When we left the Friendly Arm Inn to travel to the Cloakwood, we were accosted by a band of four holy warriors of Torm who accused us of being murderers of innocents. Our earnest protests failed to convince them of the contrary, making battle inevitable. Two of my thrown traps instantly killed two of our foes. But their leader, a woman named Najara, showed Xan that she was the superior fighter. At least she was until Quayle Blinded her.
She fell soon after. Their last member, a battle priest, was paralyzed, also by Quayle, with a wand and subsequently slain.
A bounty notice we found on Najara’s corpse claimed that my party and I had destroyed a village and all its inhabitants, including women and children.
In other words my enemies now availed themselves of outright lies in order to turn even good folk of the Sword Coast against me. The letter was signed “P.W.” which were two more initials to remember, in addition to “M.S.” (the initials below the message that one of the Elven bounty hunters by the bridge to Baldur’s Gate had carried).
We made it to the Cloakwood the next day, eager as I was at that time to find the hidden Iron Throne base. The outer reaches of the forest were gentle and accessible to visitors unadjusted to the wilds like ourselves. Yes there were savage animals, and even the odd Huge Spider and a pack of Tasloi that we slew (yielding me a nifty Cloak of Non-Detection), but at the same time the hand of man was still palpable in the area. For example, there was a bridge in good working order that allowed us to cross a river. On it stood Coran, an Elven archer that proposed to us that we work together to slay a Wyvern and receive a handsome 2,000 Guilder reward for the creature’s skull from Keldath Ormlyr in Beregost. Xan protested, considering the undertaking too dangerous, but the rest of us were interested. We offered Xan some time off - he agreed to wait for us at the Friendly Arm Inn - and we welcomed Coran into the party. When we wanted to set up camp, Coran pointed us to Aldeth Sashenstar, a hunter from Baldur’s Gate. Aldeth invited us to his lodge where he had food and wine for us, and where we were allowed to rest. We left on the morrow but were detained by a group of Druids that accused Aldeth of having murdered one of their order. They had come to kill Aldeth, but our host denied the allegations. Aldeth had been most hospitable to us and the Druids had no evidence of the purported murder, so we tried to persuade them to look for a peaceful settlement. Alas, this proved impossible. The Druids started casting summoning spells and other incantations, and when Branwen Silenced most of them, they proceeded to attack us with their Staves. The unfortunate result was a bloodbath in which all the Druids died.
Aldeth thanked us for saving his skin and invited us to visit him at the Manycoins Merchant League in Baldur’s Gate.
As we ventured deeper in the forest, the wilderness became harsher. We had a major scare when we crossed a ramshackle bridge and four Phase Spiders took our party by surprise. One of them poisoned Shar-Teel, and we generally had a hard time defeating them.
When the monsters lay dead, a desperate young man, Tiber, approached us from the bushes and begged us to find his brother Chelak for him. The brother had gone Spider hunting with a legendary blade specifically created for the purpose of Spider slaying: Spiders’ Bane. We agreed to help him find his brother, but as we proceeded we became the ones who needed help. Shar-Teel inadvertently triggered some sort of trap that caused a giant web to spawn where we stood. It held Shar-Teel, Coran, and Keiria, while eight Huge Spiders were approaching them. I slew most of the monsters with a ranged trap, but Branwen, Xan and I took too long to save our wedged comrades from the Spiders’ poisons. Keiria and Coran especially looked to be in dire conditions after we had slain the creatures. Shar-Teel had been poisoned as well, but she recovered well enough with antidotes.
We trekked back to the Friendly Arm Inn to have the Gnomish priestess Gellana Mirrorshade use her restorative magics on Coran and Keiria. The cleric was more successful with Keiria than with Coran. Keiria could immediately join us, but we were told that Coran required days to fully recover, so we left him in Gellana’s care.
Rather than returning to the Cloakwood, the party decided to see if Baldur’s Gate had already become accessible, what with the recent dismantlement of the bandit syndicate at the hands of Butch and Shar-Teel, and also bearing Aldeth’s invitation in mind. According to Ender Sai, there had been Iron Throne offices in Baldur’s Gate too, so they might as well look for answers there rather than in the uninviting forest. Unfortunately the party was once more denied access to the city. The band then traveled further north to the village of Ulgoth’s Beard. According to Keiria the village had a small port. She advised her friends to see if they could find passage on a ship bound for Baldur’s Gate so that they could enter the city via the docks. The plan was sound yet it didn’t work. There were no ships bound for Baldur’s Gate anytime soon. Apparently water transport had been strictly curtailed as well as overland traffic to the city. The companions’ visit to Ulgoth’s Beard was nevertheless not in vain, for the local innkeeper sold Keiria two magical harps (one that dispels Confusion and one that can be used to Dominate unfriendly creatures). [Note: regular items such as Aule’s Staff, Greenstone Amulet, Sandthief Ring were all Item Randomized away.] In the village they met a woman, Yness, who begged the party to rescue her husband from Orcs in the Fields of the Dead, north of Wyrm’s Crossing. Yness told the party it was very dangerous, and that she had no reward for them. Keiria, ever kind, assured the woman the party would look into the matter,
but the apparent peril and the lack of a reward had made Butch lose interest as much as he lamented the woman’s predicament. Far more interesting to him was an offer by a fellow named Ike, for a guided tour at Durlag’s Tower. As none of the companions felt a great urge to return to the Cloakwood after their near death experience there, Butch soon had his comrades convinced to join the excursion.
They had a swift and uneventful journey with only a single alarming moment: a confrontation with two Battle Horrors on a narrow stone bridge that led to the tower. But Branwen, Shar-Teel and Butch (with his staff for a change), inspired by Keiria, soon proved to be too much for the creatures to handle.
Ike’s tour started on the massive tower’s ground floor. There was really not much to see there; just a large, almost empty reception room, and narrow corridors surrounding it, but Ike told the party that nothing was what it seemed, and that there were traps everywhere. Durlag the Dwarf had really wanted to convert the tower into an impregnable fortress. The tour was brusquely interrupted by a Demon Knight that appeared out of nowhere and promised to kill everyone. Quayle quickly paralyzed the creature with his wand, allowing the party to slay it before it could do any harm.
It dropped a suit of full plate mail armor, a curious Helmet of Opposite Alignment (which Butch considered placing on Shar-Teel’s head some time when she wasn’t looking), and an enchanted large shield. After the incident Ike called off the tour, and the other tourists went away, relieved they hadn’t died. But Butch and his companions continued their exploration.
The Demon Knight wasn’t the only dangerous creature in the tower. A spell casting ghost was very displeased with the party’s visit. It used a plethora of advanced spells to protect itself, such as Stoneskins, a Fireshield and Improved Invisibilty, and it forced Shar-Teel into submission with a Cloudkill. Butch and his friends only prevailed after Quayle had used another charge of his wand to paralyze the apparition.
In hindsight the whole excursion to Durlag’s Tower was a mistake on our part. There wasn’t nearly as much treasure as I had hoped to find, there were traps that even my supposedly nimble fingers failed to disarm, and we faced enemies that could have easily killed us. Eventually one of us would pay dearly for our entering the tower. With the Ghost’s Cloudkill having knocked Shar-Teel unconscious, I let my comrades look after her while I did some exploring on the different upper levels of the tower. Most floors were structured in the same way as the ground floor but inhabited by Ghasts, dangerous creatures even though my Ring of Free Action protected me from their paralyzing touch. I patiently took them on, relying mainly on sneak attacks and the occasional trap. The top floor housed a Demoness, Kirinhale she called herself, that had somehow been made a captive within the tower (even though she was not chained, bound, or gagged or anything). She needed to take possession of a living body to be free. With difficulty I convinced her not to attack me, as I falsely promised her another scapegoat. Quayle was that supposed scapegoat, but with his enchanted helm that protected him against the creature’s charms, there was little Kirinhale could do against the Gnome. While she kept trying to dominate Quayle, I repeatedly attacked from the shadows until she fell.
I can’t say we didn’t get anything out of the tower, because I found a Cloak of Protection +2 (Spirit’s Shield), a Staff of Striking, and an enchanted Halberd. But it all lost meaning when we got back to Nashkel to have Nalin restore Shar-Teel to health. She turned out to be suffering from a long-lasting trauma and she couldn’t continue with us, much like such valuable past companions as Imoen, Kivan and Kagain (who were still slowly recuperating).
At the Friendly Arm Inn, recovered Coran took her place. [Note: Although I don’t have the tweak installed that reduces the likelihood of permanent NPC deaths, Shar-Teel was already the 5th NPC after Imoen, Isra, Kagain, and Kivan that could not be properly raised/resurrected. They were all yellow circled and according to Shadowkeeper suffering from all possible negative status effects. I would have to manipulate their state flags in Shadowkeeper to be able to use them again, but I’ve decided to raise them and dismiss them from the party, leaving them in the care of a healer in a temple. They can no longer be used in BG1, but since they never really died, they should become available in SoA. I’m not sure if BGT actually functions this way though. I might have to remove the negative state flags shortly before transitioning to SoA, or just accept the NPCs’ absence in SoA.]
During their sophomore visit to the Spider-ridden area of the Cloakwood, the companions showed they had learned from their first unpleasant experience. Quayle’s Invisibility 10’ Radius allowed the party to explore the area, without having to worry about triggering any web traps (which happened various times indeed). Unseen, they detected several Huge and Giant Spiders, Ettercaps, Phase Spiders and a Sword Spider, but the most striking creature they encountered was a Dragonling. Butch, relying on his own stealth skills rather than Quayle’s invisibility spells, showed himself before a female Druid. She introduced herself as Selene and asked him to slay the Dragonling for her, as it had chased her and her companions out of their grove. Without really knowing what to expect, Butch and friends decided to help the woman. The rogue attacked from the shadows to discover that the young dragon already had quite the fiery breath, typical of mature dragons, he knew.
Coran got a near fatal taste of that too, but the party’s combined strength made them prevail over the monster.
In the same area Butch entered a Spiders’ nest and found it the dwelling of a morbidly obese female with six pets that she set on him: two Sword Spiders, two Giant Spiders, and two Ettercaps. The rogue rushed outside, toward his companions, with the monsters at his heels. Keiria then made a painful mistake in trying to slay some of the pursuing monsters with Skull Traps; she ended up critically wounding Branwen.
The Skald somewhat made up her mistake by saving Quayle with an Invisibility spell after a Giant Spider had Webbed him.
These initial upsets notwithstanding, Coran, Butch, and Xan successfully prevented the monsters from doing further harm.
When Butch and Xan entered the Spiders’ nest again, and found the female alone, she was quick to surrender. She told them she was Centeol, a once beautiful Elf that had been cursed by one Jonaleth Irenicus. Xan made her very happy by removing the curse. In her gratitude Centeol left Butch and Xan a treasure trove with such prizes as Spiders’ Bane and the Golden Girdle. And then she departed, allegedly to exact revenge on Irenicus.
The duo also found Chelak’s corpse in the nest, but when the party returned to the point where they had met Tiber, after slaying many, many more Spiders and Ettercaps,
, they discovered that the lad had gone. This was hardly a surprise, because days had passed since they had first met.
The company traveled back once more to the Friendly Arm Inn, where they - Keiria most of all -would be relieved to see Branwen recover swiftly in Gellana’s care.
Soon the team found themselves in the Cloakwood again, this time keeping a low profile, stalking invisibly past a Druid grove for example. They spent a few days looking for Coran’s Wyverns until Butch, the party’s scout, found a nest in a reeking, blood-smeared cave.
He lured them outside where traps and an assault by the party meant the end of the wicked creatures. Inside the cave Butch found a Shield Amulet (that he would later see upgraded by Thalantyr to set Quayle’s base AC to 4).
In Beregost, the companions received the 2,000 Guilder reward from Keldath Ormlyr. Half of it went to Coran, who left the party (not to Butch’s regret, for he’d had little patience for the Elf’s pointless ramblings about all that was female).
On their third(!) trip to the Cloakwood Butch made it clear to his companions that he meant business. He would not be sidetracked, nor would he leave again before having paid the Iron Throne base a visit.
The second time we approached the Cloakwood’s Druid Grove, an older Druid asked us whether we were associated with the Iron Throne, because he had a message for them. I told him we were sworn enemies of the Throne, and was glad to discover that his message would have consisted in our hides, had we been Iron Throne members. Not that I considered him capable of slaying the five of us, but it was good to know the Throne had more enemies than just us. Quayle must have had similar thoughts, because after the encounter he observed that it might be a good idea to reveal ourselves and our agenda to the other Druids. We might find allies in them. As gifted as the Druids were at making us feel like interlopers in their territory, their Archdruid Amarande did instruct one member of his order of Shadow Druids to join our party to confront the Iron Throne, and to report back to him when we were done. She was a hot-tempered Avenger Druid by the name of Faldorn.
With Faldorn as our guide we didn’t take long in reaching the Iron Throne base (though still more than a day during which increased guard and Black Talon patrols indicated that we were getting closer; we slew them all.)
The actual base appeared to consist of two unimposing wooden structures, little more than large sheds, but according to Faldorn there were mines below them. The compound was enclosed by a wooden fence and a canal. The only access was over a narrow bridge over the canal. The two structures themselves were separated by another canal and connected by a second, unsheltered bridge. We first cleared the outer area, which meant dispatching circa ten guards / Black Talons,
as well as a man that presented himself as the Archdruid of the Cloakwood. Faldorn dismissed him as an impostor, but he was dead serious. He took us for Iron Throne hirelings and might have hurt us if it wasn’t for Quayle’s wand. With it the Gnome timely stopped the man’s spell casting, allowing us to dispatch our foe with ease.
[Note: The Arch Druid, whom I remembered to be a very difficult foe, dropped some very OP gear, as is common with DSotSC and Dark Horizons enemies. I either ignore or sell such loot, but I do allow my characters to use mod items that I find sufficiently balanced. In the case of Faldorn for example that included a pair of Boots of the Forest that give her slightly increased movement speed plus free action, and an amulet called Heart of the Wood which grants her immunity to acid.]
Still from outside the compound we saw a quintet of Black Talon Elites guarding the bridge between the two structures. We attacked them with ranged weaponry, only to discover that they were no regular Black Talon Elites; they were amongst the best marksmen that we had encountered up till then. They downed Xan in no time (despite his protections), and only became manageable for us after Faldorn caught them in a web and had them attacked by a Dread Wolf she summoned, and after I weakened them with two thrown snares.
With the coast clear, we fully healed and prepared for entering the complex. I asked Branwen, Faldorn and Quayle to take care of Xan, and Keiria to stand watch, and approached the complex on my own. I snuck past four guards that looked different than the others. They weren’t outfitted in the typical Iron Throne gear or Black Talon gear. Two of them appeared to be wizards. As I continued my reconnaissance I saw a Black Talon General whom we had attacked when we saw him on the bridge between the two buildings. He was severely injured, so I decided to try and finish him off before he could alert the four special guards I had just bypassed. Unfortunately my sneak attack failed to slay the warrior and soon the four special guards came looking for me. I managed to hide, thanks in part to Faldorn’s Dread Wolf that was still around and served to distract the guards, but when I retreated one of the wizards came after me and attacked me with a Wand of Fire.
At that point I had already protected myself with a potion of magic shielding. I took down his defenses with a bolt of dispelling, and finished him off with bolts of biting.
When I returned to my comrades to warn them that the guards had noticed me, I witnessed the other wizard Dimension Dooring right into their midst. With another bolt of dispelling I rendered him vulnerable to our attacks.
Quayle disrupted one of the wizard’s spells with a well-timed Magic Missile, and Branwen finished him off.
With both wizards gone, I could strike the Black Talon General and one of the special guards down without having to worry about any arcane repercussions.
Finally, our party dispatched the fourth special guard together, with Faldorn getting the kill.
We had to battle our way past a few more guards in our search for the actual mine entrance. In front of it, we cured what slight wounds we had suffered, had Quayle turn us invisible, and descended, unsure what to expect but prepared for the worst.
What the mine had in store for the party was indeed not pretty. It was operated by rag-dressed and underfed slaves under the supervision of mail-clad Iron Throne guards like the ones they had seen on their patrols in the woods. One of the miners was standing in front of a massive plug. Butch, less reliant on Quayle’s magic to remain unseen, revealed himself and asked the miner what the plug was for. He explained that it kept an underground river from flooding the mine. The miner could open the plug and inundate the mine if brought the key from the master of the mines, Davaeorn (a name that Butch hadn’t encountered in the Iron Throne correspondence but knew he had to heed regardless, thanks to the Surgeon’s warnings). The two devised a plan that involved the release of an imprisoned slave resistance leader, Rill, who would know how to get the other slaves to safety before the flooding of the mine. The miner further advised Butch to speak with another prisoner, Yeslick, who was the last surviving Dwarf of the clan that used to exploit the mine, and had been the one to design the plug. The party descended one level, stalked past a few hapless guards in charge of storage,
and reached the prison via a hidden door that Quayle detected. They gave Rill 100 Guilders to bribe a number of guards in order to set the slaves free, and they liberated Yeslick, who would become their guide and champion in the mine. Butch asked Branwen to take Xan with her to the Friendly Arm Inn, because the Elf was in pain. Both were still invisible so there was little risk. (Butch realized he might miss Branwen because they had become close friends, and more recently even lovers.) [Note: Yeslick is a Battlerager/Cleric in my setup. This is a Berserker/Cleric, but the NPC kits mod renames the Berserker kit to Battlerager for Dwarves.] The Dwarf was given most of Kagain’s gear (which Butch had kept in the party’s Bag of Holding ever since he had taken it from one of the carts in the Nashkel Mines where Finch had left it), and he soon needed it: various guards, including a female wizard, had followed them through the halls while others were approaching from the other side of the prison. The Dwarf enraged, and when a Minor Sequencered Ray of Enfeeblement and Blindness came his way, he quaffed a potion of magic shielding to become immune to the female’s spells.
He almost single-handedly dispatched the opposition, with Butch being the only one to help out (the other companions remained invisible).
The two cleared the entire level, and repeated their work on a third level. It had fewer human guards than the second level and more Hobgoblins, who were actually weaker opponents than their human colleagues. Yeslick showed the party the way; all they had to do was follow
Even two wizards, foes that Butch would normally engage with the utmost caution had nothing on Yeslick. The first one was a human female, whom Butch had scouted in one of the level’s many small rooms. She had several magical protections active, he discovered as a trap she triggered did not hurt her in the slightest. When Butch communicated his findings to his new Dwarven companion (who had been making himself very well-liked in the short while he had been with the party), Yeslick told him he knew how to handle the Mage. He entered the room, did not see the woman, but then he cast Dispel Magic which revealed her and removed most of her protections. It made her an easy kill for the duo.
The second wizard was an Ogre Mage. Again Butch approved of Yeslick’s approach to battling the creature: he Silenced it. The Ogre Mage reacted with a Vocalize and would injure Butch with a number of Invocation spells (including a Chromatic Orb, pretty scary because of a Petrification risk). But Yeslick’s axe and Butch’s bolts killed the monster soon after, and
the party moved further down to a fourth and final level.
It was much narrower, with only a single corridor that led to a large, open room. During his adventures Butch had developed a keen eye for traps, which was a good thing, because he encountered many. While he was in the process of disarming them, he was discovered by Black Talon Elites and assaulted with arrows of detonation.
Yeslick and he did a fairly good job at dispatching the mercenaries, although the Dwarf had to swig a few potions of extra healing to keep going, especially after a hitherto invisible assassin stabbed him in the back.
The duo slew her and found a pair of Boots of Ensured Quickness (= Boots of Speed). [Note: Dark Silvia also dropped a very awesome Cloak of the Assassin, which would have been a great BG2 item, but OP for BG1.] They had barely slain the Black Talons and the assassin, or Davaeorn the wizard showed up, flanked by two Battle Horrors. Behind him stood another Mage. Strangely, Davaeorn moved toward invisible Keiria, Faldorn and Quayle, but he undertook no action to dispel their Invisibility. Having to deal with one wizard at a time made things a lot easier for Butch and Yeslick. Butch applied an oil of speed and smacked the associate wizard in the back, slowing his foe with his enchanted staff. The latter then activated a few basic protections as well as an Improved Invisibility that Yeslick promptly dispelled with a Invisibility Purge. The Dwarf slew the Mage with ease,
and the Battle Horrors after that.
Around that time Davaeorn cast a Teleport Field at the entrance, causing the invisible party members to seek out one of the rooms to wait in. The master of the mine tried to overcome Yeslick with Cones of Cold and fire magic, but Yeslick was hardy. Butch dispelled Davaeorn’s protections with a bolt of dispelling, and injured the wizard with bolts of lightning. The killing blow was for Yeslick.
He dropped a Tome of Clear Thought, the river plug key, and letters revealing some of the Iron Throne’s plans. The sabotage of the Nashkel Mines had given the Iron Throne a monopoly on iron, which explained the exorbitant prices for mundane weaponry at stores and smiths. The Throne had purchased a noble estate in Baldur’s Gate to serve as their base of operations in the city. And a fellow named Sarevok was to be installed as the commander of the Throne’s mercenary forces.
We looted the mines, and then flooded them. Upon leaving the compound a Druid named Wendell informed us that he had come to avenge one of his kin, Miranda, whom we had killed according to him. Faldorn knew neither this Wendell nor the Miranda he spoke off, and explained to him that she was a Druid of the Cloakwood herself. It was to no avail. Wendell and two companions attacked us. They summoned a Cave Bear, hampered our movement with Plant Growth, and nearly killed Keiria with a Call Lightning
before Quayle Silenced most of them. (but not Wendell who saved vs spell with a roll of 1).
I got Flamestruck and Yeslick suffered a number of Lightning strikes, but we had enough healing potions to keep us going, and when they had run out of their most dangerous spells, we had little difficulty finishing our enemies.
We returned to Amarande, the Shadow Archdruid, so that Faldorn could report our success at the mine. Amarande wasn’t very impressed but content nonetheless. I was about to bid Faldorn farewell, when she requested Amarande to let her travel with us to Baldur’s Gate to deal with the Iron Throne higher-ups. Amarande met her request and gave her a White Oak Large Shield (+1, +1 vs missiles, +1 CON) to protect her on her travels. At the Friendly Arm Inn we learnt that Xan was the sixth of my friends that required lasting medical care. He was in no condition to rejoin the party. Branwen and Gellana Mirrorshade told me they would do all they could to fully restore the frail Elf to health.
(I am still lurking my own thread due to a break from gaming for RL. I intend to return in the coming weeks. Thank you all for sharing your adventures.)
Turns out the problem was a corrupted spell file from the Phase Spider kit. I fixed up the install and it's working fine. But I can't think of a better way to end Blueberry's tale then that ridiculous string of nonsense on page 15. So I'll stick with that.
Now what happens? Well, I've got a new idea for a run. Instead of playing a solo character with a custom kit, I'll play a full party, composed entirely of custom kits. We've got a bard kit, a barbarian kit, a couple of cleric kits, a druid kit, and a revised sorcerer, to boot. I've already tested the files, and while the kits don't have updated description strings and so forth (I don't know how to design patches for the dialog.tlk file), the kits all work as intended. Now I just need to playtest them.
Here are the kits. I'm particularly fond of the Soulbinder kit, as it operates in a radically different way from any other character class: it can support its allies, but is helpless on its own. All of its power (and there's a lot of it) is entirely invested in other party members.
Soulbinder
Soulbinders are bards that grant their friends and allies unique innate abilities by forging a close spiritual and emotional bond with the other character, imbuing the soulbinder's target with a special power. The process is traumatic, however, and anyone who benefits from a soulbinder's "imbuements" is weakened whenever the soulbinder is far away. All imbuements impose penalties to the target, but multiple imbuements do not give stacking penalties.
An imbued character suffers a -1 penalty to hit, damage, AC, saving throws, and casting time whenever he or she is not under the effect of the soulbinder's song. When the soulbinder's song is in effect, imbued characters gain a +1 bonus to hit, damage, AC, saving throws, and casting time. Non-imbued characters receive no bonuses, but still experience some limited regeneration every round the song is in effect. The song has a limited area of effect, however, equivalent to a Haste spell, and will not affect imbued creatures outside of that area.
All bonuses and penalties last for 18 seconds, except for the casting time bonus and penalty, which lasts 12. The song still triggers every 6 seconds, which means that characters who drift away from the bard do not immediately lose all bonuses, while characters who stay close to the bard will gain additional bonuses.
The soulbinder may grant his or her imbuements to any character, but can only grant a finite number of these powers. Once a soulbinder grants an ability to one character, the soulbinder cannot grant that ability to another character until it gains another five levels. The transfer is permanent, and cannot be undone. The soulbinder may grant an imbuement (with one exception) to him or herself, but suffers a 33% spell failure on innate abilities, so most imbuements will be more effective in the hands of a soulbinder's allies.
Some imbuements can only ever be granted once. Others can be learned and granted multiple times. In both cases, the soulbinder gains new imbuements every level:
Level 1: Precision. Permanent +3 to hit, -3 to damage. Level 2: Magical Ward. Permanent +10% to magic resistance, -2 to save vs. spell. Level 3: Mobility. Can increase attacks per round by 1, increase AC by 3, and grant a +1 bonus to casting time for 7 rounds, but suffers a -2 penalty to THAC0 and 5% spell failure. Level 4: Wisdom. Permanent +1 to Wisdom and Dexterity, -1 to Strength. Level 5: Psionic Blast. Can stun enemies for 4 rounds on a failed save vs. spell, bypasses spell level immunities and magic resistance. Level 6: Vampirism. Can cast a ranged version of Vampiric Touch. Level 7: Defensive Harmony. Can grant the entire party +2 to AC and a +2 Chant effect, and spell absorption of 1 spell of any level, for 10 rounds. Level 8: Energy Ray. Can deal 2d12 magic damage to an enemy with a save for half, three times per day. Level 9: Weird. Permanent +10% bonus to XP, +5% to magic resistance, -1 to all stats. Level 10: Magical Blast. Can deal 1d150 magic damage to any target with a save vs. spell at -9 to negate the effect. There is a 10% chance the spell rebounds upon the caster, but the caster makes his or her save at +1. Level 11: Spellstrike. Can break down an enemy mage's defenses once per day. The spell has a 50% chance of removing specific and combat protections, and a 50% chance of removing spell protections. At higher levels, the Spellstrike ability counts as a higher spell level and will remove higher-level defenses. Level 12: Maze. Can Maze a single target on a failed save vs. spell at -5. The caster will lose 1000 XP with each casting on a failed save vs. wand. Level 13: Medusa. Can petrify a target on a failed save vs. petrification/polymorph at +1. Level 14: Righteous Magic. May cast Righteous Magic as per the cleric spell once per day, but suffers a permanent -1 to Strength and Constitution.
The soulbinder may grant these imbuements more than once, but this takes time. A soulbinder may cast another imbuement an extra time for every 5 levels after he or she first learns it, to a maximum of five castings. For example, a soulbinder may grant a new Spellstrike imbuement to another character at level 11, 16, 21, 26, and 31.
Other imbuements can only be granted once. The soulbinder learns these special imbuements once per two levels, up to level 14:
Level 2: Permanent +25% bonus to movement speed, party-wide. Level 4: Can create a single copy of a unique crossbow, usable by any class as if proficient with crossbows, which grants the wielder 50% electrical resistance fires a lightning bolt as a +3 bolt for 1d10 electrical damage, with a 50% chance of ignoring the target's magic resistance. The lightning bolt grants a +4 bonus to THAC0 and ranged effects on hit (such as Power Attack and Called Shot) apply to everything in the path of the lightning bolt. The user gains an extra 0.5 attacks per round when using the crossbow. Level 6: Reflex. May grant the entire party Improved Alacrity for 3 seconds, allowing them to cast one more spell during that round. Any spells cast during those 3 seconds are finished after the 3 seconds are over, irrespective of the spell's actual casting time--it cannot be used to cast more than two spells during that round. Level 8: Time Stop. May cast a party-wide Time Stop for one round. The party may not attack, suffers 100% spell failure for divine spells, 50% spell failure for arcane spells, and moves at 50% movement speed, but it may still use this time to reposition themselves, using thieving abilities, escape the battle, or refresh one's aura to drink a potion before an enemy spell hits. Level 10: Frost Aura. The target gains permanent +50% cold resistance and a backlash effect whenever he or she is hit by an enemy weapon or hostile spell. Attackers suffer 1d8 cold damage with a save vs. wand for none. The backlash damage will not trigger enemy Fire Shields or Auras of Flaming Death. Level 12: Favored Follower. The soulbinder may attach a vital piece of his or soul to the target character, allowing the soulbinder's friend to summon a simulacrum once per day. The soulbinder cannot grant this ability to him or herself. Level 14: Level Drain. The target creature level drains enemies with every successful melee hit. If the victim fails a save vs. death, it loses 1 level drained for 50 rounds, with an additional -1 penalty to hit, damage, luck, saving throws, AC, movement rate, and 1% spell failure for 5 rounds.
At level 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, the soulbinder may attempt to charm an enemy for 5 rounds on a failed save vs. spell at +5. At level 6, the soulbinder may create five healing potions once per day. The potions cure poison and heal 12 points of damage.
Drawbacks: 33% spell failure on innate spells May never attack or cast spells Cannot benefit from any Mislead, Project Image, or Simulacrum spells, even from scrolls
Sun Druid of Chult
BG2 druids have really poor offensive capabilities. They barely have any damage spells, and most of their spell levels go unused and undervalued. The Sun Druid has fire damage spells at every spell level, but also loses out on many traditional druid spells. Abilities: Immune to disease and poison +2 to hit and damage vs. yuan-ti +1 to STR and CON May specialize in spears and darts Does 2 sun damage per hit, with a save vs. breath for none 4% resistance to fire and cold per level Can call in a Sun Deva for 10 rounds as a 6th-level spell. The Sun Deva has 12 hit dice and lacks most of the abilities of a Deva, but also deals sun damage with every hit and has some of the Deva's resistances. Immune to Summon Insects, Insect Plague, and Creeping Doom May not cast any normal druid Conjuration or summoning spells Sun Druid spells have 75% normal duration
May cast some mage spells as druid spells:
Level 1: Burning Hands Level 2: Aganazzar's Scorcher and Fire Shield: Red Level 3: Flame Arrow, Minute Meteors (small area effect, as Fire Seeds, only grants 3 APR) Level 4: Fireball Level 5: Lower Fire Resistance, Sunfire Level 6: Summon Sun Deva Level 7: Comet (6d20, save for half)
Additional abilities: Level 8: +0.5 attacks per round Level 13: Permanent Fire Shield, stacks with Fire Shield spell, does 1d6+2 fire damage (grants no resistances) Level 15: All fire spells also do extra magic damage.
Beholder Cleric
I considered making a Beholder Mage kit, but the only way to implement it reasonably was to give the kit Improved Alacrity--in PnP, Beholder Mages use their eye stalks to cast spells, and can use all stalks once every round--but I didn't want to fuss with another constant effect Improved Alacrity, as the micromanagement gets time-consuming.
Instead, I made a Beholder Cleric kit. The Beholder can cast healing spells quickly, at a distance, but lacks a normal Beholder's offensive power, and is very constrained in the items it can use. Abilities: Free Action -35% to CHA +3 penalty to casting time Cannot equip gauntlets, bracers, boots, helmets, armor, or rings Natural weapon 1: 2 APR, +4 to hit, casts Cause Serious Wounds ray on hit (1d12 magic damage). Strikes as +7 weapon; the magic damage strikes as a level 4 spel. The Beholder ray can be blocked or reflected by spell protections, but will not remove Stoneskins, as it deals no physical damage. Natural weapon 2: 2 APR, +10 to hit, heals 5 HP on hit. Strikes as +7 weapon. This ray can be used to target a party member with a friendly cleric spell. The Beholder Cleric may apply a spell to its healing ray once per day at the level it learns the normal spell, and gains one more use of this ability per day (up to five) every three levels after the ability is first learned:
Negative Plane Protection Immune to Hold Person and paralysis May not cast healing spells greater than Cure Light Wounds May not cast Bless, Aid, Chant, Draw Upon Holy Might, Holy Power, Righteous Magic, Dispel Magic, Slow Poison, Neutralize Poison, Remove Paralysis, or Restoration -2 to all saves -1 to STR, DEX, and CON -2 to CHA
Gains hexes and curses as unique cleric spells. At higher levels, the hexes and curses also grant the caster with various bonuses, each of which lasts 6 rounds. Hexes and curses stack with each other, but not with themselves. Each hex and curse inflicts a penalty to hit, damage and saving throws, and lasts 6 rounds. All hexes and curses offers a save vs. wand to resist. Hexes have a small area effect akin to Hold Person; curses are single-target only.
Level 1: Minor Hex: -2 penalty. At level 7, this spell grants the caster a +1 to saving throws. Level 2: Minor Curse: -3 penalty. At level 9, this spell grants the caster immunity to charm. Level 3: Hex: -4 penalty. May slow the target for 6 rounds on a failed save vs. polymorph (50% chance). At level 11, this spell grants the caster +1 to casting time. Level 4: Curse: -5 penalty. May enfeeble and/or confuse the target for 6 rounds on a failed save vs. polymorph and spell, respectively (50% chance each). At level 13, this spell grants the caster immunity to confusion. Level 5: Greater Hex: -4 penalty. Slows the target for 6 rounds or paralyzes the target for 3 rounds on a failed save vs. polymorph or death at -2. At level 15, this spell grants the caster one extra attack per round. Level 6: Greater Curse: -7 penalty. Target is Mazed on a failed save vs. spell at -3. At level 17, this spell grants the caster immunity to Maze, Imprisonment, and instant death effects. Level 7: Plague, as Sphere of Chaos: Targets must make two saving throws every round or suffer a random effect. The Hexer is unable to cast any cleric spells until the spell is over. The effects are divided by saving throw type:
Save vs. spell: -Charm, 5 rounds -Disintegrate -Magic damage, 1d50 -Dispel magic, ignores caster level
Save vs. wand: -Pierce magic, up to level 7 -Breach, up to level 7 -Stun, 3 rounds -Maze
Save vs. death: -Paralysis, 4 rounds -Death -Level drain, 2 levels -Disease, -2 to physical stats and CHARISMA for 20 rounds, 10% chance of blindness, 20% chance of slow, 30% chance of 5 damage per round
Save vs. breath: -Fire damage, 5d8 -Acid damage, 1d20+14 -Hold, 3 rounds, ignores immunities to hold and paralyze -Glue (extremely slow movement rate), 7 rounds
Save vs. polymorph: -Slow, 7 rounds -Petrification -Pause, 1.5 rounds -Teleport field
Brute
The Brute is a revised version of the Barbarian kit. It is a much more offensive build with poor defensive power and fewer immunities.
Brute: +5% chance of a critical hit at level 1, with an extra +1% chance of landing a critical hit every two levels thereafter. +1 bonus to melee damage at levels 1, 9, and 17. +2 penalty to AC. Gains +10 to HP every 5 levels, to a maximum of +50 at level 25. Brawler: +1 to fist damage every 2 levels. Savage Blow: for one round, every hit does +1 damage and has a 50% chance of forcing the target to make a save vs. death or fall unconscious for one round. The Brute may use Savage Blow once per day per 5 levels, starting at level 1 with one use. Flurry of Blows: At levels 6 and 15, the Brute may raise his or her attacks per round to 5 for one round, but suffers a -4 penalty to hit and -2 penalty to damage and AC. Non-cooperative: Immune to fear, charm, Defensive Harmony, and Chaotic Commands. May not specialize in ranged weapons or weapons lighter than spears. This includes daggers, short swords, long swords, staffs, clubs, and scimitars. The Brute's THAC0 development has half the normal effect on ranged weapons until level 10 (-1 penalty to missile THAC0 per two levels, up to a total of -5 at level 10). Rage: +1 to hit, +3 to damage, and grants immunity to sleep, stun, imprisonment, maze, hold person, and paralysis for 5 rounds. The Brute suffers an additional +2 penalty to AC and -15% to physical damage resistance. The Brute can use Rage once per day per 4 levels, starting at level 1 with one use. Gains +5% to physical damage resistance at levels 4, 10, and 16. At level 13, the Brute does not gain an extra 0.5 attacks per round as fighters normally do. Instead, it gains a +2 bonus to damage and an extra +5% chance of landing a critical hit.
Sorcerer, revised
This version of the sorcerer gains fewer spells per day than the vanilla sorcerer, but also learns spells much more quickly, learning up to 7 spells per spell level, and being able to cast only 4 such spells per day. This allows a sorcerer to take advantage of Spell Revisions' greater variety of useful spells, and to improve the versatility of a party with only one mage.
The run I just started came to an abrupt end, but I'm going to start over. Turns out I still don't know enough about Spell Revisions. But since I've already got the screenshots from the first attempt, here's what happened until Molly, a warm-hearted half-elven Soulbinder, met an untimely end.
Since the party is pretty well-equipped to handle mages, I decide to take on the Ogre Mage. With no pre-buffing for either the enemy or the party, everyone is pretty vulnerable. Our frontline gets slowed, but our Beholder cleric, Salim Jedusa, keeps up a weak but steady stream of magic damage.
The Ogre Mage attempts to target our weak link, using Melf's Acid Arrow and a double Magic Missile Minor Sequencer on our sorcerer, Adoniki, and focusing his melee attacks on our Sun Druid, Zeon Teyzi.
Notice the Remove Fear on our Charname, Molly. Salim, the Beholder, is able to use targeted cleric spells as Beholder rays, and can therefore cast a single-target Remove Fear spell without using up a spell slot. Quite handy indeed. This is especially important because Molly is very important to this party's functioning, and having her running around screaming and hollering means the party doesn't benefit from her bard song, and without that song, the party suffers lots of penalties all over the place.
Aataqah arrives, the Ogre Mage vanishes, and he tells us we lost, somehow, even though we had healed up our party (Molly can conjure Elixirs of Health for the party once per day) and the Ogre Mage was at Near Death. Luckily for us, the game crashed a few minutes later and we had to reload, and we defeated the Ogre Mage on the second time around.
Zeon, being a Sun Druid, is immune to poison, and can tank out the several poison traps scattered around Chateau Irenicus, saving us a lot of damage--our party is devoid of any thief levels, though one of our clerics may dual-class to thief later on. But it's not really necessary. Molly's bard song heals 1 HP per round, and Salim's healing ray gives 5 HP per hit, so the party is very strong in healing power.
This means the Duergar don't pose much of a threat, as the party can heal up in between battles quite quickly. Only the enemy spellcasters are a problem.
Specifically, the twin Radiant Mephits in the Mephit Portal room are an issue--they always are. But our Brute, Bloody Howard, tanks out the Color Spray spells with his rage ability, allowing Zeon to tear down the Mephit Portals quickly. Zeon has 1.5 APR, has specialization in spears, and does sun damage with each hit, making her a fairly effective damage dealer. We clear out the entire dungeon save for Ilyich's cronies, Hareishan, and the Assassin on the way out before we have to rest.
Ilyich himself turns out to be fairly easy. He gets disabled by a Hold Person spell, and the Duergar Mage dies to Salim's offensive rays. Another rage ability helps take care of of the Mephits in the Air Elemental Plane, who use stunning attacks (Salim is also immune, thanks to his Beholder abilities). Finally, our only enemy left is the Assassin near the exit.
We crowd up the doorway with Hobgoblins, courtesy of Adoniki's Monster Summoning I spell (Spell Revisions has some very nice summoning spells), and Zeon's Sun Deva, which can see through invisibility, takes down the Assassins that the rest of the party can't see. It ends with a nice critical hit.
Notice the Sun Deva has the Fallen Planetar animation--I thought it looked a little cooler, and sounded a little better (it makes some weird screaming sounds, instead of battlecries in Common). I don't remember the last time I summoned a Fallen Deva or Fallen Planetar.
Findings: To my dismay, our Hexer's curses are pretty damn weak. Looking over our spellbooks, I realized that they're actually considerably worse than normal cleric spells. Mental Domination is superior in every way to Curse: it has a better save penalty, a nastier effect, and even lasts longer than Curse. I'm going to have to strengthen the Hexer spells if I want the kit to be worth using. Perhaps I'll increase the saving throw penalties, or just not have the spells offer any saves to begin with. I've yet to see any Hexer spells actually make a difference in combat. The Sun Deva is also unbalanced. It shouldn't be available so early. I changed it from a 5th-level spell to a 6th-level spell, trading places with Sunfire. I'll have to wait a little longer before Zeon can summon a Sun Deva again.
After Chateau Irenicus, we took our normal no-reload route: Circus, the Adventurer's Mart, Gaelan Bayle, and the sewers beneath the Copper Coronet. A Web spell from Adoniki brought down the Hobgoblins, while Zeon used the lightning crossbow on the Mustard Jelly, aiming directly north to make sure the lightning bolt bounced correctly.
If you aim a Lightning Bolt spell or a Wand of Lightning to the north or south, it will bounce right back, regardless of the angle of the wall it's hitting. This is the best way to get a bolt to hit the same target multiple times. It's especially effective in Zeon's hands because she does sun damage on hit.
She also has another excellent area-effect weapon in the form of Minute Meteors. Sun Druid meteors have a small area effect like Fire Seeds (which Sun Druids cannot cast, along with other normal druid Conjuration spells), and are absolutely fantastic for clearing up kobolds.
The meteors, however, only gives 3 APR instead of 5, and don't do as much damage per hit as normal mage Minute Meteors. They're still excellent for interrupting spellcasters, like the Priest of Cyric in the slavery compound.
Or the mages to the northwest, whom we lured out of their room with some Hobgoblins.
That Prismatic Spray trap is still a problem. Nobody in our group can disarm it, and only our sorcerer can teleport over it (Spell Revisions adds in Dimension Door as a 1st-level spell), but we do have Death Ward and Protection from Petrification. Death Ward is already on Molly herself, cast earlier in the battle just in case, so Adoniki adds Protection from Petrification and Molly walks through the trap.
At first, I thought there was a mistake somewhere, but the sound effect was that of a damage effect, not petrification or an instant death effect. I checked the spell files. Apparently, in Spell Revisions, Prismatic Spray can deal 100 poison damage on a failed save vs. death at -4. Death Ward and Protection from Petrification do absolutely nothing against Prismatic Spray in SR.
Zeon could have tanked that trap easily, as she's immune to poison damage. The other effects aren't too bad, either: SR Prismatic Spray can also stun, feeblemind, or Maze the target, or deal 10d6 fire, acid, or electricity damage. That's certainly very powerful, but the fight was over by the time we tried to cross the trap, so the damage could have simply been healed, the Maze could have been waited out, and the stun or feeblemind could have been cured with a Remove Paralysis or Remove Disease Beholder ray from Salim.
Anyway, I'll just start over, and be a little more attentive to SR changes in the future. I'll also give the characters a proper introduction. There's a little backstory I wanted to tell first.
From the Friendly Arm Inn we journeyed to Baldur’s Gate, where we would thank the Gods upon finding the city gates opened for once. En route we met a squire Cavalier by the name of Ajantis who wanted to join us to “fight evil”. Such noble aspirations weren’t necessarily mine, but given the protracted recovery of friends like Kagain, Shar-Teel, Kivan, and battlemage Xan, I knew our party needed another sword-arm to stand by Yeslick in the frontline.
At the city gates the Flaming Fist commander Harold Loggerson, or ‘Scar’ as he called himself, offered us 2,000 Guilders to gather some information for him. We were to investigate a trading company named the Seven Suns, in the city’s South-West quadrant. The Seven Suns was reported to have made a series of unsound business decisions, which had raised suspicions of possible criminal activity (extortion, blackmailing). But since a couple of questionable transactions were as such insufficient cause to warrant official Flaming Fist investigations, Scar had decided to look for outside help. Ever since I left Candlekeep, intelligence and counterintelligence had become a requisite for me to stay ahead of my enemies as well as my chosen vocation. We accepted Scar’s proposal.
I liked the walled city a lot. We entered it through the East Gate, one of only two overland entrance points (the other being the Black Dragon Gate on the northern edge of the city). Within Baldur’s Gate another wall separated the swankier northern and western quarters from the more low-key southern and eastern quadrants. But even the latter parts had good security, several stores offering all manner of useful goods, and many interesting business opportunities for me and my company. When we had just entered the city a man called Magnad accosted us. He told us about a place called Fealn Datoon or the Fields of the Dead, the same land north of Baldur’s Gate where Yness’s husband from Ulgoth’s Beard had been captured by Orcs. It turned out that this Magnad’s children were held there too. Yeslick gave the man our word that we would try to help.
There would be little or no payment, meaning there was also little or no interest on my part in going to those troubled lands. But as I wanted to keep Ajantis on board for the time being, I went along with Yeslick’s promise. At any rate we decided to rest and resupply first, and we also had Scar’s job to perform, Aldeth Sashenstar to visit, and the Iron Throne waiting for us.
Before we knew it we spent two days running lucrative errands and doing quests all over the city, without even having asked for them. One such errand, to which Ajantis surprisingly did not object, was to retrieve a corpse from the sewers for a wizard named Arkion. What Arkion didn’t tell us, was that there was an Ogre Mage down there co-existing with two Phase Spiders and a ton of Carrion Crawlers.
We went back up, but were followed by the two Spiders, some of the Carrion Crawlers, and the Ogre Mage. The latter was the biggest threat, and had me fear for a moment for our party’s reputation when it Confused Ajantis.
Fortunately Keiria’s magical Harp of Descant dispelled the enchantment, while one of my bolts of dispelling exposed our foe to the party’s lethal force.
At the Seven Suns trading coster a visiting merchant warned us that merchants he had known for years had started to behave very strangely:
The only creatures we knew capable of such behavior were Doppelgangers. (We had run into a few of those near Durlag’s Tower.) After we pressed some of the “merchants” for information about the recent goings-on at the coster, they shifted into their natural Doppelganger forms and attacked. We slew the creatures with ease and liberated a man named Jhasso, a friend of Scar’s and the owner of the Seven Suns. We then reported back to Scar and received not only the agreed payment for investigating and clearing the Seven Suns, but also a hefty reward for slaying the Ogre Mage we had met in the sewers. Easy money, though the business at the Seven Suns left us wondering what had made the Doppelgangers infiltrate the Seven Suns. The plot thickened when we visited our friend Aldeth Sashenstar at the Manycoins Merchants’ League estate. The picture was familiar: concerned merchants commenting how two of Aldeth’s partners and a number of subordinates had been behaving unlike their usual selves. I discreetly entered an office and found some anonymous letters to one Shalak that indicated that Aldeth’s partners had been killed and replaced by Doppelgangers, and that Aldeth would be next. I decided to confront and expose one of Aldeth’s faux companions. It shifted right in front of me, and soon many other Doppelgangers on the building’s different floors revealed their true nature. We slaughtered every single one of them. Aldeth felt deeply indebted and gave us a bastard sword enchanted for the specific purpose of slaying shapeshifting creatures.
After the incident, Keiria cynically remarked that it was a funny twist of fate that Doppelgangers should infiltrate and debilitate the city’s two principal trading houses just after the arrival of a new consortium, the Iron Throne. It had us all thinking. I must say I had come to like Keiria’s style. She wasn’t much of a talker, saving her voice for her battlesong, but she was always on point whenever she had something to say.
As referenced above Butch and company did several smaller jobs. It would go too far to go into the details of all of them but the most prominent ones shall be mentioned here. First of all Butch did a couple of commissions on his own. In addition to some freelance work this mostly involved harmless larceny with/for the Thieves Guild, earning himself a solid position and some influential friends at the guild, such as Narlen Darkwalk, who stood up for him against Alatos the guildmaster, and Black Lily, a fence. Butch confided his exploits to Quayle but kept them secret from some of his more morally principled companions.
The party slew two rivaling wizards to release a Nymph that had been held captive by one of them. There was an awkward moment when one of the mages, Ramazith, lay dead but everyone except Quayle and Butch were confused by a Chaos spell. Thankfully Quayle prevented the others from killing each other with two Invisibility 10’ Radius spells.
From a wizard at the Low Lantern inn - whom they ended up killing as well as two aggressive females that dropped a Tome of Understanding -
they retrieved a book of curses that would enable a mother to save her cursed daughter’s life. Another wizard that did not live to regret his mistake of attacking the companions was a fellow named Sunin (whose home contained a chest with a Honorary Ring of Sune that Quayle eagerly put on his finger to cast more divine spells).
The party secured the corpse of a priest of Tymora’s son from the Temple of Umberlee where the child had been caught by one of the priestesses, allowing the father to resurrect the son. The companions saved themselves from death by poisoning at the hands of two Iron Throne employees. One of them they had to kill for the antidote, the other they let off after it became clear he had been placed under a geas to perform tasks for the Throne.
General Jeydan of the Flaming Fist asked the party to help him against a new bandit organization, the Grey Clan. The companions’ contribution was limited though [because of a minor bug that ended the Grey Clan mod quest: an injured soldier not recognizing that battle had come to a conclusion prevented the quest from progressing]. One of their jobs for Jeydan and the Fist, finding a bandit hideout in the South-West quadrant, brought the companions into contact with a particularly unpleasant wizard, Degrodel. His home was inhabited by six monstrous guards for them to slay: two Invisible Stalkers, two Helmed Horrors, and two Doom Guards. Degrodel congratulated the crew on beating his guards, and then offered them a deal. They would be paid 5,000 Guilders if they were to obtain the Helm of Balduran from a petrified Elf, Vail, at a nearby manor house. Butch turned Vail to flesh and obtained the Helm of Balduran as well as the Cloak of Balduran via a courtesan that had been Vail’s lover. When the band returned to Degrodel with the helmet, the wizard paid them the reward he’d promised them but he also set more of his guards on the party. The company attacked the wicked man, but he simply vanished, taking the helmet with him. In hindsight Butch reckoned they should have kept the helmet because according to Keiria it bore powerful enchantments.
One of the Dukes of Baldur’s Gate, Eltan, offered us 2,000 Guilders to do something we had already planned to do anyway: investigate the Iron Throne headquarters for proof of criminal conduct. Well in all honesty our intention was of course not merely to investigate but rather to retaliate. Either way we readily agreed. Eltan had a second job for us as well, namely to look into a number of disappearances that a Flaming Fist citadel on the north border had witnessed.
When a merchant at the Iron Throne told us that the board of directors was away on business in Candlekeep,
we decided to look into matters at the Northern Citadel and in the Fields of the Dead first. After all, we didn’t have any tomes of great value to get us into Candlekeep. At the Northern Citadel, we had to question all the (uncooperative) soldiers and monks to find out who had disappeared and who or what could have been the cause of those disappearances. Initially I got the impression that the cause was an internal one, power-hungry people killing each other to obtain the positions they desired. But we discovered that the opposite was true when we entered a nearby mausoleum using a key we had found on the abbot who was slain during our absence. A mighty Ogre warrior aided by a small band of Zombies and Skeletons turned out to be responsible for the abductions and killings. Some of the Flaming Fist warriors were already battling them; we joined the fray. The Ogre was a real juggernaut and nearly killed Ajantis. But to his credit our new companion never despaired. He had Yeslick take the vanguard for a few moments while I laid on hands and he healed himself with potions, and then he returned in time to deal the monster the killing blow.
The other creatures weren’t much of a hassle, but there were powerful traps that I failed to detect let alone disarm (even after swigging a potion of perception). They nearly wiped out the entire company.
Our campaign against the Orcs of the Fields of the Dead was no less violent. I reconnoitered the area alone, hidden in shadows. There were about twenty Orcs and Orogs, including a few priests and mages. They held their captives in a corral, like cattle. I wasn’t sure to what purpose, but I feared the worst when I observed three man speared on poles.
When I returned to my comrades, a single Orc Priest caught sight of me, but we dispatched it without ado. The other Orcs and Orogs we tried to engage a few at a time, taking advantage of our superior speed. Yeslick enraged various times and did most of the melee work, assisted by Ajantis (protected by a potion of magic shielding until the potion’s effect wore off and he was brought under the effect of Hold Person and Rigid Thinking spells, at which point Keiria cast Invisibility on him). I contributed with my traps and my crossbow, Faldorn was useful with Insect Plagues and Chromatic Orbs, and Quayle with the occasional Blindness.
Amongst the prisoners we found and released were Yness’s husband and Magnad’s children. In a cave guarded by an Ogre Mage and more Orcs and Orogs we would set free another prisoner, Reedrig, after we lured the guards outside and slew them.
I felt oddly satisfied about our virtuous deeds. It was a different kind of fulfillment from that which I was used to (which used to involve material gain).
With the business up north behind us we returned to Baldur’s Gate to see if the Iron Throne management had returned from their stay at Candlekeep.
The party learned that the Iron Throne leaders were still at Candlekeep, but they decided to investigate the Throne headquarters anyway when one of the merchants told them about a strange group of acolytes with a secret agenda, assembled on the fifth floor.
Butch led his companions to the fourth floor, but went up to the fifth on his own. Hidden in shadows he appraised the acolytes, battle-ready as if they had been waiting for him, and snuck past them. In one of the backrooms he saw the corpse of a woman, Emissary Tar from Sembia, whom he had met downstairs. An identical-looking woman was standing among the acolytes. Butch understood that the acolytes had replaced Emissary Tar with a Doppelganger. He snuck downstairs, and instructed Quayle to cast Invisibility 10' Radius on the party. The six then went back upstairs and snuck silently past the acolytes to one of the backrooms. The narrow doorway would give the party the opportunity to bottleneck the acolytes, and thus a way to be in control of the battle that would inevitably follow. Butch set four traps behind the acolytes, proactively poisoned an Iron Throne battlemage with a bolt of biting, and then hastily retreated (thanks to an oil of speed) as the acolytes came after him.
Invisible Ajantis and Yeslick had quaffed strength and magic protection potions and applied oils of speed. The two warriors kept the doorway blocked, attacking the first acolytes to arrive while Butch finished of the battlemage he had previously attacked from the shadows.
The other companions remained invisible. Butch got Enfeebled by one of the wizards, an effect he countered by swigging a potion of strength. It allowed him to reposition himself and murder a second caster acolyte.
Ajantis took several hits and had to continuously heal himself with potions. When he looked to be going down, Quayle intervened with a successful Hold Person that froze three of the acolytes in place.
The Gnome’s move provoked Faldorn into revealing herself as well; she cast an Insect Plague to scare and disrupt the enemy.
Overwhelmed, the few acolytes that were still in control of themselves fell one after the other; the Held ones followed after them.
Finally the party questioned a rogue named Thaldorn for information (learning nothing they hadn’t known already), and then liquidated him.
They found two letters that confirmed the Throne leaders’ sojourn at Candlekeep. One of the letters was written by Sarevok and addressed to Rieltar. Apparently Sarevok was Rieltar’s son. In the letter Sarevok stated that the mercenaries led by Butch would no longer trouble the Iron Throne because he had dealt with them personally. This piece of information puzzled Butch. Why would the son misinform the father? Keiria and Quayle, the shrewdest of his companions, had no explanation for this either. The party reported their findings (except the contents of Sarevok’s letter) to Duke Eltan. The Duke gave them their reward and a valuable historical tome that would grant them access to Candlekeep. Butch’s journey was about to come full circle.
Update! Molly and company fought through Irenicus' dungeon much as they had before, but to save time on gathering loot, I just reloaded to an earlier post-Chateau Irenicus save once we reached the exit. This means I could redo the first dungeon battles without having to repeat all of the inventory management.
But first, I should introduce the characters.
Our frontliner is a Half-orc Brute, Bloody Howard, a smart man with simple needs: money and entertainment, both of which he has found positively abundant in adventuring.
As with my previous run, I've given the group the stat bonuses from BG1, mostly because of Molly's Soulbinder abilities, which fiddle around with ability scores, and can wreck certain stat bonuses depending on how they're used. Notice the uncharacteristically high INT score for a Barbarian kit--this is because Prismatic Mantle, a Spell Revisions weapon immunity spell, can Maze melee attackers on a failed save. Shadow Door, too, can Maze nearby opponents, so I'm very conscious of Maze duration, and therefore have paid close attention to the party's INT scores.
Our second frontliner is our Sun Druid of Chult, Zeon Teyzi.
Her stats are completely nonsensical at first glance. But to make full use of this character, we will be giving her three Soulbinder imbuements to boost her XP growth. This will reduce ALL of her stats by 3, hence her 19 CON and 12 WIS. She will be using spears, as Item Revisions--this is an SR+IR run--introduces some throwing spears, but she also has access to some party-unfriendly area-effect weapons, in the form of Sun Druid Minute Meteors and a crossbow that fires lightning bolts. She's an extremely offensive-oriented character, with no access to normal summoning spells or Insect Plague. Her spell slots will be dedicated mostly to fire damage spells.
Then we have our archer and healer, Salim Jedusa. Salim, a Beholder cleric, adopted his faith when he was captured by a band of adventurers, tortured endlessly, and finally saved by a Calimshite priest of Ilmater who sought to alleviate his suffering. The Beholder took on the name of his savior, Salim Jedusa, as well as Ilmater's doctrine of martyrdom and self-sacrifice. Salim's eyes were already badly damaged by his tortures, but he turned his disability into an asset, sacrificing his Beholder rays to channel Ilmater's healing magic.
His STR is a typo from Shadowkeeper (I gave everybody base 90 stats and proceeded from there), but it makes little difference, as he'll probably never be using physical weapons. He does 1d12 magic damage with his single offensive Beholder ray, but this will never upgrade; his damage output will lag behind the other characters as time goes on. But with his Beholder Cleric kit, he can cast healing spells from a far range, and even cast two in one round, as he delivers the healing spells via an adaptation of the Archer's Called Shot ability. He may dual-class into a thief or fighter, as Beholder clerics in the current version of the kit get their best powers by level 11 and 14. He suffers a -3 penalty to casting time, however, and can't wear any gauntlets, helms, boots, rings, or armor, on account of him being a big eyeball. He's a fantastic healer, particularly with SR's buffed healing spells, but he does not excel in many other roles.
Our Charname for this run is Molly, a Soulbinder bard. With no ability to cast spells, attack, or even pickpocket, all of her power is engaged in developing bonds with her party. Every level, she will gain another imbuement to empower her friends, but if she is not around to bless them with her song, they will be in very bad shape, very quickly. Much of the party's success will depend on her functioning, and since she has no spells of her own, her party will have to look out for her instead. She is especially close to Salim, the only other good-aligned member of the group, and the only one she truly identifies with.
I've got her wearing the Mail of the Dead and a Ring of Protection +1, and holding Ilbratha and a buckler. She can't hit anything with Ilbratha (her kit gives her -20 to damage, 0 APR, and a 100% critical miss chance, so even on disabled enemies she'll only do 1 damage), but in Item Revisions it improves her AC a bit. With Mirror Image or Stoneskin, she needs all the AC she can get.
Our sole source of arcane power so far is Adoniki, a taciturn Sorcerer largely focused on developing her own abilities.
With the revised Sorcerer kit, she will have rather few spells per day--even less than an unspecialized mage--but she will have access to a broad variety of spells, which is especially important in Spell Revisions, where the best spells no longer outclass the rest.
Finally, we have a sickly and twisted Hexer, Gimuken. The Hexer kit is currently copied over the Cleric of Talos kit, as it is restricted to evil critters.
Notice his ridiculous WIS score. Molly gets to imbue her friends with Wisdom and Dexterity bonuses, and Gimuken is the natural choice. Zeon's Wisdom score is irrelevant, as the XP imbuements would drop it by 3 anyway, and Salim, with his awful casting speed penalty, will dedicate his time to using his healing rays, rather than his spell slots. With the Soulbinder kit, it's finally possible to get a character to 25 WIS, but the greatest benefit comes at his current score, 23, which grants 4 extra 5th-level spell slots. Unfortunately, as this is a no-pre-buffing run with limited rests, we're not going to have Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, and Free Action on every character.
We repeated the path we took in the first try, tackling the slaver compound as soon as we got Lilarcor. This time, we had Zeon walk over the Prismatic Spray trap, as she is immune to the poison damage that could kill almost any character in one hit. She got off with a 50% HP hit, easily restored with Salim's healing rays, and hunted down the remaining guards with the Soulbinder crossbow. The Trolls weren't much trouble, either: Bloody Howard has crazy damage output, and Zeon does fire damage on every hit, obviating the need for Acid Arrow spells or the like.
The Copper Coronet Guards had poor defenses, and were easily taken down with Salim's offensive rays and one or two Cause Serious Wounds spells from Adoniki (who can cast the standard Beholder damage ray three times per day, thanks to an imbuement from Molly). A Fireball from Zeon softened up the Beastmaster's animal friends enough for Bloody Howard to chop them up. We took down the entire slaving operation with a single rest--usually I take several, to make sure the party is well-rested for each encounter.
On to the Umar Hills! The Killer Mimic is a non-issue, even without buffs. Salim as a Beholder is immune to Mimic Glue, and his Remove Paralysis ray can free two party members per rounds.
Valygar's paranoid bodyguards fare no better against the group. Softened up by Gimuken's Hex spell, all the rangers fail their saves against Salim's Greater Command.
Adoniki's Grease spell keeps them down. Bloody Howard hacks them apart.
We continue to the Temple Ruins, again without resting--this is a surprisingly low-maintenance party--and after struggling to harm the Shadows and Shade Wolves with her crossbow without damaging the rest of the party, Zeon switches to her nonmagical spear and lets Bloody Howard do the heavy lifting. Zeon gets paralyzed by a Shadow Fiend, which causes some brief panic, but Bloody Howard uses his Time Stop imbuement to help rectify the situation. The Time Stop imbuement doesn't trigger as it should--it gives each party member their own 6-second Time Stop, instead of having one party-friendly 6-second Time Stop, which means the Time Stop weapon (used to prevent attacking during the Time Stop) only applies to one character. I'll have to fix it up sometime.
Against my normal practice, I decide to take on the Shade Lord, even though we're barely scraping level 9. The Darkling Aura is an awful threat, draining one level per round, so I decide to permit pre-buffing in this case--without it, we'd likely have to come back later if we wished to succeed. We give Negative Plane Protection to everyone in the party save for Adoniki (who will be staying a fair distance away from the Shade Lord and its Darkling Aura), plus a few other scattered buffs to avoid any disablers from the Shade Lord. If things go to hell, we still have a Sun Deva spell in Zeon's spellbook, which would keep the Shade Lord occupied for a full turn, plus an Invisibility Sphere in Adoniki's spellbook, in case we need an escape.
The Shade Lord enters battle with PFMW and Spell Deflection. Adoniki takes down the latter with Secret Word, which in SR has a casting time of 1--instantaneous, with IR's Amulet of Metaspell Influence.
Bloody Howard and Zeon, equipped with Minute Meteors, attack the Shadow Altar until Adoniki can remove the Shade Lord's PFMW spell with her only casting of Breach. Adoniki only gets two 5th-level spells at level 9, and the first was spent as a Dispelling Screen. To make sure the Shade Lord doesn't take advantage of his one round of immunity, Zeon throws out a Sunfire spell, to great effect.
Shadow Patrick nearly kills Adoniki, who has trouble running away, but once the Shade Lord's PFMW spell is down, the battle is won. Zeon tears down the Shadow Altar with a Minute Meteor, and slays the Shade Lord with the next.
Shadow Patrick could then be put down with melee pressure.
It might have been possible to win the fight without pre-buffing, but it would be risky. We'd have cast Invisibility Sphere and summoned a Sun Deva on the first round, then fled to the south while the Sun Deva tore down the Shadow Altar, ignoring the Shade Lord and its PFMW spell. From there, we could have brought out our buffs while in hiding, focusing on giving immunities to Molly and granting Negative Plane Protection to Bloody Howard and Zeon. By the time we entered the battle, the Sun Deva would be on its way out, and the Shade Lord might have activated some of its own defenses. Ultimately the fate of the battle would have depended on that.
Spirit Trolls in Tactics, and in SCS2 depending on your install, can cast Flame Strike, Unholy Blight, Unholy Word, and worst of all for a no-reload run with little pre-buffing, Greater Command. Greater Command in Spell Revisions has a -4 save penalty, but lets the victim save every round to wake up, so it's not quite a death sentence in SR--but it's much more likely to mess around with your functioning.
But we are at a fairly low level, and my SCS2 install no longer increases the difficulty of level-dependent encounters, so we likely won't find too many Spirit Trolls. Hopefully, none. But we do have some means of handling unconsciousness (Greater Command's disabling effect, which is distressingly difficult to become immune to), in the form of Salim's Break Enchantment ray. Perhaps the single best spell introduced by Spell Revisions is Break Enchantment, a replacement for Remove Curse that also cures the effects of all disablers.
To my relief, the first batch of Trolls in the Druid Grove has no Spirit Trolls in it. Unfortunately, the second group does. The party gets hit by a Greater Command spell, sure enough, and Bloody Howard himself is targeted by most of the enemies. Bloody Howard is doomed--there's nothing I can do to keep him alive.
Why is this? Well, a Brute's AC is absolutely horrible, and it's only worse when using the rage ability he needs to sustain consciousness. He's wearing chain mail, doesn't use shields, has a +4 penalty to AC, a rage ability that negates his Brute damage resistances, and if that wasn't enough, he's immune to Defensive Harmony, which enjoys a +2 buff in SR. A Brute is a real glass cannon--unlike a Kensai.
But Bloody Howard still is valuable bait. I send him off to the west so the Spirit Trolls will kill him instead of the other party members.
Due to an installation quirk, Salim's Break Enchantment ray has an incorrect string, hence the oddity in the dialog box. We need that ray to wake up Zeon Teyzi, since her Sun Devas are our only hope for taking down the Spirit Trolls and recovering Bloody Howard's equipment.
Unfortunately for us, Salim's defenses are even worse than Bloody Howard's. Despite Bloody Howard being inches from death, Salim manages to die first.
Salim can't use armor at all; only shields. And I never gave Salim a Beholder's base 0 AC. So when a group of Giant Trolls comes over to hack him to bits... they hack him to bits. There's nothing I could do.
But by now, Salim has awoken both Zeon and Molly, and Adoniki has woken up of her own accord. Better yet, Gimuken casts Raise Dead on Salim's body. Plus, Zeon successfully calls in a Sun Deva. The party is recovering!
What a shame Salim still doesn't have good AC.
But with Chaotic Commands on Molly and her song active, the party is a little more stable. Zeon brings out another Sun Deva, Adoniki adds in some Hobgoblins as cannon fodder, and we start tearing apart the Trolls--even the Spirit Trolls who have been standing around confused in a corner to the west.
The Sun Devas can see through invisibility, so the Spirit Trolls' irritating invisibility at will is no issue to them. The Sun Devas only have 10 rounds before they vanish, but it's enough for them to bring down the enemy.
We're more prepared when we take on the Troll Mound, with Chaotic Commands on most of the party. I couldn't tolerate going in without buffs, though I've wanted to avoid (or now, perhaps, just minimize) pre-buffing.
As usual, Kyland Lind's cronies fail to turn hostile when the fight begins. I don't know why this happens--I've seen this even on a clean install. But Web affects neutral critters, so it's all good.
Those blue circles are an SR thing. One of the Soulbinder's imbuements is a party-wide Chant/Defensive Harmony/Spell Deflection, hence the special effects. The Defensive Harmony imbuement only lasts 10 rounds and only blocks one spell per party member, but it provides a nice shield against spellcasters. It was there to prevent an Insect Plague spell from coming our way, but that spell never came.
Zeon got level drained by a Spirit Wolf, but we toughed it out and took on Dalok. Another Web from Adoniki and some spiders to attack Dalok while he's webbed.
Dalok went down with Flame Arrows and spider bites, though the spirit critters stuck around a long time, and chased around Adoniki for quite a while, nearly killing her several times. But the main problem, as always in BG2, was the spellcasters, and they went down with the Web.
Fighting the djinni was much simpler.
The Defensive Harmony imbuement also prevented any trouble with Flesh to Stone. We lost Faafirah somehow, though. He vanished midway through the battle, and whenever and wherever I consoled him in, he vanished right before dying, even if he was nowhere near an exit. I ended up hitting him with CTRL-Y to make sure he was dead.
And so we became the heroes of Trademeet, or something. But since we hadn't gotten enough of Spirit Trolls, we decided to go fight some more. Why not? On to the De'Arnise Hold.
We avoided the first engagement with Spirit Trolls and headed upstairs to the Yuan-ti Mage. We didn't enter the enemy's room except to lure out the Trolls, so the Yuan-ti Mage stayed out of our sight and summoned SR Shadows instead. We might have been overwhelmed if it weren't for the fact that we had two clerics in the party. Low-level undead swarms are not an issue for us.
We used the next few skirmishes to cast Chaotic Commands to prepare for the unavoidable Spirit Troll battle in the dungeons. We then lured TorGal out of his room with an invisible Adoniki, who was slain early on due to STR drain.
TorGal hit hard and took down another one or two party members--I forget who--but eventually he fell under sustained pressure. Bloody Howard is a heavy hitter, and the Sun Devas together are even stronger. TorGal did drain a lot of HP from the party before he went down, however.
I've made some corrections to the kits. Some imbuements weren't functioning correctly, which isn't surprising. Creating the imbuements required a lot of spell effects, and each imbue spell had to cast 3 other spells to operate effectively. Also, one of the peculiarities of the engine is that critical hit roll modifiers, like spell level modifiers, DUHM, and the chant effect, do not stack, which means that Bloody Howard has only had a +1 bonus to his critical hit roll, because his latest Brute bonus (+1) overrided his level 1 bonus (+5, which was itself a mistake). Now Bloody Howard lands a critical hit on a 16 or higher, or 15 if he's using a two-handed weapon, as he always is. By level 22, he'll land a critical on every other hit.
The kits so far:
The Beholder Cleric: Salim's kit is a little more powerful than I expected, since Spell Revisions buffs healing spells. Also, I was wrong when I suspected it would be wiser to dual-class him. Salim gets extra castings of his healing rays at higher levels, which means that a level 11 dual would only get one casting of the Heal ray, while a level 17 single class would have 3. This means the Beholder Cleric can actually heal other characters fast enough to make a difference in their survival.
In vanilla BG2, healing spells were only really effective and reliable outside of combat, because they healed so little (a lot less than healing potions), had such poor range, and had very high casting times. Salim's healing power is high enough that his primary benefit to the party comes from his healing spells, and for most clerics, their greatest strength comes from non-combat healing and pre-combat buffs. Finally, I have a cleric that makes a difference in the thick of combat.
The Hexer: Gimuken is much less powerful than I had thought. Even without offering a saving throw, it's not clear the hexes and curses are much use. Having a -3 penalty to saves, damage, and THAC0 for 6 rounds is pretty nice, but that hex is a 5th level spell, and the area of effect is no better than Hold Person. Is it really any better than a Greater Command spell, or Chaotic Commands, or Raise Dead, Mass Cure, Magic Resistance, or Righteous Magic? Plus, the synergy is really terrible: the party isn't very heavy on disablers, so the save penalties don't mean much. Adoniki, our sorcerer, has many purposes, and disablers are only occasionally her best option, even with hexes to bolster her power. Nor can we flood the area with Fireballs, since fire resistance is a lot harder to get in SR. Finally, with our party's weapon range fairly restricted (half the party is a divine spellcaster, and one of them doesn't use weapons, which means we aren't even using IR's heavily nerfed Darts of Wounding or Darts of Stunning. Hopefully he'll be of more use when he gets his 7th-level Hexer spell, which has a whole bunch of crazy disablers, and not just little penalties.
The Brute: Only three party members actually attack on normal occasions, and Blood Howard has about 60-70% of the party's kills. His damage output is quite strong, and with his stats corrected, he should be landing more criticals. Likewise, he really is suffering in terms of his defenses. His AC has yet to drop below 0, even though he's our main tank. Fortunately for us, Item Revisions offers a truly marvelous set of leather armor: the Orc Leather, which grants an amazing 20% resistance to physical damage, equivalent to full plate mail. Bloody Howard could be all but invincible once he gets Hardiness and the Fortress Shield. @Demivrgvs may have simply intended the Orc Leather +2 to be a stronger leather armor, but it's actually one of the best armors in the game. At first I thought it was a mistake, but the item description lists both the base 5% standard leather resistance on top of the 15% unique bonus resistance. Either way, Bloody Howard will be somewhat less easy to kill. A Brute is not like a Kensai, whose penalties can be overcome with a necklace from BG1.
The Sorcerer: With frequent rests, this build is actually noticeably better than the normal sorcerer, at least with Spell Revisions installed. The greater spell variety opens up a lot of new options. But the low number of spell slots is also felt very strongly: often, Adoniki chooses her spells not based upon what her best option is, but on what spell levels she needs to save for later on. Overall, it's about as balanced as the original, but it's also more fun.
The Soulbinder: I've finally reached a point where Molly's song is more or less balanced. Now, her song lasts 12 seconds (but still triggers every 6 seconds) and grants +2 to hit, damage, saves, and AC, and +1 to casting speed, but the imbuement penalties are the same. This means that the bonuses with the song are equal to the penalties without the song. It also means that the Soulbinder will remain an important party member even for the most coldhearted power gamer such as myself: it is not practical to take a Soulbinder into the party, only to kick them out once the rest of the party has gotten some imbuements. The penalties from the Soulbinder's absence are too severe. Also, none of the imbuements have so far proven game-breaking. They are flashy and cool, but they don't render any battle inconsequential.
There is still, however, one way to abuse Soulbinders. You could always just create multiple Soulbinders in a multiplayer game and then kick all but one of them out after using their imbuement spells. Escape Chateau Irenicus with Charname and five Soulbinders, and your Charname can have a 50% boost to his her XP growth, double movement rate, and 100% magic resistance, and only one Soulbinder would be necessary to ameliorate the imbuement penalties. Start out in ToB with a Fighter/Mage, and they'll be summoning Planetars before they fight Illasera, and draining 5 levels with every melee attack.
Still, booting the Soulbinders isn't necessarily cost-free. You do still lose +4 to hit, damage, AC, and saving throws, and a +2 to casting speed, for each Soulbinder you remove from the party, since the songs stack. But every additional Soulbinder is one party member that's never swinging a sword or casting a spell.
To my relief, the first batch of Trolls in the Druid Grove has no Spirit Trolls in it. Unfortunately, the second group does. The party gets hit by a Greater Command spell, sure enough, and Bloody Howard himself is targeted by most of the enemies. Bloody Howard is doomed--there's nothing I can do to keep him alive.
Just a couple of comments for your readers IIRC: Depending on the package, Improved Torgal or Improved De Arnise Keep grants the magical spells to the trolls. Obviously they change the trolls placement, number and sub race on the related maps. On the druid grove map, this is a bit different. Tactics Tougher Druid Grove always adds many creatures including trolls. In Stratagems this is a bit hidden and grouped in the minor encounters (bg2_tactical group). Even though the doc is explicit about the presence of this component, it does not tell you which creatures are deployed and the answer is : the same (just a cre file swap but no detectable difference for the user).
On our way to Candlekeep we had a run-in with a group of four bounty hunters. We dispatched them with relative ease (relying on proven tactics such as Faldorn’s Insect Plague and my bolts of dispelling), although there was one painful moment when I suffered a stab in the back from an invisible assassin.
We found a crucial note on the corpse of their spokesman. It taught me there was another faction out there, beside the Iron Throne, that wanted my scalp. They called themselves the ‘Section’, and they had an underground base of operations in Beregost, right next to Taerom’s smithy! I had no clues as to the Section’s motives, or whether they were in league with the Iron Throne or not, but I resolved to investigate them as soon as I had dealt with the Throne leaders in Candlekeep.
Sadly, the party’s stay at Candlekeep didn’t pan out in the best possible way. Right in front of the entrance to the citadel (and of the Keeper of the Portal, who refused to call the Watchers for help) they had to dispatch no less than five Ogre Mages, hired by Sarevok. Butch removed the creatures’ protections with his bolts of dispelling, allowing the others to finish the creatures off.
Inside the Keep most of the inhabitants were as glad to see Butch as they were restless about their wellbeing and the security of the library. Old friends like Parda, Dreppin and Karan all knew something was off, but they had no idea what. At the priests’ quarters Butch and company got a first hint of what was to come. They slew a Doppelganger that had taken the appearance of a Priest of Oghma. Sarevok and/or the Iron Throne had planned to replace Candlekeep’s inhabitants with Doppelgangers, they all agreed. To what purpose, Butch had no idea. There was no financial incentive to do so, for Candlekeep was not in competition with the Throne. Could it have been part of Sarevok’s personal crusade against Butch? All the rogue knew was that he had to hope he had arrived in time to stop Sarevok’s evil scheme.
The trapper stalked through the library halls to see who were there and what everyone was up to. Fortunately all of the familiar faces except Shistal, who had sadly been replaced by a Greater Doppelganger, recognized Butch and spoke coherently about both the past and the present. Apparently the infiltration operation had not yet been brought to completion. In Gorion’s chamber Butch found a letter from his late foster father, revealing to him that he was a child of Bhaal, the evil Lord of Murder who had been slain during the Time of Troubles when gods walked the realms. Anticipating his own death Bhaal had forced himself on women of all races. According to wise Alaundo, the founder of Candlekeep, the children of Bhaal would fight each other until only one remained. Bhaal would reclaim his divine essence from the last of his children. The rogue was remarkably unmoved after reading Gorion’s letter. “I’m my own man,” he said to himself. “I refuse to be some dead deity’s puppet. Can you hear me, voice in the dark? Thank you for giving me your healing and curing powers, but I can’t be bought and I'm not playing your game.”
Butch shared the news openly with his comrades, offering them to go separate ways if his tidings made them lose trust in him. Ajantis was the only one to really consider leaving, but even he was eventually convinced that Butch’s cool refusal to hunt for the throne of Bhaal was expressed in earnest.
When Butch told the others that the Iron Throne leaders were on the third floor, Yeslick rushed upstairs, before Butch could add that they didn’t look like fat merchants but rather like battle-ready adventurers. The rogue urged his companions to follow the Dwarf in hopes of preventing him from getting himself into trouble. Yeslick was unstoppable though,
and the party had to choose between helping the Dwarf or abandoning him. They chose the former (although Butch would have preferred not to stain Candlekeep’s hallowed halls with the blood of his enemies, and much less so wih all the monks about. He would rather have dealt with the Iron Throne somewhere where there were no witnesses).
Butch got the first kill, Tuth, with a backstab and poisonous bolts, and Quayle Held a second Iron Throne member (Kestor).
Their president, Rieltar, was the biggest threat. He was a powerful mage. Thankfully Keiria’s Skald song protected the party from a potentially devastating Chaos (but not from two Skeleton Warriors the wizard would summon). Yeslick and Ajantis finished off a warrior (Brunos), and Butch dispelled Rieltar’s protections, allowing The battle priest to slay his nemesis.
Moments later their actions got the party arrested. They were to be transported to Baldur’s Gate for their trial, but Tethtoril teleported them to a secret exit below Candlekeep after giving them a lecture on the merits of lawfully dealing with criminals instead of taking the law into one’s own hands.
In the halls and catacombs below Candlekeep Butch plundered a number of locked and trapped chests, finding a Robe of the Neutral Archmagi and a Holy Goblet (which gives a Paladin or LG Cleric a daily Chant ability if I’m not mistaken) but no tomes. The party also slew several Doppelgangers that had been working to take the forms of Butch’s friends and acquaintances from Candlekeep. It was heartening for Butch that he had arrived just in time to thwart Sarevok and to save the people of Candlekeep from a terrible fate. On their way out the party met a group of adventurers that were less than happy to see them. Unprepared for battle, Butch and company fled through a narrow corridor into a small area inhabited by bats. They hoped to bottleneck their opponents as they had done so successfully at the Iron Throne headquarters in Baldur’s Gate. Prat, their leader, had a way to work around this though. He Dimension Doored right into the party’s midst where he promptly Dominated Yeslick and struck down Quayle.
Faldorn Dispelled Yeslick’s condition and Prat’s protections, enabling the others to make short work of the battle mage.
Invisible Yeslick then proceeded to detect the others’ whereabouts (they had all been invisible).
They were two Lesser Air Elementals (that fell first), two fighters and one wizard. Sword and Phase Spiders roamed about as well. They somehow chose Butch and company as their prey, ignoring the enemy. Enraged Yeslick soaked up some of the wizards’ spells, while Ajantis and Butch attacked the fighters.
The other companions kept their distance. When Butch dispelled some of the wizard’s protections, the latter Charmed the rogue.
The wizard then left Butch alone and focused his attention on the others, until the Charm effect wore off and Butch slew the mage.
Yeslick finished off the last warrior, together the companions dispatched the Spiders, and Butch alone dealt with two Greater Basilisks, using a green scroll of Protection from Petrification.
We left Candlekeep as outlaws, much as I had feared after Yeslick's, and eventually *our* assault on the Iron Throne leaders. Knowing that we had to fear not only Sarevok's assassins and bounty hunters but also the Flaming Fist, we decided to wait with returning to Baldur's Gate. Instead we did some exploring in some of the areas surrounding Beregost. In a cave we slew various monsters and wild animals, and we met four spectres that required a vampiric sword, which we didn't possess, to end their undead existence.
There was some treasure there too, including a Tome of Leadership and Influence. East of Beregost I slew ten Basilisks as well the Gnome that had been their master and the owner of a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power.
In the same area I got into a fight with four hunters. With an oil of speed, traps and backstabs I made short work of them.
We visited the Ulcaster Ruins, where we had to battle lots of Kobolds, and undead creatures, such as a skeletal warrior named Icharyd,
Ghasts, Dread Wolves and Vampiric Wolves (aided by a few Dire Wolves), including the Wolf of Ulcaster that could panic the unwary, and summon Ghouls. The Wolf did indeed manage to panick Yeslick (who had been without the range of Keiria's protective song).
It caused him to run into a chamber guarded by a Greater Skeleton Mage that called more wolves ('Call of the Vampire' contingency) and summoned Invisible Stalkers. Most of us were or went invisible, blocking the passage for Wolves and Ghouls alike, and thus preventing Ajantis from being swarmed. The Cavalier then finished the Wolf of Ulcaster.
Hardy Yeslick survived the attacks the Wolves and the Skeletal Mage made at him while he was panicked; he enraged, and killed the undead creature with Ajantis.
Our prize was a Manual of Gainful Exercise which I read to increase my strength.
In Beregost we decided to see if we could deal with one of the several factions that were after us, the 'Section'. We found the entrance to their base, and battled our way past a number of their guards until a group of higher-ups teleported us to their leaders, the 'Committee', in a large, heavily guarded room. We immediatelt moved to a corner where we slew several guards before the Committee could intervene.
The spokesman of the Committee, a man named Paul Wolfe, claimed that his organization were a force of righteousness that had been hired to rid the realms of Butch's evil band. However, when asked to, he failed to make clear what was so evil about Butch and his companions.
Wolfe was a powerful warrior, stronger than Ajantis (whom he brought down),
but he was no match for the collective force of the remainder of the party, apart from Butch who focused his enchanted bolts on Madeline, a female wizard.
We had to fight several more Section members, though they weren't as dangerous as Wolfe had been.
To get out we had to go through an intricate network of corridors and chambers on different levels below the surface. We snuck past some of the many guards, debilitated others with magic,
and we slew a few of them, including a female commander who dropped a rune stone that should allow us to enter some place.
When we were back above ground, in Beregost, I was uneasy about our dealings with the Section. We hadn't learned what their motives were, whether there was someone else in a higher position within the orgainzation pulling the strings, what the wardstone was for, etc.
Ideally our wrecking of the Committee and several of their subordinates served as an inspiration for the Section to focus their self-proclaimed righteous actions elsewhere, but I decided not to count on it.
In the context of their outlaw status and the advisability to ‘lay low’ for some time, the companions decided to revisit Durlag’s Tower. Butch dreaded the Tower after what had happened to Shar-Teel there, but he had accepted an assignment from Hurgan, a Dwarf in Ulgoth’s Beard who had claimed to be a distant relative of the late Durlag himself. The party was to retrieve a dagger for the Dwarf and would receive an enchanted Warhammer, a good weapon for Yeslick, in return. On their way to the Tower, Butch paid his friend Nalin a visit to see how Imoen, Isra, Kagain, Kivan, and Shar-Teel were doing. To his embarrassment it had been nearly three tendays since he last checked on his former companions. Butch was very glad to find all five of them in a much better condition than they had been in the last time. Imoen was physically weak still, but otherwise very much her old self. She was thinking of traveling to Beregost as soon as she was a bit stronger, to ask Firebead Elvenhair to train her in the arcane arts. Butch updated Isra on recent developments regarding Sarevok and the Throne. She said she would soon travel to Amn to report those tidings to her Paladin order of the Ruby Rose. Kagain, the toughest of Butch’s friends, was pretty much fully recovered. He told Butch he was willing to rejoin him later, but first he had some business to attend to. He wasn’t very specific to Butch, but the rogue understood that the Dwarf wanted to reopen his mercenary company, albeit it in a different set-up. Kagain's plans could include Butch should he be interested, the Dwarf had said. Shar-Teel, the last of Butch’s companions to suffer near fatal injuries, and Kivan were still unfit for adventuring though Nalin had hopes that they too would eventually fully recover. Butch felt good after his reunion with these old friends (really not that old, he had only met them in the past six months, but much had happened that made the period seem longer).
In the cellars below Durlag’s Tower Quayle found a hidden door that led to what would turn out to be a series of underground levels. I had not forgotten about the many traps, some of which I had failed to disarm or even discern, on the upper levels. Thankfully I had honed my trap detection skills since then, and I had an ample collection of potions of perception to help me find and disarm any snares. I had Quayle cast Invisibility on me, and set out to explore the first underground level by myself. Unlike the plain upper levels, this floor had a rather complex design. It was built around a spacious hall with a well in the middle, covered by a locked trapdoor, and guarded by four motionless Dwarves. At first I thought they were statues but upon closer inspection their eyes looked very real. Around the large hall there were corridors that led to several different smaller rooms: a bedchamber, a forge, a treasury, and a trophy room, among others. I realized that Durlag and his family and greater clan had made their home underground rather than on the upper levels, very Dwarflike. I encountered and ignored numerous monsters (Flesh Golems, Doppelgangers, Skeletons, and Spiders), focusing solely on my task of removing the traps. I actually missed one, thankfully not a lethal one. When I returned to my comrades I informed them of my findings. We dispatched the monsters, struggling only with the (Greater) Doppelgangers as they repeatedly Dire Charmed Yeslick.
We then looted the place, finding among other things a second Manual of Gainful Exercise after the one we had found a few days before at the Ulcaster Ruins. [This was a courtesy of the Item Randomizer. Unfortunately Butch had started out with 16 STR, so reading the second tome ‘only’ brought him to 18 STR. I believe DSotSC adds another STR tome, on a LE merchant-wizard in the Wood of Sharp Teeth, but I’m not sure about that.] Curious as we were, we decided to show ourselves to the Dwarven warders of the well. They spoke, urging us to bring them different items we could find or assemble in some of the rooms we had already explored: a bottle of wine, a gong mallet, a gemstone and a key to be precise. When we handed those items the Dwarves attacked us. Quayle, Keiria and Faldorn were still invisible, but Ajantis, Yeslick and I weren’t. The three of us fled in different directions, dispersing our attackers. It enabled us to fell the Dwarves one at a time.
When all four Dwarves lay dead, we were able to remove the trapdoor on the well, and descend from a ladder to a second underground level.
This second level was similar to the previous level in that it consisted in a warren of corridors and halls and chambers, and that it was guarded. However apart from conventional guards (as in physical protectors), the place was also guarded with an intricate security system that locked or opened doors depending on specific actions such as picking up one item or touching another item. Some actions would cause one door to be opened and another to be locked at the same time. As before, I scouted each section we entered for possible traps. After some experimentation we managed to open all the doors. It was then merely a matter of looting the place, good for a Greenstone Amulet and some enchanted weapons and armor, and dispatching the warders. We had difficulty once again with a quartet of Greater Doppelgangers (initially disguised as some of Durlag Trollkiller’s close relatives) when Keiria was Horrored during the casting of a spell. As we were no longer protected by Keiria’s song, Ajantis was forced to save against another Horror which, thankfully, he did
unlike Yeslick who also got Dire Charmed, as had happened to him before. Faldorn and I fortunately saved against a third Horror spell.
Eventually my bolts of dispelling and Ajantis’ anti-Doppelganger sword were too much for the shapeshifting creatures to handle.
We didn’t have any difficulty finding a way down to a third underground level, but still had a hard time actually making it there. First we had to battle four Dwarven Doom Guards,
and shortly after that Quayle had to save my skin with an Invisibility spell as I passed out in a gas chamber inhabited by belligerent Skeleton Warriors.
Once the undead were down though, we were able to proceed.
The next level was very different from the previous ones, much simpler. I liked it. We found ourselves right in front of a round chamber with a fountain-like structure in the middle. However, rather than being the source of water, it let off fireballs every few seconds. I found no snare or mechanism that caused the explosions, so we decided to take advantage of the moments between the explosions to run one after the other to a door on our right. We stepped into a very large hall that showcased the skeletal remains of a massive Wyrm, allegedly slain by Durlag himself. A speaking Skeleton warned us of three Greater Wyverns nearby and advised us to animate a number of statues of fallen heroes behind it to help us slay the Wyverns. I did animate some of the statues, but the heroes weren’t very effective against the monsters. In the end I dispatched the Wyverns myself with attacks from the shadows.
We also cleared a maze garden (again, after I had disarmed a number of traps) of several Ashirukurus and Greater Ghouls. A treasure trove contained a Tome of Clear Thought that I read with great interest.
I was never fond of magic, at least not as an instrument of combat. There was magic I respected and even considered desirable for myself in the exercise of my vocation as a spy and investigator, Divination magic for example. But spells that confused an opponent in the heat of combat, or that made a typically weakling wizard suddenly untouchable, or that summoned forth all manner of monsters from the Gods know where, were all reprehensible in my view, corrupt, treacherous. I was aware that I was no warrior, and I had always taken a certain pleasure in my independence of magic, using instead my physical abilities to the fullest, my agility, my stealth, even my talent with snares and contraptions to overcome seemingly stronger opposition. As a mercenary I understood well enough that the end often justified the means. But even so, I had always tried to be a fair and honest man. Resorting to mind and magic tricks like the ones I just mentioned were hard to reconcile with my concepts of fairness and honesty. And yet, here I found myself, with my artificially increased intelligence and with Imoen’s decision to train herself as a mage on my mind, wondering whether it would be a good idea for me to try and study the arcane arts as well.
Four ‘elemental rooms’ brought me back to the business we had at hand. They seemed to serve no purpose but to send nosey folk like ourselves to their deaths. We battled a Polar Bear and Winter Wolves in an ice room, a Fission Slime in an earth room, an Air Aspect and Invisible Stalkers in an air room, and finally two explosive Phoenix Guards in a fire room. When he had slain those last two, Quayle told Ajantis in his typically sardonic way that he felt a crescent teleportation spell was soon going to take us elsewhere.
(I must say that while his style wasn’t mine, I appreciated the sharp-tongued little Gnome for his wit, his insights and his secret loyalty to the party.) We knew not what to expect, so Quayle turned us all invisible. Moments later we were indeed teleported away. We arrived in a room that consisted of little else than a giant chessboard, with animated pieces opposite us. A male voice that came from above us said that we had to beat the other side in order to be free again and continue with our exploration of the tower. The side whose King fell first, would lose the game. As there was no way out, we had ittle choice but to agree to play. We immediately discovered that it wasn’t going to be an ordinary game of chess, for the opposing pieces attacked all at once. It seemed there were no rules, other than the requirement to keep one’s King alive. (I didn’t even know who our King was, so I wanted all of us to stay alive at that point more than ever.) Those of us who didn’t normally enjoy Free Action all drank potions of freedom as Faldorn dropped two or three Webs on the middle of the chessboard. Yeslick summoned two Skeletons to our side. We first slew a few Pawns that had made it to our side of the board before Faldorn cast her first Web,
and then carefully pushed forward. Even so, some of us sustained injuries from lightning traps we inadvertently triggered. Our eyes were on the King though.
Both he and the Queen were heavily buffed spell casters but thankfully one of my bolts of dispelling aimed at the King struck true, right before a Glitterdust blinded me. It removed the King’s protections, allowing Ajantis and Yeslick to assault it. An Insect Plague by Faldorn greatly facilitated our battle, as it frustrated the King’s and Queen’s spell casting. It was Yeslick who dealt the King the killing blow.
The other pieces then disintegrated and the storm subsided.
After our chess victory we were able to proceed to a fourth and final underground level. It was pretty straightforward in its design due to half of the area being comprised of a complex of caverns (with highly acidic pools in them, painful to the touch). The other half of the level consisted of two larger rooms – a hall inhabited by spiders, and a large pantry – and three or four smaller rooms, including a forge room. Our task was pretty straightforward as well. A Durlag apparition told us, cryptically, that we had to find three wardstones in order to open a sealed door. We found one in the forge, one in the room with the Spiders, and one in the caverns, on a Ghoul Lord we slew. With the wardstones we removed the seal and then passed through the door to enter a small storage room. There we defeated a party of unnecessarily hostile adventurers with relative ease (I respected them nonetheless for having made it so far down).
One (injured) adventurer was unaggressive. She warned us that a Death Knight awaited us in the adjacent hall – something that didn’t worry us all that much after we had already successfully dispatched such a creature during our first visit to the Tower – and that we could try and turn a Mirror of Opposition on it in hopes of conjuring a copy of the Death Knight that would fight the real Death Knight with us. It could however also create hostile copies of ourselves. We decided against using the mirror, and we wouldn’t regret that decision. The Death Knight was unsusceptible to Quayle’s wand-paralyzation attempts, cast Symbol: Pain and Power Word: Blind at Ajantis and Yeslick, and injured the others (including myself) with Ice Sheets.
He also level-drained blinded Ajantis and Yeslick, but both warriors kept on fighting the abomination without despair. My enchanted bolts interrupted some of the Death Knight’s spell casting and eventually felled the creature.
Amongst its meager possessions the Death Knight dropped a dagger that Keiria identified as the Soultaker Dagger, presumably Hurgan’s dagger.
The party didn’t immediately travel back to Ulgoth’s Beard to hand Hurgan the dagger as they left Durlag’s Tower behind them. First they decided to see if they could enter the nearby Firewine Ruins using Charleston Nib’s scroll. They could, but they found it a dangerous place, with Ju-Ju Zombies and Vampires (which prompted Ajantis, Yeslick and Butch to use Protection from Undead scrolls) roaming about, and with Astral Phase Spiders and Sword Spiders occupying the souterrain.
The treasure, a suit of caster-friendly Elven chainmail of the Firewine was perfect for Keiria though. A separate part of the Ruins was inhabited by Kobolds, led by a hostile Human wizard and an Ogre Mage. The companions slew the evildoers without difficulty thanks to Butch’s dispelling bolts.
They left the ruins via a secret tunnel that led them to the Halfling village of Gullykin. The town elder, Gandolar Luckyfoot, thanked them with his Lucky Ring for rooting out the Kobolds and wizards, and a Halfling lass named Alora offered to join the party. Butch and Quayle liked the girl, but they also felt she might be unprepared for the Life. They declined for Alora's own good.
En route to Ulgoth’s beard Butch thought about how much of a hassle it had been to obtain the dagger, and considered renegotiating the deal with Hurgan. Eventually he decided not to, mainly because their second excursion to Durlag’s Tower had been a profitable venture in its own right. Upon arrival in Ulgoth’s Beard they found the village flooded with nondescript cultists. One of them knicked the Soutaker Dagger from Ajantis and made off; others attacked. They were no threat to the party, which at that point was a well-trained unit. Keiria would go invisible, singing her battlesong unless/until her emergency spells were needed (which wasn’t the case in Ulgoth’s Beard). Quayle went invisible as well after he got hit twice. Like Keiria he would only interfere if the situation called for it. Faldorn cast her usual Insect Plague and Chromatic Orbs.
Yeslick and Ajantis did their part in melee combat, and Butch attacked with his crossbow, mostly to dispel and disrupt casters. The Enforcer wizards liked to cast Emotions at Butch, forcing the rogue to swig potions of magic blocking.
At the Ulgoth’s Beard inn, Hurgan informed the party that the Cultists would use his dagger to summon a Nabassu they worshipped as their God, and urged the companions to go after the dagger.
Personally, that was a deal-breaker for me but I went along with Hurgan's wish for Ajantis, whom I knew I would want by my side when facing Sarevok and his cronies, and whose friendship I had come to appreciate, remarkably enough. Ajantis considered going after the dagger and if necessary fighting the Nabassu of the utmost importance. My relationship with Ajantis was a complicated one. On the one hand I considered him my brother-in-arms, and possibly the most capable warrior I’d had in my company, along with Kagain. And he in turn had complimented me on my prowess (and even my virtue) on multiple occasions. There was a deep mutual respect, and besides, a mutual trust between the Waterdhavian and me. On the other hand, as a Paladin, Ajantis followed the tenets of his patron deity Helm and his own insatiable desire to serve the good races, whereas I was first and foremost a survivor and a mercenary. I couldn’t fathom why one would risk their own life to help a stranger in need. Wasn’t survival the main purpose of life? My cruel awakening after Gorion’s death, the bounty hunters and assassins that had sought to kill me at every turn, had taught me just that. But it was not Ajantis’ way. Truth be told, my life had not solely revolved around survival. I had had my pleasures as well: the heists I had pulled off at the Travenhurst and Silvershield estates, or the nightly delights I had shared with Branwen, to name a few. But those were things I knew Ajantis didn’t approve of either. Of course there were the friendships with my companions, including Ajantis himself. I had put my life at stake for them and I was willing do so again if necessary. But to do the same for strangers was a lot to ask of me. I felt I had a hard enough time staying alive as it was and I didn’t feel the need to endanger myself any further. Nevertheless Ajantis had me thinking about my purpose in life, once my business with Sarevok was all over. I realized that as much as I considered myself more akin to a free-lance like Kagain, or a vigilante like Kivan, it was probably a good thing for my conscience that I had Ajantis with me. Who knows what dark paths I might have trodden in the company of the likes of Shar-Teel or to a lesser extent Kagain.
Inside the lair of the cultists, the party dispatched more demon disciples. Butch then descended to an open ritual chamber where he saw more cultists, as well as the already gated Nabassu. He swiftly retreated when he sensed the fiend attempting to lock him in its death gaze. The rogue was quite vexed when he informed his comrades about what he had witnessed, and decided to ask how the others felt about simply leaving the place. As expected, Ajantis was eager to fight the Nabassu, and much to Butch’s chagrin, so were most of the others. Everyone except Quayle. The party went downstairs, slew the ritualists first, which wasn’t too hard as they had been too caught up in their ritual to be battle-ready,
and then took on the fiend – without having the slightest idea what to expect of it other than its terrible death gazes. Initially Butch took a cautious approach, believing it up to the ‘heroes’ to deal with the demon, but when it chose Quayle as its target, repeatedly teleporting toward the Gnome, he felt bound to stand up for his Gnomish friend and started attacking their foe with his crossbow. Besides using its teleportation powers, the fiend used an ability to go ethereal and regenerate, and it kept Silencing the party constantly. The Silencing could have been a huge problem, as it could have prevented Death Gazed party members from being cured by caster companions. However, the fiend for some reason decided to rely on its level-draining claws rather than its deadly gaze to defeat the party. This proved to be its downfall. Although the creature managed to level-drain Yeslick, Quayle and Ajantis, it wasn’t enough to kill any of them. Eventually it was Ajantis who slew the fiend, banishing it back to its hellish plane.
After the deed, the Cavalier looked around with what Butch – justly or unjustly – took for a somewhat smug smile, which struck the rogue as inappropriate given the fact that his traps and a whooping with his staff had left the demon for all but dead before Ajantis felled it.
Not that Butch cared much; being a hero wasn’t really his thing anyway.
On their way out, Reedrig, the monk they had released from the Orcs in the Fields of the Dead came up to Ajantis with an interesting story. Apparently he had been a member of an occult order called the Order of the Black Hand. They were located in the Wood of Sharp Teeth. Together with the cultists that had gated the Nabassu, the Cult of the Black Hand had wanted to gate an even more powerful demon, a Prince of Baalors.
This story was grist to the mill of Ajantis and Keiria, who had revealed to Butch her true ideological colors by pretty much always agreeing with Ajantis’ ideas (though she hadn’t manifested any romantic feelings toward the Paladin yet, at least not in Butch’s presence). They exchanged the Soultaker Dagger for a Hammer of Giantslaying with Hurgan, and left for the Wood of Sharp Teeth. Butch decided for himself that this was going to be the last unpaid job he would carry out before returning to Baldur’s Gate to deal with the Iron Throne. After that he could finally decide for himself what he wanted to do with his life, and with whom. This concerned not only Ajantis or soft-spoken but high-principled Keiria, but also Faldorn. The two respected each other’s abilities, but he had no doubt that the Druid would leave the party as soon as Sarevok was dealt with, and he was fine with that. Their partnership had never become a friendship due to their widely differing worldviews and the female’s rigid character.
Butch, a skilled sneaksman, scouted the woods for the base of the Order of the Black Hand, a temple, and single-handedly dispatched thirteen hostile monks in black soutanes. This was no small feat, for the monks were able marksmen with their Ripper bows, and they fired arrows of piercing and detonation at him.
Inside the Temple there were thirteen more of the black cloaks. A clumsy attempt at picking a lock (not his forte) on a chest betrayed his presence and caused a salvo of arrows to find their way toward him. A vision formed in his mind. He was a statue, one of countless statues standing on window sills in an unfathomably high tower. A crack appeared in the statue that represented Butch. And from it, more cracks sprouted. He felt he was about to faint, but in an ultimate effort he managed to gulp a potion of invisibility.
He sat down, quietly, and started quaffing healing potions, with his eyes closed. The image of the statue was still there. The cracks gradually vanished, and then the vision grew blurry before it faded altogether. When the healing potions had done their job, he snuck out of the temple, back to his companions, and explained the situation to them. The strategy was simple. With Stoneskins and Ironskins, Keiria, Quayle and Faldorn were expected to be able to cast their Skull Traps, Confusion and Insect Plague spells at the archers in the back. They drank potions of fire resistance to protect them from the expected arrows of detonation. Ajantis and Yeslick buffed with oils of speed, and heroism and strength potions. They would engage the frontliners in melee, while Butch would support the others with ranged attacks. This worked fairly well. Quayle didn’t manage to cast his Confusion and had to flee after having been hit twice in a row, and Yeslick looked to be a goner at one point (1 HP)
but he healed himself just in time. Keiria’s battlesong was essential against mind-affecting spells cast by the cult leader, a Half-Orc named Brother Draagis, and she dealt the archers in the back some serious damage with three Skull Traps. Faldorn was very effective with her Insect Plague and Webs spells.
Before long all the cultists lay dead,
so that the party could finally return to Baldur’s Gate.
Thank you @bengoshi. The Cultists didn't carry OP stuff. They all had +2 Ripper bows and +1 Maces. The Half-Orc boss had a fairly nice robe (good AC) but not very useful to any of Butch's party members.
Butch is gone. I can't be bothered with doing a detailed write-up (there's only so many hours in a day), so what follows is a short overview. Butch's return to Baldur's Gate was a big success. With his companions he saved Duke Eltan from a Greater Doppelganger poisoner,
slew two assassins that had been hired by Sarevok to kill the city's Dukes,
as well as a handful of Greater Doppelgangers at Sarevok's coronation.
They presented evidence of Sarevok's murderous plans to Duke Belt and Duchess Liia, and followed Sarevok to his lair in the undercity below Baldur's Gate. On the way there, a gang of Iron Throne mercenaries made the mistake of opposing the party.
Angelo,
Tazok,
Semaj,
Diarmid,
and indeed Sarevok himself,
all found their deaths at the hands of Butch and co.
The party disbanded shortly after saving Baldur's Gate. Faldorn and Yeslick returned to the Cloakwood to report back to Amarande and to see if the mines could be reopened, respectively. Ajantis traveled to Amn, to report to his mentor Lord Firecam about his experiences on the Sword Coast. Quayle, Keiria and Butch continued together, and were joined by a Half-Elven Cleric, Jet'Laya, and a Drow Assassin, Vynd. The rest is history. Rather than seeing the companions off to Amn, or having them help Jet'Laya in her search after her lost sister, Blackraven thought it was a nice idea for the new party to check whether Hae'Ball, the solitary merchant that dwelled in his Larswood tower could be pickpocketed for a Manual of Gainful Exercise. The hermit had other plans though. Before a first pickpocketing attempt could be made, he was already hostile, as if he had foreboded the party's scheme. A Nature's Beauty did both Butch and Keiria in.
I checked Haeball's characteristics in Shadowkeeper. He's a lvl 16/16 Fighter/Druid, with six lvl 7 spells, 45 MR, 248 HPs, -6 AC (enhanced by a cloak that reduces AC by 3). I wonder what that dude's doing in BG1. Give him some HLAs (which he's entitled to at those levels), and he'd fit right in ToB.
@semiticgod, thanks. He did fine throughout the game yes. I never expected Haeball's hostility. He or Charname shall die in my next run though.
I've created two new characters: Zelda, a female LE Anti-Paladin (a nerfed version of Weimer's Tactics mod kit), and Ace, a CG, Morte-voiced Dwarven Swashbuckler. The former inspired by a desire to try a genuinely evil playthrough, something I might not be capable of, and the latter inspired by what I consider to be a great portrait that I stumbled upon while reading a WotC guide on the different planes. Love it when a portrait is so good that it decides the character for you - much better than spending hours searching for a fitting portrait for the character you have in mind.
Ace is first. It's been a while since I last played a fun, laid back type of guy, so this should be a nice change as far as the roleplaying is concerned. I feel like running a party again, first of all because I enjoyed it with Butch, and secondly because it would be nice to improve my pitiable track record with parties (last one to reach SoA was Serene's, the Beast Mistress whose run ended a year ago in earlyish SoA after a weird bug).
Here's Ace:
So far, Ace and Imoen (Charming Rogue) have safely navigated the Coast Way between Beregost and Nashkel, questing their way to level 3 (close to 4). Gavin (human lvl 3/1 Fighter/Priest of Lathander dual) has recently joined them. The party is currently escorting a talking chicken to Thalantyr's abode to see if the grumpy Conjurer is capable of transforming the creature into its alleged human form.
Edit: I forgot to mention: Ace's personal item (I sometimes grant those) is a Rogue's hat that protects against criticals and fear effects, a RR item normally only for sale in Baldur's Gate. It just fits Ace too well.
Update: Ace wasn't meant to become a hero. Sneaking stealthily past a Dire Wolf and some overpowered Dark Horizons scum, he went alone after the Rogue Ogre south of the FAI. When he began kiting the Ogre he discovered that a Dark Horizons priestess, Malious, had followed him (while he was still invisible. Then this happened:
I've more or less abandoned Molly's run in favor of completing an earlier run that I had discontinued. I just completed the previous run, and I don't seem to have posted a link earlier in this thread, so here is a link to the "Party of Spiders" no-reload SCS2 run:
I only just completed it. It runs from Chateau Irenicus to the Throne of Bhaal, and features an all-spellcaster party that focuses on dealing physical damage rather than its spellpower or summons. The idea was to find out how spellcasters can do the job of fighters--how to improve their THAC0, increase their APR, and boost their damage. Turns out they make good fighters at all stages of the game, though they're a lot less flexible and require a lot of micromanagement.
I don't think I will return to Molly's run. The party composition made little conceptual sense, since the Soulbinder kit just screams good-aligned... and the only other good-aligned party member besides Molly was Salim, our Beholder Cleric. It didn't feel quite right, though it did help test out and balance the kits.
Now I just need to figure out how to make a Weidu mod. I've got seven very strange but quite functional and fairly balanced kits already set up.
You need a renamed weidu binary (for instance setup-spidermod.exe). You have to create a tp2 file with the commands that the binary will interpret at run time. (setup-spidermod.tp2) And you are very likely to use a text file with the descriptions of the new kits/items/spells - anything requiring a new string reference that weidu will add to the dialog.tlk file for you. This file can be translated into another language and the translation can be taken into account with a minimal effort.
The tp2 structure is explained in the chapter 9 of the weidu documentation. If all your files are ready (noticeably the 2da files for your kits) then the component section of your kit will primarily contain a double command : ADD_KIT (or COPY_KIT) and if you want your kit to be deployed on ee you also need fl#add_kit_ee (which is not fully integrated into the usual weidu structure), the documentation of which is a bit hidden under the weidu/lib/fl#add_kit_ee directory of the weidu package.
Traveled with Imoen and Xzar & Monty (Fighter/Assassin) to Beregost, where he met Tiax (Cleric/Assassin). Tiax had a Ghast that held Karlat so that the the Dwarf could not hurt them or Rollick's friend Red Sheaf guest Finch (Gnome, Cleric/Illusionist) before he fell. Imoen and Xzar left the party to take magic classes with old Firebead, and Rollick, Monty, Tiax and Finch founded the Gnomes and Halflings Appreciation & Support Troupe, GHAST, coined so in honor of Tiax's Ghast that had just saved their lives. The troupe, often relying on Tiax's Ghast, whom they called Stinky, did most of the smaller quests on the Coast Way between the FAI and Nashkel. This included with the dangerous likes of Dark Horizons' Tristan and Isolde,
and several aggressive Flaming Fist mercenaries. At the Nashkel Carnival a fourth Gnome joined the band: Quayle (Cleric/Illusionist). A bit overconfident thanks to Stinky, the party paid Zordral a visit. The wizard took down Quayle before Stinky held him with a critical.
Also at the Carnival, a green scroll of PfPetrification was purchased. It helped Monty deal with Mutamin's Basilisks. The Gnome himself was displeased what Montaron had done and declined to join GHAST. He Enfeebled the Halfling, but Monty simply left the wizard for Stinky and Korax to feed upon.
The undead duo was also quite effective against Kirian and her friends, although Stinky fell, forcing the party to deal with the four themselves (which wasn't too difficult since all but Peter, who would get a taste of the party's poisons, had been held).
Much too his own embarrassment Monty was defeated by a Skeleton that Peter had summoned.
(This was the result of the game's bad pathfinding and my lack of concentration, too carefree I think.) Kirian dropped a CHA tome.
South of Mutamin's Garden, in the Ulcaster area, Hobgoblins were slain for a (second) pair of Boots of Stealth, and in nearby Gullykin a sixth member joined the clique: Alora, a Fighter/Sharpshooter. (The Sharpshooter kit is a Song & Silence thief kit that gets the advantages of allowing GM in ranged weapons and a poison ranged weapon ability every 4 levels, but they can't backstab.) I realized that I'd get a lot of poison this way, which wasn't really planned as I'd already kitted Monty, Tiax and Alora this way with the Level 1 NPCs mod. Considered changing one of them but decided not to bother. So the party consists of two Cleric/Thieves, two Fighter/Thieves, and two Cleric/Illusionists.
Vicky was saved from a particularly dangerous, spell casting FF mercenary thanks to three simultaneous Hold Persons.
Bassilus was Silenced and finished off by Monty who had poisoned his darts.
Zargal and company were also poisoned. Thalantyr messed up with Melicamp. Charleston Nib and Captain Brage were aided by the party. Greywolf succumbed to poisons and so did Tarnesh. Alora nicked Algernon's cloak, helping the 20 rep party's leader Rollick to an artificial CHA score of 20 (together with Lord Foreshadow's ring of Human Influence). They purchased the Shadow Armor for Monty and a suit of Gnomish Worksman's Armor for Rollick.
In a cave near the Temple of the Morning Rollick snuck past lethal monsters (Astral Phase Spiders, Vampiric Wolves, Sword Spiders and other creatures) and found some treasure of note, including a suit of Ankheg Armor and a CHA tome. On the way out a Sword Spider caught sight of Rollick, who had to run for his life toward his companions, until Quayle Blinded the monster, allowing for another easy kill.
Rollick reached the Golem cave on his own. Inside it, he didn't fight the Golems, he only came to take the loot. A Web trap (the location of which I mistook) nearly got him into trouble, but all went well.
On the North Coast the band had some problems with Shoal the Nereid: she charmed Monty and Quayle couldn't resist her kiss of death, while a Water Weird Held Alora.
Thankfully she said soon after that it was no longer fun. The Water Weird was unsummoned, Quayle raised and the Charm and Hold effects on Monty and Alora were dispelled. Her friend Droth was Silenced, but he either Vocalized in response or was already Vocalized as part of his SCS pre-battle buffing routine. He gave Rollick a scare when he read Chaos from a scroll, before the Gnome could quaff a potion of clarity (muddy aura). I'm pretty sure the spell affected both Rollick and Alora, but I only have a screenshot with a Chaosed Alora. Anyway, Tiax and Monty's poisoned finished the Ogre Mage.
The party really tried to rake as much XP together as possible. E.g. Teyngan and company were held, silenced, and felled, Bjornin's Half Ogres were slain, Perdue's short sword was retrieved, Noober was befriended, Sendai and later Vax were cheesily surrounded by invisible NPCs so that Rollick and Monty could finish them without difficulty
When the party went Ankheg hunting, Rollick reluctantly became the party's tank, donning a suit of Ankheg armor. The reason for this was that he had the highest HPs with Tiax and Monty, but the latter two were more effective ranged attackers with their poisons (even though Monty had only one pip in Darts). The campaign went well though, with only one Ankheg forcing Rollick to swig three or four healing potions. The only treasure of note in the Ankheg hoard was a Ring of Energy. Tenya took plenty of hits but refused to ask the troupe to help her against the fishermen; she fell.
(This surprised me; I hadn't used poisons.) Come to think of it, the party still needs to claim the Flail +1, for Finch... On the bridge to Baldur's Gate, combined Hold Persons and poisons allowed GHAST to dispatch a band of Elven warriors who had come after Rollick.
More invisibility cheese was enjoyed in the Golem cave, where Monty could slay the Golems from behind an invisible wall of wee folk, using his freshly acquired Returning Cold Dart,
and against Dark Horizons' OP assassins in front of the Gnoll Fortress. The objective, getting the Clerics to level 5 so that they could Animate Dead, was thus achieved.
Firewine Ruins were canceled after the shorties saw this:
So the Nashkel Mines were next. The companions entered invisibly, except for Monty and Rollick, whose stealth abilities were sufficiently reliable. Rollick was fairly successful with a couple of bullets of detonation he had bought from a Halfling in the Red Canyons,
and he also played an important part in the party's confrontation with Dark Horizons' Duergar war party with a Silencing of two Duergar Clerics
, a bullet of detonation,
and two Hold Persons that Held three of the Duergar.
Such was the party's advantage, that involvement of the invisible party members was deemed unnecessary. Only Montaron helped out with his poisoned dart and with backstabs.
Skeletons were used to distract Kobolds and to allow the party to safely reach the final level of the mines.
Mulahey was paralyzed with a wand and finished off by Monty.
Neither the Half-Orc nor his treasure chest offered the party any useful loot, other than a Bag of Holding.
In the Valley of the Tombs, Narcillicus was paralyzed, and the undead were dealt with by Rollick, who had cast PfUndead on himself. One of the tombs contained a Belt of Crushing (the party's second one after one they had bought at the Nashkel Carnival). In Nashkel, the Amnish Soldiers injured Nimbul for the party (that had lain in wait for this to happen). A bolt of dispelling from Alora's crossbow and a good hit from Montaron then did hthe assassin in.
The companions are all level 4/5ish at this point.
I can't believe how poor a no-reloader I still am (especially with parties), even after a zillion attempts in the past 15 months. Not for the first time did babysitting Charname's vulnerable companions prove fatal. Rollick's bane was hasted Morvin, with his ridiculous Dwarven War Axe +2 (1d8 +2 plus 1d6 backswing bonus on a failed save vs death, +1 APR, +1 Dex, +1 AC).
@Blackraven: If it makes you feel any better, I just failed a no-reload, too. My Diviner/Fighter got held by a Hobgoblin Shaman despite drinking a Potion of Freedom before it hit.
@Musigny: I've gone over the tutorial thingies in the links you posted, and it seems my problem was using a simple text file rather than the TP2 file it needed. But I got a new error message (the last one said it couldn't find the dialog.tlk file). It says it's a parsing error.
Attached is the text of the TP2 file (as a .txt file, since I can't post the actual TP2 file). I'm not sure what I need to add, or correct, to get things working. Any ideas? @Demivrgvs?
I don't really like no-reload or trilogy runs, but I like to challenge myself in other creative ways. For example, I often give my characters extremely low Strength, Dexterity and/or Constitution (like 3 or so). One time I had a character start the game with the Cursed Berserking Sword and had them go through the entire game with it equipped. Often I don't let my mages learn Mirror Image or Stoneskin.
@semiticgod Syntax: the triple end at the bottom of your file is not required. There are other comments about your package. I will directly write them in your file and post the package here. (this evening european time).
@semiticgod a bit ahead of schedule... NOT a functional package as I do not have your spells and kit files but I included several comments. See the tp2 file. Moved to weidu 238 (latest stable release).
Starting profs: Maces and Slings, starting spells: Blindness, Shield, Sleep.
After three party runs that ended somwhere in BG1, I couldn't be bothered with another slow start, so Dapper set out with Imoen, his BFF whom he'd never ditch, as a duo during the early part of the game. Imoen as per my current install is a Charming Rogue (basically a Thief kit created for her, it gives her spells like Charm Person, Friends, Invisibility, and Magic Missile as she levels up). As I started this run with the idea of getting a team of nice (as in kind) and mostly caster NPCs, I consider dualing her at lvl 9.
The duo did the low risk quests we all know along the Coast Way. Shield and Remove Fear meant that for Dapper the threat of Tarnesh was reduced to Sleep. He did Sleep Imoen, but not Dapper who had been a bit behind. The Gnome put Tarnesh to Sleep and then finished the wizard off with his sling.
Sleep, Blindness, and as soon as it became available Hold Person were early favorites that decided battles against monsters like Ogres, Gnolls etc, and against the likes of Karlat and Neira.
With a few levels under their belt the friends went Basilisk hunting. Imoen used her stealth and an innate Invisibility to scout, while Dapper protected himself from Petrification and fought the Basilisks. He was helped by his familiar (Hard Times swaps the Ring of Wizardry at the FAI with a Find Familiar scroll), that would kick the lizards unconscious Mutamin was Silenced by Dapper and Held by Korax before he died. Dapper reached lvl 4/4 in Mutamin's Garden. A dust-up with Kirian and co, ended in me reloading twice as Peter proved unkillable. Even when Held and/or Webbed, he would repeatedly go from uninjured to barely injured back to uninjured while under constant attack. My guess is that Holding him while his SCS battle script was being effectuated caused this bug. The duo eventually prevailed by Silencing and Webbing the bunch, and Blinding those that saved against the Webs.
Up north Tenya was convinced to accept rather than reject the duo's help. Sonner was slain for his Flail evil deeds. The Ankheg hoard was pillaged under Sanctuary. Whilst commuting between the Fishermen and Tenya, the party - inevitaby, with Blackraven in charge - once forgot to steer clear from the Dark Horizons Elven warriors on the bridge to BG. Like most DH encounters, this was hard. Their leader who had come walking after Dapper and Imoen was Blinded, Held, and done in, but others, especially a female rogue that went invisible, didn't cooperate so readily.
She was Blinded and then killed as was one lackey (a fighter). Two more fighters were left for another day, which came after Finch (Cleric/illusionist) and Ajantis (Cavalier) had joined the party.
In Beregost the party pre-buffed and summoned Skeletons to deal with Silke. This allowed recruitment of a fifth member, Garrick. (I had purposely not kitted him with level 1 NPCs as I had a mod installed that gives plain Bards the IWD special songs. However, those songs somehow didn't work, so I ended up kitting him as a Skald. Some of my readers will have noticed by now that I really like Skalds, even in a party that's low on warriors.) At the Nashkel Carnival the party met Archibald, who gave Garrick a tome about little-known heroes. This triggered his personal quest. After defeating Greywolf (Blindness), the party went looking for one of the heroes mentioned in the book Myr'Cutio, a Bard, near Ulcaster school. Myr'Cutio had become an undead abomination, much to his own displeasure, and with his Zombie friends decided to fight, in order to either sate their bloodlust or be released from their undead existence. The party ensured the latter, using Skeletons to make the undead Bard waste his most dangerous spells before they slew him with physical attacks.
The Bard had a special song, Death Song according to Shadowkeeper, whose panic effect somehow overruled Garrick's Skald song. I even wondered whether I had correctly kitted Garrick as a Skald. The song panicked Imoen, but not Dapper (who had 5% MR thanks to a recently acquired Robe of the Good Archmagi) nor the others.
Shoal and her Water Weird were handled without casualties (mostly through evasion). Droth went Silent and Blind before he fell. And then Shoal was mistakenly talked to (for 750 XP) rather than slain (for 5k XP).
Party members meant admittedly cheesy invisible walls behind which tough foes, such as Flesh Golems (the cave contained a Lightning Wand and a Robe of the Neutral Archmagi), and Dark Horizons' assassins in front of the Gnoll fortress could safely be attacked.
Beefed up Gnolls were slain and Dynaheir (Invoker) released and welcomed into the group.
The party traveled to the area south of the FAI, where one of three assassins slew my low lvl Dwarven Swashbuckler (Ace) last weekend. Vengeance would come at a cost though. Dapper escaped with his life, quaffing a potion of invisibility immediately after being stabbed in the back,
Dynaheir wasn't so lucky.[/spoiler] The culprit, Necardian was a lvl 11/11 Mage/Thief I found in Shadowkeeper, not the type you want to run into on your way to the FAI, just after Gorion's death. His right hand, Phallus Phallen Nightsbane, was a lvl 8/8 Mage/Thief with a mean backstab as well, as Finch would discover.
The party had traveled to the area from the north, and thus run straight into the assassins without having the time to prepare for battle, and the results were felt. Dapper was already invisible, badly injured Finch followed his example, and so did Garrick and Imoen soon after. Ajantis was holding his groun though. He had swigged a potion of freedom to protect himself from the third, priestly, assassin's Hold Persons. However two backstabs in rapid succession later, the Cavalier was down.
Garrick who had stayed near Ajantis to provide moral support, was then the only character within visual range of the assassins. Necardian's Oracle dispelled Garrick's invisibility and - illegally I think - that of the remote others.
Thankfully all Dapper's and Finch's memorized lvl 2 spells were Invisibility at that moment, so the four surviving companions could all go invisible again. Unwilling to leave the area and lose Ajantis' and Dynaheir's equipment, Dapper chose to use a scroll of Confusion he had found somewhere (can't remember the location, probably something random). It caused Nightblade to wander off toward the companions, who warmly received the rogue, so that Dapper could finish him off without difficulty.
Two Flame Arrows felled the (lvl 6) Cleric, Malious.
Necardian was engaged under the protection of a a potion of magic shielding. Dapper manaed to Hold him, which sealed the assassin's fate.
After this spectacle, Bassilus (Silence) was comparatively routine, but the Nashkel Mines brought more tragedy. A paralyzation wand helped a lot against the Duergar, and welcomely so, what with incoming Kobolds injuring Dapper, Imoen and Finch.
A casting of Sleep by Dapper and a potion of agility for Ajantis made the Kobold hordes more manageable.
In Mulahey's lair Finch was very unfortunately surrounded by Skellies and Kobolds that interrupted her casting of Silence. When (unlike Dapper) she failed to timely quaff a potion of freedom, Mulahey's Hold Person meant the end of her. Dapper tried to cast Invisiblity on her, but he could not reach her due to the Skellies and Kobolds. When Ajantis, still Blinded thanks to a Kobold Shaman they had beaten on the previous level, was also Held by Mulahey, Dapper deemed it time for Plan B: a charge of his paralyzation wand. Garrick used a wand of chain lightning (much more manageable than a normal lightning wand) to finish off some of the summons. And Imoen and Dapper, inspired by Garrick, ended up slaying Mulahey and the Kobolds.
The most notable treasure were Boots of Speed and a Cloak of Deflection (really nice in combination with the Claw of Kazgaroth that Dapper had equipped shortly before).
The companions released Xan (Fighter/Enchanter), gave him his Moonblade and agreed to his proposal to join them. Narcillicus spell repertoire was drained with Skeletons, then Garrick cast a Dispel Magic on the mage, and Xan slew him with a critical. Ajantis and Xan quaffed a potion of freedom each and dealt with the undead in the region.
Back in Nashkel the party visited the temple to get Finch raised, but again I got the apparent bug that gives her all the negative status effects:
It's weird that between resurrectable fallen comrades and chunked ones, there's also a category of dead NPCs that when raised return in a vegetative state. I haven't decided yet between Keepering the status effects away and replacing Finch.
@Musigny: It's working! Thank you! I'd have had no idea how to make this work. I can add a Phase Spider fighter kit and it works fine.
My only remaining problem is that I don't know how to install a non-fighter kit. To create a Phase Spider druid kit, for example, I copied all of the fighter files into a new folder, and edited the TP2 document to replace the fighter version with the druid version. Incidentally, the CLAB files, spell files, item files, and effect files are all the same, regardless of whether the spider is a mage or a thief. Problem is, when I install the druid version, it just adds that kit to the fighter menu. So on character creation, I can choose two extra kits for fighters, one of which is the druid kit (CLABPHDR) and one of which is the fighter kit (CLABPHFI), but no extra kits for druids.
Attached is the folder with the TP2 files, the setup .exe, a readme, and the files for the override folder. What do I need to do to make this fighter kit into a druid kit? You also pointed out there was no check to see if ToB were installed. How do I limit the installation so it won't install on potentially incompatible SoA-only games?
Comments
When we left the Friendly Arm Inn to travel to the Cloakwood, we were accosted by a band of four holy warriors of Torm who accused us of being murderers of innocents. Our earnest protests failed to convince them of the contrary, making battle inevitable. Two of my thrown traps instantly killed two of our foes. But their leader, a woman named Najara, showed Xan that she was the superior fighter. At least she was until Quayle Blinded her.
The letter was signed “P.W.” which were two more initials to remember, in addition to “M.S.” (the initials below the message that one of the Elven bounty hunters by the bridge to Baldur’s Gate had carried).
We made it to the Cloakwood the next day, eager as I was at that time to find the hidden Iron Throne base. The outer reaches of the forest were gentle and accessible to visitors unadjusted to the wilds like ourselves. Yes there were savage animals, and even the odd Huge Spider and a pack of Tasloi that we slew (yielding me a nifty Cloak of Non-Detection), but at the same time the hand of man was still palpable in the area. For example, there was a bridge in good working order that allowed us to cross a river. On it stood Coran, an Elven archer that proposed to us that we work together to slay a Wyvern and receive a handsome 2,000 Guilder reward for the creature’s skull from Keldath Ormlyr in Beregost. Xan protested, considering the undertaking too dangerous, but the rest of us were interested. We offered Xan some time off - he agreed to wait for us at the Friendly Arm Inn - and we welcomed Coran into the party.
When we wanted to set up camp, Coran pointed us to Aldeth Sashenstar, a hunter from Baldur’s Gate. Aldeth invited us to his lodge where he had food and wine for us, and where we were allowed to rest. We left on the morrow but were detained by a group of Druids that accused Aldeth of having murdered one of their order. They had come to kill Aldeth, but our host denied the allegations. Aldeth had been most hospitable to us and the Druids had no evidence of the purported murder, so we tried to persuade them to look for a peaceful settlement. Alas, this proved impossible. The Druids started casting summoning spells and other incantations, and when Branwen Silenced most of them, they proceeded to attack us with their Staves. The unfortunate result was a bloodbath in which all the Druids died.
As we ventured deeper in the forest, the wilderness became harsher. We had a major scare when we crossed a ramshackle bridge and four Phase Spiders took our party by surprise. One of them poisoned Shar-Teel, and we generally had a hard time defeating them.
Rather than returning to the Cloakwood, the party decided to see if Baldur’s Gate had already become accessible, what with the recent dismantlement of the bandit syndicate at the hands of Butch and Shar-Teel, and also bearing Aldeth’s invitation in mind. According to Ender Sai, there had been Iron Throne offices in Baldur’s Gate too, so they might as well look for answers there rather than in the uninviting forest. Unfortunately the party was once more denied access to the city.
The band then traveled further north to the village of Ulgoth’s Beard. According to Keiria the village had a small port. She advised her friends to see if they could find passage on a ship bound for Baldur’s Gate so that they could enter the city via the docks. The plan was sound yet it didn’t work. There were no ships bound for Baldur’s Gate anytime soon. Apparently water transport had been strictly curtailed as well as overland traffic to the city. The companions’ visit to Ulgoth’s Beard was nevertheless not in vain, for the local innkeeper sold Keiria two magical harps (one that dispels Confusion and one that can be used to Dominate unfriendly creatures). [Note: regular items such as Aule’s Staff, Greenstone Amulet, Sandthief Ring were all Item Randomized away.]
In the village they met a woman, Yness, who begged the party to rescue her husband from Orcs in the Fields of the Dead, north of Wyrm’s Crossing. Yness told the party it was very dangerous, and that she had no reward for them. Keiria, ever kind, assured the woman the party would look into the matter,
They had a swift and uneventful journey with only a single alarming moment: a confrontation with two Battle Horrors on a narrow stone bridge that led to the tower. But Branwen, Shar-Teel and Butch (with his staff for a change), inspired by Keiria, soon proved to be too much for the creatures to handle.
The tour was brusquely interrupted by a Demon Knight that appeared out of nowhere and promised to kill everyone. Quayle quickly paralyzed the creature with his wand, allowing the party to slay it before it could do any harm.
The Demon Knight wasn’t the only dangerous creature in the tower. A spell casting ghost was very displeased with the party’s visit. It used a plethora of advanced spells to protect itself, such as Stoneskins, a Fireshield and Improved Invisibilty, and it forced Shar-Teel into submission with a Cloudkill. Butch and his friends only prevailed after Quayle had used another charge of his wand to paralyze the apparition.
In hindsight the whole excursion to Durlag’s Tower was a mistake on our part. There wasn’t nearly as much treasure as I had hoped to find, there were traps that even my supposedly nimble fingers failed to disarm, and we faced enemies that could have easily killed us. Eventually one of us would pay dearly for our entering the tower.
With the Ghost’s Cloudkill having knocked Shar-Teel unconscious, I let my comrades look after her while I did some exploring on the different upper levels of the tower. Most floors were structured in the same way as the ground floor but inhabited by Ghasts, dangerous creatures even though my Ring of Free Action protected me from their paralyzing touch. I patiently took them on, relying mainly on sneak attacks and the occasional trap.
The top floor housed a Demoness, Kirinhale she called herself, that had somehow been made a captive within the tower (even though she was not chained, bound, or gagged or anything). She needed to take possession of a living body to be free. With difficulty I convinced her not to attack me, as I falsely promised her another scapegoat. Quayle was that supposed scapegoat, but with his enchanted helm that protected him against the creature’s charms, there was little Kirinhale could do against the Gnome. While she kept trying to dominate Quayle, I repeatedly attacked from the shadows until she fell.
[Note: Although I don’t have the tweak installed that reduces the likelihood of permanent NPC deaths, Shar-Teel was already the 5th NPC after Imoen, Isra, Kagain, and Kivan that could not be properly raised/resurrected. They were all yellow circled and according to Shadowkeeper suffering from all possible negative status effects. I would have to manipulate their state flags in Shadowkeeper to be able to use them again, but I’ve decided to raise them and dismiss them from the party, leaving them in the care of a healer in a temple. They can no longer be used in BG1, but since they never really died, they should become available in SoA. I’m not sure if BGT actually functions this way though. I might have to remove the negative state flags shortly before transitioning to SoA, or just accept the NPCs’ absence in SoA.]
During their sophomore visit to the Spider-ridden area of the Cloakwood, the companions showed they had learned from their first unpleasant experience. Quayle’s Invisibility 10’ Radius allowed the party to explore the area, without having to worry about triggering any web traps (which happened various times indeed). Unseen, they detected several Huge and Giant Spiders, Ettercaps, Phase Spiders and a Sword Spider, but the most striking creature they encountered was a Dragonling.
Butch, relying on his own stealth skills rather than Quayle’s invisibility spells, showed himself before a female Druid. She introduced herself as Selene and asked him to slay the Dragonling for her, as it had chased her and her companions out of their grove. Without really knowing what to expect, Butch and friends decided to help the woman. The rogue attacked from the shadows to discover that the young dragon already had quite the fiery breath, typical of mature dragons, he knew.
Xan made her very happy by removing the curse. In her gratitude Centeol left Butch and Xan a treasure trove with such prizes as Spiders’ Bane and the Golden Girdle. And then she departed, allegedly to exact revenge on Irenicus.
The company traveled back once more to the Friendly Arm Inn, where they - Keiria most of all -would be relieved to see Branwen recover swiftly in Gellana’s care.
Soon the team found themselves in the Cloakwood again, this time keeping a low profile, stalking invisibly past a Druid grove for example. They spent a few days looking for Coran’s Wyverns until Butch, the party’s scout, found a nest in a reeking, blood-smeared cave.
In Beregost, the companions received the 2,000 Guilder reward from Keldath Ormlyr. Half of it went to Coran, who left the party (not to Butch’s regret, for he’d had little patience for the Elf’s pointless ramblings about all that was female).
On their third(!) trip to the Cloakwood Butch made it clear to his companions that he meant business. He would not be sidetracked, nor would he leave again before having paid the Iron Throne base a visit.
The second time we approached the Cloakwood’s Druid Grove, an older Druid asked us whether we were associated with the Iron Throne, because he had a message for them. I told him we were sworn enemies of the Throne, and was glad to discover that his message would have consisted in our hides, had we been Iron Throne members. Not that I considered him capable of slaying the five of us, but it was good to know the Throne had more enemies than just us. Quayle must have had similar thoughts, because after the encounter he observed that it might be a good idea to reveal ourselves and our agenda to the other Druids. We might find allies in them.
As gifted as the Druids were at making us feel like interlopers in their territory, their Archdruid Amarande did instruct one member of his order of Shadow Druids to join our party to confront the Iron Throne, and to report back to him when we were done. She was a hot-tempered Avenger Druid by the name of Faldorn.
The actual base appeared to consist of two unimposing wooden structures, little more than large sheds, but according to Faldorn there were mines below them. The compound was enclosed by a wooden fence and a canal. The only access was over a narrow bridge over the canal. The two structures themselves were separated by another canal and connected by a second, unsheltered bridge.
We first cleared the outer area, which meant dispatching circa ten guards / Black Talons,
Still from outside the compound we saw a quintet of Black Talon Elites guarding the bridge between the two structures. We attacked them with ranged weaponry, only to discover that they were no regular Black Talon Elites; they were amongst the best marksmen that we had encountered up till then. They downed Xan in no time (despite his protections), and only became manageable for us after Faldorn caught them in a web and had them attacked by a Dread Wolf she summoned, and after I weakened them with two thrown snares.
What the mine had in store for the party was indeed not pretty. It was operated by rag-dressed and underfed slaves under the supervision of mail-clad Iron Throne guards like the ones they had seen on their patrols in the woods.
One of the miners was standing in front of a massive plug. Butch, less reliant on Quayle’s magic to remain unseen, revealed himself and asked the miner what the plug was for. He explained that it kept an underground river from flooding the mine. The miner could open the plug and inundate the mine if brought the key from the master of the mines, Davaeorn (a name that Butch hadn’t encountered in the Iron Throne correspondence but knew he had to heed regardless, thanks to the Surgeon’s warnings). The two devised a plan that involved the release of an imprisoned slave resistance leader, Rill, who would know how to get the other slaves to safety before the flooding of the mine. The miner further advised Butch to speak with another prisoner, Yeslick, who was the last surviving Dwarf of the clan that used to exploit the mine, and had been the one to design the plug.
The party descended one level, stalked past a few hapless guards in charge of storage,
The Dwarf was given most of Kagain’s gear (which Butch had kept in the party’s Bag of Holding ever since he had taken it from one of the carts in the Nashkel Mines where Finch had left it), and he soon needed it: various guards, including a female wizard, had followed them through the halls while others were approaching from the other side of the prison. The Dwarf enraged, and when a Minor Sequencered Ray of Enfeeblement and Blindness came his way, he quaffed a potion of magic shielding to become immune to the female’s spells.
It was much narrower, with only a single corridor that led to a large, open room. During his adventures Butch had developed a keen eye for traps, which was a good thing, because he encountered many. While he was in the process of disarming them, he was discovered by Black Talon Elites and assaulted with arrows of detonation.
They had barely slain the Black Talons and the assassin, or Davaeorn the wizard showed up, flanked by two Battle Horrors. Behind him stood another Mage. Strangely, Davaeorn moved toward invisible Keiria, Faldorn and Quayle, but he undertook no action to dispel their Invisibility. Having to deal with one wizard at a time made things a lot easier for Butch and Yeslick. Butch applied an oil of speed and smacked the associate wizard in the back, slowing his foe with his enchanted staff. The latter then activated a few basic protections as well as an Improved Invisibility that Yeslick promptly dispelled with a Invisibility Purge. The Dwarf slew the Mage with ease,
We looted the mines, and then flooded them. Upon leaving the compound a Druid named Wendell informed us that he had come to avenge one of his kin, Miranda, whom we had killed according to him. Faldorn knew neither this Wendell nor the Miranda he spoke off, and explained to him that she was a Druid of the Cloakwood herself. It was to no avail. Wendell and two companions attacked us. They summoned a Cave Bear, hampered our movement with Plant Growth, and nearly killed Keiria with a Call Lightning
At the Friendly Arm Inn we learnt that Xan was the sixth of my friends that required lasting medical care. He was in no condition to rejoin the party. Branwen and Gellana Mirrorshade told me they would do all they could to fully restore the frail Elf to health.
(I am still lurking my own thread due to a break from gaming for RL. I intend to return in the coming weeks. Thank you all for sharing your adventures.)
Now what happens? Well, I've got a new idea for a run. Instead of playing a solo character with a custom kit, I'll play a full party, composed entirely of custom kits. We've got a bard kit, a barbarian kit, a couple of cleric kits, a druid kit, and a revised sorcerer, to boot. I've already tested the files, and while the kits don't have updated description strings and so forth (I don't know how to design patches for the dialog.tlk file), the kits all work as intended. Now I just need to playtest them.
Here are the kits. I'm particularly fond of the Soulbinder kit, as it operates in a radically different way from any other character class: it can support its allies, but is helpless on its own. All of its power (and there's a lot of it) is entirely invested in other party members.
Soulbinder
Soulbinders are bards that grant their friends and allies unique innate abilities by forging a close spiritual and emotional bond with the other character, imbuing the soulbinder's target with a special power. The process is traumatic, however, and anyone who benefits from a soulbinder's "imbuements" is weakened whenever the soulbinder is far away. All imbuements impose penalties to the target, but multiple imbuements do not give stacking penalties.
An imbued character suffers a -1 penalty to hit, damage, AC, saving throws, and casting time whenever he or she is not under the effect of the soulbinder's song. When the soulbinder's song is in effect, imbued characters gain a +1 bonus to hit, damage, AC, saving throws, and casting time. Non-imbued characters receive no bonuses, but still experience some limited regeneration every round the song is in effect. The song has a limited area of effect, however, equivalent to a Haste spell, and will not affect imbued creatures outside of that area.
All bonuses and penalties last for 18 seconds, except for the casting time bonus and penalty, which lasts 12. The song still triggers every 6 seconds, which means that characters who drift away from the bard do not immediately lose all bonuses, while characters who stay close to the bard will gain additional bonuses.
The soulbinder may grant his or her imbuements to any character, but can only grant a finite number of these powers. Once a soulbinder grants an ability to one character, the soulbinder cannot grant that ability to another character until it gains another five levels. The transfer is permanent, and cannot be undone. The soulbinder may grant an imbuement (with one exception) to him or herself, but suffers a 33% spell failure on innate abilities, so most imbuements will be more effective in the hands of a soulbinder's allies.
Some imbuements can only ever be granted once. Others can be learned and granted multiple times. In both cases, the soulbinder gains new imbuements every level:
Level 1: Precision. Permanent +3 to hit, -3 to damage.
Level 2: Magical Ward. Permanent +10% to magic resistance, -2 to save vs. spell.
Level 3: Mobility. Can increase attacks per round by 1, increase AC by 3, and grant a +1 bonus to casting time for 7 rounds, but suffers a -2 penalty to THAC0 and 5% spell failure.
Level 4: Wisdom. Permanent +1 to Wisdom and Dexterity, -1 to Strength.
Level 5: Psionic Blast. Can stun enemies for 4 rounds on a failed save vs. spell, bypasses spell level immunities and magic resistance.
Level 6: Vampirism. Can cast a ranged version of Vampiric Touch.
Level 7: Defensive Harmony. Can grant the entire party +2 to AC and a +2 Chant effect, and spell absorption of 1 spell of any level, for 10 rounds.
Level 8: Energy Ray. Can deal 2d12 magic damage to an enemy with a save for half, three times per day.
Level 9: Weird. Permanent +10% bonus to XP, +5% to magic resistance, -1 to all stats.
Level 10: Magical Blast. Can deal 1d150 magic damage to any target with a save vs. spell at -9 to negate the effect. There is a 10% chance the spell rebounds upon the caster, but the caster makes his or her save at +1.
Level 11: Spellstrike. Can break down an enemy mage's defenses once per day. The spell has a 50% chance of removing specific and combat protections, and a 50% chance of removing spell protections. At higher levels, the Spellstrike ability counts as a higher spell level and will remove higher-level defenses.
Level 12: Maze. Can Maze a single target on a failed save vs. spell at -5. The caster will lose 1000 XP with each casting on a failed save vs. wand.
Level 13: Medusa. Can petrify a target on a failed save vs. petrification/polymorph at +1.
Level 14: Righteous Magic. May cast Righteous Magic as per the cleric spell once per day, but suffers a permanent -1 to Strength and Constitution.
The soulbinder may grant these imbuements more than once, but this takes time. A soulbinder may cast another imbuement an extra time for every 5 levels after he or she first learns it, to a maximum of five castings. For example, a soulbinder may grant a new Spellstrike imbuement to another character at level 11, 16, 21, 26, and 31.
Other imbuements can only be granted once. The soulbinder learns these special imbuements once per two levels, up to level 14:
Level 2: Permanent +25% bonus to movement speed, party-wide.
Level 4: Can create a single copy of a unique crossbow, usable by any class as if proficient with crossbows, which grants the wielder 50% electrical resistance fires a lightning bolt as a +3 bolt for 1d10 electrical damage, with a 50% chance of ignoring the target's magic resistance. The lightning bolt grants a +4 bonus to THAC0 and ranged effects on hit (such as Power Attack and Called Shot) apply to everything in the path of the lightning bolt. The user gains an extra 0.5 attacks per round when using the crossbow.
Level 6: Reflex. May grant the entire party Improved Alacrity for 3 seconds, allowing them to cast one more spell during that round. Any spells cast during those 3 seconds are finished after the 3 seconds are over, irrespective of the spell's actual casting time--it cannot be used to cast more than two spells during that round.
Level 8: Time Stop. May cast a party-wide Time Stop for one round. The party may not attack, suffers 100% spell failure for divine spells, 50% spell failure for arcane spells, and moves at 50% movement speed, but it may still use this time to reposition themselves, using thieving abilities, escape the battle, or refresh one's aura to drink a potion before an enemy spell hits.
Level 10: Frost Aura. The target gains permanent +50% cold resistance and a backlash effect whenever he or she is hit by an enemy weapon or hostile spell. Attackers suffer 1d8 cold damage with a save vs. wand for none. The backlash damage will not trigger enemy Fire Shields or Auras of Flaming Death.
Level 12: Favored Follower. The soulbinder may attach a vital piece of his or soul to the target character, allowing the soulbinder's friend to summon a simulacrum once per day. The soulbinder cannot grant this ability to him or herself.
Level 14: Level Drain. The target creature level drains enemies with every successful melee hit. If the victim fails a save vs. death, it loses 1 level drained for 50 rounds, with an additional -1 penalty to hit, damage, luck, saving throws, AC, movement rate, and 1% spell failure for 5 rounds.
At level 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, the soulbinder may attempt to charm an enemy for 5 rounds on a failed save vs. spell at +5.
At level 6, the soulbinder may create five healing potions once per day. The potions cure poison and heal 12 points of damage.
Drawbacks:
33% spell failure on innate spells
May never attack or cast spells
Cannot benefit from any Mislead, Project Image, or Simulacrum spells, even from scrolls
Sun Druid of Chult
BG2 druids have really poor offensive capabilities. They barely have any damage spells, and most of their spell levels go unused and undervalued. The Sun Druid has fire damage spells at every spell level, but also loses out on many traditional druid spells.
Abilities:
Immune to disease and poison
+2 to hit and damage vs. yuan-ti
+1 to STR and CON
May specialize in spears and darts
Does 2 sun damage per hit, with a save vs. breath for none
4% resistance to fire and cold per level
Can call in a Sun Deva for 10 rounds as a 6th-level spell. The Sun Deva has 12 hit dice and lacks most of the abilities of a Deva, but also deals sun damage with every hit and has some of the Deva's resistances.
Immune to Summon Insects, Insect Plague, and Creeping Doom
May not cast any normal druid Conjuration or summoning spells
Sun Druid spells have 75% normal duration
May cast some mage spells as druid spells:
Level 1: Burning Hands
Level 2: Aganazzar's Scorcher and Fire Shield: Red
Level 3: Flame Arrow, Minute Meteors (small area effect, as Fire Seeds, only grants 3 APR)
Level 4: Fireball
Level 5: Lower Fire Resistance, Sunfire
Level 6: Summon Sun Deva
Level 7: Comet (6d20, save for half)
Additional abilities:
Level 8: +0.5 attacks per round
Level 13: Permanent Fire Shield, stacks with Fire Shield spell, does 1d6+2 fire damage (grants no resistances)
Level 15: All fire spells also do extra magic damage.
Beholder Cleric
I considered making a Beholder Mage kit, but the only way to implement it reasonably was to give the kit Improved Alacrity--in PnP, Beholder Mages use their eye stalks to cast spells, and can use all stalks once every round--but I didn't want to fuss with another constant effect Improved Alacrity, as the micromanagement gets time-consuming.
Instead, I made a Beholder Cleric kit. The Beholder can cast healing spells quickly, at a distance, but lacks a normal Beholder's offensive power, and is very constrained in the items it can use.
Abilities:
Free Action
-35% to CHA
+3 penalty to casting time
Cannot equip gauntlets, bracers, boots, helmets, armor, or rings
Natural weapon 1:
2 APR, +4 to hit, casts Cause Serious Wounds ray on hit (1d12 magic damage). Strikes as +7 weapon; the magic damage strikes as a level 4 spel. The Beholder ray can be blocked or reflected by spell protections, but will not remove Stoneskins, as it deals no physical damage.
Natural weapon 2:
2 APR, +10 to hit, heals 5 HP on hit. Strikes as +7 weapon. This ray can be used to target a party member with a friendly cleric spell. The Beholder Cleric may apply a spell to its healing ray once per day at the level it learns the normal spell, and gains one more use of this ability per day (up to five) every three levels after the ability is first learned:
Level 1: Cure Light Wounds, Remove Fear
Level 3: Slow Poison
Level 5: Remove Paralysis, Dispel Magic, Break Enchantment, Cure Medium Wounds
Level 7: Neutralize Poison, Restoration, Cure Serious Wounds
Level 9: Cure Critical Wounds
Level 11: Heal
Level 13: Greater Restoration
Hexer
Negative Plane Protection
Immune to Hold Person and paralysis
May not cast healing spells greater than Cure Light Wounds
May not cast Bless, Aid, Chant, Draw Upon Holy Might, Holy Power, Righteous Magic, Dispel Magic, Slow Poison, Neutralize Poison, Remove Paralysis, or Restoration
-2 to all saves
-1 to STR, DEX, and CON
-2 to CHA
Gains hexes and curses as unique cleric spells. At higher levels, the hexes and curses also grant the caster with various bonuses, each of which lasts 6 rounds. Hexes and curses stack with each other, but not with themselves. Each hex and curse inflicts a penalty to hit, damage and saving throws, and lasts 6 rounds. All hexes and curses offers a save vs. wand to resist. Hexes have a small area effect akin to Hold Person; curses are single-target only.
Level 1:
Minor Hex: -2 penalty. At level 7, this spell grants the caster a +1 to saving throws.
Level 2:
Minor Curse: -3 penalty. At level 9, this spell grants the caster immunity to charm.
Level 3:
Hex: -4 penalty. May slow the target for 6 rounds on a failed save vs. polymorph (50% chance). At level 11, this spell grants the caster +1 to casting time.
Level 4:
Curse: -5 penalty. May enfeeble and/or confuse the target for 6 rounds on a failed save vs. polymorph and spell, respectively (50% chance each). At level 13, this spell grants the caster immunity to confusion.
Level 5:
Greater Hex: -4 penalty. Slows the target for 6 rounds or paralyzes the target for 3 rounds on a failed save vs. polymorph or death at -2. At level 15, this spell grants the caster one extra attack per round.
Level 6:
Greater Curse: -7 penalty. Target is Mazed on a failed save vs. spell at -3. At level 17, this spell grants the caster immunity to Maze, Imprisonment, and instant death effects.
Level 7:
Plague, as Sphere of Chaos: Targets must make two saving throws every round or suffer a random effect. The Hexer is unable to cast any cleric spells until the spell is over. The effects are divided by saving throw type:
Save vs. spell:
-Charm, 5 rounds
-Disintegrate
-Magic damage, 1d50
-Dispel magic, ignores caster level
Save vs. wand:
-Pierce magic, up to level 7
-Breach, up to level 7
-Stun, 3 rounds
-Maze
Save vs. death:
-Paralysis, 4 rounds
-Death
-Level drain, 2 levels
-Disease, -2 to physical stats and CHARISMA for 20 rounds, 10% chance of blindness, 20% chance of slow, 30% chance of 5 damage per round
Save vs. breath:
-Fire damage, 5d8
-Acid damage, 1d20+14
-Hold, 3 rounds, ignores immunities to hold and paralyze
-Glue (extremely slow movement rate), 7 rounds
Save vs. polymorph:
-Slow, 7 rounds
-Petrification
-Pause, 1.5 rounds
-Teleport field
Brute
The Brute is a revised version of the Barbarian kit. It is a much more offensive build with poor defensive power and fewer immunities.
Brute:
+5% chance of a critical hit at level 1, with an extra +1% chance of landing a critical hit every two levels thereafter.
+1 bonus to melee damage at levels 1, 9, and 17.
+2 penalty to AC.
Gains +10 to HP every 5 levels, to a maximum of +50 at level 25.
Brawler: +1 to fist damage every 2 levels.
Savage Blow: for one round, every hit does +1 damage and has a 50% chance of forcing the target to make a save vs. death or fall unconscious for one round. The Brute may use Savage Blow once per day per 5 levels, starting at level 1 with one use.
Flurry of Blows: At levels 6 and 15, the Brute may raise his or her attacks per round to 5 for one round, but suffers a -4 penalty to hit and -2 penalty to damage and AC.
Non-cooperative: Immune to fear, charm, Defensive Harmony, and Chaotic Commands.
May not specialize in ranged weapons or weapons lighter than spears. This includes daggers, short swords, long swords, staffs, clubs, and scimitars.
The Brute's THAC0 development has half the normal effect on ranged weapons until level 10 (-1 penalty to missile THAC0 per two levels, up to a total of -5 at level 10).
Rage: +1 to hit, +3 to damage, and grants immunity to sleep, stun, imprisonment, maze, hold person, and paralysis for 5 rounds. The Brute suffers an additional +2 penalty to AC and -15% to physical damage resistance. The Brute can use Rage once per day per 4 levels, starting at level 1 with one use.
Gains +5% to physical damage resistance at levels 4, 10, and 16.
At level 13, the Brute does not gain an extra 0.5 attacks per round as fighters normally do. Instead, it gains a +2 bonus to damage and an extra +5% chance of landing a critical hit.
Sorcerer, revised
This version of the sorcerer gains fewer spells per day than the vanilla sorcerer, but also learns spells much more quickly, learning up to 7 spells per spell level, and being able to cast only 4 such spells per day. This allows a sorcerer to take advantage of Spell Revisions' greater variety of useful spells, and to improve the versatility of a party with only one mage.
EDIT: Made some changes after testing.
Since the party is pretty well-equipped to handle mages, I decide to take on the Ogre Mage. With no pre-buffing for either the enemy or the party, everyone is pretty vulnerable. Our frontline gets slowed, but our Beholder cleric, Salim Jedusa, keeps up a weak but steady stream of magic damage.
The Ogre Mage attempts to target our weak link, using Melf's Acid Arrow and a double Magic Missile Minor Sequencer on our sorcerer, Adoniki, and focusing his melee attacks on our Sun Druid, Zeon Teyzi.
Notice the Remove Fear on our Charname, Molly. Salim, the Beholder, is able to use targeted cleric spells as Beholder rays, and can therefore cast a single-target Remove Fear spell without using up a spell slot. Quite handy indeed. This is especially important because Molly is very important to this party's functioning, and having her running around screaming and hollering means the party doesn't benefit from her bard song, and without that song, the party suffers lots of penalties all over the place.
Aataqah arrives, the Ogre Mage vanishes, and he tells us we lost, somehow, even though we had healed up our party (Molly can conjure Elixirs of Health for the party once per day) and the Ogre Mage was at Near Death. Luckily for us, the game crashed a few minutes later and we had to reload, and we defeated the Ogre Mage on the second time around.
Zeon, being a Sun Druid, is immune to poison, and can tank out the several poison traps scattered around Chateau Irenicus, saving us a lot of damage--our party is devoid of any thief levels, though one of our clerics may dual-class to thief later on. But it's not really necessary. Molly's bard song heals 1 HP per round, and Salim's healing ray gives 5 HP per hit, so the party is very strong in healing power.
This means the Duergar don't pose much of a threat, as the party can heal up in between battles quite quickly. Only the enemy spellcasters are a problem.
Specifically, the twin Radiant Mephits in the Mephit Portal room are an issue--they always are. But our Brute, Bloody Howard, tanks out the Color Spray spells with his rage ability, allowing Zeon to tear down the Mephit Portals quickly. Zeon has 1.5 APR, has specialization in spears, and does sun damage with each hit, making her a fairly effective damage dealer. We clear out the entire dungeon save for Ilyich's cronies, Hareishan, and the Assassin on the way out before we have to rest.
Ilyich himself turns out to be fairly easy. He gets disabled by a Hold Person spell, and the Duergar Mage dies to Salim's offensive rays. Another rage ability helps take care of of the Mephits in the Air Elemental Plane, who use stunning attacks (Salim is also immune, thanks to his Beholder abilities). Finally, our only enemy left is the Assassin near the exit.
We crowd up the doorway with Hobgoblins, courtesy of Adoniki's Monster Summoning I spell (Spell Revisions has some very nice summoning spells), and Zeon's Sun Deva, which can see through invisibility, takes down the Assassins that the rest of the party can't see. It ends with a nice critical hit.
Notice the Sun Deva has the Fallen Planetar animation--I thought it looked a little cooler, and sounded a little better (it makes some weird screaming sounds, instead of battlecries in Common). I don't remember the last time I summoned a Fallen Deva or Fallen Planetar.
Findings:
To my dismay, our Hexer's curses are pretty damn weak. Looking over our spellbooks, I realized that they're actually considerably worse than normal cleric spells. Mental Domination is superior in every way to Curse: it has a better save penalty, a nastier effect, and even lasts longer than Curse. I'm going to have to strengthen the Hexer spells if I want the kit to be worth using. Perhaps I'll increase the saving throw penalties, or just not have the spells offer any saves to begin with. I've yet to see any Hexer spells actually make a difference in combat.
The Sun Deva is also unbalanced. It shouldn't be available so early. I changed it from a 5th-level spell to a 6th-level spell, trading places with Sunfire. I'll have to wait a little longer before Zeon can summon a Sun Deva again.
After Chateau Irenicus, we took our normal no-reload route: Circus, the Adventurer's Mart, Gaelan Bayle, and the sewers beneath the Copper Coronet. A Web spell from Adoniki brought down the Hobgoblins, while Zeon used the lightning crossbow on the Mustard Jelly, aiming directly north to make sure the lightning bolt bounced correctly.
If you aim a Lightning Bolt spell or a Wand of Lightning to the north or south, it will bounce right back, regardless of the angle of the wall it's hitting. This is the best way to get a bolt to hit the same target multiple times. It's especially effective in Zeon's hands because she does sun damage on hit.
She also has another excellent area-effect weapon in the form of Minute Meteors. Sun Druid meteors have a small area effect like Fire Seeds (which Sun Druids cannot cast, along with other normal druid Conjuration spells), and are absolutely fantastic for clearing up kobolds.
The meteors, however, only gives 3 APR instead of 5, and don't do as much damage per hit as normal mage Minute Meteors. They're still excellent for interrupting spellcasters, like the Priest of Cyric in the slavery compound.
Or the mages to the northwest, whom we lured out of their room with some Hobgoblins.
That Prismatic Spray trap is still a problem. Nobody in our group can disarm it, and only our sorcerer can teleport over it (Spell Revisions adds in Dimension Door as a 1st-level spell), but we do have Death Ward and Protection from Petrification. Death Ward is already on Molly herself, cast earlier in the battle just in case, so Adoniki adds Protection from Petrification and Molly walks through the trap.
At first, I thought there was a mistake somewhere, but the sound effect was that of a damage effect, not petrification or an instant death effect. I checked the spell files. Apparently, in Spell Revisions, Prismatic Spray can deal 100 poison damage on a failed save vs. death at -4. Death Ward and Protection from Petrification do absolutely nothing against Prismatic Spray in SR.
Zeon could have tanked that trap easily, as she's immune to poison damage. The other effects aren't too bad, either: SR Prismatic Spray can also stun, feeblemind, or Maze the target, or deal 10d6 fire, acid, or electricity damage. That's certainly very powerful, but the fight was over by the time we tried to cross the trap, so the damage could have simply been healed, the Maze could have been waited out, and the stun or feeblemind could have been cured with a Remove Paralysis or Remove Disease Beholder ray from Salim.
Anyway, I'll just start over, and be a little more attentive to SR changes in the future. I'll also give the characters a proper introduction. There's a little backstory I wanted to tell first.
From the Friendly Arm Inn we journeyed to Baldur’s Gate, where we would thank the Gods upon finding the city gates opened for once. En route we met a squire Cavalier by the name of Ajantis who wanted to join us to “fight evil”. Such noble aspirations weren’t necessarily mine, but given the protracted recovery of friends like Kagain, Shar-Teel, Kivan, and battlemage Xan, I knew our party needed another sword-arm to stand by Yeslick in the frontline.
At the city gates the Flaming Fist commander Harold Loggerson, or ‘Scar’ as he called himself, offered us 2,000 Guilders to gather some information for him. We were to investigate a trading company named the Seven Suns, in the city’s South-West quadrant. The Seven Suns was reported to have made a series of unsound business decisions, which had raised suspicions of possible criminal activity (extortion, blackmailing). But since a couple of questionable transactions were as such insufficient cause to warrant official Flaming Fist investigations, Scar had decided to look for outside help. Ever since I left Candlekeep, intelligence and counterintelligence had become a requisite for me to stay ahead of my enemies as well as my chosen vocation. We accepted Scar’s proposal.
I liked the walled city a lot. We entered it through the East Gate, one of only two overland entrance points (the other being the Black Dragon Gate on the northern edge of the city). Within Baldur’s Gate another wall separated the swankier northern and western quarters from the more low-key southern and eastern quadrants. But even the latter parts had good security, several stores offering all manner of useful goods, and many interesting business opportunities for me and my company.
When we had just entered the city a man called Magnad accosted us. He told us about a place called Fealn Datoon or the Fields of the Dead, the same land north of Baldur’s Gate where Yness’s husband from Ulgoth’s Beard had been captured by Orcs. It turned out that this Magnad’s children were held there too. Yeslick gave the man our word that we would try to help.
Before we knew it we spent two days running lucrative errands and doing quests all over the city, without even having asked for them. One such errand, to which Ajantis surprisingly did not object, was to retrieve a corpse from the sewers for a wizard named Arkion. What Arkion didn’t tell us, was that there was an Ogre Mage down there co-existing with two Phase Spiders and a ton of Carrion Crawlers.
At the Seven Suns trading coster a visiting merchant warned us that merchants he had known for years had started to behave very strangely:
The plot thickened when we visited our friend Aldeth Sashenstar at the Manycoins Merchants’ League estate. The picture was familiar: concerned merchants commenting how two of Aldeth’s partners and a number of subordinates had been behaving unlike their usual selves. I discreetly entered an office and found some anonymous letters to one Shalak that indicated that Aldeth’s partners had been killed and replaced by Doppelgangers, and that Aldeth would be next. I decided to confront and expose one of Aldeth’s faux companions. It shifted right in front of me, and soon many other Doppelgangers on the building’s different floors revealed their true nature. We slaughtered every single one of them. Aldeth felt deeply indebted and gave us a bastard sword enchanted for the specific purpose of slaying shapeshifting creatures.
As referenced above Butch and company did several smaller jobs. It would go too far to go into the details of all of them but the most prominent ones shall be mentioned here.
First of all Butch did a couple of commissions on his own. In addition to some freelance work this mostly involved harmless larceny with/for the Thieves Guild, earning himself a solid position and some influential friends at the guild, such as Narlen Darkwalk, who stood up for him against Alatos the guildmaster, and Black Lily, a fence. Butch confided his exploits to Quayle but kept them secret from some of his more morally principled companions.
The party slew two rivaling wizards to release a Nymph that had been held captive by one of them. There was an awkward moment when one of the mages, Ramazith, lay dead but everyone except Quayle and Butch were confused by a Chaos spell. Thankfully Quayle prevented the others from killing each other with two Invisibility 10’ Radius spells.
General Jeydan of the Flaming Fist asked the party to help him against a new bandit organization, the Grey Clan. The companions’ contribution was limited though [because of a minor bug that ended the Grey Clan mod quest: an injured soldier not recognizing that battle had come to a conclusion prevented the quest from progressing]. One of their jobs for Jeydan and the Fist, finding a bandit hideout in the South-West quadrant, brought the companions into contact with a particularly unpleasant wizard, Degrodel. His home was inhabited by six monstrous guards for them to slay: two Invisible Stalkers, two Helmed Horrors, and two Doom Guards. Degrodel congratulated the crew on beating his guards, and then offered them a deal. They would be paid 5,000 Guilders if they were to obtain the Helm of Balduran from a petrified Elf, Vail, at a nearby manor house. Butch turned Vail to flesh and obtained the Helm of Balduran as well as the Cloak of Balduran via a courtesan that had been Vail’s lover. When the band returned to Degrodel with the helmet, the wizard paid them the reward he’d promised them but he also set more of his guards on the party. The company attacked the wicked man, but he simply vanished, taking the helmet with him. In hindsight Butch reckoned they should have kept the helmet because according to Keiria it bore powerful enchantments.
One of the Dukes of Baldur’s Gate, Eltan, offered us 2,000 Guilders to do something we had already planned to do anyway: investigate the Iron Throne headquarters for proof of criminal conduct. Well in all honesty our intention was of course not merely to investigate but rather to retaliate. Either way we readily agreed. Eltan had a second job for us as well, namely to look into a number of disappearances that a Flaming Fist citadel on the north border had witnessed.
At the Northern Citadel, we had to question all the (uncooperative) soldiers and monks to find out who had disappeared and who or what could have been the cause of those disappearances. Initially I got the impression that the cause was an internal one, power-hungry people killing each other to obtain the positions they desired. But we discovered that the opposite was true when we entered a nearby mausoleum using a key we had found on the abbot who was slain during our absence. A mighty Ogre warrior aided by a small band of Zombies and Skeletons turned out to be responsible for the abductions and killings. Some of the Flaming Fist warriors were already battling them; we joined the fray. The Ogre was a real juggernaut and nearly killed Ajantis. But to his credit our new companion never despaired. He had Yeslick take the vanguard for a few moments while I laid on hands and he healed himself with potions, and then he returned in time to deal the monster the killing blow.
With the business up north behind us we returned to Baldur’s Gate to see if the Iron Throne management had returned from their stay at Candlekeep.
The party learned that the Iron Throne leaders were still at Candlekeep, but they decided to investigate the Throne headquarters anyway when one of the merchants told them about a strange group of acolytes with a secret agenda, assembled on the fifth floor.
The party reported their findings (except the contents of Sarevok’s letter) to Duke Eltan. The Duke gave them their reward and a valuable historical tome that would grant them access to Candlekeep. Butch’s journey was about to come full circle.
But first, I should introduce the characters.
Our frontliner is a Half-orc Brute, Bloody Howard, a smart man with simple needs: money and entertainment, both of which he has found positively abundant in adventuring.
As with my previous run, I've given the group the stat bonuses from BG1, mostly because of Molly's Soulbinder abilities, which fiddle around with ability scores, and can wreck certain stat bonuses depending on how they're used. Notice the uncharacteristically high INT score for a Barbarian kit--this is because Prismatic Mantle, a Spell Revisions weapon immunity spell, can Maze melee attackers on a failed save. Shadow Door, too, can Maze nearby opponents, so I'm very conscious of Maze duration, and therefore have paid close attention to the party's INT scores.
Our second frontliner is our Sun Druid of Chult, Zeon Teyzi.
Her stats are completely nonsensical at first glance. But to make full use of this character, we will be giving her three Soulbinder imbuements to boost her XP growth. This will reduce ALL of her stats by 3, hence her 19 CON and 12 WIS. She will be using spears, as Item Revisions--this is an SR+IR run--introduces some throwing spears, but she also has access to some party-unfriendly area-effect weapons, in the form of Sun Druid Minute Meteors and a crossbow that fires lightning bolts. She's an extremely offensive-oriented character, with no access to normal summoning spells or Insect Plague. Her spell slots will be dedicated mostly to fire damage spells.
Then we have our archer and healer, Salim Jedusa. Salim, a Beholder cleric, adopted his faith when he was captured by a band of adventurers, tortured endlessly, and finally saved by a Calimshite priest of Ilmater who sought to alleviate his suffering. The Beholder took on the name of his savior, Salim Jedusa, as well as Ilmater's doctrine of martyrdom and self-sacrifice. Salim's eyes were already badly damaged by his tortures, but he turned his disability into an asset, sacrificing his Beholder rays to channel Ilmater's healing magic.
His STR is a typo from Shadowkeeper (I gave everybody base 90 stats and proceeded from there), but it makes little difference, as he'll probably never be using physical weapons. He does 1d12 magic damage with his single offensive Beholder ray, but this will never upgrade; his damage output will lag behind the other characters as time goes on. But with his Beholder Cleric kit, he can cast healing spells from a far range, and even cast two in one round, as he delivers the healing spells via an adaptation of the Archer's Called Shot ability. He may dual-class into a thief or fighter, as Beholder clerics in the current version of the kit get their best powers by level 11 and 14.
He suffers a -3 penalty to casting time, however, and can't wear any gauntlets, helms, boots, rings, or armor, on account of him being a big eyeball. He's a fantastic healer, particularly with SR's buffed healing spells, but he does not excel in many other roles.
Our Charname for this run is Molly, a Soulbinder bard. With no ability to cast spells, attack, or even pickpocket, all of her power is engaged in developing bonds with her party. Every level, she will gain another imbuement to empower her friends, but if she is not around to bless them with her song, they will be in very bad shape, very quickly. Much of the party's success will depend on her functioning, and since she has no spells of her own, her party will have to look out for her instead. She is especially close to Salim, the only other good-aligned member of the group, and the only one she truly identifies with.
I've got her wearing the Mail of the Dead and a Ring of Protection +1, and holding Ilbratha and a buckler. She can't hit anything with Ilbratha (her kit gives her -20 to damage, 0 APR, and a 100% critical miss chance, so even on disabled enemies she'll only do 1 damage), but in Item Revisions it improves her AC a bit. With Mirror Image or Stoneskin, she needs all the AC she can get.
Our sole source of arcane power so far is Adoniki, a taciturn Sorcerer largely focused on developing her own abilities.
With the revised Sorcerer kit, she will have rather few spells per day--even less than an unspecialized mage--but she will have access to a broad variety of spells, which is especially important in Spell Revisions, where the best spells no longer outclass the rest.
Finally, we have a sickly and twisted Hexer, Gimuken. The Hexer kit is currently copied over the Cleric of Talos kit, as it is restricted to evil critters.
Notice his ridiculous WIS score. Molly gets to imbue her friends with Wisdom and Dexterity bonuses, and Gimuken is the natural choice. Zeon's Wisdom score is irrelevant, as the XP imbuements would drop it by 3 anyway, and Salim, with his awful casting speed penalty, will dedicate his time to using his healing rays, rather than his spell slots. With the Soulbinder kit, it's finally possible to get a character to 25 WIS, but the greatest benefit comes at his current score, 23, which grants 4 extra 5th-level spell slots. Unfortunately, as this is a no-pre-buffing run with limited rests, we're not going to have Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, and Free Action on every character.
We repeated the path we took in the first try, tackling the slaver compound as soon as we got Lilarcor. This time, we had Zeon walk over the Prismatic Spray trap, as she is immune to the poison damage that could kill almost any character in one hit. She got off with a 50% HP hit, easily restored with Salim's healing rays, and hunted down the remaining guards with the Soulbinder crossbow. The Trolls weren't much trouble, either: Bloody Howard has crazy damage output, and Zeon does fire damage on every hit, obviating the need for Acid Arrow spells or the like.
The Copper Coronet Guards had poor defenses, and were easily taken down with Salim's offensive rays and one or two Cause Serious Wounds spells from Adoniki (who can cast the standard Beholder damage ray three times per day, thanks to an imbuement from Molly). A Fireball from Zeon softened up the Beastmaster's animal friends enough for Bloody Howard to chop them up. We took down the entire slaving operation with a single rest--usually I take several, to make sure the party is well-rested for each encounter.
On to the Umar Hills! The Killer Mimic is a non-issue, even without buffs. Salim as a Beholder is immune to Mimic Glue, and his Remove Paralysis ray can free two party members per rounds.
Valygar's paranoid bodyguards fare no better against the group. Softened up by Gimuken's Hex spell, all the rangers fail their saves against Salim's Greater Command.
Adoniki's Grease spell keeps them down. Bloody Howard hacks them apart.
We continue to the Temple Ruins, again without resting--this is a surprisingly low-maintenance party--and after struggling to harm the Shadows and Shade Wolves with her crossbow without damaging the rest of the party, Zeon switches to her nonmagical spear and lets Bloody Howard do the heavy lifting. Zeon gets paralyzed by a Shadow Fiend, which causes some brief panic, but Bloody Howard uses his Time Stop imbuement to help rectify the situation. The Time Stop imbuement doesn't trigger as it should--it gives each party member their own 6-second Time Stop, instead of having one party-friendly 6-second Time Stop, which means the Time Stop weapon (used to prevent attacking during the Time Stop) only applies to one character. I'll have to fix it up sometime.
Against my normal practice, I decide to take on the Shade Lord, even though we're barely scraping level 9. The Darkling Aura is an awful threat, draining one level per round, so I decide to permit pre-buffing in this case--without it, we'd likely have to come back later if we wished to succeed. We give Negative Plane Protection to everyone in the party save for Adoniki (who will be staying a fair distance away from the Shade Lord and its Darkling Aura), plus a few other scattered buffs to avoid any disablers from the Shade Lord. If things go to hell, we still have a Sun Deva spell in Zeon's spellbook, which would keep the Shade Lord occupied for a full turn, plus an Invisibility Sphere in Adoniki's spellbook, in case we need an escape.
The Shade Lord enters battle with PFMW and Spell Deflection. Adoniki takes down the latter with Secret Word, which in SR has a casting time of 1--instantaneous, with IR's Amulet of Metaspell Influence.
Bloody Howard and Zeon, equipped with Minute Meteors, attack the Shadow Altar until Adoniki can remove the Shade Lord's PFMW spell with her only casting of Breach. Adoniki only gets two 5th-level spells at level 9, and the first was spent as a Dispelling Screen. To make sure the Shade Lord doesn't take advantage of his one round of immunity, Zeon throws out a Sunfire spell, to great effect.
Shadow Patrick nearly kills Adoniki, who has trouble running away, but once the Shade Lord's PFMW spell is down, the battle is won. Zeon tears down the Shadow Altar with a Minute Meteor, and slays the Shade Lord with the next.
Shadow Patrick could then be put down with melee pressure.
It might have been possible to win the fight without pre-buffing, but it would be risky. We'd have cast Invisibility Sphere and summoned a Sun Deva on the first round, then fled to the south while the Sun Deva tore down the Shadow Altar, ignoring the Shade Lord and its PFMW spell. From there, we could have brought out our buffs while in hiding, focusing on giving immunities to Molly and granting Negative Plane Protection to Bloody Howard and Zeon. By the time we entered the battle, the Sun Deva would be on its way out, and the Shade Lord might have activated some of its own defenses. Ultimately the fate of the battle would have depended on that.
Spirit Trolls in Tactics, and in SCS2 depending on your install, can cast Flame Strike, Unholy Blight, Unholy Word, and worst of all for a no-reload run with little pre-buffing, Greater Command. Greater Command in Spell Revisions has a -4 save penalty, but lets the victim save every round to wake up, so it's not quite a death sentence in SR--but it's much more likely to mess around with your functioning.
But we are at a fairly low level, and my SCS2 install no longer increases the difficulty of level-dependent encounters, so we likely won't find too many Spirit Trolls. Hopefully, none. But we do have some means of handling unconsciousness (Greater Command's disabling effect, which is distressingly difficult to become immune to), in the form of Salim's Break Enchantment ray. Perhaps the single best spell introduced by Spell Revisions is Break Enchantment, a replacement for Remove Curse that also cures the effects of all disablers.
To my relief, the first batch of Trolls in the Druid Grove has no Spirit Trolls in it. Unfortunately, the second group does. The party gets hit by a Greater Command spell, sure enough, and Bloody Howard himself is targeted by most of the enemies. Bloody Howard is doomed--there's nothing I can do to keep him alive.
Why is this? Well, a Brute's AC is absolutely horrible, and it's only worse when using the rage ability he needs to sustain consciousness. He's wearing chain mail, doesn't use shields, has a +4 penalty to AC, a rage ability that negates his Brute damage resistances, and if that wasn't enough, he's immune to Defensive Harmony, which enjoys a +2 buff in SR. A Brute is a real glass cannon--unlike a Kensai.
But Bloody Howard still is valuable bait. I send him off to the west so the Spirit Trolls will kill him instead of the other party members.
Due to an installation quirk, Salim's Break Enchantment ray has an incorrect string, hence the oddity in the dialog box. We need that ray to wake up Zeon Teyzi, since her Sun Devas are our only hope for taking down the Spirit Trolls and recovering Bloody Howard's equipment.
Unfortunately for us, Salim's defenses are even worse than Bloody Howard's. Despite Bloody Howard being inches from death, Salim manages to die first.
Salim can't use armor at all; only shields. And I never gave Salim a Beholder's base 0 AC. So when a group of Giant Trolls comes over to hack him to bits... they hack him to bits. There's nothing I could do.
But by now, Salim has awoken both Zeon and Molly, and Adoniki has woken up of her own accord. Better yet, Gimuken casts Raise Dead on Salim's body. Plus, Zeon successfully calls in a Sun Deva. The party is recovering!
What a shame Salim still doesn't have good AC.
But with Chaotic Commands on Molly and her song active, the party is a little more stable. Zeon brings out another Sun Deva, Adoniki adds in some Hobgoblins as cannon fodder, and we start tearing apart the Trolls--even the Spirit Trolls who have been standing around confused in a corner to the west.
The Sun Devas can see through invisibility, so the Spirit Trolls' irritating invisibility at will is no issue to them. The Sun Devas only have 10 rounds before they vanish, but it's enough for them to bring down the enemy.
We're more prepared when we take on the Troll Mound, with Chaotic Commands on most of the party. I couldn't tolerate going in without buffs, though I've wanted to avoid (or now, perhaps, just minimize) pre-buffing.
As usual, Kyland Lind's cronies fail to turn hostile when the fight begins. I don't know why this happens--I've seen this even on a clean install. But Web affects neutral critters, so it's all good.
Those blue circles are an SR thing. One of the Soulbinder's imbuements is a party-wide Chant/Defensive Harmony/Spell Deflection, hence the special effects. The Defensive Harmony imbuement only lasts 10 rounds and only blocks one spell per party member, but it provides a nice shield against spellcasters. It was there to prevent an Insect Plague spell from coming our way, but that spell never came.
Zeon got level drained by a Spirit Wolf, but we toughed it out and took on Dalok. Another Web from Adoniki and some spiders to attack Dalok while he's webbed.
Dalok went down with Flame Arrows and spider bites, though the spirit critters stuck around a long time, and chased around Adoniki for quite a while, nearly killing her several times. But the main problem, as always in BG2, was the spellcasters, and they went down with the Web.
Fighting the djinni was much simpler.
The Defensive Harmony imbuement also prevented any trouble with Flesh to Stone. We lost Faafirah somehow, though. He vanished midway through the battle, and whenever and wherever I consoled him in, he vanished right before dying, even if he was nowhere near an exit. I ended up hitting him with CTRL-Y to make sure he was dead.
And so we became the heroes of Trademeet, or something. But since we hadn't gotten enough of Spirit Trolls, we decided to go fight some more. Why not? On to the De'Arnise Hold.
We avoided the first engagement with Spirit Trolls and headed upstairs to the Yuan-ti Mage. We didn't enter the enemy's room except to lure out the Trolls, so the Yuan-ti Mage stayed out of our sight and summoned SR Shadows instead. We might have been overwhelmed if it weren't for the fact that we had two clerics in the party. Low-level undead swarms are not an issue for us.
We used the next few skirmishes to cast Chaotic Commands to prepare for the unavoidable Spirit Troll battle in the dungeons. We then lured TorGal out of his room with an invisible Adoniki, who was slain early on due to STR drain.
TorGal hit hard and took down another one or two party members--I forget who--but eventually he fell under sustained pressure. Bloody Howard is a heavy hitter, and the Sun Devas together are even stronger. TorGal did drain a lot of HP from the party before he went down, however.
The kits so far:
The Beholder Cleric:
Salim's kit is a little more powerful than I expected, since Spell Revisions buffs healing spells. Also, I was wrong when I suspected it would be wiser to dual-class him. Salim gets extra castings of his healing rays at higher levels, which means that a level 11 dual would only get one casting of the Heal ray, while a level 17 single class would have 3. This means the Beholder Cleric can actually heal other characters fast enough to make a difference in their survival.
In vanilla BG2, healing spells were only really effective and reliable outside of combat, because they healed so little (a lot less than healing potions), had such poor range, and had very high casting times. Salim's healing power is high enough that his primary benefit to the party comes from his healing spells, and for most clerics, their greatest strength comes from non-combat healing and pre-combat buffs. Finally, I have a cleric that makes a difference in the thick of combat.
The Hexer:
Gimuken is much less powerful than I had thought. Even without offering a saving throw, it's not clear the hexes and curses are much use. Having a -3 penalty to saves, damage, and THAC0 for 6 rounds is pretty nice, but that hex is a 5th level spell, and the area of effect is no better than Hold Person. Is it really any better than a Greater Command spell, or Chaotic Commands, or Raise Dead, Mass Cure, Magic Resistance, or Righteous Magic? Plus, the synergy is really terrible: the party isn't very heavy on disablers, so the save penalties don't mean much. Adoniki, our sorcerer, has many purposes, and disablers are only occasionally her best option, even with hexes to bolster her power. Nor can we flood the area with Fireballs, since fire resistance is a lot harder to get in SR. Finally, with our party's weapon range fairly restricted (half the party is a divine spellcaster, and one of them doesn't use weapons, which means we aren't even using IR's heavily nerfed Darts of Wounding or Darts of Stunning. Hopefully he'll be of more use when he gets his 7th-level Hexer spell, which has a whole bunch of crazy disablers, and not just little penalties.
The Brute:
Only three party members actually attack on normal occasions, and Blood Howard has about 60-70% of the party's kills. His damage output is quite strong, and with his stats corrected, he should be landing more criticals. Likewise, he really is suffering in terms of his defenses. His AC has yet to drop below 0, even though he's our main tank. Fortunately for us, Item Revisions offers a truly marvelous set of leather armor: the Orc Leather, which grants an amazing 20% resistance to physical damage, equivalent to full plate mail. Bloody Howard could be all but invincible once he gets Hardiness and the Fortress Shield. @Demivrgvs may have simply intended the Orc Leather +2 to be a stronger leather armor, but it's actually one of the best armors in the game. At first I thought it was a mistake, but the item description lists both the base 5% standard leather resistance on top of the 15% unique bonus resistance. Either way, Bloody Howard will be somewhat less easy to kill. A Brute is not like a Kensai, whose penalties can be overcome with a necklace from BG1.
The Sorcerer:
With frequent rests, this build is actually noticeably better than the normal sorcerer, at least with Spell Revisions installed. The greater spell variety opens up a lot of new options. But the low number of spell slots is also felt very strongly: often, Adoniki chooses her spells not based upon what her best option is, but on what spell levels she needs to save for later on. Overall, it's about as balanced as the original, but it's also more fun.
The Soulbinder:
I've finally reached a point where Molly's song is more or less balanced. Now, her song lasts 12 seconds (but still triggers every 6 seconds) and grants +2 to hit, damage, saves, and AC, and +1 to casting speed, but the imbuement penalties are the same. This means that the bonuses with the song are equal to the penalties without the song. It also means that the Soulbinder will remain an important party member even for the most coldhearted power gamer such as myself: it is not practical to take a Soulbinder into the party, only to kick them out once the rest of the party has gotten some imbuements. The penalties from the Soulbinder's absence are too severe. Also, none of the imbuements have so far proven game-breaking. They are flashy and cool, but they don't render any battle inconsequential.
There is still, however, one way to abuse Soulbinders. You could always just create multiple Soulbinders in a multiplayer game and then kick all but one of them out after using their imbuement spells. Escape Chateau Irenicus with Charname and five Soulbinders, and your Charname can have a 50% boost to his her XP growth, double movement rate, and 100% magic resistance, and only one Soulbinder would be necessary to ameliorate the imbuement penalties. Start out in ToB with a Fighter/Mage, and they'll be summoning Planetars before they fight Illasera, and draining 5 levels with every melee attack.
Still, booting the Soulbinders isn't necessarily cost-free. You do still lose +4 to hit, damage, AC, and saving throws, and a +2 to casting speed, for each Soulbinder you remove from the party, since the songs stack. But every additional Soulbinder is one party member that's never swinging a sword or casting a spell.
Depending on the package, Improved Torgal or Improved De Arnise Keep grants the magical spells to the trolls. Obviously they change the trolls placement, number and sub race on the related maps. On the druid grove map, this is a bit different. Tactics Tougher Druid Grove always adds many creatures including trolls. In Stratagems this is a bit hidden and grouped in the minor encounters (bg2_tactical group). Even though the doc is explicit about the presence of this component, it does not tell you which creatures are deployed and the answer is : the same (just a cre file swap but no detectable difference for the user).
On our way to Candlekeep we had a run-in with a group of four bounty hunters. We dispatched them with relative ease (relying on proven tactics such as Faldorn’s Insect Plague and my bolts of dispelling), although there was one painful moment when I suffered a stab in the back from an invisible assassin.
Sadly, the party’s stay at Candlekeep didn’t pan out in the best possible way.
Right in front of the entrance to the citadel (and of the Keeper of the Portal, who refused to call the Watchers for help) they had to dispatch no less than five Ogre Mages, hired by Sarevok. Butch removed the creatures’ protections with his bolts of dispelling, allowing the others to finish the creatures off.
At the priests’ quarters Butch and company got a first hint of what was to come. They slew a Doppelganger that had taken the appearance of a Priest of Oghma. Sarevok and/or the Iron Throne had planned to replace Candlekeep’s inhabitants with Doppelgangers, they all agreed. To what purpose, Butch had no idea. There was no financial incentive to do so, for Candlekeep was not in competition with the Throne. Could it have been part of Sarevok’s personal crusade against Butch? All the rogue knew was that he had to hope he had arrived in time to stop Sarevok’s evil scheme.
The trapper stalked through the library halls to see who were there and what everyone was up to. Fortunately all of the familiar faces except Shistal, who had sadly been replaced by a Greater Doppelganger, recognized Butch and spoke coherently about both the past and the present. Apparently the infiltration operation had not yet been brought to completion.
In Gorion’s chamber Butch found a letter from his late foster father, revealing to him that he was a child of Bhaal, the evil Lord of Murder who had been slain during the Time of Troubles when gods walked the realms. Anticipating his own death Bhaal had forced himself on women of all races. According to wise Alaundo, the founder of Candlekeep, the children of Bhaal would fight each other until only one remained. Bhaal would reclaim his divine essence from the last of his children.
The rogue was remarkably unmoved after reading Gorion’s letter. “I’m my own man,” he said to himself. “I refuse to be some dead deity’s puppet. Can you hear me, voice in the dark? Thank you for giving me your healing and curing powers, but I can’t be bought and I'm not playing your game.”
Butch shared the news openly with his comrades, offering them to go separate ways if his tidings made them lose trust in him. Ajantis was the only one to really consider leaving, but even he was eventually convinced that Butch’s cool refusal to hunt for the throne of Bhaal was expressed in earnest.
Butch got the first kill, Tuth, with a backstab and poisonous bolts, and Quayle Held a second Iron Throne member (Kestor).
In the halls and catacombs below Candlekeep Butch plundered a number of locked and trapped chests, finding a Robe of the Neutral Archmagi and a Holy Goblet (which gives a Paladin or LG Cleric a daily Chant ability if I’m not mistaken) but no tomes. The party also slew several Doppelgangers that had been working to take the forms of Butch’s friends and acquaintances from Candlekeep. It was heartening for Butch that he had arrived just in time to thwart Sarevok and to save the people of Candlekeep from a terrible fate.
On their way out the party met a group of adventurers that were less than happy to see them. Unprepared for battle, Butch and company fled through a narrow corridor into a small area inhabited by bats. They hoped to bottleneck their opponents as they had done so successfully at the Iron Throne headquarters in Baldur’s Gate. Prat, their leader, had a way to work around this though. He Dimension Doored right into the party’s midst where he promptly Dominated Yeslick and struck down Quayle.
We left Candlekeep as outlaws, much as I had feared after Yeslick's, and eventually *our* assault on the Iron Throne leaders. Knowing that we had to fear not only Sarevok's assassins and bounty hunters but also the Flaming Fist, we decided to wait with returning to Baldur's Gate. Instead we did some exploring in some of the areas surrounding Beregost. In a cave we slew various monsters and wild animals, and we met four spectres that required a vampiric sword, which we didn't possess, to end their undead existence.
In Beregost we decided to see if we could deal with one of the several factions that were after us, the 'Section'. We found the entrance to their base, and battled our way past a number of their guards until a group of higher-ups teleported us to their leaders, the 'Committee', in a large, heavily guarded room. We immediatelt moved to a corner where we slew several guards before the Committee could intervene.
Ideally our wrecking of the Committee and several of their subordinates served as an inspiration for the Section to focus their self-proclaimed righteous actions elsewhere, but I decided not to count on it.
In the context of their outlaw status and the advisability to ‘lay low’ for some time, the companions decided to revisit Durlag’s Tower. Butch dreaded the Tower after what had happened to Shar-Teel there, but he had accepted an assignment from Hurgan, a Dwarf in Ulgoth’s Beard who had claimed to be a distant relative of the late Durlag himself. The party was to retrieve a dagger for the Dwarf and would receive an enchanted Warhammer, a good weapon for Yeslick, in return.
On their way to the Tower, Butch paid his friend Nalin a visit to see how Imoen, Isra, Kagain, Kivan, and Shar-Teel were doing. To his embarrassment it had been nearly three tendays since he last checked on his former companions. Butch was very glad to find all five of them in a much better condition than they had been in the last time. Imoen was physically weak still, but otherwise very much her old self. She was thinking of traveling to Beregost as soon as she was a bit stronger, to ask Firebead Elvenhair to train her in the arcane arts. Butch updated Isra on recent developments regarding Sarevok and the Throne. She said she would soon travel to Amn to report those tidings to her Paladin order of the Ruby Rose. Kagain, the toughest of Butch’s friends, was pretty much fully recovered. He told Butch he was willing to rejoin him later, but first he had some business to attend to. He wasn’t very specific to Butch, but the rogue understood that the Dwarf wanted to reopen his mercenary company, albeit it in a different set-up. Kagain's plans could include Butch should he be interested, the Dwarf had said. Shar-Teel, the last of Butch’s companions to suffer near fatal injuries, and Kivan were still unfit for adventuring though Nalin had hopes that they too would eventually fully recover.
Butch felt good after his reunion with these old friends (really not that old, he had only met them in the past six months, but much had happened that made the period seem longer).
In the cellars below Durlag’s Tower Quayle found a hidden door that led to what would turn out to be a series of underground levels. I had not forgotten about the many traps, some of which I had failed to disarm or even discern, on the upper levels. Thankfully I had honed my trap detection skills since then, and I had an ample collection of potions of perception to help me find and disarm any snares. I had Quayle cast Invisibility on me, and set out to explore the first underground level by myself. Unlike the plain upper levels, this floor had a rather complex design. It was built around a spacious hall with a well in the middle, covered by a locked trapdoor, and guarded by four motionless Dwarves. At first I thought they were statues but upon closer inspection their eyes looked very real. Around the large hall there were corridors that led to several different smaller rooms: a bedchamber, a forge, a treasury, and a trophy room, among others. I realized that Durlag and his family and greater clan had made their home underground rather than on the upper levels, very Dwarflike.
I encountered and ignored numerous monsters (Flesh Golems, Doppelgangers, Skeletons, and Spiders), focusing solely on my task of removing the traps. I actually missed one, thankfully not a lethal one. When I returned to my comrades I informed them of my findings. We dispatched the monsters, struggling only with the (Greater) Doppelgangers as they repeatedly Dire Charmed Yeslick.
[This was a courtesy of the Item Randomizer. Unfortunately Butch had started out with 16 STR, so reading the second tome ‘only’ brought him to 18 STR. I believe DSotSC adds another STR tome, on a LE merchant-wizard in the Wood of Sharp Teeth, but I’m not sure about that.]
Curious as we were, we decided to show ourselves to the Dwarven warders of the well. They spoke, urging us to bring them different items we could find or assemble in some of the rooms we had already explored: a bottle of wine, a gong mallet, a gemstone and a key to be precise. When we handed those items the Dwarves attacked us. Quayle, Keiria and Faldorn were still invisible, but Ajantis, Yeslick and I weren’t. The three of us fled in different directions, dispersing our attackers. It enabled us to fell the Dwarves one at a time.
This second level was similar to the previous level in that it consisted in a warren of corridors and halls and chambers, and that it was guarded. However apart from conventional guards (as in physical protectors), the place was also guarded with an intricate security system that locked or opened doors depending on specific actions such as picking up one item or touching another item. Some actions would cause one door to be opened and another to be locked at the same time. As before, I scouted each section we entered for possible traps. After some experimentation we managed to open all the doors. It was then merely a matter of looting the place, good for a Greenstone Amulet and some enchanted weapons and armor, and dispatching the warders. We had difficulty once again with a quartet of Greater Doppelgangers (initially disguised as some of Durlag Trollkiller’s close relatives) when Keiria was Horrored during the casting of a spell. As we were no longer protected by Keiria’s song, Ajantis was forced to save against another Horror which, thankfully, he did
The next level was very different from the previous ones, much simpler. I liked it. We found ourselves right in front of a round chamber with a fountain-like structure in the middle. However, rather than being the source of water, it let off fireballs every few seconds. I found no snare or mechanism that caused the explosions, so we decided to take advantage of the moments between the explosions to run one after the other to a door on our right.
We stepped into a very large hall that showcased the skeletal remains of a massive Wyrm, allegedly slain by Durlag himself. A speaking Skeleton warned us of three Greater Wyverns nearby and advised us to animate a number of statues of fallen heroes behind it to help us slay the Wyverns. I did animate some of the statues, but the heroes weren’t very effective against the monsters. In the end I dispatched the Wyverns myself with attacks from the shadows.
I was never fond of magic, at least not as an instrument of combat. There was magic I respected and even considered desirable for myself in the exercise of my vocation as a spy and investigator, Divination magic for example. But spells that confused an opponent in the heat of combat, or that made a typically weakling wizard suddenly untouchable, or that summoned forth all manner of monsters from the Gods know where, were all reprehensible in my view, corrupt, treacherous.
I was aware that I was no warrior, and I had always taken a certain pleasure in my independence of magic, using instead my physical abilities to the fullest, my agility, my stealth, even my talent with snares and contraptions to overcome seemingly stronger opposition.
As a mercenary I understood well enough that the end often justified the means. But even so, I had always tried to be a fair and honest man. Resorting to mind and magic tricks like the ones I just mentioned were hard to reconcile with my concepts of fairness and honesty. And yet, here I found myself, with my artificially increased intelligence and with Imoen’s decision to train herself as a mage on my mind, wondering whether it would be a good idea for me to try and study the arcane arts as well.
Four ‘elemental rooms’ brought me back to the business we had at hand. They seemed to serve no purpose but to send nosey folk like ourselves to their deaths. We battled a Polar Bear and Winter Wolves in an ice room, a Fission Slime in an earth room, an Air Aspect and Invisible Stalkers in an air room, and finally two explosive Phoenix Guards in a fire room. When he had slain those last two, Quayle told Ajantis in his typically sardonic way that he felt a crescent teleportation spell was soon going to take us elsewhere.
We knew not what to expect, so Quayle turned us all invisible. Moments later we were indeed teleported away. We arrived in a room that consisted of little else than a giant chessboard, with animated pieces opposite us. A male voice that came from above us said that we had to beat the other side in order to be free again and continue with our exploration of the tower. The side whose King fell first, would lose the game. As there was no way out, we had ittle choice but to agree to play. We immediately discovered that it wasn’t going to be an ordinary game of chess, for the opposing pieces attacked all at once. It seemed there were no rules, other than the requirement to keep one’s King alive. (I didn’t even know who our King was, so I wanted all of us to stay alive at that point more than ever.)
Those of us who didn’t normally enjoy Free Action all drank potions of freedom as Faldorn dropped two or three Webs on the middle of the chessboard. Yeslick summoned two Skeletons to our side. We first slew a few Pawns that had made it to our side of the board before Faldorn cast her first Web,
After our chess victory we were able to proceed to a fourth and final underground level. It was pretty straightforward in its design due to half of the area being comprised of a complex of caverns (with highly acidic pools in them, painful to the touch). The other half of the level consisted of two larger rooms – a hall inhabited by spiders, and a large pantry – and three or four smaller rooms, including a forge room. Our task was pretty straightforward as well. A Durlag apparition told us, cryptically, that we had to find three wardstones in order to open a sealed door. We found one in the forge, one in the room with the Spiders, and one in the caverns, on a Ghoul Lord we slew.
With the wardstones we removed the seal and then passed through the door to enter a small storage room. There we defeated a party of unnecessarily hostile adventurers with relative ease (I respected them nonetheless for having made it so far down).
We decided against using the mirror, and we wouldn’t regret that decision. The Death Knight was unsusceptible to Quayle’s wand-paralyzation attempts, cast Symbol: Pain and Power Word: Blind at Ajantis and Yeslick, and injured the others (including myself) with Ice Sheets.
The party didn’t immediately travel back to Ulgoth’s Beard to hand Hurgan the dagger as they left Durlag’s Tower behind them. First they decided to see if they could enter the nearby Firewine Ruins using Charleston Nib’s scroll. They could, but they found it a dangerous place, with Ju-Ju Zombies and Vampires (which prompted Ajantis, Yeslick and Butch to use Protection from Undead scrolls) roaming about, and with Astral Phase Spiders and Sword Spiders occupying the souterrain.
A separate part of the Ruins was inhabited by Kobolds, led by a hostile Human wizard and an Ogre Mage. The companions slew the evildoers without difficulty thanks to Butch’s dispelling bolts.
En route to Ulgoth’s beard Butch thought about how much of a hassle it had been to obtain the dagger, and considered renegotiating the deal with Hurgan. Eventually he decided not to, mainly because their second excursion to Durlag’s Tower had been a profitable venture in its own right.
Upon arrival in Ulgoth’s Beard they found the village flooded with nondescript cultists. One of them knicked the Soutaker Dagger from Ajantis and made off; others attacked. They were no threat to the party, which at that point was a well-trained unit. Keiria would go invisible, singing her battlesong unless/until her emergency spells were needed (which wasn’t the case in Ulgoth’s Beard). Quayle went invisible as well after he got hit twice. Like Keiria he would only interfere if the situation called for it. Faldorn cast her usual Insect Plague and Chromatic Orbs.
Personally, that was a deal-breaker for me but I went along with Hurgan's wish for Ajantis, whom I knew I would want by my side when facing Sarevok and his cronies, and whose friendship I had come to appreciate, remarkably enough. Ajantis considered going after the dagger and if necessary fighting the Nabassu of the utmost importance.
My relationship with Ajantis was a complicated one. On the one hand I considered him my brother-in-arms, and possibly the most capable warrior I’d had in my company, along with Kagain. And he in turn had complimented me on my prowess (and even my virtue) on multiple occasions. There was a deep mutual respect, and besides, a mutual trust between the Waterdhavian and me. On the other hand, as a Paladin, Ajantis followed the tenets of his patron deity Helm and his own insatiable desire to serve the good races, whereas I was first and foremost a survivor and a mercenary. I couldn’t fathom why one would risk their own life to help a stranger in need. Wasn’t survival the main purpose of life? My cruel awakening after Gorion’s death, the bounty hunters and assassins that had sought to kill me at every turn, had taught me just that. But it was not Ajantis’ way. Truth be told, my life had not solely revolved around survival. I had had my pleasures as well: the heists I had pulled off at the Travenhurst and Silvershield estates, or the nightly delights I had shared with Branwen, to name a few. But those were things I knew Ajantis didn’t approve of either. Of course there were the friendships with my companions, including Ajantis himself. I had put my life at stake for them and I was willing do so again if necessary. But to do the same for strangers was a lot to ask of me. I felt I had a hard enough time staying alive as it was and I didn’t feel the need to endanger myself any further. Nevertheless Ajantis had me thinking about my purpose in life, once my business with Sarevok was all over. I realized that as much as I considered myself more akin to a free-lance like Kagain, or a vigilante like Kivan, it was probably a good thing for my conscience that I had Ajantis with me. Who knows what dark paths I might have trodden in the company of the likes of Shar-Teel or to a lesser extent Kagain.
Inside the lair of the cultists, the party dispatched more demon disciples. Butch then descended to an open ritual chamber where he saw more cultists, as well as the already gated Nabassu. He swiftly retreated when he sensed the fiend attempting to lock him in its death gaze. The rogue was quite vexed when he informed his comrades about what he had witnessed, and decided to ask how the others felt about simply leaving the place. As expected, Ajantis was eager to fight the Nabassu, and much to Butch’s chagrin, so were most of the others. Everyone except Quayle. The party went downstairs, slew the ritualists first, which wasn’t too hard as they had been too caught up in their ritual to be battle-ready,
Besides using its teleportation powers, the fiend used an ability to go ethereal and regenerate, and it kept Silencing the party constantly. The Silencing could have been a huge problem, as it could have prevented Death Gazed party members from being cured by caster companions. However, the fiend for some reason decided to rely on its level-draining claws rather than its deadly gaze to defeat the party. This proved to be its downfall. Although the creature managed to level-drain Yeslick, Quayle and Ajantis, it wasn’t enough to kill any of them. Eventually it was Ajantis who slew the fiend, banishing it back to its hellish plane.
On their way out, Reedrig, the monk they had released from the Orcs in the Fields of the Dead came up to Ajantis with an interesting story. Apparently he had been a member of an occult order called the Order of the Black Hand. They were located in the Wood of Sharp Teeth. Together with the cultists that had gated the Nabassu, the Cult of the Black Hand had wanted to gate an even more powerful demon, a Prince of Baalors.
Butch decided for himself that this was going to be the last unpaid job he would carry out before returning to Baldur’s Gate to deal with the Iron Throne. After that he could finally decide for himself what he wanted to do with his life, and with whom. This concerned not only Ajantis or soft-spoken but high-principled Keiria, but also Faldorn. The two respected each other’s abilities, but he had no doubt that the Druid would leave the party as soon as Sarevok was dealt with, and he was fine with that. Their partnership had never become a friendship due to their widely differing worldviews and the female’s rigid character.
Butch, a skilled sneaksman, scouted the woods for the base of the Order of the Black Hand, a temple, and single-handedly dispatched thirteen hostile monks in black soutanes. This was no small feat, for the monks were able marksmen with their Ripper bows, and they fired arrows of piercing and detonation at him.
The Cultists didn't carry OP stuff. They all had +2 Ripper bows and +1 Maces. The Half-Orc boss had a fairly nice robe (good AC) but not very useful to any of Butch's party members.
Butch is gone. I can't be bothered with doing a detailed write-up (there's only so many hours in a day), so what follows is a short overview. Butch's return to Baldur's Gate was a big success. With his companions he saved Duke Eltan from a Greater Doppelganger poisoner,
Angelo,
The party disbanded shortly after saving Baldur's Gate. Faldorn and Yeslick returned to the Cloakwood to report back to Amarande and to see if the mines could be reopened, respectively. Ajantis traveled to Amn, to report to his mentor Lord Firecam about his experiences on the Sword Coast. Quayle, Keiria and Butch continued together, and were joined by a Half-Elven Cleric, Jet'Laya, and a Drow Assassin, Vynd. The rest is history. Rather than seeing the companions off to Amn, or having them help Jet'Laya in her search after her lost sister, Blackraven thought it was a nice idea for the new party to check whether Hae'Ball, the solitary merchant that dwelled in his Larswood tower could be pickpocketed for a Manual of Gainful Exercise. The hermit had other plans though. Before a first pickpocketing attempt could be made, he was already hostile, as if he had foreboded the party's scheme. A Nature's Beauty did both Butch and Keiria in.
I've created two new characters: Zelda, a female LE Anti-Paladin (a nerfed version of Weimer's Tactics mod kit), and Ace, a CG, Morte-voiced Dwarven Swashbuckler. The former inspired by a desire to try a genuinely evil playthrough, something I might not be capable of, and the latter inspired by what I consider to be a great portrait that I stumbled upon while reading a WotC guide on the different planes. Love it when a portrait is so good that it decides the character for you - much better than spending hours searching for a fitting portrait for the character you have in mind.
Ace is first. It's been a while since I last played a fun, laid back type of guy, so this should be a nice change as far as the roleplaying is concerned. I feel like running a party again, first of all because I enjoyed it with Butch, and secondly because it would be nice to improve my pitiable track record with parties (last one to reach SoA was Serene's, the Beast Mistress whose run ended a year ago in earlyish SoA after a weird bug).
Here's Ace:
Edit: I forgot to mention: Ace's personal item (I sometimes grant those) is a Rogue's hat that protects against criticals and fear effects, a RR item normally only for sale in Baldur's Gate. It just fits Ace too well.
Update:
Ace wasn't meant to become a hero. Sneaking stealthily past a Dire Wolf and some overpowered Dark Horizons scum, he went alone after the Rogue Ogre south of the FAI. When he began kiting the Ogre he discovered that a Dark Horizons priestess, Malious, had followed him (while he was still invisible. Then this happened:
Time for another solo attempt I think.
http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/38312/the-party-of-spiders-no-reload-scs2-run/p1
I only just completed it. It runs from Chateau Irenicus to the Throne of Bhaal, and features an all-spellcaster party that focuses on dealing physical damage rather than its spellpower or summons. The idea was to find out how spellcasters can do the job of fighters--how to improve their THAC0, increase their APR, and boost their damage. Turns out they make good fighters at all stages of the game, though they're a lot less flexible and require a lot of micromanagement.
I don't think I will return to Molly's run. The party composition made little conceptual sense, since the Soulbinder kit just screams good-aligned... and the only other good-aligned party member besides Molly was Salim, our Beholder Cleric. It didn't feel quite right, though it did help test out and balance the kits.
Now I just need to figure out how to make a Weidu mod. I've got seven very strange but quite functional and fairly balanced kits already set up.
You have to create a tp2 file with the commands that the binary will interpret at run time. (setup-spidermod.tp2)
And you are very likely to use a text file with the descriptions of the new kits/items/spells - anything requiring a new string reference that weidu will add to the dialog.tlk file for you. This file can be translated into another language and the translation can be taken into account with a minimal effort.
The tp2 structure is explained in the chapter 9 of the weidu documentation.
If all your files are ready (noticeably the 2da files for your kits) then the component section of your kit will primarily contain a double command : ADD_KIT (or COPY_KIT) and if you want your kit to be deployed on ee you also need fl#add_kit_ee (which is not fully integrated into the usual weidu structure), the documentation of which is a bit hidden under the weidu/lib/fl#add_kit_ee directory of the weidu package.
See this additional documentation for BG2 (pre EE, a few things have changed, see also ToBEx if you target the original games).
http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=584
http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=612
http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=898
http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=939
and here for EE (in addition to the official documentation):
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/34119/how-to-making-kit-mods-for-the-ee/p1
The troupe, often relying on Tiax's Ghast, whom they called Stinky, did most of the smaller quests on the Coast Way between the FAI and Nashkel. This included with the dangerous likes of Dark Horizons' Tristan and Isolde,
South of Mutamin's Garden, in the Ulcaster area, Hobgoblins were slain for a (second) pair of Boots of Stealth, and in nearby Gullykin a sixth member joined the clique: Alora, a Fighter/Sharpshooter. (The Sharpshooter kit is a Song & Silence thief kit that gets the advantages of allowing GM in ranged weapons and a poison ranged weapon ability every 4 levels, but they can't backstab.)
I realized that I'd get a lot of poison this way, which wasn't really planned as I'd already kitted Monty, Tiax and Alora this way with the Level 1 NPCs mod. Considered changing one of them but decided not to bother.
So the party consists of two Cleric/Thieves, two Fighter/Thieves, and two Cleric/Illusionists.
Vicky was saved from a particularly dangerous, spell casting FF mercenary thanks to three simultaneous Hold Persons.
When the party went Ankheg hunting, Rollick reluctantly became the party's tank, donning a suit of Ankheg armor. The reason for this was that he had the highest HPs with Tiax and Monty, but the latter two were more effective ranged attackers with their poisons (even though Monty had only one pip in Darts). The campaign went well though, with only one Ankheg forcing Rollick to swig three or four healing potions. The only treasure of note in the Ankheg hoard was a Ring of Energy.
Tenya took plenty of hits but refused to ask the troupe to help her against the fishermen; she fell.
On the bridge to Baldur's Gate, combined Hold Persons and poisons allowed GHAST to dispatch a band of Elven warriors who had come after Rollick.
Firewine Ruins were canceled after the shorties saw this:
In the Valley of the Tombs, Narcillicus was paralyzed, and the undead were dealt with by Rollick, who had cast PfUndead on himself. One of the tombs contained a Belt of Crushing (the party's second one after one they had bought at the Nashkel Carnival). In Nashkel, the Amnish Soldiers injured Nimbul for the party (that had lain in wait for this to happen). A bolt of dispelling from Alora's crossbow and a good hit from Montaron then did hthe assassin in.
The companions are all level 4/5ish at this point.
I can't believe how poor a no-reloader I still am (especially with parties), even after a zillion attempts in the past 15 months. Not for the first time did babysitting Charname's vulnerable companions prove fatal. Rollick's bane was hasted Morvin, with his ridiculous Dwarven War Axe +2 (1d8 +2 plus 1d6 backswing bonus on a failed save vs death, +1 APR, +1 Dex, +1 AC).
Attached is the text of the TP2 file (as a .txt file, since I can't post the actual TP2 file). I'm not sure what I need to add, or correct, to get things working. Any ideas? @Demivrgvs?
Syntax: the triple end at the bottom of your file is not required.
There are other comments about your package. I will directly write them in your file and post the package here. (this evening european time).
a bit ahead of schedule...
NOT a functional package as I do not have your spells and kit files but I included several comments. See the tp2 file.
Moved to weidu 238 (latest stable release).
After three party runs that ended somwhere in BG1, I couldn't be bothered with another slow start, so Dapper set out with Imoen, his BFF whom he'd never ditch, as a duo during the early part of the game. Imoen as per my current install is a Charming Rogue (basically a Thief kit created for her, it gives her spells like Charm Person, Friends, Invisibility, and Magic Missile as she levels up). As I started this run with the idea of getting a team of nice (as in kind) and mostly caster NPCs, I consider dualing her at lvl 9.
The duo did the low risk quests we all know along the Coast Way. Shield and Remove Fear meant that for Dapper the threat of Tarnesh was reduced to Sleep. He did Sleep Imoen, but not Dapper who had been a bit behind. The Gnome put Tarnesh to Sleep and then finished the wizard off with his sling.
With a few levels under their belt the friends went Basilisk hunting. Imoen used her stealth and an innate Invisibility to scout, while Dapper protected himself from Petrification and fought the Basilisks. He was helped by his familiar (Hard Times swaps the Ring of Wizardry at the FAI with a Find Familiar scroll), that would kick the lizards unconscious
Dapper reached lvl 4/4 in Mutamin's Garden.
A dust-up with Kirian and co, ended in me reloading twice as Peter proved unkillable. Even when Held and/or Webbed, he would repeatedly go from uninjured to barely injured back to uninjured while under constant attack. My guess is that Holding him while his SCS battle script was being effectuated caused this bug. The duo eventually prevailed by Silencing and Webbing the bunch, and Blinding those that saved against the Webs.
Up north Tenya was convinced to accept rather than reject the duo's help. Sonner was slain for his Flail evil deeds. The Ankheg hoard was pillaged under Sanctuary. Whilst commuting between the Fishermen and Tenya, the party - inevitaby, with Blackraven in charge - once forgot to steer clear from the Dark Horizons Elven warriors on the bridge to BG. Like most DH encounters, this was hard. Their leader who had come walking after Dapper and Imoen was Blinded, Held, and done in, but others, especially a female rogue that went invisible, didn't cooperate so readily.
In Beregost the party pre-buffed and summoned Skeletons to deal with Silke. This allowed recruitment of a fifth member, Garrick. (I had purposely not kitted him with level 1 NPCs as I had a mod installed that gives plain Bards the IWD special songs. However, those songs somehow didn't work, so I ended up kitting him as a Skald. Some of my readers will have noticed by now that I really like Skalds, even in a party that's low on warriors.) At the Nashkel Carnival the party met Archibald, who gave Garrick a tome about little-known heroes. This triggered his personal quest. After defeating Greywolf (Blindness), the party went looking for one of the heroes mentioned in the book Myr'Cutio, a Bard, near Ulcaster school. Myr'Cutio had become an undead abomination, much to his own displeasure, and with his Zombie friends decided to fight, in order to either sate their bloodlust or be released from their undead existence. The party ensured the latter, using Skeletons to make the undead Bard waste his most dangerous spells before they slew him with physical attacks.
Shoal and her Water Weird were handled without casualties (mostly through evasion). Droth went Silent and Blind before he fell. And then Shoal was mistakenly talked to (for 750 XP) rather than slain (for 5k XP).
Party members meant admittedly cheesy invisible walls behind which tough foes, such as Flesh Golems (the cave contained a Lightning Wand and a Robe of the Neutral Archmagi), and Dark Horizons' assassins in front of the Gnoll fortress could safely be attacked.
The party traveled to the area south of the FAI, where one of three assassins slew my low lvl Dwarven Swashbuckler (Ace) last weekend. Vengeance would come at a cost though. Dapper escaped with his life, quaffing a potion of invisibility immediately after being stabbed in the back,
The culprit, Necardian was a lvl 11/11 Mage/Thief I found in Shadowkeeper, not the type you want to run into on your way to the FAI, just after Gorion's death. His right hand, Phallus Phallen Nightsbane, was a lvl 8/8 Mage/Thief with a mean backstab as well, as Finch would discover.
Garrick who had stayed near Ajantis to provide moral support, was then the only character within visual range of the assassins. Necardian's Oracle dispelled Garrick's invisibility and - illegally I think - that of the remote others.
Unwilling to leave the area and lose Ajantis' and Dynaheir's equipment, Dapper chose to use a scroll of Confusion he had found somewhere (can't remember the location, probably something random). It caused Nightblade to wander off toward the companions, who warmly received the rogue, so that Dapper could finish him off without difficulty.
After this spectacle, Bassilus (Silence) was comparatively routine, but the Nashkel Mines brought more tragedy. A paralyzation wand helped a lot against the Duergar, and welcomely so, what with incoming Kobolds injuring Dapper, Imoen and Finch.
The companions released Xan (Fighter/Enchanter), gave him his Moonblade and agreed to his proposal to join them. Narcillicus spell repertoire was drained with Skeletons, then Garrick cast a Dispel Magic on the mage, and Xan slew him with a critical. Ajantis and Xan quaffed a potion of freedom each and dealt with the undead in the region.
My cleric/illusionist is one of my favorite charname, the name's Blue ... and her ferret Mignardise !
My only remaining problem is that I don't know how to install a non-fighter kit. To create a Phase Spider druid kit, for example, I copied all of the fighter files into a new folder, and edited the TP2 document to replace the fighter version with the druid version. Incidentally, the CLAB files, spell files, item files, and effect files are all the same, regardless of whether the spider is a mage or a thief. Problem is, when I install the druid version, it just adds that kit to the fighter menu. So on character creation, I can choose two extra kits for fighters, one of which is the druid kit (CLABPHDR) and one of which is the fighter kit (CLABPHFI), but no extra kits for druids.
Attached is the folder with the TP2 files, the setup .exe, a readme, and the files for the override folder. What do I need to do to make this fighter kit into a druid kit? You also pointed out there was no check to see if ToB were installed. How do I limit the installation so it won't install on potentially incompatible SoA-only games?
Thanks again!