including a staff that can petrify targets without offering a saving throw.
We have to fight four mages simultaneously on the second floor. Chara stays out of the way and lets the rest of the party do most of the work. We trade blows with the enemy, but our saving throws ensure that we have enough party members are active that we can break through the enemy's defenses. It's not very interesting, but here are the key points.
This party is actually very effective against mages. Not because of Chara's grenades, which can stun them and inflict spell failure via deafness, but simply because Finch and Yeslick have such high APR that Stoneskins don't last long. Although Spell Revisions' Protection from Missiles can block all projectiles (except for mod-introduced ones like Chara's), we don't need missile weapons to attain high APR.
We get a very special prize from the fight: a set of armor that will ward off critical hits, a very rare and valuable asset in Item Revisions.
Thinking ahead, we climb down into the sewers to slay the Ogre Mage. A couple grenades win us another powerful defensive asset.
We meet Schlumpsa while poking around, but do not fight him. Apparently that's actually an option.
I see an unfamiliar face while walking around Baldur's Gate. Apparently there's a major quest from one of my mods.
I run into Marek, but if my memory is correct, he has something to do with the quest that poisons Charname. I decide not to bother with them; I don't want to deal with any fatal timers.
Ragefast stuns Kagain with a wand, but Remove Paralysis is enough to fix him. Ragefast's defenses don't last long enough for him to do anything else to us.
The loot isn't too important; we already have a Wand of Paralyzation. But the Nymph Cloak in IR gives +2 to saves vs. spell and could help us shrug off a Confusion spell.
Ramazith isn't too hard, either. Not with two thieves in the party who can use Detect Illusions, and two clerics with abnormally high APR.
Our reward is yet another scroll of Protection from Magic and a Ring of Holiness that could be very useful. Especially if our clerics ever get to level 7.
We spot another mod-introduced character that I can only assume is from Romantic Encounters.
I decline. It seems a little too seedy for my tastes. Which is saying something, considering how this run began.
We use a spare Potion of Mirrored Eyes to grab some extra XP...
...before heading off to the temple of Tymora to continue that quest from the Flaming Fist guy. After watching the death of a guy with a most unfortunate name...
...we get attacked by a bunch of Grey Clan Bandits and a Tattooed Man. I have no idea who these people are supposed to be, but the fight doesn't last long. The Tattooed Man escapes with his life.
Apparently these Grey Clan folks are bad guys. I don't know the specifics since I kind of skimmed the relevant dialogue, but there's more of them elsewhere in the city.
Chara gets caught off-guard in the next fight, but it's nothing a Potion of Invisibility can't solve.
The quest giver, whatever his name is, says they've got a problem over at the Friendly Arm Inn. We head on over and slay a minor enemy ambush.
Then I realize something very strange.
We can't leave the area. It's impossible to escape.
I'm trapped in some mod's duplicate version of the Friendly Arm Inn. I don't think we'll be able to leave until this quest is finished.
And it seems that resting is virtually impossible, because we get ambushed every time we try.
They drop a bunch of potions every time...
...but what I really want is the ability to rest, because I really need Chara to have their normal defenses to protect them from whatever lies ahead.
More disturbing still, being trapped here means that we can't go to a temple to resurrect anyone who dies during this quest. If we lose a party member, we'll have to fight on without them. A single mistake could render the party too weak to make it out of this place alive.
I attempt to rest several times even after I realize it's hopeless, because the enemies that spawn on us are easy to kill and give lots of potions. The Potions of Invisibility aren't important because Mur'Neth can create more later, but the Potions of Freedom will fill in a critical weakness of ours: the lack of Free Action.
There's a golem here and apparently the only way to escape is to gather a bunch of keys and then insert them in the golem in a specific order. Makes perfect sense. I start poking around, which typically means killing things.
We stop by the temple and receive confirmation: we can neither rest nor resurrect anyone, because all the normal characters on this map are not here anymore.
Before I enter the inn, I look around the city walls. Apparently the enemies here are the remnants of Tazok's bandits, who have actually grown stronger and spread farther and wider than they were before.
Further poking around bumps Finch to level 7, granting her 2 level 4 spells.
But she doesn't get Free Action. Divine Remix, or whatever cleric and druid mod I've got installed, gives her a different set of spells. So we still need those Potions of Freedom.
I find a bunch of keys and try to insert them into the golem in the right order. But there are six different keys, and there are a lot of different combinations. I decide not to attempt trial and error.
I decide to finally enter the Friendly Arm Inn. There are a lot of enemies waiting for me now. I have most of the party drink Musk Wine to boost their STR and movement rate, while Chara sticks to a Potion of Invisibility to make their escape.
We have a single spellcaster in the form of Grachus and a bunch of fighters to deal with. Kagain goes to tackle Grachus while the rest of the party hangs back to cut down the fighters.
But things go to hell very fast. Yeslick gets hurt and charmed, while Finch gets held.
Frisk (not to be confused with the paralyzed Finch) can dispel charm on Yeslick and allow him to free Finch, but it requires a successful save vs. spell.
More importantly, Yeslick is already very injured and cannot heal himself. Yeslick dies in seconds.
Without Yeslick and Finch, there's very little we can do against the enemies, and the Greater Wyverns aren't strong enough, either. They need help, but we can't provide it. Kagain is getting weak.
Look at those attack rolls. Our AC is meaningless. Chara summons some more wyverns and we manage to kill a single enemy...
...but the wyverns can't get the enemy to leave Finch alone. That was our only hope of keeping her alive long enough to recover from paralysis.
A third of our party is already dead.
This isn't working.
I make a decision.
Before I installed all these mods, my last run of BG1 was incredibly easy once I got a few levels. But this run has been a constant trial at virtually every step, throwing horrible things at the party and giving us almost nothing in return.
These mods took away our best party member when we were at our most vulnerable. The mods crippled our party by taking away 75% of our XP and forced us to scour the entire Sword Coast just to arrive at the endgame at level 5. And now they killed our two most important party members.
But the mods also gave me the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning. And for once, I'm going to use it to its full potential.
There are other items, especially our wands, that could help us win this fight, given enough time. But if Grachus is going to throw all these powerful enemies at us at once, I'm not going to hold back.
Chara keeps summoning wyverns, hauling out a new one every single round. The horde builds up over time and tramples the enemy fighters.
I send the horde over to Grachus. He can deal tremendous damage to them...
...and he summons even more enemies I cannot yet see...
...but I am not going to let up. I send more and more wyverns after him. He will have to suffer the same nonsense I've been putting up with for this entire run.
The map gets crowded, and I move the screen to another part of the map to minimize lag.
Unbelievably enough, Grachus seems to have an infinite supply of Mirror Image contingencies and instant-casting healing spells.
Frisk goes over to inspect the situation and gets paralyzed.
Grachus just keeps on healing himself and casting Mirror Image. He seems immune to poison, as well; he hasn't gotten poisoned once.
Chara fails to free Frisk using a Dispel Magic scroll, so they just cast Invisibility instead to make sure Grachus doesn't kill them while they're paralyzed.
Grachus' infinite Mirror Images and infinite healing spells are baffling. But the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning is even stronger. The wyverns beat him to death.
We get a red crystal from his body that will let us access the first floor of the inn. We still can't rest, but we have potions to help buff the party instead.
We end up right in front of a well-buffed mage who nails Kagain with Flesh to Stone.
But Grachus' infinite spells banished my sense of restraint. I start conjuring more wyverns. This new mage will suffer the same fate.
The mage casts Flesh to Stone again and paralyzes Kagain. He begins to drain the dwarf's HP pool.
This mage has to be at least twice our level to do that. But every round, our horde grows stronger.
Kagain is suffering from SR-style petrification, which is a permanent hold effect that only Stone to Flesh spells and scrolls can reverse. The mage dropped two scrolls, bringing out total to five. We use one to free Kagain.
We ascend the stairs and treat the next group of enemies just the same--even the ones we can handle without using the amulet.
At the top level we meet Linda, an epic-level sorceress in BG1.
Who has Throne of Bhaal HLAs like Improved Alacrity.
Chara is level 5.
I don't know what this mod is, but it's throwing (1) a level 18+ mage at a BG1 party (2) right after it forced us to fight hordes of BG2-grade enemies (3) while prevent us from resting or (4) raising any fallen party members the whole time. How are we supposed to respond to this?
Simple. We respond in kind.
Along with a stupid amount of loot, she drops a scroll that explains what order we're supposed to use on the Mold Golem at the entrance to the inn.
Guess what? That's not the right order!
So now I have to figure something else out.
We meet Jeremias, a demon or a wizard or something who identifies some items that we cannot, including a halberd that instantly dispels all magic on every hit with no save. Like some cut-rate Carsomyr.
This, of course, is yet another weapon that no one in the party can really use.
We keep searching and talk to a guy named Tergius. Eventually, a few dialogue triggers allow us to finally leave the map. But we're still not done, because there are even more Grey Clan leaders in Beregost.
I am tired of this stupid quest and its wildly overpowered enemies. But I head to Beregost regardless. It's time to end this. Whatever they're going to throw at us, we can handle it.
I don't want to win the fight against Sarevok, or any other normal BG1 fight for that matter, by abusing the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning. But enemies like the Grey Clan deserve no such mercy.
We head to Beregost in search of execution points. We are filled with determination.
@semiticgod it's some years since I played the Grey Clan mod, but my memory of it in a rather less mod-heavy installation is that it's reasonably well-written and with opponents that are challenging, but not too much so. I imagine it's the interaction between mods that results in them appearing to be so over-powered against Chara. I also have a vague memory that the golem you mention is guarding a tome - and you don't seem to be in too much need of another one of those .
On the way to Beregost, we get ambushed by Grey Clan mod-related bounty hunters. Unfortunately for them, I have already decided to suspend all sense of restraint until this questline is over. We obliterate them.
We finally get a chance to rest and resurrect our fallen party members. We will arrive at the final battle at full strength. Not that we'll even need it.
We head to Beregost, earn another 75,000 gold by selling random crap to Officer Vai, and enter the lair of the last Grey Clan leaders.
I don't even know who these people are supposed to be, but I don't care anymore.
The enemy knocks us into the far corner via some wing buffet spell. The damage is nothing special; we can heal it with some basic potions.
Chara runs away, still invisible, leaving their friends to do the heavy lifting. One of the mages teleports in to confront us, but we can summon wyverns to defend us faster than normal by switching the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning from party member to party member.
Notice Chara drinking a Brine Solution to improve their save vs. spell and resist a Symbol, Stun spell. They only last 4 rounds and Remove Paralysis should be able to fix it, but Brine Solutions are cheap, and with all of Chara's save-boosting equipment, a Potion of Magic Shielding is not necessary to guarantee a successful saving throw.
Once we've built up the wyvern horde, there's no way the enemy can stop them.
The Grey Clan is broken, and Chara hits level 6.
All we have to do to reach the critical level 7 is to earn another 20,000 XP per party member.
That's half the XP we've earned in the entire game so far. If we're ever going to reach it in time for the final battle, we need to beat Durlag's Tower.
Before we go, Frisk uses the WoL trick on an Intelligence tome.
This is just in case I decide to have Frisk dual-class to mage, but considering how well a Seducer's abilities scale with levels, I probably will keep Frisk as a single-classed Seducer.
With this insane quest finally complete, I can lay off on the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning. I never wanted to rely on the amulet to beat the game, and with the Grey Clan gone, I can go back to my normal strategy.
Durlag's Tower looms before us. We are filled with determination.
Auch, Grey Clan it is. I like this mod, but generally avoid installing it due to massively OP loot (that dispelling halberd, to be exact). Glad to see you got through - it's one of the hardest BG1 mods there is.
In Baldur's Gate Biff started off by getting the tomes. While doing the poison quest he again relieved Lothander of his equipment, but this time made sure he was the only one attacking!
Marek was then blinded to complete the quest. Ramazith has reasonable saving throws, but once he stuck fast in a web he had no chance of surviving for the next round. Loot from those encounters was put towards a fitting robe for an Archmage.
The Cloak of Balduran was picked up without any fighting, as was one necklace of missiles. A second copy of the latter though required some stern words for the mages guarding it,
before the Halruuan mage decided it was a good idea to turn hostile while sitting in 5 stacked webs!
At the Iron Throne Biff separated the enemies using the stairs. He didn't have enough webs to deal with many of them though so resorted to a first use in the run of darts of stunning.
I expected a pair of invisible Shennara's to try their luck, but they never showed up.
After reporting to Duke Eltan, Biff was sent to Candlekeep where an ogre mage ambush was waiting. As there is very little time available to respond to that Biff used a potion of magic blocking before just running away.
He didn't bother with any fighting there, but just sneaked through to loot the tombs before leaving.
Returning to Athkatla Biff buffed a bit for Slythe before changing his mind and sticking him in a web. That could have ended very badly as I forgot to equip the ring of free action. Fortunately though, Biff saved against the web, while Slythe got into an even more sticky situation against a dart of stunning.
After using a single summons to activate Krystin and waiting a while for her buffs to go down, Biff then webbed her. She resisted a few darts of stunning, but still couldn't escape the stacked webs in time.
At the palace Biff didn't use summons due to the potential for them to kill something in a chaotic battle. Instead he made use of a teleport field scroll before showing himself and turning Liia invisible. A malison followed by chaos disabled four of the dopplegangers
and following webs allowed Biff to pick off a couple of those. At one point he got too close to where Liia was and she was damaged by a fireball from the mage, but none of the invisibility detection spells affected her so that Biff was able to finish off the remaining dopplegangers at his leisure.
He guessed well enough where Liia was to be able to pull her away out of Sarevok's sight to ensure the palace fight had a happy ending.
Biff beat up some occupants of the maze, but decided to bypass the Undercity party. At the temple he stuck Sarevok in a corner as usual with everyone but Angelo. Malison + wand of paralysation then froze Angelo
and a dart of stunning managed to stop a confused gnoll from bringing all the others in prematurely.
Angelo failed to survive and the skeleton warrior that replaced him failed to see what was attacking it - some summons helping keep it in position for Biff to deal with.
With death only allowed by melee Biff didn't fireball Sarevok's position at all as he needed to be able to see what the HPs of the other invisible acolytes were. More summons achieved that. I was also hoping that summons would tempt Semaj into using area damage - causing the others to turn on him. The area damage did eventually happen, but there was no sign of Tazok trying to take revenge. Deciding it was time to see what was happening, Biff went invisible to have a look at the action - only to find himself betrayed by a bat that I must have clicked on when moving (I should really get back into the habit of killing all of those before the battle starts).
A quick reversal of course and a potion of invisibility got things back under control though. Biff was out of malisons, but tried a number of area effect spells anyway and eventually succeeding in tagging Semaj with a chaos. However, Semaj saved against several stunning darts and even when he attacked his comrades they didn't respond.
More groups of summons were sent in and those finally wore through Diarmid's stocks of arrows. With that danger out of the way Biff used a scroll of PfM and some potions before showing himself. Throwing darts of stunning he was eventually able to halt Diarmid in his tracks and quickly led the others away and went invisible before coming back to finish him off. Semaj was next to be stunned and a couple of hits while kiting the others polished him off.
Tazok didn't want to be stunned, but was already fairly low on HPs and after a few more darts Biff dashed in for a killing blow on him.
As with the others, non-attacking summons ran distraction on the skeleton warrior while Biff smacked it down - leaving Sarevok all alone.
He still put a hard struggle though - over 40 charges of monster summoning were used in the temple . However, with him finally at near death Biff used a potion of speed and stoneskinned himself for safety and took him down to 4 HPs with magic missiles and LMD. Rather than go invisible, Biff looked Sarevok in the eye as he swung his staff - and got a critical miss. However, Biff's weapon speed was enough better than Sarevok for him to be able to avoid retaliation pretty reliably, so he tried again ... and again (that time missing with a 17). A couple more attempted strikes though and a roll of 18 hit. The 14 damage only showed Sarevok going down to 1 HP, but (unlike Tor'Gal in a recent disaster for me) it was only an instant after the screenshot that his death script kicked in.
Although the extensive use of webs in this run has made it easier than in past attempts, I still think this challenge is tough enough without inflicting certain death in SoD on Biff - so he will be reappearing in Jon's dungeon shortly.
At the start of Jon's dungeon I noted that Biff had apparently forgotten to pick up the pantaloons. That wouldn't have been an issue until reaching Mel anyway and it was always vanishingly unlikely Biff would get that far. However, thinking about it possibly provided a distraction and on sighting the first enemy in the dungeon my immediate thought was to wear it down with magic missiles (I've been playing too much LoB with a sorcerer recently!). That didn't work too well (or did work too well depending on how you look at it) .
Despite that tame finish, completing SCS BG1 with Biff feels like a decent accomplishment, so I'm happy to leave the melee sorcerer at that for the time being.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer trilogy attempt 123. BG:EE part 6 (12345) Daorem (dark moon monk, Gate70) and Char (blackguard, Grond0)
Siege of Dragonspear
After a few minutes at camp raising, healing, selling and resting the duo set off again for the Underground River entrance. Daorem scouted out the earlier attackers and shoved a frozen fist at the nearest mage while Char attacked. The mage survived long enough for Daorem to have to run, and cast a Teleport Field as Char followed. Char laughed, rushing through the field with ease but Daorem took four or five attempts. By this time the mage had cast Horror and Daorem was in range.
Panic.
Char made sure the mage was dead, then tried to scoop up the remaining attackers but Daorem was not moving far enough away for them to switch their attention. Char tried a couple of dispelling arrows but his THAC0 (3) against Daorem's AC (-2) plus missile adjustment (3) prevented a hit until Daorem was in danger of being killed if he hit her.
By this time Daorem had already stumbled into the path of a dying myconid and confused herself for good measure.
A bit of uncontrolled running while scared and confused gave a glimmer of hope but as Daorem blundered around wildly she blocked herself up against enemies for a couple of moments too long, and the run was over.
Auch, Grey Clan it is. I like this mod, but generally avoid installing it due to massively OP loot (that dispelling halberd, to be exact). Glad to see you got through - it's one of the hardest BG1 mods there is.
Well, that's the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning for you. I thought it could single-handedly win any fight in the entire game, and it turns out it can.
@semiticgod if you press ctrl-m that gives you information about the area beneath the mouse cursor. If the cursor is above a creature the information provided includes current HPs - which meant I did not need to know original HPs of everything to make progress with my melee sorcerer run.
We desperately need Vials of Scales and Elf Tendon Wands if we want to beat Sarevok, but Chara, our Alchemist, cannot create any until level 7. And the only way we can hope to reach level 7 with our 75% XP tax is to complete Durlag's Tower.
Earlier on, we fled the tower when a Ghost with Protection from Magical Weapons scared us away. Despite being a very high-level mage with PFMW to block all of our attacks, the Ghost never seemed to use any offensive spells, ever.
It was actually a really long fight, but what's the point of posting all 11 screenshots when none of them showed the Ghost fighting back?
Kagain somehow avoids Kirinhale's charm spell despite not wearing the Greenstone Amulet. Turns out he was better equipped than I thought.
Yeslick paralyzes Kirinhale with Doufas' Saber just as she teleports away. The paralysis lasts long enough for us to chase her down.
We nab a lock of her hair, but I don't know what it's for.
Mur'Neth is still low-level, but his Alchemist thief kit (not to be confused with Chara's Alchemist mage kit) lets him create his own Potions of Perception, compensating for his low skills.
The basilisks are no trouble. Mur'Neth already created plenty of Potions of Invisibility for us, allowing the rest of the party to hide while Kagain uses a Potion of Mirrored Eyes to take down the basilisks.
I don't know why I took this screenshot of Finch, but check out her APR with that morningstar!
That small shield is actually +5, not +1. The gauntlets also come from a mod; they improve her THAC0 and damage or AC or something.
Frisk gets another level up when we kill a Wraith Spider downstairs, and boosts their STR by 3 when we find another Strength tome. It only gives them 11 STR, but at least it means they can carry more equipment, and survive another Spirit Troll strike in BG2. And after Frisk's Detect Illusion spell helps us deal with a Greater Doppelganger and its Mirror Images...
...we find a Tome of Wisdom that boosts Chara's WIS to 21, just in case I ever dual-class them to cleric. Which I won't.
That blue part on the map is just CTRL-4 highlighting a trigger. Finch can cast Find Traps, but CTRL-4 is faster.
Speaking of traps, I forget to have Mur'Neth drink a Potion of Perception before he handles a few traps that are beyond his expertise.
Another six or seven hundred gold to add to the CTRL-4 resurrection tally. But with well over 100,000 gold total, reducing my gold supply to account for the tally is kind of pointless.
Before we face off with Pride and the like, Yeslick provides some coaching to Finch on how to find the motivation to fight.
Finch, of course, is still a bit timid when the fight begins.
The fight is off to a rocky start. The enemy paralyzes Kagain early on.
Yeslick engages Pride while Finch rescues Kagain. Meanwhile, Frisk tries to reveal Avarice with Detect Illusions, but they're not fast enough to prevent Avarice's backstab.
Newly free thanks to Finch, Kagain activates Defensive Stance. But this was a poor use of his round--we should have given him a Potion of Freedom. And when Yeslick gets charmed, both of our dwarves are disabled.
Frisk is injured and needs to drink a potion, but Chara helps them out with Healing Touch, giving Frisk enough space to attempt a Dispel Charm on Yeslick. It works!
Kagain's Defensive Stance is keeping him pretty safe for now, so I have Yeslick focus on Pride rather than using his Remove Paralysis spell on Kagain. Chara's Slow spell does nothing for us, but Finch's Wand of the Heavens speeds up the fight.
Taking a leaf out of Finch's book, Chara tries out a wand instead and stuns Love.
The Wand of Paralyzation doesn't paralyze people; it stuns them. That's the opcode it uses.
Finch slays Avarice and Kagain recovers from his paralysis. I'm a little nervous about Chara's safety, so I have Finch hide them away while Chara's aura is clouded.
Pride does awful things to Yeslick, and Kagain gets paralyzed a third time. When Yeslick retreats to attack with a sling, Pride turns its attention to Frisk instead.
Finch tries to help out the group with Prayer, but the spell is bugged. It does nothing but spam the dialogue box with meaningless messages and stack visual effects on our characters.
Frisk isn't fast enough to save themself with a potion, but Yeslick did enough damage to Pride for our wyvern to finish it off before it kills anyone else.
Kagain is getting weak. We run over to bail him out, but Finch's Break Enchantment doesn't free him.
Break Enchantment is great, but it often doesn't work when the disabler comes from a weapon or a nonmagical ability. Love is still stunned from the Wand of Paralyzation, but its defenses keep it alive for a rather long time. It doesn't go down until Kagain has recovered from paralysis.
Fear has lots of damage immunities, but thankfully fire is not one of them. Finch ends the fight with the Wand of the Heavens.
We head downstairs and kill some doppelgangers, who aren't much of a threat thanks to Yeslick's 4 APR with Doufas' Saber. Unfortunately, I overestimate Kagain's survivability and have him tank some traps that Mur'Neth could have tried to disarm. Yeslick doesn't mind too much.
See, I used a War Hulk to handle these traps in my last playthrough, and my War Hulk had over 150 HP at this point--almost twice as much as Kagain.
Yeslick is next. He triggers a Cloudkill trap I forgot about and fails his save vs. death.
If we were higher-level, the trap would just do poison damage.
Next up, more doppelgangers! Islanne somehow escapes the paralysis from Doufas' Saber (maybe another doppelganger cast Remove Paralysis) but Islanne's Dispel Magic isn't much threat to us.
The problem for Islanne is that we don't need our buffs to maintain high damage output. Finch's morningstar and Yeslick's katana, Doufas' Saber, both give the wielder 3 APR. The doppelgangers, however, have a weird habit of healing themselves instantly, which drags out the fight.
Soon after, we run into an outrageously overpowered helmet.
This would be great for somebody on our front line, but I hand it to Frisk instead, as Frisk cannot normally wear helmets.
Plus, I've been very anxious to make sure Frisk doesn't get petrified, so I've reorganized our equipment to boost Frisk's defenses. Even if I only use the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning twice a day, it's still really important not to lose it to petrification. I could put the amulet on Chara instead, but then Chara wouldn't be able to wear the Greenstone Amulet.
There's one trap that I don't think Mur'Neth can handle. I send in Kagain to see how bad it is.
It might just be able to kill Chara on an unlucky damage roll. But thanks to Spell Revisions, Chara can just hop over it.
Notice the nervous quick save. I was right to worry; Finch takes almost enough damage to have killed Chara.
We stop by the skeleton of the dragon Durlag killed back in the day. Finch's reaction is appropriate.
The party stomps some Greater Wyverns and earns Yeslick another level up.
There should be a line in soundsets for leveling up. Having somebody shout "Woohoo!" every time they gain a level would be awesome.
I don't know what an Ashirukuru is, but Frisk can largely negate the threat using Detect Illusions.
The elemental rooms to the southwest once again fail to teleport us to the chess room, so I use the console to move us to the right area and then use CTRL-J to put us in the right spot.
The last time I did this fight, my Alchemist was level 7 and we were able to nuke the enemy using Burning Oils. But we're not strong enough to do that yet. Chara turns invisible on the first round, because this could get ugly.
I don't remember the rules for the chess game. The puzzles in Undertale were so much easier.
We pretend Toriel is holding our hand and walking us through the hard parts. It fills us with determination.
The king and queen target Kagain with two Remove Magic spells at once. He runs off to the northwest to make sure it doesn't reach the rest of the party...
...but only Frisk and Chara hold onto their buffs.
Finch and Yeslick cast Unholy Blight (which only affects enemies in SR, regardless of alignment) while Mur'Neth summons a pair of wyverns to absorb the incoming foes.
Mur'Neth summons another wyvern while Frisk goes invisible and heads north to use Detect Illusions. All the while, Chara drinks potions to boost their defenses in case the enemy notices them.
Rather than casting her spells from afar, the Queen advances on the party, exposing herself to the wyverns.
Still afraid that we're all going to get zapped from some unknown source, Mur'Neth summons another wyvern just in case we need the extra help. But it's really not necessary; the enemy isn't strong enough to stand up to even one or two of them, at least not with Yeslick and Finch helping out.
We arrive in the final area before the boss. The Crypt Crawlers and Greater Ghouls aren't too dangerous; we now have area-effects spells to deal with threats like this.
The loot is spectacular, including 14,000 gold in pure cash, but we don't have uses for any of the items. Though there's a suit of plate mail that would have been spectacular in the early game.
The last time I fought the Demon Knight, all I had to do was paralyze him with some Elf Tendon Wands. But I was lucky to get a failed save, and I don't even have Elf Tendon Wands now because Chara still hasn't hit level 7. Not knowing what the Demon Knight can really do to us, I buff the entire party with all of the potions we could possibly need.
Those Storm Shield-like visual effects are from Chara's Radiant Philters. They give +25% resistance to energy damage for non-Alchemists, and +50% resistance to Chara.
I'd love to buff Chara with a Death Ward, because I've seen this Demon Knight use a Power Word: Kill spell way back in BGTutu. But Finch doesn't get the level 4 version; she only gets a level 3 Death Ward that's bugged to only affect her. And with Item Revisions' changes to vanilla potions, Chara cannot reach 100 MR, or get anywhere close to it.
We head in and confront the Demon Knight. Against the odds, he fails a save against a Bottle of Sludge. It just so happens to the spell failure effect, which only has a 25% chance of showing up and only inflict 15% spell failure. By pure chance, he loses his first spell.
I can't stress how rare this is. This requires good luck 4 times in a row: first, with the attack roll; second, with the spell failure effect; third, with the failed save; and fourth, the spell failure isn't even guaranteed.
Chara uses the Wand of Paralyzation while the Demon Knight is distracted. Miraculously, he fails his save on the first try.
And that's it. We spent so many rounds buffing the party for this fight, but five strokes of luck in a row end the fight as soon as it began.
Then we get ambushed on the way out. I don't remember this happening last time; maybe it came from a mod. Yeslick takes heavy damage fast.
But the enemy's defenses are weak. We overpower them.
We get many more amazing items, not a single one of which is actually useful to us due to our party makeup.
That ring is just like the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning: it never runs out of charges. But the best option is Flame Strike, and we already have enough money to buy plenty of Wands of the Heavens. Even the ring is no use to us.
Durlag's Tower is complete. Chara still hasn't reached level 7, but we've at least inched a little bit closer.
I can't reach Ulgoth's Beard for some reason. The only source of XP left lies in Baldur's Gate. We have to proceed with the main quest at level 6.
We've got a tough fight ahead of us at the top of the Iron Throne headquarters. We use all the potions Chara can brew.
Our front line, two dwarfs and a gnome, engage the enemy, only to lose their primary buffs to an enemy Remove Magic spell.
I'm used to it. It wasn't that long ago that we were fighting a level 18 mage when we were only level 5 and 6. But Chara's potion buffs are undispellable, so some of our defenses remain.
Yeslick uses his cleric kit to boost his resistances. They won't last long, but for a moment, he'll be almost as sturdy as Kagain.
Frisk gets backstabbed. I'm going to have to pay close attention to the situation around the stairs, where Chara and my two thieves are trying to stay out of trouble. Chara responds with a Flame Arrow, as it can hit multiple enemies in SR.
Diyab throws an Unholy Blight at us, but Radiant Philters block some of the damage.
To the west, my front line is making much better progress.
Chara switches to melee combat to deal with the backstabbers. Now that Chara has hit level 6, they have a proficiency point in daggers, which means they can use the 5 APR throwing dagger we got from Tristan or Isolde north of Beregost and use it as a melee weapon to apply their massive STR bonuses.
Their THAC0 isn't as strong as that of our frontliners, but their damage output is pretty scary.
Frisk tries to use their psionics to deal with the backstabbers, but at such low levels, Charm isn't very reliable.
Kagain, Yeslick, Finch, and the Greater Wyvern keep cutting down the enemy despite an Obscuring Mist spell hampering their THAC0, and their strong saving throws let most of them shrug off the enemy mage's disablers.
Frisk manages to charm one of the backstabbers and Finch cures Yeslick's confusion.
Notice the Ring of Free Action on one of the fallen enemies. It's a very special prize that will further solidify Chara's defenses.
Our clerics chase down the mage when he runs away, cornering him in a nearby room.
Back up north, Shennara breaks free of Frisk's charms and hacks away at Mur'Neth.
The mage escapes from our clerics using Invisibility while Frisk is not there to dispel it. Chara slays Shennara with a Flame Arrow, but there are actually two Shennaras for some reason.
Yeslick hurries over to kill the second Shennara. When she goes down, there's no one left to distract us from the mage.
It's time to return to Candlekeep.
We get ambushed by Ogre Mages, but their defenses are nothing special, so they go down with little incident. We stop by the temple of Oghma and convince a local bookworm to visit her sweetheart at the temple east of Beregost.
We find Linda at the Candlekeep Inn. Not the level 18 mage we killed at Beregost, but another Linda, who apparently... well...
But don't worry. When we visit her friend at the clinic, it's quite clear that he harbors no hard feelings.
Plus, as you can see from the screenshot, his arm grew back. We convince him to teach her how to fight properly, so she won't cut off his arm next time. We get an amazing 6 XP for our trouble.
We pay a visit to Alec, the sweet young elf I mistakenly called Alex in a previous post. Unfortunately, Frisk can't get further than first base with him.
It's a shame, because he certainly deserved a lot more than that sleazy guard in the first post of this run.
With nothing else left to do here, we head into the library, grab some largely useless scrolls, and attack Rieltar, who turns out to be embarrassingly unprepared for the fight. We get some pretty nice items out of the deal.
I don't seem to have any screenshots of the Candlekeep catacombs, so apparently nothing very interesting happened and we didn't get any interesting loot due to Item Randomizer stuff.
I hate fighting Prat--his invisibility spells are really annoying--so I try to overwhelm him with wyverns. He escapes nonetheless, though his companions do go down in record time.
I check in on the basilisks to the south. Unfortunately, they're not alone.
I'm not interested in a fair fight with these guys. I have Frisk linger nearby and throw wyverns at them.
While I'm distracted, Prat takes the opportunity to break invisibility. If he had backup, he'd be a true threat, but he's actually just an annoyance, as he can't finish off any party members without help.
Chara cuts through his Stoneskins with a Flame Arrow, allowing Kagain to finish him off.
Back at Baldur's Gate, we tackle Cythandria. Our dwarves smash her golems and absorb her spells.
They're having trouble with Cythandria's Mirror Images, so I send in Mur'Neth to use Detect Illusions. All of them get bombed.
Cythandria launches another Fireball and a Flame Arrow, but with no disablers to worry about, all we have to do is drink Sour Draughts and keep whomping her.
Cythandria wanders up north, but not so close that Chara is in danger. She Breaches Finch and tries to slow the party, but she can't quite pull any of us down.
If she had cast Slow earlier on, she might have been able to overwhelm us with spell damage, because it would have slowed down our potion drinking.
Slythe and Kristan are next. Last time we fought them, our Elf Tendon Wands did a lot to hurt them. But Chara still hasn't hit level 7--we don't have those wands yet.
We make our way into the Undercellars. Chara tells Frisk to keep their hands to themself. We are filled with determination.
After the previous pairing took an early bath in the session there was time to roll up a new duo and make some progress today.
Heading for the coast provided the usual instant level boost from Shoal.
An epidemic of sleeping sickness around Beregost then erupted to provide a bit more XP. The game was a bit laggy and that nearly proved fatal for Noy when he entered the Red Sheaf and just stood there while Karlat took pot shots at him. Fortunately he recovered movement just in time and was able to run round causing a bit of confusion while Karlat was shot up.
Moving down to Nashkel Stern picked up CLW as a Bhaal power before going in search of a better sword for Noy. Greywolf was kind enough to give Noy a close-up sight of the power of the sword, but was then in no position to see much of anything himself.
Meilum was also blinded to enhance Noy's combat abilities further.
To avoid potential errors with casting their own spells the duo bought a green scroll on their way to the basilisk area. After dealing with the monsters (gaining invisibility and blur from a couple of nice random drops in the process) a brief discussion decided that Korax should be recruited to help with Mutamin. He had no trouble with that, but didn't last long against Kirian & co. However, he had helped split that lot into two groups before dying and, after a rest, Peter & Baerin were stuck inside a stinking cloud and neither emerged. Lindin heard the commotion though and came to investigate and managed to save against a couple of blind attempts. Noy tried to run him round and confuse him, but the long arm of the law reached out in punishment.
After returning from the temple Lindin was another victim of stinking cloud
and Kirian soon completed the stinking set.
A couple of reputation quests were squeezed in at the end and that attribute should be maximised early in the next session.
I have a concurrent run in BG2 and I wanted to know if a reload is justified.
It has to do with mummy rot, a special kind of disease that kills the victim without a saving throw after 6 days pass. It bypasses immunity to disease, but Cure Disease can fix it, as can Greater Restoration and Cure Affliction (my install's version of the Bhaalspawn Cure Light Wounds). This is because the mummy rot spell's secondary type is FL#DISEASE, and spells that cure disease have an extra opcode that lets them remove that secondary type.
So, ostensibly, all forms of Cure Disease are supposed to be able to cure the condition. But my Alchemist kit's Sweet Elixir, which also cures disease, cannot. This is because it was installed after the mummy rot component was installed. When I noticed I had a disease icon on my Charname, I had them drink a Sweet Elixir (a lot of my runs lately have Alchemists in them), which removed some ability score penalties but failed to remove the icon. I assumed at the time that the persistent icon was a harmless bug--the disease was cured, but for some reason the icon remained.
Mummy rot is supposed to give you a warning message 24 hours in advance of death, but I never noticed it. It's only a single line, after all, and can easily get lost during a lengthy battle. It also gives you a warning when you attempt to heal the character, but every time I rested after fighting those Greater Mummies, Charname was at full health.
It boils down to this: If Sweet Elixir is supposed to cure mummy rot, then this death was the result of an oversight--I was supposed to have survived (however accidentally) when I drank a Sweet Elixir shortly afterwards. If Sweet Elixir is not supposed to cure it, and only Cure Disease and similar spells can fix it, however, then I just died due to ignorance.
As the mod creator, I would ostensibly be the one to determine if Sweet Elixir should cure mummy rot. But I can't say so because I have a conflict of interest here.
Sweet Elixirs are available at level 1, cost 15 gold, and were designed to cure disease and poison. Should they be able to cure mummy rot, just like Cure Disease or Cure Affliction can? Would a reload be justified on the grounds of an oversight?
I personally think that such a low level and cheap potion shouldn't be strong enough to heal a powerful disease like the Mummy rot, but, like you said, you're the best person to answer your question. I think that if you're honest with yourself and you cleary had in mind at the kit creation that this potion was suppose to heal this kind of disease, then a reload is ok.
I just did a search through Near Infinity that made the question much simpler.
Apparently everything that cures disease can also cure mummy rot, from cheap items and spells like Elixirs of Health and the Moon Dog's Healing Lick to endgame ToB stuff like Malla's Soul Stone and Wish. Even the Bhaalspawn Cure Affliction spell you get in BG1 can cure mummy rot. The patch in question doesn't discriminate.
So mummy rot is supposed to be curable by anything that cures disease. There's no such thing as a potion or spell that can cure normal disease, but which cannot cure mummy rot. The only difference between mummy rot and normal disease is that disease immunity cannot block mummy rot. But the cure is always the same. I will fix the oversight and continue.
But for the love of God, if any of you have this mod in your install, always check your characters after fighting mummies to make sure no one got infected, because mummy rot doesn't offer a saving throw and will invariably prove fatal in a matter of days.
So just checking in inform you all that my latest iteration of Benoni as a F/M/T has died to my thinking that Spell Deflection stops Hold Person. Which, even though it's a targeted spell, is an AoE. I'll be rerolling as a F/T: there's very few reasons in IR to keep the Mage portion, at least in the early game, and there's a small part of me that like's the aesthetics of a F/T with a C/M duo in BG2.
@Neverused I can tell you a host of no-reloaders have fallen to that same issue (thinking MSD would foil hold person, but not realizing it's actually a very small AoE spell which means MSD can't block it). So you are in good company in that respect. Good luck in your next run. If you are solo in BG 1, I highly recommend using magic blocking potions. For 5 rounds, all the really bad disablers (hold person, rigid thinking, domination, confusion, chaos, etc.) are all negated. Usually 5 rounds is enough to kill the pesky mage or cleric.
Today's session started with a few reputation quests to push that up to 20. After helping Charleston Nib we decided to kill the Doomsayer despite neither of us having any magical damage spells - a Wand of Frost providing a substitute.
With shop prices now looking more attractive though we visited High Hedge straight away to buy a few spells. Ulgoth's Beard was the next shopping centre, though we went there by way of an ankheg nest - just 3 ankhegs were tackled there to grab their treasure before Noy decided he'd taken enough punishment. Also on the way we killed some fishermen and then decided to be even-handed and do the same to Tenya (though not until after we'd got her reward). I tried pausing the game to target a spell from Stern, but Noy had already cast and her magic missiles ignored the pause.
Jumping south to the Nashkel Mine we quickly worked through there, before watching Mulahey cough his guts out in a stinking cloud.
His collection of scrolls meant that the amazons had the added complication of web and failed to deal well with that. Web also held Nimbul in place (and Rasaad to make sure he wouldn't be able to grab the XP for the kill). Tranzig also got a web/cloud combination and held out for several rounds, but eventually his saves too let him down.
At the Bandit Camp most of the bandits fell asleep, though Taurgosz was blinded and then webbed for good measure. With our poor AC though the odd arrow that got released tended to hit and Stern and Noy were both badly damaged by the time the bandits were all dead.
After a rest and entering the tent invisibly a series of blinds had got Hakt and Venkt, which should have made things straight-forward. However, Noy found her line of sight was not quite where expected and not only lost an attempted web, but also showed herself to Raemon. Britik was also blinded a moment later, but Raemon's arrows were hitting hard and Noy hit the floor.
Stern had to go invisible to escape and stashed equipment before going to raise his companion. Back again, Stern succeeded with a blind on Venkt, while Noy scared Britik and Raemon
- and there were no mistakes with the mop-up this time.
The session ended with a trip to Durlag's to pick up a tome and some easy XP from battle horrors and basilisks.
Shyffunee made it out of Chateau Irenicus' Tactics madness without any more losses than Minsc's tragic death to a 160 damage Flame Strike from the Cleric from Improved Illych. To deal with that fight I stacked four Fire Elementals (one from Shyffunee, three from Jaheira) and used Minsc/Jaheira as tanks to deal with the Golem/Demon/Monk, then I retreated, healed and went in for round two against the marksdwarf, the Cleric and Illych himself. Minsc, Jaheira and the Fire Elementals took care of the marksdwarf and the Cleric, while Illych ran around chasing Imoen while Shyffunee and the dumbest of the Fire Elementals attacked him.
The rest of the dungeon was pretty straightforward. Jaheira's a Shapeshifter, so she dual-weld a Club+3 one of the Dwarves dropped and the Greater Werewolf Token from SCS for an awesome 6 APR at around 6/11 THAC0. Imoen's a pure Thief so she just disarmed traps and stuff, Minsc didn't do much since he got chunked by that Flame Strike, and Shyffunee got pretty injured at least twice, but it was nothing.
After carrying all of our loot to Ribald's, which included the Cloak of Balduran (!), we dropped Jaheira and cleared the Circus. Just answering the riddle correctly gave us enough XP to attain level 10 as a Mage. The Circus didn't pose any difficulties, nor the Copper Coronet did, although Hendak died to Lethinian, whom we killed later, and apparently the other Bartender thinks Hendak won, so we have access to his special wares. We sold all the wands and bought back the Wand of Cold, Lethinian dropped a scroll of Death Spell, which means we could go to clean the d'Arnise Keep, but not until we can cast level 6 spells (we just need a bit more than 500k XP for that).
Shyffunee continued to steal off from everyone, starting by the Amnish Soldiers and Tolgerias' ring, this way we got Control Undead and some gold. I also solved the Tanner murderer questline, but didn't do fight yet since I am not strong enough yet (although I gave the Sgt.'s body to Brega). I think I'm going to solve the Imnsvale quests and get more easy XP around there so that I can get level 6 spells, do the d'Arnise Keep and move onto bigger objectives (Athkatla sewers, Firkraag's Dungeon).
For my Paladin / Thief playthrough I finally settled on a Gallant demibard from Might & Guile after randomising alignment as NG- a preachy nymphomaniac of a wand brandishing fighter called Cromarty. I'll probably give him a bonus after each Romantic Encounter . This is an SCS run sans Item Revisions so I won't begrudge myself any perks for roleplaying .
He set out from Candlekeep, picking up Xzar (trying out the Alchemist class) but dropping Monty & Imoen after they died a time too many to the assassins in pursuit of our hero. From Beregost he picked up Sirine, Garrick (Loremaster), & Gavin, and he also freed the Rakshasha Verr'sza from his predicament at the Friendly Arm. Initially he had met J&K but they seemed too paternal and so he left Imoen to recuperate from various injuries in their care. She's just not cut out for adventures...
They went as far as Nashkel before mother's request sent them westwards in search of her lost son. There are a few mods new to me in this installation so I am sometimes not quite sure about how different the gameplay will be .
Tensions exist within this mixed group. Cromarty has so far tolerated Xzar's increasing instability because his inventiveness has kept pace with his insanity. However there is a fair chance that Cromarty will eventually tire of his burblings and lose his teenage fascinatio with Verr'sza's talk of quick sex and violent death. As they do the western areas I expect to cycle in Safana, Dyanheir, and possibly Ajantis as I haven't used those characters much.
Okay, I must be the last person to learn that a PST:EE has apparently been released.
... which begs the question:
What should be policy regarding PST no-reload games? I mean the nameless one cannot die (except few plot specific deaths that you have to deliberately choose -- or near end-game).
Shouldn't PST no-reloads (if you can do such a thing) be their own thread? Or are we saying PST belongs in thread because IWD no-reloads can be here as well?
EDIT: am only pointing this out because you can't make this ONE thread the thread for all no-reloads of all games! You gotta draw a line somewhere...the thread could be massive otherwise and no one could keep up.
Comments
Daorem (dark moon monk, Gate70) and Char (blackguard, Grond0)
Attempt 123 nearly ended due to a save game issue (namely I deleted a lot of files to clear up disk space and forgot I needed my MPSODSAVE ones). I managed to recover a few quicksaves from the disk and only lost about 5 minutes of dialogue time so re-did that to leave us back where we should be.
Siege of Dragonspear, so
With Skie, rescued, it was time to investigate an underground river to the east. Running into and away from Crusaders didn't quite work and Daorem once again found herself dragging Char back to camp.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 14
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867919/#Comment_867919
Before we fight Davaeorn, there's apparently a group of lesser enemies we have to deal with first. One of them is shooting Arrows of Detonation, and deals massive damage before Kagain chops him in two.
We've still got a backstabbing thief and a mage to deal with. Kagain fails a save against SR's nerfed Ray of Enfeeblement. Like a lot of mod-edited spells, it displays the wrong string, though this particular one is kind of funny.
Hypnosis and grenades both fail to disable the mage, but Finch manages to bash in the enemy thief's skull.
Where Frisk and Chara failed, Mur'Neth succeeds, poisoning the mage with Thalantyr's upgraded Dagger of Venom, bringing an end to a very fast and very vicious fight.
The loot is pretty interesting, though not all of it is great. We get a ring that doesn't do anything, a redundant dagger, some acid bombs I'll probably never use, and a wand that only Frisk can use but which would make no sense for a Seducer to rely on...
...but we also get a pair of boots for Yeslick that grant full haste, including a whole extra attack, as well as a cloak that will improve Yeslick's poor THAC0.
I would later learn that the cloak is bugged: instead of giving +1 to all five saving throw types, it just gives +5 to Yeslick's save vs. death.
Yeslick now has 4 APR at 11 THAC0 with the strongest BG1 weapon I've ever seen, Doufas' Saber. It'll be even better when he finally has a pip in katanas.
Kagain remains our primary tank, but unfortunately, his dwarf saving throws aren't so useful with SR installed, as Web now requires a save vs. breath instead of a save vs. spell. He quickly gets webbed when we attack Davaeorn. Thankfully, I anticipated that the Battle Horrors would use fire damage and therefore buffed Kagain with a Potion of Fire Resistance.
Chara uses Poison Weapon and Bottles of Sludge to get past Davaeorn's Stoneskins; Yeslick just has to use Doufas' Saber.
Kagain keeps getting webbed, and though he has high fire resistance, the little hits build up over time.
Davaeorn vanishes for a moment, so we turn our attention to the Battle Horrors. The rest of the party stays out of the web; we're not nearly high enough level to cast Free Action, and Mur'Neth cannot create any Potions of Freedom.
Frisk's Hypnosis helps Kagain stave off their fire attacks long enough for us to break them down.
I understand that many people use a Protection from Magic scroll against Davaeorn, but I decide to save it, even though I have multiple copies.
We find Davaeorn in another room, but he hits us with a Fireball and Dispel Magic before teleporting away. Some guards approach from the northeast, but Chara has managed to hang onto their buffs, against the odds.
We hunt down the mage and keep up the pressure. Davaeorn has lost his MGOI, but although Frisk can easily dispel any of his illusion spells, he still manages to cast Stoneskin before we can take him down.
Mur'Neth is hurt and has to drink a potion and flee, but the rest of the party is in good condition. Davaeorn tries to escape using a Potion of Invisibility, but Frisk reveals him the next round.
We're having trouble boxing him in, so Frisk tries to wound him with the Wand of Fire. Davaeorn keeps running and manages to heal himself, but his attempts to hide are futile; Frisk's skill points are all invested in Detect Illusions and Open Locks due to them not being able to set traps or invest in trap detection. Being able to use Potions of Perception also helps their Detect Illusions skill.
Finally, Davaeorn's Stoneskins run out and we claim a very nice robe, plus a Dexterity tome.
Freeing the slaves bumps out reputation to 20 and gives us an amazing 83 XP apiece.
There's a little boy outside named Perwell that we need to escort home. Naturally, we get attacked moments after he joins us, but we do get a really incredible staff we have absolutely no need for.
Escort missions are no fun. Especially when we get ambushed by wyverns, one of which spawns right next to the little boy we're supposed to be protecting.
There's nothing we can do. Saving him is flat-out impossible.
The only conceivable way we could have prevented this would be to have cast Invisibility on him before we left. But casting Invisibility on a follower isn't normally a good idea, because you won't know if they get stuck and you leave them behind somewhere.
We stop by Kieran at a bridge in the Cloakwood and discover that he sells some really amazing items, including almost all types of wands. Frisk uses Chara's perfume to bump their Charisma up to 20, saving us thousands of gold and allowing us to buy a Wand of Paralyzation, a Wand of Monster Summoning (so we have an alternative to the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning), a Wand of Lightning, and 60 Arrows of Detonation. It costs us 45,000 gold, but it's worth it.
With Item Revisions installed, the Wand of Lightning trick finally works in BG1. Chara and Frisk don't even need it for various reasons, but I think there's something really special about boosting their stats to unnatural levels.
Frisk now has 22 Charisma, obviating the need for perfume, which only cost us 1 gold per use anyway. But Chara's stats are just silly.
That makes a stat total of 116, but it's actually supposed to be 109; I bumped Chara's Charisma from 3 to 10 for cosmetic reasons.
Selling off our excess equipment to Officer Vai gives us over 70,000 gold, bumping us all the way up to 100,000 total. If we make it to Siege of Dragonspear, we will basically never need to collect any gold ever again. But our gold supply has never been our problem in this run. Our problem is XP.
If it weren't for our mods, Chara would be at level 8 by now. But with all sources of XP cut down to 25% of their normal value, we might not reach it even at the end of the game.
We head to Baldur's Gate at level 5. We are filled with determination.
ABT-14,
Wild time in the graveyard,I got a Black Spider Figurine by using the door trick i.e, concentrate fire on one target then leave a summon behind as you retreat so nothing bad follows you out.
·The vampire sub-boss is a powerful mage named Tanova but my pet socked up all the nasty spells then we sent in the fire Elementals to finish it, easy pessy.
·Neera had 3 tries to Summon a Hakeashar on purpose... not a bad trick for a level 12 mage.
·Aerie needs to know what her uncle needs but we put that on hold until we get Imoen back.
Bug; once again the same missing portraid bug... only fix is a reload.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 15
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We get attacked outside Baldur's Gate by elves for some reason. Does it even matter why?
The head guy doesn't last long against a Greater Wyvern. It's much better to use the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning only once or twice a day; it keeps the thing from dominating gameplay while still keeping it really powerful.
The elves here have some really nasty arrows. They can actually paralyze the target on a failed save, but with two clerics, Yeslick can fix Finch when she gets disabled.
The loot is quite respectable, though none of it will change our strategy much.
There's another elf on the other side of the bridge with some wolves, but he's not hostile and offers no quest, so we just walk past him.
On the way to Sorcerous Sundries, we get accosted by a woman with a thing for dwarves. Unfortunately, she's barking up the wrong tree.
I assume this is from Romantic Encounters. Maybe you need to have a dwarven Charname for it to go anywhere.
We head into Sorcerous Sundries and upgrade an egg ioun stone thing of Chara's, but we can't equip it.
Chara's Charisma is 10, but it's supposed to be 3, which means equipping the egg would normally be fatal. But Chara gets other, far more useful items from the shop, including a staff that can petrify targets without offering a saving throw.
We have to fight four mages simultaneously on the second floor. Chara stays out of the way and lets the rest of the party do most of the work. We trade blows with the enemy, but our saving throws ensure that we have enough party members are active that we can break through the enemy's defenses. It's not very interesting, but here are the key points.
This party is actually very effective against mages. Not because of Chara's grenades, which can stun them and inflict spell failure via deafness, but simply because Finch and Yeslick have such high APR that Stoneskins don't last long. Although Spell Revisions' Protection from Missiles can block all projectiles (except for mod-introduced ones like Chara's), we don't need missile weapons to attain high APR.
We get a very special prize from the fight: a set of armor that will ward off critical hits, a very rare and valuable asset in Item Revisions.
Thinking ahead, we climb down into the sewers to slay the Ogre Mage. A couple grenades win us another powerful defensive asset.
We meet Schlumpsa while poking around, but do not fight him. Apparently that's actually an option.
I see an unfamiliar face while walking around Baldur's Gate. Apparently there's a major quest from one of my mods.
I run into Marek, but if my memory is correct, he has something to do with the quest that poisons Charname. I decide not to bother with them; I don't want to deal with any fatal timers.
Ragefast stuns Kagain with a wand, but Remove Paralysis is enough to fix him. Ragefast's defenses don't last long enough for him to do anything else to us.
The loot isn't too important; we already have a Wand of Paralyzation. But the Nymph Cloak in IR gives +2 to saves vs. spell and could help us shrug off a Confusion spell.
Ramazith isn't too hard, either. Not with two thieves in the party who can use Detect Illusions, and two clerics with abnormally high APR.
Our reward is yet another scroll of Protection from Magic and a Ring of Holiness that could be very useful. Especially if our clerics ever get to level 7.
We spot another mod-introduced character that I can only assume is from Romantic Encounters.
I decline. It seems a little too seedy for my tastes. Which is saying something, considering how this run began.
We use a spare Potion of Mirrored Eyes to grab some extra XP...
...before heading off to the temple of Tymora to continue that quest from the Flaming Fist guy. After watching the death of a guy with a most unfortunate name...
...we get attacked by a bunch of Grey Clan Bandits and a Tattooed Man. I have no idea who these people are supposed to be, but the fight doesn't last long. The Tattooed Man escapes with his life.
Apparently these Grey Clan folks are bad guys. I don't know the specifics since I kind of skimmed the relevant dialogue, but there's more of them elsewhere in the city.
Chara gets caught off-guard in the next fight, but it's nothing a Potion of Invisibility can't solve.
The quest giver, whatever his name is, says they've got a problem over at the Friendly Arm Inn. We head on over and slay a minor enemy ambush.
Then I realize something very strange.
We can't leave the area. It's impossible to escape.
I'm trapped in some mod's duplicate version of the Friendly Arm Inn. I don't think we'll be able to leave until this quest is finished.
And it seems that resting is virtually impossible, because we get ambushed every time we try.
They drop a bunch of potions every time...
...but what I really want is the ability to rest, because I really need Chara to have their normal defenses to protect them from whatever lies ahead.
More disturbing still, being trapped here means that we can't go to a temple to resurrect anyone who dies during this quest. If we lose a party member, we'll have to fight on without them. A single mistake could render the party too weak to make it out of this place alive.
A single mistake could end this run.
It fills us with determination.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 16
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I attempt to rest several times even after I realize it's hopeless, because the enemies that spawn on us are easy to kill and give lots of potions. The Potions of Invisibility aren't important because Mur'Neth can create more later, but the Potions of Freedom will fill in a critical weakness of ours: the lack of Free Action.
There's a golem here and apparently the only way to escape is to gather a bunch of keys and then insert them in the golem in a specific order. Makes perfect sense. I start poking around, which typically means killing things.
We stop by the temple and receive confirmation: we can neither rest nor resurrect anyone, because all the normal characters on this map are not here anymore.
Before I enter the inn, I look around the city walls. Apparently the enemies here are the remnants of Tazok's bandits, who have actually grown stronger and spread farther and wider than they were before.
Further poking around bumps Finch to level 7, granting her 2 level 4 spells.
But she doesn't get Free Action. Divine Remix, or whatever cleric and druid mod I've got installed, gives her a different set of spells. So we still need those Potions of Freedom.
I find a bunch of keys and try to insert them into the golem in the right order. But there are six different keys, and there are a lot of different combinations. I decide not to attempt trial and error.
I decide to finally enter the Friendly Arm Inn. There are a lot of enemies waiting for me now. I have most of the party drink Musk Wine to boost their STR and movement rate, while Chara sticks to a Potion of Invisibility to make their escape.
We have a single spellcaster in the form of Grachus and a bunch of fighters to deal with. Kagain goes to tackle Grachus while the rest of the party hangs back to cut down the fighters.
But things go to hell very fast. Yeslick gets hurt and charmed, while Finch gets held.
Frisk (not to be confused with the paralyzed Finch) can dispel charm on Yeslick and allow him to free Finch, but it requires a successful save vs. spell.
More importantly, Yeslick is already very injured and cannot heal himself. Yeslick dies in seconds.
Without Yeslick and Finch, there's very little we can do against the enemies, and the Greater Wyverns aren't strong enough, either. They need help, but we can't provide it. Kagain is getting weak.
Look at those attack rolls. Our AC is meaningless. Chara summons some more wyverns and we manage to kill a single enemy...
...but the wyverns can't get the enemy to leave Finch alone. That was our only hope of keeping her alive long enough to recover from paralysis.
A third of our party is already dead.
This isn't working.
I make a decision.
Before I installed all these mods, my last run of BG1 was incredibly easy once I got a few levels. But this run has been a constant trial at virtually every step, throwing horrible things at the party and giving us almost nothing in return.
These mods took away our best party member when we were at our most vulnerable. The mods crippled our party by taking away 75% of our XP and forced us to scour the entire Sword Coast just to arrive at the endgame at level 5. And now they killed our two most important party members.
But the mods also gave me the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning. And for once, I'm going to use it to its full potential.
There are other items, especially our wands, that could help us win this fight, given enough time. But if Grachus is going to throw all these powerful enemies at us at once, I'm not going to hold back.
Chara keeps summoning wyverns, hauling out a new one every single round. The horde builds up over time and tramples the enemy fighters.
I send the horde over to Grachus. He can deal tremendous damage to them...
...and he summons even more enemies I cannot yet see...
...but I am not going to let up. I send more and more wyverns after him. He will have to suffer the same nonsense I've been putting up with for this entire run.
The map gets crowded, and I move the screen to another part of the map to minimize lag.
Unbelievably enough, Grachus seems to have an infinite supply of Mirror Image contingencies and instant-casting healing spells.
Frisk goes over to inspect the situation and gets paralyzed.
Grachus just keeps on healing himself and casting Mirror Image. He seems immune to poison, as well; he hasn't gotten poisoned once.
Chara fails to free Frisk using a Dispel Magic scroll, so they just cast Invisibility instead to make sure Grachus doesn't kill them while they're paralyzed.
Grachus' infinite Mirror Images and infinite healing spells are baffling. But the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning is even stronger. The wyverns beat him to death.
We get a red crystal from his body that will let us access the first floor of the inn. We still can't rest, but we have potions to help buff the party instead.
We end up right in front of a well-buffed mage who nails Kagain with Flesh to Stone.
But Grachus' infinite spells banished my sense of restraint. I start conjuring more wyverns. This new mage will suffer the same fate.
The mage casts Flesh to Stone again and paralyzes Kagain. He begins to drain the dwarf's HP pool.
This mage has to be at least twice our level to do that. But every round, our horde grows stronger.
Kagain is suffering from SR-style petrification, which is a permanent hold effect that only Stone to Flesh spells and scrolls can reverse. The mage dropped two scrolls, bringing out total to five. We use one to free Kagain.
We ascend the stairs and treat the next group of enemies just the same--even the ones we can handle without using the amulet.
At the top level we meet Linda, an epic-level sorceress in BG1.
Who has Throne of Bhaal HLAs like Improved Alacrity.
Chara is level 5.
I don't know what this mod is, but it's throwing (1) a level 18+ mage at a BG1 party (2) right after it forced us to fight hordes of BG2-grade enemies (3) while prevent us from resting or (4) raising any fallen party members the whole time. How are we supposed to respond to this?
Simple. We respond in kind.
Along with a stupid amount of loot, she drops a scroll that explains what order we're supposed to use on the Mold Golem at the entrance to the inn.
Guess what? That's not the right order!
So now I have to figure something else out.
We meet Jeremias, a demon or a wizard or something who identifies some items that we cannot, including a halberd that instantly dispels all magic on every hit with no save. Like some cut-rate Carsomyr.
This, of course, is yet another weapon that no one in the party can really use.
We keep searching and talk to a guy named Tergius. Eventually, a few dialogue triggers allow us to finally leave the map. But we're still not done, because there are even more Grey Clan leaders in Beregost.
I am tired of this stupid quest and its wildly overpowered enemies. But I head to Beregost regardless. It's time to end this. Whatever they're going to throw at us, we can handle it.
I don't want to win the fight against Sarevok, or any other normal BG1 fight for that matter, by abusing the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning. But enemies like the Grey Clan deserve no such mercy.
We head to Beregost in search of execution points. We are filled with determination.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 17
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On the way to Beregost, we get ambushed by Grey Clan mod-related bounty hunters. Unfortunately for them, I have already decided to suspend all sense of restraint until this questline is over. We obliterate them.
We finally get a chance to rest and resurrect our fallen party members. We will arrive at the final battle at full strength. Not that we'll even need it.
We head to Beregost, earn another 75,000 gold by selling random crap to Officer Vai, and enter the lair of the last Grey Clan leaders.
I don't even know who these people are supposed to be, but I don't care anymore.
The enemy knocks us into the far corner via some wing buffet spell. The damage is nothing special; we can heal it with some basic potions.
Chara runs away, still invisible, leaving their friends to do the heavy lifting. One of the mages teleports in to confront us, but we can summon wyverns to defend us faster than normal by switching the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning from party member to party member.
Notice Chara drinking a Brine Solution to improve their save vs. spell and resist a Symbol, Stun spell. They only last 4 rounds and Remove Paralysis should be able to fix it, but Brine Solutions are cheap, and with all of Chara's save-boosting equipment, a Potion of Magic Shielding is not necessary to guarantee a successful saving throw.
Once we've built up the wyvern horde, there's no way the enemy can stop them.
The Grey Clan is broken, and Chara hits level 6.
All we have to do to reach the critical level 7 is to earn another 20,000 XP per party member.
That's half the XP we've earned in the entire game so far. If we're ever going to reach it in time for the final battle, we need to beat Durlag's Tower.
Before we go, Frisk uses the WoL trick on an Intelligence tome.
This is just in case I decide to have Frisk dual-class to mage, but considering how well a Seducer's abilities scale with levels, I probably will keep Frisk as a single-classed Seducer.
With this insane quest finally complete, I can lay off on the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning. I never wanted to rely on the amulet to beat the game, and with the Grey Clan gone, I can go back to my normal strategy.
Durlag's Tower looms before us. We are filled with determination.
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In Baldur's Gate Biff started off by getting the tomes. While doing the poison quest he again relieved Lothander of his equipment, but this time made sure he was the only one attacking!
The Cloak of Balduran was picked up without any fighting, as was one necklace of missiles. A second copy of the latter though required some stern words for the mages guarding it,
At the Iron Throne Biff separated the enemies using the stairs. He didn't have enough webs to deal with many of them though so resorted to a first use in the run of darts of stunning.
After reporting to Duke Eltan, Biff was sent to Candlekeep where an ogre mage ambush was waiting. As there is very little time available to respond to that Biff used a potion of magic blocking before just running away.
Returning to Athkatla Biff buffed a bit for Slythe before changing his mind and sticking him in a web. That could have ended very badly as I forgot to equip the ring of free action. Fortunately though, Biff saved against the web, while Slythe got into an even more sticky situation against a dart of stunning.
At the palace Biff didn't use summons due to the potential for them to kill something in a chaotic battle. Instead he made use of a teleport field scroll before showing himself and turning Liia invisible. A malison followed by chaos disabled four of the dopplegangers
Biff beat up some occupants of the maze, but decided to bypass the Undercity party. At the temple he stuck Sarevok in a corner as usual with everyone but Angelo. Malison + wand of paralysation then froze Angelo
With death only allowed by melee Biff didn't fireball Sarevok's position at all as he needed to be able to see what the HPs of the other invisible acolytes were. More summons achieved that. I was also hoping that summons would tempt Semaj into using area damage - causing the others to turn on him. The area damage did eventually happen, but there was no sign of Tazok trying to take revenge. Deciding it was time to see what was happening, Biff went invisible to have a look at the action - only to find himself betrayed by a bat that I must have clicked on when moving (I should really get back into the habit of killing all of those before the battle starts).
More groups of summons were sent in and those finally wore through Diarmid's stocks of arrows. With that danger out of the way Biff used a scroll of PfM and some potions before showing himself. Throwing darts of stunning he was eventually able to halt Diarmid in his tracks and quickly led the others away and went invisible before coming back to finish him off. Semaj was next to be stunned and a couple of hits while kiting the others polished him off.
He still put a hard struggle though - over 40 charges of monster summoning were used in the temple
Although the extensive use of webs in this run has made it easier than in past attempts, I still think this challenge is tough enough without inflicting certain death in SoD on Biff - so he will be reappearing in Jon's dungeon shortly.
Sorcerer L9, 54 HPs, 227 kills
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At the start of Jon's dungeon I noted that Biff had apparently forgotten to pick up the pantaloons. That wouldn't have been an issue until reaching Mel anyway and it was always vanishingly unlikely Biff would get that far. However, thinking about it possibly provided a distraction and on sighting the first enemy in the dungeon my immediate thought was to wear it down with magic missiles (I've been playing too much LoB with a sorcerer recently!). That didn't work too well (or did work too well depending on how you look at it)
Despite that tame finish, completing SCS BG1 with Biff feels like a decent accomplishment, so I'm happy to leave the melee sorcerer at that for the time being.
Daorem (dark moon monk, Gate70) and Char (blackguard, Grond0)
Siege of Dragonspear
After a few minutes at camp raising, healing, selling and resting the duo set off again for the Underground River entrance. Daorem scouted out the earlier attackers and shoved a frozen fist at the nearest mage while Char attacked. The mage survived long enough for Daorem to have to run, and cast a Teleport Field as Char followed. Char laughed, rushing through the field with ease but Daorem took four or five attempts. By this time the mage had cast Horror and Daorem was in range.
Panic.
Char made sure the mage was dead, then tried to scoop up the remaining attackers but Daorem was not moving far enough away for them to switch their attention. Char tried a couple of dispelling arrows but his THAC0 (3) against Daorem's AC (-2) plus missile adjustment (3) prevented a hit until Daorem was in danger of being killed if he hit her.
By this time Daorem had already stumbled into the path of a dying myconid and confused herself for good measure.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 18
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868303/#Comment_868303
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868329/#Comment_868329
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868336/#Comment_868336
We desperately need Vials of Scales and Elf Tendon Wands if we want to beat Sarevok, but Chara, our Alchemist, cannot create any until level 7. And the only way we can hope to reach level 7 with our 75% XP tax is to complete Durlag's Tower.
Earlier on, we fled the tower when a Ghost with Protection from Magical Weapons scared us away. Despite being a very high-level mage with PFMW to block all of our attacks, the Ghost never seemed to use any offensive spells, ever.
It was actually a really long fight, but what's the point of posting all 11 screenshots when none of them showed the Ghost fighting back?
Kagain somehow avoids Kirinhale's charm spell despite not wearing the Greenstone Amulet. Turns out he was better equipped than I thought.
Yeslick paralyzes Kirinhale with Doufas' Saber just as she teleports away. The paralysis lasts long enough for us to chase her down.
We nab a lock of her hair, but I don't know what it's for.
Mur'Neth is still low-level, but his Alchemist thief kit (not to be confused with Chara's Alchemist mage kit) lets him create his own Potions of Perception, compensating for his low skills.
The basilisks are no trouble. Mur'Neth already created plenty of Potions of Invisibility for us, allowing the rest of the party to hide while Kagain uses a Potion of Mirrored Eyes to take down the basilisks.
I don't know why I took this screenshot of Finch, but check out her APR with that morningstar!
That small shield is actually +5, not +1. The gauntlets also come from a mod; they improve her THAC0 and damage or AC or something.
Frisk gets another level up when we kill a Wraith Spider downstairs, and boosts their STR by 3 when we find another Strength tome. It only gives them 11 STR, but at least it means they can carry more equipment, and survive another Spirit Troll strike in BG2. And after Frisk's Detect Illusion spell helps us deal with a Greater Doppelganger and its Mirror Images...
...we find a Tome of Wisdom that boosts Chara's WIS to 21, just in case I ever dual-class them to cleric. Which I won't.
That blue part on the map is just CTRL-4 highlighting a trigger. Finch can cast Find Traps, but CTRL-4 is faster.
Speaking of traps, I forget to have Mur'Neth drink a Potion of Perception before he handles a few traps that are beyond his expertise.
Another six or seven hundred gold to add to the CTRL-4 resurrection tally. But with well over 100,000 gold total, reducing my gold supply to account for the tally is kind of pointless.
Before we face off with Pride and the like, Yeslick provides some coaching to Finch on how to find the motivation to fight.
Finch, of course, is still a bit timid when the fight begins.
The fight is off to a rocky start. The enemy paralyzes Kagain early on.
Yeslick engages Pride while Finch rescues Kagain. Meanwhile, Frisk tries to reveal Avarice with Detect Illusions, but they're not fast enough to prevent Avarice's backstab.
Newly free thanks to Finch, Kagain activates Defensive Stance. But this was a poor use of his round--we should have given him a Potion of Freedom. And when Yeslick gets charmed, both of our dwarves are disabled.
Frisk is injured and needs to drink a potion, but Chara helps them out with Healing Touch, giving Frisk enough space to attempt a Dispel Charm on Yeslick. It works!
Kagain's Defensive Stance is keeping him pretty safe for now, so I have Yeslick focus on Pride rather than using his Remove Paralysis spell on Kagain. Chara's Slow spell does nothing for us, but Finch's Wand of the Heavens speeds up the fight.
Taking a leaf out of Finch's book, Chara tries out a wand instead and stuns Love.
The Wand of Paralyzation doesn't paralyze people; it stuns them. That's the opcode it uses.
Finch slays Avarice and Kagain recovers from his paralysis. I'm a little nervous about Chara's safety, so I have Finch hide them away while Chara's aura is clouded.
Pride does awful things to Yeslick, and Kagain gets paralyzed a third time. When Yeslick retreats to attack with a sling, Pride turns its attention to Frisk instead.
Finch tries to help out the group with Prayer, but the spell is bugged. It does nothing but spam the dialogue box with meaningless messages and stack visual effects on our characters.
Frisk isn't fast enough to save themself with a potion, but Yeslick did enough damage to Pride for our wyvern to finish it off before it kills anyone else.
Kagain is getting weak. We run over to bail him out, but Finch's Break Enchantment doesn't free him.
Break Enchantment is great, but it often doesn't work when the disabler comes from a weapon or a nonmagical ability.
Love is still stunned from the Wand of Paralyzation, but its defenses keep it alive for a rather long time. It doesn't go down until Kagain has recovered from paralysis.
Fear has lots of damage immunities, but thankfully fire is not one of them. Finch ends the fight with the Wand of the Heavens.
We head downstairs and kill some doppelgangers, who aren't much of a threat thanks to Yeslick's 4 APR with Doufas' Saber. Unfortunately, I overestimate Kagain's survivability and have him tank some traps that Mur'Neth could have tried to disarm. Yeslick doesn't mind too much.
See, I used a War Hulk to handle these traps in my last playthrough, and my War Hulk had over 150 HP at this point--almost twice as much as Kagain.
Yeslick is next. He triggers a Cloudkill trap I forgot about and fails his save vs. death.
If we were higher-level, the trap would just do poison damage.
Next up, more doppelgangers! Islanne somehow escapes the paralysis from Doufas' Saber (maybe another doppelganger cast Remove Paralysis) but Islanne's Dispel Magic isn't much threat to us.
The problem for Islanne is that we don't need our buffs to maintain high damage output. Finch's morningstar and Yeslick's katana, Doufas' Saber, both give the wielder 3 APR. The doppelgangers, however, have a weird habit of healing themselves instantly, which drags out the fight.
Soon after, we run into an outrageously overpowered helmet.
This would be great for somebody on our front line, but I hand it to Frisk instead, as Frisk cannot normally wear helmets.
Plus, I've been very anxious to make sure Frisk doesn't get petrified, so I've reorganized our equipment to boost Frisk's defenses. Even if I only use the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning twice a day, it's still really important not to lose it to petrification. I could put the amulet on Chara instead, but then Chara wouldn't be able to wear the Greenstone Amulet.
There's one trap that I don't think Mur'Neth can handle. I send in Kagain to see how bad it is.
It might just be able to kill Chara on an unlucky damage roll. But thanks to Spell Revisions, Chara can just hop over it.
Notice the nervous quick save. I was right to worry; Finch takes almost enough damage to have killed Chara.
We stop by the skeleton of the dragon Durlag killed back in the day. Finch's reaction is appropriate.
The party stomps some Greater Wyverns and earns Yeslick another level up.
There should be a line in soundsets for leveling up. Having somebody shout "Woohoo!" every time they gain a level would be awesome.
I don't know what an Ashirukuru is, but Frisk can largely negate the threat using Detect Illusions.
The elemental rooms to the southwest once again fail to teleport us to the chess room, so I use the console to move us to the right area and then use CTRL-J to put us in the right spot.
The last time I did this fight, my Alchemist was level 7 and we were able to nuke the enemy using Burning Oils. But we're not strong enough to do that yet. Chara turns invisible on the first round, because this could get ugly.
I don't remember the rules for the chess game. The puzzles in Undertale were so much easier.
We pretend Toriel is holding our hand and walking us through the hard parts. It fills us with determination.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 19
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867919/#Comment_867919
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868200/#Comment_868200
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868303/#Comment_868303
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868329/#Comment_868329
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868336/#Comment_868336
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868538/#Comment_868538
The king and queen target Kagain with two Remove Magic spells at once. He runs off to the northwest to make sure it doesn't reach the rest of the party...
...but only Frisk and Chara hold onto their buffs.
Finch and Yeslick cast Unholy Blight (which only affects enemies in SR, regardless of alignment) while Mur'Neth summons a pair of wyverns to absorb the incoming foes.
Mur'Neth summons another wyvern while Frisk goes invisible and heads north to use Detect Illusions. All the while, Chara drinks potions to boost their defenses in case the enemy notices them.
Rather than casting her spells from afar, the Queen advances on the party, exposing herself to the wyverns.
Still afraid that we're all going to get zapped from some unknown source, Mur'Neth summons another wyvern just in case we need the extra help. But it's really not necessary; the enemy isn't strong enough to stand up to even one or two of them, at least not with Yeslick and Finch helping out.
We arrive in the final area before the boss. The Crypt Crawlers and Greater Ghouls aren't too dangerous; we now have area-effects spells to deal with threats like this.
The loot is spectacular, including 14,000 gold in pure cash, but we don't have uses for any of the items. Though there's a suit of plate mail that would have been spectacular in the early game.
The last time I fought the Demon Knight, all I had to do was paralyze him with some Elf Tendon Wands. But I was lucky to get a failed save, and I don't even have Elf Tendon Wands now because Chara still hasn't hit level 7. Not knowing what the Demon Knight can really do to us, I buff the entire party with all of the potions we could possibly need.
Those Storm Shield-like visual effects are from Chara's Radiant Philters. They give +25% resistance to energy damage for non-Alchemists, and +50% resistance to Chara.
I'd love to buff Chara with a Death Ward, because I've seen this Demon Knight use a Power Word: Kill spell way back in BGTutu. But Finch doesn't get the level 4 version; she only gets a level 3 Death Ward that's bugged to only affect her. And with Item Revisions' changes to vanilla potions, Chara cannot reach 100 MR, or get anywhere close to it.
We head in and confront the Demon Knight. Against the odds, he fails a save against a Bottle of Sludge. It just so happens to the spell failure effect, which only has a 25% chance of showing up and only inflict 15% spell failure. By pure chance, he loses his first spell.
I can't stress how rare this is. This requires good luck 4 times in a row: first, with the attack roll; second, with the spell failure effect; third, with the failed save; and fourth, the spell failure isn't even guaranteed.
Chara uses the Wand of Paralyzation while the Demon Knight is distracted. Miraculously, he fails his save on the first try.
And that's it. We spent so many rounds buffing the party for this fight, but five strokes of luck in a row end the fight as soon as it began.
Then we get ambushed on the way out. I don't remember this happening last time; maybe it came from a mod. Yeslick takes heavy damage fast.
But the enemy's defenses are weak. We overpower them.
We get many more amazing items, not a single one of which is actually useful to us due to our party makeup.
That ring is just like the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning: it never runs out of charges. But the best option is Flame Strike, and we already have enough money to buy plenty of Wands of the Heavens. Even the ring is no use to us.
Durlag's Tower is complete. Chara still hasn't reached level 7, but we've at least inched a little bit closer.
Durlag's legend fills us with determination.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 20
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/867919/#Comment_867919
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868200/#Comment_868200
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868303/#Comment_868303
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868329/#Comment_868329
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868336/#Comment_868336
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868538/#Comment_868538
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868565/#Comment_868565
I can't reach Ulgoth's Beard for some reason. The only source of XP left lies in Baldur's Gate. We have to proceed with the main quest at level 6.
We've got a tough fight ahead of us at the top of the Iron Throne headquarters. We use all the potions Chara can brew.
Our front line, two dwarfs and a gnome, engage the enemy, only to lose their primary buffs to an enemy Remove Magic spell.
I'm used to it. It wasn't that long ago that we were fighting a level 18 mage when we were only level 5 and 6. But Chara's potion buffs are undispellable, so some of our defenses remain.
Yeslick uses his cleric kit to boost his resistances. They won't last long, but for a moment, he'll be almost as sturdy as Kagain.
Frisk gets backstabbed. I'm going to have to pay close attention to the situation around the stairs, where Chara and my two thieves are trying to stay out of trouble. Chara responds with a Flame Arrow, as it can hit multiple enemies in SR.
Diyab throws an Unholy Blight at us, but Radiant Philters block some of the damage.
To the west, my front line is making much better progress.
Chara switches to melee combat to deal with the backstabbers. Now that Chara has hit level 6, they have a proficiency point in daggers, which means they can use the 5 APR throwing dagger we got from Tristan or Isolde north of Beregost and use it as a melee weapon to apply their massive STR bonuses.
Their THAC0 isn't as strong as that of our frontliners, but their damage output is pretty scary.
Frisk tries to use their psionics to deal with the backstabbers, but at such low levels, Charm isn't very reliable.
Kagain, Yeslick, Finch, and the Greater Wyvern keep cutting down the enemy despite an Obscuring Mist spell hampering their THAC0, and their strong saving throws let most of them shrug off the enemy mage's disablers.
Frisk manages to charm one of the backstabbers and Finch cures Yeslick's confusion.
Notice the Ring of Free Action on one of the fallen enemies. It's a very special prize that will further solidify Chara's defenses.
Our clerics chase down the mage when he runs away, cornering him in a nearby room.
Back up north, Shennara breaks free of Frisk's charms and hacks away at Mur'Neth.
The mage escapes from our clerics using Invisibility while Frisk is not there to dispel it. Chara slays Shennara with a Flame Arrow, but there are actually two Shennaras for some reason.
Yeslick hurries over to kill the second Shennara. When she goes down, there's no one left to distract us from the mage.
It's time to return to Candlekeep.
We get ambushed by Ogre Mages, but their defenses are nothing special, so they go down with little incident. We stop by the temple of Oghma and convince a local bookworm to visit her sweetheart at the temple east of Beregost.
We find Linda at the Candlekeep Inn. Not the level 18 mage we killed at Beregost, but another Linda, who apparently... well...
But don't worry. When we visit her friend at the clinic, it's quite clear that he harbors no hard feelings.
Plus, as you can see from the screenshot, his arm grew back. We convince him to teach her how to fight properly, so she won't cut off his arm next time. We get an amazing 6 XP for our trouble.
We pay a visit to Alec, the sweet young elf I mistakenly called Alex in a previous post. Unfortunately, Frisk can't get further than first base with him.
It's a shame, because he certainly deserved a lot more than that sleazy guard in the first post of this run.
With nothing else left to do here, we head into the library, grab some largely useless scrolls, and attack Rieltar, who turns out to be embarrassingly unprepared for the fight. We get some pretty nice items out of the deal.
I don't seem to have any screenshots of the Candlekeep catacombs, so apparently nothing very interesting happened and we didn't get any interesting loot due to Item Randomizer stuff.
I hate fighting Prat--his invisibility spells are really annoying--so I try to overwhelm him with wyverns. He escapes nonetheless, though his companions do go down in record time.
I check in on the basilisks to the south. Unfortunately, they're not alone.
I'm not interested in a fair fight with these guys. I have Frisk linger nearby and throw wyverns at them.
While I'm distracted, Prat takes the opportunity to break invisibility. If he had backup, he'd be a true threat, but he's actually just an annoyance, as he can't finish off any party members without help.
Chara cuts through his Stoneskins with a Flame Arrow, allowing Kagain to finish him off.
Back at Baldur's Gate, we tackle Cythandria. Our dwarves smash her golems and absorb her spells.
They're having trouble with Cythandria's Mirror Images, so I send in Mur'Neth to use Detect Illusions. All of them get bombed.
Cythandria launches another Fireball and a Flame Arrow, but with no disablers to worry about, all we have to do is drink Sour Draughts and keep whomping her.
Cythandria wanders up north, but not so close that Chara is in danger. She Breaches Finch and tries to slow the party, but she can't quite pull any of us down.
If she had cast Slow earlier on, she might have been able to overwhelm us with spell damage, because it would have slowed down our potion drinking.
Slythe and Kristan are next. Last time we fought them, our Elf Tendon Wands did a lot to hurt them. But Chara still hasn't hit level 7--we don't have those wands yet.
We make our way into the Undercellars. Chara tells Frisk to keep their hands to themself. We are filled with determination.
Stern, elf mage (Grond0) & Noy, human jester (Gate70)
After the previous pairing took an early bath in the session there was time to roll up a new duo and make some progress today.
Heading for the coast provided the usual instant level boost from Shoal.
Moving down to Nashkel Stern picked up CLW as a Bhaal power before going in search of a better sword for Noy. Greywolf was kind enough to give Noy a close-up sight of the power of the sword, but was then in no position to see much of anything himself.
To avoid potential errors with casting their own spells the duo bought a green scroll on their way to the basilisk area. After dealing with the monsters (gaining invisibility and blur from a couple of nice random drops in the process) a brief discussion decided that Korax should be recruited to help with Mutamin. He had no trouble with that, but didn't last long against Kirian & co. However, he had helped split that lot into two groups before dying and, after a rest, Peter & Baerin were stuck inside a stinking cloud and neither emerged. Lindin heard the commotion though and came to investigate and managed to save against a couple of blind attempts. Noy tried to run him round and confuse him, but the long arm of the law reached out in punishment.
A couple of reputation quests were squeezed in at the end and that attribute should be maximised early in the next session.
Stern, mage 5, 27 HPs, 48 kills
Noy, jester 6, 43 HPs, 26 kills, 1 death
It has to do with mummy rot, a special kind of disease that kills the victim without a saving throw after 6 days pass. It bypasses immunity to disease, but Cure Disease can fix it, as can Greater Restoration and Cure Affliction (my install's version of the Bhaalspawn Cure Light Wounds). This is because the mummy rot spell's secondary type is FL#DISEASE, and spells that cure disease have an extra opcode that lets them remove that secondary type.
So, ostensibly, all forms of Cure Disease are supposed to be able to cure the condition. But my Alchemist kit's Sweet Elixir, which also cures disease, cannot. This is because it was installed after the mummy rot component was installed. When I noticed I had a disease icon on my Charname, I had them drink a Sweet Elixir (a lot of my runs lately have Alchemists in them), which removed some ability score penalties but failed to remove the icon. I assumed at the time that the persistent icon was a harmless bug--the disease was cured, but for some reason the icon remained.
Mummy rot is supposed to give you a warning message 24 hours in advance of death, but I never noticed it. It's only a single line, after all, and can easily get lost during a lengthy battle. It also gives you a warning when you attempt to heal the character, but every time I rested after fighting those Greater Mummies, Charname was at full health.
It boils down to this: If Sweet Elixir is supposed to cure mummy rot, then this death was the result of an oversight--I was supposed to have survived (however accidentally) when I drank a Sweet Elixir shortly afterwards. If Sweet Elixir is not supposed to cure it, and only Cure Disease and similar spells can fix it, however, then I just died due to ignorance.
As the mod creator, I would ostensibly be the one to determine if Sweet Elixir should cure mummy rot. But I can't say so because I have a conflict of interest here.
Sweet Elixirs are available at level 1, cost 15 gold, and were designed to cure disease and poison. Should they be able to cure mummy rot, just like Cure Disease or Cure Affliction can? Would a reload be justified on the grounds of an oversight?
Apparently everything that cures disease can also cure mummy rot, from cheap items and spells like Elixirs of Health and the Moon Dog's Healing Lick to endgame ToB stuff like Malla's Soul Stone and Wish. Even the Bhaalspawn Cure Affliction spell you get in BG1 can cure mummy rot. The patch in question doesn't discriminate.
So mummy rot is supposed to be curable by anything that cures disease. There's no such thing as a potion or spell that can cure normal disease, but which cannot cure mummy rot. The only difference between mummy rot and normal disease is that disease immunity cannot block mummy rot. But the cure is always the same. I will fix the oversight and continue.
But for the love of God, if any of you have this mod in your install, always check your characters after fighting mummies to make sure no one got infected, because mummy rot doesn't offer a saving throw and will invariably prove fatal in a matter of days.
Stern, elf mage (Grond0) & Noy, human jester (Gate70)
Previous update
Today's session started with a few reputation quests to push that up to 20. After helping Charleston Nib we decided to kill the Doomsayer despite neither of us having any magical damage spells - a Wand of Frost providing a substitute.
Jumping south to the Nashkel Mine we quickly worked through there, before watching Mulahey cough his guts out in a stinking cloud.
At the Bandit Camp most of the bandits fell asleep, though Taurgosz was blinded and then webbed for good measure. With our poor AC though the odd arrow that got released tended to hit and Stern and Noy were both badly damaged by the time the bandits were all dead.
The session ended with a trip to Durlag's to pick up a tome and some easy XP from battle horrors and basilisks.
Stern, mage 6, 32 HPs, 107 kills
Noy, jester 7, 48 HPs, 81 kills, 2 deaths
The rest of the dungeon was pretty straightforward. Jaheira's a Shapeshifter, so she dual-weld a Club+3 one of the Dwarves dropped and the Greater Werewolf Token from SCS for an awesome 6 APR at around 6/11 THAC0. Imoen's a pure Thief so she just disarmed traps and stuff, Minsc didn't do much since he got chunked by that Flame Strike, and Shyffunee got pretty injured at least twice, but it was nothing.
After carrying all of our loot to Ribald's, which included the Cloak of Balduran (!), we dropped Jaheira and cleared the Circus. Just answering the riddle correctly gave us enough XP to attain level 10 as a Mage. The Circus didn't pose any difficulties, nor the Copper Coronet did, although Hendak died to Lethinian, whom we killed later, and apparently the other Bartender thinks Hendak won, so we have access to his special wares. We sold all the wands and bought back the Wand of Cold, Lethinian dropped a scroll of Death Spell, which means we could go to clean the d'Arnise Keep, but not until we can cast level 6 spells (we just need a bit more than 500k XP for that).
Shyffunee continued to steal off from everyone, starting by the Amnish Soldiers and Tolgerias' ring, this way we got Control Undead and some gold. I also solved the Tanner murderer questline, but didn't do fight yet since I am not strong enough yet (although I gave the Sgt.'s body to Brega). I think I'm going to solve the Imnsvale quests and get more easy XP around there so that I can get level 6 spells, do the d'Arnise Keep and move onto bigger objectives (Athkatla sewers, Firkraag's Dungeon).
He set out from Candlekeep, picking up Xzar (trying out the Alchemist class) but dropping Monty & Imoen after they died a time too many to the assassins in pursuit of our hero. From Beregost he picked up Sirine, Garrick (Loremaster), & Gavin, and he also freed the Rakshasha Verr'sza from his predicament at the Friendly Arm. Initially he had met J&K but they seemed too paternal and so he left Imoen to recuperate from various injuries in their care. She's just not cut out for adventures...
They went as far as Nashkel before mother's request sent them westwards in search of her lost son. There are a few mods new to me in this installation so I am sometimes not quite sure about how different the gameplay will be
Tensions exist within this mixed group. Cromarty has so far tolerated Xzar's increasing instability because his inventiveness has kept pace with his insanity. However there is a fair chance that Cromarty will eventually tire of his burblings and lose his teenage fascinatio with Verr'sza's talk of quick sex and violent death. As they do the western areas I expect to cycle in Safana, Dyanheir, and possibly Ajantis as I haven't used those characters much.
... which begs the question:
What should be policy regarding PST no-reload games?
I mean the nameless one cannot die (except few plot specific deaths that you have to deliberately choose -- or near end-game).
Are there any no-reloaders out there doing PST?
EDIT: am only pointing this out because you can't make this ONE thread the thread for all no-reloads of all games! You gotta draw a line somewhere...the thread could be massive otherwise and no one could keep up.