Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer trilogy attempt 125 (Part 123 4) Froy and Wymp continued their travels. Froy looted the secret library of scrolls, failing to learn some but a little bit of care and planning saw the duo loot the nearby crypts and meet up with Prat.
By the time they returned to Baldur's Gate the Coronation of Sarevok was due to start. Not so fast.
With his plans in tatters, Sarevok teleported away and Belt sent the duo off after him. Rahvin and his mercenaries had spent too long waiting outside an old temple and didn't hear anyone sneak past them.
Semaj and Sarevok put up a reasonable fight and used their multiplayer wiles to almost kill Wymp but ultimately failed.
Siege of Dragonspear - not much need to spoiler this.
"Well done" said Belt. "Now, if you can just clean up the last of Sarevok's cohorts. Froy and Wymp shrugged and next thing they knew, they were shinning down a rope. Poiros made a brief appearance across a glowing cavern and a group of mercenaries fell to Cloudkill. This looks easy, though Froy, as Wymp opened a door. Wymp scowled as Poiros ignored her high charisma to talk to the less popular Froy, and turned hostile.
Froy had been summoning a skeleton and managed to do so as Wymp staggered back with an arrow embedded into her. Poison ticked away at Wymp so Froy used a special ability to stem it and the two casters turned to the enemy caster. Another arrow hit Wymp and she ran, Froy chasing to use her second slow poison ability. Both of us had Boots of Speed so we thought we'd be OK, but the almost unseen Elite Mercenary must have previously gulped an oil of speed and was constantly at the edge of his bow range.
By the time Froy reached Wymp, the mercenary had already hit Froy once and the brief stop for casting was enough for him to land two more arrows and Froy slumped to the ground for a comprehensive SoD drubbing. & Post-mortem from Grond0's screenshot.
One night in Beregost, up early, dragged Edwin off the concubines, picked up more arrows, then headed north. Up to the FAI, dropped off some boots, wine and a spider body ( yeah Branwyn, totally hilarious when you put that in my pack, just look at me laughing here), then turn left.
Trundling along minding our own business when a Drow ran up begging for help. The FF guard wanted to kill her so Branwyn lectured him about the oppresion of women, Kivan said it was remarkable a dark elf could look so much like his lost Deheiriananana, Edwin drooled. Couldn't let that happen so now we have a new member, Viconia.
Willing fighter but weak as a kitten, got a mouth on her like nobody's business, (wouldn't mind that but I get lumped in with the, in her opinion, useless men) and level 6 cleric, nice, more skellies. Finally someone to use the Stupifyer, she had to get the ankheg, Branwyn was displeased but suffered in silence as she wanted to show solidarity with the oppressed, (didn't like to point out Drow society is a matriarchy and quite frankly, treat the men appalingly).
Kivan went ahead and used his ranger skills to spy on the bandit camp and came back with some bad news. There are bloody hundreds of them, we are going to need a bigger group. Quick conference, "I must kill Tazok" "My arcane might will kill them all when it gets a bit better" "I've only got a +1 flail and no ankheg plate" "I think we should head south to Amn" "I didn't get rescued to be killed on a suicide mission". Upshot being, come back later.
So back to the FAI, missed the path and went too far north. Killed some ankhegs, retrieved a body (no reload, invisi potions, such cowardice I was downright ashamed), decided to take the ankheg shells to Beregost for another set of armour.
While waiting for armour to be made, thought we'd tackle that rude adventuring group who had killed poor, already undead, whathisname (would that be murder if it came to court?) Just in case, Branwyn and Viconia up front with petrification protection and summoned skellies, the rest at the back ranged. Just as well, had completely forgotten there was still a nutty gnome wandering around and one more Basilisk. Skellies tackled the hyperactive gnome, B and V went after the basilisk, protection wore off, B was petrified, ironic huh?
Trudged back picked up a scroll, rescued Branwyn...again....none the worse for wear. Killed the group (web), got loot, didn't know what it was...again..... "Edwin why can't you use a spell to identify this stuff?" "It's my opposing school" "Oh right, so if I learn how to count I can't learn how to read?" "It doesn't work like that and I have no intention of explaining the mysteries of the arcane to a simian like yourself" "You don't know, Edwin doesn't know, nah, nah, Edwin's stupid" Kivan's really coming out of his shell nowadays.
Back to Beregost, armour still not made, decide to hunt this Bassilus, the money's too good to pass up. He had an army of skellies, so did we, and ours didn't collapse when asked an awkward question. Killed a really stupid hobgoblin group who didn't seem to notice our army of skellies when they demanded our cash.
Picked up the new armour, Branwyn's happy, even happier with the new hammer. Picked up the reward from the temple............. and then it happened. "I'll just remove that curse you are under as you have served Bergost so well" The belt fell off and I was exposed, (not like that).
"That explains things" "You look like my lost Deheiriananana" "Well, hellooo" "It is at it should be for our leader to be a woman"
"Explains what?" "Every woman you meet looks like Deheiriananana to you.....and she was an elf???" "Hi Edwin, put your tongue back in and no you can't have the belt for research purposes" "Always was on the inside"
Cue explainations, apologies, and general clearing up of misunderstandings, followed by shopping and drinking.
I really don't need to fight Breudayael. I know he has great items, but we have plenty of high-quality resources as it is, and our party has no major weaknesses that I had not already addressed long ago.
I just want to see if I can beat him.
Breudayael is the most blatantly overpowered mod enemy I've ever seen, even in Tactics, even in Ascension, and even in Improved Anvil (though I haven't played Improved Anvil all the way through). I only tried to fight Breudayael once or twice, and I've never beaten him. I never was able to figure out how.
Breudayael is immune to Time Stop, permanently and undispellably invisible, and area-effect spells do absolutely nothing to him. I've never even been able to touch him.
And if you kill his wife, Anastacia, before you kill him, he instantly casts Imprisonment on the entire party, over and over again, from all the way across the map if necessary, and I've heard it bypasses SI: Abjuration. With my mods, even Yasraena's rage ability doesn't grant immunity to Imprisonment. You're supposed to keep Anastacia alive, safe in a different room, until Breudayael himself goes down.
Plus, Breudayael is a high-level mage in his own right. I've been able to handle epic-level mages before, but I did so by breaking down their defenses and attacking them. Which is not possible with Breudayael being permanently untargetable.
His circle never appears. You can never click on him. No attacking. No single-target spells. And he's immune to area-effect spells, too. And even if he wasn't, he's been re-casting Spell Trap every single second, which can absorb area-effect spells in SR, and absorbs 99 spell levels. So what can I do?
Now, if I had an epic-level thief, I could just kill him with traps. A Spike Trap does 70 magic damage; laying 7 of them would surely take him down. And even if my mods rigged Spike Trap so it did piercing damage instead, a Mage/Thief with just over 6 million XP could use Improved Alacrity to set 13 Spike Traps and deal about 210 damage even if Breudayael pre-buffed with the maximum 10 Stoneskins. But my only thief is Frisk, and even if they had hit epic levels, Seducers can't set traps.
What else could do it? Well, I do have plenty of bottles of Burning Oil. They're completely nonmagical, so they should go through Breudayael's Spell Trap.
But Breudayael has also been casting Protection from Fire, Cold, and Evil every single second.
He has 100% immunity to fire, and there's no way I could possibly dispel it. Breudayael is level 51, after all.
I scour my inventory and my spellbooks for something that could possibly strike past his invisibility and his spell protections and his resistances. I need to be able to kill him instantly; knowing his ludicrous immunities, I'm sure his spells would destroy us within a few rounds.
Then I notice something. Chara has a War Engine, an 953-pound Alchemist-exclusive weapon that deals massive fire damage, and partly ignores fire resistance. It was designed to give the Alchemist a cool and extremely dangerous way of fighting folks like Melissan. War Engines are hideously expensive and also impose a huge XP penalty to the user, and though you can get up to 5 different grades of them (the final one only comes at level 40, which requires over 11 million XP), you can only create one of each.
Ours is a Grade 2 War Engine. It can deal 30d6 fire damage with a save vs. breath at -5 for half damage, and fire resistance only works at 75% its normal level. If I combine it with the WoL trick, it might just be able to take down Breudayael!
I check Breudayael's stats. 136 HP, saving throws of 0, and his equipment grants another -2 to saves. And another 40% fire resistance. Even using the WoL trick to duplicate the War Engine's effect for 180d6 fire damage. Even if his effect fire resistance was 100% instead of 127% or 140%, he'd need to fail 5 out of 6 saving throws.
The odds of that happening are about 0.001%.
I can't do it with that War Engine. I'd need to have a stronger version to do anything.
Then I realize. Chara is already over level 15. That grade 2 War Engine was from level 11.
We have an upgrade! I poke around and find that we already purchased the new War Engine; it's hidden in our Bag of Holding. I check out its numbers.
The grade 3 War Engine does 50d6 damage with a save vs. breath at -6 for half damage, and fire resistance only works at 50% its normal level.
Even if Breudayael's effective fire resistance is 140% and he makes every saving throw, a grade 3 WoL War Engine should be able to take him down!
But how are we going to avoid retaliation? War Engines work by casting a spell with a casting time of 9; it would take 6 whole rounds for all of them to hit. During that time, Breudayael might heal himself or his wife might get caught in the crossfire, and if his wife dies while he still lives, the whole party gets Imprisoned. We need to do this safely.
I take four additional steps to ensure our safety. First, I have Chara cast Antimagic Shell, a level 6 mod spell from IWD.
It's effectively a Protection from Magic scroll that can be taken down with a Secret Word instead of a Spellstrike. It lasts about as long and grants the same spell level immunities, but the spell failure and disabled spellcasting are no problem; War Engines aren't affected by spell failure (they're machines, after all).
Why is Chara way out in that faraway hall, when Breudayael is in the northeast corner? Well, that's the second safety measure we need to take. We need to be able to escape at a moment's notice if I see Breudayael's wife get killed. It takes less than a second for those Imprisonment spells to start coming, so if we're too far from the exit, we might not be able to make it out in time.
I don't actually know if Antimagic Shell will block Imprisonment. If it could bypass SI: Abjuration, why couldn't it bypass spell level immunities? So we need to keep Chara close to the exit.
But how are we going to hit Breudayael from across the map?
The Wand of Lightning trick can do it.
That's the third step we need to take. See, the Wand of Lightning, like any single-target spell or item, can target an item on the ground; not just a living critter. You can click on targets all over the map using the Wand of Lightning, but as long as one of them is within view, the character doesn't need to be in range of the others to reach them with the wand. I forget which one it is, but it's either the 1st target or the 6th target that needs to be within view; the rest do not have to be.
By dropping an item close to Breudayael--but FAR from his wife, lest we roast her prematurely--and targeting it with the Wand of Lightning, we can launch 5 of the 6 War Engine blasts at Breudayael from all the way across the map.
But that's not enough. In the Enhanced Edition, casting speed bonuses apply to scrolls (and the War Engine is actually coded as a scroll), but Chara still won't be able to cast them all instantly. Chara has a pair of mod-introduced gloves that boost casting time by +2, plus the Amulet of Power to give another +1 and a dagger for another +1, but that only brings the War Engine spell's casting time from 9 to 5. With 5 spells going to Breudayael, that makes the whole operation take place over a total casting time of 25.
Breudayael would have 2.5 rounds, 15 seconds, to retaliate. That could be enough time for him to wander out of the radius or for his wife to wander into it. He might also heal himself and survive entirely. And I've seen mages teleport right to the party before, which also could let him escape.
That's the fourth measure we need to take. To ensure that Breudayael dies before his wife does, and before he has time to retaliate, we need to get that 5 casting time down to 1 or ideally 0.
To do that, Chara needs to equip Tragla's Doom, another mod dagger that grants +5 to casting time. Before I dare give them the dagger, I triple-check that Chara has the Ring of Human Influence equipped, lest the -5 Charisma penalty of Tragla's Doom instantly kill them.
By combining those mage gloves with the Amulet of Power and dual-wielding Tragla's Doom with another mod-introduced dagger, Chara can boost their casting by a total of 9, enough to cast the War Engine spell instantly.
Encased in an Antimagic Shell in the hopes that it can block Imprisonment, Chara uses the Wand of Lightning to launch one grade 3 War Engine blast next to the party, and another 5 grade 3 War Engine blasts all the way across the map, next to Breudayael but away from his wife.
Five fireballs worth 250d6 damage soar across the map, passing through solid stone walls, and instantly kill the most overpowered character I've ever seen in the Infinity Engine games.
The War Engine took 30,000 gold to produce, but there is a greater cost. Because Chara cast the spell 6 times, they have lost 300,000 XP in an instant, a setback that will weaken them for the entire saga.
There's a fireball in our way. I use Xan to get rid of it, as 100% fire resistance will only block half the damage.
We head on over to finish off Breudayael's wife, Anastacia. Anastacia is waiting for us, but does not go looking for us, allowing Frisk to try to charm her from around the corner.
This will take some time. I take a moment to look at a couple of Breudayael's items. I need to cast Identify on some of them, but we have enough lore to recognize two of the items. And they are just outrageously overpowered.
The ring is definitely going on Chara, but Chara will need to wait until they get Use Any Item before they can equip the circlet.
We bring back Xan using a Moldy Poultice and heal him up with some potions. Eventually, Frisk charms Anastacia. Apparently she's a really, really high-level fighter, but we can force her to waste her HLAs before we engage her.
Same way we dealt with Silke back in BG1. I keep it up until she uses up every single HLA, and there were a lot of them. Then I notice that there is still an unexploded fireball from the War Engine spells. I walk Anastacia over to it and it incinerates her.
We collect all the dropped equipment and identify it.
There are no words to describe these items. They are just too much.
Almost all of them work properly, too; the only exception is those instant death immunities only cover spells; not on-hit effects like a Planetar's vorpal strike.
Remember Bertoxxulous, that +6 short sword I got at Waukeen's Promenade that drains 2 DEX for 30 seconds with a saving throw? I planned on using it for stat drain kills in ToB, but that Bard's Bane +5 longsword renders Bertoxxulous obsolete. It drains 3 Charisma per hit permanently.
I shuffle around some items, and something deeply disturbing happens.
I take off all of the items and read the descriptions. Apparently the culprit was the wedding ring, which instantly kills whoever wears it.
That could have been Chara. I throw the ring in our Bag of Holding and remind myself never to give it to Chara.
The fight is over. The Seducer kit and its charm effects allowed us to take down most of Breudayel's companions, while the Alchemist kit let us bomb Breudayael to death. This success could probably be replicated using normal charm spells and some Spike Traps for Breudayael, so I don't think custom kits and exploits are necessary to win this fight. Regardless, Chara is now immune to practically everything thanks to Breudayael's Robe of Mystra, Staff of the True Magi, and Rastor's Ring of Magic Shielding (don't know who Rastor is; it came from Breudayael), and we have some spectacular options for later in the game.
I go over all the possibilities in my head and tweak Chara's inventory and spellbook to cover their last remaining vulnerabilities, which mostly involve demons, as they are effectively invincible in the face of almost everything from beholders to mind flayers to planetars to vampires. My strategy has always involved figuring out how to kill my main characters, and then tweaking their defenses to cover that weakness.
But I am still going to keep Chara out of combat, even though they are now our strongest and sturdiest and most invincibly invulnerable character by far. Breudayael's items will not change our strategy (though the other items will); I will continue to rely on our normal setup to keep Chara safe. We have come too far for me to risk the future of the run by getting complacent with Chara's defenses.
Pulling ridiculous stunts for no real reason fills us with determination.
Finally, it is time to tackle Irenicus. Xan has to spend the first round re-casting Dispelling Screen, while Chara has to cast True Seeing to ensure they can land a Pierce Shield on Irenicus without worrying about Shadow Door disrupting it. Meanwhile, the rest of the party focuses on taking down the clones before Yasraena's clone can use Divine Wind against us.
Chara finishes casting Pierce Shield, which acts as a Ruby Ray of Reversal+Breach spell in SR. But SCS mages like Jon-bon can activate contingencies the moment their old defenses run out, and Irenicus can fortify his new defenses with a Spell Trigger.
Frisk hypnotizes Jon-bon, giving us enough time to break through his new set of spell protections without having to deal with a hostile HLA.
With his aura fogged, Irenicus cannot bring out any new defenses. We crush him.
Tiax survives the fight! One of my mods makes him a joinable party member. A little shuffling around shows that you can't send him to the Copper Coronet or wherever, so I send Wilson home instead. I don't really care about Tiax, but I'd like him to be available later on in case I need him.
Honestly, Wilson and Cernd were not pulling their weight very much anyway. I only brought in Cernd because I liked Wilson and Cernd's Animal Growth spell was a major boon for Wilson, but Wilson's melee power isn't really needed when we have Xan and Yasraena in the party, and although Cernd is very close to level 15, I just don't see how having more druid spell slots is going to help us much. I only keep Cernd around because the Underdark is tricky and we might need him.
We set sail for City Sushi and earn another 55,000 gold by selling stuff to the priestess of Sekolah just north of Ixilthetocal. She offers very high prices when you sell her stuff, and before EE, you could actually get infinite gold by buying back the items you sold her, provided you had high reputation and CHA.
We find the Boomerang Dagger instead of the Cloak of Mirroring, and we also scrounge up the Amulet of Spell Warding from somewhere. Otherwise the loot isn't interesting; we don't find the Cloak of Protection +2 I was hoping for, either.
I accidentally go visit Prince Villynaty before talking to Senityili, preventing us from siding with the prince against Ixilthetocal. But it causes some weird bug that grievously slows down the game, so I reload and proceed normally. City Sushi is uneventful.
This is what the party looks like when we finally reach the Underdark.
Seconds later, we get ambushed by some of Yasraena's old enemies. Xan hurries to bring up his defenses and Frisk holds off some of the enemies for a moment.
Then one of the drow launches an Unholy Word spell. Xan, Cernd, and Tiax all suffer deafness and therefore 50% spell failure, and Xan even gets slowed. Chara escapes the spell, as Breudayael's Robe of Mystra grants immunity to spells under level 7.
Xan counters the slow with an Oil of Speed and we apply pressure to the enemy, but Yasraena and Frisk are under heavy pressure themselves.
Xan has the Moonblade in the off hand; that main hand weapon with all the elemental damage is the Heart of Braldain, from one of Breudayael's friends.
Frisk apparently manages to paralyze the matron mother's Fallen Deva, but there's a drow mage at the back who has a full-blown Planetar in store for us. Worse yet, Chara's Pierce Shield utterly fails, as it gets blocked by a Spell Shield.
Yasraena and Xan turn their attention to killing the planetar before it lands a vorpal strike, while Chara heads east and discovers yet another high-level drow mage.
We kill the planetar, we kill the deva, we keep the party healed up, and Chara flees from the mage despite the fact that none of the enemies should be able to even touch them. Gyrmlain's Lightbend, from Rhialto the clown mage's old spellbook we got back in the Slums, pushes Chara's saves deep into the negatives.
Cernd is under heavy pressure; I don't think his Stoneskins will last. I have him drink a very expensive vial of Magnetic Fluid.
Magnetic Fluid applies some very heavy combat penalties, but it also damages and knocks back melee attackers. It scales with the user's level, so thieves can actually do a lot of damage with it, even though they normally shouldn't be in melee combat.
Xan and Yasraena are struggling; the enemy has strong damage output and solid AC. And though Xan has PFMW, the matron mother's Blade Barrier goes right through it.
A drow mage stops time, but doesn't do much besides restoring its defenses and using a triple Domination Spell Trigger that Xan can block using the Helm of Charm Protection.
Xan and Yasraena need help. Chara buffed the party with Resist Fear, allowing Yasraena to drink the Blood of Quallo's Friend (a Durlag's Tower item with the wrong name, I think) without panicking. Xan tries to drink a Potion of Extra Healing to protect himself from the matron mother's attacks, but a clouded aura and a PW: Stun spell kill him before Chara could save him with Break Enchantment.
Chara uses the Staff of the True Magi to debuff the matron mother and Tiax slows her with the Flail of Ages. Frisk, mindful of their poor defenses, uses a Magnetic Fluid like Cernd to knock back melee enemies.
We thin the herd, but with Chara's Pierce Shield spell wasted, and with Xan too busy staving off to death to use any magic attacks, the two drow mages have managed to stay alive and intact, with no party pressure to keep them on the defensive. We dodge a Dragon's Breath, but because of how the projectiles work, dodging a Comet is not so easy.
Yasraena finds herself up against a PFMW spell, so she cleverly drinks a Burning Syrup so she can equip a nonmagical weapon and dispel the PFMW on a failed save. But I don't actually have any normal weapons stored anywhere, and a Time Stop renders both PFMW and Burning Syrup moot.
Chara is immune to Time Stop, but I fail to make much use of it. Chara could have dual-wielding some daggers and finished off a drow cleric using the automatic hits from Time Stop, but they used the Staff of the True Magi instead. Its 1 APR isn't enough to stop the cleric from healing herself.
A Dragon's Breath spell puts Tiax in the red, and one of the mages restores its defenses.
Frisk is under heavy pressure, but the Magnetic Fluid keeps them safe, even managing to break apart a Magical Sword.
The battle drags on and on and on. Chara cures Tiax's SR-style petrification (a permanent hold effect), only to see Tiax's newly fleshy form die of dehydration.
Only when the enemy mages' defenses run low can we finally take them down. Yasraena ends up just throwing Frisk's dart (previously Chara's dart) and chipping away until the fight is won.
The other drow fight goes faster, and Raevilin Strathi from the imprisonment sphere ends up dying early to some simple Elf Tendon Wand charges.
The Balor isn't interesting, either. Yasraena stun-locks it, and it's doomed.
Yasraena tanks the beholders in the Kuo-toa area with her high MR and stun-locks the prince as well, and though the Demon Knights are normally a nightmare for me, I have Xan and Chara cast Dispelling Screen basically every round, keeping our defenses safe from the Demon Knights' incessant Remove Magic spells.
Normally, we get stunned and level drain and chopped up in this fight because we can't keep our defenses active. But we never let those Remove Magic spells get to us.
Our reward is the Robe of Vecna! We have no real need for it.
The drow at the exit can be pretty tough, as they come bolstered by a pair of Glabrezus with Unholy Blight, Mirror Image, and PW: Stun. We distract them with summons and Hypnosis.
A Glabrezu teleports to Frisk and takes advantage of their poor AC, and a drow stops time. But with Cernd at the front of the party and far from the rest of us, the drow concentrates its attention on killing Cernd, which it does using Remove Magic and Horrid Wilting. The other Glabrezu helps finish him off, but Xan kills the first Glabrezu, keeping Frisk safe.
Frisk keeps the enemy occupied with Hypnosis while Chara and Xan use magic attacks to weaken the mages. Hypnosis works long enough for Chara to slay one of the mages by dual-wielding with Firetooth +3.
The rest of the drow don't last long. We collect the Shield of Reflection, which we probably won't use until Melissan.
Vithal died in my last run, so I take some spell picks designed to keep him safe. Chara fortifies his AC while Tiax heals Vithal when area-effect damage shows up.
I decide we're strong enough to handle the Beholder hive. Chara could probably solo the place since Breudayael's ring blocks offensive damage spells, and SCS beholders don't know how to steal it like they do with the Shield of Balduran and Cloak of Mirroring, but like I said before, I don't put Chara at risk--even if there is no risk.
Xan attacks with the Heart of Braldain for the extra damage and Yasraena uses the War Hammer +4: Defender for the extra magic resistance. Frisk tries to hypnotize the beholders with little success while Tiax and Cernd summon monsters and use slings on the off chance they might actually contribute something.
Xan falls to a Death Ray, but thanks to her items and a Bitter Tonic, Yasraena's save vs. death is more than low enough to guaranteed a successful saving throw. When the Hive Mother's Moment of Prescience spell finally runs out, its AC can no longer keep Yasraena off its back.
Xan and Yasraena act on their own for the next fight, and Xan gets paralyzed (maybe another SR Flesh to Stone effect), but Yasraena keeps fighting for a long time.
Until the enemy tries out a triple Lower Resistance Spell Trigger and takes her MR into the negatives.
How do we handle this? It's actually kind of silly. All we have to do is have Yasraena run away, equip Thordek's axe for +50% magic resistance, and drink a bottle of Burning Syrup and Lime Juice for another 25% and 15%, respectively.
But there are two Elder Orbs, and both of them have Lower Resistance Spell Triggers. Spell Revisions makes Lower Resistance even stronger than in the original game, so there's really way we can overcome six of them together.
So I just have Yasraena activate rage, switch back to the war hammer for its save bonuses, and have her rely on her Berserker immunities and saving throws. The two Elder Orbs kill Xan and deal heavy damage to Yasraena, so Yasraena just drinks more Sour Draughts and switches back and forth from Elder Orb to Elder Orb to force them both to use their PFMW spells.
We get the Defender of Easthaven, Celestial Fury, and the Greenstone Amulet. All are basically useless to us.
Chara should be immune to everything the Mind Flayers can throw at them, since Chara's saves can block their psionics and their INT drain attacks strike as +2, and enemies need +4 or +5 weapons to hit Chara. But I'm not willing to chance it; it's entirely possible that I have some mod installed that adds a vampiric draco-alhoon or something to the Mind Flayer city. Instead, I head to Ust Natha.
This is always the most tense part of the run for me. Simple mistakes can be very costly, or even fatal.
We walk deep into enemy territory. It fills us with determination.
The fight against Boz and N'ashtar and Chandrilla and Damien and whosits goes by without a hitch; the party is high enough level that these mid-level parties are not a threat. We find a Moment of Prescience scroll (undispellable but Breachable +20 to AC and saving throws for 4 rounds) that will further improve Chara's already-fortress-like defenses. The Mind Flayer ambush is little different.
I don't like introducing extra variables into Ust Natha, so I use Chara's high WIS score to squirm out of the Aboleth's quest. I do explore the city in search of Yasraena's friend Divalir, however, as I'm concerned that she'll leave us if we don't find him ourselves. It seems my mods add some new stuff to Ust Natha I've never seen before.
We manage to find Divalir. Apparently we need to go fight a guy named Tsabrak.
But I'm worried. Will a fight with Tsabrak turn the city hostile? Because if it does, making our escape would be extremely difficult, and we'd miss out on a huge XP reward at the end. I find Tsabrak and talk to him. Hopefully we can avoid a fight.
There are two dialogue options! One of them obviously starts a fight. The other is a weird-sounding lie, but maybe it holds the clue to avoiding a potentially quest-breaking conflict. I choose it...
...but Tsabrak just leaves.
This... doesn't sound right. I thought the lie would lead to some alternate means of rescuing Divalir. But it does not.
That one simple click just doomed Divalir. And Yasraena noticed.
Um...
It's over. I thought the lie would let us avoid turning the city hostile. But now Yasraena, our most valuable party member since Chapter 2 began, is hostile. And there is no way to placate her.
We don't have a choice.
That was absolutely horrible. I liked Yasraena. And she was incredibly important.
And I was trying to save Divalir! This feels awful.
We have to move on without Yasraena in the party. It's the single biggest blow to our power in the entire run, and I have no idea how I'm going to replace her.
I continue the questline without her. Apparently Romantic Encounters is somewhere in my install, because Phaere offers us a special reward for our service.
Out of curiosity, I say yes.
I like the fact that he has a flail for some reason, but knowing that this guy is a slave, however willing he might be... I have to decline.
But it hurts his feelings.
Crap.
Out of curiosity, I test the level 7 Teleport spell that Chara bought way back in the Adventurer Mart. As it turns out...
...you can totally use it to escape the drow city. And then go right back to it.
You can even do it in the middle of combat, escaping from encounters just like plot-related NPCs do. You could actually use this to escape the Siege of Ust Natha midway through the fight, rest, and then come back to finish it when the party was in good shape again.
There are some places where it won't work, like the Throne of Bhaal, but Teleport is basically the ultimate escape option. You can get out of almost any fight no matter how awful things are and then just go right back where you came from.
Combined with that ridiculous Robe of Mystra, tackling the Siege of Ust Natha should be a cinch. Hell, even a bunch of bottles of Burning Oil could trivialize most of the enemies.
But no. I don't think I'm going to do that. I don't need the XP and I don't want to go through that ordeal again. Once was enough, and the success of my first trilogy/tetralogy run is more important than killing drow.
The Egg Guards prove easy even without Yasraena's help. Xan is pretty strong on his own.
We find a Ring of Free Action (finally) in the golem room and use PFMW to keep Xan from suffering a Cursed Wound effect again.
I hate Taso Kala, so we talk-block her on the way to Phaere. Besides, I don't want to fight the Ghaunadaur worshippers; they're an unnecessary risk.
Also, I hate Taso Kala.
We proceed with the ritual as normal. Matron Mother Ardulace drops a very interesting girdle!
Too bad it doesn't actually grant any magic resistance.
Solaufein offers to join the party. I don't like his portrait very much, but he could probably take Yasraena's place just fine. He has some pretty awesome stats to his credit.
Too bad I can only give him a mage kit, and not a fighter kit. A Berserker/Mage would have been much more interesting.
We use Invisibility Sphere to avoid fighting any more drow on the way to surface. Solaufein leaves the party and rejoins after the Elhan encounter to avoid any extra questions like Viconia has to deal with. I'm not sure I like Solaufein's voice, either, but maybe I'll get used to it. I do need to fill in the void that Yasraena left.
We sell 93,637 gold worth of loot at the Adventurer Mart and buy some level 9 scrolls for Chara. After scribing a whole bunch of scrolls I'd been saving up, I boot both Cernd and Tiax from the party--they just aren't what I need right now.
Without Yasraena, beholders are much more challenging, but the Unseeing Eye quest is much less intense than the Underdark beholder hive. Beholders have lousy defenses, so they don't have much time to hurt Xan or Solaufein before we slice them up.
The Unseeing Eye resists our attempt to Breach it, so the Death Tyrants go down first, but eventually we get past its defenses and an Efreeti finishes it off.
Frisk hits epic levels! But their HLAs aren't game-changers like a normal thief's; they don't get Use Any Item or traps. They just get a single use of Psionic Invisibility, which makes the Seducer invisible even against liches and demons and planetars, albeit only for 2 rounds. It's just there to give them a way to use their psionics without getting beaten to death so easily.
We report our success to High Watcher Oisig, start the illithium quest, and then change our minds when I find out that one of my mods changed that questline.
We're already in a good position in this run. No need to chance it by wandering into a battle I don't yet understand.
Yes, I'm that paranoid. It's Chapter 7, we have plenty of XP, strong items, and a deep well of resources. Now is not the time to take risks.
We do minor chores here and there and finally get Chara up to level 18. Chara now has Use Any Item! And unlike the thief version, the Alchemist version gives the Alchemist one proficiency in every weapon a thief can use.
Unfortunately for Chara, Alchemists do not get any mage HLAs besides the extra level 6, 7 and 8 spell slots. So Chara will never be able to cast Improved Alacrity, Summon Planetar, Dragon's Breath, Comet, or Energy Blades.
Chara can finally cast level 9 spells. Alchemists normally don't get level 9 slots until level 19 due to their spell slot penalties, but with Use Any Item, Chara can now wear Imoen's Belt, which grants an extra level 9 spell slot.
And the Robe of Mystra grants a ludicrous four extra level 9 spell slots. Too bad we don't yet have Time Stop.
Eventually, I decide that I do not want Solaufein in the party. He's terribly strong, but I don't like his voice and I'm worried about the Eclipse fight that I've heard about.
I pick up Mazzy just to steal her sword, which can be upgraded at Cromwell's thanks to the Item Upgrade mod. I consider recruiting Mazzy, but she is a paladin now and the paladin kits do not seem interesting.
What I really need are party members who can make use of our powerful equipment. I pore over my BG2 folder and create a list of every single NPC in the game. I weigh my options based on who can use the best items at our disposal, and decide to bring Imoen into the party.
Why Imoen? Well, as a Mage/Thief, she can choose the Loremaster kit...
...which grants Use Any Item. This means she can already equip Thordek's plate mail which grants constant effect Improved Haste.
Next up is Korgan. I'm not a fan of the guy, but I can give him the Dwarven Defender kit and finally get us a tank that doesn't rely on dispellable buffs.
There are a couple of problems, though. While Yasraena had an inexplicable +1 bonus to APR, Korgan for some reason does not get any APR bonuses from his proficiencies. He gets them for level 7 and level 13, and other sources of extra APR work just fine, but since he doesn't dual-wield, this means he gets 2 APR instead of 3--a 33% decrease in his offensive output.
He'll be extremely hard to kill when using Yasraena's old axe (50% MR) and war hammer (15% MR and physical damage resistance), but he will not be able to use Divine Wind very well, which was a huge deal for us back when we had Yasraena.
Imoen can use Divine Wind just fine. But as a mage/thief with only one pip in dual-wielding, her THAC0 is absolutely atrocious. And wearing Thordek's armor means she can't cast Tenser's Transformation or True Strike to boost her THAC0.
For some bizarre reason, we get attacked by a gang of shouty drow over at the Graveyard District.
Notice Bodhi chilling at the bottom of the screen--I rested before she spoke to us to make sure that we wouldn't have to deal with a vampire ambush.
There are a bunch of tough enemies in the drow fight, and they quickly show that Imoen isn't nearly as strong as I had thought.
Thordek's plate mail is great, but Imoen is really fragile when she can't cast her spells.
Imoen flees to the north to heal herself. Korgan (I almost typed Kagain) fails a save against a pre-summoned Greater Basilisk and Xan, who thankfully is protected by PFMW if not Stoneskin or any other defenses, frees him using Break Enchantment.
Notice Chara loitering to the west, staying out of the fight despite being the toughest one in the party.
Imoen jumps back into combat to help take down a basilisk with Xan, but without our defenses up, we can't take the time to debuff the mage. Which means there's nothing stopping it from summoning a planetar.
Chara, buffed with True Seeing so the drow mage's illusions don't disrupt their spells, lands a Pierce Magic to get rid of any pesky Spell Shields it might have. The mage finishes casting an alteration spell, but to my disappointment, it is not Time Stop, which Chara could have used to their advantage.
Chara switches to Pierce Shield. It will take time to cast, but once it hits, that mage will be very vulnerable.
We try to kill the planetar, but without Yasraena's high APR and low THAC0 with Divine Wind to stun-lock it, it proves very difficult. I try to keep Xan on the offensive, but in the process, I fail to have him cast Stoneskins. He has no defense against Comet.
But it's not all bad. Comet is still erroneously party-unfriendly, so the planetar suffers even more than we do.
Chara lands Pierce Shield, but the drow still has a PFMW contingency and a spare Stoneskin spell. And while Frisk is doing their best using Hypnosis, the enemy is perilously close to finishing off Xan and Imoen.
Chara Breaches the drow and Xan moves in for the kill. But the Fire Shield and that Magical Sword are too much for Xan when he's already so wounded, so Korgan has to take his place despite Korgan's inferior damage output.
Xan has to flee, but the sword follows. Xan casts PFMW to stave off death.
But just as the mage died, he launched one last Minute Meteor at Xan. And since the attack roll was already successful...
...it was too late for PFMW to block it.
Still, with the mage dead, the remaining enemies are too weak to pose a credible threat. We trample the remainder.
That Disintegrate spell is from the Gloves of Disintegration. Unfortunately, the gloves offer a save to avoid the spell, so the target actually gets two chances to avoid being disintegrated. But Disintegration in SR automatically kills Magical Swords, so that sword only needed to fail one save.
Anyway, we head into Bodhi's lair. Korgan might not get bonus APR from his proficiencies, but at least he suffers no opportunity cost from using stuff he's not proficient in, like the Mace of Disruption that Item Randomizer put in the Unseeing Eye's lair.
That's screenshot 1945 on my computer. World War 2 ended in 1945!
Up north, things are much tougher. A mod-introduced dagger grants us Negative Plane Protection, but we still have to worry about CON drain. Frisk hypnotizes the vampires while Korgan uses Yasraena's old two-handed sword to cast Sunray.
That's screenshot 1948 on my computer. Israel was founded in 1948!
Tanova is tricky, but with True Seeing, Chara can get a guaranteed hit with Pierce Shield, rendering Tanova vulnerable.
That's screenshot 1949. The Chinese civil war ended in 1949!
Korgon's Sunrays (the sword lets him cast 2) isn't quite enough to kill the vampires, so Xan chips in with Fireburst.
That screenshot is 1952. The U.S. occupation of Japan ended in 1952!
The vampires are almost gone. Chara finishes them off with a brutal Meteor Swarm.
Screenshot 1953. The Korean War ended in 1953!
We clear out the vampires on the first level. But I actually only wanted to do Korgan's quest, so I don't go to Bodhi just yet. Instead, we pal around with Shagbag.
I love the dialogue here. It feels so real.
I go track down Valygar. I bring him into the party and find, to my delight, that he is no longer a Stalker in my install.
He's a Fighter/Thief. Which means that once we reach ToB, he can get Use Any Item, just like Imoen. But unlike Imoen, he'll be able to use Divine Wind at very low THAC0. I boot Imoen from the party and hand Divine Wind over to Valygar.
Just inside the Planar Sphere, we run into a new NPC.
Screenshot 1964. Can you guess what year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed?
Anyway, this new NPC is Tsujatha, a necromancer with a rather awesome ring.
Screenshot 1965. I betcha can't guess when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed!
We poke around and find a curious new scroll. Though it's not actually very useful.
Screenshot 1967. The Six-Day War was in 1967! Can you guess how long it lasted?
In the end, I decide to boot Tsujatha as well. He'd be able to Wish-rest very effectively, but with all of these crazy mod items, Chara is basically a sorcerer rather than a cut-rate mage like Alchemists usually are.
Togan et al can be kind of trying at times. But Chara has Meteor Swarm, which is roughly on par with Dragon's Breath in Spell Revisions.
It seems that some mod introduces a lot of weird new spell scrolls to the Planar Sphere. They have these things all over the place.
Screenshot 1989. The Tiananmen Massacre was in 1989!
Next up is Lavok and Tolgerias, the two biggest fights of the Planar Sphere. But we are much higher-level than I normally am when I tackle these fights.
Cheerfully reciting historic dates fills us with determination.
In adherence to Gavin's instructions we set about a methodical clearance of the basilisk ridden wilderness. Our new recruit Safana proved invaluable. She did complain a little about the quality of the potions provided by the Lathenderites when one 'accident' occured, but we assured her that she had been an extremely fetching statue. The wizard and all his creatures were vanquished. Safana even acquired a rather fetching new grey evening gown in the process.
Cromarty has however been forced to deal with a few home truths... with regard to his 'gallantry'. Challenged by the female leader of another party of adventurers he lost his temper and bloodshed unfortunately ensued (rolled a d6 for this), Sirine was far more sanguine than Dyanheir about the ensuing combat, which proved to be extremely dangerous.
Then we headed back to the temple, and collected our reward. Gavin was in a good mood after getting a nod from his all airs and graces superior. We took a stroll in Beregost and -just for once- ran into someone else being pursued by assassins. A lady, with crazy magical tendencies true, but still a lady for all that. Cromarty's course was clear, to battle! The contest was rather easy but... then it happened. Something seemed to beffudle Gareth (no idea of the source), and he continued swinging even after the last opponent was despatched, the lady fell to the ground her face a mask of blood, and before we could respond the hammer swang again and again. Resurrection was out of the question... and it was clear that Gavin would have to go.
It was with a heavy heart that we recruited the rather timorous Garrick once again, and headed off to complete Safana's quest. Sirine was able to talk her way by the sirenes guarding the cave, and even received a present from them, perhaps we had been too hasty in regarding them as enemies. The golems inside posed little threat, not as much as Safana, who staked her claim to the leadership of the party.
Fuming, Cromarty stomped away only to run into a mysterious fortune teller named Arkushule. At last! A figure out of story who would point him in the direction of further adventure... except that after one look at his hand she screamed and unleashed a barrage of magic... and then the rest of the party were on her...
Cromarty was forced to stop and look in the ocean for awhile... am I a hero or a villain? Who am I kidding running around with paladins and talking of adventure? The only damsel I've rescued, Dyanheir, has a habit of saving me. How long is it before these dreams and this legacy of blood consume me, and Ajantis cuts me down in my turn?
It was with some relief that we rescued a small child from some wolves, and then fended off some pirates after the treasure we had liberated from the cave... Safana might have warned us about the competition though...
The next 'damsel' to approach us was anything but demure as well. First the faerie stole a kiss from Ajantis'... and his life.... though it was good to see the tin soldier lighten up a little. Then her 'husband' the ogre mage turned up. Garrick, perhaps remembering stories of Khark who we had previously fled from, was ready to turn tail and run. The boy will never make a knight, we should find a fresh swordarm to replace his quivering hide perhaps...
Continuing the theme of misguided heroism we slew Brage and then visited the excavation site. A comment as to the probable value of the find drew a rather unreasonable response, and one of the diggers even turned hostile for some reason. We slew the fellow, who had clearly fallen under the spell of eldritch sorcery, and liberated the cursed treasues, defeating their guardian and doubtless saving the expedition from needless suffering.
Finally we continued the search for Dyanheir's journal, encountering Drizzt once again as he seemed determined to steal Cromarty's thunder and recover the journal first. The cad.
All in all Cromarty's run has taken a darker turn, as each roll of the dice seems to send him from gallantry to casual womanising and misogyny. Any more and we'll have to pick up Eldoth & Coran and send him to N from NG. We shall see .
Lavok shouldn't be too much trouble. We open with a Pierce Magic to remove his Spell Shield.
Those are screenshots 1990 and 1991. I was born in 1990! And the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991!
Anyway, Lavok casts True Seeing instead of Time Stop or an HLA, so we just break down his defenses with Xan's Khelben's Warding Whip and a Breach.
Lavok is down. Tolgerias is next. He opens with what appears to be a pretty standard setup for SCS mages in SR, summoning a pair of Greater Basilisks as a pre-buff.
That's screenshot 2001. The Twin Towers fell in 2001!
Tolgerias stops time, but the Robe of Mystra makes Chara immune. They can act during Tolgerias' own time Stop.
Screenshot 2003. The Iraq War began in 2003!
Tolgerias summons a Fallen Planetar just as Xan finishes off his basilisks.
I notice Tolgerias' mage friend has no spell deflection to speak of, so I use Chara's True Seeing to hit her with a PW: Stun.
In SR, PW: Stun stuns the target for 1 round regardless of HP. Chara works great against helpless targets, as they can hit 4 APR by dual-wielding Firetooth +3 and Angharradh's Song, a +1 APR longsword only usable by elves.
Screenshot 2009. Obama was inaugurated in 2009!
Frisk hits Tolgerias with Psionic Maze, Chara finishes off Tolgerias' friend, and Valygar stun-locks the planetar with Divine Wind.
I think there was some bug that made Psionic Maze work more like Imprisonment (the maze spell is no longer in the Seducer kit for unrelated reasons anyway), so Chara brings him back using Freedom. The moment he gets back, he's invincible.
We try and fail to debuff Tolgerias, but he has the same problem, wasting a Remove Magic that we can negate using Dispelling Screen and trying to Breach Chara when Chara was immune to level 6 spells and below. His Absolute Immunity expires, we dodge a Dragon's Breath, and Chara removes his Stoneskins using the Staff of the True Magi.
All that's left is to kill a demon and steal its heart. On the way, I test out Teleport. Apparently it lets you escape the Planar Sphere!
Teleport probably has all kinds of crazy uses. I wonder how it handles places like the Spellhold labyrinth and the Planar Prison? Because there are some places that you can only enter and exit due to plot-related dialogues; there's no physical entrance for you to click on.
I kill both Tanar'ri as well as Lea'liyl; we have the damage output to make it happen and I wanted to use a spare Demon Heart to upgrade Celestial Fury in case I decide not to use the objectively superior Divine Wind sword. We get a Ring of the Magi from Lavok.
Chara asks their apprentices to take all the safe options, so all three of them survive to graduation. We also help the Knights of Solamnia get home, and our reward is Gnasher!
Which, since we have the Bone Club already, we can use to forge the Fulcrum, a +4 club that grants the wielder grandmastery in clubs.
I want to recruit Haer'dalis, so I stop by the Five Flagons and help his troupe. I've been looking forward to nabbing Haer'dalis for a long time.
But we have a problem.
What is Haer'dalis shouting about?
The Bounty Hunter is supposed to say "thank you" and then teleport Haer'dalis and the other tieflings away. Instead, the Bounty Hunter says nothing, and Haer'dalis and his friends go hostile.
Valygar attacked Raelis Shai during the fight because she cast Obscuring Mist, which apparently counts as a hostile spell.
Then, they all die somehow.
The Bounty Hunters won't speak to me. It seems that Valygar's AI, the "Standard Attack" AI, made him turn the tieflings hostile, breaking the script and preventing us from even entering the Planar Prison, much less recruiting Haer'dalis.
I turn the matter over in my head and I don't think it justifies a reload. Valygar attacking Raelis Shai for that Obscuring Mist spell is unintentional behavior for Spell Revisions, I'm sure, but it doesn't qualify as a game-breaking bug, as this quest is optional.
I really, really wanted to bring Haer'dalis into the party. But the questline is broken. Haer'dalis is gone, and the Planar Prison is locked away forever. I will need to look elsewhere for our final party member.
Losing an ally to a bizarre freak accident fills us with determination.
'Long-life challenge' - bard {1} (update 1) I rolled a bard up for this challenge almost a year ago, but haven't actually got around to trying it before now. I don't expect this character to get too far - so here goes nothing.
In Candlekeep, the saying goes, "a journey begins with a single stride". My own wanderings, I've found, start with a well-turned phrase A single speech or song is normally enough to gather praise Though Firebead needed more to satisfy his pride.
In Candlekeep, the saying goes, "the blind they cannot see". Such a truth may well be trite But when you find you're in a tough fight This spell provides a key.
In Candlekeep, the saying goes, "beauty is in the eye of the basilisk". If, like me, you dislike stone statues And prefer your basilisks in the form of shoes Use some protection and don't take a risk.
We took advantage of the bank holiday today to break the back of BG1 with this new pairing. After a couple of squishy combinations, this duo should play to our strengths - no need for any of that namby-pambying around with skull traps and magic missiles .
The session started with Jubb getting all righteous about acquiring an extra healing potion from the infirmary and Nock had to explain that it was fine as he was just getting a SOGOF (steal one, get one free). Then it was time for some (brief) action as Shoal was shot down to provide an early level each. Not content with that, Jubb shot down a bunch of ogrish types on the way to confront a group of sirines. His immunity to charm didn't protect him from being feeble-minded, but despite that he was still able to act as a focus for the sirine attacks while Nock shot them down to gain a further level.
After passing quickly through Beregost, Nock headed north to the FAI and then on to the ankheg area. His intention was to get some easy XP by killing some fishermen for Tenya, but Jubb felt things needed to be spiced up a bit so dived into a large hole in the ground. He was already carrying a slight injury, but felt his 29 HPs were plenty to be meleeing ankhegs - after all "what could possibly go wrong". The first ankheg hit him once, but he saved against acid damage and was only reduced to 17 HPs. Before he could move on to the second ankheg though Nock surged into the front rank and (despite his leather armor) he successfully tanked the next 2 to be able to rob the treasure.
After a little more work in Beregost the duo travelled down to Nashkel where Nock learnt CLW as a Bhaal ability and finally got around to healing Jubb of his earlier wounds. At that point Nock commented on Jubb not having used any healing potions to date and was told that was less a matter of conviction and more to do with the fact that Nock had stashed all of them in his bag!
Jubb was shortly to get more injuries when Greywolf proved a tough opponent in melee and forced Jubb to switch to missile weapons to finish him off.
Then, almost as soon as being healed again, Jubb forced a confrontation with the Revenant - this time melee proved sufficient, though with little to spare.
A few ghasts in that area followed by Narcillicus and his jellies then provided a further level each.
The next bit of action saw Nock in trouble after assaulting Bassilus. The cleric opened with a rigid thinking on Jubb and, with him now counted as disabled he focused a hold person on Nock - who was running away in order to get out of sight before it struck. There was a nasty moment though when it looked like Jubb might wander in Nock's direction and lead Bassilus straight to him - fortunately though he veered away and Bassilus failed to make any impression on the ankheg-clad paladin before the duo recovered from their effects.
Some more sirines in the Lighthouse area saw Jubb once more acting as target, but this time he was only hit a couple of times and saved against the feeble-mind effect.
Nock hadn't yet recovered any +1 arrows from his victims and didn't want to waste arrows of biting on the golems - but that wasn't necessary with 2 fighters attacking in melee anyway.
Continuing to search for quick XP the next area to be targeted was full of basilisks. It didn't take long for the area to become empty of basilisks and for the duo to get another level each.
Mutamin had no time to buff in response to an attack and Kirian's crew fared no better after Korax joined in the fun.
Sweeping through the Cloudpeaks pushed reputation up to 20 and, with Jubb's charisma pushed up to 19 a bit of shopping followed. There was then a belated visit to Meilum to recover his bracers before farming some more XP at Durlag's Tower. Jubb switched from dual-wielding to sword and shield in order to ensure battle horrors needed a critical to hit him, while on the roof 2 potions of mirror eyes were plenty to sort out 4 basilisks. Inside, we don't normally mess with Kirinhale, but Jubb wanted to take advantage of his charm immunity and her energy drain was not sufficient defence (at least after Jubb's true sight exposed her position).
Jubb also sought out a few more ghasts in order to get a further level, though Nock had to work hard to convince him not to stand on a lightning bolt trap when already somewhat wounded.
With all major targets achieved the Nashkel Mine was the obvious next stop. That didn't take long with Mulahey's support team being much too slow (and much too weak) to prevent his death.
Outside though, the amazons put up a better fight with Jubb being affected once more by rigid thinking and taking quite a bit of damage from darts of wounding even after the amazons had all fallen.
In Nashkel Nock sneaked in to kill Nimbul before Rasaad could get into the action - despite Bardolan's ill-timed conversation.
The final action was at the Bandit Camp. The exterior was rapidly cleared, with only Taurgosz putting up any real resistance.
After resting to heal up, Nock sneaked inside and used his arrows of biting to poison Venkt, who fell without casting. The others then didn't last long.
Nock, ranger 7, 84 HPs, 151 kills Jubb, inquisitor 7, 94 HPs, 139 kills, 0 deaths Jubb, quite correctly, was making much during the session of just how good his HPs were. His average roll of a fraction under 9 on a d10 is certainly impressive. Nock was a bit quieter about it, but in fact his average roll is a fraction over 9 - his HPs were so good in fact he was happy to pass the constitution tome on to Jubb to put yet a bit more meat on his bones to survive his melee assaults.
With Chara's long list of immunities from Breudayael's equipment, I think we can handle Kangaxx. But unfortunately, it seems that one of my mods requires the player to take an additional step before you can fight either the Elemental Lich or the Shade Lich.
Instead, we're going to tackle the Twisted Rune! We buff the crap out of the party and send Korgan after Vaxall--the highest-priority target for a mage-heavy party like mine--while Chara monitors Layenne and Xan lingers out of reach of Shangalar's introductory Horrid Wilting spell.
Korgan's axe from Thordek gives him 50% MR, so he's great against beholders, but more importantly, I just wanted Vaxall not to use his Anti-Magic Ray on Xan. Vaxall, however, has a PFMW Spell Trigger and cannot yet be harmed. Once Shangalar's Horrid Wilting has already struck, Xan and Valygar rush forward to slay Shangalar's Greater Basilisks.
Anti-Magic Ray has taken away Korgan's Dispelling Screen, so Layenne removes his other buffs using Dispel Magic.
Not Remove Magic, but Dispel Magic, which means it's not party-friendly and takes away Vaxall's Dispelling Screen!
Although it says the screen expired rather than dissipated, even though it showed up just a few seconds ago. Whatever; the result is the same.
I was hoping to keep Xan away from Vaxall, but he gets too close when he attacks the basilisks, and Vaxall's Anti-Magic Ray combined with Shangalar's Dispel Magic is enough to remove all of Xan's dispellable buffs.
Chara is waiting for Layenne or Shangalar to cast Time Stop, so Vaxall and the two enemy mages are all still untouchable. Instead, we focus on Shyressa and Revanek, who drops the Shield of Balduran.
Shangalar summons a planetar. Chara prepares to take it down.
In Spell Revisions, Holy Power and Tenser's Transformation give +0.5 APR at levels 7 and 13 (though they unfortunately do not stack, and multi-class fighters do not benefit from the APR bonuses at all), which means that Chara can hit 5 APR at subzero THAC0 with high damage per hit by combining their innate 19 STR with Firetooth +3 and Angharradh's Song (an elf-only longsword with +1 APR) in the off hand, a sentence that makes no sense to people who don't play the IE games.
We kill Shyressa, Layenne casts Dragon's Breath, a Dispel Magic (probably from Shangalar) wipes out everyone's buffs but Chara's, and Valygar gets paralyzed. But it seems that we don't need any of our buffs to survive a Dragon's Breath.
Xan cures Valygar's paralysis using a Dispelling Arrow.
For some reason, I fail to send Chara after the planetar, even though they can probably butcher it in a few rounds. Instead, I have Xan switch to the Heart of Braldain, his main weapon.
But I forget to have him switch targets. Xan kills Valygar in two hits.
Xan gets slowed and Chara wipes out a basilisk using Meteor Swarm.
A Dispel Magic hits Chara, who re-casts Dispelling Screen while Xan cures the slow effect using a bottle of Vampire Milk.
Xan manages to evade Layenne's Comet, which knocks down the enemy planetar. Vaxall's PFMW expires, but he as a contingency to replace it.
Chara casts Requiem of Elysium, a powerful level 9 damage spell that serves as an alternative to Meteor Swarm. It doesn't do as much damage as it's supposed to due to a bug in its coding, but unlike Meteor Swarm, part of its damage is magic damage rather than fire. Chara finishes off the planetar before it can kill Xan, but Shangalar tries to Breach the party with Wish.
Layenne uses a Wish Time Stop. Chara is immune to Time Stop and has 6 rounds of free reign.
I have Chara cast True Seeing, hoping to debuff Layenne or Vaxall or Shangalar, but then I switch gears and have Chara drink Black Mania to double their APR and then some Plasma to give +1 APR. With 10 APR total, they can easily take down the planetar.
Chara doesn't really need True Seeing anyway; Layenne PFMW expired during the Time Stop. This means Chara can simply use the Staff of the True Magi to remove her Dispelling Screen and then dispel her buffs.
Layenne is now invisible, unfortunately, so Chara tries to catch her with a Fireburst, but it won't take effect until Time Stop is over. Layenne summons a Pit Fiend and activates a Spell Trigger, so Chara tries to take down her new defenses.
It seems the Pierce Magic took out Layenne's Spell Deflection before Fireburst hit. This means Layenne takes full damage, and a failed save is enough to fry her.
But Layenne managed to kill Xan using Magic Missile, Korgan fails a save against Demon Fear, and Vaxall re-casts PFMW. Three major setbacks in a row.
Chara restores their Dispelling Screen and the Pit Fiend teleports to Frisk. Frisk is not going to be able to handle the Pit Fiend; I need to make the most of Frisk's last moments. I give them a Rod of Resurrection and bring back Xan.
But Xan is unarmed and unbuffed, and it will take time to get him back up to speed. Korgan is already pretty sturdy--it's just that fear effect that's causing a problem--so I hand Layenne's Staff of the Magi to Xan so he can cure Korgan's fear. Meanwhile, Frisk runs from the Pit Fiend.
But the Pit Fiend apparently has Unholy Word. Xan gets slowed and deafened, and the 50% spell failure of deafness takes away the Break Enchantment spell that could have fixed up Korgan.
With a clouded aura and a slow effect on top, Xan can neither heal himself nor restore his defenses nor run away. The Pit Fiend kills him.
Frisk fails a save against Demon Fear and starts running, but not all is lost. Korgan has recovered from Demon Fear and drinks Black Mania to double his APR.
Notice the PFMW spell from Chara. With Xan dead, Chara's UAI lets them equip Xan's upgraded Moonblade in place of Firetooth +3. Chara and Korgan gang up on the Pit Fiend, as Vaxall still has his PFMW active.
Vaxall's PFMW has just run out. He took down Chara's Spell Shield using Anti-Magic Ray, so Chara re-casts Spell Shield, only to see it taken down again.
Frisk is paralyzed, Shangalar has brought in a Cornugon, and Chara loses some of their defenses to another Anti-Magic Ray, but without PFMW, Vaxall's only defense are Stoneskins. It's not enough to save him.
All the while, it seems Shangalar has been struggling to kill our Bone Golem. The Green Dragon Plate--formerly Yasraena's staple, but now Valygar's--allows the player to summon a Bone Golem, which has all of the spell level immunities as a normal Bone Golem, making it extremely hard for mages to harm it. Only now, with a Cornugon to help him out, is Shangalar finally breaking down the Bone Golem. Korgan rushes over to kill the Cornugon.
Back to the east, Chara resurrects Xan with the Rod of Resurrection and has his use a Potion of Defense and the Periapt of Proof Against Poison to prepare him to join the fight against the Cornugon. We also bring back Valygar in the hopes that we can stun-lock the demon.
But another Cornugon is on the way.
Then I notice something weird. Why does Valygar only have 28 maximum HP?
It looks like he's been level drained. But there's no level drain message on his record sheet, and only his fighter levels have been drained.
And he's at 0 XP.
No, seriously. He lost all of his XP somehow. What the hell happened?
If I can't figure out how to fix this, he'll never catch up to the rest of the party.
Korgan kills one Cornugon, but the other stuns Xan and an Efreeti has joined the fighter. Chara stuns the Efreeti so they can chop it up.
Shangalar's defenses have run low. We kill the second Cornugon, Shangalar summons a third, and Chara uses the Staff of the True Magi to debuff Shangalar.
When the third and final Cornugon is dead, we turn our attention to Shangalar, who is out of ammo.
I kill the Efreeti and then consider Valygar's situation.
He's suffered some sort of permanent level drain that also robbed him of all of his XP. At first, I think it's a bug, but then I realize the cause.
It was the Heart of Braldain, Xan's primary weapon. The Heart of Braldain has a 10% chance of draining 4 levels, but it doesn't use the level drain opcode. Whoever created the item didn't know how level drain worked--they used the "Change Level" opcode instead. There is no way to remove or dispel or cure "Change Level" effects; it is absolutely permanent.
Valygar is at 0 XP. He will never even begin to approach epic levels. He is almost worthless to the party now.
Out of curiosity, I see what happens when Valygar suffers more level change. If I can bring him to level 1 with 1 HP, maybe I can make him into an invincible tank like you can do in Icewind Dale 2. Or maybe I could get his levels to roll over from negative value underflow. Once we get out of the Twisted Rune area, I have him drink Vials of Scales and use Protection from Elemental Energy to make sure he can survive hits from the Heart of Braldain. Xan whomps him until the level change reduces Valygar to a level 0 fighter.
He can level up now and choose some new proficiencies. And he keeps his old proficiencies, too. Theoretically, you could use the Heart of Braldain to repeatedly drain fighters down to level 0 and get them to grandmastery in all weapon types.
But this far into the game, it's not worth it. Having GM in all weapons would be nice, but what Valygar really needs is Use Any Item. I have to replace him.
Valygar was a multi-class character, so maybe the change level works differently for single-classed characters. I bring in Tsujatha, but the result is the same: you just go down to level 0 and you get to pick a new proficiency point and (I think, but I don't really remember) also pick some new level 1 spell slots. It might be possible to use the Heart of Braldain to give extra spell picks to a sorcerer. In LoB mode with all the extra XP you get, you could actually get a sorcerer to epic levels, drain them back down to 0, and then level them up again normally to give them more level 9 spell picks than would otherwise be possible.
Or, perhaps you could use it to streamline dual-classing by getting to level 11 as a Cleric of Lathander (say) for another casting of Boon of Lathander and then using the Heart of Braldain to let them dual-class from a lower level.
But that's just theoretical, and in a non-LoB run like this, when we're already so late in the game, the Heart of Braldain is useless to us. It does huge damage, yes, but the risk of accidentally destroying an entire party member is just too much.
I remove Valygar and Tsujatha from the party and replace them with two unlikely alternatives: Coran from the City Gates, who gets the Sniper kit, and Tashia from Vyatri's Pub in Trademeet, a mod-introduced sorcerer who can hit 18 Wisdom thanks to our mod items.
As an elf, Coran can use Angharradh's Song for +1 APR in the main hand. And since the Fulcrum grants grandmastery in clubs, Coran's lack of proficiencies is no issue.
Neither Coran nor Tashia are very high-level, but they will be able to get HLAs midway through ToB, and when they do, Tashia can Wish-rest and Coran can don Thordek's plate mail for constant effect Improved Haste.
There are so many weird turns in this run; our party composition keeps changing wildly. Meeting new friends fills us with determination.
@Grond0 you made me LOL when you wrote "At that point Nock commented on Jubb not having used any healing potions to date and was told that was less a matter of conviction and more to do with the fact that Nock had stashed all of them in his bag!"
We fight the Crypt Lich in the Trademeet quest line. It's a simple process. True Seeing, Warding Whip, and Pierce Shield are enough to take down its defenses.
I use a mod dagger to give Negative Plane Protection to everyone in the party who does not already have it from another source. With Xan and Chara there to re-cast Dispelling Screen, those NPP spells stay in place, allowing us to tackle Thaxll'ssillyia with brute force. Vials of Scales for 1d3 Stoneskins and Korgan's Dwarven Defender kit ward off the dragon's physical attacks.
The loot is great, but none of it is useful to us. The only interesting part is a crossbow that grants immunity to petrification (but which might not block SR petrification at all) and which can create one special bolt per day that petrifies the target on hit.
The Crooked Crane lich was more difficult, but it also followed a simple formula. Xan, Coran, and Korgan fought its Planetar while Chara and Tashia used True Seeing to throw an endless stream of magic attacks at the lich. Once Dispelling Screen is removed (which can be done by any normal magic attack, plus Remove Magic) and once Spell Shield is down, Pierce Shield can remove all of a mage's dispellable buffs; only its spell protections will remain. And though the lich used Improved Alacrity to re-cast PFMW, Tashia and Chara had multiple Breach spells on hand to keep it on the defensive until its PFMW spells were exhausted.
Time to deal with Bodhi. Korgan ran out to distract the enemy for the first round or two while Frisk used Hypnosis from afar. Chara used True Seeing to land a Warding Whip on Hazzerbazzer while Korgan used a Helm of Brilliance and Yasraena's old two-handed sword to chain-cast Sunray, to little effect.
I fail to keep up the pressure on Hazzerbazzer and let Chara hang back for a moment while his PFMW expires naturally. Only when Bodhi level drains Frisk does Chara get back into gear and start hacking away at Bodhi.
A Sphere of Chaos knocks out Coran, Tashia Breaches Manasseh, Hazzerbazzer re-casts PFMW, Xan kills Artemis Entreri, and Chara takes away Hazzerbazzer's re-cast PFMW.
With both Hazzerbazzer and Manasseh vulnerable, Chara rushes in to finish them off.
Then Bodhi is all that's left. Her defenses are virtually nil and she is easy to hit, though unfortunately Drizzt steals the kill despite our party having several times as much APR and damage output.
We run into a party of enemy thieves on the way out, but Chara resolves things peacefully.
Unfortunately for the thieves, the game crashes when we attempt to leave, and some testing reveals that the only way I can avoid the bug is to fight them instead. The peaceful solution crashes the game.
It starts out badly. We arrive unbuffed, while the enemy is very well-prepared indeed.
I've never fought these guys before, so I don't know what kind of tricks they can pull. But they seem to be a very diverse group with some very optimal item choices. One of them is a cleric and one of them uses Arrows of Dispelling.
In SR, Harm does 90 guaranteed damage but cannot reduce the target below 1 HP. But that only lasts a second, and it only takes 1 more point of damage to finish off Coran.
Frisk and Chara remain invisible. Chara just watches and waits for an opportunity, while Frisk uses Detect Illusions; these enemies like to go invisible.
The enemy is really good at seeking out vulnerability. Tashia goes down in one shot.
Xan casts Stoneskin and PFMW, expecting a backstab, but without his normal defenses, he is helpless against a Breach spell. He dies in a single round.
This is serious. With a septuple backstab multiplier, a critical hit without Stoneskins could one-shot anyone in the party--even Chara, if that weapon is +4 or better.
Chara, buffed with True Seeing, launches a Warding Whip while Frisk tries to charm one of the enemies, relying on the Staff of the Magi to avoid a fatal backstab.
Korgan still needs to worry. Vials of Scales are the only reason he's not getting backstabbed to death. But they only last so long.
One of the enemies turns visible, and Chara's Warding Whip has removed her first set of defenses. Chara Breaches her and moves in for the kill as she flees.
Korgan loses his Stoneskins and drinks another Vial of Scales, but he has no defense against Maze.
Korgan is out. Chara casts PFMW so they'll be safe while they switch to melee combat, but the enemies run from them. Frisk charms one of their number.
The enemies here can use Detect Illusions, and though Frisk has the Staff of the Magi, I don't react fast enough to save them. Frisk suffers a fatal backstab.
But we're finally making progress. Chara finishes off Selina, and Zaeron is still under the effects of Frisk's Charm spell.
Then one of Frisk's pre-mortem Charm spells take effect, and we gain control of the cleric. The cleric doesn't have many good spells for us, but it doesn't matter, because the moment he turns, a backstabber takes him down.
We don't get the XP for the kill, but the important thing is that the enemies are starting to drop. Frisk's charm on Zaeron wears off, but Chara is still strong enough to finish off Grok.
Fun fact: Grok is a verb that means "to understand thoroughly and completely."
Chara brings back Frisk, who immediately grabs the Staff of the Magi so they can continue charming Zaeron. But when the other enemy fails to kill Zaeron and stays out of sight, preventing Zaeron from helping us, we simply kill Zaeron ourselves.
Korgan reappears, drawing the last backstabber, Venduris, out of hiding, but when Venduris misses, he runs away and keeps hiding. In the end, we have to draw him out by giving him an Efreeti to backstab, at which point Chara stuns Venduris just long enough for us to take him down.
We bring back everyone in the party and collect the Chosen of Cyric's loot. A lot of it is just gold fodder at this point, but a few options catch our eye.
The ioun stone will greatly empower Chara's grenades on the off chance we ever use them. But the Chain Contingency scroll gives us one final, wildly overpowered rescue option.
If Chara ever gets in danger somehow, we can teleport the entire party to a safe location almost instantly.
I think it is time we brought this run to an end. We head to Suldanessellar, though Xan inadvertently questions the value of saving his own people.
Normally, only elves would be allowed into this city. Being able to see this place is a rare gift for outsiders. It fills us with determination.
Divalir, Yasraena's friend, somehow shows up at Suldanessellar. He is not happy that we accidentally betrayed him and Yasraena both.
He has some mage buffs, but it's nothing that a Breach and the Staff of the True Magi can't remove in a single round.
I really don't like the rakshasas at Suldanessellar, and though I normally like to use Horrid Wilting, SR nerfs it badly. Instead, Chara just blasts them with Meteor Swarms.
We hunt down those that escape the fire and move on to Raamilaat. Raamilaat is pretty tough, but with three mages in the party, we can remove his defenses very quickly.
That is indeed a Protection from Magic scroll, and unlike in BG1, it can be used on any target in my install. It would be a perfect way of shutting down an enemy mage's spellcasting.
By the time we save Demin (which requires using a Rod of Resurrection to heal her), we also find scrolls of Spell Trap and Time Stop.
Time Stop is a huge game changer. I had gotten so accustomed to not having it, and suddenly it's here.
We don't have Shapechange yet--and even if we did, the Bard's Bane longsword is a better source of stat drain kills--but Chara can already hit 10 APR with high damage values, and the Robe of Mystra grants Chara four extra level 9 spell slots, so Chara can keep time stopped for many, many rounds.
But it looks like there might be a nonviolent way of resolving the conflict with Nizidramanii'yt that doesn't involve handing over all of our items.
Nizidramanii'yt offers to give us the cup if we perform a service for him. But ever since getting betrayed by Hooktail in the Thousand Year Door, I've been very suspicious about doing nice things for big dragons. I decide to play it safe by fighting him.
Why is fighting him the safe option? Well, with Tragla's Doom, Chara can cast Time Stop instantly.
Chara beats Suneer the same way.
As long as Time Stop makes dragons this easy, I decide to stop by the Windspear Hills. One of my mods adds a huge orc and orog horde before you can fight Firkraag or even Conster, but at this point, fighting the horde is too easy to bother posting screenshots.
Pierce Shield kills Conster. That is all.
But before fighting Firkraag, I decide not to rely on Time Stop to kill him. Let's see if we can beat him without it!
The answer is yes.
We get Carsomyr and some Adamantine Ore, which would be very useful if we didn't already have basically all the items we could possibly need.
As long as Chara is immune to +3 weapons and below thanks to the Robe of Mystra, I may as well tackle the mind flayer city. We find Belm, which we really don't need at all, and use Frisk's Charm spell to take control of a mind flayer to avoiding using up our Control Circlets, which we also don't need at all.
Coran's saving throws are pretty lousy, so I rearrange our equipment and give everyone a Brine Solution to drink, bringing everyone saving throws down to 1 or lower. Tashia still gets stunned once, forcing Xan to hop over her when she blocks a doorway and use Divine Wind to stun-lock the mind flayers before they can gobble up Tashia's brains.
We find the Staff of Command--Item Randomizer didn't move it, it seems--and an Ulitharid confirms that Chara is indeed immune to mind flayer attacks.
For some reason, the Master Brain isn't as well defended as it normally is.
I stop by Trademeet to steal Mazzy's sword--apparently I forgot to take it last time--and because I want to have her on hand later on, I drop her off at Watcher's Keep.
I try to hold her in place using Flesh to Stone, but it seems that kicking out of the party while she's under SR-style petrification turns her hostile.
I cure the petrification and charm her, but it doesn't let me bring her back into the party. I send her to the west so she doesn't attack us again.
We buy a Rod of Reversal from a mod merchant in Trademeet, kill some rakshasas through a portal that appears in Adratha's cottage, and explore a quest of Xan's.
Turns out Xan's friends want to commit genocide against humanity. We do not agree to the plan.
This might have been a dangerous fight if Chara could not instantly cast Time Stop.
We fight Mencar Pebblecrusher and end up finding an outrageously overpowered dagger on Brennan Risling.
The description is misleading. It actually grants 2 extra attacks per round, and increases your backstab multiplier by 2.
Which means Coran can put it in his off hand to bump his APR up to 5 and his backstab multiplier up to 7x. And since the Fulcrum grants grandmastery in clubs, his backstabs will do a minimum of 70 damage, plus his STR bonuses. Coran will be an absolute nightmare when he gets Assassination.
I upgrade a few last items, purchase a few last items, sell off another 90,000 gold worth of loose equipment, and decide not to undergo the Back to Brynnlaw questline. Instead, I return to Suldanessellar.
Chara begins the fight against Irenicus with an instant-cast Time Stop. But True Seeing doesn't reveal him; Chara cannot use the Time Stop to actually do anything to him.
I let Time Stop expire, and Irenicus reveals himself. Chara stops time instantly once more.
Irenicus' Moment of Prescience spell is meaningless; the AC bonuses do nothing when Chara has Time Stop.
The fight is over. We are transported to the Nine Hells.
Following a night of debauchery, (well I had to check eveything was in working order and Edwin was willing and I didn't really fancy hearing Deheirianannanana at the crucial moment) we had a "family" conference.
A larger group is one possibiliy or all of us getting much better at fighting and stuff with better equipment. Heard about a veritable treasure trove of a ruin, so Durlag's Tower it is. Just a quick look, see if there's anything worth nicking.
Two battle horrors and a couple of moany doppleganger things later we entered the great door. Creepy, really creepy. Kivan reverted to his usual racial bias and started going on about "Dwarven folk" (after the Battle Horrors a couple of dwarves would have been a welcome sight, especially if they sang cheerful work songs and needed a housekeeper).
Lots of traps, no problem, lots of ghasts, also no problem nowadays......and some basilisks on the roof? (let it go, artistic licence) Some homeless squatter who acted tough yet couldn't disarm and unlock the chests he was standing right next to? Down we went to the lower level, got a dire warning from another squatter (go home people, you're scared, it's creepy, there's got to be better squats around). I suppose he was trying to be helpful, would have been more help had he not ignored the ghasts wandering around. So all in all, not a happy place but OMG, the goodies. We're rich!!!!!
Came to a large area with a series of rooms branching of, everything trapped to buggery. Made some wine, drank some wine (not bad actually). Pitted our skellies against the resident skellies. Unfortunately the resident skellies were super skellies, with big swords, that was invigorating. Flesh golems (don't ask, Edwin was far too interested as it was) Some very fast, moaning dopplegangers, we made them moan more. Opened every chest and filled our backpacks.
Some ghostly dwarven guards posed some cryptic riddles we just had to solve to go down to the next level. Turns out we shouldn't have drunk the wine. So as we were pretty laden down, decided to go sell stuff and pick up a bottle and come back another day. So just thought I'd have a quick last minute run round, check we hadn't missed anything. And walked straight into a trap.
Epilog.
The thing is I knew the trap was there, it's always there so if it doesn't show up, that doesn't mean somebody has come along and helpfully removed it. It just means the detection hadn't worked. I know this, but you get careless. I have 95 in detect traps and open locks because I'm going to dual and need those stats to be filled.
So kind of disappointed as I'm enjoying writing the playthrough.
So I've decided to restart, play the same game (with minor changes) and pick up from this point when I get here. With what could be described as reincarnations of "The Partridge Family" .........coming to you soon,
The Hell trials are uneventful. We spare the genie, mob Sarevok, and Korgan kills all of the beholders but the Elder Orb, who succumbs to Pierce Shield from Chara.
Before we activate the door, I reconfigure our spellbooks and have everyone drink a bunch of potions before casting their buffs. Chara is a fortress by the end of it, even without the Robe of Mystra and its many benefits.
With two Balors, two Glabrezus, and the Slayer attacking all at once, Tashia cannot cast Dispelling Screen fast enough to hold off the Remove Magic spells. All our dispellable buffs go down at once.
I went easy on Firkraag, but I am not going to go easy on Irenicus. Chara chain-casts Time Stop and butchers the demons.
We are so overloaded with resources that we could easily just give Irenicus another 10 or 20 rounds to try to defeat us. But I see no reason to give him the chance.
Irenicus falls. Shadows of Amn is over!
One of my mod allows me to revisit Candlekeep before we continue to Throne of Bhaal.
But due to a missing cutscene file and a missing creature file, and maybe some other problems I don't know about, the game is basically broken. It never sends you to Candlekeep and there's no way to skip ahead to ToB.
The only way to fix it is to delete Ellesime's dialogue file from the override folder, forcing her to use her original dialogue.
We finally enter Throne of Bhaal, the last game in the saga. We are loaded with far more resources than I've ever had before, but that's not all.
The game automatically bumps up Tashia and Coran to 2.5 million XP, bringing us even closer to those precious HLAs we've been waiting for.
We are so close to completing this run. We are in a secure position. All I need to do is play it safe and avoid making stupid mistakes.
We've worked so hard to get here, pulling every dirty trick at our disposal when things got ugly, pushing every resource to its limit, and preempting every threat to our success that I could foresee. We've had massive setbacks and fought unfamiliar battles under bizarre circumstances, but we have scratched and clawed our way to the final chapter of the saga.
The hardest fights in the game lie ahead. Everything we've worked for ultimately depends on our choices here on out.
@Pokota: I love that song! I think it took me like 10 tries to beat Undyne, and every time, I was just... amazed at how awesome she was. I was muttering "Wow..." under my breath the whole time.
It really made you appreciate that yes--she really is a true hero.
The moment we enter Throne of Bhaal, some mod-introduced demon attacks us. It proves to be a pretty simple fight.
And the reward adds another wildly overpowered mod item to our inventory.
Two of our characters are already immune to Time Stop. I give it to Xan so he can attack during Chara's Time Stops.
At the Pocket Plane, I upgrade a bunch of items, though many are still not useful to us. One notable exception is the Staff of the Woodlands, which can summon a Shambling Mound 6 times per day when upgraded.
Time Stop completely broke the difficulty of the Illasera fight, so I try it against the first Pocket Plane trial. It's pretty game-breaking.
And if you think this strategy is cheap, it turns out that one of my mods introduces a monk to the Saradush tavern. And he has a ring that makes him immune to Time Stop.
I steal his items and boot him from the party. Once Coran gets Use Any Item, he'll be able to use that ring, and we'll have three characters who are immune to Time Stop.
I have no screenshots for the vampire fights, and the Il-Khan soldier fight screenshots were boring despite me not using Time Stop.
Chara once again uses Tragla's Doom to get an instant casting of Time Stop, and they and Xan take full advantage of the spell, wiping out everyone in the room before the enemy has a chance to react. Chara has 4 Time Stop spells, but they don't even need all of them. Twelve screenshots of one-sided carnage.
Karun the Black dies just before his genie grants him a Time Stop of his own.
We find the Answerer +4 among the remains, buy a few overpriced but unique items from a mod-introduced merchant at the tavern, dropping our gold supply from an astonishing 200,000 to an astonishing 130,000, and return to the Pocket Plane.
I like the party I have, but I want to see if there's anyone else I might prefer. Korgan is sturdy, but with no proficiency bonuses to APR, his offense is kind of pathetic.
I boot him from the party to check out Fade's stats, boot Fade because she doesn't seem very interesting, and...
I can't talk to Korgan. I can't bring him back into the party.
I have no idea what is causing this. Korgan isn't even a mod NPC; he was always supposed to transfer into ToB without incident. This really shouldn't be there.
We just lost a party member.
I consider my options. CTRL-Q would bring him back, but I prefer only to use cheats and the like to speed things up and fix quest-breaking or game-ending bugs.
I decide to replace Korgan with Ninafer, the boring Lawful Neutral elven fighter/mage genderbent clone of Xan that I ditched way back in Shadows of Amn. But Korgan still has lots of important equipment. How do I get it back? I don't want to kill him for it; I might change my mind about Ninafer later.
Frisk steps up to bat and starts stealing back Korgan's items.
Unfortunately, Frisk can't get all of them.
The only way to get those items back is to kill Korgan. And since it's now impossible to bring him back into the party, the choice is elemental.
We now have a new party member! Ninafer can use Divine Wind at full APR, so Coran hands her the wakizashi; he'll keep using the Fulcrum just in case I want to try backstabbing somebody. We scribe a crapload of scrolls and Ninafer is ready to go.
It's sad to see Korgan go, but I think this party is actually stronger with Ninafer in his place.
We head off to the Marching Mountains to seize Yaga-Shura's heart. Frisk proudly names this country... New Hotland.
Coming up with terrible names fills us with determination.
The first area of the fire giant lair isn't too challenging, though we do discover that the local Fire Trolls are impossible to kill. You're supposed to be able to finish them off with acid or cold damage, but these ones never die. Rather than running away to rest and then Imprison the trolls, I circumvent the issue by using CTRL-Q and then booting them from the party.
It's a convenient way to get rid of characters who will not die to CTRL-Y.
We overwhelm the Fire Lich with magic attacks and overwhelm Brimstone with raw damage.
At Nyalee's swamp, Tashia hits level 18 and chooses Wish as her first level 9 spell pick. Tashia only has 14 Wisdom, but one of the items from the Breudayael party boosts her Wisdom by 3, and drinking a potion of Chara's Purified Ichor gives another +1 to Wisdom, at the cost of taking away 10 HP by reducing her Constitution from 15 to 14.
Coran has also hit epic levels. Like Tashia, Xan, and Chara (but for some reason not Frisk), Coran does not get the HLAs he's supposed to when he levels up, so I have to do everything via EEKeeper.
But Coran now has Use Any Item. He can now use three incredibly important new mod items.
He has 10 attacks per round even when unbuffed and can attack during Time Stop. Nyalee poses no threat whatsoever.
During the fight at Yaga-Shura's siege camp, Tashia tries her hand at Wish-resting, and discovers there's a new option.
It seems that one of my mods lets you take the randomness out of Wish. This could be very special.
Anyway, we run around the map until Yaga-Shura eventually returns. Yaga-Shura has 95% damage resistance that is supposed to decrease as the fight goes on.
Demilich-grade resistances, however, are not enough to save him. Chara casts Time Stop and that's the end of the story.
I didn't think there were many mods for ToB, but there are some weird things in Amkethran.
I don't know who these guys are supposed to be, but I think that dialogue is supposed to clue you in to attacking them to take whatever gear they might possess. They don't offer you a quest or anything; they basically just stand there shouting inanities.
Anyway, Xan has another quest here, which we resolve by throwing money at a complicated problem.
That Khalid is not Jaheira's husband, to be clear.
A lot of problems around here can be resolved with money. It's a good thing, too, because selling the loot from the fight at the Oasis triples our gold supply, from 100,000 to 300,000.
Converting the gold tally to grams and then translating it to U.S. dollars in 2017 gold prices, the party's gold supply amounts to 10% of the GDP of Samoa when adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).
In D&D, one gold piece can buy a goat. We have enough money to buy 300,000 Asriel clones! Doing fun math problems fills us with determination.
I needed to have my group able to cast 3 fireball before trying to tackle yipping demons... · Dorn is my party tank and heavy hitter. · Branwen used her stealth to collect a free fireball wand.
Fights: an easy couple shots from my free wand killed Mulahey without him knowing whom or why
I quickly ran this bard through the remainder of BG1 this morning before work. I didn't get around to taking any notes at the time though, so the following summary has been reconstructed from the few screenshots taken.
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes, "you must confront your fears". But when facing battle horrors and staring in their eyes Remember that the best way to cut them down to size Is to stick them in a web - that will save your tears.
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes, "stick to what you know". Sirines soon get stuck in webs, when you spin enough Add skull traps to the mix and sirines aren't so tough Golems though, don't get stuck so limber up that bow!
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes, "webs can set you free". This message does not tell you everything If you want freedom then use a ring Or else your foe may chuckle with glee.
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes, "the palace is a pain". But things are not so bad when enemies are jumping Add a spot of chaos and they will get a thumping And the dukes won't be numbered in the slain.
I head to Abazigal's lair before I bother with Sendai; there's an important item I want to get as soon as possible. One of my mods adds some random weirdo to the Draconis area.
He summons a bunch of undead, but as a cleric, his defenses are basically nil.
Bob the Cleric has an equally dumb-sounding weapon.
Unfortunately for us, the item is coded incorrectly, like maybe 10-20% of all mod items. It gives +4 to casting time (!), and it's also supposed to give Improved Alacrity (!), but the modder put a 1 in the wrong parameter, making the aura cleansing effect do nothing.
Draconis uses a Wish Time Stop in his human form, but since half our party is immune to Time Stop, all it does is give us more time to remove his defenses and kill his summons.
Draconis switches to dragon form, and though he has PFMW and spell protections keeping him safe, we still have enough magic attacks left to get past them.
For Anadramatis, I just use Time Stop.
Xan asks us to return to Amkethran, where the slavers await us for another showdown.
Time Stop and magic attacks won the battle. No interesting screenshots to post.
We also get ambushed by Karun the Black from Gromnir's castle, plus Berena Elken, Eler Had, and some other unfamiliar enemies. We arrived unbuffed, but magic attacks and Time Stop won that battle, too.
There's also a quadruple dragon ambush when we get back to Abazigal's lair. First up are two black dragons. Brute force proves sufficient to take them down.
Ithy'nassendra is more dangerous, as her breath weapon deals poison damage. Chara is immune, but to avoid having to resurrect the rest of the party, Chara casts Time Stop, preventing the dragon from using its poison breath.
The fourth and final dragon is Carnifex. We could beat him with brute force, but Time Stop is quicker.
Inside Abazigal's lair, there are some Tyrant Golems, which basically means beholder golems, which basically makes no sense. No points for guessing how we win this battle.
We get the Bronze Pantalettes by subcontracting a work deal to Bondari the Reloader and forge the Big Metal Unit. The armor itself is useless to us, but Coran's Sniper kit gives him extra bonuses with using the BMU ammo types.
The Scorcher Ammunition sets the user's APR and strikes twice, dealing both fire damage and missile damage. It basically amounts to 20 APR when under Improved Haste, though the projectile isn't party-friendly and can easily wipe out anyone who's not immune to fire damage and missile damage both. We'll need to be very careful when using it.
Before we fight Abazigal, I have Tashia cast Wish and choose the special option that one of my mods added to the bottom. It seems that you can pay the genie 15,000 gold to negotiate a Wish option in advance. However... it doesn't work for Tashia.
Apparently you need 19 Intelligence and Wisdom in order to get it to work. I'll check back on it later; it's not important just yet.
The drakes in Abazigal's lair apply some nasty effects using their breath weapons, but their defenses aren't great, so they don't last long.
Abazigal's human form is little different.
His dragon form is another story. He comes buffed with Improved Haste and a fair amount of spell protections on top. Notice Xan using Remove Magic to take down Abazigal's Dispelling Screen--even though Xan has no chance of dispelling Abazigal's buffs, Remove/Dispel Magic always take down Dispelling Screen.
Coran switches to the Pulse Ammunition to break apart Abazigal's Magical Sword.
I never understood why Mordenkainen's Sword is supposed to be a good summoning spell in SCS. It has low APR and both the player and SCS spellcasters are smart enough to kill it using Magic Missiles.
Tamah has now joined the party, so Coran switches gears, attacking her using the Scorcher Ammunition. We trade magic attacks with the dragons, losing our Dispelling Screen but Breaching Abazigal.
Tashia prepares to cast Breach on Abazigal to remove that PFMW Contingency, and another copy of Tamah appears on screen.
I don't know why the Tamah clone appears, but it's always happened to me. Tamah is notable for her breath weapon, which deals crushing damage and is therefore hard to resist for characters without Stoneskin.
Boosted by Tenser's Transformation, Chara joins Xan and Ninafer in fighting Abazigal, while Coran focuses on Tamah. Due to the way the characters are positioned, Coran's Scorcher Ammunition can hit both copies of Tamah simultaneously without harming the party.
Tashia restores our Dispelling Screen and the fight goes on. Abazigal and his twin wives are taking lots of damage. We are not.
Coran takes down both Tamahs at the same time. Chara uses Plasma to apply magic damage to Abazigal, but the extra damage isn't really necessary. It just looks cool.
We have slain nine dragons in a single session. Only one of them ever dealt any damage to us--Ithy'nassendra, with an Insect Plague on Xan. Bulldozing through ToB fills us with determination.
I do some poking around in Near Infinity and make a huge discovery.
You probably don't remember the Staff of Zoltan, which might have popped up in a screenshot after the Breudayael fight, but which I never discussed. This is because the staff doesn't look that spectacular at first glance.
But the description is misleading. See that "Protection from Evil" line in there?
It doesn't mean the staff gives you +2 to AC and saving throws vs. evil critters, like the Protection from Evil spell does.
The staff grants you invisibility to evil critters, like a Protection from Undead scroll.
As long as you hold the staff, no evil creature will ever attack you.
I look at the staff and say aloud, "Well, that's it. The run is over."
Everyone in the final battle except for Balthazar (and maybe Imoen in Slayer form) is evil; none of them will hurt Chara as long as Chara holds the staff. Unless one of my mods introduces a new variable, or if I somehow badly mismanage Balthazar, Chara is truly invincible from here on out.
Time Stop wins the fight with the drow outside Sendai's lair. Inside Sendai's lair, a new enemy shows up, but he's just a fighter.
His loot is dimly interesting.
The missile damage resistance might not seem like much, but it means that we can make one party member almost immune to friendly fire from Coran's Scorcher Ammunition or Frag Grenades.
Thelynn'ss (what an awful name) deals lots of damage, but he, too, is nothing more than a fighter.
Frisk hits level 34. Their Hypnosis now lasts for 1d6 rounds, and has a -3 save penalty.
Coran is instrumental in the fight against Odamaron and his Apprentices. Frag Grenades and Scorcher Ammunition allow him to completely bypass their PFMW spells, because weapon immunities only protect the first target of area-effect projectiles; not anyone close by.
We trade Time Stops, and though Xan and Chara get debuffed, Coran can just apply pressure in too many places for the enemy to function properly.
A new group of enemies surprises us on the way out from the fight with Lashar'ra (what is the point of these apostrophes, anyway?), and though an Anti-Magic ray shuts down Chara's spellcasting, but with Chara having switched to the Staff of Zoltan, Tashia now has Tragla's Doom, which, combined with the Robe of Vecna, makes her Time Stops instantaneous.
Ogremoch proves frustratingly focused on Coran and Frisk due to their lack of Stoneskins, and nearly kills both. To avoid having to raise them, we cast Time Stop.
At this point, I've kind of stopped caring about the difficulty. So I cast Time Stop before the fight with Diaytha even begins.
Chara kills Egeissag with Tenser's Transformation; Time Stop isn't necessary. But Time Stop does simplify the mind flayer fight.
Sendai is tricky. Her statues have a lot of buffs, but just as important, there's an endless stream of drow Kensais who deal massive damage all the time. You might be tempted to focus on Sendai alone, but those Kensais are a major threat to anyone without PFMW.
Coran applies pressure to one of the statues with Pulse Ammunition, then takes the opportunity to kill the other drow when one of the other statues casts Time Stop. We can't stop the mage statue from casting its spells, but we can nail it with Pierce Shield.
We kill the planetar to prevent a vorpal strike and Tashia lands us a Wish-rest.
Wish-resting is largely meaningless for this party, however, as I have never actually used any of our HLAs besides a few Psionic Maze spells from Frisk. Planetars, Dragon's Breath spells, Hardiness, Power Attack, or Greater Whirlwind Attacks have never been necessary.
A cleric statue manages to heal itself, but it struggles to cast other spells; our APR is too high for it to function very well.
Notice Frisk and Chara in the middle of the map. Frisk is keeping the other drow occupied using Hypnosis and hiding themself using the Staff of the (True) Magi. Chara is just attacking the drow until I can think of something more productive for them to do.
One statue dies, and then a mage statue appears.
I don't know what the timing is for these statues. I do know that the drow here are not very good at handling invisibility, so if the statues activate based on a timer (and not based on whether the previous statues have fallen), you could probably hide the party with Potions of Invisibility or Invisibility 10' Radius spells until all of them had activated. Then your sorcerer could cast Time Stop two or three times to wait out any remaining PFMW spells, roasting any drow fighters with Dragon's Breath and/or Comet and allowing your own fighters to mob the statues while they were vulnerable and alone.
Ninafer, Coran, and Xan have all lost their Stoneskins due to those drow fighters, but Frisk is holding them off using Hypnosis. Without it, they'd need a lot more PFMW spells or Hardiness to survive the onslaught.
But I neglect their health for too long, forcing Chara to use Time Stop to bail them out.
The reason Xan is using the Rod of Resurrection on Ninafer is because, unlike Chara and Xan and Coran, she is not immune to Time Stop.
But the Time Stop allows us to re-establish control of the battlefield, as we have three characters acting unopposed for 3 whole rounds when the enemy's PFMW spells have worn out.
Sendai herself finally appears. Tashia answers with another Time Stop, and though Sendai survives the process, it leaves her wounded and weakened.
Sendai escapes using an invisibility spell, but with her spell protections betraying her location, we can reveal her using Frisk's Detect Illusions skill.
Sendai falls, and a new cut scene shows up.
But the Solar interrupts, bringing us to the Pocket Plane, which leaves me worrying about a potentially game-breaking bug.
The Solar returns us to Sendai's lair, where Balthazar and Melissan are still fighting. It's not a cosmetic fight, either; they're actually trying. We kill Melissan's friends, lest she somehow kill Balthazar.
For some reason, the battle won't end. We try to hasten the process by attacking Melissan ourselves, but nothing happens.
I don't know what mod is causing this, but hopefully it won't cause a sequence break, because I don't know how I would fix a bug like that.
Unable to fix the situation, we simply leave. We head to Amkethran to seek out Balthazar. On the way, we run into Nym, everyone's least favorite drow from Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale 2.
Nym is the arms dealer who single-handedly caused the fall of the Severed Hand and pushed the dwarves and elves apart by selling weapons to orcish armies. You never get a chance to punish him for his crimes. On the plus side, he sells some really awesome scrolls.
We already have more Protection from Magic scrolls than we need, and Tashia should be able to create a Wish scroll on her own, but at 300,000 gold, there's no reason for us not to buy everything we can.
The local monks attack us. Out of curiosity, I have Frisk charm CosmoGoon, who immediately attacks the monks and turns his friends hostile.
CosmoGoon and his friends kill Ninafer, but they go down pretty fast. As I suspected, they have some impressive loot on them, though it's a tad silly.
I don't know about other forums, but moderating this one doesn't actually involve a whole lot of banning people or fighting trolls. Mostly it involves talking to people and smoothing things out.
When I try to enter the smuggler's cave so Saemon can slip us into the monastery, the game crashes. I have no idea how to fix this, but apparently you can also get into the monastery just by attacking the monks at the front gate.
We confront Balthazar (I think I actually needed to spawn him using the console just so he'd show up) and try to win him over. But Chara's base Charisma is only 3 or 4, and I think you need something higher than that to get him to join you in the fight with Melissan.
Balthazar commits suicide, obviating the need for a fight. Melissan makes an appearance--I think this is another mod-introduced change--and exposes her true motives before she teleports away.
I really hope that my mods haven't broken the sequence. I am anxious to get to the Throne of Bhaal and finish this run, and I don't want to have to delve into a lot of nitty-gritty bugfixing before then. I am anxious enough as it is.
We return to the Pocket Plane. As I feared, the final challenge is still locked--I cannot fight the Ravager. And until I do, I can't get to the Throne of Bhaal.
I teleport past the barrier using CTRL-J. It worked!
One the spells from Rhialto's spellbook also should have worked; there's a level 2 spell that teleports you to a random spot, though it might have left Chara to fight the Ravager alone.
Coran quickly shows us why PFMW is so important in this fight.
Stoneskin isn't enough; the Ravager can just dispel it. I pull Coran back and have Ninafer, Xan, and Chara attack the Ravager while protected by PFMW. The Ravager crumples.
I hurry through the other challenges. Time Stop and magic attacks are sufficient for the fight with Chara's clone, Tenser's Transformation is sufficient for the fight with the Slayer, and...
...apparently you can sleep with Cyric. That's interesting.
But knowing Cyric is a megalomaniacal fiend whose portfolio includes deception, I'm a little concerned that accepting his offer would just remove Chara's equipment and start the fight anyway. We say no and kill his disciples with Time Stop.
Xan talks to Chara one last time. His fate was once to be sealed within his Moonblade for 1,000 years, but apparently, he just heard that he will be free.
With that, Xan just barely hits 6 million XP. Chara scribes him some level 9 scrolls and I add all our missing HLAs via EEKeeper, even though I'm sure I'll use basically none of them.
Once Xan and Ninafer have all the scrolls they need, I use our extra gold to scribe a few extra copies of PFMW and Wish. But that's not all--I can also spend 15,000 gold to use Wish to add a one-time innate ability to Chara or Tashia (provided Tashia drinks the right potions to get her WIS and INT above 18) that will allow them to get a guaranteed Wish-rest anytime we want!
Well, almost guaranteed. There's a chance that the spell will replicate a random Wish spell instead. But the chance is still better than a normal Wish.
Except...
The modder miscoded spell. It's supposed to increase the chance of a successful Wish-rest (or whichever Wish option you choose) as the caster gains levels. But because the modder mistook one spell file for another, it actually gets worse as the caster gains levels. Instead of levels increasing the odds of a successful spell, higher levels increase the odds of a random spell. Only at level 31 is the spell coded correctly--at level 31, there's a 100% chance of success.
And Chara and Tashia aren't remotely close to level 31. I abandon my hope of using the option to get guaranteed Wish-rests in the final battle.
Then I realize that Frisk is level 35. They can cast the spell and get a 100% chance of success!
I scribe a few Wish scrolls for Frisk, have them drink a Potion of Insight followed by a Brine Solution to get their INT and WIS above 18, and then have them cast Wish.
I do this a handful of times. Frisk can now activate an innate ability to Wish-rest the party with no chance of failure.
It is late at night. Fatigue may impair my judgment, if the fight takes too long. But I am not willing to wait any longer. My nerves are frayed as it is.
I reorganize our inventory, tweak our spell slots, and review all of our options one last time. We are ready for the Throne of Bhaal.
Comments
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer trilogy attempt 125 (Part 1 2 3 4)
Froy and Wymp continued their travels. Froy looted the secret library of scrolls, failing to learn some but a little bit of care and planning saw the duo loot the nearby crypts and meet up with Prat.
"Well done" said Belt. "Now, if you can just clean up the last of Sarevok's cohorts. Froy and Wymp shrugged and next thing they knew, they were shinning down a rope. Poiros made a brief appearance across a glowing cavern and a group of mercenaries fell to Cloudkill. This looks easy, though Froy, as Wymp opened a door. Wymp scowled as Poiros ignored her high charisma to talk to the less popular Froy, and turned hostile.
Froy had been summoning a skeleton and managed to do so as Wymp staggered back with an arrow embedded into her. Poison ticked away at Wymp so Froy used a special ability to stem it and the two casters turned to the enemy caster. Another arrow hit Wymp and she ran, Froy chasing to use her second slow poison ability. Both of us had Boots of Speed so we thought we'd be OK, but the almost unseen Elite Mercenary must have previously gulped an oil of speed and was constantly at the edge of his bow range.
By the time Froy reached Wymp, the mercenary had already hit Froy once and the brief stop for casting was enough for him to land two more arrows and Froy slumped to the ground for a comprehensive SoD drubbing. & Post-mortem from Grond0's screenshot.
Bad luck.
If I manage to get through my own run will jump straight to BG2. Don't know SOD well enough and don't enjoy it so much anyway.
One night in Beregost, up early, dragged Edwin off the concubines, picked up more arrows, then headed north.
Up to the FAI, dropped off some boots, wine and a spider body ( yeah Branwyn, totally hilarious when you put that in my pack, just look at me laughing here), then turn left.
Trundling along minding our own business when a Drow ran up begging for help. The FF guard wanted to kill her so Branwyn lectured him about the oppresion of women, Kivan said it was remarkable a dark elf could look so much like his lost Deheiriananana, Edwin drooled.
Couldn't let that happen so now we have a new member, Viconia.
Willing fighter but weak as a kitten, got a mouth on her like nobody's business, (wouldn't mind that but I get lumped in with the, in her opinion, useless men) and level 6 cleric, nice, more skellies.
Finally someone to use the Stupifyer, she had to get the ankheg, Branwyn was displeased but suffered in silence as she wanted to show solidarity with the oppressed, (didn't like to point out Drow society is a matriarchy and quite frankly, treat the men appalingly).
Kivan went ahead and used his ranger skills to spy on the bandit camp and came back with some bad news.
There are bloody hundreds of them, we are going to need a bigger group.
Quick conference,
"I must kill Tazok"
"My arcane might will kill them all when it gets a bit better"
"I've only got a +1 flail and no ankheg plate"
"I think we should head south to Amn"
"I didn't get rescued to be killed on a suicide mission".
Upshot being, come back later.
So back to the FAI, missed the path and went too far north. Killed some ankhegs, retrieved a body (no reload, invisi potions, such cowardice I was downright ashamed), decided to take the ankheg shells to Beregost for another set of armour.
While waiting for armour to be made, thought we'd tackle that rude adventuring group who had killed poor, already undead, whathisname (would that be murder if it came to court?)
Just in case, Branwyn and Viconia up front with petrification protection and summoned skellies, the rest at the back ranged. Just as well, had completely forgotten there was still a nutty gnome wandering around and one more Basilisk. Skellies tackled the hyperactive gnome, B and V went after the basilisk, protection wore off, B was petrified, ironic huh?
Trudged back picked up a scroll, rescued Branwyn...again....none the worse for wear. Killed the group (web), got loot, didn't know what it was...again.....
"Edwin why can't you use a spell to identify this stuff?"
"It's my opposing school"
"Oh right, so if I learn how to count I can't learn how to read?"
"It doesn't work like that and I have no intention of explaining the mysteries of the arcane to a simian like yourself"
"You don't know, Edwin doesn't know, nah, nah, Edwin's stupid"
Kivan's really coming out of his shell nowadays.
Back to Beregost, armour still not made, decide to hunt this Bassilus, the money's too good to pass up.
He had an army of skellies, so did we, and ours didn't collapse when asked an awkward question. Killed a really stupid hobgoblin group who didn't seem to notice our army of skellies when they demanded our cash.
Picked up the new armour, Branwyn's happy, even happier with the new hammer. Picked up the reward from the temple............. and then it happened.
"I'll just remove that curse you are under as you have served Bergost so well"
The belt fell off and I was exposed, (not like that).
"That explains things"
"You look like my lost Deheiriananana"
"Well, hellooo"
"It is at it should be for our leader to be a woman"
"Explains what?"
"Every woman you meet looks like Deheiriananana to you.....and she was an elf???"
"Hi Edwin, put your tongue back in and no you can't have the belt for research purposes"
"Always was on the inside"
Cue explainations, apologies, and general clearing up of misunderstandings, followed by shopping and drinking.
Undershadow: Chara and Frisk in Shadows of Amn
Part 7
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872325/#Comment_872325
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872551/#Comment_872551
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872662/#Comment_872662
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872789/#Comment_872789
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872830/#Comment_872830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872855/#Comment_872855
I really don't need to fight Breudayael. I know he has great items, but we have plenty of high-quality resources as it is, and our party has no major weaknesses that I had not already addressed long ago.
I just want to see if I can beat him.
Breudayael is the most blatantly overpowered mod enemy I've ever seen, even in Tactics, even in Ascension, and even in Improved Anvil (though I haven't played Improved Anvil all the way through). I only tried to fight Breudayael once or twice, and I've never beaten him. I never was able to figure out how.
Breudayael is immune to Time Stop, permanently and undispellably invisible, and area-effect spells do absolutely nothing to him. I've never even been able to touch him.
And if you kill his wife, Anastacia, before you kill him, he instantly casts Imprisonment on the entire party, over and over again, from all the way across the map if necessary, and I've heard it bypasses SI: Abjuration. With my mods, even Yasraena's rage ability doesn't grant immunity to Imprisonment. You're supposed to keep Anastacia alive, safe in a different room, until Breudayael himself goes down.
Plus, Breudayael is a high-level mage in his own right. I've been able to handle epic-level mages before, but I did so by breaking down their defenses and attacking them. Which is not possible with Breudayael being permanently untargetable.
His circle never appears. You can never click on him. No attacking. No single-target spells. And he's immune to area-effect spells, too. And even if he wasn't, he's been re-casting Spell Trap every single second, which can absorb area-effect spells in SR, and absorbs 99 spell levels. So what can I do?
Now, if I had an epic-level thief, I could just kill him with traps. A Spike Trap does 70 magic damage; laying 7 of them would surely take him down. And even if my mods rigged Spike Trap so it did piercing damage instead, a Mage/Thief with just over 6 million XP could use Improved Alacrity to set 13 Spike Traps and deal about 210 damage even if Breudayael pre-buffed with the maximum 10 Stoneskins. But my only thief is Frisk, and even if they had hit epic levels, Seducers can't set traps.
What else could do it? Well, I do have plenty of bottles of Burning Oil. They're completely nonmagical, so they should go through Breudayael's Spell Trap.
But Breudayael has also been casting Protection from Fire, Cold, and Evil every single second.
He has 100% immunity to fire, and there's no way I could possibly dispel it. Breudayael is level 51, after all.
I scour my inventory and my spellbooks for something that could possibly strike past his invisibility and his spell protections and his resistances. I need to be able to kill him instantly; knowing his ludicrous immunities, I'm sure his spells would destroy us within a few rounds.
Then I notice something. Chara has a War Engine, an 953-pound Alchemist-exclusive weapon that deals massive fire damage, and partly ignores fire resistance. It was designed to give the Alchemist a cool and extremely dangerous way of fighting folks like Melissan. War Engines are hideously expensive and also impose a huge XP penalty to the user, and though you can get up to 5 different grades of them (the final one only comes at level 40, which requires over 11 million XP), you can only create one of each.
Ours is a Grade 2 War Engine. It can deal 30d6 fire damage with a save vs. breath at -5 for half damage, and fire resistance only works at 75% its normal level. If I combine it with the WoL trick, it might just be able to take down Breudayael!
I check Breudayael's stats. 136 HP, saving throws of 0, and his equipment grants another -2 to saves. And another 40% fire resistance. Even using the WoL trick to duplicate the War Engine's effect for 180d6 fire damage. Even if his effect fire resistance was 100% instead of 127% or 140%, he'd need to fail 5 out of 6 saving throws.
The odds of that happening are about 0.001%.
I can't do it with that War Engine. I'd need to have a stronger version to do anything.
Then I realize. Chara is already over level 15. That grade 2 War Engine was from level 11.
We have an upgrade! I poke around and find that we already purchased the new War Engine; it's hidden in our Bag of Holding. I check out its numbers.
The grade 3 War Engine does 50d6 damage with a save vs. breath at -6 for half damage, and fire resistance only works at 50% its normal level.
Even if Breudayael's effective fire resistance is 140% and he makes every saving throw, a grade 3 WoL War Engine should be able to take him down!
But how are we going to avoid retaliation? War Engines work by casting a spell with a casting time of 9; it would take 6 whole rounds for all of them to hit. During that time, Breudayael might heal himself or his wife might get caught in the crossfire, and if his wife dies while he still lives, the whole party gets Imprisoned. We need to do this safely.
I take four additional steps to ensure our safety. First, I have Chara cast Antimagic Shell, a level 6 mod spell from IWD.
It's effectively a Protection from Magic scroll that can be taken down with a Secret Word instead of a Spellstrike. It lasts about as long and grants the same spell level immunities, but the spell failure and disabled spellcasting are no problem; War Engines aren't affected by spell failure (they're machines, after all).
Why is Chara way out in that faraway hall, when Breudayael is in the northeast corner? Well, that's the second safety measure we need to take. We need to be able to escape at a moment's notice if I see Breudayael's wife get killed. It takes less than a second for those Imprisonment spells to start coming, so if we're too far from the exit, we might not be able to make it out in time.
I don't actually know if Antimagic Shell will block Imprisonment. If it could bypass SI: Abjuration, why couldn't it bypass spell level immunities? So we need to keep Chara close to the exit.
But how are we going to hit Breudayael from across the map?
The Wand of Lightning trick can do it.
That's the third step we need to take. See, the Wand of Lightning, like any single-target spell or item, can target an item on the ground; not just a living critter. You can click on targets all over the map using the Wand of Lightning, but as long as one of them is within view, the character doesn't need to be in range of the others to reach them with the wand. I forget which one it is, but it's either the 1st target or the 6th target that needs to be within view; the rest do not have to be.
By dropping an item close to Breudayael--but FAR from his wife, lest we roast her prematurely--and targeting it with the Wand of Lightning, we can launch 5 of the 6 War Engine blasts at Breudayael from all the way across the map.
But that's not enough. In the Enhanced Edition, casting speed bonuses apply to scrolls (and the War Engine is actually coded as a scroll), but Chara still won't be able to cast them all instantly. Chara has a pair of mod-introduced gloves that boost casting time by +2, plus the Amulet of Power to give another +1 and a dagger for another +1, but that only brings the War Engine spell's casting time from 9 to 5. With 5 spells going to Breudayael, that makes the whole operation take place over a total casting time of 25.
Breudayael would have 2.5 rounds, 15 seconds, to retaliate. That could be enough time for him to wander out of the radius or for his wife to wander into it. He might also heal himself and survive entirely. And I've seen mages teleport right to the party before, which also could let him escape.
That's the fourth measure we need to take. To ensure that Breudayael dies before his wife does, and before he has time to retaliate, we need to get that 5 casting time down to 1 or ideally 0.
To do that, Chara needs to equip Tragla's Doom, another mod dagger that grants +5 to casting time. Before I dare give them the dagger, I triple-check that Chara has the Ring of Human Influence equipped, lest the -5 Charisma penalty of Tragla's Doom instantly kill them.
By combining those mage gloves with the Amulet of Power and dual-wielding Tragla's Doom with another mod-introduced dagger, Chara can boost their casting by a total of 9, enough to cast the War Engine spell instantly.
Encased in an Antimagic Shell in the hopes that it can block Imprisonment, Chara uses the Wand of Lightning to launch one grade 3 War Engine blast next to the party, and another 5 grade 3 War Engine blasts all the way across the map, next to Breudayael but away from his wife.
Five fireballs worth 250d6 damage soar across the map, passing through solid stone walls, and instantly kill the most overpowered character I've ever seen in the Infinity Engine games.
The War Engine took 30,000 gold to produce, but there is a greater cost. Because Chara cast the spell 6 times, they have lost 300,000 XP in an instant, a setback that will weaken them for the entire saga.
There's a fireball in our way. I use Xan to get rid of it, as 100% fire resistance will only block half the damage.
We head on over to finish off Breudayael's wife, Anastacia. Anastacia is waiting for us, but does not go looking for us, allowing Frisk to try to charm her from around the corner.
This will take some time. I take a moment to look at a couple of Breudayael's items. I need to cast Identify on some of them, but we have enough lore to recognize two of the items. And they are just outrageously overpowered.
The ring is definitely going on Chara, but Chara will need to wait until they get Use Any Item before they can equip the circlet.
We bring back Xan using a Moldy Poultice and heal him up with some potions. Eventually, Frisk charms Anastacia. Apparently she's a really, really high-level fighter, but we can force her to waste her HLAs before we engage her.
Same way we dealt with Silke back in BG1. I keep it up until she uses up every single HLA, and there were a lot of them. Then I notice that there is still an unexploded fireball from the War Engine spells. I walk Anastacia over to it and it incinerates her.
We collect all the dropped equipment and identify it.
There are no words to describe these items. They are just too much.
Almost all of them work properly, too; the only exception is those instant death immunities only cover spells; not on-hit effects like a Planetar's vorpal strike.
Remember Bertoxxulous, that +6 short sword I got at Waukeen's Promenade that drains 2 DEX for 30 seconds with a saving throw? I planned on using it for stat drain kills in ToB, but that Bard's Bane +5 longsword renders Bertoxxulous obsolete. It drains 3 Charisma per hit permanently.
I shuffle around some items, and something deeply disturbing happens.
I take off all of the items and read the descriptions. Apparently the culprit was the wedding ring, which instantly kills whoever wears it.
That could have been Chara. I throw the ring in our Bag of Holding and remind myself never to give it to Chara.
The fight is over. The Seducer kit and its charm effects allowed us to take down most of Breudayel's companions, while the Alchemist kit let us bomb Breudayael to death. This success could probably be replicated using normal charm spells and some Spike Traps for Breudayael, so I don't think custom kits and exploits are necessary to win this fight. Regardless, Chara is now immune to practically everything thanks to Breudayael's Robe of Mystra, Staff of the True Magi, and Rastor's Ring of Magic Shielding (don't know who Rastor is; it came from Breudayael), and we have some spectacular options for later in the game.
I go over all the possibilities in my head and tweak Chara's inventory and spellbook to cover their last remaining vulnerabilities, which mostly involve demons, as they are effectively invincible in the face of almost everything from beholders to mind flayers to planetars to vampires. My strategy has always involved figuring out how to kill my main characters, and then tweaking their defenses to cover that weakness.
But I am still going to keep Chara out of combat, even though they are now our strongest and sturdiest and most invincibly invulnerable character by far. Breudayael's items will not change our strategy (though the other items will); I will continue to rely on our normal setup to keep Chara safe. We have come too far for me to risk the future of the run by getting complacent with Chara's defenses.
Pulling ridiculous stunts for no real reason fills us with determination.
Undershadow: Chara and Frisk in Shadows of Amn
Part 8
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872325/#Comment_872325
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872551/#Comment_872551
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872662/#Comment_872662
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872789/#Comment_872789
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872830/#Comment_872830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872855/#Comment_872855
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873069/#Comment_873069
Finally, it is time to tackle Irenicus. Xan has to spend the first round re-casting Dispelling Screen, while Chara has to cast True Seeing to ensure they can land a Pierce Shield on Irenicus without worrying about Shadow Door disrupting it. Meanwhile, the rest of the party focuses on taking down the clones before Yasraena's clone can use Divine Wind against us.
Chara finishes casting Pierce Shield, which acts as a Ruby Ray of Reversal+Breach spell in SR. But SCS mages like Jon-bon can activate contingencies the moment their old defenses run out, and Irenicus can fortify his new defenses with a Spell Trigger.
Frisk hypnotizes Jon-bon, giving us enough time to break through his new set of spell protections without having to deal with a hostile HLA.
With his aura fogged, Irenicus cannot bring out any new defenses. We crush him.
Tiax survives the fight! One of my mods makes him a joinable party member. A little shuffling around shows that you can't send him to the Copper Coronet or wherever, so I send Wilson home instead. I don't really care about Tiax, but I'd like him to be available later on in case I need him.
Honestly, Wilson and Cernd were not pulling their weight very much anyway. I only brought in Cernd because I liked Wilson and Cernd's Animal Growth spell was a major boon for Wilson, but Wilson's melee power isn't really needed when we have Xan and Yasraena in the party, and although Cernd is very close to level 15, I just don't see how having more druid spell slots is going to help us much. I only keep Cernd around because the Underdark is tricky and we might need him.
We set sail for City Sushi and earn another 55,000 gold by selling stuff to the priestess of Sekolah just north of Ixilthetocal. She offers very high prices when you sell her stuff, and before EE, you could actually get infinite gold by buying back the items you sold her, provided you had high reputation and CHA.
We find the Boomerang Dagger instead of the Cloak of Mirroring, and we also scrounge up the Amulet of Spell Warding from somewhere. Otherwise the loot isn't interesting; we don't find the Cloak of Protection +2 I was hoping for, either.
I accidentally go visit Prince Villynaty before talking to Senityili, preventing us from siding with the prince against Ixilthetocal. But it causes some weird bug that grievously slows down the game, so I reload and proceed normally. City Sushi is uneventful.
This is what the party looks like when we finally reach the Underdark.
Seconds later, we get ambushed by some of Yasraena's old enemies. Xan hurries to bring up his defenses and Frisk holds off some of the enemies for a moment.
Then one of the drow launches an Unholy Word spell. Xan, Cernd, and Tiax all suffer deafness and therefore 50% spell failure, and Xan even gets slowed. Chara escapes the spell, as Breudayael's Robe of Mystra grants immunity to spells under level 7.
Xan counters the slow with an Oil of Speed and we apply pressure to the enemy, but Yasraena and Frisk are under heavy pressure themselves.
Xan has the Moonblade in the off hand; that main hand weapon with all the elemental damage is the Heart of Braldain, from one of Breudayael's friends.
Frisk apparently manages to paralyze the matron mother's Fallen Deva, but there's a drow mage at the back who has a full-blown Planetar in store for us. Worse yet, Chara's Pierce Shield utterly fails, as it gets blocked by a Spell Shield.
Yasraena and Xan turn their attention to killing the planetar before it lands a vorpal strike, while Chara heads east and discovers yet another high-level drow mage.
We kill the planetar, we kill the deva, we keep the party healed up, and Chara flees from the mage despite the fact that none of the enemies should be able to even touch them. Gyrmlain's Lightbend, from Rhialto the clown mage's old spellbook we got back in the Slums, pushes Chara's saves deep into the negatives.
Cernd is under heavy pressure; I don't think his Stoneskins will last. I have him drink a very expensive vial of Magnetic Fluid.
Magnetic Fluid applies some very heavy combat penalties, but it also damages and knocks back melee attackers. It scales with the user's level, so thieves can actually do a lot of damage with it, even though they normally shouldn't be in melee combat.
Xan and Yasraena are struggling; the enemy has strong damage output and solid AC. And though Xan has PFMW, the matron mother's Blade Barrier goes right through it.
A drow mage stops time, but doesn't do much besides restoring its defenses and using a triple Domination Spell Trigger that Xan can block using the Helm of Charm Protection.
Xan and Yasraena need help. Chara buffed the party with Resist Fear, allowing Yasraena to drink the Blood of Quallo's Friend (a Durlag's Tower item with the wrong name, I think) without panicking. Xan tries to drink a Potion of Extra Healing to protect himself from the matron mother's attacks, but a clouded aura and a PW: Stun spell kill him before Chara could save him with Break Enchantment.
Chara uses the Staff of the True Magi to debuff the matron mother and Tiax slows her with the Flail of Ages. Frisk, mindful of their poor defenses, uses a Magnetic Fluid like Cernd to knock back melee enemies.
We thin the herd, but with Chara's Pierce Shield spell wasted, and with Xan too busy staving off to death to use any magic attacks, the two drow mages have managed to stay alive and intact, with no party pressure to keep them on the defensive. We dodge a Dragon's Breath, but because of how the projectiles work, dodging a Comet is not so easy.
Yasraena finds herself up against a PFMW spell, so she cleverly drinks a Burning Syrup so she can equip a nonmagical weapon and dispel the PFMW on a failed save. But I don't actually have any normal weapons stored anywhere, and a Time Stop renders both PFMW and Burning Syrup moot.
Chara is immune to Time Stop, but I fail to make much use of it. Chara could have dual-wielding some daggers and finished off a drow cleric using the automatic hits from Time Stop, but they used the Staff of the True Magi instead. Its 1 APR isn't enough to stop the cleric from healing herself.
A Dragon's Breath spell puts Tiax in the red, and one of the mages restores its defenses.
Frisk is under heavy pressure, but the Magnetic Fluid keeps them safe, even managing to break apart a Magical Sword.
The battle drags on and on and on. Chara cures Tiax's SR-style petrification (a permanent hold effect), only to see Tiax's newly fleshy form die of dehydration.
Only when the enemy mages' defenses run low can we finally take them down. Yasraena ends up just throwing Frisk's dart (previously Chara's dart) and chipping away until the fight is won.
The other drow fight goes faster, and Raevilin Strathi from the imprisonment sphere ends up dying early to some simple Elf Tendon Wand charges.
The Balor isn't interesting, either. Yasraena stun-locks it, and it's doomed.
Yasraena tanks the beholders in the Kuo-toa area with her high MR and stun-locks the prince as well, and though the Demon Knights are normally a nightmare for me, I have Xan and Chara cast Dispelling Screen basically every round, keeping our defenses safe from the Demon Knights' incessant Remove Magic spells.
Normally, we get stunned and level drain and chopped up in this fight because we can't keep our defenses active. But we never let those Remove Magic spells get to us.
Our reward is the Robe of Vecna! We have no real need for it.
The drow at the exit can be pretty tough, as they come bolstered by a pair of Glabrezus with Unholy Blight, Mirror Image, and PW: Stun. We distract them with summons and Hypnosis.
A Glabrezu teleports to Frisk and takes advantage of their poor AC, and a drow stops time. But with Cernd at the front of the party and far from the rest of us, the drow concentrates its attention on killing Cernd, which it does using Remove Magic and Horrid Wilting. The other Glabrezu helps finish him off, but Xan kills the first Glabrezu, keeping Frisk safe.
Frisk keeps the enemy occupied with Hypnosis while Chara and Xan use magic attacks to weaken the mages. Hypnosis works long enough for Chara to slay one of the mages by dual-wielding with Firetooth +3.
The rest of the drow don't last long. We collect the Shield of Reflection, which we probably won't use until Melissan.
Vithal died in my last run, so I take some spell picks designed to keep him safe. Chara fortifies his AC while Tiax heals Vithal when area-effect damage shows up.
I decide we're strong enough to handle the Beholder hive. Chara could probably solo the place since Breudayael's ring blocks offensive damage spells, and SCS beholders don't know how to steal it like they do with the Shield of Balduran and Cloak of Mirroring, but like I said before, I don't put Chara at risk--even if there is no risk.
Xan attacks with the Heart of Braldain for the extra damage and Yasraena uses the War Hammer +4: Defender for the extra magic resistance. Frisk tries to hypnotize the beholders with little success while Tiax and Cernd summon monsters and use slings on the off chance they might actually contribute something.
Xan falls to a Death Ray, but thanks to her items and a Bitter Tonic, Yasraena's save vs. death is more than low enough to guaranteed a successful saving throw. When the Hive Mother's Moment of Prescience spell finally runs out, its AC can no longer keep Yasraena off its back.
Xan and Yasraena act on their own for the next fight, and Xan gets paralyzed (maybe another SR Flesh to Stone effect), but Yasraena keeps fighting for a long time.
Until the enemy tries out a triple Lower Resistance Spell Trigger and takes her MR into the negatives.
How do we handle this? It's actually kind of silly. All we have to do is have Yasraena run away, equip Thordek's axe for +50% magic resistance, and drink a bottle of Burning Syrup and Lime Juice for another 25% and 15%, respectively.
But there are two Elder Orbs, and both of them have Lower Resistance Spell Triggers. Spell Revisions makes Lower Resistance even stronger than in the original game, so there's really way we can overcome six of them together.
So I just have Yasraena activate rage, switch back to the war hammer for its save bonuses, and have her rely on her Berserker immunities and saving throws. The two Elder Orbs kill Xan and deal heavy damage to Yasraena, so Yasraena just drinks more Sour Draughts and switches back and forth from Elder Orb to Elder Orb to force them both to use their PFMW spells.
We get the Defender of Easthaven, Celestial Fury, and the Greenstone Amulet. All are basically useless to us.
Chara should be immune to everything the Mind Flayers can throw at them, since Chara's saves can block their psionics and their INT drain attacks strike as +2, and enemies need +4 or +5 weapons to hit Chara. But I'm not willing to chance it; it's entirely possible that I have some mod installed that adds a vampiric draco-alhoon or something to the Mind Flayer city. Instead, I head to Ust Natha.
This is always the most tense part of the run for me. Simple mistakes can be very costly, or even fatal.
We walk deep into enemy territory. It fills us with determination.
Undershadow: Chara and Frisk in Shadows of Amn
Part 9
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872325/#Comment_872325
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872551/#Comment_872551
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872662/#Comment_872662
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872789/#Comment_872789
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872830/#Comment_872830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872855/#Comment_872855
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873069/#Comment_873069
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873079/#Comment_873079
The fight against Boz and N'ashtar and Chandrilla and Damien and whosits goes by without a hitch; the party is high enough level that these mid-level parties are not a threat. We find a Moment of Prescience scroll (undispellable but Breachable +20 to AC and saving throws for 4 rounds) that will further improve Chara's already-fortress-like defenses. The Mind Flayer ambush is little different.
I don't like introducing extra variables into Ust Natha, so I use Chara's high WIS score to squirm out of the Aboleth's quest. I do explore the city in search of Yasraena's friend Divalir, however, as I'm concerned that she'll leave us if we don't find him ourselves. It seems my mods add some new stuff to Ust Natha I've never seen before.
We manage to find Divalir. Apparently we need to go fight a guy named Tsabrak.
But I'm worried. Will a fight with Tsabrak turn the city hostile? Because if it does, making our escape would be extremely difficult, and we'd miss out on a huge XP reward at the end. I find Tsabrak and talk to him. Hopefully we can avoid a fight.
There are two dialogue options! One of them obviously starts a fight. The other is a weird-sounding lie, but maybe it holds the clue to avoiding a potentially quest-breaking conflict. I choose it...
...but Tsabrak just leaves.
This... doesn't sound right. I thought the lie would lead to some alternate means of rescuing Divalir. But it does not.
That one simple click just doomed Divalir. And Yasraena noticed.
Um...
It's over. I thought the lie would let us avoid turning the city hostile. But now Yasraena, our most valuable party member since Chapter 2 began, is hostile. And there is no way to placate her.
We don't have a choice.
That was absolutely horrible. I liked Yasraena. And she was incredibly important.
And I was trying to save Divalir! This feels awful.
We have to move on without Yasraena in the party. It's the single biggest blow to our power in the entire run, and I have no idea how I'm going to replace her.
I continue the questline without her. Apparently Romantic Encounters is somewhere in my install, because Phaere offers us a special reward for our service.
Out of curiosity, I say yes.
I like the fact that he has a flail for some reason, but knowing that this guy is a slave, however willing he might be... I have to decline.
But it hurts his feelings.
Crap.
Out of curiosity, I test the level 7 Teleport spell that Chara bought way back in the Adventurer Mart. As it turns out...
...you can totally use it to escape the drow city. And then go right back to it.
You can even do it in the middle of combat, escaping from encounters just like plot-related NPCs do. You could actually use this to escape the Siege of Ust Natha midway through the fight, rest, and then come back to finish it when the party was in good shape again.
There are some places where it won't work, like the Throne of Bhaal, but Teleport is basically the ultimate escape option. You can get out of almost any fight no matter how awful things are and then just go right back where you came from.
Combined with that ridiculous Robe of Mystra, tackling the Siege of Ust Natha should be a cinch. Hell, even a bunch of bottles of Burning Oil could trivialize most of the enemies.
But no. I don't think I'm going to do that. I don't need the XP and I don't want to go through that ordeal again. Once was enough, and the success of my first trilogy/tetralogy run is more important than killing drow.
The Egg Guards prove easy even without Yasraena's help. Xan is pretty strong on his own.
We find a Ring of Free Action (finally) in the golem room and use PFMW to keep Xan from suffering a Cursed Wound effect again.
I hate Taso Kala, so we talk-block her on the way to Phaere. Besides, I don't want to fight the Ghaunadaur worshippers; they're an unnecessary risk.
Also, I hate Taso Kala.
We proceed with the ritual as normal. Matron Mother Ardulace drops a very interesting girdle!
Too bad it doesn't actually grant any magic resistance.
Solaufein offers to join the party. I don't like his portrait very much, but he could probably take Yasraena's place just fine. He has some pretty awesome stats to his credit.
Too bad I can only give him a mage kit, and not a fighter kit. A Berserker/Mage would have been much more interesting.
We use Invisibility Sphere to avoid fighting any more drow on the way to surface. Solaufein leaves the party and rejoins after the Elhan encounter to avoid any extra questions like Viconia has to deal with. I'm not sure I like Solaufein's voice, either, but maybe I'll get used to it. I do need to fill in the void that Yasraena left.
We sell 93,637 gold worth of loot at the Adventurer Mart and buy some level 9 scrolls for Chara. After scribing a whole bunch of scrolls I'd been saving up, I boot both Cernd and Tiax from the party--they just aren't what I need right now.
Without Yasraena, beholders are much more challenging, but the Unseeing Eye quest is much less intense than the Underdark beholder hive. Beholders have lousy defenses, so they don't have much time to hurt Xan or Solaufein before we slice them up.
The Unseeing Eye resists our attempt to Breach it, so the Death Tyrants go down first, but eventually we get past its defenses and an Efreeti finishes it off.
Frisk hits epic levels! But their HLAs aren't game-changers like a normal thief's; they don't get Use Any Item or traps. They just get a single use of Psionic Invisibility, which makes the Seducer invisible even against liches and demons and planetars, albeit only for 2 rounds. It's just there to give them a way to use their psionics without getting beaten to death so easily.
We report our success to High Watcher Oisig, start the illithium quest, and then change our minds when I find out that one of my mods changed that questline.
We're already in a good position in this run. No need to chance it by wandering into a battle I don't yet understand.
Yes, I'm that paranoid. It's Chapter 7, we have plenty of XP, strong items, and a deep well of resources. Now is not the time to take risks.
We do minor chores here and there and finally get Chara up to level 18. Chara now has Use Any Item! And unlike the thief version, the Alchemist version gives the Alchemist one proficiency in every weapon a thief can use.
Unfortunately for Chara, Alchemists do not get any mage HLAs besides the extra level 6, 7 and 8 spell slots. So Chara will never be able to cast Improved Alacrity, Summon Planetar, Dragon's Breath, Comet, or Energy Blades.
Chara can finally cast level 9 spells. Alchemists normally don't get level 9 slots until level 19 due to their spell slot penalties, but with Use Any Item, Chara can now wear Imoen's Belt, which grants an extra level 9 spell slot.
And the Robe of Mystra grants a ludicrous four extra level 9 spell slots. Too bad we don't yet have Time Stop.
Eventually, I decide that I do not want Solaufein in the party. He's terribly strong, but I don't like his voice and I'm worried about the Eclipse fight that I've heard about.
I pick up Mazzy just to steal her sword, which can be upgraded at Cromwell's thanks to the Item Upgrade mod. I consider recruiting Mazzy, but she is a paladin now and the paladin kits do not seem interesting.
What I really need are party members who can make use of our powerful equipment. I pore over my BG2 folder and create a list of every single NPC in the game. I weigh my options based on who can use the best items at our disposal, and decide to bring Imoen into the party.
Why Imoen? Well, as a Mage/Thief, she can choose the Loremaster kit...
...which grants Use Any Item. This means she can already equip Thordek's plate mail which grants constant effect Improved Haste.
Next up is Korgan. I'm not a fan of the guy, but I can give him the Dwarven Defender kit and finally get us a tank that doesn't rely on dispellable buffs.
There are a couple of problems, though. While Yasraena had an inexplicable +1 bonus to APR, Korgan for some reason does not get any APR bonuses from his proficiencies. He gets them for level 7 and level 13, and other sources of extra APR work just fine, but since he doesn't dual-wield, this means he gets 2 APR instead of 3--a 33% decrease in his offensive output.
He'll be extremely hard to kill when using Yasraena's old axe (50% MR) and war hammer (15% MR and physical damage resistance), but he will not be able to use Divine Wind very well, which was a huge deal for us back when we had Yasraena.
Imoen can use Divine Wind just fine. But as a mage/thief with only one pip in dual-wielding, her THAC0 is absolutely atrocious. And wearing Thordek's armor means she can't cast Tenser's Transformation or True Strike to boost her THAC0.
For some bizarre reason, we get attacked by a gang of shouty drow over at the Graveyard District.
Notice Bodhi chilling at the bottom of the screen--I rested before she spoke to us to make sure that we wouldn't have to deal with a vampire ambush.
There are a bunch of tough enemies in the drow fight, and they quickly show that Imoen isn't nearly as strong as I had thought.
Thordek's plate mail is great, but Imoen is really fragile when she can't cast her spells.
Imoen flees to the north to heal herself. Korgan (I almost typed Kagain) fails a save against a pre-summoned Greater Basilisk and Xan, who thankfully is protected by PFMW if not Stoneskin or any other defenses, frees him using Break Enchantment.
Notice Chara loitering to the west, staying out of the fight despite being the toughest one in the party.
Imoen jumps back into combat to help take down a basilisk with Xan, but without our defenses up, we can't take the time to debuff the mage. Which means there's nothing stopping it from summoning a planetar.
Chara, buffed with True Seeing so the drow mage's illusions don't disrupt their spells, lands a Pierce Magic to get rid of any pesky Spell Shields it might have. The mage finishes casting an alteration spell, but to my disappointment, it is not Time Stop, which Chara could have used to their advantage.
Chara switches to Pierce Shield. It will take time to cast, but once it hits, that mage will be very vulnerable.
We try to kill the planetar, but without Yasraena's high APR and low THAC0 with Divine Wind to stun-lock it, it proves very difficult. I try to keep Xan on the offensive, but in the process, I fail to have him cast Stoneskins. He has no defense against Comet.
But it's not all bad. Comet is still erroneously party-unfriendly, so the planetar suffers even more than we do.
Chara lands Pierce Shield, but the drow still has a PFMW contingency and a spare Stoneskin spell. And while Frisk is doing their best using Hypnosis, the enemy is perilously close to finishing off Xan and Imoen.
Chara Breaches the drow and Xan moves in for the kill. But the Fire Shield and that Magical Sword are too much for Xan when he's already so wounded, so Korgan has to take his place despite Korgan's inferior damage output.
Xan has to flee, but the sword follows. Xan casts PFMW to stave off death.
But just as the mage died, he launched one last Minute Meteor at Xan. And since the attack roll was already successful...
...it was too late for PFMW to block it.
Still, with the mage dead, the remaining enemies are too weak to pose a credible threat. We trample the remainder.
That Disintegrate spell is from the Gloves of Disintegration. Unfortunately, the gloves offer a save to avoid the spell, so the target actually gets two chances to avoid being disintegrated. But Disintegration in SR automatically kills Magical Swords, so that sword only needed to fail one save.
Anyway, we head into Bodhi's lair. Korgan might not get bonus APR from his proficiencies, but at least he suffers no opportunity cost from using stuff he's not proficient in, like the Mace of Disruption that Item Randomizer put in the Unseeing Eye's lair.
That's screenshot 1945 on my computer. World War 2 ended in 1945!
Up north, things are much tougher. A mod-introduced dagger grants us Negative Plane Protection, but we still have to worry about CON drain. Frisk hypnotizes the vampires while Korgan uses Yasraena's old two-handed sword to cast Sunray.
That's screenshot 1948 on my computer. Israel was founded in 1948!
Tanova is tricky, but with True Seeing, Chara can get a guaranteed hit with Pierce Shield, rendering Tanova vulnerable.
That's screenshot 1949. The Chinese civil war ended in 1949!
Korgon's Sunrays (the sword lets him cast 2) isn't quite enough to kill the vampires, so Xan chips in with Fireburst.
That screenshot is 1952. The U.S. occupation of Japan ended in 1952!
The vampires are almost gone. Chara finishes them off with a brutal Meteor Swarm.
Screenshot 1953. The Korean War ended in 1953!
We clear out the vampires on the first level. But I actually only wanted to do Korgan's quest, so I don't go to Bodhi just yet. Instead, we pal around with Shagbag.
I love the dialogue here. It feels so real.
I go track down Valygar. I bring him into the party and find, to my delight, that he is no longer a Stalker in my install.
He's a Fighter/Thief. Which means that once we reach ToB, he can get Use Any Item, just like Imoen. But unlike Imoen, he'll be able to use Divine Wind at very low THAC0. I boot Imoen from the party and hand Divine Wind over to Valygar.
Just inside the Planar Sphere, we run into a new NPC.
Screenshot 1964. Can you guess what year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed?
Anyway, this new NPC is Tsujatha, a necromancer with a rather awesome ring.
Screenshot 1965. I betcha can't guess when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed!
We poke around and find a curious new scroll. Though it's not actually very useful.
Screenshot 1967. The Six-Day War was in 1967! Can you guess how long it lasted?
In the end, I decide to boot Tsujatha as well. He'd be able to Wish-rest very effectively, but with all of these crazy mod items, Chara is basically a sorcerer rather than a cut-rate mage like Alchemists usually are.
Togan et al can be kind of trying at times. But Chara has Meteor Swarm, which is roughly on par with Dragon's Breath in Spell Revisions.
It seems that some mod introduces a lot of weird new spell scrolls to the Planar Sphere. They have these things all over the place.
Screenshot 1989. The Tiananmen Massacre was in 1989!
Next up is Lavok and Tolgerias, the two biggest fights of the Planar Sphere. But we are much higher-level than I normally am when I tackle these fights.
Cheerfully reciting historic dates fills us with determination.
Cromarty has however been forced to deal with a few home truths... with regard to his 'gallantry'. Challenged by the female leader of another party of adventurers he lost his temper and bloodshed unfortunately ensued (rolled a d6 for this), Sirine was far more sanguine than Dyanheir about the ensuing combat, which proved to be extremely dangerous.
Then we headed back to the temple, and collected our reward. Gavin was in a good mood after getting a nod from his all airs and graces superior. We took a stroll in Beregost and -just for once- ran into someone else being pursued by assassins. A lady, with crazy magical tendencies true, but still a lady for all that. Cromarty's course was clear, to battle! The contest was rather easy but... then it happened. Something seemed to beffudle Gareth (no idea of the source), and he continued swinging even after the last opponent was despatched, the lady fell to the ground her face a mask of blood, and before we could respond the hammer swang again and again. Resurrection was out of the question... and it was clear that Gavin would have to go.
It was with a heavy heart that we recruited the rather timorous Garrick once again, and headed off to complete Safana's quest. Sirine was able to talk her way by the sirenes guarding the cave, and even received a present from them, perhaps we had been too hasty in regarding them as enemies. The golems inside posed little threat, not as much as Safana, who staked her claim to the leadership of the party.
Fuming, Cromarty stomped away only to run into a mysterious fortune teller named Arkushule. At last! A figure out of story who would point him in the direction of further adventure... except that after one look at his hand she screamed and unleashed a barrage of magic... and then the rest of the party were on her...
Cromarty was forced to stop and look in the ocean for awhile... am I a hero or a villain? Who am I kidding running around with paladins and talking of adventure? The only damsel I've rescued, Dyanheir, has a habit of saving me. How long is it before these dreams and this legacy of blood consume me, and Ajantis cuts me down in my turn?
It was with some relief that we rescued a small child from some wolves, and then fended off some pirates after the treasure we had liberated from the cave... Safana might have warned us about the competition though...
The next 'damsel' to approach us was anything but demure as well. First the faerie stole a kiss from Ajantis'... and his life.... though it was good to see the tin soldier lighten up a little. Then her 'husband' the ogre mage turned up. Garrick, perhaps remembering stories of Khark who we had previously fled from, was ready to turn tail and run. The boy will never make a knight, we should find a fresh swordarm to replace his quivering hide perhaps...
Continuing the theme of misguided heroism we slew Brage and then visited the excavation site. A comment as to the probable value of the find drew a rather unreasonable response, and one of the diggers even turned hostile for some reason. We slew the fellow, who had clearly fallen under the spell of eldritch sorcery, and liberated the cursed treasues, defeating their guardian and doubtless saving the expedition from needless suffering.
Finally we continued the search for Dyanheir's journal, encountering Drizzt once again as he seemed determined to steal Cromarty's thunder and recover the journal first. The cad.
All in all Cromarty's run has taken a darker turn, as each roll of the dice seems to send him from gallantry to casual womanising and misogyny. Any more and we'll have to pick up Eldoth & Coran and send him to N from NG. We shall see
Cromarty, Gallant Demibard 5
Safana, Sniper 6
Garrick, Loremaster 6
Dyanheir, C5/ M4
Sirine, Pal of Ilmater 5
Ajantis, Cavalier 5
Undershadow: Chara and Frisk in Shadows of Amn
Part 10
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872325/#Comment_872325
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872551/#Comment_872551
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872662/#Comment_872662
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872789/#Comment_872789
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872830/#Comment_872830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872855/#Comment_872855
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873069/#Comment_873069
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873079/#Comment_873079
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873094/#Comment_873094
Lavok shouldn't be too much trouble. We open with a Pierce Magic to remove his Spell Shield.
Those are screenshots 1990 and 1991. I was born in 1990! And the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991!
Anyway, Lavok casts True Seeing instead of Time Stop or an HLA, so we just break down his defenses with Xan's Khelben's Warding Whip and a Breach.
Lavok is down. Tolgerias is next. He opens with what appears to be a pretty standard setup for SCS mages in SR, summoning a pair of Greater Basilisks as a pre-buff.
That's screenshot 2001. The Twin Towers fell in 2001!
Tolgerias stops time, but the Robe of Mystra makes Chara immune. They can act during Tolgerias' own time Stop.
Screenshot 2003. The Iraq War began in 2003!
Tolgerias summons a Fallen Planetar just as Xan finishes off his basilisks.
I notice Tolgerias' mage friend has no spell deflection to speak of, so I use Chara's True Seeing to hit her with a PW: Stun.
In SR, PW: Stun stuns the target for 1 round regardless of HP. Chara works great against helpless targets, as they can hit 4 APR by dual-wielding Firetooth +3 and Angharradh's Song, a +1 APR longsword only usable by elves.
Screenshot 2009. Obama was inaugurated in 2009!
Frisk hits Tolgerias with Psionic Maze, Chara finishes off Tolgerias' friend, and Valygar stun-locks the planetar with Divine Wind.
I think there was some bug that made Psionic Maze work more like Imprisonment (the maze spell is no longer in the Seducer kit for unrelated reasons anyway), so Chara brings him back using Freedom. The moment he gets back, he's invincible.
We try and fail to debuff Tolgerias, but he has the same problem, wasting a Remove Magic that we can negate using Dispelling Screen and trying to Breach Chara when Chara was immune to level 6 spells and below. His Absolute Immunity expires, we dodge a Dragon's Breath, and Chara removes his Stoneskins using the Staff of the True Magi.
All that's left is to kill a demon and steal its heart. On the way, I test out Teleport. Apparently it lets you escape the Planar Sphere!
Teleport probably has all kinds of crazy uses. I wonder how it handles places like the Spellhold labyrinth and the Planar Prison? Because there are some places that you can only enter and exit due to plot-related dialogues; there's no physical entrance for you to click on.
I kill both Tanar'ri as well as Lea'liyl; we have the damage output to make it happen and I wanted to use a spare Demon Heart to upgrade Celestial Fury in case I decide not to use the objectively superior Divine Wind sword. We get a Ring of the Magi from Lavok.
Chara asks their apprentices to take all the safe options, so all three of them survive to graduation. We also help the Knights of Solamnia get home, and our reward is Gnasher!
Which, since we have the Bone Club already, we can use to forge the Fulcrum, a +4 club that grants the wielder grandmastery in clubs.
I want to recruit Haer'dalis, so I stop by the Five Flagons and help his troupe. I've been looking forward to nabbing Haer'dalis for a long time.
But we have a problem.
What is Haer'dalis shouting about?
The Bounty Hunter is supposed to say "thank you" and then teleport Haer'dalis and the other tieflings away. Instead, the Bounty Hunter says nothing, and Haer'dalis and his friends go hostile.
Valygar attacked Raelis Shai during the fight because she cast Obscuring Mist, which apparently counts as a hostile spell.
Then, they all die somehow.
The Bounty Hunters won't speak to me. It seems that Valygar's AI, the "Standard Attack" AI, made him turn the tieflings hostile, breaking the script and preventing us from even entering the Planar Prison, much less recruiting Haer'dalis.
I turn the matter over in my head and I don't think it justifies a reload. Valygar attacking Raelis Shai for that Obscuring Mist spell is unintentional behavior for Spell Revisions, I'm sure, but it doesn't qualify as a game-breaking bug, as this quest is optional.
I really, really wanted to bring Haer'dalis into the party. But the questline is broken. Haer'dalis is gone, and the Planar Prison is locked away forever. I will need to look elsewhere for our final party member.
Losing an ally to a bizarre freak accident fills us with determination.
I rolled a bard up for this challenge almost a year ago, but haven't actually got around to trying it before now. I don't expect this character to get too far - so here goes nothing.
In Candlekeep, the saying goes, "a journey begins with a single stride".
My own wanderings, I've found, start with a well-turned phrase
A single speech or song is normally enough to gather praise
Though Firebead needed more to satisfy his pride.
In Candlekeep, the saying goes, "avoid the sirine's song".
If you don't know what is a sirine
Take no chances, but just vent your spleen
After all - allowing competition must be wrong.
In Candlekeep, the saying goes, "the blind they cannot see".
Such a truth may well be trite
But when you find you're in a tough fight
This spell provides a key.
In Candlekeep, the saying goes, "to talk can make a friend".
Conversation is a wonderful thing
And sometimes can even inspire me to sing
But some people's talk deserves a booted rear end.
In Candlekeep, the saying goes, "beauty is in the eye of the basilisk".
If, like me, you dislike stone statues
And prefer your basilisks in the form of shoes
Use some protection and don't take a risk.
In Candlekeep, the saying goes - actually who cares what they say.
The strong and powerful make their own rules
The weak just die or are made into tools
And if you want to be strong, find something tough to slay.
Bard L8, 54 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 128 kills
Nock, elf ranger (Grond0) & Jubb, human inquisitor (Gate70)
We took advantage of the bank holiday today to break the back of BG1 with this new pairing. After a couple of squishy combinations, this duo should play to our strengths - no need for any of that namby-pambying around with skull traps and magic missiles
The session started with Jubb getting all righteous about acquiring an extra healing potion from the infirmary and Nock had to explain that it was fine as he was just getting a SOGOF (steal one, get one free). Then it was time for some (brief) action as Shoal was shot down to provide an early level each. Not content with that, Jubb shot down a bunch of ogrish types on the way to confront a group of sirines. His immunity to charm didn't protect him from being feeble-minded, but despite that he was still able to act as a focus for the sirine attacks while Nock shot them down to gain a further level.
After passing quickly through Beregost, Nock headed north to the FAI and then on to the ankheg area. His intention was to get some easy XP by killing some fishermen for Tenya, but Jubb felt things needed to be spiced up a bit so dived into a large hole in the ground. He was already carrying a slight injury, but felt his 29 HPs were plenty to be meleeing ankhegs - after all "what could possibly go wrong". The first ankheg hit him once, but he saved against acid damage and was only reduced to 17 HPs. Before he could move on to the second ankheg though Nock surged into the front rank and (despite his leather armor) he successfully tanked the next 2 to be able to rob the treasure.
After a little more work in Beregost the duo travelled down to Nashkel where Nock learnt CLW as a Bhaal ability and finally got around to healing Jubb of his earlier wounds. At that point Nock commented on Jubb not having used any healing potions to date and was told that was less a matter of conviction and more to do with the fact that Nock had stashed all of them in his bag!
Jubb was shortly to get more injuries when Greywolf proved a tough opponent in melee and forced Jubb to switch to missile weapons to finish him off.
The next bit of action saw Nock in trouble after assaulting Bassilus. The cleric opened with a rigid thinking on Jubb and, with him now counted as disabled he focused a hold person on Nock - who was running away in order to get out of sight before it struck. There was a nasty moment though when it looked like Jubb might wander in Nock's direction and lead Bassilus straight to him - fortunately though he veered away and Bassilus failed to make any impression on the ankheg-clad paladin before the duo recovered from their effects.
Some more sirines in the Lighthouse area saw Jubb once more acting as target, but this time he was only hit a couple of times and saved against the feeble-mind effect.
Continuing to search for quick XP the next area to be targeted was full of basilisks. It didn't take long for the area to become empty of basilisks and for the duo to get another level each.
Sweeping through the Cloudpeaks pushed reputation up to 20 and, with Jubb's charisma pushed up to 19 a bit of shopping followed. There was then a belated visit to Meilum to recover his bracers before farming some more XP at Durlag's Tower. Jubb switched from dual-wielding to sword and shield in order to ensure battle horrors needed a critical to hit him, while on the roof 2 potions of mirror eyes were plenty to sort out 4 basilisks. Inside, we don't normally mess with Kirinhale, but Jubb wanted to take advantage of his charm immunity and her energy drain was not sufficient defence (at least after Jubb's true sight exposed her position).
With all major targets achieved the Nashkel Mine was the obvious next stop. That didn't take long with Mulahey's support team being much too slow (and much too weak) to prevent his death.
In Nashkel Nock sneaked in to kill Nimbul before Rasaad could get into the action - despite Bardolan's ill-timed conversation.
The final action was at the Bandit Camp. The exterior was rapidly cleared, with only Taurgosz putting up any real resistance.
Nock, ranger 7, 84 HPs, 151 kills
Jubb, inquisitor 7, 94 HPs, 139 kills, 0 deaths
Jubb, quite correctly, was making much during the session of just how good his HPs were. His average roll of a fraction under 9 on a d10 is certainly impressive. Nock was a bit quieter about it, but in fact his average roll is a fraction over 9
Undershadow: Chara and Frisk in Shadows of Amn
Part 11
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872325/#Comment_872325
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872551/#Comment_872551
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872662/#Comment_872662
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872789/#Comment_872789
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872830/#Comment_872830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872855/#Comment_872855
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873069/#Comment_873069
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873079/#Comment_873079
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873094/#Comment_873094
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873106/#Comment_873106
With Chara's long list of immunities from Breudayael's equipment, I think we can handle Kangaxx. But unfortunately, it seems that one of my mods requires the player to take an additional step before you can fight either the Elemental Lich or the Shade Lich.
Instead, we're going to tackle the Twisted Rune! We buff the crap out of the party and send Korgan after Vaxall--the highest-priority target for a mage-heavy party like mine--while Chara monitors Layenne and Xan lingers out of reach of Shangalar's introductory Horrid Wilting spell.
Korgan's axe from Thordek gives him 50% MR, so he's great against beholders, but more importantly, I just wanted Vaxall not to use his Anti-Magic Ray on Xan. Vaxall, however, has a PFMW Spell Trigger and cannot yet be harmed. Once Shangalar's Horrid Wilting has already struck, Xan and Valygar rush forward to slay Shangalar's Greater Basilisks.
Anti-Magic Ray has taken away Korgan's Dispelling Screen, so Layenne removes his other buffs using Dispel Magic.
Not Remove Magic, but Dispel Magic, which means it's not party-friendly and takes away Vaxall's Dispelling Screen!
Although it says the screen expired rather than dissipated, even though it showed up just a few seconds ago. Whatever; the result is the same.
I was hoping to keep Xan away from Vaxall, but he gets too close when he attacks the basilisks, and Vaxall's Anti-Magic Ray combined with Shangalar's Dispel Magic is enough to remove all of Xan's dispellable buffs.
Chara is waiting for Layenne or Shangalar to cast Time Stop, so Vaxall and the two enemy mages are all still untouchable. Instead, we focus on Shyressa and Revanek, who drops the Shield of Balduran.
Shangalar summons a planetar. Chara prepares to take it down.
In Spell Revisions, Holy Power and Tenser's Transformation give +0.5 APR at levels 7 and 13 (though they unfortunately do not stack, and multi-class fighters do not benefit from the APR bonuses at all), which means that Chara can hit 5 APR at subzero THAC0 with high damage per hit by combining their innate 19 STR with Firetooth +3 and Angharradh's Song (an elf-only longsword with +1 APR) in the off hand, a sentence that makes no sense to people who don't play the IE games.
We kill Shyressa, Layenne casts Dragon's Breath, a Dispel Magic (probably from Shangalar) wipes out everyone's buffs but Chara's, and Valygar gets paralyzed. But it seems that we don't need any of our buffs to survive a Dragon's Breath.
Xan cures Valygar's paralysis using a Dispelling Arrow.
For some reason, I fail to send Chara after the planetar, even though they can probably butcher it in a few rounds. Instead, I have Xan switch to the Heart of Braldain, his main weapon.
But I forget to have him switch targets. Xan kills Valygar in two hits.
Xan gets slowed and Chara wipes out a basilisk using Meteor Swarm.
A Dispel Magic hits Chara, who re-casts Dispelling Screen while Xan cures the slow effect using a bottle of Vampire Milk.
Xan manages to evade Layenne's Comet, which knocks down the enemy planetar. Vaxall's PFMW expires, but he as a contingency to replace it.
Chara casts Requiem of Elysium, a powerful level 9 damage spell that serves as an alternative to Meteor Swarm. It doesn't do as much damage as it's supposed to due to a bug in its coding, but unlike Meteor Swarm, part of its damage is magic damage rather than fire. Chara finishes off the planetar before it can kill Xan, but Shangalar tries to Breach the party with Wish.
Layenne uses a Wish Time Stop. Chara is immune to Time Stop and has 6 rounds of free reign.
I have Chara cast True Seeing, hoping to debuff Layenne or Vaxall or Shangalar, but then I switch gears and have Chara drink Black Mania to double their APR and then some Plasma to give +1 APR. With 10 APR total, they can easily take down the planetar.
Chara doesn't really need True Seeing anyway; Layenne PFMW expired during the Time Stop. This means Chara can simply use the Staff of the True Magi to remove her Dispelling Screen and then dispel her buffs.
Layenne is now invisible, unfortunately, so Chara tries to catch her with a Fireburst, but it won't take effect until Time Stop is over. Layenne summons a Pit Fiend and activates a Spell Trigger, so Chara tries to take down her new defenses.
It seems the Pierce Magic took out Layenne's Spell Deflection before Fireburst hit. This means Layenne takes full damage, and a failed save is enough to fry her.
But Layenne managed to kill Xan using Magic Missile, Korgan fails a save against Demon Fear, and Vaxall re-casts PFMW. Three major setbacks in a row.
Chara restores their Dispelling Screen and the Pit Fiend teleports to Frisk. Frisk is not going to be able to handle the Pit Fiend; I need to make the most of Frisk's last moments. I give them a Rod of Resurrection and bring back Xan.
But Xan is unarmed and unbuffed, and it will take time to get him back up to speed. Korgan is already pretty sturdy--it's just that fear effect that's causing a problem--so I hand Layenne's Staff of the Magi to Xan so he can cure Korgan's fear. Meanwhile, Frisk runs from the Pit Fiend.
But the Pit Fiend apparently has Unholy Word. Xan gets slowed and deafened, and the 50% spell failure of deafness takes away the Break Enchantment spell that could have fixed up Korgan.
With a clouded aura and a slow effect on top, Xan can neither heal himself nor restore his defenses nor run away. The Pit Fiend kills him.
Frisk fails a save against Demon Fear and starts running, but not all is lost. Korgan has recovered from Demon Fear and drinks Black Mania to double his APR.
Notice the PFMW spell from Chara. With Xan dead, Chara's UAI lets them equip Xan's upgraded Moonblade in place of Firetooth +3. Chara and Korgan gang up on the Pit Fiend, as Vaxall still has his PFMW active.
Vaxall's PFMW has just run out. He took down Chara's Spell Shield using Anti-Magic Ray, so Chara re-casts Spell Shield, only to see it taken down again.
Frisk is paralyzed, Shangalar has brought in a Cornugon, and Chara loses some of their defenses to another Anti-Magic Ray, but without PFMW, Vaxall's only defense are Stoneskins. It's not enough to save him.
All the while, it seems Shangalar has been struggling to kill our Bone Golem. The Green Dragon Plate--formerly Yasraena's staple, but now Valygar's--allows the player to summon a Bone Golem, which has all of the spell level immunities as a normal Bone Golem, making it extremely hard for mages to harm it. Only now, with a Cornugon to help him out, is Shangalar finally breaking down the Bone Golem. Korgan rushes over to kill the Cornugon.
Back to the east, Chara resurrects Xan with the Rod of Resurrection and has his use a Potion of Defense and the Periapt of Proof Against Poison to prepare him to join the fight against the Cornugon. We also bring back Valygar in the hopes that we can stun-lock the demon.
But another Cornugon is on the way.
Then I notice something weird. Why does Valygar only have 28 maximum HP?
It looks like he's been level drained. But there's no level drain message on his record sheet, and only his fighter levels have been drained.
And he's at 0 XP.
No, seriously. He lost all of his XP somehow. What the hell happened?
If I can't figure out how to fix this, he'll never catch up to the rest of the party.
Korgan kills one Cornugon, but the other stuns Xan and an Efreeti has joined the fighter. Chara stuns the Efreeti so they can chop it up.
Shangalar's defenses have run low. We kill the second Cornugon, Shangalar summons a third, and Chara uses the Staff of the True Magi to debuff Shangalar.
When the third and final Cornugon is dead, we turn our attention to Shangalar, who is out of ammo.
I kill the Efreeti and then consider Valygar's situation.
He's suffered some sort of permanent level drain that also robbed him of all of his XP. At first, I think it's a bug, but then I realize the cause.
It was the Heart of Braldain, Xan's primary weapon. The Heart of Braldain has a 10% chance of draining 4 levels, but it doesn't use the level drain opcode. Whoever created the item didn't know how level drain worked--they used the "Change Level" opcode instead. There is no way to remove or dispel or cure "Change Level" effects; it is absolutely permanent.
Valygar is at 0 XP. He will never even begin to approach epic levels. He is almost worthless to the party now.
Out of curiosity, I see what happens when Valygar suffers more level change. If I can bring him to level 1 with 1 HP, maybe I can make him into an invincible tank like you can do in Icewind Dale 2. Or maybe I could get his levels to roll over from negative value underflow. Once we get out of the Twisted Rune area, I have him drink Vials of Scales and use Protection from Elemental Energy to make sure he can survive hits from the Heart of Braldain. Xan whomps him until the level change reduces Valygar to a level 0 fighter.
He can level up now and choose some new proficiencies. And he keeps his old proficiencies, too. Theoretically, you could use the Heart of Braldain to repeatedly drain fighters down to level 0 and get them to grandmastery in all weapon types.
But this far into the game, it's not worth it. Having GM in all weapons would be nice, but what Valygar really needs is Use Any Item. I have to replace him.
Valygar was a multi-class character, so maybe the change level works differently for single-classed characters. I bring in Tsujatha, but the result is the same: you just go down to level 0 and you get to pick a new proficiency point and (I think, but I don't really remember) also pick some new level 1 spell slots. It might be possible to use the Heart of Braldain to give extra spell picks to a sorcerer. In LoB mode with all the extra XP you get, you could actually get a sorcerer to epic levels, drain them back down to 0, and then level them up again normally to give them more level 9 spell picks than would otherwise be possible.
Or, perhaps you could use it to streamline dual-classing by getting to level 11 as a Cleric of Lathander (say) for another casting of Boon of Lathander and then using the Heart of Braldain to let them dual-class from a lower level.
But that's just theoretical, and in a non-LoB run like this, when we're already so late in the game, the Heart of Braldain is useless to us. It does huge damage, yes, but the risk of accidentally destroying an entire party member is just too much.
I remove Valygar and Tsujatha from the party and replace them with two unlikely alternatives: Coran from the City Gates, who gets the Sniper kit, and Tashia from Vyatri's Pub in Trademeet, a mod-introduced sorcerer who can hit 18 Wisdom thanks to our mod items.
As an elf, Coran can use Angharradh's Song for +1 APR in the main hand. And since the Fulcrum grants grandmastery in clubs, Coran's lack of proficiencies is no issue.
Neither Coran nor Tashia are very high-level, but they will be able to get HLAs midway through ToB, and when they do, Tashia can Wish-rest and Coran can don Thordek's plate mail for constant effect Improved Haste.
There are so many weird turns in this run; our party composition keeps changing wildly. Meeting new friends fills us with determination.
Good stuff.
Undershadow: Chara and Frisk in Shadows of Amn
Part 12
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872325/#Comment_872325
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872551/#Comment_872551
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872662/#Comment_872662
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872789/#Comment_872789
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872830/#Comment_872830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872855/#Comment_872855
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873069/#Comment_873069
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873079/#Comment_873079
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873094/#Comment_873094
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873106/#Comment_873106
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873258/#Comment_873258
We fight the Crypt Lich in the Trademeet quest line. It's a simple process. True Seeing, Warding Whip, and Pierce Shield are enough to take down its defenses.
I use a mod dagger to give Negative Plane Protection to everyone in the party who does not already have it from another source. With Xan and Chara there to re-cast Dispelling Screen, those NPP spells stay in place, allowing us to tackle Thaxll'ssillyia with brute force. Vials of Scales for 1d3 Stoneskins and Korgan's Dwarven Defender kit ward off the dragon's physical attacks.
The loot is great, but none of it is useful to us. The only interesting part is a crossbow that grants immunity to petrification (but which might not block SR petrification at all) and which can create one special bolt per day that petrifies the target on hit.
The Crooked Crane lich was more difficult, but it also followed a simple formula. Xan, Coran, and Korgan fought its Planetar while Chara and Tashia used True Seeing to throw an endless stream of magic attacks at the lich. Once Dispelling Screen is removed (which can be done by any normal magic attack, plus Remove Magic) and once Spell Shield is down, Pierce Shield can remove all of a mage's dispellable buffs; only its spell protections will remain. And though the lich used Improved Alacrity to re-cast PFMW, Tashia and Chara had multiple Breach spells on hand to keep it on the defensive until its PFMW spells were exhausted.
Time to deal with Bodhi. Korgan ran out to distract the enemy for the first round or two while Frisk used Hypnosis from afar. Chara used True Seeing to land a Warding Whip on Hazzerbazzer while Korgan used a Helm of Brilliance and Yasraena's old two-handed sword to chain-cast Sunray, to little effect.
I fail to keep up the pressure on Hazzerbazzer and let Chara hang back for a moment while his PFMW expires naturally. Only when Bodhi level drains Frisk does Chara get back into gear and start hacking away at Bodhi.
A Sphere of Chaos knocks out Coran, Tashia Breaches Manasseh, Hazzerbazzer re-casts PFMW, Xan kills Artemis Entreri, and Chara takes away Hazzerbazzer's re-cast PFMW.
With both Hazzerbazzer and Manasseh vulnerable, Chara rushes in to finish them off.
Then Bodhi is all that's left. Her defenses are virtually nil and she is easy to hit, though unfortunately Drizzt steals the kill despite our party having several times as much APR and damage output.
We run into a party of enemy thieves on the way out, but Chara resolves things peacefully.
Unfortunately for the thieves, the game crashes when we attempt to leave, and some testing reveals that the only way I can avoid the bug is to fight them instead. The peaceful solution crashes the game.
It starts out badly. We arrive unbuffed, while the enemy is very well-prepared indeed.
I've never fought these guys before, so I don't know what kind of tricks they can pull. But they seem to be a very diverse group with some very optimal item choices. One of them is a cleric and one of them uses Arrows of Dispelling.
In SR, Harm does 90 guaranteed damage but cannot reduce the target below 1 HP. But that only lasts a second, and it only takes 1 more point of damage to finish off Coran.
Frisk and Chara remain invisible. Chara just watches and waits for an opportunity, while Frisk uses Detect Illusions; these enemies like to go invisible.
The enemy is really good at seeking out vulnerability. Tashia goes down in one shot.
Xan casts Stoneskin and PFMW, expecting a backstab, but without his normal defenses, he is helpless against a Breach spell. He dies in a single round.
This is serious. With a septuple backstab multiplier, a critical hit without Stoneskins could one-shot anyone in the party--even Chara, if that weapon is +4 or better.
Chara, buffed with True Seeing, launches a Warding Whip while Frisk tries to charm one of the enemies, relying on the Staff of the Magi to avoid a fatal backstab.
Korgan still needs to worry. Vials of Scales are the only reason he's not getting backstabbed to death. But they only last so long.
One of the enemies turns visible, and Chara's Warding Whip has removed her first set of defenses. Chara Breaches her and moves in for the kill as she flees.
Korgan loses his Stoneskins and drinks another Vial of Scales, but he has no defense against Maze.
Korgan is out. Chara casts PFMW so they'll be safe while they switch to melee combat, but the enemies run from them. Frisk charms one of their number.
The enemies here can use Detect Illusions, and though Frisk has the Staff of the Magi, I don't react fast enough to save them. Frisk suffers a fatal backstab.
But we're finally making progress. Chara finishes off Selina, and Zaeron is still under the effects of Frisk's Charm spell.
Then one of Frisk's pre-mortem Charm spells take effect, and we gain control of the cleric. The cleric doesn't have many good spells for us, but it doesn't matter, because the moment he turns, a backstabber takes him down.
We don't get the XP for the kill, but the important thing is that the enemies are starting to drop. Frisk's charm on Zaeron wears off, but Chara is still strong enough to finish off Grok.
Fun fact: Grok is a verb that means "to understand thoroughly and completely."
Chara brings back Frisk, who immediately grabs the Staff of the Magi so they can continue charming Zaeron. But when the other enemy fails to kill Zaeron and stays out of sight, preventing Zaeron from helping us, we simply kill Zaeron ourselves.
Korgan reappears, drawing the last backstabber, Venduris, out of hiding, but when Venduris misses, he runs away and keeps hiding. In the end, we have to draw him out by giving him an Efreeti to backstab, at which point Chara stuns Venduris just long enough for us to take him down.
We bring back everyone in the party and collect the Chosen of Cyric's loot. A lot of it is just gold fodder at this point, but a few options catch our eye.
The ioun stone will greatly empower Chara's grenades on the off chance we ever use them. But the Chain Contingency scroll gives us one final, wildly overpowered rescue option.
If Chara ever gets in danger somehow, we can teleport the entire party to a safe location almost instantly.
I think it is time we brought this run to an end. We head to Suldanessellar, though Xan inadvertently questions the value of saving his own people.
Normally, only elves would be allowed into this city. Being able to see this place is a rare gift for outsiders. It fills us with determination.
Undershadow: Chara and Frisk in Shadows of Amn
Part 13
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872325/#Comment_872325
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872551/#Comment_872551
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872662/#Comment_872662
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872789/#Comment_872789
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872830/#Comment_872830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872855/#Comment_872855
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873069/#Comment_873069
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873079/#Comment_873079
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873094/#Comment_873094
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873106/#Comment_873106
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873258/#Comment_873258
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873275/#Comment_873275
Divalir, Yasraena's friend, somehow shows up at Suldanessellar. He is not happy that we accidentally betrayed him and Yasraena both.
He has some mage buffs, but it's nothing that a Breach and the Staff of the True Magi can't remove in a single round.
I really don't like the rakshasas at Suldanessellar, and though I normally like to use Horrid Wilting, SR nerfs it badly. Instead, Chara just blasts them with Meteor Swarms.
We hunt down those that escape the fire and move on to Raamilaat. Raamilaat is pretty tough, but with three mages in the party, we can remove his defenses very quickly.
That is indeed a Protection from Magic scroll, and unlike in BG1, it can be used on any target in my install. It would be a perfect way of shutting down an enemy mage's spellcasting.
By the time we save Demin (which requires using a Rod of Resurrection to heal her), we also find scrolls of Spell Trap and Time Stop.
Time Stop is a huge game changer. I had gotten so accustomed to not having it, and suddenly it's here.
We don't have Shapechange yet--and even if we did, the Bard's Bane longsword is a better source of stat drain kills--but Chara can already hit 10 APR with high damage values, and the Robe of Mystra grants Chara four extra level 9 spell slots, so Chara can keep time stopped for many, many rounds.
But it looks like there might be a nonviolent way of resolving the conflict with Nizidramanii'yt that doesn't involve handing over all of our items.
Nizidramanii'yt offers to give us the cup if we perform a service for him. But ever since getting betrayed by Hooktail in the Thousand Year Door, I've been very suspicious about doing nice things for big dragons. I decide to play it safe by fighting him.
Why is fighting him the safe option? Well, with Tragla's Doom, Chara can cast Time Stop instantly.
Chara beats Suneer the same way.
As long as Time Stop makes dragons this easy, I decide to stop by the Windspear Hills. One of my mods adds a huge orc and orog horde before you can fight Firkraag or even Conster, but at this point, fighting the horde is too easy to bother posting screenshots.
Pierce Shield kills Conster. That is all.
But before fighting Firkraag, I decide not to rely on Time Stop to kill him. Let's see if we can beat him without it!
The answer is yes.
We get Carsomyr and some Adamantine Ore, which would be very useful if we didn't already have basically all the items we could possibly need.
As long as Chara is immune to +3 weapons and below thanks to the Robe of Mystra, I may as well tackle the mind flayer city. We find Belm, which we really don't need at all, and use Frisk's Charm spell to take control of a mind flayer to avoiding using up our Control Circlets, which we also don't need at all.
Coran's saving throws are pretty lousy, so I rearrange our equipment and give everyone a Brine Solution to drink, bringing everyone saving throws down to 1 or lower. Tashia still gets stunned once, forcing Xan to hop over her when she blocks a doorway and use Divine Wind to stun-lock the mind flayers before they can gobble up Tashia's brains.
We find the Staff of Command--Item Randomizer didn't move it, it seems--and an Ulitharid confirms that Chara is indeed immune to mind flayer attacks.
For some reason, the Master Brain isn't as well defended as it normally is.
I stop by Trademeet to steal Mazzy's sword--apparently I forgot to take it last time--and because I want to have her on hand later on, I drop her off at Watcher's Keep.
I try to hold her in place using Flesh to Stone, but it seems that kicking out of the party while she's under SR-style petrification turns her hostile.
I cure the petrification and charm her, but it doesn't let me bring her back into the party. I send her to the west so she doesn't attack us again.
We buy a Rod of Reversal from a mod merchant in Trademeet, kill some rakshasas through a portal that appears in Adratha's cottage, and explore a quest of Xan's.
Turns out Xan's friends want to commit genocide against humanity. We do not agree to the plan.
This might have been a dangerous fight if Chara could not instantly cast Time Stop.
We fight Mencar Pebblecrusher and end up finding an outrageously overpowered dagger on Brennan Risling.
The description is misleading. It actually grants 2 extra attacks per round, and increases your backstab multiplier by 2.
Which means Coran can put it in his off hand to bump his APR up to 5 and his backstab multiplier up to 7x. And since the Fulcrum grants grandmastery in clubs, his backstabs will do a minimum of 70 damage, plus his STR bonuses. Coran will be an absolute nightmare when he gets Assassination.
I upgrade a few last items, purchase a few last items, sell off another 90,000 gold worth of loose equipment, and decide not to undergo the Back to Brynnlaw questline. Instead, I return to Suldanessellar.
Chara begins the fight against Irenicus with an instant-cast Time Stop. But True Seeing doesn't reveal him; Chara cannot use the Time Stop to actually do anything to him.
I let Time Stop expire, and Irenicus reveals himself. Chara stops time instantly once more.
Irenicus' Moment of Prescience spell is meaningless; the AC bonuses do nothing when Chara has Time Stop.
The fight is over. We are transported to the Nine Hells.
We are filled with determination.
Following a night of debauchery, (well I had to check eveything was in working order and Edwin was willing and I didn't really fancy hearing Deheirianannanana at the crucial moment) we had a "family" conference.
A larger group is one possibiliy or all of us getting much better at fighting and stuff with better equipment. Heard about a veritable treasure trove of a ruin, so Durlag's Tower it is. Just a quick look, see if there's anything worth nicking.
Two battle horrors and a couple of moany doppleganger things later we entered the great door.
Creepy, really creepy.
Kivan reverted to his usual racial bias and started going on about "Dwarven folk" (after the Battle Horrors a couple of dwarves would have been a welcome sight, especially if they sang cheerful work songs and needed a housekeeper).
Lots of traps, no problem, lots of ghasts, also no problem nowadays......and some basilisks on the roof?
(let it go, artistic licence)
Some homeless squatter who acted tough yet couldn't disarm and unlock the chests he was standing right next to?
Down we went to the lower level, got a dire warning from another squatter (go home people, you're scared, it's creepy, there's got to be better squats around). I suppose he was trying to be helpful, would have been more help had he not ignored the ghasts wandering around.
So all in all, not a happy place but OMG, the goodies.
We're rich!!!!!
Came to a large area with a series of rooms branching of, everything trapped to buggery. Made some wine, drank some wine (not bad actually). Pitted our skellies against the resident skellies. Unfortunately the resident skellies were super skellies, with big swords, that was invigorating. Flesh golems (don't ask, Edwin was far too interested as it was) Some very fast, moaning dopplegangers, we made them moan more. Opened every chest and filled our backpacks.
Some ghostly dwarven guards posed some cryptic riddles we just had to solve to go down to the next level. Turns out we shouldn't have drunk the wine.
So as we were pretty laden down, decided to go sell stuff and pick up a bottle and come back another day.
So just thought I'd have a quick last minute run round, check we hadn't missed anything.
And walked straight into a trap.
Epilog.
The thing is I knew the trap was there, it's always there so if it doesn't show up, that doesn't mean somebody has come along and helpfully removed it. It just means the detection hadn't worked. I know this, but you get careless.
I have 95 in detect traps and open locks because I'm going to dual and need those stats to be filled.
So kind of disappointed as I'm enjoying writing the playthrough.
So I've decided to restart, play the same game (with minor changes) and pick up from this point when I get here. With what could be described as reincarnations of "The Partridge Family" .........coming to you soon,
Undershadow: Chara and Frisk in Shadows of Amn
Part 14
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872325/#Comment_872325
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872551/#Comment_872551
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872662/#Comment_872662
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872789/#Comment_872789
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872830/#Comment_872830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/872855/#Comment_872855
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873069/#Comment_873069
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873079/#Comment_873079
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873094/#Comment_873094
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873106/#Comment_873106
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873258/#Comment_873258
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873275/#Comment_873275
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873285/#Comment_873285
The Hell trials are uneventful. We spare the genie, mob Sarevok, and Korgan kills all of the beholders but the Elder Orb, who succumbs to Pierce Shield from Chara.
Before we activate the door, I reconfigure our spellbooks and have everyone drink a bunch of potions before casting their buffs. Chara is a fortress by the end of it, even without the Robe of Mystra and its many benefits.
With two Balors, two Glabrezus, and the Slayer attacking all at once, Tashia cannot cast Dispelling Screen fast enough to hold off the Remove Magic spells. All our dispellable buffs go down at once.
I went easy on Firkraag, but I am not going to go easy on Irenicus. Chara chain-casts Time Stop and butchers the demons.
We are so overloaded with resources that we could easily just give Irenicus another 10 or 20 rounds to try to defeat us. But I see no reason to give him the chance.
Irenicus falls. Shadows of Amn is over!
One of my mod allows me to revisit Candlekeep before we continue to Throne of Bhaal.
But due to a missing cutscene file and a missing creature file, and maybe some other problems I don't know about, the game is basically broken. It never sends you to Candlekeep and there's no way to skip ahead to ToB.
The only way to fix it is to delete Ellesime's dialogue file from the override folder, forcing her to use her original dialogue.
We finally enter Throne of Bhaal, the last game in the saga. We are loaded with far more resources than I've ever had before, but that's not all.
The game automatically bumps up Tashia and Coran to 2.5 million XP, bringing us even closer to those precious HLAs we've been waiting for.
We are so close to completing this run. We are in a secure position. All I need to do is play it safe and avoid making stupid mistakes.
We've worked so hard to get here, pulling every dirty trick at our disposal when things got ugly, pushing every resource to its limit, and preempting every threat to our success that I could foresee. We've had massive setbacks and fought unfamiliar battles under bizarre circumstances, but we have scratched and clawed our way to the final chapter of the saga.
The hardest fights in the game lie ahead. Everything we've worked for ultimately depends on our choices here on out.
We are filled with determination.
It really made you appreciate that yes--she really is a true hero.
Underthrone: Chara and Frisk in Throne of Bhaal
Part 1
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
(SoA run begins here and ends here)
The final stage of the saga has begun.
The moment we enter Throne of Bhaal, some mod-introduced demon attacks us. It proves to be a pretty simple fight.
And the reward adds another wildly overpowered mod item to our inventory.
Two of our characters are already immune to Time Stop. I give it to Xan so he can attack during Chara's Time Stops.
At the Pocket Plane, I upgrade a bunch of items, though many are still not useful to us. One notable exception is the Staff of the Woodlands, which can summon a Shambling Mound 6 times per day when upgraded.
Time Stop completely broke the difficulty of the Illasera fight, so I try it against the first Pocket Plane trial. It's pretty game-breaking.
And if you think this strategy is cheap, it turns out that one of my mods introduces a monk to the Saradush tavern. And he has a ring that makes him immune to Time Stop.
I steal his items and boot him from the party. Once Coran gets Use Any Item, he'll be able to use that ring, and we'll have three characters who are immune to Time Stop.
I have no screenshots for the vampire fights, and the Il-Khan soldier fight screenshots were boring despite me not using Time Stop.
Chara once again uses Tragla's Doom to get an instant casting of Time Stop, and they and Xan take full advantage of the spell, wiping out everyone in the room before the enemy has a chance to react. Chara has 4 Time Stop spells, but they don't even need all of them. Twelve screenshots of one-sided carnage.
Karun the Black dies just before his genie grants him a Time Stop of his own.
We find the Answerer +4 among the remains, buy a few overpriced but unique items from a mod-introduced merchant at the tavern, dropping our gold supply from an astonishing 200,000 to an astonishing 130,000, and return to the Pocket Plane.
I like the party I have, but I want to see if there's anyone else I might prefer. Korgan is sturdy, but with no proficiency bonuses to APR, his offense is kind of pathetic.
I boot him from the party to check out Fade's stats, boot Fade because she doesn't seem very interesting, and...
I can't talk to Korgan. I can't bring him back into the party.
I have no idea what is causing this. Korgan isn't even a mod NPC; he was always supposed to transfer into ToB without incident. This really shouldn't be there.
We just lost a party member.
I consider my options. CTRL-Q would bring him back, but I prefer only to use cheats and the like to speed things up and fix quest-breaking or game-ending bugs.
I decide to replace Korgan with Ninafer, the boring Lawful Neutral elven fighter/mage genderbent clone of Xan that I ditched way back in Shadows of Amn. But Korgan still has lots of important equipment. How do I get it back? I don't want to kill him for it; I might change my mind about Ninafer later.
Frisk steps up to bat and starts stealing back Korgan's items.
Unfortunately, Frisk can't get all of them.
The only way to get those items back is to kill Korgan. And since it's now impossible to bring him back into the party, the choice is elemental.
We now have a new party member! Ninafer can use Divine Wind at full APR, so Coran hands her the wakizashi; he'll keep using the Fulcrum just in case I want to try backstabbing somebody. We scribe a crapload of scrolls and Ninafer is ready to go.
It's sad to see Korgan go, but I think this party is actually stronger with Ninafer in his place.
We head off to the Marching Mountains to seize Yaga-Shura's heart. Frisk proudly names this country... New Hotland.
Coming up with terrible names fills us with determination.
Underthrone: Chara and Frisk in Throne of Bhaal
Part 2
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
(SoA run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873342/#Comment_873342
The first area of the fire giant lair isn't too challenging, though we do discover that the local Fire Trolls are impossible to kill. You're supposed to be able to finish them off with acid or cold damage, but these ones never die. Rather than running away to rest and then Imprison the trolls, I circumvent the issue by using CTRL-Q and then booting them from the party.
It's a convenient way to get rid of characters who will not die to CTRL-Y.
We overwhelm the Fire Lich with magic attacks and overwhelm Brimstone with raw damage.
At Nyalee's swamp, Tashia hits level 18 and chooses Wish as her first level 9 spell pick. Tashia only has 14 Wisdom, but one of the items from the Breudayael party boosts her Wisdom by 3, and drinking a potion of Chara's Purified Ichor gives another +1 to Wisdom, at the cost of taking away 10 HP by reducing her Constitution from 15 to 14.
Coran has also hit epic levels. Like Tashia, Xan, and Chara (but for some reason not Frisk), Coran does not get the HLAs he's supposed to when he levels up, so I have to do everything via EEKeeper.
But Coran now has Use Any Item. He can now use three incredibly important new mod items.
He has 10 attacks per round even when unbuffed and can attack during Time Stop. Nyalee poses no threat whatsoever.
During the fight at Yaga-Shura's siege camp, Tashia tries her hand at Wish-resting, and discovers there's a new option.
It seems that one of my mods lets you take the randomness out of Wish. This could be very special.
Anyway, we run around the map until Yaga-Shura eventually returns. Yaga-Shura has 95% damage resistance that is supposed to decrease as the fight goes on.
Demilich-grade resistances, however, are not enough to save him. Chara casts Time Stop and that's the end of the story.
I didn't think there were many mods for ToB, but there are some weird things in Amkethran.
I don't know who these guys are supposed to be, but I think that dialogue is supposed to clue you in to attacking them to take whatever gear they might possess. They don't offer you a quest or anything; they basically just stand there shouting inanities.
Anyway, Xan has another quest here, which we resolve by throwing money at a complicated problem.
That Khalid is not Jaheira's husband, to be clear.
A lot of problems around here can be resolved with money. It's a good thing, too, because selling the loot from the fight at the Oasis triples our gold supply, from 100,000 to 300,000.
Converting the gold tally to grams and then translating it to U.S. dollars in 2017 gold prices, the party's gold supply amounts to 10% of the GDP of Samoa when adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).
In D&D, one gold piece can buy a goat. We have enough money to buy 300,000 Asriel clones! Doing fun math problems fills us with determination.
Tig-2,
Slow but steady,I needed to have my group able to cast 3 fireball before trying to tackle yipping demons...
· Dorn is my party tank and heavy hitter.
· Branwen used her stealth to collect a free fireball wand.
Fights: an easy couple shots from my free wand killed Mulahey without him knowing whom or why
Previous updates:
I quickly ran this bard through the remainder of BG1 this morning before work. I didn't get around to taking any notes at the time though, so the following summary has been reconstructed from the few screenshots taken.
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes, "you must confront your fears".
But when facing battle horrors and staring in their eyes
Remember that the best way to cut them down to size
Is to stick them in a web - that will save your tears.
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes, "stick to what you know".
Sirines soon get stuck in webs, when you spin enough
Add skull traps to the mix and sirines aren't so tough
Golems though, don't get stuck so limber up that bow!
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes, "webs can set you free".
This message does not tell you everything
If you want freedom then use a ring
Or else your foe may chuckle with glee.
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes, "you need a tougher skin".
If you want that, pass through an icy door
Minor globes will help until you see upon the floor
The answer to your prayers - looks like an instant win.
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes, "the palace is a pain".
But things are not so bad when enemies are jumping
Add a spot of chaos and they will get a thumping
And the dukes won't be numbered in the slain.
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes, "split your enemies".
If you can dispel Sarevok on the platform
And then catch Semaj in a summons swarm
It won't be long before the big man's on his knees.
In Baldur's Gate, the saying goes - but who listens to them yap.
If you've been doing extra jobs, helping out and clearing mobs
Ignoring wounds with all their throbs and delighting in hearing sobs
In Siege you'll find you've done no work, but have hit the level cap.
Bard L12, 73 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 393 kills
Underthrone: Chara and Frisk in Throne of Bhaal
Part 3
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
(SoA run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873342/#Comment_873342
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873350/#Comment_873350
I head to Abazigal's lair before I bother with Sendai; there's an important item I want to get as soon as possible. One of my mods adds some random weirdo to the Draconis area.
He summons a bunch of undead, but as a cleric, his defenses are basically nil.
Bob the Cleric has an equally dumb-sounding weapon.
Unfortunately for us, the item is coded incorrectly, like maybe 10-20% of all mod items. It gives +4 to casting time (!), and it's also supposed to give Improved Alacrity (!), but the modder put a 1 in the wrong parameter, making the aura cleansing effect do nothing.
Draconis uses a Wish Time Stop in his human form, but since half our party is immune to Time Stop, all it does is give us more time to remove his defenses and kill his summons.
Draconis switches to dragon form, and though he has PFMW and spell protections keeping him safe, we still have enough magic attacks left to get past them.
For Anadramatis, I just use Time Stop.
Xan asks us to return to Amkethran, where the slavers await us for another showdown.
Time Stop and magic attacks won the battle. No interesting screenshots to post.
We also get ambushed by Karun the Black from Gromnir's castle, plus Berena Elken, Eler Had, and some other unfamiliar enemies. We arrived unbuffed, but magic attacks and Time Stop won that battle, too.
There's also a quadruple dragon ambush when we get back to Abazigal's lair. First up are two black dragons. Brute force proves sufficient to take them down.
Ithy'nassendra is more dangerous, as her breath weapon deals poison damage. Chara is immune, but to avoid having to resurrect the rest of the party, Chara casts Time Stop, preventing the dragon from using its poison breath.
The fourth and final dragon is Carnifex. We could beat him with brute force, but Time Stop is quicker.
Inside Abazigal's lair, there are some Tyrant Golems, which basically means beholder golems, which basically makes no sense. No points for guessing how we win this battle.
We get the Bronze Pantalettes by subcontracting a work deal to Bondari the Reloader and forge the Big Metal Unit. The armor itself is useless to us, but Coran's Sniper kit gives him extra bonuses with using the BMU ammo types.
The Scorcher Ammunition sets the user's APR and strikes twice, dealing both fire damage and missile damage. It basically amounts to 20 APR when under Improved Haste, though the projectile isn't party-friendly and can easily wipe out anyone who's not immune to fire damage and missile damage both. We'll need to be very careful when using it.
Before we fight Abazigal, I have Tashia cast Wish and choose the special option that one of my mods added to the bottom. It seems that you can pay the genie 15,000 gold to negotiate a Wish option in advance. However... it doesn't work for Tashia.
Apparently you need 19 Intelligence and Wisdom in order to get it to work. I'll check back on it later; it's not important just yet.
The drakes in Abazigal's lair apply some nasty effects using their breath weapons, but their defenses aren't great, so they don't last long.
Abazigal's human form is little different.
His dragon form is another story. He comes buffed with Improved Haste and a fair amount of spell protections on top. Notice Xan using Remove Magic to take down Abazigal's Dispelling Screen--even though Xan has no chance of dispelling Abazigal's buffs, Remove/Dispel Magic always take down Dispelling Screen.
Coran switches to the Pulse Ammunition to break apart Abazigal's Magical Sword.
I never understood why Mordenkainen's Sword is supposed to be a good summoning spell in SCS. It has low APR and both the player and SCS spellcasters are smart enough to kill it using Magic Missiles.
Tamah has now joined the party, so Coran switches gears, attacking her using the Scorcher Ammunition. We trade magic attacks with the dragons, losing our Dispelling Screen but Breaching Abazigal.
Tashia prepares to cast Breach on Abazigal to remove that PFMW Contingency, and another copy of Tamah appears on screen.
I don't know why the Tamah clone appears, but it's always happened to me. Tamah is notable for her breath weapon, which deals crushing damage and is therefore hard to resist for characters without Stoneskin.
Boosted by Tenser's Transformation, Chara joins Xan and Ninafer in fighting Abazigal, while Coran focuses on Tamah. Due to the way the characters are positioned, Coran's Scorcher Ammunition can hit both copies of Tamah simultaneously without harming the party.
Tashia restores our Dispelling Screen and the fight goes on. Abazigal and his twin wives are taking lots of damage. We are not.
Coran takes down both Tamahs at the same time. Chara uses Plasma to apply magic damage to Abazigal, but the extra damage isn't really necessary. It just looks cool.
We have slain nine dragons in a single session. Only one of them ever dealt any damage to us--Ithy'nassendra, with an Insect Plague on Xan. Bulldozing through ToB fills us with determination.
Underthrone: Chara and Frisk in Throne of Bhaal
Part 4
(BG1 run begins here and ends here)(SoD run begins here and ends here)
(SoA run begins here and ends here)
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873342/#Comment_873342
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873350/#Comment_873350
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/873567/#Comment_873567
I do some poking around in Near Infinity and make a huge discovery.
You probably don't remember the Staff of Zoltan, which might have popped up in a screenshot after the Breudayael fight, but which I never discussed. This is because the staff doesn't look that spectacular at first glance.
But the description is misleading. See that "Protection from Evil" line in there?
It doesn't mean the staff gives you +2 to AC and saving throws vs. evil critters, like the Protection from Evil spell does.
The staff grants you invisibility to evil critters, like a Protection from Undead scroll.
As long as you hold the staff, no evil creature will ever attack you.
I look at the staff and say aloud, "Well, that's it. The run is over."
Everyone in the final battle except for Balthazar (and maybe Imoen in Slayer form) is evil; none of them will hurt Chara as long as Chara holds the staff. Unless one of my mods introduces a new variable, or if I somehow badly mismanage Balthazar, Chara is truly invincible from here on out.
Time Stop wins the fight with the drow outside Sendai's lair. Inside Sendai's lair, a new enemy shows up, but he's just a fighter.
His loot is dimly interesting.
The missile damage resistance might not seem like much, but it means that we can make one party member almost immune to friendly fire from Coran's Scorcher Ammunition or Frag Grenades.
Thelynn'ss (what an awful name) deals lots of damage, but he, too, is nothing more than a fighter.
Frisk hits level 34. Their Hypnosis now lasts for 1d6 rounds, and has a -3 save penalty.
Coran is instrumental in the fight against Odamaron and his Apprentices. Frag Grenades and Scorcher Ammunition allow him to completely bypass their PFMW spells, because weapon immunities only protect the first target of area-effect projectiles; not anyone close by.
We trade Time Stops, and though Xan and Chara get debuffed, Coran can just apply pressure in too many places for the enemy to function properly.
A new group of enemies surprises us on the way out from the fight with Lashar'ra (what is the point of these apostrophes, anyway?), and though an Anti-Magic ray shuts down Chara's spellcasting, but with Chara having switched to the Staff of Zoltan, Tashia now has Tragla's Doom, which, combined with the Robe of Vecna, makes her Time Stops instantaneous.
Ogremoch proves frustratingly focused on Coran and Frisk due to their lack of Stoneskins, and nearly kills both. To avoid having to raise them, we cast Time Stop.
At this point, I've kind of stopped caring about the difficulty. So I cast Time Stop before the fight with Diaytha even begins.
Chara kills Egeissag with Tenser's Transformation; Time Stop isn't necessary. But Time Stop does simplify the mind flayer fight.
Sendai is tricky. Her statues have a lot of buffs, but just as important, there's an endless stream of drow Kensais who deal massive damage all the time. You might be tempted to focus on Sendai alone, but those Kensais are a major threat to anyone without PFMW.
Coran applies pressure to one of the statues with Pulse Ammunition, then takes the opportunity to kill the other drow when one of the other statues casts Time Stop. We can't stop the mage statue from casting its spells, but we can nail it with Pierce Shield.
We kill the planetar to prevent a vorpal strike and Tashia lands us a Wish-rest.
Wish-resting is largely meaningless for this party, however, as I have never actually used any of our HLAs besides a few Psionic Maze spells from Frisk. Planetars, Dragon's Breath spells, Hardiness, Power Attack, or Greater Whirlwind Attacks have never been necessary.
A cleric statue manages to heal itself, but it struggles to cast other spells; our APR is too high for it to function very well.
Notice Frisk and Chara in the middle of the map. Frisk is keeping the other drow occupied using Hypnosis and hiding themself using the Staff of the (True) Magi. Chara is just attacking the drow until I can think of something more productive for them to do.
One statue dies, and then a mage statue appears.
I don't know what the timing is for these statues. I do know that the drow here are not very good at handling invisibility, so if the statues activate based on a timer (and not based on whether the previous statues have fallen), you could probably hide the party with Potions of Invisibility or Invisibility 10' Radius spells until all of them had activated. Then your sorcerer could cast Time Stop two or three times to wait out any remaining PFMW spells, roasting any drow fighters with Dragon's Breath and/or Comet and allowing your own fighters to mob the statues while they were vulnerable and alone.
Ninafer, Coran, and Xan have all lost their Stoneskins due to those drow fighters, but Frisk is holding them off using Hypnosis. Without it, they'd need a lot more PFMW spells or Hardiness to survive the onslaught.
But I neglect their health for too long, forcing Chara to use Time Stop to bail them out.
The reason Xan is using the Rod of Resurrection on Ninafer is because, unlike Chara and Xan and Coran, she is not immune to Time Stop.
But the Time Stop allows us to re-establish control of the battlefield, as we have three characters acting unopposed for 3 whole rounds when the enemy's PFMW spells have worn out.
Sendai herself finally appears. Tashia answers with another Time Stop, and though Sendai survives the process, it leaves her wounded and weakened.
Sendai escapes using an invisibility spell, but with her spell protections betraying her location, we can reveal her using Frisk's Detect Illusions skill.
Sendai falls, and a new cut scene shows up.
But the Solar interrupts, bringing us to the Pocket Plane, which leaves me worrying about a potentially game-breaking bug.
The Solar returns us to Sendai's lair, where Balthazar and Melissan are still fighting. It's not a cosmetic fight, either; they're actually trying. We kill Melissan's friends, lest she somehow kill Balthazar.
For some reason, the battle won't end. We try to hasten the process by attacking Melissan ourselves, but nothing happens.
I don't know what mod is causing this, but hopefully it won't cause a sequence break, because I don't know how I would fix a bug like that.
Unable to fix the situation, we simply leave. We head to Amkethran to seek out Balthazar. On the way, we run into Nym, everyone's least favorite drow from Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale 2.
Nym is the arms dealer who single-handedly caused the fall of the Severed Hand and pushed the dwarves and elves apart by selling weapons to orcish armies. You never get a chance to punish him for his crimes. On the plus side, he sells some really awesome scrolls.
We already have more Protection from Magic scrolls than we need, and Tashia should be able to create a Wish scroll on her own, but at 300,000 gold, there's no reason for us not to buy everything we can.
The local monks attack us. Out of curiosity, I have Frisk charm CosmoGoon, who immediately attacks the monks and turns his friends hostile.
CosmoGoon and his friends kill Ninafer, but they go down pretty fast. As I suspected, they have some impressive loot on them, though it's a tad silly.
I don't know about other forums, but moderating this one doesn't actually involve a whole lot of banning people or fighting trolls. Mostly it involves talking to people and smoothing things out.
When I try to enter the smuggler's cave so Saemon can slip us into the monastery, the game crashes. I have no idea how to fix this, but apparently you can also get into the monastery just by attacking the monks at the front gate.
We confront Balthazar (I think I actually needed to spawn him using the console just so he'd show up) and try to win him over. But Chara's base Charisma is only 3 or 4, and I think you need something higher than that to get him to join you in the fight with Melissan.
Balthazar commits suicide, obviating the need for a fight. Melissan makes an appearance--I think this is another mod-introduced change--and exposes her true motives before she teleports away.
I really hope that my mods haven't broken the sequence. I am anxious to get to the Throne of Bhaal and finish this run, and I don't want to have to delve into a lot of nitty-gritty bugfixing before then. I am anxious enough as it is.
We return to the Pocket Plane. As I feared, the final challenge is still locked--I cannot fight the Ravager. And until I do, I can't get to the Throne of Bhaal.
I teleport past the barrier using CTRL-J. It worked!
One the spells from Rhialto's spellbook also should have worked; there's a level 2 spell that teleports you to a random spot, though it might have left Chara to fight the Ravager alone.
Coran quickly shows us why PFMW is so important in this fight.
Stoneskin isn't enough; the Ravager can just dispel it. I pull Coran back and have Ninafer, Xan, and Chara attack the Ravager while protected by PFMW. The Ravager crumples.
I hurry through the other challenges. Time Stop and magic attacks are sufficient for the fight with Chara's clone, Tenser's Transformation is sufficient for the fight with the Slayer, and...
...apparently you can sleep with Cyric. That's interesting.
But knowing Cyric is a megalomaniacal fiend whose portfolio includes deception, I'm a little concerned that accepting his offer would just remove Chara's equipment and start the fight anyway. We say no and kill his disciples with Time Stop.
Xan talks to Chara one last time. His fate was once to be sealed within his Moonblade for 1,000 years, but apparently, he just heard that he will be free.
With that, Xan just barely hits 6 million XP. Chara scribes him some level 9 scrolls and I add all our missing HLAs via EEKeeper, even though I'm sure I'll use basically none of them.
Once Xan and Ninafer have all the scrolls they need, I use our extra gold to scribe a few extra copies of PFMW and Wish. But that's not all--I can also spend 15,000 gold to use Wish to add a one-time innate ability to Chara or Tashia (provided Tashia drinks the right potions to get her WIS and INT above 18) that will allow them to get a guaranteed Wish-rest anytime we want!
Well, almost guaranteed. There's a chance that the spell will replicate a random Wish spell instead. But the chance is still better than a normal Wish.
Except...
The modder miscoded spell. It's supposed to increase the chance of a successful Wish-rest (or whichever Wish option you choose) as the caster gains levels. But because the modder mistook one spell file for another, it actually gets worse as the caster gains levels. Instead of levels increasing the odds of a successful spell, higher levels increase the odds of a random spell. Only at level 31 is the spell coded correctly--at level 31, there's a 100% chance of success.
And Chara and Tashia aren't remotely close to level 31. I abandon my hope of using the option to get guaranteed Wish-rests in the final battle.
Then I realize that Frisk is level 35. They can cast the spell and get a 100% chance of success!
I scribe a few Wish scrolls for Frisk, have them drink a Potion of Insight followed by a Brine Solution to get their INT and WIS above 18, and then have them cast Wish.
I do this a handful of times. Frisk can now activate an innate ability to Wish-rest the party with no chance of failure.
It is late at night. Fatigue may impair my judgment, if the fight takes too long. But I am not willing to wait any longer. My nerves are frayed as it is.
I reorganize our inventory, tweak our spell slots, and review all of our options one last time. We are ready for the Throne of Bhaal.
It seems our journey is finally over.
We are filled with DETERMINATION.