· Imoen is just Imoen, a human thief included for plot reasons
The sad fact of the matter is that Tiguan isn't much of a fighter or a spell caster... she can make herself pretty to look at if it gets her a better sale price for the nick-knacks Imoen brings her.
Mods: this run has no mods (of any kind!) and is the basic Beamdog version install ... I’m playing on LoB level with extra damage turned off.
Corewild the gnomish fighter/thief Update: Traveling with: Joshua the gnomish berserker Forrest, Misty, Hanna, Paja the human wild mages
SETUP: Vanilla BG 2 Throne of Bhaal Expansion Offical ToB patch Core rules at all times, including level ups and spell scribing "gore" on (characters can be chunked)
Been a while, but Corewild saw some action today. We were working on the Unseeing Eye quest. Joshua used Arbane to be immune to undead hold and Corewild used the shield of harmony, and of course the mages staying in the back. Generally this worked really well. Battles/incidents of note:
1) Needed to rest before seeing Amaunator apparition for the 1st time - otherwise no way to deal with the demon, seeing I need a heal spell (Bhaal power).
2) Corewild did a good job with the traps.
3) For the large number of undead guarding the gauntlets of dexterity, we had Joshua solo that portion with a protection from undead scroll, while the party stayed well away. He had a large number of undead to churn through, but dual wielding the Stonefire and Frostweaver was effective enough in getting through them all.
4) One of the hardest sections is the undead/beholders in the way just before the petrification trap on the way to the old Amaunator's temple doing the Unseeing Eye quest. The reason is you can't use pro undead scroll if you get a beholder, as they will use anti-magic rays - but you also can't use the SoH since the fighter is usually using the SoB for the beholders - and if not low enough save vs death, can be held by the shadow fiends. At first Joshua's save vs. death was 5, but we did some equipment swapping and got his save vs. death to 1 - Joshua then equipped the Shield of Balduran and tried to solo these enemies - as it turns out, guess we are low level as no Beholders were in the group (just 3 gauths). Which meant pretty simple victory...
5) For the blind priests I had the melee guys (Joshua and Corewild) use their ranged weapons, while the mages threw a whole bunch of mojo on the enemies. We just used two rounds of skull traps and fireballs and then there were no enemies left. Using the SoB, Joshua then soloed the rest of the lair, sans the Unseeing Eye itself.
6) Was a little worried for battling the Unseeing Eye itself, as Corewild's save vs. spells, even with improved invisibility was only 3, so he could have died theoretically. However, Misty was kind enough to summon her golem via the WK golem book and put it where the Unseeing Eye spawns - which meant when the party came to engage the Eye, it was busy trying to hurt the golem. Corewild used the Rod and then the Eye fell almost instantly.
We immediately returned the rod to the Amaunator apparitition, and made it back to Gaal's level. We didn't have time to engage Gaal though, so saved our session here.
I stopped by the Cloakwood, though I wasn't able to get to the more distant areas, and found the Gauntlets of Ogre Power when defending some druids.
In Item Revisions, it only grants +2 STR (and +100% if it brings you to 18 STR), so it won't be enough to boost Alora's STR to any meaningful value.
But I was wrong about the Doofus Saber, and give the 5 APR dagger to Chara instead. Alora can use the Doofus Saber very effectively; the 3 APR compensates for her poor THAC0. Though she needs a helping hand on occasion...
...the Doofus Saber can paralyze enemies indefinitely if they fail a save.
I head to the Gnoll Fortress, confident we can take down those bounty hunters, and Alora immediately gets blasted by Magic Missiles.
Notice that all of them dealt 2 damage, the minimum value. That's because Alora's rabbit's foot grants +2 to luck, and the way luck works, that subtracts 2 from every damage roll from every Magic Missile.
Luck also affects healing rolls, like those of Chara's potions. For most characters, the 4d8 HP from a Sour Draught heals 19 HP and isn't completely reliable. But for Alora, that +2 bonus makes the chance of a good roll much stronger--on average, she heals 24.5 HP per potion. A single Sour Draught brings her back to speed.
That luck bonus also applies to Fireburst, so Alora survives the next spell even as the mage's allies fall. And without MGOI to protect him, a single failed save against the Doofus Saber spells the mage's doom.
Alora still nearly dies when the dwarven bounty hunter chops her with his axe; luck does not affect incoming weapon damage. But we put him down nonetheless.
Brute force against the gnolls earns Alora another level. Chara's grenades hasten the encounters.
We slay some kobolds to the south as well. Thanks to Frisk's Hypnosis stopping the enemy's arrows, we collect 4 Arrows of Detonation from the bodies.
Later on, those poisonous potions fetch us over 2,000 gold when Chara recycles them.
We fight Sendai, who fails a critical save...
...and proceed to the mines to nab Mur'Neth. Hypnosis makes the kobold hordes into a joke, but grenades make them into paste.
Gorken Bloodaxe and the other duergar gave us trouble in the last run, but this time we're ready for them. A single grenade and a level 6 Lightning Bolt from Morwen take him down.
In Spell Revisions, Lightning Bolt is a single-target spell. Much safer for no-reload runs.
Alora gains another level from the fight, as does Chara, already at level 6. And with that dagger, their combat stats are pretty impressive for a single-classed mage.
We bring Mur'Neth into the party once more, and just like last time, we opt for the Alchemist thief kit. It's worth it just to gain access to the Advanced Alchemy potions--like Potions of Clarity.
What about Mulahey?
We got lucky. A failed save vs. breath stunned him long enough for Morwen to zap him to death.
We get Boots of Speed, a Wand of Lightning, and Xan, who is now a Fighter/Mage! He even comes at a surprisingly high level. And unlike everyone else in the party, he can wear the excellent set of plate mail we got from those duergar.
Xan's one weakness in BG1 was the fact that he was a single-classed mage. That made his Moonblade mostly useless. But with fighter levels... that's a different story.
With more melee power and some better magical weapons, we go back to exact vengeance on the Revenant and stop by Durlag's Tower, netting Mur'Neth another level up.
Inside Durlag's Tower, Chara narrowly avoids death when I let them get too close to the local undead.
Isn't this amazing? A BG run where you actually gain levels--imagine that!
Anyway, Mur'Neth's jelly form is immune to magic, so we give it a shot against the spectral mage upstairs. Mur'Neth dispels the mage's illusions, though he won't be able to do much damage on his own anyway.
Somehow, Mur'Neth gets webbed. Jellies should ostensibly be immune to web, but as Mur'Neth's record screen shows, even 100+ magic resistance cannot stop Web.
A few rounds pass where nothing happens; Mur'Neth just uses Detect Illusions and gets webbed but suffers no damage. Eventually I get bored and send in Alora. Buffed with a Potion of Speed from Mur'Neth's Advanced Alchemy feat, Alora can disrupt the mage's spells now that Mur'Neth waited out its PFMW.
Alora gets webbed and blasted with Fireburst, but her luck and a Sour Draft lets her bounce back despite having zero fire resistance.
Unable to slay Alora with spell damage, the mage fails to disable her for very long. She hacks it apart.
Alora is actually a decent anti-mage tool with that +2 luck.
Alora gains another level and buffs herself with some of Chara's potions. With a Brine Solution, Alora can bring her save vs. spell down to 0. Her stats are pretty impressive.
Alora's high damage output helps the party take down Kirinhale very fast.
We get a Cloak of Protection +2 for Chara and, after turning the party invisible using some of Mur'Neth's Potions of Invisibility, we give Alora a Potion of Mirrored Eyes to tackle the basilisks.
Mur'Neth and Xan both gain a level, and we get a spare Wand of Lightning. I don't plan on using the Wand of Lightning trick for anything besides the tomes, since I can't say no to giving Chara some huge unnecessary stat boosts.
Over at Firewine Ruins, Alora once again serves as our tank, absorbing spells and dealing damage while the rest of the party strikes from afar.
I'm still worried about the Ogre Mage, so we deploy Pressurized Gas to poison it. The poison doesn't stop the Ogre Mage's spellcasting, but Alora and Xan make their saves and avoid getting spooked into the cloud themselves.
Once the poison softens up the Ogre Mage, Morwen zaps it. Done!
Alora gets a Ring of Holiness for her trouble, which will compensate for her low Wisdom. The Doofus Saber wins yet another fight when Alora tackles the Undead Knight.
Back into the wilderness! Lord Foreshadow gives us a Ring of Human Influence which we will never actually use due to Frisk already having 19 Charisma and we bring Ugh a new bunny rabbit to care for.
Nimbul shows up in Nashkel when we return, but Frisk can dispel both his Mirror Images and his Ghost Armor.
He lands a weak backstab on Mur'Neth nonetheless, but the Doofus Saber and Morwen's Lightning Bolt bring him down.
Xan gets a Robe of the Battlemage, an IR robe that grants +2 to hit and AC and +10 to his maximum HP. But until he gets a little stronger and his spells are more useful, he'll keep using the duergar plate mail we got in the mines.
Officer Vai is now in town. We make 70,000 gold by pawning off our excess loot.
Tranzig is next. There is no fight; he fails a save against the Doofus Saber on the first round.
We get a +1 dagger that grants immunity to fear and charm. I put it in the Bag of Holding in case of an emergency, but knowing me, I'll never use it.
Alora is very sturdy against mages, but she's not quite so strong against melee attackers. She nearly dies trying to fend off Tazok.
After drinking a bunch of potions to improve our defenses, we head into the main tent at the bandit camp. Hypnosis doesn't do much, but Morwen disrupts the enemy mage's first spell, which could have turned the tide of combat against us.
Alora applies some light damage via Unholy Blight (which is party-friendly in Spell Revisions) before chopping up the mage with the Doofus Saber.
We find a Ring of Fire Resistance and some Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise--nothing game-changing, but still nice.
Outside, Alora and Morwen apply pressure to Toggies Cozy while we use Pressurized Gas to poison the bandits.
The Pressurized Gas kills off all the archers. It's not as fast as a Wand of Fire, but we don't have such a wand.
Alora gains another level fighting Dread Wolves at Ulcaster. This time, we remember to drink Potions of Clarity before engaging the Wolves of Ulcaster.
The ghouls can still paralyze us, but drinking a round of Bitter Tonics will give us +3 to our saves vs. death and polymorph. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure ghoul paralysis requires a save vs. breath, a saving throw that Alchemists cannot boost until level 11, so we focus on killing the ghouls first.
We lose most of our buffs to a Dispel Magic howl...
...but IR potions, like Alchemist potions, are undispellable, so we still have our immunity to fear and our improved saves vs. death.
As a Bladesinger, Xan can use an Offensive Spin-like innate ability called Bladesong (at his level, maybe +2 to hit and AC, +1 APR, and maximum damage per hit), which helps apply pressure to the Wolves of Ulcaster. Morwen's Lightning Bolt also takes a chunk out of one of the wolves' HP.
Chara has joined the fray, as all of the ghouls are gone and can no longer paralyze them. Chara has lousy THAC0 thanks to their mage levels, but with their Alchemist bonuses, they can use a bottle of Musk Wine to boost their STR from 16 to 21. Combine that with the 5 APR from our throwing dagger, switched to melee, and Chara actually has the best damage output in the entire party, provided they can actually land a hit. When they do, it's pretty impressive.
This is going much better than it was last time. Alora shares my sense of optimism.
Our reward is a Wand of Monster Summoning.
Mur'Neth already created plenty of potions for us, so I decide to boot him from the party. We don't need any more of his potions, Alora can already detect traps, Frisk can already use Detect Illusions and pick locks, and Mur'Neth's jelly form isn't very important when Alora and Pressurized Gas can already handle enemy mages.
We continue without him and slay Mal-Kalen's shadows with ease. But it seems I underestimated the threat: Mal-Kalen might not have strong defensive spells, but he can drain levels on hit. Morwen dies to level drain.
When Alora gets level drained as well, I decide it would be wise to make our escape.
But rather than flee and come back with Morwen resurrected and Alora restored to her normal levels, I decide to simply heal Alora and use the Wand of Monster Summoning to distract Mal-Kalen.
He quickly disables and kills them, but I can spare a few charges from the wand. Xan summons more critters as we retreat.
Frisk's Wand of the Heavens proves ineffectual, but with our summons as a barrier, Chara manages to kill Mal-Kalen with our throwing dagger.
We head outside to deal with Icharyd. He does lots of damage to us and we struggle to harm him, but with a lot of potions and a lot of rounds, plus Hypnosis to distract Icharyd when we need some extra time to heal, we come out ahead.
Finally!
Xan and Alora make a great pair. I don't know why, but I like both of them, despite them being polar opposites.
The second level of Ulcaster awaits. There are some big fights up ahead, but there are some very important items I want to get my hands on--assuming Item Randomizer does not get in the way.
We head back underground. Smells like bones. We are filled with determination.
We have some nasty fights ahead of us beneath the Ulcaster ruins. Lots of undead and lots of mages--including Arch Mage Arias and some skeletons and ghouls right off the bat.
Some critters from the Wand of Monster Summoning keep the ghouls occupied. Arch Mage Arias comes pre-buffed with Stoneskin, but he has no defense against Frisk's Wand of the Heavens.
Arias re-casts Stoneskins and Morwen tacks on some extra damage with Lightning Bolt, but Arias is resistant to electricity and immune to magic damage, and he erects an MGOI, blocking the hold effect from the Doofus Saber.
But he never protects himself from the Wand of the Heavens, which strikes as a level 5 spell--bypassing MGOI entirely.
Just look at that. Chara has already hit level 7.
In the last run, we scoured the Sword Coast for XP and only when we were approaching the Ducal Palace did Chara hit level 7. Now we have access to an even wider range of potions and grenades--including Burning Oil, which strikes as a level 0 spell and deals 4d6 nonmagical fire damage, perfect for nuking magic-resistant enemies and mages with MGOI, provided we shell out 150 gold for every bottle.
We also gain access to Elf Tendon Wands for 800 gold each. They deal nonmagical poison damage as a level 5 spell and can paralyze the target for 6 seconds on a failed save vs. wands, or even instantly kill the target on a failed save vs. death at +6. Another expensive but highly effective anti-mage tool.
The next group of enemies is pretty tough. Anton Valor opens with a Stoneskin spell, and we respond with Burning Oil.
He erects a Minor Globe of Invulnerability, but Burning Oil, just like the Wand of the Heavens, goes right through it.
We keep up the pace. It costs us a lot of money, but Anton Valor goes down. The Death Knight isn't far behind.
A Helmed Horror gives us grief with its incredibly low AC. Morwen needs a critical hit just to touch the thing.
Xan uses Bladesong to give himself an extra attack per round and Chara uses True Strike to give themself a +5% chance of landing a critical hit, but in the end, Alora and Morwen take it down.
Next up is Garrett and some Ghost Knights. I had trouble with these guys last time, and I'm not willing to take any chances. I buy bottles of Burning Oil for every party member and dedicate our rounds to a bombing campaign. There are cheaper ways of winning fights, but we saved up a lot of money that we now have a chance to burn.
Looking back, the Wand of the Heavens could have done basically the same thing, albeit slower, but I really like using Burning Oil. Alora, Frisk, and Xan all gain a level, and we get some more loot that we'll probably never use.
Better still, we find a Tome of Understanding. It's totally unnecessary considering the bonuses Chara can get from a Brine Solution and various sources in BG2, but I use the WoL trick to bump them up to 18 Wisdom. Just because I can.
But that's not all. We even find a Protection from Magic scroll!
And an extremely overpowered ring that will give Chara all the spell slots they'll ever need.
But most importantly, I discover that there's one critical item in my install that is NOT a random drop.
An old friend of ours, and given the limitations of Burning Oil, probably the only reason we survived the Grey Clan questline in our last run.
As I've said before, this item lets the user summon an infinite number of Greater Wyverns. It's enough to single-handedly take down every fight in BG1, including modded fights like the Grey Clan, and almost every fight in SoD, except for one:
The final battle of SoD, specifically, in which case their +2 weapons cannot harm the main boss unless you cast Enchanted Weapon (the non-Spell Revisions version) on them.
But I'll be saving the Amulet of Wyvren (not Wyvern, but Wyvren) Summoning for special occasions. I used it to take down Arch Mage Natas in the last run, so this time, I try tackling him without. It seems that enough Burning Oils can get the job done.
After Chara nearly dies to some slashes from the nearby Skeleton Warriors, we finish off the remaining enemies and disarm the trap behind Natas. Chara gets a Cloak of Protection +3 that also grants protection from undead, and they use another tome to crank their STR up to 19.
Chara now has 5 APR at 13 THAC0 for 1d4+9 damage per hit, unbuffed. Enemies with low AC will be too much for them, but against high AC targets, Chara can deal even more damage than a single-classed fighter normally could.
But Chara still stay out of combat for most encounters. They can get 1d3 Stoneskins from a Vial of Scales and boost their saving throws and resistances with various potions, but they could still die from a critical hit backstab, a ghoul's paralysis, petrification, or just a group of enemies surrounding them.
Chara has barely done anything in this run besides brew potions. In every fight, I've kept them out of the fray, keeping their aura clear in case they needed to go invisible and escape.
Playing it safe and eating our veggies fills us with determination.
We bring out a wyvern from the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning during an ambush and win a Wand of Fire! It won't bypass MGOI and magic resistance like Chara's Burning Oils can, but it can deal much more damage.
Centeol isn't much trouble. We have Sweet Elixirs to cure poison, but a Confusion spell from Chara diffuses enemy pressure.
We nab a Golden Girdle and a Ring of Energy, plus Spider's Bane itself. Killing some Phase Spiders bumps Xan up another level, and Alora's Doofus Saber puts down a dumb-looking dragon nearby, pushing Chara all the way to level 8.
Some druids give us a Ring of Protection +2 for slaying the dumb-looking dragon.
Miranda the Witch confronts us in the next area. The fight is as short as her dialogue.
Those green bracers give +1 APR, but only druids can use them, and Faldorn isn't worth it. More druids attack us--completely without reason, of course--and we get a nice new club. But for some reason, it's impossible for anyone to ever equip it.
We can't put it in the Turqoise Bag of Holding from Thalantyr, either. I thought it was coded as the wrong kind of item or something, but looking at the thing in Near Infinity, it seems fine. I just hold onto it in case we figure out a use for it.
We keep going through the Cloakwood. More XP, more levels, and more overpowered items for which we have no proficiencies.
A Hamadryad gives us some trouble later on, but Frisk can cure any charm effect if the target makes a save vs. spell at +5.
There's a ranger by the bridge, whom I assume is from some mod, who sells a lot of items you could normally only get from Sorcereous Sundries.
We grab 60 Arrows of Detonation and some wands. Probably never going to use most of this stuff, but I have the gold, so why not?
Time to invade the mines. Alora paralyzes one of the fighters in the Drasus encounter, but she doesn't have the AC to handle much pressure.
Only Sour Drafts, bolstered by Alora's +2 luck bonus, keep her alive. Frisk hypnotizes the enemy while Xan buffs himself and Chara starts casting Confusion.
Morwen fires off Sleep and puts most of the enemies to sleep. Sleep scales with level in Spell Revisions, and Morwen is level 8 or 9 by this point.
Alora's +2 luck just barely saves her life when the second of two Flame Arrows brings her HP down to single digits.
The wyvern finishes off Drasus himself, and when Kysus nearly kills Frisk with a Flame Arrow, Chara responds with their throwing dagger, bolstered by Poison Weapon.
Yet another Flame Arrow brings Frisk to the brink of death, at 1 HP. Chara takes a break from their dagger throwing to bail Frisk out.
Frisk and Chara strike back at Kysus, forcing him to flee.
We reveal Kysus just as he heals himself and manage to poison him. He casts Dire Charm despite the poison damage, but it won't save him.
Poison Weapon also helps with Hareishan.
Not that Alora couldn't slay these mages on her own. It's just nice to try out other methods.
Feeling reckless and foolhardy, we just mob the next mage, Natasha. Fireburst roasts the party, but put together, our APR overwhelms her.
We bring Yeslick into the party; he did very well with us in the previous run.
There's a mod-introduced fight before Davaeorn. Alora rushes the mage and soaks up a potentially nasty spell.
A backstabber tries and fails to kill Frisk. Chara punishes the thief for her pretension.
Alora can't paralyze the mage with the Doofus Saber, so she switches targets and lets Xan put some Arrows of Biting in the mage.
Alora disarms some traps and resists Davaeorn's opening Web+Stinking Cloud Minor Sequencer.
Davaeorn teleports to the party and casts Fireburst in the same round. The damage is severed, but it's nothing a round of Sour Draughts can't address.
Davaeorn teleports away, so we take a moment to smash his goons.
We chase Davaeorn around, but he proves evasive even as he bombs us.
Eventually we corner him. Chara's Fire Shield triggers on Davaeorn's Web or Stinking Cloud and manages to disrupt one of his spells. It buys us enough time to cut through Davaeorn's defenses.
We get a pair of Boots of Speed that grant full haste, plus a nice save-boosting cloak for Frisk or Alora, a robe that grants +20% magic resistance, and a shield that grants +2 AC to nearby allies. Xan and Alora share another moment together.
I love these two.
Morwen gains another level up when we free the slaves. All these levels are a welcome change from the last run. We forge some nice items from Thalantyr...
...and go bankrupt in the process. But Officer Vai pays big money for our excess loot, and we jump back to over 120,000 gold overnight. It's enough to buy us some more upgraded items.
Najara attacks us again when we visit he Friendly Arm Inn. The attack doesn't last long, but the rewards are massive.
Jaelos Auglatha attacks us on the way to Baldur's Gate. He is much more successful, as his friends can paralyze us with their arrows.
Only Xan fails his save, however, and Yeslick cures his paralysis. Frisk uses Hypnosis to slow down the enemy's arrows and we pick them off one by one.
For some reason, however, Baldur's Gate is off-limits. We can't access it, even though our journal says that's where we're supposed to go next. I try going back to the mines, but they're already flooded.
It seems I didn't step on a certain trigger because I was using CTRL-J to get from place to place. By reloading in Davaeorn's lair, we can step on the right trigger and open up Baldur's Gate.
I could do so much more before facing Sarevok. Durlag's Tower is wide open, and there are plenty of other places we could go. But I am not willing to wait. I want to finish this as fast as possible.
We were cheated of victory once before, but we will not let it happen again. We are filled with determination.
We stop by Thalantyr as well as Sorcerous Sundries and pick up a couple items that will help with Chara's defenses.
We speed through Baldur's Gate, skipping a lot of quests I did not feel necessary. We blast the Ogre Mage with a Skull Trap, slay the basilisk with the Doofus Saber, murdalize Ragefast with ranged weapons, killed Ramazith with the Doofus Saber, and earned another Protection from Magic scroll and a Wand of Paralyzation.
If my memory is correct, I deemed those scrolls to be very useful at the time, because I did not yet realize that they could not be used on enemy mages; they were self-only.
We enter the Iron Throne building soaked with defensive magicks. Like last time, our front line engages the enemy fighters in the middle of the room while our weaker character duel lesser foes near the stairs.
Yeslick gets stunned somehow, but Alora is there to save him. Chara's THAC0 is poor, but with 5 APR and 19 base STR, they're quite dangerous.
We smash the enemy with brute force; our items obviate the need for much micromanagement, and we don't fail enough saving throws for things to get complicated. It ends with Naaman running out his MGOI spell, allowing the paralysis effect of Alora's Doofus Saber to break through.
We get a Ring of Free Action from the fallen, have Thalantyr forge some fighter gauntlets for us, and head to Candlekeep. Ogre Mages disable Yeslick and Xan with Horror, but Alora cures Yeslick and we cut down the Ogre Mages before they can deal much damage to us.
I thought the Rieltar fight was difficult, but the enemy just... dies. Almost instantly.
The only notable loot from beneath Candlekeep is a redundant Protection from Magic scroll and a Helm of Defense--a rare source of immunity to critical hits in Item Revisions.
Alora has 3 base APR from the Doofus Saber, Yeslick has 2 base APR from his morningstar, and Xan has 2 base APR from a special longsword. Unhasted, the party has 16 APR considering Frisk is usually not attacking. Most enemies can't withstand the pressure.
Alora has a subzero save vs. petrification thanks to a Bitter Tonic (+3), so she can tackle Medusas safely. But just to be safe, I have wyverns do much of the work, and have Alora use the Potions of Invisibility Mur'Neth brewed for us before we kicked him out of the party.
As usual, Prat runs and hides and ambushes us later. But she should have stayed hidden.
Alora has hit cleric level 7 and can now cast two level 4 spells thanks to the Ring of Holiness. Due to Faith and Powers or Divine Remix or whatever the hell I've got in my install, she does not have Free Action or Holy Power (which grants APR bonuses in SR!), but she does have Mirror Image and a very important spell from IWD.
Before we re-enter Baldur's Gate, we pay a visit to Officer Vai and get another massive fortune by selling random crap to her. Notice the payoff from all those Laeral's Tears.
Yes, we have 5 Protection from Magic scrolls. I don't plan on using any of them.
We head back to the ranger in the Cloakwood and buy 30 Bullets of Detonation for 50,000 gold. I don't know what good they'll really do, since unlike Arrows of Detonation, they require a successful attack roll, but they deal just as much damage as an Arrow of Detonation and you can also apply on-hit effects to them--like Chara's Poison Weapon.
I didn't let Alchemists poison their grenades, but I didn't bother removing the same exploit elsewhere. Wizard Slayers can still apply spell failure to Alchemist grenades, and Alchemists can still apply poison to other area-effect weapons.
Cythandria lands one solid spell before we put her down.
Next up is the Undercellars. I know Slythe can deal big damage with his backstabs, so I make sure everyone has used a Vial of Scales for the 1d3 Stoneskins.
It's not necessary. Alora just destroys him.
Krystin's PFMW blocks all of our attacks, but it won't stop Frisk's Wand of Fire or Morwen's Elf Tendon Wand, which go right through Krystin's MGOI.
We follow her around, trying to remove her invisibility so we can hit her with more wand charges, but Krystin likes to remain invisible even when Frisk's 100% Detect Illusions skill reveals her.
She only flickers into view briefly. Xan and Morwen manage to use their Elf Tendon Wands on her before she vanishes, but Chara fails to disable Krystin with Confusion.
Only when she attacks us directly does she stay visible. And a single Breach spell on Alora is not enough to keep us at bay.
Krystin drops a Dexterity tome, which Chara uses to boost their DEX up to 21, enough for another -1 AC.
The bonuses mean little to me. I just like seeing high numbers on Chara's record screen.
All that's left to do is confront Sarevok. This time, he's not going to cheat us of our victory.
We head to the Ducal Palace. Frisk holds our secret weapon tight. It fills us with determination.
The Ducal Palace once more. The place where my first run failed so horribly, and after so much hard work.
We begin the same way as in our first run. Spell Revisions tweaks Resilient Sphere so it offers no save to friendly and neutral targets, so Belt is guaranteed to be safe for the first 10 rounds.
Frisk uses Detect Illusions to remove the Doppelganger Mage's Mirror Images while the rest of the party engages in melee combat. Liia Jannath, with no Resilient Sphere to protect her, dies without even trying to defend herself.
Seriously, she was teaching Imoen magic in SoD. Is she the only mage in this game dumb enough not to benefit from SCS pre-buffing?
We swarm the doppelgangers, and they go down very fast. Chara hits level 9, though it doesn't buy us very much.
Alchemists are Transmuters and therefore cannot use abjuration spells like Spell Immunity/Dispelling Screen or Breach--which are the main reason level 5 spells are important to begin with.
Belt will be free very soon, and when he escapes, Sarevok will attack him. How do we keep him safe?
Simple. Frisk just summons a massive wall of Greater Wyverns between Sarevok and Belt.
Because fuck you, Sarevok.
Sarevok flees. I just wonder how I'd keep Belt safe without my mods. A Wand of Monster Summoning could replace the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning, but without SR, Resilient Sphere is no guarantee of survival for the Grand Dukes.
That's a subject for another day. Some guy teleports us to the Thieves Guild and we waste some money buying interesting items we will never actually use.
Who knows? They must have a tiny role to play in SoD.
Xan gets a level up from an Ochre Jelly and Alora disarms all the traps in the maze. We rest before engaging the Undercity party and Chara gets another Bhaalspawn power, because I've been using a custom rest spell instead of resting normally.
There is no need to conserve any of our resources. We drink a bunch of potions and rush the Undercity party. Right off the bat, Alora paralyzes one of the fighters.
Alora turns her attention to another enemy and Morwen knocks out Carston. Alora finishes off her second target, and three enemies end up out of commission in the first round.
Carston wakes up--maybe because Chara's Greater Malison counted as a hostile spell--and Frisk reveals the enemy mage. Meanwhile, the cleric we'd been ignoring manages to free Alora's first target from paralysis. Our biggest gains just got reversed.
Frisk runs away from a Chain Lightning spell, ensuring it can't spread to the rest of the party, but it does rather little damage, partly because Chara's Radiant Philters gave the whole party 25% resistance to elemental damage (and 50% to Chara themself).
Alora kills the cleric, ensuring that there is no one to cast Remove Paralysis if she paralyzes another enemy.
One of the enemies fires an Arrow of Detonation at us. It has little effect, but Xan still rushes to meet him in melee combat to stop him from firing another. Chara fails to disable the mage using a grenade, but Alora successfully paralyzes one of the fighters.
Finally, we're free to handle the mage. Frisk reveals them and we pelt the mage with missile weapons until she falls.
Sarevok awaits. We buff the party with everything. All of Chara's potions and all of our spells. Chara looks practically invincible.
But some of those numbers are dispellable. And we don't have Dispelling Screen to block it. If Chara breaks invisibility, they could get dispelled, disabled, and very quickly killed.
We drink one last round of potions. Xan takes a moment to break the mood.
Why now?
The battle begins. Xan rushes up to Sarevok and the whole party launches Arrows of Detonation and Bullets of Detonation at him.
But I see bad news. See that missile damage? Those Arrows of Detonation are doing area-effect missile damage, which means they're going to cut through Xan's Stoneskins. If we keep this up, Xan will die.
We switch gears and attack Diarmid instead while Xan tries to evade Sarevok's blows, but Diarmid uses a Protection from Magic scroll, granting him immunity to the fire damage from the arrows.
This isn't going like I planned. I thought we'd have killed at least one enemy by now.
I switch Xan to normal arrows and have him attack Diarmid. Frisk, Alora, and Chara stay focused on Diarmid, but Yeslick and Morwen switch to the Wand of the Heavens and Arrows of Biting to handle the enemy mages on the map.
Diarmid is suffering, but Xan loses a third of his HP to a single blow from Sarevok. We need to bail him out.
Xan drinks a Vial of Scales. It'll only give him 1d3 Stoneskins, but it will keep him alive for at least a few seconds. We use the time to keep up the pressure on Diarmid. Dead enemies can't drink potions.
Alora fires an Arrow of Detonation over to Sarevok to hassle him and Tazok, but Tazok just has so much HP. The initial volley of Arrows of Detonation barely made a dent in him. And the arrow's missile damage robs Frisk of their last Stoneskin.
Xan flees the altar in search of safety to the south. Chara deals the final blow on Diarmid.
His aura clear, Xan heals himself with a Sour Draught. But a Skull Trap brings his HP back down.
I foolishly have Chara keep using Bullets of Detonation. Xan loses his last Stoneskin, and Frisk has already lost theirs thanks to Alora. Both Frisk and Xan approach death.
Angelo happens to be right there when Frisk is wounded.
Tazok and Sarevok are both chasing Xan, but Tazok is close to death, just like Xan. Taking a big risk, I have Alora fire an Arrow of Detonation at Tazok as Xan runs away. Thanks to his Potion of Speed, brewed long ago by Mur'Neth, Xan escapes the explosion. Tazok is not so lucky.
Sarevok catches up to Xan, but Xan's aura clears just in time for him to drink a Vial of Scales.
Maybe it'll hold off one slash. Maybe it'll hold off two or three. Who knows?
Xan keeps running, trying to buy himself enough time to drink a Sour Draught and save himself. Meanwhile, to the northeast, Alora, Morwen, and Yeslick attack Angelo with melee weapons, knowing that their Potions of Fire Resistance (50% resistance, from Mur'Neth) and their Radiant Philters (25% resistance, from Chara) will block most of the damage from his Fire Shield. Chara attacks from afar using their throwing dagger. Just in case there's a Remove Magic on the way.
Xan barely healed anything from that Sour Draught. He'll have to try again. The rest of the party focuses on Angelo, and Yeslick's morningstar manages to get past Angelo's Stoneskins!
Semaj bombs the party, but fire spells are little threat to us. Xan keeps running, but a second Sour Draught does almost nothing for him.
Morwen tries using an Elf Tendon Wand on Angelo. He avoids getting paralyzed or killed thanks to his saving throws, but the poison damage still gets past his MGOI.
Not knowing why the Sour Draughts were healing him so little, Xan drinks a Potion of Invisibility to buy himself some more time. Angelo also decides to make his escape.
Without Frisk, we don't have a reliable way of dispelling enemy illusions, so we switch our attention to Semaj. But Semaj wanders into the center of the area, and I'm sure there are nasty traps there--maybe even a Dispel Magic trap, which would be disastrous for our party. Rather than chase Semaj onto the symbol of Bhaal, I have our melee characters break down the Skeleton Warriors, while saving Chara's throwing dagger and some Elf Tendon Wand charges for Semaj.
Notice that Sarevok is following Xan even after he turned invisible. Not a good sign.
We destroy a Skeleton Warrior, but Angelo remains at large, and he has enough time to heal himself with another potion. Xan is also on the run, but his Potion of Invisibility does not keep him safe. He can't stop for a moment, lest Sarevok cut through his unknown number of Stoneskins and end his life in two more chops.
Notice Alora running over to fight the second Skeleton Warrior close to Sarevok.
Xan gets enough time to drink another potion. Once again, it barely heals anything.
But Semaj has wandered off the symbol of Bhaal! It's safe to attack him in melee; we needn't run over any traps to engage him.
Not all is well, however. Xan, already injured and vulnerable, has just lost his last Stoneskin.
For whatever reason, those Sour Draughts aren't working. They won't heal him enough to cover even a single blow from Sarevok, but at least the Vials of Scales can block 1 to 3 of them. I send Xan further south to use one more vial while Alora slashes at the lonely western Skeleton Warrior and the rest of the party attacks Semaj.
Sarevok lands a critical hit right before Xan drinks another Vial of Scales. Xan is almost dead, but he has at least one Stoneskin holding him together.
Angelo breaks invisibility to attack Alora, but his spells are little threat to her; Alora's +2 luck bonus dramatically decreases all incoming spell damage.
The Lightning Bolt only does 3 damage to her.
Morwen hits Semaj with an Elf Tendon Wand right before he vanishes, and Chara hurries over to heal Xan, since his potions just aren't helping him.
Xan once again fails to restore much HP with a Sour Draft. Chara is still chasing him down, and Yeslick is lingering around Semaj's Fire Shield, waiting for Semaj to break invisibility.
Semaj breaks invisibility, and just as Chara heals Xan for a few precious HP, I find out what Semaj was doing.
Chara has lost all of their Stoneskins. Rather than use a spell or scroll, I have Chara drink a Potion of Stone Form, which gives 5 Stoneskins in Item Revisions (more than Chara could gain from a spell at their level) and cannot be dispelled.
Angelo and Semaj are both wounded, but Angelo has no Mirror Images, so Alora, Yeslick, and Morwen concentrate on Angelo. The Doofus Saber's magic damage interrupts one of his spells.
Finally, I realize why Xan wasn't getting much healing from those Sour Draughts.
He's intoxicated; the Vials of Scales he's been drinking are alcoholic. That imposes a luck penalty, which acts against healing rolls as well as incoming spell damage rolls. Sour Draughts heal 4d8 HP, but a luck penalty will negate most of that.
A Sweet Elixir can cure intoxication, but I don't want him to wait that long. Instead, I have him drink another Potion of Invisibility and stay on the run until he can drink a Potion of Extra Healing, which always heals the same amount regardless of luck (30 HP in IR).
Down south, things are going well. Angelo fails a save against the Doofus Saber. He's already dead.
Alora keeps attacking Angelo, but Yeslick, Morwen, and Chara turn their attention to Semaj, as they don't need to keep up the pressure on Angelo when he's already at Near Death and there's no one to bail him out.
Up north, Xan slips away from Sarevok, and Sarevok turns his attention to our wyvern.
Xan finally manages to heal himself with a standard healing potion, and Angelo falls before Alora's Doofus Saber.
Alora sticks around to fight the Skeleton Warrior that arose from Angelo's corpse, and Xan hurries over to join her. Semaj nails Chara with a Flame Arrow, but Chara's resistances and Potion of Stone Form block most of the damage. Still, losing those Stoneskins is not safe, so Chara drinks another one.
Sarevok hurries over to join the fight--it seems he already dispatched our only wyvern--but we have made excellent progress. Semaj croaks.
I'm worried about what will happen when the fight ends. I don't want Frisk to be missing when it does. I give Yeslick a scroll of Raise Dead and have him drink a Potion of Invisibility. He'll need the space.
Yeslick hustles over to a corner. Chara fortifies their defenses and we keep chipping away at the Skeleton Warriors.
Fearful that Xan's defenses will not last, I have him drink another Potion of Speed to make sure he can escape Sarevok's reach if he needs to. The group takes down the last Skeleton Warrior.
We turn our attention to Sarevok. Chara summons some Shadows just to distract him if necessary (I didn't want to rely on the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning) and Yeslick uses the scroll of Raise Dead.
Frisk is back! They drink a Potion of Invisibility and hurry over to collect their equipment.
Sarevok is all alone against impossible odds.
Xan, drunk off his ass and still shaken from his multiple brushes with death, deals the final blow to the warrior he spent half the battle running away from.
The battle is won!
Sarevok is dead!
BG1 is over!
This is the first time I've ever beaten BG1 without reloading. We proceed to SoD. The intro begins.
Siege of Dragonspear's sweeping, Icewind Dale-like music fills us with determination.
Corewild the gnomish fighter/thief update - WANTED by the LAW! Joshua the gnomish berserker Corewild the gnomish fighter/thief (protagonist) Hanna, Misty, Paja, Forrest the human wild mages
SETUP: Vanilla BG 2, ToB and patch, no mods
I played a lot of BG tonight - and boy what a crazy session it was - on to the details:
The party's next target was Neb. Before going to the district, we put up stoneskins - however Forrest got a wild surge of COW! and it killed the nearby peasants (and Town Crier!) - dropping our 18 rep down to 3!!!
It kills Forrest too, but we have RoR so that's not too bad to deal with. While looting his body, however, enforcers arrive to KILL COREWILD!
Hmm, we better raise our rep immediately, or it will be very difficult to work on quests in Athkatla. So we head to the Trademeet temple, and donate what little gold we had (we recently got some key items from Ribald's recently) - however, 500 gold was not even enough to raise it 1 point! Down to 200 gold...ouch.
I decide it's time to cut my losses, forget side quests and let's get out of Athkatla - even imprisonment in Spellhold sounds better than our current situation. But to do that, need to do the main quest, which unfortunately for us is in Athkatla. Everywhere we go enforcers were arriving.
We rest in the docks inn and head to Mook, but who do we run into on the way? You guessed it, more enforcers! We MUST battle them so we can help Mook. Time to roll up our sleeves!
So we start doing our best spells, including spells like skull trap - this will likely catch more peasants, but we are already at the bottom for Reputation, so can't get any worse. But now guess what happens? Vampire ambush! And worse, it's the dreaded Sunsuki one!
So a huge brawl is about to shape up. At this point, the enforcers happen to mention I am sentenced to death.
The battle doesn't start well - two party members stunned, Paja near death. We weren't able to cast many spells, mostly skull traps, chaos and a few summons.
Most allies AND enemies are disabled - Corewild and a earth elemental are doing most of the damage.
After the fierce battle, all enemies are slain - the party is badly wounded, some party members level drained, and TWO party members finished the battle with ONE HP left!! No deaths miraculously...
Next target is the traitors, but yet more enforcers trying to engage us. We keep fleeing. We also by this point are using the free rest at the graveyard and putting up invisibility 10' and travel invisibly if at possible - this helped a lot.
Joshua eventually solos Neb and his "allies". We eventually turn in his head for a Reputation gain, but not yet. We go to the graveyard and carefully obtain the Mace of Disruption. Then we head to docks to forge it, but discover (at this point) we hadn't yet got the illthium! (we had the alloy instead). So we retreat and Corewild stealth fails - and enforcers appear right then! (daybreak happened that moment).
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was best. I had the party (which was below me, as I had the haste boots) go to the left and below - I ran to rendezvous but stealthed before reaching the party. When I scouted, only a single soldier followed! When I moved up my party, the soldier did not engage - oh we are all invisible - whew, let's get out of here!
We do eventually forge the IMoD - Joshua did most of the work in Bodhi's lair (berserkers are good for that). Here's Joshua and summons dealing with the ambush at the lower level of the lair.
Lassal was easy (a single Azuredge hit killed him). Bodhi had to deal with 3 basic snares and 4 sets of MMMs coming at her - that was too much for her and she fled.
We make it back to the docks and are about to report to Linvail and leave for Brynnlaw - we certainly had enough excitement in Athkatla!
Opening move, I’m collecting some followers to my group...
· Dorn waved at me in the Fai but joined after I watched the most unlucky bandit die that I've ever seen. · Edwin gave me a Half Elf Wild Mage without needing to fight and that gave me her gear... then I kicked both to the curve. · Shar-Teel dualed to thief and got her Fighter class unlocked after we did a quick Basilisk bash.
Fights: an easy 10 shots from a free frost wand killed a horror for my third level and Imoen (4th) suggested we swap classes i.e, she went mage and I dualed to thief.
We've finally reached SoD. Despite rushing through BG1 on the second attempt, our levels are reasonably high and the mods I got from BWS gave us some really incredible items. At the front of the party is Alora, who is a Cleric/Thief in my install for some reason.
Notable equipment includes the Doofus Saber (or Doufas' Saber), a katana that grants 3 APR (!) and deals magical damage and paralysis (!) on a failed save. So it's basically Celestial Fury and Belm from BG2. Alora's rabbit's foot is also worth mentioning, as the +2 luck has made her extremely resistant to enemy spell damage and has boosted the amount of HP she gets from our Sour Draughts.
Next up is Yeslick. Notable equipment includes Najara's plate mail (+1 to STR) and the Enlightenment Star, a morningstar that boosts his APR.
He's mostly just a supplementary character to Alora.
Third is Xan, who is a Fighter/Mage in my install with the Bladesinger kit.
Notable equipment includes a longsword that gives +1 APR. You might notice a pattern here.
Then we have Morwen, a mod-introduced Skald (a kit which is actually nerfed in my install; I've never used her song before). I don't find her very interesting, but she was an important player in BG1 because she started out at level 5.
Notable equipment includes a longbow with +1 APR (in Item Revisions, most bows only grant +0.5 APR) and the Greenstone Amulet, both of which she started with in BG1.
Fifth is our dirty flirty androgynous human Frisk, using the Seducer thief kit. It wouldn't be an Undertale-themed run without Frisk.
Notable equipment includes the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning, which lets you summon Greater Wyverns at will. That item alone could beat almost all of SoD single-handedly, so I won't be using it to its full potential.
Finally, our Charname is Chara, using the Alchemist kit.
I don't even know the names of all the crazy mod-introduced equipment Chara has. But it gives them lots of extra spell slots and some huge defensive bonuses, plus a throwing dagger with 5 APR, which Chara can switch to melee use to benefit from their base 19 STR.
My first SoD run was all hidden in spoilers, but SoD has been out for a long time, so I will post on this run normally.
We trample the entire first dungeon; there's little to tell. The Doofus Saber disables Korlasz on the first round, preventing her from suggesting a surrender.
The run is off to an excellent start. This party can probably just breeze through SoD!
Except...
Apparently SoD automatically removes all vanilla NPCs from the party after the first dungeon. Only player-created and mod NPCs remain; the rest go away for plot-related purposes. Half our party members, and all of their powerful equipment, vanish instantly. Including Alora, our best NPC in almost every dimension, and the Doofus Saber, our best weapon.
We also lose tens of thousands of gold, dropping down to 0. We recoup some of the cost by recycling some gems and stuff in Chara's Alchemist lab.
This run isn't going to be as easy as I thought.
We still have some strong options. Chara hits hard with their throwing dagger and Frisk's Greater Wyvern is just as dangerous.
I thought my SoD install would be mostly unmodded, but it seems BWS added at least one new NPC to SoD: a rakshasa with some powerful abilities, though none of them begin to approach the level of a BG2 rakshasa.
I don't like Verr'Sza's voice much, but he has very high APR because of a special pair of bracers. He's pretty deadly, looking at his numbers.
We bring Safana into the party. We actually don't need a thief much--traps are pretty bearable in SoD, and Frisk already has Detect Illusions--but lucky for us, Safana can choose the Alchemist thief kit.
She can conjure lots of potions for us at no cost, whether we want to sell them or use them. I'll probably keep her waiting at the camp most of the time, though, since the Alchemist thief, unlike the Alchemist mage kit, doesn't really scale with levels at all.
Chara meets a doppelganger at an inn--a woman who shares their exact name! Well, almost.
Our attempts to flirt with her don't get far.
We bring Minsc and Dynaheir into the party, because their voice acting is so charming in SoD. Much more so than in BG1. Plus, it gets us a new Greenstone Amulet!
We also recruit Sirene, a tiefling paladin of Ilmater.
She seems okay, but her kit and stats aren't too special--I don't know if I will hold on to her. She does have a very strong healing spell, though, and while it deals damage to her when she uses it, the damage is physical (nonlethal damage), which means the Stoneskin effect of Chara's Vials of Scales can block it.
In the end, I ditch both Verr'Sza and Sirene. Verr'Sza is only marginally stronger than Minsc, and I prefer Minsc's voice, while Sirene's tanking ability won't be very important with Vials of Scales to improve Minsc's defenses.
I like M'Khiin, so I visit Baeloth's death pit to recruit her. The crowd isn't impressed by Baeloth's show.
You know, the first time I played this game and posted on it, that line was silent, and I complained that the line would be better if it was voiced. But now that I heard it, it still seems weird... I feel bad for not appreciating it, because it seems like somebody at Beamdog actually changed it in response to my complaint.
We bring M'Khiin into the party. But it seems Goblin Grandma isn't entirely compatible with my spell mods. Her spell picks when leveling up aren't very diverse.
But my item mods are very nice, as she can finally equip a pair of bracers and a suit of armor that we've never been able to use before. The bracers give her +1 APR, and the armor gives her some massive saving throw bonuses.
Plus, she can use a +3 axe of ours, and a ring that boosts her AC by 2.
After selling some random crap to Belegarm, we get back to over 30,000 gold. We buy over 100 Vials of Scales just because.
Minsc has some trouble with the local undead. His Greenstone Amulet protects him from paralysis, and Vials of Scales block physical attacks, but level drain goes right through those defenses.
M'Khiin bombs the area with Spirit Fire; I no longer have to worry about killing Minsc by friendly fire.
Next time, I remember to have Frisk focus more on hypnotizing the local undead, lest Minsc get overwhelmed again.
This time around, I know how to fight the Coldhearth Lich the right way. The Secret Revealed trivializes the fight, as it is supposed to.
The last time I played SoD, I fought the thing conventionally. It didn't go well.
The bridge fight wasn't much trouble. I know because I only took a single screenshot. Apparently one of the enemies can remain hostile even after Caelar defuses the situation.
I really don't like the fog effect. It's good atmosphere, but it's too heavy.
I bring Glint into the party, but decide to boot him shortly thereafter. I don't mind his character, but I prefer Viconia's voice. And her Nightcloak of Shar kit gives her some very nice spells.
We side with the vampire against the vampire hunters, because I know the mage, Ikros, drops a Wand of Paralyzation. Even though we already have one.
SR's Shadow Door mazes nearby enemies for 1d4 rounds, and both Minsc and Viconia get caught when Ikros goes invisible.
Viconia takes down Ikros' spell protections using Secret Word, Frisk reveals Ikros using Detect Illusions, and Chara cuts down Ikro's Mirror Images and Stoneskins using Flame Arrow.
A summoned Shadow finishes him off.
We notice a cute sign at a nearby pond.
SoD has lots of little details like this.
We plow through the little fights; we're equipped to handle those just fine. Viconia hits level 9, but unfortunately, she cannot cast Raise Dead. She gets some excellent spells, but none of them will let us raise the dead.
We enter the spider cave. Everyone drinks a Bitter Tonic to improve their saves vs. death.
"Spider Dance" intensifies. It fills us with determination.
The spider cave can be really, really hectic. Far more so than Centeol's lair in BG1. Holy Smite and Slow should work well here, but I rely on Frisk's Hypnosis spell.
Frisk's psionic spells can all be cast at will, so it's more reliable than most disablers, which can fail outright and cannot be easily re-cast.
The Seven-Legged Spider apparently can drain Strength on hit, but we overwhelm it before it can get through Minsc's high STR.
Without Alora or Yeslick or Xan in the party, Chara has to pick up some of the slack with their 5 APR throwing dagger.
Then I see something new.
A Rhinocerous Beetle? When did that happen?
Those things are pretty intimidating, but it seems they're very easy to hit.
I love Minsc's commentary here. The original games never had combat-specific unique dialogue.
We have a bigger fight coming up. Morentherene is next. And though SR's Neutralize Poison can grant immunity to poison damage as well as the poison opcode, no one in the party can cast it due to some other spell mod(s) of mine. But Chara is innately immune to poison damage due to the Alchemist kit, so I can have them engage the dragon directly.
But the dragon doesn't even live long enough to use its breath weapon, and Vials of Scales hold off its physical attacks before it can overwhelm anyone.
Morentherene's sister or cousin or whatever is a little tougher despite being much smaller. She uses her breath weapon early on, forcing Chara to use Cure Affliction to help out Viconia, as using a Sweet Elixir to cure poison only heals 1d4 HP by itself.
We hurt Ziatar pretty bad, but SR's Sanctuary has a casting time of 1, and we are unable to disrupt it.
She heals herself, but once she breaks invisibility, we're ready for her.
Chara hits level 10 shortly thereafter. Once they hit level 11, they'll get another set of new potions that will give us a very important boost.
Now we have to fight the Neothelid. This thing can do anything from cast spells to use psionics, but with more melee output, namely from Chara, it goes down much faster than in my last run.
Killing Akanna earns M'Khiin another level, but our spell picks are once again quite limited.
It's just as well; she already had one more level 5 spell than she was supposed to.
I've got a Mind Flayer to deal with next, and I had lots of trouble when the enemy used a Teleport Field to fortify a choke point. I move in fast to avoid getting set back, but like last time, I concentrate all my attention on the mind flayer before it has a chance to pull anything.
The mage, Jhan Redmoons, had some spell protections active, but Viconia has Secret Word. Taking down Jhan Redmoons is quite fast.
Chara just hits so hard and so fast with that dagger. The fight is over in moments.
There's a puzzle here that Sarevok's diary alludes to. The diary gives the solution in terms of a set of numbers indicating which masks to press first, but since the masks in question aren't actually numbered...
...I just consult a walkthrough that explains the sequence. Turns out the masks are numbered left to right, top-down, like English writing order. We open up a new room, see a cool new visual effect, kill a feeble enemy, and get an awesome weapon we will not use.
SoD equipment honestly pales in comparison to the gear I found in modded BG1.
On the way out, Minsc and M'Khiin share a moment.
I like these two. They're good together.
We make our way to the crusader camp. I didn't see this before, but apparently they employ Frost Giants now.
That's um... not a good sign.
At the underground base where the crusaders' enemies have been hiding, we try to use Negative Plane Protection to keep people safe from the level drain that kills three people automatically. However, testing found that Viconia's special level 3 version suffers from the same problem that numerous other non-SR spell mod spells experience.
No matter who you target, it only affects the caster, making the spells completely inferior to their normal versions.
There's an above ground area that's also under siege, but I never knew how to access it. I try using SR's Dimension Jump. Turns out there's actual some quests over there, despite the area being ostensibly inaccessible.
It might be possible to get stuck there, but Chara always has two Dimension Jumps memorized, just in case.
Attacking the Crusader Camp is a long but not too dangerous fight, as you can hang back and let the Flaming Fist and such absorb the enemy's attacks. I flood the area with Greater Wyverns, partly to speed things up but mostly just for fun.
The mages have good spell protections, but they're too low-level to have PFMW or anything like that.
But the mission isn't a complete success. Apparently Khalid is part of the fight, and he bravely chose to tackle one of the biggest enemies around. But he didn't make it.
One thing I don't like about the Infinity Engine is that you can't resurrect people outside your party.
There's a Crusader Mage on the bridge, but she's nothing a Secret Word and an Elf Tendon Wand can't fix.
Or, you know, just brute force.
I love Dynaheir's line in that first screenshot.
On the way out, I try tossing an item into a well, because why not? It doesn't go like I expected.
Siege of Dragonspear is really good at defying expectations.
We arrive at the siege camp and use the Spectacles of Spectacle to bring a merchant into the Material Plane. He sells us some really excellent and expensive items, but we recoup the cost by selling off more loose equipment.
The endgame is coming up, and I want Corwin in the party; she is just too useful for the final battle. SR changes Enchanted Weapon, which she normally needs to improve her arrows, but the WoL trick can summon an unlimited number of arrows from Enchanted Weapon, making her even more useful in SoD. The question is, who do I drop to make room for Corwin?
I review the party, and the answer is pretty clear. I love M'Khiin, but she has been contributing the least to the party's success, with the possible exception of Frisk (the Seducer kit needs to be buffed, I think). I leave M'Khiin behind and bring in Corwin. Turns out she has both the vanilla Called Shot ability and some mod-introduced Archer kit abilities.
But we'll probably be saving our aura to use Chara's potions.
We arrive at a dead magic area. This place nearly ended my last run, so I have everyone drink a Vial of Scales while Frisk summons a Greater Wyvern.
I swarm the enemy, which does not put up much of a fight. But one of the enemies goes invisible and runs away.
Somebody was testing us. What was that about? Was that Jon-bon's doing?
Further exploration introduces us to another Frost Giant, but apparently it's an orog of some sort; that's its actual name. And for some reason, it turns purple.
Is this an orog with the wrong sprite, or a Frost Giant with the wrong name?
Anyway, we hurry through some minor skirmishes, testing out Viconia's Cause Mortal Wounds spell, saving a webbed Minsc from spiders using Invisibility, disrupting an Orog Priest's magic...
...getting a pretty picture from some local dog people...
...and chatting with Noober 1.5, who is actually more interesting than his clones in BG1 and BG2.
We also avoid combat with a Hobgoblin who is unfortunately named Buttocks...
...but our attempts to reason with the local toadstools prove ineffective.
Our dealings with a nearby cyclops also end in violence, but we make up for it by telling a nice story to some sahuagin, though they're not very impressed.
We have infiltrated the crusaders' base. The endgame is fast approaching.
I've heard almost every fight in SoD can be avoided, but I don't know which ones or how. Attempting to solve things peacefully fills us with determination.
I mishandle a meeting with the Water Elemental fan and end up antagonizing him. Viconia and Minsc once again get mazed by Shadow Door, but Frisk's Detect Illusions skill reveals the mage and lets us take him down using Elf Tendon Wands.
We do the normal quests, fighting Ferrusk, trimming the treants, and delivering the drow to their friends. The only major piece of loot is a cloak that can block critical hits.
Time to rescue Halatathlaer, which will require fighting lots of mages all at once. We summon some Shadows (who are still represented by messed-up strings) and a couple Greater Wyverns. Corwin breaks the mood with another awesome line.
The tone down south is much more grim, as we fail to save some human sacrifices from a Fireball. Corwin slays the mage responsible.
More mages await in a cluster to the southeast. We apply heavy pressure to one of them and bring him down quickly, but the other mages manage to Slow Corwin and dispel our illusions.
Viconia debuffs one of the mages, only to see them return the favor to Chara.
Dispelling Screen blocks it and vanishes, rendering Chara vulnerable to a second Breach spell right afterwards.
We put down another mage while Viconia casts Breach on the mage with the toughest defenses.
Shorn of his buffs, Kherriun falls.
We free Zadroth, a nearby lich, using the Spectacles of Spectacle. I heard he drops a really nice robe, but it seems my dialogue options were too friendly, and he escapes without fighting us.
An "Endless Watcher" attacks us, because apparently we weren't supposed to free Zadroth. Zadroth defeats the Endless Watcher for us and departs with a very ominous message.
Well, crap. That was a really awful thing to do, letting that lich go free.
Feels bad. Ugh.
We drop the Barrel of Bwoosh in the right place and Chara hits level 11.
Chara can now create +3 grenades, enough to hurt an important enemy coming up. We buy 500 of them; we can afford it.
We also get a Moldy Poultice, which can raise the dead, and a couple of potions that will do a lot to improve our offensive output.
We sneak our way up to Hephernaan's level, but we're not quite smooth enough to talk our way out when we get caught.
We put down the enemy soon, but Hephernaan and Esserin out to play. They rob us of our illusions and send a couple golems after us, but the golems are little trouble to us.
Viconia debuffs Hugh Hephernaan while Frisk uses an Elf Tendon Wand on Esserin. Viconia's shield triggers a backlash effect that blinds Heifer for a few seconds.
I try to have Viconia use a Protection from Magic scroll on Heifer, and then quickly realize it only affected the user in my install. Instead, Viconia switches to a Wand of the Heavens, but Heifer puts up a huge barrier to our spellcasting.
SR Spell Deflection even blocks area-effect spells, and we are out of magic attacks to debuff him. We turn our attention to Esserin, and thankfully Heifer makes very little use of the round of freedom he buys for himself.
Another mage, Olvenaun, erects a Minor Spell Deflection spell, but he has no strong defense against physical attacks. It proves his undoing.
I keep forgetting that these SoD enemies almost never have PFMW; just Stoneskin and Mirror Image.
Heifer Slows Minsc, but most of the party makes their saves. Heifer tries to disable us, but SR's Waves of Fatigue isn't nearly as strong as vanilla Chaos.
The battle is won! We grab a Spell Shield scroll and a couple of very neat items: a crown for Chara, and a robe for Frisk.
Thieves can wear robes in my install, and the disabled spellcasting disadvantage is meaningless for a single-classed thief.
Guards are coming. We summon a Greater Wyvern to distract them while Chara turns the party invisible.
Some guards block the doorway out, but Dynaheir draws them away by attacking to break invisibility and then vanishing using a potion before she could get killed.
We slip by and Chara re-casts Invisibility Sphere to make sure we can continue to pass unmolested.
Now we must return to the camp and prepare for the siege.
We finally escape the tunnels. The warmth of the sunlight fills us with determination.
Cromarty's Crusaders continued their explorations of the wilderness, obstinately ignoring the demands of the main quest, very nearly coming a cropper along the way. We explored Ulcaster, completing Garrick's odd quest and clashing swords with an undead blade, but declined to explore the ruins as of yet. Instead we paid a visit to Gullykin and picked up Alora (Burglar) in place of Garrick and explored Firewine a little. After a brief exploration we tired of kobolds and traps and wandered in the back way to kill the Ogre Mage and his pet mage, rescuing Indira along the way but declining to take her with us. We then bumped into Molkar's assassins and had a slightly dangerous moment as Cromarty was held. Fortunately Dyanheir was able to cast invisibility on him and the rest of the party were able to deal with the danger without too much difficulty.
After that we continued our explorations, meeting Melicamp- who failed to dechickenate- killing some half-ogres, and helping Drizzt. I then decided to drop by and see how Safana fitted our party with an eye to recruiting her in SoD. She is kitted as a sniper in my installation, and so can be rather deadly. This meant that we bumped into some Sirenes...no problem I thought, Cromarty picked up a helm of charm protection some time back.... forgetting that Sirines can feeblemind. Ouch. After disposing of our opponents I initially thought that our inability to rest and use Break Enchantment, along with Dyanheir's failure to dispel from a scroll, might mean a technical KO for Cromarty (I would have continued in any case as I do RP runs and obviously Gavin could have prayed the problem away after a nap, but some other forumites wouldn't of course)...but luckily Ajantis had the cure disease ability and this sufficed. At this point a temple messenger arrived to call Gavin to deal with the nearby basilisk infestation, and so I decided to deal with that, pick up some potions of clarity, and then come back to finish off Safana's quest in the cave. Need to push my main back a little though, he's been leading from the front too much. An interesting run though, having two paladins who can't use ranged weapons along has meant that there is less death from afar than when Kivan is around.
The siege camp is under attack, and we must rush to its defense. I don't like this fight much because it takes so long, so I decide to summon some Greater Wyverns to speed things up.
Notice the unconsciousness; that's from Dynaheir's SR-boosted Sleep spell. As a level 10 mage, she can put level 10 critters to sleep with it.
There are some tougher enemies up north. Partly out of impatience and partly out of sheer contempt for the enemy, I have already summoned a massive horde of Greater Wyverns. They crush the opposition with basically no help from the party.
We march on Dragonspear Castle. It is time to bring the crusade to an end.
Wands of Fire and Monster Summoning work very well in the siege, but there's something more fun about just summoning a bunch of Greater Wyverns and letting them do everything.
That's the only screenshot I took. Nothing interesting ever happened.
Chara agrees to duel Ashatiel, and manages to disrupt her first spell using a Blizzard Wand.
It can slow the target, but Ashatiel has strong saving throws. Chara follows up with Fireburst, and Ashatiel fails to retaliate with Greater Command.
Chara casts True Strike and uses Poison Weapon, but Ashatiel resists the poison and casts Sanctuary.
Chara doesn't have many area-effect spells to get through that Sanctuary, so they opt for Waves of Fatigue, which will at least apply a +2 penalty to casting time for Ashatiel, who nevertheless lands a Flame Arrow on Chara.
Chara responds with a Flame Arrow of their own and cut the avariel to ribbons with their dagger.
I find some weird items and a random fight while wandering around the castle grounds. I think there's some content I'm missing.
Only the final battle remains. It's a pretty big trial, but we've got plenty of resources stored up. Look at all the Wands of Paralyzation we never used!
We used like 3 charges from a single wand in the entire course of BG1 and SoD, and none of them ever made any difference. Our inventory is just crammed with random junk we never used.
Admiring the resources we so pointlessly gathered fills us with determination.
Most of this run was open, but this final post will be entirely in spoilers because there are crucial plot points here. Just click the second spoiler if you haven't played SoD but want to know if the run was successful.
The events:
Viconia loses her cool when fighting the demons; she fails a save against a fear effect.
She was our only source of Resist Fear because Chara cannot cast abjuration spells. Most of the party is not disabled, however, and Frisk minimizes enemy pressure using Hypnosis.
I thought Viconia's level up was pointless, but apparently you can actually rest down here.
Neat! That's screenshot number 1783. Britain recognized American independence in 1783!
Viconia uses the rest to fortify Chara's already-impressive defenses.
Hopefully it won't come to this, but if things go wrong, Chara has 500 Grenades +3 that can damage Bellyfat. It would be an extremely long fight, but with their immunity to fire, their high movement rate, and their strong saving throws, Chara might just be able to kite Bellyfat to death.
But I'm not going to use that strategy if I don't have to. It is way too risky and full of variables I don't know. After all, I've only gone through this fight once before.
I try to create some golems--Chara learned how to construct golems from some tomes, and we have all the right ingredients--but apparently you can only do it in certain places.
A Cornugon named Thrix offers me a reward if I solve a riddle of his, but the cost of failure is pretty steep. I play it safe.
That's screenshot 1787. The U.S. Constitution was written in 1787!
The atmosphere is really spooky in the next area.
You can say fire and brimstone hells are kind of generic, but SoD and Oblivion both did them really well.
We go up the elevator. I don't know how many rounds it takes, but the trip is a long one, punctuated by demon ambushes. It's a great time to cast your buffing spells, because your old ones might wear off on the trip to the top.
The first round of enemies isn't too worrying. But there will be more.
Bigger demons come in. When they fall, we keep bolstering our defenses.
We finally reach the top. Caelar joins the fight against Bellyfat.
Frisk summons a Greater Wyvern, but it won't be able to harm Bellyfat; they strike using +2 weapons, and SR doesn't have the EE-style Enchanted Weapon spell that can make weapons strike as +3. Viconia opens with the Wand of the Heavens; I want to get Heifer out of the picture as quickly as possible.
Viconia's Resist Fear protects us from a very nasty disabler. It doesn't block the fear message, so the dialog box shows us how bad it would have been if we had relied on our saving throws alone.
We concentrate our attacks on Heifer and take him out early, as well as a crusader who inexplicably went hostile.
Bellyfat calls out fire--lots of it--but everyone has buffed with Potions of Fire Resistance.
We weather the storm and nail Bellyfat with Lower Resistance, though most of our damage output comes from weapons rather than spells.
Notice that Chara is not using their 5 APR throwing dagger, as it was only a +2 weapon. They have switched to Bog Vapor, an Alchemist grenade that strikes as a +4 weapon and lowers saving throws by 2 and magic resistance by 20, albeit only for 6 seconds.
Minsc drinks a Vial of Scales to block Bellyfat's massive swords while Dynaheir, Frisk, and Chara prepare to assault Bellyfat with spell damage.
Bellyfat vanishes, but Chara's wand hits him nonetheless, and Frisk soon reveals him using Detect Illusions.
Minsc, Viconia, and Corwin stick to their normal weapons; Frisk uses wands; Dynaheir switches between spells and her sling; and Chara alternates between Lower Resistance and Bog Vapor to keep Bellyfat vulnerable to Dynaheir and Frisk's attacks.
Bellyfat has a deep HP pool, but he does not have enough time to disable or kill anyone in the party. Minsc lands the final blow.
Victory! We celebrate, but Chara has a bad dream, and wakes up to find Skie dead, with the murder weapon in their own hands. Not everyone in the party believes in Chara's innocence.
Everyone leaves Chara but Frisk, and the last remnants of the party are confined to a cell. Belt says we need to leave Baldur's Gate. As for his reasoning, the reason is quite reasonable.
Baldur's Gate was full of people willing to shed blood over Chara's fate, but with Chara gone, there would be nothing to fight over, and the city would remain at peace.
There's a single tiny fight left, but I see no reason to take even the tiniest risk. Not after we have come so far. I avoid all conflict on the way out.
Khalid is unfortunately absent due to his death at Bridgefort, but Minsc, Imoen, Dynaheir, and Jaheira rejoin the party.
But only for a few seconds. Jon-bon ambushes the party and brings Siege of Dragonspear to an end.
Well having read this thread quite a bit over the last weeks, decided to take on the challenge. Not so fun, but undaunted will try again and try and get the mindset in place.
Psychologically knowing I can't reload messes up the way I normally play. No more "I'll have a go at doing that to bump XP" or "I know I've killed this person a hundred times before without too much bother but just in case I'm going to faff around worrying about it".
Did the usual, solo run until level 5, that went fine, farmed Basilisks with whathisname (never can remember the name) to bring Charname up to that, then thought about recruiting. And for the first time in years, bloody Thalyntire killed Melicamp, what's the odds? (now that did set my teeth on edge).
The story idea I had was a good one I think, female Charname (of course), swashbuckler dualing to fighter later on, (just completed a run all through with the same dualed at 10, wonderfully OP). Stat total 93 (OK, should have 91 which I rolled, but I love high charisma, pure vanity, 18,18,16,14,10,17). Pips in shortbow and katana (of course, the most awkwardly justifiable weapon to use)
The story, Charname is something of a rebel, that's why S/B. Somebody tells her she ought to like something, ought to do something, will automatically object even if she ends up doing exactly the same later on. So relationship with Gorion/Imoen is problematic, doesn't like being told she should be loving and friendly to those two (that's projection on my part to the game). So tells Imoen to go home (not that she does, she's that annoying) and sets off on her own.
And realises she has made a hell of a mistake.
So like an idiot, picks up X/M, they're cool and edgy, what's not to like? Hit the FAI, and we bump into Tarnesh and Charname finds there's a bounty on her head. So avoids entering the FAI, could be more assasins, and head to Beregost, killing an ogre on the way who drops some belts.
In Beregost we need cash so take up an offer from some bystander, and X bravely sacrifices himself to save Charname. We then enter the nearby inn to recover, and guess what, M has to make the ultimate sacrifice for Charname from another bounty hunter. I knew X/M were cool, not so edgy though, actually quite soft and squishy. Shocked at this turn of events, Charname heads to the temple for some spiritual guidence and finds out that one of the belts can change gender.
Now spiritual guidance is all very well, but it's not going to save your arse if there's a price attached to that arse. So Charname uses her quite high intelligence and decides that the best way to run south, get herself away from all this mindless violence, is to use the gender change belt. Nobody is looking for a young man, (albeit a rather effeminate young man) and keep off the roads.
So that's the backgound, carried on from there as solo as I said, felt safer as "Alan" so was able to take on some jobs to get cash for the travelling and equipment.
Traveling with: Joshua the gnomish berserker Hanna, Paja, Misty and Forrest the human wild mages.
So the party made it to Brynnlaw. For the initial vampire ambush we tried to have Joshua solo them (since he had the level drain immunity), but from long range Misty got dominated and the party AI started attacking her. I turned off the AI, but Forrest was taking a beating (she had the staff spear I think). We tried to dispel the domination but that failed. We tried to run away, but Misty pursued. Eventually put Corewild close and she attacked him, but with his good AC and her mage Thac0 finally the party stopped getting hurt by Misty. Then the charm wore off.
We helped Gina and Ason, hoping for Rep gain but no go there.
We became a "client" of one of the guildmistress' whores, then proceeded to wipe out the guards. For Galvena herself, we used the golem book golem to kill the mage, then Joshua enraged and finished off the guildmistress herself.
So next we wanted Joshua to solo Perth the Adept. But rather annoyingly, no mages know the arcane version of protection from fire, so couldn't buff Joshua with that (we did give him protection from lightning though). Joshua did get improved invisibility, which no doubt helped a ton and he took out Perth and thus obtained the Wardstone. For the book of infinite spells, settle on Spell Turning. On the way to Spellhold, just ran across some harmless lizard men and a air elemental.
Next was the obligatory exposition by Irenicus of the mages in captivity, and finally the battle with Bhaal. It was a little anti-climatic. I had borrowed Paja's Staff of Air to make an elemental, plus laid 3 snares. So when Bhaal followed me to "Imoen" he tripped the snares and started attacking Corewild. Corewild used his invisibility ring to go invisible. Bhaal then attacks the air elemental, which conveniently leaves his backside open for a massive backstab with Corewild's Staff of Rhynn - sure enough a single backstab made Bhaal give up.
Finally after all this, the mages leveled up (been a long time). Mages know 3 level 6 spells. Can't cast level 7 yet. We don't know PfMW though, as we had to leave Athkatla before we had the funds to get that from the merchant.
The puzzle with those statues and items was pretty simple for Corewild (would hope so after corey_russell has done this 100 times by now). We tried to cloudkill the minions by the portal but didn't work so had a fight on our hands, which went well all the same.
For the portal enemies (greater werewolf and Bhaalor), we used haste and MMM on all mages - this destroyed these enemies really fast. We decided on passing on engaging the Yuan-ti near the crushing walls. We did do the mini-quest to get the ring of regeneration. Might as well, as Misty had open ring slots.
We will venture into the next section of this level of Spellhold (the book of monsters) next session.
After a quick resupply in Baldur's Gate the duo marched off into the wilderness as part of an army. Their somewhat wimpish nature was almost exposed immediately when they investigated a bridge and came under attack. The plan had been to generate summons outside a barrier (to avoid the encounter triggering and send them in first. However, unusually the summons themselves seemed to act as the trigger and Stern and Noy were dragged inside the barrier in a cut scene while the summons were left outside. Stern went invisible, but the enemies immediately used true sight to find him and he was down to 11 HPs with a life measured in seconds, if that, when Caelar did him a good turn.
Invisibility worked better to take them peacefully through the Troll Claw woods to the Forest of Wyrms. Noy took quite a lot of trap damage walking through a temple complex and we struggled to avoid ambushes while resting to cure that - but eventually managed to do so. Ziatar's guards were then killed before turning to the half-dragon himself. Web did well to hold him and he died pretty quickly despite Noy getting stuck himself briefly.
The Neothelid's brief appearances above ground meant spells were hard to target, but MMs and MMMs were working quite well and when he died things looked safe.
However, his dying breath caught Noy, leaving him with only single figure HPs and the poisonous residue on the floor was enough to finish him off
- requiring Stern to take a trip back to the army HQ to find a healer.
Back at the temple web and skull traps were tried again on Darskhelin. Most of his companions died pretty quickly, but Mohad the dwarf survived and appeared to run away. That didn't seem to be an immediate concern - at least not compared to the danger from Darskhelin as a psionic blast stunned Noy. Things quickly went from bad to worse though as Mohad reappeared, prompting Stern to run away from him - until he was stopped in his tracks by an ego whip.
His last act though had been to summon 3 ogres and there was still a flicker of hope as one of those attacked the nearly dead Darskhelin while the other 2 tried to get Mohad to switch targets. The hope proved fleeting though as Darskhelin found a killing blow for Noy, while Mohad stuck to his determination to finish Stern off.
semiticgod: some other tricks used during the ducal palace are turning Liia invisible, since as you noticed her SCS script is non-existent for whatever reason so she doesn't break invisibility, and making sure Sarevok doesn't attack the dukes by retreating to the right as soon as the last doppelganger dies: the duke has to contact a character to ask for the documents, so you can keep Sarevok from seeing any of the remaining dukes.
@Grond0: Sad to hear it. I was always terrified of that Mind Flayer. It seems it really does have the dangerous psionics you would expect from a BG2 illithid.
So "Alan" after buying some new clothes(oooh shopping), practising a bit out in the wilderness to get "his" head round the new plumbing arrangements (you can target things!!!) headed back into town.
Tried to keep his head down, (though the courtesans seemed over interested), defused some drunken father, delievered a book (good test, even the mage didn't figure me out) and blitzkrieged the town at night opening every chest and door except for one with strange noises coming from it (OK, OK, I know but this is no reload after all). Went fo a well deserved sleep and next morning sold my ill gotten gains (this town sure has dumb shopkeepers).
Not enough money for better shortbow but managed to get some +1 arrows, kept the "stupifyer" (I'm not insane) and headed south. Took down a couple of what? I dunno but they were dumb and slow, a ghast and lots of hobgoblins, found a cave with a very useful stash, a letter, arrows, ect. (what is it with these monsters and their taste for jewelry? Some lovely bits and pieces and I can't wear any of it, that sucks).
Headed East found a talking chicken, killed a dread wolf and another wolf using speed potion I knicked from Imoen (God I'm such a bitch, sod off Imoen the innanely cheerful but give me everything you have before you go....but I was nice about it so that's OK). Took the chicken to the master, got skull for the master, master killed the chicken. So, all in all a bit of a waste of time, we could have had a nice roast instead.
Headed back to Beregost, avoided the morose but good looking Elf on the way (don't need that sort of complication) and had another well deserved sleep.
Next morning, decided to travel west for a bit past the temple then south (and there's no way I can justify this decision RP'ing), you'll just have to bear with me. Picked up whathisname, killed basilisks, ran into the rude adventuring group, I scarpered. Well whatshisname was undead anyway I think. But I hit level 5, the magic number.
Returned for the morose, good looking elf, Kivan is the name, and oh my is he miserable. Hunting bandits because they killed his wife, very sad, but time to move on methinks, happened years ago. Yeah but elves, what can you do? The eye candy is welcome though. So now with a disguise and a believable covering story because travelling with the revenge monkey, decided to head back to the FAI and see if there was any info I could glean. A few inconsequential fights on the way, two bows now, enemies don't get close. Found a ring, checked out the inside of the FAI, spied on J and K from a corner. Decided not to approach because that would blow my "Alan" cover and raise questions, spoke to a half orc, spoke to a Magician's Nephew (strange feeling of deja vu at that).
Then back on the road heading south. Kivan is a ranger, so we ate well on the way, roast partridge bought down with his bow, made up for the missed chicken. Straight run down to Nashkel, used the wand (from Imoen) and lots of arrows on the bounty hunter there. How they recognised me is a mystery, (actually a goddam cheat), must have some kind of truesight operational, she did have spells.
Was waylaid by a nutter asking us to help rescue a witch, of course the GLE wanted to rush to the rescue, I however prevaricated a bit tooo much. Next thing, nutter attacks, "run away, run away" was the cry that went up, so I did. Straight into a mage who took the nutter out with a spell and help from the Amn guards and Kivan. (ok, the game doesn't do that but it should)
Said Mage is looking for the same witch to kill her. Now of course the GLE wouldn't have any of that, so I suggested we just find her and decide then, she could well be evil. Lets face it, the bodyguard wasn't exactly Mr Goody Two Shoes what with attacking an innocent passer by who just hesitated a bit when they saw him speaking to a rodent.
Introductions were made, Edwin Odesseiron, flashy name, thought that just "Alan" wouldn't impress so blurted out the first thing that came to mind, "Partridge, Alan Partridge of the Norfolk Partridges". Whatever, he's from Thay, what's he going to know? (doubt anybody outside the UK would either).
@semiticgod that's further than I've ever got in single player, so part of the problem is my ignorance of the challenges - a bit of a contrast to the level of meta-knowledge available to me in BG1 . My impression though is that SoD is tough because enemies are not just stronger theoretically, but much better at using their capabilities. If you're fighting a party then use of potions, items and abilities mean you will face a greater spread of threats and immunities than in BG1/2 - but I expect I'll get used to that eventually .
Meanwhile, I'm impressed with Chara's progress - it's looking good for Undertale to become the Overlord ...
Carrying this on because a) feel like it b) did all of this playthrough last night so something of a bingefest going on.
So now our little group headed west across the bridge ostensibly to track the witch. Bumped into an odd fellow who didn't seem like they were all there, few sandwiches short of a picnic. Left Kivan with him, while we poked around, didn't know who to feel more sorry for. Kivan who interrupted every five minutes to wail about missing his lost Deheiriananana (something like that) or this "Noober" who just wailed. Upshot was that "Noober" (probably to cheer Kivan up or shut him up, who knows?) told us about some buried treasure.
An absolutely beautiful pearl...oh, and some old green armour. Kivan was almost (I say almost) animated about the find, apparently it's ankheg plate and promptly donned it. I said something about it matching his eyes...awkward. Edwin, (no way am I going to address him as sir as he suggested, I am a Norfolk Partridge after all) shot me a very funny look, gonna have to watch that one, there were books in Candlekeep about Thayvian perversions.
As it had got quite late afternoon, decided to haul back to the inn rather than start a trek cross country. The mayor stopped us and apologised for the earlier attack, he said if they'd realised the big bloke was such a nutter they would have kept him locked up (don't really believe him, there's another nutter just up the road demonstrating kick boxing and bothering passers by). Also asked us if we were interested in a spot of detective/adventuring work.
Now my plan was to hightail it south, but the mayor was a crafty one, mentioned gold to the Thayvian and evil needing to be routed to the Elf. I was outvoted and pouting and threatening to sulk really doesn't work in this form. So looks like we are going to investigate some stolen gems and the local mines (coal? diamond? iron? don't know, don't care) tomorrow. The only bright spot is that we can visit the carnival this evening.
So after a quick check in, wash and shave?? at the inn, (actually that's not realing working properly for disguise, seems like the belt isn't quite as powerful as I thought, I was going to go for the bluebeard/blackbeard wife murdering look), we headed out. What can I say? The carnival was rather subdued, to do with the problems at the mine, local economy and all that (it's iron BTW). Though the exploding ogre was spectacular...and messy....and made me throw up. Kivan thought that was hilarious (of all the bloody things to make him laugh) and said I looked the colour of his armour. Edwin sneered (not bothered, might make him forget his earlier interest).
There was one interesting attraction though, a stone woman, very lifelike. Or as Edwin said, "very likelike almost as if you could lose yourself in the magnificent twin orbs of her bosom which the sculpter has lovingly shaped and carressed" (so Edwin swings both ways huh?). Turns out there was no "loving carressing and shaping", just a nasty petrification spell that was able to be reversed with a scroll I'd picked up in Candlekeep.
And so we met Branwyn, I like Branwyn. Particularly when she explained that although petrified, she could hear what was said and took exception to men who fetishsised about her "magnificent twin orbs". Edwin prepared to cast invisibility on himself. Kivan, ever the gentleman (muttering under his breathe about not seeing a woman undressed since the loss of his Deheirianananana) offered her the ankheg plate when she pledged her swordarm to our cause.
On the way home, we killed a mad mage, (no not Edwin) and rescued a witch he was trying to kill, (no not that witch, another witch, too many witches). I had drunk quite a bit by then.
As with my BG1 run, I used BWS to install a whole bunch of mods at once--and I've only gone briefly into Chapter 2 with BWS before, so most of the mod content is unknown to me. I'll be going in largely blind.
Hopefully I won't end up going into anything like the Grey Clan from BG1.
We end up with a strange bug involving Chara's spell slots. Without those mod items improving their spell slots in BG1, they actually get even fewer spell slots than an Alchemist is supposed to. The only way to solve it is to re-create the character using EEKeeper.
But I can't create an Alchemist during character creation. It seems the only way to fix the problem is to make the Alchemist a generalist mage rather than a Transmuter. Being able to cast abjuration spells is a pretty big boost, so I nerf some of the Alchemist's options in order to balance it out. So Chara will be able to cast abjuration spells in this run.
We retrieve the Golden Pantaloons but the Claw of Kazgaroth is nowhere in sight.
My mods let me give kits to NPCs, so I make Jaheira into a Totemic Druid!
And because Chara and Frisk are already so high-level, Jaheira gets bumped all the way up to druid level 10, enough to make her Spirit Animals immune to normal weapons. A very nice boon indeed.
My mods also let thieves choose special feats, but they've always been pretty bugged. Frisk, our Seducer, can't choose any at all; the dialogue never pops up when they try to pick on.
Minsc, however, does get feats, and he picks a very nice one...
...only to discover that, although I have Spell Revisions installed, I do not have Item Revisions...
...which means Minsc cannot stack that 10% damage resistance with IR armor-based resistances. That robs us of some very useful options.
But on the plus side, helmets will finally be able to block critical hits.
The mods show their influence early on. We fight a kobold named Weenug in the first hallway, and though he doesn't last long, he has really amazing THAC0.
Plus, Atweaks buffs the mephits here, allowing them to gate in other mephits and giving them some new abilities, including a backlash effect.
I discover that there's a hidden disadvantage to multi-classed kits: innate abilities are cast at the average of the character's level, which means level 8/10 Jaheira only casts Summon Spirit Animal at level 9, even though she has 10 druid levels. This means her Spirit Animals actually do not enjoy any immunity to nonmagical weapons.
The duergar are also more dangerous without Item Revisions, as their crossbows enjoy full APR and only -1 damage. But Frisk can use Hypnosis from around corners, as it is not limited by the Seducer's line of sight.
There are only so many healing potions in Chateau Irenicus, and SCS only lets you rest once in the area, but thanks to Chara's Alchemist kit, we can sell those potions for a lot of gold, allowing us to purchase Alchemist potions instead.
Alchemist healing potions are weaker than normal healing potions for the most part, but they are also far cheaper, though I've bumped up the prices considerably now that Chara can cast abjuration spells.
The Otyugh is a rather dangerous critter, as its disease effect offers no saving through, but Frisk can charm a Duergar and use it as a tank.
For some strange reason, the Metaspell Influence Amulet is gone. Replaced by nothing.
Is this some weird side effect of Item Randomizer?
Ilyich isn't much trouble. Frisk's Hypnosis keeps the enemy's APR down and Jaheira's Spirit Animals can deal damage faster than Ilyich can heal himself.
The Mephit Portal room goes fast. The mephits never disable us with Color Spray, and the Mephit Portals have poor defenses besides 100% MR.
I've switched Chara from Lawful Neutral to Lawful Good, and because our familiar didn't carry over from SoD, we get a new one!
Without Item Revisions, there are no backstabbing penalties for weapons besides daggers and short swords, so Yoshimo with his magical katana remains a spectacular backstabber--much better than the local assassins.
Minsc fails a save against Horror, but Frisk prevents a duergar mage from causing any more trouble by nailing him with an Elf Tendon Wand.
Elf Tendon Wands cost 800 gold for 11 charges, but they're quite lovely against low-level mages who rely on MGOI instead of Spell Deflection (the wands strike as level 5 spells, like the Wand of the Heavens).
On the way out, we recruit Yasraena, a mod NPC who is... just stupidly overpowered. Especially when I kit her into a Berserker.
Near-maximum stats, grandmastery in short swords and 2 pips in dual wielding, and 72% innate magic resistance due to being a drow. Her only disadvantage is that she comes with a custom necklace that does nothing and can't be removed.
That MR in particular is going to be stupendous, especially since Chara can brew Lime Juice to give Yasraena another undispellable 15% MR for 10 rounds a pop. If 87% MR isn't enough, I can always add another 25% from a Burning Syrup, at the cost of dispelling all of Yasraena's buffs. She's going to be an incredible anti-mage tank.
Chara sells off all of our Potions of Extra Healing for just under 7,000 gold. Sour Draughts don't heal as much HP as Potions of Extra Healing, but they're much cheaper, and Alchemists need an ample gold supply to fund their potion making.
I don't think Minsc and Jaheira are optimal for this run, so I boot both of them from the party. We run into another mod NPC, a human Berserker, who has some spectacular equipment on her.
But she is way too evil for my tastes. I take her equipment and ditch her.
My mods do some weird things to the stores here. They add a lot of interesting items, and the Robe of Vecna has been replaced by two other artifacts.
Good-aligned characters cannot use either item, but as an Alchemist, Chara will get Use Any Item when they hit epic levels.
Unfortunately, they only have 3 Charisma. Which means equipping both of those items would be instantly fatal.
We also get a really cheap IWD scroll that works just like a Protection from Magic scroll--but can be cast as a level 6 mage spell.
Any magic attack can take it down, however, just like an SCS Protection from Magic scroll, and it has the same downsides, including 100% spell failure and a guaranteed dispel magic on self. It does have a casting time of 1, however, so it would be a guaranteed rescue option if Chara got surprised by a potentially fatal spell.
I add a Silver Bag of Holding using the console to minimize inventory management. It's just easier.
I also recruit Alora, who has reappeared at the Adventurer Mart. She is a Cleric/Thief again, but this time, I give her the Spellbender kit, which allows her to memorize cleric spells that can duplicate the effects of mage spells 1 level lower.
Plus, the Wand of Lightning trick can let us cast an infinite number of these spells with an Improved Alacrity effect in place. If Alora can boost her casting time by 3, she could use a Wand of Lightning to cast 1 Lightning Bolt or Fireball every single frame.
I don't know if I want to abuse that trick, but since I accidentally sold our Wand of Lightning from Chateau Irenicus, it makes no difference for now.
We grab Ninafer, a Lawful Neutral elven Fighter/Mage like Xan who inexplicably has 50 MR.
She would be another incredibly powerful character. But after Chara slays Amalas using SR Sleep, Summon Shadow, a newly available abjuration spell, Protection from Normal Weapons, and Poison Weapon...
...I decide I don't like Ninafer's voice or portrait very much and leave her behind, a decision that proves short-sighted when I realize her longsword would have been very useful considering my entire party only uses piercing weapons.
I end up blowing up the slime using a grenade, which deals crushing damage if the enemy is resistant to piercing damage. I also blow up some kobolds this way.
We get ambushed by some thieves shortly afterwards, and Chara nearly kills both Alora and Yasraena when they accidentally lob a grenade right in front of them. Only a couple of lucky saving throws keep them alive.
These enemies hit pretty hard, and Yasraena is already slowed, but Frisk keeps the party afloat using Hypnosis.
We get some really nice equipment, though only two pieces are much use to us.
We attack Quallo's friend, but unfortunately, I forget to have Chara switch to Bottles of Sludge instead of grenades. The explosion kills Quallo, and the party's reputation plummets.
Yasraena tackles the Myconids, thinking her Berserker immunities will keep her safe, but my mods apparently tweak rage so it no longer grants immunity to confusion. Being unable to use potions almost killed her before I thought to have Alora use Break Enchantment to fix up Yasraena.
Upstairs, we accidentally run right through the Prismatic Spray trap. Luckily, Yasraena's MR keeps her alive.
That trap will trigger every time you walk over it, so you can't get rid of it just by walking over it once. You need to disarm it, or else use a haste effect to escape the Prismatic Spray before it hits.
Yasraena dual-wields a pair of +2 short swords and has grandmastery, which means she has extremely high APR. Combined with her MR, she is able to cut through mage defenses at little risk to herself.
We knock out the Beastmaster's animal friends with Sleep, kill Lehtinan with an Elf Tendon Wand, and get a boost to our reputation, gold, and XP.
Then we get attacked by some sort of hideous clown monster...
...who apparently has some pretty high mage levels.
Yasraena attacks with her fist, but for some incomprehensible reason, PFMW also blocks nonmagical weapons like fists. And Frisk's Elf Tendon Wand appears to do nothing.
But Rhialto doesn't use any dangerous spells before his PFMW expires. And he doesn't restore his defenses.
We get a spellbook that grants the user some very weird, Wild Mage-themed spells depending on the user's level, plus a teddy bear that works as a rather awesome shield.
We head to the Government District to find Jan. But first, we spot Xan hanging out nearby! He's a Fighter/Mage like in BG1, though unfortunately he doesn't have the high levels or spells or equipment that he used to have in BG1. Apparently he got robbed recently.
The BG2 Xan mod lets him upgrade his sword at 1.5 million XP so it grants him an extra attack per round. It's a while away, but it will be a major boon into the late game.
We also bring in Jan, as planned, and give him the Loremaster kit.
Which grants him Use Any Item right off the bat.
Or at least, it would, if the kit worked properly. I don't normally fix these bugs myself, but it seems really lame not to, so I EEKeeper the ability to Jan.
Now we have both Xan and Jan in the party. They get along just fine.
Still better than when Jan tells Nalia about his cousin, "Cletus the Room-Clearer Bifflelips."
I traveled from the Promenade to the Slums to the Government District to the Gate District to the Umar Hills, which normally prevents ambushes from happening. But somehow, we get ambushed. Jan uses SR's faster-casting Invisibility Sphere to hide the party so we can erect our defenses before tackling the enemy--which proves pretty simple due to Yasraena's high APR, 22 STR from rage, and Chara's +3 grenades.
We arrive at the Umar Hills safely. Apparently one of my mods lets Jan create some unique items for us.
The boots are practically useless. All they do is make you look like Jan; it's not a polymorph effect and you don't get any of his abilities or even his stats. The only conceivable use for the boots is if you were in spider form and wanted a slightly higher movement rate or you were in Iron Golem form and wanted a smaller circle.
I decide I want the Beljuril hidden inside one of the nearby chickens. Rather than start a fight, Frisk uses their powerful psionics to take control of the chicken's mind and induce it to commit suicide.
I have no idea how the chicken learned to spit acid, but there you go.
Near Madulf, we get ambushed by some out-of-towners visiting from Middle Earth. A little immersion-breaking to see Lord of the Rings characters in BG2, but they go down fast and give us a lot of nice loot to pawn off later.
After helping Jermien with his golem, we get another golem summoning tome. If I ever bother to use the ability, Chara can summon multiple different types.
I don't like the sound of that last one either.
We head to the Temple Ruins, grabbing a Wand of Lightning in case I change my mind about using the WoL trick...
...tearing down a Greater Mummy and Bone Golem and learning how to create Bone Golems of our own.
...curing Yasraena before mummy rot kills her...
...gaining 3 levels and a wildly overpowered longbow for Xan...
...and seeing Alora die because I didn't see she got affected by mummy rot.
Chara uses a Moldy Poultice to bring back Alora and we keep moving.
We enter the Shade Lord's grounds while invisible. Alora takes down the Shadow Altar with a Sunstone Bullet (not possible in Item Revisions, I don't think) while Yasraena, buffed with Negative Plane Protection thanks to Alora, tackles Shadow Patrick.
The Shade Lord's Black Blade of Disaster can still be fatal, so Yasraena drinks a Murky Liquor from Chara, which boosts her physical damage resistances by 15% and grants immunity to polymorph effects, petrification, and disintegration. That will keep the BBoD's disintegration effect from destroying her.
She also drinks a Vial of Scales to block the physical damage.
Xan uses a Secret Word on the Shade Lord to open him up to a Flame Arrow from Jan, which will remove his Stoneskins while we're still waiting out his PFMW spell.
Chara lowers the Shade Lord's MR using Bog Vapor and we pelt him with some light spell damage while Yasraena applies pressure in melee.
And then... Yasraena suddenly dies.
Murky Liquor should have prevented that, and I doubt it could have run out so soon. But the Shade Lord is weak and Xan and Alora can tough out his Darkling Aura long enough to finish him off.
When I notice that Alora only has 8 Intelligence, I realize that she cannot use the Wand of Lightning without first drinking a couple Potions of Genius--and every level up would unequip it, forcing her to drink more. I decide to remove Alora from the party. The only reason I brought her in was because I knew she could use the WoL trick to good effect, but if it's that much trouble, it wouldn't be worth it anyway.
We report back to the mayor and Madulf, get some useless gear thanks to Item Randomizer, and head off to Watcher's Keep.
Xan's perpetual defeatism fills us with determination.
So this is the last part of the no reload run which somehow turned into much more of a story run.
So now some stats: Edwin, Kivan, Branwyn level 4 Alan level 5
I gave Edwin all the scrolls and yes I do turn down the difficulty to memorise them, that's just a step too far. Branwyn ankheg plate, normal flail, +1 shield Kivan, plate mail, normal halbard and composite longbow Alan, studded leather, Varscona and shortbow, put pip in longsword at the level up. Edwin sling +1, no web, grease which are my go to spells for the mines usually, only horror.
Picked up Varscona and the wand, back to Nashkell to identify and then we were set.
Now Nashkell mines are always a nightmare for me, I dream about Nashkell mines and can never get my head around people blithely talking about "doing them early". So usually I leave them until I have serious firepower in the way of wands and spells. Then they are a cakewalk. But this run, playing fair, no reload and realistic playthrough without too much meta gaming, here we go.
So Alan, Kivan, Edwin, Branwyn headed for the mines the next day. Got waylaid by a group having their own internal bust ups, sounded very bitter, all sorts of betrayal going on. Helped kill them then the half orc asked if I was "Ayla". Told him not to be silly, I'm Alan, must be thinking of my distant cousin of the Lincolnshire Patridges, (think I got away with it especially as later Edwin asked if my cousin was, how shall we put this, "well endowed"). How are these randomers seeing through my disguise?
Did the quest for the stolen gems for the mayor. Kivan went off on one about true love being about never speaking to the true love or somesuch. Personally I thought the carving was pretty hidious and who the hell is going to see it in this backwards neck of the woods? The emeralds are nice though, shame I don't get to keep them. Edwin was just dissappointed it wasn't full length. Branwyn insisted we check to make sure it wasn't another petrified woman. Though as Edwin pointed out, it was just the head and bloody huge and if it was a real woman she might be very pissed off if we resurrected her and she found out she's been decapitated.
So then we headed into the mines. This is where my sense of humour went missing, I began to make Kivan look cheerful.
Kobalds, hundreds of kobalds, hundreds of kobalds with bows and flame arrows, hundreds of kobalds waiting round corners to ambush you with bows and flame arrows.
So we struggled on, a step at a time, Branwyn at the front with shield up. Didn't do much good, the buggers still caught Edwin with a one shot kill (would have helped admitedly if he had cast armour but "he" forgot) (you get far too used to stoneskin always being up). So back to Nashkel and a quick visit to the temple.
Agonisingly slowly we crept our way down through the mines, tried to recruit some miners as a human shield but they weren't having any of it, ungrateful curs. I have waltzed through this mine on SCS/insane at the correct level, this was harder than the recent TOB run I was on.
Found a "grease" spell, now we're talking. The bit at the end with the shaman? piece of cake, grease, horror, pick them off at our leisure while Branwyn dealt with those spawning behind us. Back outside, rest and then head for Mulahey.
Now after all this, I thought the run would end here. But the fight went much better than expected. Spoke to him, cast grease just outside the entrance, planted a couple of traps (only one set) then opened the chest, OK major cheese but you don't know the hell we'd been through. Not sure exactly what happened then, he got hurt, tried to surrender, he got killed. I was directing Edwin to throw horror at the incoming hoards so wasn't kind of watching. Oh yeah, Branwyn had a skeleton she could cast, that helped a lot.
So then we opened the chest and turns out this is all connected to the bandits, Tranzig and Tazok mentioned. So Kivan and Branwyn went off on one demanding all sorts of retribution. Me and Edwin were looking at the cusions, nice, quite a cosy little place he's set up down here at the bottem of a mine???. What an idiot.
Found an elf, even prettier than the one we've got, Branwyn, Edwin and I noticed that straight away, he must be so confused. And he's even more miserable than the one we've got, oh joy. Name's Xan and he's a mage, Edwin immediately offered help with his "spells", yeah sure Edwin.
Made our way back through the mine to the entrance, just didn't fancy getting lost going the back way. Who knows where it leads? So we cleared the mines, now for the reward. Dropped off a ring to a grieving widow and then the Mayor proclaimed us heroes. Not entirely happy about the reknown so slipped a local bard a bit of gold to downplay our involvement.
Headed back to the inn for well needed rest and booze. And then a bounty hunter appeared and bloody rcognised me again. What the hell, I'm beginning to get stubble (OK a bit of fluff , but if you catch it in a certain light, it could be stubble). "Death come for thee", oh purleese. We scattered, we shot arrows, some of us hid, we took him down with a wand of frost, no loot. Funny thing was the kick boxing nutter seemed to be able to see when he was invisible, that helped a lot. People round these parts have really good eyesight, nothing gets past them, magical disguises or invisibility.
Here's one from 124 where Stern thought Noy was the only invisible thing around, and gulped a potion of invisibility as a last resort.
& a post-mortem (multiplayer client gets to scroll the log after host dies) confirmed the flayer may have been the indirect cause of death but it died before Stern.
Multiplayer attempt 124 had convinced me that attempt 125 needed a couple of what I'd term as double-hard b******s. The random generator knew better and threw out Froy the Diviner and Wymp the Dragon Disciple.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer trilogy attempt 125 (124 ending) Melissan currently has a slight edge with 122 defeats against 2 wins, but we're confident
After scraping our way out of Candlekeep the first port of call was to loot some vagabonds (Imoen, Xzar and Montaron) before picking on a blinded Shoal. With one less nereid in the realm we retrieved Perdue's sword from a trio of sleepy gnolls then felt tired. A wandering skeleton turned up to interrupt our rest and we decided to rip off it's head. The skeleton had other ideas though and Froy retreated licking her wounds. Wymp stepped in and also received a drubbing so the two badly wounded adventurers fled from the seemingly undefeatable abomination. This doesn't bode well for any tougher combat that lies ahead. Hopefully there won't be too much of that...
Marl, Firebead and Neera were next: A drink, a book and a couple of sling bullets (Neera is a serial victim of Grond0 the gem bagger).
Next stop was retrieving Zhurlong's boots and Mirianne's letter on the way to Nashkel then down to pick up Samuel. We returned him to the Friendly Arm inn, blinding Tarnesh but unable to stop him killing a nearby guard. Justice in the form of sling bullets soon caught up with him.
Wymp handed Froy a magical (wizardry) ring, but was given it back again. Froy, realising she was travelling with a Dragon Disciple approaching their 3rd level and a fiery breath attack, preferred to wear a ring of fire resistance instead.
Froy, realising she was travelling with a Dragon Disciple approaching their 3rd level and a fiery breath attack, preferred to wear a ring of fire resistance instead.
Just remind me again which ring protects against skull trap damage .
Decided that I am going to carry on this playthrough. Was thinking to abandon it and restart, do things differently and get to this point with better firepower and levels as thoroughly drained after Nashkel Mines. But as I haven't struggled this much for ages, thought it would be a good idea to keep going as it makes a change.
Alan, Brawyn, Edwin, the GLE (good looking elf) and the PE (pretty elf) repaired to the inn after dealing with (yet another) bounty hunter. Drinks were ordered, congratulations recieved from grateful townsfolk. Branwyn and Edwin flanked the PE, the first offering comfort and solace in her expansive chest, the second more (and more) wine. If looks could kill, we'd be down two party members.
That left me with the GLE, who was far more interested in speaking Elvish with the PE, blah blah mellonomin, blah, blah, haven't heard my mother tongue for ages and did I tell you my wife was killed horribly, ect.
Not that I was jealous, being a man, (a manly man), who doesn't get jealous. So I wandered off to the bar to get another drink and found myself talking to a woman with really badly applied make up. Far too much, looked like a bloody clown and her dress didn't fit properly, too tight. But she was very friendly and seemed interested to hear me moaning about the others and was happy to keep my wine glass filled up (admittedly it was me who paid for the bottle).
And the evening wound on. And I got drunker. And the woman got friendlier. And closer. And I jumped out of my skin and drew Varscona when she tried to kiss me and made a grab for me.
That didn't go down well I can tell you. The GLE rescued the woman (huh, I'm the one who was assaulted), Branwyn made jokes about young men not knowing their arses from their elbows, Edwin offered to escort the woman to his bedroom (for her own safety of course), and the PE took his chance to escape.
Next morning we reconvened, not early, hungover, no sign of the PE much to Branwyn and Kivan's disappointment. Edwin seemed to have got over the PE remarkably quickly but they could be due to clown make up woman's acceptance of his offer of a safe place to stay.
So back on the road and off to find a witch. Nobody was talking much, too hungover and a mixture of disappointment, embarrassment and smugness. As we approached a cliff face a small blue thing appeared and attacked. After killing it I asked what it was. "It's a Smurf" answered Branwyn, "we have them in the Norheim Isles but they're usually much friendlier, you call them then "farts" round here" "We call them what?" "Farts, you know, farts, there must be a Fart Village nearby." At that moment more of the "farts" started pouring down the pass towards us. With a war cry that echoed off the cliffs, Branwyn leapt into battle calling on Tempus to "strike down the "farts" with his mighty power". And we lost it, completely, Kivan's bow was shaking, Edwin couldn't cast and I realised I was still pretty drunk.
Thankfully the "farts" were small, weak and insane which put them on the same level as our own hysterical state. Until "Papa Fart", as described by Branwyn, called up a bear (a "fart" bear? how?) but we'd got pretty adept at scattering and pelting with missiles. Though Edwin did have to cast silence on Branwyn. Then there was a cave, another bear and treasure which nobody could identify but looked expensive. The three of us took a vow never to reveal to Branwyn why she had had to do most of the fighting herself.
Corewild the gnomish fighter/thief update - depths of Spellhold
Traveling with: Joshua the gnomish berserker Hanna, Misty, Paja, and Forrest the human wild mages
Setup: Vanilla BG 2, ToB and official patch, core rules at all times, no mods
Last session, we had cleared most of the area you find Imoen in, in Spellhold. Now it was time to clear the rest of that level.
First task was the book of monsters. This went really well. It was mostly ranged attacks, with Joshua being the distraction. We used magic missiles on the beholder to speed up the kill. As a precaution, Corewild had put protection from petrification on himself to prevent any "mishaps" from happening. As it was, the beholder just tried to charm a berserker wearing a charm helmet - wasn't going to work!
Slaughtering the nearby kobolds was simple enough. The lightning bolt they fired off didn't do too much damage, just woke up Forrest when he got hit with it.
Next was a poison wraith - Joshua soloed that enemy. Couldn't remember if it level drained or not, so he used the IMoD despite no skill with maces - he did use belm though to give him more attacks.
Next was a group of Yuan-tis. Once again, Joshua soloed this group with enrage and mirror image from the Ilbratha. We had put a protection from undead on him and he used a haste potion and ventured into the southern room, which was supposed to spawn undead, but none were there? Corewild approached that room as well, still no undead. Odd. Rest of party finally entered the room, then suddenly the undead appeared. Joshua held his ground and burned down the bone golem, while the rest of the party retreated. Undead spawns weren't too powerful (2 skeleton warriors and a greater mummy). While his protection from undead was still active, Joshua also soloed Dace. I was careful though, to only let Corewild stake Dace (otherwise Joshua can't receive the hand)
After looting the "library" (not sure what else to call that room), we decided to pass on the umber hulks and left this initial level.
Next level, more Yuan-tis. Joshua soloed these guys with enrage and improved invisibility from Paja. We use this spell a lot anytime Joshua needs to solo a group or strong magic opponent. For the trapped paintings, Joshua used the book of infinite spells which was set on Spell Turning, to survive the 1st trap. The other paintings were negated with protection from fire scroll and a fire resistance potion.
We used the paintings to open some doors and meet some monsters. We used ranged attacks on the illithid, with a carrion crawler as a suitable distraction for it. The rest of the enemies in the doors were pretty straightforward. The 3 clay golems were pretty easy, as most of the party has blunt skill. So just put on group haste and then that's that.
We used our discs to get haste boots for Joshua. We were not far from Bodhi, but the party was battered by this point. So I carefully put Corewild on one side of the door and the rest of the party on the other side and shut the door and rested. We are resting for an insane amount of time now that we have no healer (and running low on heal potions). We had rested near the library, and we rested for 14 days!!! (I have rest until heal enabled)
I took no chances with Bodhi. Rest of party was away, with Corewild equipping IMoD and using Ilbratha for mirror image - this insured no problems from meeting Bodhi. After doing Spellhold 100+ times, the remaining puzzles, and final combat with the trolls with that strange altar, were simple enough.
We met Saemon on the way up to the next level, and he gave his "advice". We looted the 5 dispelling arrows, and will engage Lonk and Irenicus next session.
Comments
Tig- Start,
A new run,I’m re-entering the challenge with another group;
· Tiguan Twohands a Human CN Enchanter
· Zain a Half Ork NE Sharman
· Imoen is just Imoen, a human thief included for plot reasons
The sad fact of the matter is that Tiguan isn't much of a fighter or a spell caster... she can make herself pretty to look at if it gets her a better sale price for the nick-knacks Imoen brings her.
Mods: this run has no mods (of any kind!) and is the basic Beamdog version install ... I’m playing on LoB level with extra damage turned off.
Traveling with:
Joshua the gnomish berserker
Forrest, Misty, Hanna, Paja the human wild mages
SETUP:
Vanilla BG 2
Throne of Bhaal Expansion
Offical ToB patch
Core rules at all times, including level ups and spell scribing
"gore" on (characters can be chunked)
Been a while, but Corewild saw some action today. We were working on the Unseeing Eye quest. Joshua used Arbane to be immune to undead hold and Corewild used the shield of harmony, and of course the mages staying in the back. Generally this worked really well. Battles/incidents of note:
1) Needed to rest before seeing Amaunator apparition for the 1st time - otherwise no way to deal with the demon, seeing I need a heal spell (Bhaal power).
2) Corewild did a good job with the traps.
3) For the large number of undead guarding the gauntlets of dexterity, we had Joshua solo that portion with a protection from undead scroll, while the party stayed well away. He had a large number of undead to churn through, but dual wielding the Stonefire and Frostweaver was effective enough in getting through them all.
4) One of the hardest sections is the undead/beholders in the way just before the petrification trap on the way to the old Amaunator's temple doing the Unseeing Eye quest. The reason is you can't use pro undead scroll if you get a beholder, as they will use anti-magic rays - but you also can't use the SoH since the fighter is usually using the SoB for the beholders - and if not low enough save vs death, can be held by the shadow fiends. At first Joshua's save vs. death was 5, but we did some equipment swapping and got his save vs. death to 1 - Joshua then equipped the Shield of Balduran and tried to solo these enemies - as it turns out, guess we are low level as no Beholders were in the group (just 3 gauths). Which meant pretty simple victory...
5) For the blind priests I had the melee guys (Joshua and Corewild) use their ranged weapons, while the mages threw a whole bunch of mojo on the enemies. We just used two rounds of skull traps and fireballs and then there were no enemies left. Using the SoB, Joshua then soloed the rest of the lair, sans the Unseeing Eye itself.
6) Was a little worried for battling the Unseeing Eye itself, as Corewild's save vs. spells, even with improved invisibility was only 3, so he could have died theoretically. However, Misty was kind enough to summon her golem via the WK golem book and put it where the Unseeing Eye spawns - which meant when the party came to engage the Eye, it was busy trying to hurt the golem. Corewild used the Rod and then the Eye fell almost instantly.
We immediately returned the rod to the Amaunator apparitition, and made it back to Gaal's level. We didn't have time to engage Gaal though, so saved our session here.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 24 (second attempt)
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
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I stopped by the Cloakwood, though I wasn't able to get to the more distant areas, and found the Gauntlets of Ogre Power when defending some druids.
In Item Revisions, it only grants +2 STR (and +100% if it brings you to 18 STR), so it won't be enough to boost Alora's STR to any meaningful value.
But I was wrong about the Doofus Saber, and give the 5 APR dagger to Chara instead. Alora can use the Doofus Saber very effectively; the 3 APR compensates for her poor THAC0. Though she needs a helping hand on occasion...
...the Doofus Saber can paralyze enemies indefinitely if they fail a save.
I head to the Gnoll Fortress, confident we can take down those bounty hunters, and Alora immediately gets blasted by Magic Missiles.
Notice that all of them dealt 2 damage, the minimum value. That's because Alora's rabbit's foot grants +2 to luck, and the way luck works, that subtracts 2 from every damage roll from every Magic Missile.
Luck also affects healing rolls, like those of Chara's potions. For most characters, the 4d8 HP from a Sour Draught heals 19 HP and isn't completely reliable. But for Alora, that +2 bonus makes the chance of a good roll much stronger--on average, she heals 24.5 HP per potion. A single Sour Draught brings her back to speed.
That luck bonus also applies to Fireburst, so Alora survives the next spell even as the mage's allies fall. And without MGOI to protect him, a single failed save against the Doofus Saber spells the mage's doom.
Alora still nearly dies when the dwarven bounty hunter chops her with his axe; luck does not affect incoming weapon damage. But we put him down nonetheless.
Brute force against the gnolls earns Alora another level. Chara's grenades hasten the encounters.
We slay some kobolds to the south as well. Thanks to Frisk's Hypnosis stopping the enemy's arrows, we collect 4 Arrows of Detonation from the bodies.
Later on, those poisonous potions fetch us over 2,000 gold when Chara recycles them.
We fight Sendai, who fails a critical save...
...and proceed to the mines to nab Mur'Neth. Hypnosis makes the kobold hordes into a joke, but grenades make them into paste.
Gorken Bloodaxe and the other duergar gave us trouble in the last run, but this time we're ready for them. A single grenade and a level 6 Lightning Bolt from Morwen take him down.
In Spell Revisions, Lightning Bolt is a single-target spell. Much safer for no-reload runs.
Alora gains another level from the fight, as does Chara, already at level 6. And with that dagger, their combat stats are pretty impressive for a single-classed mage.
We bring Mur'Neth into the party once more, and just like last time, we opt for the Alchemist thief kit. It's worth it just to gain access to the Advanced Alchemy potions--like Potions of Clarity.
What about Mulahey?
We got lucky. A failed save vs. breath stunned him long enough for Morwen to zap him to death.
We get Boots of Speed, a Wand of Lightning, and Xan, who is now a Fighter/Mage! He even comes at a surprisingly high level. And unlike everyone else in the party, he can wear the excellent set of plate mail we got from those duergar.
Xan's one weakness in BG1 was the fact that he was a single-classed mage. That made his Moonblade mostly useless. But with fighter levels... that's a different story.
With more melee power and some better magical weapons, we go back to exact vengeance on the Revenant and stop by Durlag's Tower, netting Mur'Neth another level up.
Inside Durlag's Tower, Chara narrowly avoids death when I let them get too close to the local undead.
Isn't this amazing? A BG run where you actually gain levels--imagine that!
Anyway, Mur'Neth's jelly form is immune to magic, so we give it a shot against the spectral mage upstairs. Mur'Neth dispels the mage's illusions, though he won't be able to do much damage on his own anyway.
Somehow, Mur'Neth gets webbed. Jellies should ostensibly be immune to web, but as Mur'Neth's record screen shows, even 100+ magic resistance cannot stop Web.
A few rounds pass where nothing happens; Mur'Neth just uses Detect Illusions and gets webbed but suffers no damage. Eventually I get bored and send in Alora. Buffed with a Potion of Speed from Mur'Neth's Advanced Alchemy feat, Alora can disrupt the mage's spells now that Mur'Neth waited out its PFMW.
Alora gets webbed and blasted with Fireburst, but her luck and a Sour Draft lets her bounce back despite having zero fire resistance.
Unable to slay Alora with spell damage, the mage fails to disable her for very long. She hacks it apart.
Alora is actually a decent anti-mage tool with that +2 luck.
Alora gains another level and buffs herself with some of Chara's potions. With a Brine Solution, Alora can bring her save vs. spell down to 0. Her stats are pretty impressive.
Alora's high damage output helps the party take down Kirinhale very fast.
We get a Cloak of Protection +2 for Chara and, after turning the party invisible using some of Mur'Neth's Potions of Invisibility, we give Alora a Potion of Mirrored Eyes to tackle the basilisks.
Mur'Neth and Xan both gain a level, and we get a spare Wand of Lightning. I don't plan on using the Wand of Lightning trick for anything besides the tomes, since I can't say no to giving Chara some huge unnecessary stat boosts.
Over at Firewine Ruins, Alora once again serves as our tank, absorbing spells and dealing damage while the rest of the party strikes from afar.
I'm still worried about the Ogre Mage, so we deploy Pressurized Gas to poison it. The poison doesn't stop the Ogre Mage's spellcasting, but Alora and Xan make their saves and avoid getting spooked into the cloud themselves.
Once the poison softens up the Ogre Mage, Morwen zaps it. Done!
Alora gets a Ring of Holiness for her trouble, which will compensate for her low Wisdom. The Doofus Saber wins yet another fight when Alora tackles the Undead Knight.
Back into the wilderness! Lord Foreshadow gives us a Ring of Human Influence which we will never actually use due to Frisk already having 19 Charisma and we bring Ugh a new bunny rabbit to care for.
Nimbul shows up in Nashkel when we return, but Frisk can dispel both his Mirror Images and his Ghost Armor.
He lands a weak backstab on Mur'Neth nonetheless, but the Doofus Saber and Morwen's Lightning Bolt bring him down.
Xan gets a Robe of the Battlemage, an IR robe that grants +2 to hit and AC and +10 to his maximum HP. But until he gets a little stronger and his spells are more useful, he'll keep using the duergar plate mail we got in the mines.
Officer Vai is now in town. We make 70,000 gold by pawning off our excess loot.
Tranzig is next. There is no fight; he fails a save against the Doofus Saber on the first round.
We get a +1 dagger that grants immunity to fear and charm. I put it in the Bag of Holding in case of an emergency, but knowing me, I'll never use it.
Alora is very sturdy against mages, but she's not quite so strong against melee attackers. She nearly dies trying to fend off Tazok.
After drinking a bunch of potions to improve our defenses, we head into the main tent at the bandit camp. Hypnosis doesn't do much, but Morwen disrupts the enemy mage's first spell, which could have turned the tide of combat against us.
Alora applies some light damage via Unholy Blight (which is party-friendly in Spell Revisions) before chopping up the mage with the Doofus Saber.
We find a Ring of Fire Resistance and some Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise--nothing game-changing, but still nice.
Outside, Alora and Morwen apply pressure to Toggies Cozy while we use Pressurized Gas to poison the bandits.
The Pressurized Gas kills off all the archers. It's not as fast as a Wand of Fire, but we don't have such a wand.
Alora gains another level fighting Dread Wolves at Ulcaster. This time, we remember to drink Potions of Clarity before engaging the Wolves of Ulcaster.
The ghouls can still paralyze us, but drinking a round of Bitter Tonics will give us +3 to our saves vs. death and polymorph. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure ghoul paralysis requires a save vs. breath, a saving throw that Alchemists cannot boost until level 11, so we focus on killing the ghouls first.
We lose most of our buffs to a Dispel Magic howl...
...but IR potions, like Alchemist potions, are undispellable, so we still have our immunity to fear and our improved saves vs. death.
As a Bladesinger, Xan can use an Offensive Spin-like innate ability called Bladesong (at his level, maybe +2 to hit and AC, +1 APR, and maximum damage per hit), which helps apply pressure to the Wolves of Ulcaster. Morwen's Lightning Bolt also takes a chunk out of one of the wolves' HP.
Chara has joined the fray, as all of the ghouls are gone and can no longer paralyze them. Chara has lousy THAC0 thanks to their mage levels, but with their Alchemist bonuses, they can use a bottle of Musk Wine to boost their STR from 16 to 21. Combine that with the 5 APR from our throwing dagger, switched to melee, and Chara actually has the best damage output in the entire party, provided they can actually land a hit. When they do, it's pretty impressive.
This is going much better than it was last time. Alora shares my sense of optimism.
Our reward is a Wand of Monster Summoning.
Mur'Neth already created plenty of potions for us, so I decide to boot him from the party. We don't need any more of his potions, Alora can already detect traps, Frisk can already use Detect Illusions and pick locks, and Mur'Neth's jelly form isn't very important when Alora and Pressurized Gas can already handle enemy mages.
We continue without him and slay Mal-Kalen's shadows with ease. But it seems I underestimated the threat: Mal-Kalen might not have strong defensive spells, but he can drain levels on hit. Morwen dies to level drain.
When Alora gets level drained as well, I decide it would be wise to make our escape.
But rather than flee and come back with Morwen resurrected and Alora restored to her normal levels, I decide to simply heal Alora and use the Wand of Monster Summoning to distract Mal-Kalen.
He quickly disables and kills them, but I can spare a few charges from the wand. Xan summons more critters as we retreat.
Frisk's Wand of the Heavens proves ineffectual, but with our summons as a barrier, Chara manages to kill Mal-Kalen with our throwing dagger.
We head outside to deal with Icharyd. He does lots of damage to us and we struggle to harm him, but with a lot of potions and a lot of rounds, plus Hypnosis to distract Icharyd when we need some extra time to heal, we come out ahead.
Finally!
Xan and Alora make a great pair. I don't know why, but I like both of them, despite them being polar opposites.
The second level of Ulcaster awaits. There are some big fights up ahead, but there are some very important items I want to get my hands on--assuming Item Randomizer does not get in the way.
We head back underground. Smells like bones. We are filled with determination.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 24 (second attempt)
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
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/870513/#Comment_870513
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871320/#Comment_871320
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871601/#Comment_871601
We have some nasty fights ahead of us beneath the Ulcaster ruins. Lots of undead and lots of mages--including Arch Mage Arias and some skeletons and ghouls right off the bat.
Some critters from the Wand of Monster Summoning keep the ghouls occupied. Arch Mage Arias comes pre-buffed with Stoneskin, but he has no defense against Frisk's Wand of the Heavens.
Arias re-casts Stoneskins and Morwen tacks on some extra damage with Lightning Bolt, but Arias is resistant to electricity and immune to magic damage, and he erects an MGOI, blocking the hold effect from the Doofus Saber.
But he never protects himself from the Wand of the Heavens, which strikes as a level 5 spell--bypassing MGOI entirely.
Just look at that. Chara has already hit level 7.
In the last run, we scoured the Sword Coast for XP and only when we were approaching the Ducal Palace did Chara hit level 7. Now we have access to an even wider range of potions and grenades--including Burning Oil, which strikes as a level 0 spell and deals 4d6 nonmagical fire damage, perfect for nuking magic-resistant enemies and mages with MGOI, provided we shell out 150 gold for every bottle.
We also gain access to Elf Tendon Wands for 800 gold each. They deal nonmagical poison damage as a level 5 spell and can paralyze the target for 6 seconds on a failed save vs. wands, or even instantly kill the target on a failed save vs. death at +6. Another expensive but highly effective anti-mage tool.
The next group of enemies is pretty tough. Anton Valor opens with a Stoneskin spell, and we respond with Burning Oil.
He erects a Minor Globe of Invulnerability, but Burning Oil, just like the Wand of the Heavens, goes right through it.
We keep up the pace. It costs us a lot of money, but Anton Valor goes down. The Death Knight isn't far behind.
A Helmed Horror gives us grief with its incredibly low AC. Morwen needs a critical hit just to touch the thing.
Xan uses Bladesong to give himself an extra attack per round and Chara uses True Strike to give themself a +5% chance of landing a critical hit, but in the end, Alora and Morwen take it down.
Next up is Garrett and some Ghost Knights. I had trouble with these guys last time, and I'm not willing to take any chances. I buy bottles of Burning Oil for every party member and dedicate our rounds to a bombing campaign. There are cheaper ways of winning fights, but we saved up a lot of money that we now have a chance to burn.
Looking back, the Wand of the Heavens could have done basically the same thing, albeit slower, but I really like using Burning Oil. Alora, Frisk, and Xan all gain a level, and we get some more loot that we'll probably never use.
Better still, we find a Tome of Understanding. It's totally unnecessary considering the bonuses Chara can get from a Brine Solution and various sources in BG2, but I use the WoL trick to bump them up to 18 Wisdom. Just because I can.
But that's not all. We even find a Protection from Magic scroll!
And an extremely overpowered ring that will give Chara all the spell slots they'll ever need.
But most importantly, I discover that there's one critical item in my install that is NOT a random drop.
An old friend of ours, and given the limitations of Burning Oil, probably the only reason we survived the Grey Clan questline in our last run.
As I've said before, this item lets the user summon an infinite number of Greater Wyverns. It's enough to single-handedly take down every fight in BG1, including modded fights like the Grey Clan, and almost every fight in SoD, except for one:
The final battle of SoD, specifically, in which case their +2 weapons cannot harm the main boss unless you cast Enchanted Weapon (the non-Spell Revisions version) on them.
But I'll be saving the Amulet of Wyvren (not Wyvern, but Wyvren) Summoning for special occasions. I used it to take down Arch Mage Natas in the last run, so this time, I try tackling him without. It seems that enough Burning Oils can get the job done.
After Chara nearly dies to some slashes from the nearby Skeleton Warriors, we finish off the remaining enemies and disarm the trap behind Natas. Chara gets a Cloak of Protection +3 that also grants protection from undead, and they use another tome to crank their STR up to 19.
Chara now has 5 APR at 13 THAC0 for 1d4+9 damage per hit, unbuffed. Enemies with low AC will be too much for them, but against high AC targets, Chara can deal even more damage than a single-classed fighter normally could.
But Chara still stay out of combat for most encounters. They can get 1d3 Stoneskins from a Vial of Scales and boost their saving throws and resistances with various potions, but they could still die from a critical hit backstab, a ghoul's paralysis, petrification, or just a group of enemies surrounding them.
Chara has barely done anything in this run besides brew potions. In every fight, I've kept them out of the fray, keeping their aura clear in case they needed to go invisible and escape.
Playing it safe and eating our veggies fills us with determination.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 25 (second attempt)
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
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We bring out a wyvern from the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning during an ambush and win a Wand of Fire! It won't bypass MGOI and magic resistance like Chara's Burning Oils can, but it can deal much more damage.
Centeol isn't much trouble. We have Sweet Elixirs to cure poison, but a Confusion spell from Chara diffuses enemy pressure.
We nab a Golden Girdle and a Ring of Energy, plus Spider's Bane itself. Killing some Phase Spiders bumps Xan up another level, and Alora's Doofus Saber puts down a dumb-looking dragon nearby, pushing Chara all the way to level 8.
Some druids give us a Ring of Protection +2 for slaying the dumb-looking dragon.
Miranda the Witch confronts us in the next area. The fight is as short as her dialogue.
Those green bracers give +1 APR, but only druids can use them, and Faldorn isn't worth it. More druids attack us--completely without reason, of course--and we get a nice new club. But for some reason, it's impossible for anyone to ever equip it.
We can't put it in the Turqoise Bag of Holding from Thalantyr, either. I thought it was coded as the wrong kind of item or something, but looking at the thing in Near Infinity, it seems fine. I just hold onto it in case we figure out a use for it.
We keep going through the Cloakwood. More XP, more levels, and more overpowered items for which we have no proficiencies.
A Hamadryad gives us some trouble later on, but Frisk can cure any charm effect if the target makes a save vs. spell at +5.
There's a ranger by the bridge, whom I assume is from some mod, who sells a lot of items you could normally only get from Sorcereous Sundries.
We grab 60 Arrows of Detonation and some wands. Probably never going to use most of this stuff, but I have the gold, so why not?
Time to invade the mines. Alora paralyzes one of the fighters in the Drasus encounter, but she doesn't have the AC to handle much pressure.
Only Sour Drafts, bolstered by Alora's +2 luck bonus, keep her alive. Frisk hypnotizes the enemy while Xan buffs himself and Chara starts casting Confusion.
Morwen fires off Sleep and puts most of the enemies to sleep. Sleep scales with level in Spell Revisions, and Morwen is level 8 or 9 by this point.
Alora's +2 luck just barely saves her life when the second of two Flame Arrows brings her HP down to single digits.
The wyvern finishes off Drasus himself, and when Kysus nearly kills Frisk with a Flame Arrow, Chara responds with their throwing dagger, bolstered by Poison Weapon.
Yet another Flame Arrow brings Frisk to the brink of death, at 1 HP. Chara takes a break from their dagger throwing to bail Frisk out.
Frisk and Chara strike back at Kysus, forcing him to flee.
We reveal Kysus just as he heals himself and manage to poison him. He casts Dire Charm despite the poison damage, but it won't save him.
Poison Weapon also helps with Hareishan.
Not that Alora couldn't slay these mages on her own. It's just nice to try out other methods.
Feeling reckless and foolhardy, we just mob the next mage, Natasha. Fireburst roasts the party, but put together, our APR overwhelms her.
We bring Yeslick into the party; he did very well with us in the previous run.
There's a mod-introduced fight before Davaeorn. Alora rushes the mage and soaks up a potentially nasty spell.
A backstabber tries and fails to kill Frisk. Chara punishes the thief for her pretension.
Alora can't paralyze the mage with the Doofus Saber, so she switches targets and lets Xan put some Arrows of Biting in the mage.
Alora disarms some traps and resists Davaeorn's opening Web+Stinking Cloud Minor Sequencer.
Davaeorn teleports to the party and casts Fireburst in the same round. The damage is severed, but it's nothing a round of Sour Draughts can't address.
Davaeorn teleports away, so we take a moment to smash his goons.
We chase Davaeorn around, but he proves evasive even as he bombs us.
Eventually we corner him. Chara's Fire Shield triggers on Davaeorn's Web or Stinking Cloud and manages to disrupt one of his spells. It buys us enough time to cut through Davaeorn's defenses.
We get a pair of Boots of Speed that grant full haste, plus a nice save-boosting cloak for Frisk or Alora, a robe that grants +20% magic resistance, and a shield that grants +2 AC to nearby allies. Xan and Alora share another moment together.
I love these two.
Morwen gains another level up when we free the slaves. All these levels are a welcome change from the last run. We forge some nice items from Thalantyr...
...and go bankrupt in the process. But Officer Vai pays big money for our excess loot, and we jump back to over 120,000 gold overnight. It's enough to buy us some more upgraded items.
Najara attacks us again when we visit he Friendly Arm Inn. The attack doesn't last long, but the rewards are massive.
Jaelos Auglatha attacks us on the way to Baldur's Gate. He is much more successful, as his friends can paralyze us with their arrows.
Only Xan fails his save, however, and Yeslick cures his paralysis. Frisk uses Hypnosis to slow down the enemy's arrows and we pick them off one by one.
For some reason, however, Baldur's Gate is off-limits. We can't access it, even though our journal says that's where we're supposed to go next. I try going back to the mines, but they're already flooded.
It seems I didn't step on a certain trigger because I was using CTRL-J to get from place to place. By reloading in Davaeorn's lair, we can step on the right trigger and open up Baldur's Gate.
I could do so much more before facing Sarevok. Durlag's Tower is wide open, and there are plenty of other places we could go. But I am not willing to wait. I want to finish this as fast as possible.
We were cheated of victory once before, but we will not let it happen again. We are filled with determination.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 26 (second attempt)
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
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We stop by Thalantyr as well as Sorcerous Sundries and pick up a couple items that will help with Chara's defenses.
We speed through Baldur's Gate, skipping a lot of quests I did not feel necessary. We blast the Ogre Mage with a Skull Trap, slay the basilisk with the Doofus Saber, murdalize Ragefast with ranged weapons, killed Ramazith with the Doofus Saber, and earned another Protection from Magic scroll and a Wand of Paralyzation.
If my memory is correct, I deemed those scrolls to be very useful at the time, because I did not yet realize that they could not be used on enemy mages; they were self-only.
We enter the Iron Throne building soaked with defensive magicks. Like last time, our front line engages the enemy fighters in the middle of the room while our weaker character duel lesser foes near the stairs.
Yeslick gets stunned somehow, but Alora is there to save him. Chara's THAC0 is poor, but with 5 APR and 19 base STR, they're quite dangerous.
We smash the enemy with brute force; our items obviate the need for much micromanagement, and we don't fail enough saving throws for things to get complicated. It ends with Naaman running out his MGOI spell, allowing the paralysis effect of Alora's Doofus Saber to break through.
We get a Ring of Free Action from the fallen, have Thalantyr forge some fighter gauntlets for us, and head to Candlekeep. Ogre Mages disable Yeslick and Xan with Horror, but Alora cures Yeslick and we cut down the Ogre Mages before they can deal much damage to us.
I thought the Rieltar fight was difficult, but the enemy just... dies. Almost instantly.
The only notable loot from beneath Candlekeep is a redundant Protection from Magic scroll and a Helm of Defense--a rare source of immunity to critical hits in Item Revisions.
Alora has 3 base APR from the Doofus Saber, Yeslick has 2 base APR from his morningstar, and Xan has 2 base APR from a special longsword. Unhasted, the party has 16 APR considering Frisk is usually not attacking. Most enemies can't withstand the pressure.
Alora has a subzero save vs. petrification thanks to a Bitter Tonic (+3), so she can tackle Medusas safely. But just to be safe, I have wyverns do much of the work, and have Alora use the Potions of Invisibility Mur'Neth brewed for us before we kicked him out of the party.
As usual, Prat runs and hides and ambushes us later. But she should have stayed hidden.
Alora has hit cleric level 7 and can now cast two level 4 spells thanks to the Ring of Holiness. Due to Faith and Powers or Divine Remix or whatever the hell I've got in my install, she does not have Free Action or Holy Power (which grants APR bonuses in SR!), but she does have Mirror Image and a very important spell from IWD.
Before we re-enter Baldur's Gate, we pay a visit to Officer Vai and get another massive fortune by selling random crap to her. Notice the payoff from all those Laeral's Tears.
Yes, we have 5 Protection from Magic scrolls. I don't plan on using any of them.
We head back to the ranger in the Cloakwood and buy 30 Bullets of Detonation for 50,000 gold. I don't know what good they'll really do, since unlike Arrows of Detonation, they require a successful attack roll, but they deal just as much damage as an Arrow of Detonation and you can also apply on-hit effects to them--like Chara's Poison Weapon.
I didn't let Alchemists poison their grenades, but I didn't bother removing the same exploit elsewhere. Wizard Slayers can still apply spell failure to Alchemist grenades, and Alchemists can still apply poison to other area-effect weapons.
Cythandria lands one solid spell before we put her down.
Next up is the Undercellars. I know Slythe can deal big damage with his backstabs, so I make sure everyone has used a Vial of Scales for the 1d3 Stoneskins.
It's not necessary. Alora just destroys him.
Krystin's PFMW blocks all of our attacks, but it won't stop Frisk's Wand of Fire or Morwen's Elf Tendon Wand, which go right through Krystin's MGOI.
We follow her around, trying to remove her invisibility so we can hit her with more wand charges, but Krystin likes to remain invisible even when Frisk's 100% Detect Illusions skill reveals her.
She only flickers into view briefly. Xan and Morwen manage to use their Elf Tendon Wands on her before she vanishes, but Chara fails to disable Krystin with Confusion.
Only when she attacks us directly does she stay visible. And a single Breach spell on Alora is not enough to keep us at bay.
Krystin drops a Dexterity tome, which Chara uses to boost their DEX up to 21, enough for another -1 AC.
The bonuses mean little to me. I just like seeing high numbers on Chara's record screen.
All that's left to do is confront Sarevok. This time, he's not going to cheat us of our victory.
We head to the Ducal Palace. Frisk holds our secret weapon tight. It fills us with determination.
Undergate: Chara and Frisk in Baldur's Gate
Part 27 (second attempt)
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868593/#Comment_868593
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/869806/#Comment_869806
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/870513/#Comment_870513
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871320/#Comment_871320
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871601/#Comment_871601
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871685/#Comment_871685
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871719/#Comment_871719
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871744/#Comment_871744
This is it.
The Ducal Palace once more. The place where my first run failed so horribly, and after so much hard work.
We begin the same way as in our first run. Spell Revisions tweaks Resilient Sphere so it offers no save to friendly and neutral targets, so Belt is guaranteed to be safe for the first 10 rounds.
Frisk uses Detect Illusions to remove the Doppelganger Mage's Mirror Images while the rest of the party engages in melee combat. Liia Jannath, with no Resilient Sphere to protect her, dies without even trying to defend herself.
Seriously, she was teaching Imoen magic in SoD. Is she the only mage in this game dumb enough not to benefit from SCS pre-buffing?
We swarm the doppelgangers, and they go down very fast. Chara hits level 9, though it doesn't buy us very much.
Alchemists are Transmuters and therefore cannot use abjuration spells like Spell Immunity/Dispelling Screen or Breach--which are the main reason level 5 spells are important to begin with.
Belt will be free very soon, and when he escapes, Sarevok will attack him. How do we keep him safe?
Simple. Frisk just summons a massive wall of Greater Wyverns between Sarevok and Belt.
Because fuck you, Sarevok.
Sarevok flees. I just wonder how I'd keep Belt safe without my mods. A Wand of Monster Summoning could replace the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning, but without SR, Resilient Sphere is no guarantee of survival for the Grand Dukes.
That's a subject for another day. Some guy teleports us to the Thieves Guild and we waste some money buying interesting items we will never actually use.
Who knows? They must have a tiny role to play in SoD.
Xan gets a level up from an Ochre Jelly and Alora disarms all the traps in the maze. We rest before engaging the Undercity party and Chara gets another Bhaalspawn power, because I've been using a custom rest spell instead of resting normally.
There is no need to conserve any of our resources. We drink a bunch of potions and rush the Undercity party. Right off the bat, Alora paralyzes one of the fighters.
Alora turns her attention to another enemy and Morwen knocks out Carston. Alora finishes off her second target, and three enemies end up out of commission in the first round.
Carston wakes up--maybe because Chara's Greater Malison counted as a hostile spell--and Frisk reveals the enemy mage. Meanwhile, the cleric we'd been ignoring manages to free Alora's first target from paralysis. Our biggest gains just got reversed.
Frisk runs away from a Chain Lightning spell, ensuring it can't spread to the rest of the party, but it does rather little damage, partly because Chara's Radiant Philters gave the whole party 25% resistance to elemental damage (and 50% to Chara themself).
Alora kills the cleric, ensuring that there is no one to cast Remove Paralysis if she paralyzes another enemy.
One of the enemies fires an Arrow of Detonation at us. It has little effect, but Xan still rushes to meet him in melee combat to stop him from firing another. Chara fails to disable the mage using a grenade, but Alora successfully paralyzes one of the fighters.
Finally, we're free to handle the mage. Frisk reveals them and we pelt the mage with missile weapons until she falls.
Sarevok awaits. We buff the party with everything. All of Chara's potions and all of our spells. Chara looks practically invincible.
But some of those numbers are dispellable. And we don't have Dispelling Screen to block it. If Chara breaks invisibility, they could get dispelled, disabled, and very quickly killed.
We drink one last round of potions. Xan takes a moment to break the mood.
Why now?
The battle begins. Xan rushes up to Sarevok and the whole party launches Arrows of Detonation and Bullets of Detonation at him.
But I see bad news. See that missile damage? Those Arrows of Detonation are doing area-effect missile damage, which means they're going to cut through Xan's Stoneskins. If we keep this up, Xan will die.
We switch gears and attack Diarmid instead while Xan tries to evade Sarevok's blows, but Diarmid uses a Protection from Magic scroll, granting him immunity to the fire damage from the arrows.
This isn't going like I planned. I thought we'd have killed at least one enemy by now.
I switch Xan to normal arrows and have him attack Diarmid. Frisk, Alora, and Chara stay focused on Diarmid, but Yeslick and Morwen switch to the Wand of the Heavens and Arrows of Biting to handle the enemy mages on the map.
Diarmid is suffering, but Xan loses a third of his HP to a single blow from Sarevok. We need to bail him out.
Xan drinks a Vial of Scales. It'll only give him 1d3 Stoneskins, but it will keep him alive for at least a few seconds. We use the time to keep up the pressure on Diarmid. Dead enemies can't drink potions.
Alora fires an Arrow of Detonation over to Sarevok to hassle him and Tazok, but Tazok just has so much HP. The initial volley of Arrows of Detonation barely made a dent in him. And the arrow's missile damage robs Frisk of their last Stoneskin.
Xan flees the altar in search of safety to the south. Chara deals the final blow on Diarmid.
His aura clear, Xan heals himself with a Sour Draught. But a Skull Trap brings his HP back down.
I foolishly have Chara keep using Bullets of Detonation. Xan loses his last Stoneskin, and Frisk has already lost theirs thanks to Alora. Both Frisk and Xan approach death.
Angelo happens to be right there when Frisk is wounded.
Tazok and Sarevok are both chasing Xan, but Tazok is close to death, just like Xan. Taking a big risk, I have Alora fire an Arrow of Detonation at Tazok as Xan runs away. Thanks to his Potion of Speed, brewed long ago by Mur'Neth, Xan escapes the explosion. Tazok is not so lucky.
Sarevok catches up to Xan, but Xan's aura clears just in time for him to drink a Vial of Scales.
Maybe it'll hold off one slash. Maybe it'll hold off two or three. Who knows?
Xan keeps running, trying to buy himself enough time to drink a Sour Draught and save himself. Meanwhile, to the northeast, Alora, Morwen, and Yeslick attack Angelo with melee weapons, knowing that their Potions of Fire Resistance (50% resistance, from Mur'Neth) and their Radiant Philters (25% resistance, from Chara) will block most of the damage from his Fire Shield. Chara attacks from afar using their throwing dagger. Just in case there's a Remove Magic on the way.
Xan barely healed anything from that Sour Draught. He'll have to try again. The rest of the party focuses on Angelo, and Yeslick's morningstar manages to get past Angelo's Stoneskins!
Semaj bombs the party, but fire spells are little threat to us. Xan keeps running, but a second Sour Draught does almost nothing for him.
Morwen tries using an Elf Tendon Wand on Angelo. He avoids getting paralyzed or killed thanks to his saving throws, but the poison damage still gets past his MGOI.
Not knowing why the Sour Draughts were healing him so little, Xan drinks a Potion of Invisibility to buy himself some more time. Angelo also decides to make his escape.
Without Frisk, we don't have a reliable way of dispelling enemy illusions, so we switch our attention to Semaj. But Semaj wanders into the center of the area, and I'm sure there are nasty traps there--maybe even a Dispel Magic trap, which would be disastrous for our party. Rather than chase Semaj onto the symbol of Bhaal, I have our melee characters break down the Skeleton Warriors, while saving Chara's throwing dagger and some Elf Tendon Wand charges for Semaj.
Notice that Sarevok is following Xan even after he turned invisible. Not a good sign.
We destroy a Skeleton Warrior, but Angelo remains at large, and he has enough time to heal himself with another potion. Xan is also on the run, but his Potion of Invisibility does not keep him safe. He can't stop for a moment, lest Sarevok cut through his unknown number of Stoneskins and end his life in two more chops.
Notice Alora running over to fight the second Skeleton Warrior close to Sarevok.
Xan gets enough time to drink another potion. Once again, it barely heals anything.
But Semaj has wandered off the symbol of Bhaal! It's safe to attack him in melee; we needn't run over any traps to engage him.
Not all is well, however. Xan, already injured and vulnerable, has just lost his last Stoneskin.
For whatever reason, those Sour Draughts aren't working. They won't heal him enough to cover even a single blow from Sarevok, but at least the Vials of Scales can block 1 to 3 of them. I send Xan further south to use one more vial while Alora slashes at the lonely western Skeleton Warrior and the rest of the party attacks Semaj.
Sarevok lands a critical hit right before Xan drinks another Vial of Scales. Xan is almost dead, but he has at least one Stoneskin holding him together.
Angelo breaks invisibility to attack Alora, but his spells are little threat to her; Alora's +2 luck bonus dramatically decreases all incoming spell damage.
The Lightning Bolt only does 3 damage to her.
Morwen hits Semaj with an Elf Tendon Wand right before he vanishes, and Chara hurries over to heal Xan, since his potions just aren't helping him.
Xan once again fails to restore much HP with a Sour Draft. Chara is still chasing him down, and Yeslick is lingering around Semaj's Fire Shield, waiting for Semaj to break invisibility.
Semaj breaks invisibility, and just as Chara heals Xan for a few precious HP, I find out what Semaj was doing.
Chara has lost all of their Stoneskins. Rather than use a spell or scroll, I have Chara drink a Potion of Stone Form, which gives 5 Stoneskins in Item Revisions (more than Chara could gain from a spell at their level) and cannot be dispelled.
Angelo and Semaj are both wounded, but Angelo has no Mirror Images, so Alora, Yeslick, and Morwen concentrate on Angelo. The Doofus Saber's magic damage interrupts one of his spells.
Finally, I realize why Xan wasn't getting much healing from those Sour Draughts.
He's intoxicated; the Vials of Scales he's been drinking are alcoholic. That imposes a luck penalty, which acts against healing rolls as well as incoming spell damage rolls. Sour Draughts heal 4d8 HP, but a luck penalty will negate most of that.
A Sweet Elixir can cure intoxication, but I don't want him to wait that long. Instead, I have him drink another Potion of Invisibility and stay on the run until he can drink a Potion of Extra Healing, which always heals the same amount regardless of luck (30 HP in IR).
Down south, things are going well. Angelo fails a save against the Doofus Saber. He's already dead.
Alora keeps attacking Angelo, but Yeslick, Morwen, and Chara turn their attention to Semaj, as they don't need to keep up the pressure on Angelo when he's already at Near Death and there's no one to bail him out.
Up north, Xan slips away from Sarevok, and Sarevok turns his attention to our wyvern.
Xan finally manages to heal himself with a standard healing potion, and Angelo falls before Alora's Doofus Saber.
Alora sticks around to fight the Skeleton Warrior that arose from Angelo's corpse, and Xan hurries over to join her. Semaj nails Chara with a Flame Arrow, but Chara's resistances and Potion of Stone Form block most of the damage. Still, losing those Stoneskins is not safe, so Chara drinks another one.
Sarevok hurries over to join the fight--it seems he already dispatched our only wyvern--but we have made excellent progress. Semaj croaks.
I'm worried about what will happen when the fight ends. I don't want Frisk to be missing when it does. I give Yeslick a scroll of Raise Dead and have him drink a Potion of Invisibility. He'll need the space.
Yeslick hustles over to a corner. Chara fortifies their defenses and we keep chipping away at the Skeleton Warriors.
Fearful that Xan's defenses will not last, I have him drink another Potion of Speed to make sure he can escape Sarevok's reach if he needs to. The group takes down the last Skeleton Warrior.
We turn our attention to Sarevok. Chara summons some Shadows just to distract him if necessary (I didn't want to rely on the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning) and Yeslick uses the scroll of Raise Dead.
Frisk is back! They drink a Potion of Invisibility and hurry over to collect their equipment.
Sarevok is all alone against impossible odds.
Xan, drunk off his ass and still shaken from his multiple brushes with death, deals the final blow to the warrior he spent half the battle running away from.
The battle is won!
Sarevok is dead!
BG1 is over!
This is the first time I've ever beaten BG1 without reloading. We proceed to SoD. The intro begins.
Siege of Dragonspear's sweeping, Icewind Dale-like music fills us with determination.
Joshua the gnomish berserker
Corewild the gnomish fighter/thief (protagonist)
Hanna, Misty, Paja, Forrest the human wild mages
SETUP: Vanilla BG 2, ToB and patch, no mods
I played a lot of BG tonight - and boy what a crazy session it was - on to the details:
The party's next target was Neb. Before going to the district, we put up stoneskins - however Forrest got a wild surge of COW! and it killed the nearby peasants (and Town Crier!) - dropping our 18 rep down to 3!!!
It kills Forrest too, but we have RoR so that's not too bad to deal with. While looting his body, however, enforcers arrive to KILL COREWILD!
Hmm, we better raise our rep immediately, or it will be very difficult to work on quests in Athkatla. So we head to the Trademeet temple, and donate what little gold we had (we recently got some key items from Ribald's recently) - however, 500 gold was not even enough to raise it 1 point! Down to 200 gold...ouch.
I decide it's time to cut my losses, forget side quests and let's get out of Athkatla - even imprisonment in Spellhold sounds better than our current situation. But to do that, need to do the main quest, which unfortunately for us is in Athkatla. Everywhere we go enforcers were arriving.
We rest in the docks inn and head to Mook, but who do we run into on the way? You guessed it, more enforcers! We MUST battle them so we can help Mook. Time to roll up our sleeves!
So we start doing our best spells, including spells like skull trap - this will likely catch more peasants, but we are already at the bottom for Reputation, so can't get any worse. But now guess what happens? Vampire ambush! And worse, it's the dreaded Sunsuki one!
So a huge brawl is about to shape up. At this point, the enforcers happen to mention I am sentenced to death.
The battle doesn't start well - two party members stunned, Paja near death. We weren't able to cast many spells, mostly skull traps, chaos and a few summons.
Most allies AND enemies are disabled - Corewild and a earth elemental are doing most of the damage.
After the fierce battle, all enemies are slain - the party is badly wounded, some party members level drained, and TWO party members finished the battle with ONE HP left!! No deaths miraculously...
Next target is the traitors, but yet more enforcers trying to engage us. We keep fleeing. We also by this point are using the free rest at the graveyard and putting up invisibility 10' and travel invisibly if at possible - this helped a lot.
Joshua eventually solos Neb and his "allies". We eventually turn in his head for a Reputation gain, but not yet. We go to the graveyard and carefully obtain the Mace of Disruption. Then we head to docks to forge it, but discover (at this point) we hadn't yet got the illthium! (we had the alloy instead). So we retreat and Corewild stealth fails - and enforcers appear right then! (daybreak happened that moment).
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was best. I had the party (which was below me, as I had the haste boots) go to the left and below - I ran to rendezvous but stealthed before reaching the party. When I scouted, only a single soldier followed! When I moved up my party, the soldier did not engage - oh we are all invisible - whew, let's get out of here!
We do eventually forge the IMoD - Joshua did most of the work in Bodhi's lair (berserkers are good for that). Here's Joshua and summons dealing with the ambush at the lower level of the lair.
Lassal was easy (a single Azuredge hit killed him). Bodhi had to deal with 3 basic snares and 4 sets of MMMs coming at her - that was too much for her and she fled.
We make it back to the docks and are about to report to Linvail and leave for Brynnlaw - we certainly had enough excitement in Athkatla!
Tig-1,
Opening move,I’m collecting some followers to my group...
· Dorn waved at me in the Fai but joined after I watched the most unlucky bandit die that I've ever seen.
· Edwin gave me a Half Elf Wild Mage without needing to fight and that gave me her gear... then I kicked both to the curve.
· Shar-Teel dualed to thief and got her Fighter class unlocked after we did a quick Basilisk bash.
Fights: an easy 10 shots from a free frost wand killed a horror for my third level and Imoen (4th) suggested we swap classes i.e, she went mage and I dualed to thief.
Spear of Justice: Chara and Frisk in Siege of Dragonspear
Part 1
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)We've finally reached SoD. Despite rushing through BG1 on the second attempt, our levels are reasonably high and the mods I got from BWS gave us some really incredible items. At the front of the party is Alora, who is a Cleric/Thief in my install for some reason.
Notable equipment includes the Doofus Saber (or Doufas' Saber), a katana that grants 3 APR (!) and deals magical damage and paralysis (!) on a failed save. So it's basically Celestial Fury and Belm from BG2. Alora's rabbit's foot is also worth mentioning, as the +2 luck has made her extremely resistant to enemy spell damage and has boosted the amount of HP she gets from our Sour Draughts.
Next up is Yeslick. Notable equipment includes Najara's plate mail (+1 to STR) and the Enlightenment Star, a morningstar that boosts his APR.
He's mostly just a supplementary character to Alora.
Third is Xan, who is a Fighter/Mage in my install with the Bladesinger kit.
Notable equipment includes a longsword that gives +1 APR. You might notice a pattern here.
Then we have Morwen, a mod-introduced Skald (a kit which is actually nerfed in my install; I've never used her song before). I don't find her very interesting, but she was an important player in BG1 because she started out at level 5.
Notable equipment includes a longbow with +1 APR (in Item Revisions, most bows only grant +0.5 APR) and the Greenstone Amulet, both of which she started with in BG1.
Fifth is our dirty flirty androgynous human Frisk, using the Seducer thief kit. It wouldn't be an Undertale-themed run without Frisk.
Notable equipment includes the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning, which lets you summon Greater Wyverns at will. That item alone could beat almost all of SoD single-handedly, so I won't be using it to its full potential.
Finally, our Charname is Chara, using the Alchemist kit.
I don't even know the names of all the crazy mod-introduced equipment Chara has. But it gives them lots of extra spell slots and some huge defensive bonuses, plus a throwing dagger with 5 APR, which Chara can switch to melee use to benefit from their base 19 STR.
My first SoD run was all hidden in spoilers, but SoD has been out for a long time, so I will post on this run normally.
We trample the entire first dungeon; there's little to tell. The Doofus Saber disables Korlasz on the first round, preventing her from suggesting a surrender.
The run is off to an excellent start. This party can probably just breeze through SoD!
Except...
Apparently SoD automatically removes all vanilla NPCs from the party after the first dungeon. Only player-created and mod NPCs remain; the rest go away for plot-related purposes. Half our party members, and all of their powerful equipment, vanish instantly. Including Alora, our best NPC in almost every dimension, and the Doofus Saber, our best weapon.
We also lose tens of thousands of gold, dropping down to 0. We recoup some of the cost by recycling some gems and stuff in Chara's Alchemist lab.
This run isn't going to be as easy as I thought.
We still have some strong options. Chara hits hard with their throwing dagger and Frisk's Greater Wyvern is just as dangerous.
I thought my SoD install would be mostly unmodded, but it seems BWS added at least one new NPC to SoD: a rakshasa with some powerful abilities, though none of them begin to approach the level of a BG2 rakshasa.
I don't like Verr'Sza's voice much, but he has very high APR because of a special pair of bracers. He's pretty deadly, looking at his numbers.
We bring Safana into the party. We actually don't need a thief much--traps are pretty bearable in SoD, and Frisk already has Detect Illusions--but lucky for us, Safana can choose the Alchemist thief kit.
She can conjure lots of potions for us at no cost, whether we want to sell them or use them. I'll probably keep her waiting at the camp most of the time, though, since the Alchemist thief, unlike the Alchemist mage kit, doesn't really scale with levels at all.
Chara meets a doppelganger at an inn--a woman who shares their exact name! Well, almost.
Our attempts to flirt with her don't get far.
We bring Minsc and Dynaheir into the party, because their voice acting is so charming in SoD. Much more so than in BG1. Plus, it gets us a new Greenstone Amulet!
We also recruit Sirene, a tiefling paladin of Ilmater.
She seems okay, but her kit and stats aren't too special--I don't know if I will hold on to her. She does have a very strong healing spell, though, and while it deals damage to her when she uses it, the damage is physical (nonlethal damage), which means the Stoneskin effect of Chara's Vials of Scales can block it.
In the end, I ditch both Verr'Sza and Sirene. Verr'Sza is only marginally stronger than Minsc, and I prefer Minsc's voice, while Sirene's tanking ability won't be very important with Vials of Scales to improve Minsc's defenses.
I like M'Khiin, so I visit Baeloth's death pit to recruit her. The crowd isn't impressed by Baeloth's show.
You know, the first time I played this game and posted on it, that line was silent, and I complained that the line would be better if it was voiced. But now that I heard it, it still seems weird... I feel bad for not appreciating it, because it seems like somebody at Beamdog actually changed it in response to my complaint.
We bring M'Khiin into the party. But it seems Goblin Grandma isn't entirely compatible with my spell mods. Her spell picks when leveling up aren't very diverse.
But my item mods are very nice, as she can finally equip a pair of bracers and a suit of armor that we've never been able to use before. The bracers give her +1 APR, and the armor gives her some massive saving throw bonuses.
Plus, she can use a +3 axe of ours, and a ring that boosts her AC by 2.
After selling some random crap to Belegarm, we get back to over 30,000 gold. We buy over 100 Vials of Scales just because.
Minsc has some trouble with the local undead. His Greenstone Amulet protects him from paralysis, and Vials of Scales block physical attacks, but level drain goes right through those defenses.
M'Khiin bombs the area with Spirit Fire; I no longer have to worry about killing Minsc by friendly fire.
Next time, I remember to have Frisk focus more on hypnotizing the local undead, lest Minsc get overwhelmed again.
This time around, I know how to fight the Coldhearth Lich the right way. The Secret Revealed trivializes the fight, as it is supposed to.
The last time I played SoD, I fought the thing conventionally. It didn't go well.
The bridge fight wasn't much trouble. I know because I only took a single screenshot. Apparently one of the enemies can remain hostile even after Caelar defuses the situation.
I really don't like the fog effect. It's good atmosphere, but it's too heavy.
I bring Glint into the party, but decide to boot him shortly thereafter. I don't mind his character, but I prefer Viconia's voice. And her Nightcloak of Shar kit gives her some very nice spells.
We side with the vampire against the vampire hunters, because I know the mage, Ikros, drops a Wand of Paralyzation. Even though we already have one.
SR's Shadow Door mazes nearby enemies for 1d4 rounds, and both Minsc and Viconia get caught when Ikros goes invisible.
Viconia takes down Ikros' spell protections using Secret Word, Frisk reveals Ikros using Detect Illusions, and Chara cuts down Ikro's Mirror Images and Stoneskins using Flame Arrow.
A summoned Shadow finishes him off.
We notice a cute sign at a nearby pond.
SoD has lots of little details like this.
We plow through the little fights; we're equipped to handle those just fine. Viconia hits level 9, but unfortunately, she cannot cast Raise Dead. She gets some excellent spells, but none of them will let us raise the dead.
We enter the spider cave. Everyone drinks a Bitter Tonic to improve their saves vs. death.
"Spider Dance" intensifies. It fills us with determination.
Spear of Justice: Chara and Frisk in Siege of Dragonspear
Part 2
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871992/#Comment_871992
The spider cave can be really, really hectic. Far more so than Centeol's lair in BG1. Holy Smite and Slow should work well here, but I rely on Frisk's Hypnosis spell.
Frisk's psionic spells can all be cast at will, so it's more reliable than most disablers, which can fail outright and cannot be easily re-cast.
The Seven-Legged Spider apparently can drain Strength on hit, but we overwhelm it before it can get through Minsc's high STR.
Without Alora or Yeslick or Xan in the party, Chara has to pick up some of the slack with their 5 APR throwing dagger.
Then I see something new.
A Rhinocerous Beetle? When did that happen?
Those things are pretty intimidating, but it seems they're very easy to hit.
I love Minsc's commentary here. The original games never had combat-specific unique dialogue.
We have a bigger fight coming up. Morentherene is next. And though SR's Neutralize Poison can grant immunity to poison damage as well as the poison opcode, no one in the party can cast it due to some other spell mod(s) of mine. But Chara is innately immune to poison damage due to the Alchemist kit, so I can have them engage the dragon directly.
But the dragon doesn't even live long enough to use its breath weapon, and Vials of Scales hold off its physical attacks before it can overwhelm anyone.
Morentherene's sister or cousin or whatever is a little tougher despite being much smaller. She uses her breath weapon early on, forcing Chara to use Cure Affliction to help out Viconia, as using a Sweet Elixir to cure poison only heals 1d4 HP by itself.
We hurt Ziatar pretty bad, but SR's Sanctuary has a casting time of 1, and we are unable to disrupt it.
She heals herself, but once she breaks invisibility, we're ready for her.
Chara hits level 10 shortly thereafter. Once they hit level 11, they'll get another set of new potions that will give us a very important boost.
Now we have to fight the Neothelid. This thing can do anything from cast spells to use psionics, but with more melee output, namely from Chara, it goes down much faster than in my last run.
Killing Akanna earns M'Khiin another level, but our spell picks are once again quite limited.
It's just as well; she already had one more level 5 spell than she was supposed to.
I've got a Mind Flayer to deal with next, and I had lots of trouble when the enemy used a Teleport Field to fortify a choke point. I move in fast to avoid getting set back, but like last time, I concentrate all my attention on the mind flayer before it has a chance to pull anything.
The mage, Jhan Redmoons, had some spell protections active, but Viconia has Secret Word. Taking down Jhan Redmoons is quite fast.
Chara just hits so hard and so fast with that dagger. The fight is over in moments.
There's a puzzle here that Sarevok's diary alludes to. The diary gives the solution in terms of a set of numbers indicating which masks to press first, but since the masks in question aren't actually numbered...
...I just consult a walkthrough that explains the sequence. Turns out the masks are numbered left to right, top-down, like English writing order. We open up a new room, see a cool new visual effect, kill a feeble enemy, and get an awesome weapon we will not use.
SoD equipment honestly pales in comparison to the gear I found in modded BG1.
On the way out, Minsc and M'Khiin share a moment.
I like these two. They're good together.
We make our way to the crusader camp. I didn't see this before, but apparently they employ Frost Giants now.
That's um... not a good sign.
At the underground base where the crusaders' enemies have been hiding, we try to use Negative Plane Protection to keep people safe from the level drain that kills three people automatically. However, testing found that Viconia's special level 3 version suffers from the same problem that numerous other non-SR spell mod spells experience.
No matter who you target, it only affects the caster, making the spells completely inferior to their normal versions.
There's an above ground area that's also under siege, but I never knew how to access it. I try using SR's Dimension Jump. Turns out there's actual some quests over there, despite the area being ostensibly inaccessible.
It might be possible to get stuck there, but Chara always has two Dimension Jumps memorized, just in case.
Attacking the Crusader Camp is a long but not too dangerous fight, as you can hang back and let the Flaming Fist and such absorb the enemy's attacks. I flood the area with Greater Wyverns, partly to speed things up but mostly just for fun.
The mages have good spell protections, but they're too low-level to have PFMW or anything like that.
But the mission isn't a complete success. Apparently Khalid is part of the fight, and he bravely chose to tackle one of the biggest enemies around. But he didn't make it.
One thing I don't like about the Infinity Engine is that you can't resurrect people outside your party.
There's a Crusader Mage on the bridge, but she's nothing a Secret Word and an Elf Tendon Wand can't fix.
Or, you know, just brute force.
I love Dynaheir's line in that first screenshot.
On the way out, I try tossing an item into a well, because why not? It doesn't go like I expected.
Siege of Dragonspear is really good at defying expectations.
We arrive at the siege camp and use the Spectacles of Spectacle to bring a merchant into the Material Plane. He sells us some really excellent and expensive items, but we recoup the cost by selling off more loose equipment.
The endgame is coming up, and I want Corwin in the party; she is just too useful for the final battle. SR changes Enchanted Weapon, which she normally needs to improve her arrows, but the WoL trick can summon an unlimited number of arrows from Enchanted Weapon, making her even more useful in SoD. The question is, who do I drop to make room for Corwin?
I review the party, and the answer is pretty clear. I love M'Khiin, but she has been contributing the least to the party's success, with the possible exception of Frisk (the Seducer kit needs to be buffed, I think). I leave M'Khiin behind and bring in Corwin. Turns out she has both the vanilla Called Shot ability and some mod-introduced Archer kit abilities.
But we'll probably be saving our aura to use Chara's potions.
We arrive at a dead magic area. This place nearly ended my last run, so I have everyone drink a Vial of Scales while Frisk summons a Greater Wyvern.
I swarm the enemy, which does not put up much of a fight. But one of the enemies goes invisible and runs away.
Somebody was testing us. What was that about? Was that Jon-bon's doing?
Further exploration introduces us to another Frost Giant, but apparently it's an orog of some sort; that's its actual name. And for some reason, it turns purple.
Is this an orog with the wrong sprite, or a Frost Giant with the wrong name?
Anyway, we hurry through some minor skirmishes, testing out Viconia's Cause Mortal Wounds spell, saving a webbed Minsc from spiders using Invisibility, disrupting an Orog Priest's magic...
...getting a pretty picture from some local dog people...
...and chatting with Noober 1.5, who is actually more interesting than his clones in BG1 and BG2.
We also avoid combat with a Hobgoblin who is unfortunately named Buttocks...
...but our attempts to reason with the local toadstools prove ineffective.
Our dealings with a nearby cyclops also end in violence, but we make up for it by telling a nice story to some sahuagin, though they're not very impressed.
We have infiltrated the crusaders' base. The endgame is fast approaching.
I've heard almost every fight in SoD can be avoided, but I don't know which ones or how. Attempting to solve things peacefully fills us with determination.
Spear of Justice: Chara and Frisk in Siege of Dragonspear
Part 3
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871992/#Comment_871992
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872026/#Comment_872026
I mishandle a meeting with the Water Elemental fan and end up antagonizing him. Viconia and Minsc once again get mazed by Shadow Door, but Frisk's Detect Illusions skill reveals the mage and lets us take him down using Elf Tendon Wands.
We do the normal quests, fighting Ferrusk, trimming the treants, and delivering the drow to their friends. The only major piece of loot is a cloak that can block critical hits.
Time to rescue Halatathlaer, which will require fighting lots of mages all at once. We summon some Shadows (who are still represented by messed-up strings) and a couple Greater Wyverns. Corwin breaks the mood with another awesome line.
The tone down south is much more grim, as we fail to save some human sacrifices from a Fireball. Corwin slays the mage responsible.
More mages await in a cluster to the southeast. We apply heavy pressure to one of them and bring him down quickly, but the other mages manage to Slow Corwin and dispel our illusions.
Viconia debuffs one of the mages, only to see them return the favor to Chara.
Dispelling Screen blocks it and vanishes, rendering Chara vulnerable to a second Breach spell right afterwards.
We put down another mage while Viconia casts Breach on the mage with the toughest defenses.
Shorn of his buffs, Kherriun falls.
We free Zadroth, a nearby lich, using the Spectacles of Spectacle. I heard he drops a really nice robe, but it seems my dialogue options were too friendly, and he escapes without fighting us.
An "Endless Watcher" attacks us, because apparently we weren't supposed to free Zadroth. Zadroth defeats the Endless Watcher for us and departs with a very ominous message.
Well, crap. That was a really awful thing to do, letting that lich go free.
Feels bad. Ugh.
We drop the Barrel of Bwoosh in the right place and Chara hits level 11.
Chara can now create +3 grenades, enough to hurt an important enemy coming up. We buy 500 of them; we can afford it.
We also get a Moldy Poultice, which can raise the dead, and a couple of potions that will do a lot to improve our offensive output.
We sneak our way up to Hephernaan's level, but we're not quite smooth enough to talk our way out when we get caught.
We put down the enemy soon, but Hephernaan and Esserin out to play. They rob us of our illusions and send a couple golems after us, but the golems are little trouble to us.
Viconia debuffs Hugh Hephernaan while Frisk uses an Elf Tendon Wand on Esserin. Viconia's shield triggers a backlash effect that blinds Heifer for a few seconds.
I try to have Viconia use a Protection from Magic scroll on Heifer, and then quickly realize it only affected the user in my install. Instead, Viconia switches to a Wand of the Heavens, but Heifer puts up a huge barrier to our spellcasting.
SR Spell Deflection even blocks area-effect spells, and we are out of magic attacks to debuff him. We turn our attention to Esserin, and thankfully Heifer makes very little use of the round of freedom he buys for himself.
Another mage, Olvenaun, erects a Minor Spell Deflection spell, but he has no strong defense against physical attacks. It proves his undoing.
I keep forgetting that these SoD enemies almost never have PFMW; just Stoneskin and Mirror Image.
Heifer Slows Minsc, but most of the party makes their saves. Heifer tries to disable us, but SR's Waves of Fatigue isn't nearly as strong as vanilla Chaos.
The battle is won! We grab a Spell Shield scroll and a couple of very neat items: a crown for Chara, and a robe for Frisk.
Thieves can wear robes in my install, and the disabled spellcasting disadvantage is meaningless for a single-classed thief.
Guards are coming. We summon a Greater Wyvern to distract them while Chara turns the party invisible.
Some guards block the doorway out, but Dynaheir draws them away by attacking to break invisibility and then vanishing using a potion before she could get killed.
We slip by and Chara re-casts Invisibility Sphere to make sure we can continue to pass unmolested.
Now we must return to the camp and prepare for the siege.
We finally escape the tunnels. The warmth of the sunlight fills us with determination.
After that we continued our explorations, meeting Melicamp- who failed to dechickenate- killing some half-ogres, and helping Drizzt. I then decided to drop by and see how Safana fitted our party with an eye to recruiting her in SoD. She is kitted as a sniper in my installation, and so can be rather deadly. This meant that we bumped into some Sirenes...no problem I thought, Cromarty picked up a helm of charm protection some time back.... forgetting that Sirines can feeblemind. Ouch. After disposing of our opponents I initially thought that our inability to rest and use Break Enchantment, along with Dyanheir's failure to dispel from a scroll, might mean a technical KO for Cromarty (I would have continued in any case as I do RP runs and obviously Gavin could have prayed the problem away after a nap, but some other forumites wouldn't of course)...but luckily Ajantis had the cure disease ability and this sufficed. At this point a temple messenger arrived to call Gavin to deal with the nearby basilisk infestation, and so I decided to deal with that, pick up some potions of clarity, and then come back to finish off Safana's quest in the cave. Need to push my main back a little though, he's been leading from the front too much. An interesting run though, having two paladins who can't use ranged weapons along has meant that there is less death from afar than when Kivan is around.
Spear of Justice: Chara and Frisk in Siege of Dragonspear
Part 4
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871992/#Comment_871992
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872026/#Comment_872026
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872042/#Comment_872042
The siege camp is under attack, and we must rush to its defense. I don't like this fight much because it takes so long, so I decide to summon some Greater Wyverns to speed things up.
Notice the unconsciousness; that's from Dynaheir's SR-boosted Sleep spell. As a level 10 mage, she can put level 10 critters to sleep with it.
There are some tougher enemies up north. Partly out of impatience and partly out of sheer contempt for the enemy, I have already summoned a massive horde of Greater Wyverns. They crush the opposition with basically no help from the party.
We march on Dragonspear Castle. It is time to bring the crusade to an end.
Wands of Fire and Monster Summoning work very well in the siege, but there's something more fun about just summoning a bunch of Greater Wyverns and letting them do everything.
That's the only screenshot I took. Nothing interesting ever happened.
Chara agrees to duel Ashatiel, and manages to disrupt her first spell using a Blizzard Wand.
It can slow the target, but Ashatiel has strong saving throws. Chara follows up with Fireburst, and Ashatiel fails to retaliate with Greater Command.
Chara casts True Strike and uses Poison Weapon, but Ashatiel resists the poison and casts Sanctuary.
Chara doesn't have many area-effect spells to get through that Sanctuary, so they opt for Waves of Fatigue, which will at least apply a +2 penalty to casting time for Ashatiel, who nevertheless lands a Flame Arrow on Chara.
Chara responds with a Flame Arrow of their own and cut the avariel to ribbons with their dagger.
I find some weird items and a random fight while wandering around the castle grounds. I think there's some content I'm missing.
Only the final battle remains. It's a pretty big trial, but we've got plenty of resources stored up. Look at all the Wands of Paralyzation we never used!
We used like 3 charges from a single wand in the entire course of BG1 and SoD, and none of them ever made any difference. Our inventory is just crammed with random junk we never used.
Admiring the resources we so pointlessly gathered fills us with determination.
Spear of Justice: Chara and Frisk in Siege of Dragonspear
Part 5
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/871992/#Comment_871992
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872026/#Comment_872026
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872042/#Comment_872042
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872080/#Comment_872080
Most of this run was open, but this final post will be entirely in spoilers because there are crucial plot points here. Just click the second spoiler if you haven't played SoD but want to know if the run was successful.
The events:
Viconia loses her cool when fighting the demons; she fails a save against a fear effect.
She was our only source of Resist Fear because Chara cannot cast abjuration spells. Most of the party is not disabled, however, and Frisk minimizes enemy pressure using Hypnosis.
I thought Viconia's level up was pointless, but apparently you can actually rest down here.
Neat! That's screenshot number 1783. Britain recognized American independence in 1783!
Viconia uses the rest to fortify Chara's already-impressive defenses.
Hopefully it won't come to this, but if things go wrong, Chara has 500 Grenades +3 that can damage Bellyfat. It would be an extremely long fight, but with their immunity to fire, their high movement rate, and their strong saving throws, Chara might just be able to kite Bellyfat to death.
But I'm not going to use that strategy if I don't have to. It is way too risky and full of variables I don't know. After all, I've only gone through this fight once before.
I try to create some golems--Chara learned how to construct golems from some tomes, and we have all the right ingredients--but apparently you can only do it in certain places.
A Cornugon named Thrix offers me a reward if I solve a riddle of his, but the cost of failure is pretty steep. I play it safe.
That's screenshot 1787. The U.S. Constitution was written in 1787!
The atmosphere is really spooky in the next area.
You can say fire and brimstone hells are kind of generic, but SoD and Oblivion both did them really well.
We go up the elevator. I don't know how many rounds it takes, but the trip is a long one, punctuated by demon ambushes. It's a great time to cast your buffing spells, because your old ones might wear off on the trip to the top.
The first round of enemies isn't too worrying. But there will be more.
Bigger demons come in. When they fall, we keep bolstering our defenses.
We finally reach the top. Caelar joins the fight against Bellyfat.
Frisk summons a Greater Wyvern, but it won't be able to harm Bellyfat; they strike using +2 weapons, and SR doesn't have the EE-style Enchanted Weapon spell that can make weapons strike as +3. Viconia opens with the Wand of the Heavens; I want to get Heifer out of the picture as quickly as possible.
Viconia's Resist Fear protects us from a very nasty disabler. It doesn't block the fear message, so the dialog box shows us how bad it would have been if we had relied on our saving throws alone.
We concentrate our attacks on Heifer and take him out early, as well as a crusader who inexplicably went hostile.
Bellyfat calls out fire--lots of it--but everyone has buffed with Potions of Fire Resistance.
We weather the storm and nail Bellyfat with Lower Resistance, though most of our damage output comes from weapons rather than spells.
Notice that Chara is not using their 5 APR throwing dagger, as it was only a +2 weapon. They have switched to Bog Vapor, an Alchemist grenade that strikes as a +4 weapon and lowers saving throws by 2 and magic resistance by 20, albeit only for 6 seconds.
Minsc drinks a Vial of Scales to block Bellyfat's massive swords while Dynaheir, Frisk, and Chara prepare to assault Bellyfat with spell damage.
Bellyfat vanishes, but Chara's wand hits him nonetheless, and Frisk soon reveals him using Detect Illusions.
Minsc, Viconia, and Corwin stick to their normal weapons; Frisk uses wands; Dynaheir switches between spells and her sling; and Chara alternates between Lower Resistance and Bog Vapor to keep Bellyfat vulnerable to Dynaheir and Frisk's attacks.
Bellyfat has a deep HP pool, but he does not have enough time to disable or kill anyone in the party. Minsc lands the final blow.
Victory! We celebrate, but Chara has a bad dream, and wakes up to find Skie dead, with the murder weapon in their own hands. Not everyone in the party believes in Chara's innocence.
Everyone leaves Chara but Frisk, and the last remnants of the party are confined to a cell. Belt says we need to leave Baldur's Gate. As for his reasoning, the reason is quite reasonable.
Baldur's Gate was full of people willing to shed blood over Chara's fate, but with Chara gone, there would be nothing to fight over, and the city would remain at peace.
There's a single tiny fight left, but I see no reason to take even the tiniest risk. Not after we have come so far. I avoid all conflict on the way out.
Khalid is unfortunately absent due to his death at Bridgefort, but Minsc, Imoen, Dynaheir, and Jaheira rejoin the party.
But only for a few seconds. Jon-bon ambushes the party and brings Siege of Dragonspear to an end.
The results:
We made it! We're going to Shadows of Amn!
Not so fun, but undaunted will try again and try and get the mindset in place.
Psychologically knowing I can't reload messes up the way I normally play. No more "I'll have a go at doing that to bump XP" or "I know I've killed this person a hundred times before without too much bother but just in case I'm going to faff around worrying about it".
Did the usual, solo run until level 5, that went fine, farmed Basilisks with whathisname (never can remember the name) to bring Charname up to that, then thought about recruiting.
And for the first time in years, bloody Thalyntire killed Melicamp, what's the odds? (now that did set my teeth on edge).
The story idea I had was a good one I think, female Charname (of course), swashbuckler dualing to fighter later on, (just completed a run all through with the same dualed at 10, wonderfully OP). Stat total 93 (OK, should have 91 which I rolled, but I love high charisma, pure vanity, 18,18,16,14,10,17). Pips in shortbow and katana (of course, the most awkwardly justifiable weapon to use)
The story, Charname is something of a rebel, that's why S/B. Somebody tells her she ought to like something, ought to do something, will automatically object even if she ends up doing exactly the same later on. So relationship with Gorion/Imoen is problematic, doesn't like being told she should be loving and friendly to those two (that's projection on my part to the game). So tells Imoen to go home (not that she does, she's that annoying) and sets off on her own.
And realises she has made a hell of a mistake.
So like an idiot, picks up X/M, they're cool and edgy, what's not to like? Hit the FAI, and we bump into Tarnesh and Charname finds there's a bounty on her head. So avoids entering the FAI, could be more assasins, and head to Beregost, killing an ogre on the way who drops some belts.
In Beregost we need cash so take up an offer from some bystander, and X bravely sacrifices himself to save Charname. We then enter the nearby inn to recover, and guess what, M has to make the ultimate sacrifice for Charname from another bounty hunter.
I knew X/M were cool, not so edgy though, actually quite soft and squishy.
Shocked at this turn of events, Charname heads to the temple for some spiritual guidence and finds out that one of the belts can change gender.
Now spiritual guidance is all very well, but it's not going to save your arse if there's a price attached to that arse. So Charname uses her quite high intelligence and decides that the best way to run south, get herself away from all this mindless violence, is to use the gender change belt. Nobody is looking for a young man, (albeit a rather effeminate young man) and keep off the roads.
So that's the backgound, carried on from there as solo as I said, felt safer as "Alan" so was able to take on some jobs to get cash for the travelling and equipment.
Corewild the gnomish fighter/thief - Micro-update
Traveling with:
Joshua the gnomish berserker
Hanna, Paja, Misty and Forrest the human wild mages.
So the party made it to Brynnlaw. For the initial vampire ambush we tried to have Joshua solo them (since he had the level drain immunity), but from long range Misty got dominated and the party AI started attacking her. I turned off the AI, but Forrest was taking a beating (she had the staff spear I think). We tried to dispel the domination but that failed. We tried to run away, but Misty pursued. Eventually put Corewild close and she attacked him, but with his good AC and her mage Thac0 finally the party stopped getting hurt by Misty. Then the charm wore off.
We helped Gina and Ason, hoping for Rep gain but no go there.
We became a "client" of one of the guildmistress' whores, then proceeded to wipe out the guards. For Galvena herself, we used the golem book golem to kill the mage, then Joshua enraged and finished off the guildmistress herself.
So next we wanted Joshua to solo Perth the Adept. But rather annoyingly, no mages know the arcane version of protection from fire, so couldn't buff Joshua with that (we did give him protection from lightning though). Joshua did get improved invisibility, which no doubt helped a ton and he took out Perth and thus obtained the Wardstone. For the book of infinite spells, settle on Spell Turning. On the way to Spellhold, just ran across some harmless lizard men and a air elemental.
Next was the obligatory exposition by Irenicus of the mages in captivity, and finally the battle with Bhaal. It was a little anti-climatic. I had borrowed Paja's Staff of Air to make an elemental, plus laid 3 snares. So when Bhaal followed me to "Imoen" he tripped the snares and started attacking Corewild. Corewild used his invisibility ring to go invisible. Bhaal then attacks the air elemental, which conveniently leaves his backside open for a massive backstab with Corewild's Staff of Rhynn - sure enough a single backstab made Bhaal give up.
Finally after all this, the mages leveled up (been a long time). Mages know 3 level 6 spells. Can't cast level 7 yet. We don't know PfMW though, as we had to leave Athkatla before we had the funds to get that from the merchant.
The puzzle with those statues and items was pretty simple for Corewild (would hope so after corey_russell has done this 100 times by now). We tried to cloudkill the minions by the portal but didn't work so had a fight on our hands, which went well all the same.
For the portal enemies (greater werewolf and Bhaalor), we used haste and MMM on all mages - this destroyed these enemies really fast. We decided on passing on engaging the Yuan-ti near the crushing walls. We did do the mini-quest to get the ring of regeneration. Might as well, as Misty had open ring slots.
We will venture into the next section of this level of Spellhold (the book of monsters) next session.
Stern, elf mage (Grond0) & Noy, human jester (Gate70)
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/868927/#Comment_868927
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/870258/#Comment_870258
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/870907/#Comment_870907
SoD
Invisibility worked better to take them peacefully through the Troll Claw woods to the Forest of Wyrms. Noy took quite a lot of trap damage walking through a temple complex and we struggled to avoid ambushes while resting to cure that - but eventually managed to do so. Ziatar's guards were then killed before turning to the half-dragon himself. Web did well to hold him and he died pretty quickly despite Noy getting stuck himself briefly.
Back at the temple web and skull traps were tried again on Darskhelin. Most of his companions died pretty quickly, but Mohad the dwarf survived and appeared to run away. That didn't seem to be an immediate concern - at least not compared to the danger from Darskhelin as a psionic blast stunned Noy. Things quickly went from bad to worse though as Mohad reappeared, prompting Stern to run away from him - until he was stopped in his tracks by an ego whip.
SoD throws some very tough enemies at you.
Tried to keep his head down, (though the courtesans seemed over interested), defused some drunken father, delievered a book (good test, even the mage didn't figure me out) and blitzkrieged the town at night opening every chest and door except for one with strange noises coming from it (OK, OK, I know but this is no reload after all). Went fo a well deserved sleep and next morning sold my ill gotten gains (this town sure has dumb shopkeepers).
Not enough money for better shortbow but managed to get some +1 arrows, kept the "stupifyer" (I'm not insane) and headed south. Took down a couple of what? I dunno but they were dumb and slow, a ghast and lots of hobgoblins, found a cave with a very useful stash, a letter, arrows, ect. (what is it with these monsters and their taste for jewelry? Some lovely bits and pieces and I can't wear any of it, that sucks).
Headed East found a talking chicken, killed a dread wolf and another wolf using speed potion I knicked from Imoen (God I'm such a bitch, sod off Imoen the innanely cheerful but give me everything you have before you go....but I was nice about it so that's OK). Took the chicken to the master, got skull for the master, master killed the chicken. So, all in all a bit of a waste of time, we could have had a nice roast instead.
Headed back to Beregost, avoided the morose but good looking Elf on the way (don't need that sort of complication) and had another well deserved sleep.
Next morning, decided to travel west for a bit past the temple then south (and there's no way I can justify this decision RP'ing), you'll just have to bear with me. Picked up whathisname, killed basilisks, ran into the rude adventuring group, I scarpered. Well whatshisname was undead anyway I think.
But I hit level 5, the magic number.
Returned for the morose, good looking elf, Kivan is the name, and oh my is he miserable. Hunting bandits because they killed his wife, very sad, but time to move on methinks, happened years ago. Yeah but elves, what can you do? The eye candy is welcome though.
So now with a disguise and a believable covering story because travelling with the revenge monkey, decided to head back to the FAI and see if there was any info I could glean. A few inconsequential fights on the way, two bows now, enemies don't get close. Found a ring, checked out the inside of the FAI, spied on J and K from a corner. Decided not to approach because that would blow my "Alan" cover and raise questions, spoke to a half orc, spoke to a Magician's Nephew (strange feeling of deja vu at that).
Then back on the road heading south. Kivan is a ranger, so we ate well on the way, roast partridge bought down with his bow, made up for the missed chicken. Straight run down to Nashkel, used the wand (from Imoen) and lots of arrows on the bounty hunter there. How they recognised me is a mystery, (actually a goddam cheat), must have some kind of truesight operational, she did have spells.
Was waylaid by a nutter asking us to help rescue a witch, of course the GLE wanted to rush to the rescue, I however prevaricated a bit tooo much. Next thing, nutter attacks, "run away, run away" was the cry that went up, so I did. Straight into a mage who took the nutter out with a spell and help from the Amn guards and Kivan.
(ok, the game doesn't do that but it should)
Said Mage is looking for the same witch to kill her. Now of course the GLE wouldn't have any of that, so I suggested we just find her and decide then, she could well be evil. Lets face it, the bodyguard wasn't exactly Mr Goody Two Shoes what with attacking an innocent passer by who just hesitated a bit when they saw him speaking to a rodent.
Introductions were made, Edwin Odesseiron, flashy name, thought that just "Alan" wouldn't impress so blurted out the first thing that came to mind, "Partridge, Alan Partridge of the Norfolk Partridges". Whatever, he's from Thay, what's he going to know? (doubt anybody outside the UK would either).
Meanwhile, I'm impressed with Chara's progress - it's looking good for Undertale to become the Overlord ...
a) feel like it
b) did all of this playthrough last night so something of a bingefest going on.
So now our little group headed west across the bridge ostensibly to track the witch. Bumped into an odd fellow who didn't seem like they were all there, few sandwiches short of a picnic. Left Kivan with him, while we poked around, didn't know who to feel more sorry for. Kivan who interrupted every five minutes to wail about missing his lost Deheiriananana (something like that) or this "Noober" who just wailed.
Upshot was that "Noober" (probably to cheer Kivan up or shut him up, who knows?) told us about some buried treasure.
An absolutely beautiful pearl...oh, and some old green armour. Kivan was almost (I say almost) animated about the find, apparently it's ankheg plate and promptly donned it.
I said something about it matching his eyes...awkward.
Edwin, (no way am I going to address him as sir as he suggested, I am a Norfolk Partridge after all) shot me a very funny look, gonna have to watch that one, there were books in Candlekeep about Thayvian perversions.
As it had got quite late afternoon, decided to haul back to the inn rather than start a trek cross country. The mayor stopped us and apologised for the earlier attack, he said if they'd realised the big bloke was such a nutter they would have kept him locked up (don't really believe him, there's another nutter just up the road demonstrating kick boxing and bothering passers by). Also asked us if we were interested in a spot of detective/adventuring work.
Now my plan was to hightail it south, but the mayor was a crafty one, mentioned gold to the Thayvian and evil needing to be routed to the Elf. I was outvoted and pouting and threatening to sulk really doesn't work in this form. So looks like we are going to investigate some stolen gems and the local mines (coal? diamond? iron? don't know, don't care) tomorrow. The only bright spot is that we can visit the carnival this evening.
So after a quick check in, wash and shave?? at the inn, (actually that's not realing working properly for disguise, seems like the belt isn't quite as powerful as I thought, I was going to go for the bluebeard/blackbeard wife murdering look), we headed out.
What can I say?
The carnival was rather subdued, to do with the problems at the mine, local economy and all that (it's iron BTW). Though the exploding ogre was spectacular...and messy....and made me throw up. Kivan thought that was hilarious (of all the bloody things to make him laugh) and said I looked the colour of his armour.
Edwin sneered (not bothered, might make him forget his earlier interest).
There was one interesting attraction though, a stone woman, very lifelike. Or as Edwin said, "very likelike almost as if you could lose yourself in the magnificent twin orbs of her bosom which the sculpter has lovingly shaped and carressed" (so Edwin swings both ways huh?).
Turns out there was no "loving carressing and shaping", just a nasty petrification spell that was able to be reversed with a scroll I'd picked up in Candlekeep.
And so we met Branwyn, I like Branwyn. Particularly when she explained that although petrified, she could hear what was said and took exception to men who fetishsised about her "magnificent twin orbs".
Edwin prepared to cast invisibility on himself.
Kivan, ever the gentleman (muttering under his breathe about not seeing a woman undressed since the loss of his Deheirianananana) offered her the ankheg plate when she pledged her swordarm to our cause.
On the way home, we killed a mad mage, (no not Edwin) and rescued a witch he was trying to kill, (no not that witch, another witch, too many witches). I had drunk quite a bit by then.
Undershadow: Chara and Frisk in Shadows of Amn
Part 1
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
As with my BG1 run, I used BWS to install a whole bunch of mods at once--and I've only gone briefly into Chapter 2 with BWS before, so most of the mod content is unknown to me. I'll be going in largely blind.
Hopefully I won't end up going into anything like the Grey Clan from BG1.
We end up with a strange bug involving Chara's spell slots. Without those mod items improving their spell slots in BG1, they actually get even fewer spell slots than an Alchemist is supposed to. The only way to solve it is to re-create the character using EEKeeper.
But I can't create an Alchemist during character creation. It seems the only way to fix the problem is to make the Alchemist a generalist mage rather than a Transmuter. Being able to cast abjuration spells is a pretty big boost, so I nerf some of the Alchemist's options in order to balance it out. So Chara will be able to cast abjuration spells in this run.
We retrieve the Golden Pantaloons but the Claw of Kazgaroth is nowhere in sight.
My mods let me give kits to NPCs, so I make Jaheira into a Totemic Druid!
And because Chara and Frisk are already so high-level, Jaheira gets bumped all the way up to druid level 10, enough to make her Spirit Animals immune to normal weapons. A very nice boon indeed.
My mods also let thieves choose special feats, but they've always been pretty bugged. Frisk, our Seducer, can't choose any at all; the dialogue never pops up when they try to pick on.
Minsc, however, does get feats, and he picks a very nice one...
...only to discover that, although I have Spell Revisions installed, I do not have Item Revisions...
...which means Minsc cannot stack that 10% damage resistance with IR armor-based resistances. That robs us of some very useful options.
But on the plus side, helmets will finally be able to block critical hits.
The mods show their influence early on. We fight a kobold named Weenug in the first hallway, and though he doesn't last long, he has really amazing THAC0.
Plus, Atweaks buffs the mephits here, allowing them to gate in other mephits and giving them some new abilities, including a backlash effect.
I discover that there's a hidden disadvantage to multi-classed kits: innate abilities are cast at the average of the character's level, which means level 8/10 Jaheira only casts Summon Spirit Animal at level 9, even though she has 10 druid levels. This means her Spirit Animals actually do not enjoy any immunity to nonmagical weapons.
The duergar are also more dangerous without Item Revisions, as their crossbows enjoy full APR and only -1 damage. But Frisk can use Hypnosis from around corners, as it is not limited by the Seducer's line of sight.
There are only so many healing potions in Chateau Irenicus, and SCS only lets you rest once in the area, but thanks to Chara's Alchemist kit, we can sell those potions for a lot of gold, allowing us to purchase Alchemist potions instead.
Alchemist healing potions are weaker than normal healing potions for the most part, but they are also far cheaper, though I've bumped up the prices considerably now that Chara can cast abjuration spells.
The Otyugh is a rather dangerous critter, as its disease effect offers no saving through, but Frisk can charm a Duergar and use it as a tank.
For some strange reason, the Metaspell Influence Amulet is gone. Replaced by nothing.
Is this some weird side effect of Item Randomizer?
Ilyich isn't much trouble. Frisk's Hypnosis keeps the enemy's APR down and Jaheira's Spirit Animals can deal damage faster than Ilyich can heal himself.
The Mephit Portal room goes fast. The mephits never disable us with Color Spray, and the Mephit Portals have poor defenses besides 100% MR.
I've switched Chara from Lawful Neutral to Lawful Good, and because our familiar didn't carry over from SoD, we get a new one!
Without Item Revisions, there are no backstabbing penalties for weapons besides daggers and short swords, so Yoshimo with his magical katana remains a spectacular backstabber--much better than the local assassins.
Minsc fails a save against Horror, but Frisk prevents a duergar mage from causing any more trouble by nailing him with an Elf Tendon Wand.
Elf Tendon Wands cost 800 gold for 11 charges, but they're quite lovely against low-level mages who rely on MGOI instead of Spell Deflection (the wands strike as level 5 spells, like the Wand of the Heavens).
On the way out, we recruit Yasraena, a mod NPC who is... just stupidly overpowered. Especially when I kit her into a Berserker.
Near-maximum stats, grandmastery in short swords and 2 pips in dual wielding, and 72% innate magic resistance due to being a drow. Her only disadvantage is that she comes with a custom necklace that does nothing and can't be removed.
That MR in particular is going to be stupendous, especially since Chara can brew Lime Juice to give Yasraena another undispellable 15% MR for 10 rounds a pop. If 87% MR isn't enough, I can always add another 25% from a Burning Syrup, at the cost of dispelling all of Yasraena's buffs. She's going to be an incredible anti-mage tank.
Chara sells off all of our Potions of Extra Healing for just under 7,000 gold. Sour Draughts don't heal as much HP as Potions of Extra Healing, but they're much cheaper, and Alchemists need an ample gold supply to fund their potion making.
I don't think Minsc and Jaheira are optimal for this run, so I boot both of them from the party. We run into another mod NPC, a human Berserker, who has some spectacular equipment on her.
But she is way too evil for my tastes. I take her equipment and ditch her.
My mods do some weird things to the stores here. They add a lot of interesting items, and the Robe of Vecna has been replaced by two other artifacts.
Good-aligned characters cannot use either item, but as an Alchemist, Chara will get Use Any Item when they hit epic levels.
Unfortunately, they only have 3 Charisma. Which means equipping both of those items would be instantly fatal.
We also get a really cheap IWD scroll that works just like a Protection from Magic scroll--but can be cast as a level 6 mage spell.
Any magic attack can take it down, however, just like an SCS Protection from Magic scroll, and it has the same downsides, including 100% spell failure and a guaranteed dispel magic on self. It does have a casting time of 1, however, so it would be a guaranteed rescue option if Chara got surprised by a potentially fatal spell.
I add a Silver Bag of Holding using the console to minimize inventory management. It's just easier.
I also recruit Alora, who has reappeared at the Adventurer Mart. She is a Cleric/Thief again, but this time, I give her the Spellbender kit, which allows her to memorize cleric spells that can duplicate the effects of mage spells 1 level lower.
Plus, the Wand of Lightning trick can let us cast an infinite number of these spells with an Improved Alacrity effect in place. If Alora can boost her casting time by 3, she could use a Wand of Lightning to cast 1 Lightning Bolt or Fireball every single frame.
I don't know if I want to abuse that trick, but since I accidentally sold our Wand of Lightning from Chateau Irenicus, it makes no difference for now.
We grab Ninafer, a Lawful Neutral elven Fighter/Mage like Xan who inexplicably has 50 MR.
She would be another incredibly powerful character. But after Chara slays Amalas using SR Sleep, Summon Shadow, a newly available abjuration spell, Protection from Normal Weapons, and Poison Weapon...
...I decide I don't like Ninafer's voice or portrait very much and leave her behind, a decision that proves short-sighted when I realize her longsword would have been very useful considering my entire party only uses piercing weapons.
I end up blowing up the slime using a grenade, which deals crushing damage if the enemy is resistant to piercing damage. I also blow up some kobolds this way.
We get ambushed by some thieves shortly afterwards, and Chara nearly kills both Alora and Yasraena when they accidentally lob a grenade right in front of them. Only a couple of lucky saving throws keep them alive.
These enemies hit pretty hard, and Yasraena is already slowed, but Frisk keeps the party afloat using Hypnosis.
We get some really nice equipment, though only two pieces are much use to us.
We attack Quallo's friend, but unfortunately, I forget to have Chara switch to Bottles of Sludge instead of grenades. The explosion kills Quallo, and the party's reputation plummets.
Yasraena tackles the Myconids, thinking her Berserker immunities will keep her safe, but my mods apparently tweak rage so it no longer grants immunity to confusion. Being unable to use potions almost killed her before I thought to have Alora use Break Enchantment to fix up Yasraena.
Upstairs, we accidentally run right through the Prismatic Spray trap. Luckily, Yasraena's MR keeps her alive.
That trap will trigger every time you walk over it, so you can't get rid of it just by walking over it once. You need to disarm it, or else use a haste effect to escape the Prismatic Spray before it hits.
Yasraena dual-wields a pair of +2 short swords and has grandmastery, which means she has extremely high APR. Combined with her MR, she is able to cut through mage defenses at little risk to herself.
We knock out the Beastmaster's animal friends with Sleep, kill Lehtinan with an Elf Tendon Wand, and get a boost to our reputation, gold, and XP.
Then we get attacked by some sort of hideous clown monster...
...who apparently has some pretty high mage levels.
Yasraena attacks with her fist, but for some incomprehensible reason, PFMW also blocks nonmagical weapons like fists. And Frisk's Elf Tendon Wand appears to do nothing.
But Rhialto doesn't use any dangerous spells before his PFMW expires. And he doesn't restore his defenses.
We get a spellbook that grants the user some very weird, Wild Mage-themed spells depending on the user's level, plus a teddy bear that works as a rather awesome shield.
We head to the Government District to find Jan. But first, we spot Xan hanging out nearby! He's a Fighter/Mage like in BG1, though unfortunately he doesn't have the high levels or spells or equipment that he used to have in BG1. Apparently he got robbed recently.
The BG2 Xan mod lets him upgrade his sword at 1.5 million XP so it grants him an extra attack per round. It's a while away, but it will be a major boon into the late game.
We also bring in Jan, as planned, and give him the Loremaster kit.
Which grants him Use Any Item right off the bat.
Or at least, it would, if the kit worked properly. I don't normally fix these bugs myself, but it seems really lame not to, so I EEKeeper the ability to Jan.
Now we have both Xan and Jan in the party. They get along just fine.
Still better than when Jan tells Nalia about his cousin, "Cletus the Room-Clearer Bifflelips."
I traveled from the Promenade to the Slums to the Government District to the Gate District to the Umar Hills, which normally prevents ambushes from happening. But somehow, we get ambushed. Jan uses SR's faster-casting Invisibility Sphere to hide the party so we can erect our defenses before tackling the enemy--which proves pretty simple due to Yasraena's high APR, 22 STR from rage, and Chara's +3 grenades.
We arrive at the Umar Hills safely. Apparently one of my mods lets Jan create some unique items for us.
The boots are practically useless. All they do is make you look like Jan; it's not a polymorph effect and you don't get any of his abilities or even his stats. The only conceivable use for the boots is if you were in spider form and wanted a slightly higher movement rate or you were in Iron Golem form and wanted a smaller circle.
I decide I want the Beljuril hidden inside one of the nearby chickens. Rather than start a fight, Frisk uses their powerful psionics to take control of the chicken's mind and induce it to commit suicide.
I have no idea how the chicken learned to spit acid, but there you go.
Near Madulf, we get ambushed by some out-of-towners visiting from Middle Earth. A little immersion-breaking to see Lord of the Rings characters in BG2, but they go down fast and give us a lot of nice loot to pawn off later.
After helping Jermien with his golem, we get another golem summoning tome. If I ever bother to use the ability, Chara can summon multiple different types.
I don't like the sound of that last one either.
We head to the Temple Ruins, grabbing a Wand of Lightning in case I change my mind about using the WoL trick...
...tearing down a Greater Mummy and Bone Golem and learning how to create Bone Golems of our own.
...curing Yasraena before mummy rot kills her...
...gaining 3 levels and a wildly overpowered longbow for Xan...
...and seeing Alora die because I didn't see she got affected by mummy rot.
Chara uses a Moldy Poultice to bring back Alora and we keep moving.
We enter the Shade Lord's grounds while invisible. Alora takes down the Shadow Altar with a Sunstone Bullet (not possible in Item Revisions, I don't think) while Yasraena, buffed with Negative Plane Protection thanks to Alora, tackles Shadow Patrick.
The Shade Lord's Black Blade of Disaster can still be fatal, so Yasraena drinks a Murky Liquor from Chara, which boosts her physical damage resistances by 15% and grants immunity to polymorph effects, petrification, and disintegration. That will keep the BBoD's disintegration effect from destroying her.
She also drinks a Vial of Scales to block the physical damage.
Xan uses a Secret Word on the Shade Lord to open him up to a Flame Arrow from Jan, which will remove his Stoneskins while we're still waiting out his PFMW spell.
Chara lowers the Shade Lord's MR using Bog Vapor and we pelt him with some light spell damage while Yasraena applies pressure in melee.
And then... Yasraena suddenly dies.
Murky Liquor should have prevented that, and I doubt it could have run out so soon. But the Shade Lord is weak and Xan and Alora can tough out his Darkling Aura long enough to finish him off.
When I notice that Alora only has 8 Intelligence, I realize that she cannot use the Wand of Lightning without first drinking a couple Potions of Genius--and every level up would unequip it, forcing her to drink more. I decide to remove Alora from the party. The only reason I brought her in was because I knew she could use the WoL trick to good effect, but if it's that much trouble, it wouldn't be worth it anyway.
We report back to the mayor and Madulf, get some useless gear thanks to Item Randomizer, and head off to Watcher's Keep.
Xan's perpetual defeatism fills us with determination.
So now some stats:
Edwin, Kivan, Branwyn level 4
Alan level 5
I gave Edwin all the scrolls and yes I do turn down the difficulty to memorise them, that's just a step too far.
Branwyn ankheg plate, normal flail, +1 shield
Kivan, plate mail, normal halbard and composite longbow
Alan, studded leather, Varscona and shortbow, put pip in longsword at the level up.
Edwin sling +1, no web, grease which are my go to spells for the mines usually, only horror.
Picked up Varscona and the wand, back to Nashkell to identify and then we were set.
Now Nashkell mines are always a nightmare for me, I dream about Nashkell mines and can never get my head around people blithely talking about "doing them early". So usually I leave them until I have serious firepower in the way of wands and spells. Then they are a cakewalk. But this run, playing fair, no reload and realistic playthrough without too much meta gaming, here we go.
So Alan, Kivan, Edwin, Branwyn headed for the mines the next day. Got waylaid by a group having their own internal bust ups, sounded very bitter, all sorts of betrayal going on. Helped kill them then the half orc asked if I was "Ayla". Told him not to be silly, I'm Alan, must be thinking of my distant cousin of the Lincolnshire Patridges, (think I got away with it especially as later Edwin asked if my cousin was, how shall we put this, "well endowed").
How are these randomers seeing through my disguise?
Did the quest for the stolen gems for the mayor. Kivan went off on one about true love being about never speaking to the true love or somesuch. Personally I thought the carving was pretty hidious and who the hell is going to see it in this backwards neck of the woods?
The emeralds are nice though, shame I don't get to keep them.
Edwin was just dissappointed it wasn't full length.
Branwyn insisted we check to make sure it wasn't another petrified woman. Though as Edwin pointed out, it was just the head and bloody huge and if it was a real woman she might be very pissed off if we resurrected her and she found out she's been decapitated.
So then we headed into the mines.
This is where my sense of humour went missing, I began to make Kivan look cheerful.
Kobalds, hundreds of kobalds, hundreds of kobalds with bows and flame arrows, hundreds of kobalds waiting round corners to ambush you with bows and flame arrows.
So we struggled on, a step at a time, Branwyn at the front with shield up. Didn't do much good, the buggers still caught Edwin with a one shot kill (would have helped admitedly if he had cast armour but "he" forgot) (you get far too used to stoneskin always being up). So back to Nashkel and a quick visit to the temple.
Agonisingly slowly we crept our way down through the mines, tried to recruit some miners as a human shield but they weren't having any of it, ungrateful curs.
I have waltzed through this mine on SCS/insane at the correct level, this was harder than the recent TOB run I was on.
Found a "grease" spell, now we're talking. The bit at the end with the shaman? piece of cake, grease, horror, pick them off at our leisure while Branwyn dealt with those spawning behind us.
Back outside, rest and then head for Mulahey.
Now after all this, I thought the run would end here. But the fight went much better than expected. Spoke to him, cast grease just outside the entrance, planted a couple of traps (only one set) then opened the chest, OK major cheese but you don't know the hell we'd been through. Not sure exactly what happened then, he got hurt, tried to surrender, he got killed. I was directing Edwin to throw horror at the incoming hoards so wasn't kind of watching.
Oh yeah, Branwyn had a skeleton she could cast, that helped a lot.
So then we opened the chest and turns out this is all connected to the bandits, Tranzig and Tazok mentioned. So Kivan and Branwyn went off on one demanding all sorts of retribution. Me and Edwin were looking at the cusions, nice, quite a cosy little place he's set up down here at the bottem of a mine???. What an idiot.
Found an elf, even prettier than the one we've got, Branwyn, Edwin and I noticed that straight away, he must be so confused.
And he's even more miserable than the one we've got, oh joy.
Name's Xan and he's a mage, Edwin immediately offered help with his "spells", yeah sure Edwin.
Made our way back through the mine to the entrance, just didn't fancy getting lost going the back way. Who knows where it leads?
So we cleared the mines, now for the reward. Dropped off a ring to a grieving widow and then the Mayor proclaimed us heroes. Not entirely happy about the reknown so slipped a local bard a bit of gold to downplay our involvement.
Headed back to the inn for well needed rest and booze. And then a bounty hunter appeared and bloody rcognised me again.
What the hell, I'm beginning to get stubble (OK a bit of fluff , but if you catch it in a certain light, it could be stubble).
"Death come for thee", oh purleese.
We scattered, we shot arrows, some of us hid, we took him down with a wand of frost, no loot. Funny thing was the kick boxing nutter seemed to be able to see when he was invisible, that helped a lot. People round these parts have really good eyesight, nothing gets past them, magical disguises or invisibility.
Multiplayer attempt 124 had convinced me that attempt 125 needed a couple of what I'd term as double-hard b******s. The random generator knew better and threw out Froy the Diviner and Wymp the Dragon Disciple.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer trilogy attempt 125 (124 ending)
Melissan currently has a slight edge with 122 defeats against 2 wins, but we're confident
After scraping our way out of Candlekeep the first port of call was to loot some vagabonds (Imoen, Xzar and Montaron) before picking on a blinded Shoal. With one less nereid in the realm we retrieved Perdue's sword from a trio of sleepy gnolls then felt tired. A wandering skeleton turned up to interrupt our rest and we decided to rip off it's head. The skeleton had other ideas though and Froy retreated licking her wounds. Wymp stepped in and also received a drubbing so the two badly wounded adventurers fled from the seemingly undefeatable abomination. This doesn't bode well for any tougher combat that lies ahead. Hopefully there won't be too much of that...
Marl, Firebead and Neera were next: A drink, a book and a couple of sling bullets (Neera is a serial victim of Grond0 the gem bagger).
Next stop was retrieving Zhurlong's boots and Mirianne's letter on the way to Nashkel then down to pick up Samuel. We returned him to the Friendly Arm inn, blinding Tarnesh but unable to stop him killing a nearby guard. Justice in the form of sling bullets soon caught up with him.
Wymp handed Froy a magical (wizardry) ring, but was given it back again. Froy, realising she was travelling with a Dragon Disciple approaching their 3rd level and a fiery breath attack, preferred to wear a ring of fire resistance instead.
Alan, Brawyn, Edwin, the GLE (good looking elf) and the PE (pretty elf) repaired to the inn after dealing with (yet another) bounty hunter. Drinks were ordered, congratulations recieved from grateful townsfolk.
Branwyn and Edwin flanked the PE, the first offering comfort and solace in her expansive chest, the second more (and more) wine.
If looks could kill, we'd be down two party members.
That left me with the GLE, who was far more interested in speaking Elvish with the PE, blah blah mellonomin, blah, blah, haven't heard my mother tongue for ages and did I tell you my wife was killed horribly, ect.
Not that I was jealous, being a man, (a manly man), who doesn't get jealous. So I wandered off to the bar to get another drink and found myself talking to a woman with really badly applied make up. Far too much, looked like a bloody clown and her dress didn't fit properly, too tight. But she was very friendly and seemed interested to hear me moaning about the others and was happy to keep my wine glass filled up (admittedly it was me who paid for the bottle).
And the evening wound on.
And I got drunker.
And the woman got friendlier.
And closer.
And I jumped out of my skin and drew Varscona when she tried to kiss me and made a grab for me.
That didn't go down well I can tell you. The GLE rescued the woman (huh, I'm the one who was assaulted), Branwyn made jokes about young men not knowing their arses from their elbows, Edwin offered to escort the woman to his bedroom (for her own safety of course), and the PE took his chance to escape.
Next morning we reconvened, not early, hungover, no sign of the PE much to Branwyn and Kivan's disappointment. Edwin seemed to have got over the PE remarkably quickly but they could be due to clown make up woman's acceptance of his offer of a safe place to stay.
So back on the road and off to find a witch. Nobody was talking much, too hungover and a mixture of disappointment, embarrassment and smugness. As we approached a cliff face a small blue thing appeared and attacked. After killing it I asked what it was.
"It's a Smurf" answered Branwyn, "we have them in the Norheim Isles but they're usually much friendlier, you call them then "farts" round here"
"We call them what?"
"Farts, you know, farts, there must be a Fart Village nearby."
At that moment more of the "farts" started pouring down the pass towards us. With a war cry that echoed off the cliffs, Branwyn leapt into battle calling on Tempus to "strike down the "farts" with his mighty power".
And we lost it, completely, Kivan's bow was shaking, Edwin couldn't cast and I realised I was still pretty drunk.
Thankfully the "farts" were small, weak and insane which put them on the same level as our own hysterical state. Until "Papa Fart", as described by Branwyn, called up a bear (a "fart" bear? how?) but we'd got pretty adept at scattering and pelting with missiles. Though Edwin did have to cast silence on Branwyn. Then there was a cave, another bear and treasure which nobody could identify but looked expensive.
The three of us took a vow never to reveal to Branwyn why she had had to do most of the fighting herself.
Traveling with:
Joshua the gnomish berserker
Hanna, Misty, Paja, and Forrest the human wild mages
Setup: Vanilla BG 2, ToB and official patch, core rules at all times, no mods
Last session, we had cleared most of the area you find Imoen in, in Spellhold. Now it was time to clear the rest of that level.
First task was the book of monsters. This went really well. It was mostly ranged attacks, with Joshua being the distraction. We used magic missiles on the beholder to speed up the kill. As a precaution, Corewild had put protection from petrification on himself to prevent any "mishaps" from happening. As it was, the beholder just tried to charm a berserker wearing a charm helmet - wasn't going to work!
Slaughtering the nearby kobolds was simple enough. The lightning bolt they fired off didn't do too much damage, just woke up Forrest when he got hit with it.
Next was a poison wraith - Joshua soloed that enemy. Couldn't remember if it level drained or not, so he used the IMoD despite no skill with maces - he did use belm though to give him more attacks.
Next was a group of Yuan-tis. Once again, Joshua soloed this group with enrage and mirror image from the Ilbratha. We had put a protection from undead on him and he used a haste potion and ventured into the southern room, which was supposed to spawn undead, but none were there? Corewild approached that room as well, still no undead. Odd. Rest of party finally entered the room, then suddenly the undead appeared. Joshua held his ground and burned down the bone golem, while the rest of the party retreated. Undead spawns weren't too powerful (2 skeleton warriors and a greater mummy). While his protection from undead was still active, Joshua also soloed Dace. I was careful though, to only let Corewild stake Dace (otherwise Joshua can't receive the hand)
After looting the "library" (not sure what else to call that room), we decided to pass on the umber hulks and left this initial level.
Next level, more Yuan-tis. Joshua soloed these guys with enrage and improved invisibility from Paja. We use this spell a lot anytime Joshua needs to solo a group or strong magic opponent. For the trapped paintings, Joshua used the book of infinite spells which was set on Spell Turning, to survive the 1st trap. The other paintings were negated with protection from fire scroll and a fire resistance potion.
We used the paintings to open some doors and meet some monsters. We used ranged attacks on the illithid, with a carrion crawler as a suitable distraction for it. The rest of the enemies in the doors were pretty straightforward. The 3 clay golems were pretty easy, as most of the party has blunt skill. So just put on group haste and then that's that.
We used our discs to get haste boots for Joshua. We were not far from Bodhi, but the party was battered by this point. So I carefully put Corewild on one side of the door and the rest of the party on the other side and shut the door and rested. We are resting for an insane amount of time now that we have no healer (and running low on heal potions). We had rested near the library, and we rested for 14 days!!! (I have rest until heal enabled)
I took no chances with Bodhi. Rest of party was away, with Corewild equipping IMoD and using Ilbratha for mirror image - this insured no problems from meeting Bodhi. After doing Spellhold 100+ times, the remaining puzzles, and final combat with the trolls with that strange altar, were simple enough.
We met Saemon on the way up to the next level, and he gave his "advice". We looted the 5 dispelling arrows, and will engage Lonk and Irenicus next session.