A very short session followed by just under 2 hours today for which I made no notes and no screenshots.
Our reputation started very high, allowing Kolla to upgrade her quarterstaff to +3 at Ulgoths Beard. Sapper got the cloak of displacement and greenstone amulet, not that we expect him to use the latter much (there's your chance Davaeorn, now don't fluff it...).
A brief tour of Nashkel mine ended badly for Mulahey, while the Amazons outside gamely took a skulltrap in their strides but were unable to skirmish and ended up falling quickly. Kolla tried to blind Tranzig but a double-click saw her talk to him instead. Not that it made much difference with Sapper killing him shortly afterwards.
The bandit camp was steam-rollered until Kolla tried skulltrapping two bandits outside the largest tent as they shot at Sapper. One switched targets and disrupted her spell, forcing her to step back. Sapper had killed the remaining enemies by this time and only held back in expectation of the skulltrap. As Kolla moved back, he ran forward and the area was ours.
Kolla used invisibility x2, but only managed to blind Venkt with 4 spells to her repertoire. A skulltrap was used instead and Sapper once more cleared up. With Hakt, Britik and Raemon dead, the blinded Venkt was briefly mocked by Sapper "It's all down to you now". Ender Sai's no reload challenge once more failed as Sapper made absolutely certain of killing him with a lightning bolt trap.
Sapper raced through Cloakwood. Hang on, hang on. Don't you want to investigate the spider nest for anything shiny? Ooh, a +2 Spiders Bane sword, just what the dwarf wanted (well, other than the cursed berserking sword that the puny half-elf protagonist kept out of his reach).
Drasus realised too late that Genthore had been blinded, and a stinking cloud kept his mages rubbing their eyes and noses instead of casting spells. As the lone protector of Cloakwood Mine Drasus was not to be cowed and attacked Sapper. The dwarf kept his bow aimed at the enemy mages though, and Kolla blinded Drasus. Sapper stepped a few paces to the side and finished off the mages before equipping his sword to cleave their leader in two.
Kolla used his boots of speed to avoid guards as the mine deepened, Sapper using his armour and sword to cut down anything in his path. Several minutes of dwarven fury later the duo reached Davaeorn's area. Kolla blinded both Battle Horrors, and then the two handed sword and quarterstaff were used to safely dispose of them.
Sapper gulped a potion to give him 5 rounds of fun with Davaeorn but the crafty mage was having none of it and managed to teleport away and avoid the dwarf. He re-appeared just in time to use a dire charm as Kolla closed in so she ran away again rather than become targeted by dwarf and foe.
A few rounds later the charm wore off and Davaeorn ran out of spells soon afterwards. The eventual price for interfering with a dwarven mine was for his bloodied corpse to be washed away in a flood.
Baldur's Gate was next, with a brief bit of shopping and a few quests. Notably, Lothander evaded hasted wand summons to keep his boots of speed and his life, while Kolla lost her gauntlets (double-clicked them and off they vanished - lovely bug). Not to be outdone, Sapper spoke to a bereaved father twice in rapid succession only to realise that he should allow a multiplayer wait between the chats so as not to vamoosh the body of the child. Losing your gauntlets is careless, losing the dearly departed is remiss.
There is still plenty to do (or forfeit at this rate) in the city.
@RVNS: There are recommendations for which mods to install in the first post, and no-reload (as opposed to minimal reload) is encourage, but as for the game in question, any Infinite Engine game, whether BG or SoD BG2 or ToB or IWD or IWD2 or PST, is acceptable for the challenge (I've also considered posting a Paper Mario run here, but I died before I began posting). So there are no requirements for posting here.
Post on whichever run you like! We'll enjoy reading it.
@RVNS: Spell Revisions (SR) is a spell mod that tweaks most of the spells in BG1 and BG2 to make them more balanced and consistent. It's often paired with Item Revisions (IR), which rebalances the items of BG1 and BG2. They're designed to work together, and Spell Revisions and SCS are also designed to work together. If you install SR and SCS in the right order (I think SR comes first, but it would be better to check), then SCS spellcasters will use SR spells. I usually play without SR, but I strongly recommend the mod; it's extremely well-done.
I wrote a review of SR and IR in the first issue of the community magazine Wild Surge. You can read the review here, on page 7.
My tetralogy run was the "Undergate" run, with Chara the Alchemist as Charname, Frisk the Seducer, and 37 other NPCs over the course of the saga. I died once in BG1, but I did not reload; I started over from Candlekeep so it would be a continuous no-reload run. I have the links for each section of the run: ....
Generic SCS works, but does not take the SR changes into account. I had a run with SR and generic SCS before I knew about the correct version. Never finished it, but everything seemed at least functionnal, if not optimal.
very impressive that you took out the marelith your first try, and it was her weapons that were causing all the craziness on your characters during that fight, and those weapons are actually obtainable in that dungeon, i just thought to give them to her because it would make a bit more sense in her having them, instead of those weapons just sitting around
And it also means that you can safely tank Yxunomei almost indefinitely by using Mustard Jelly form, as she only attacks using short swords and the jelly form has 100% piercing resistance.
The Severed Hand has always been a boring slog for me (basically every fight can be won by spamming Fireball, and by this point all of my parties have had easy access to Protection from Fire), but the IWD Mega Mod adds a few new critters to keep things interesting.
Pretty colors! Cloudburst is a very beautiful spell. It's a shame it's so weak: 2d6 damage on average (7 total) with a save for half on normal enemies, or 2d6+2d3 damage (11 total) for fire- and cold-dwelling critters.
My normal tactics still work; the enemies are still vulnerable to Fireball and traps. The de-randomization part of the mega mod works to our advantage here, because there are several very excellent random drops in the Severed Hand that are now guaranteed.
The Great Shield has 5% less resistance than the vanilla version, but it's still a spectacular tool. If Chara ever hits level 15 (very unlikely unless I take them through most of Heart of Winter), they will be practically invincible. The Bone Marrow Belt is also heavily nerfed, but it doesn't matter--due to alignment restrictions, only Carl can use it anyway, and I only use Carl for tanking when I'm truly desperate, like when we got overwhelmed by Skeleton Elites in the Vale of Shadows and Yxunomei beneath Dragon's Eye.
Anyhoo, most of the fights in the Severed Hand look like this.
The high priest of the area survives an unnaturally long time and disables Chara with fear effects and berserk, but the rest of the party maintains a safe distance until the cleric's defenses wear thin.
There was one fight, however, that truly caught me by surprise.
I don't know what "Pseudonatural" is supposed to mean, but it seems the spider applies a very, very dangerous disease effect on hit.
Chara has only gotten hit once or twice. Why is their Constitution so low?
Well, fighters need very high stats to dual-class into druids. And because I don't like using Intelligence as a dump stat, I gave Chara 18 Dexterity at the cost of 8 Constitution, thinking their HP would be high enough without the bonuses.
But that low Constitution score means Chara is in absolutely no condition to tank this spider. I send them away and have Snowy Tae and Carl chase it down, as they have the highest Constitution scores. Our sorcerers attempt to paralyze the spider with Chromatic Orbs, but the spider's saves and magic resistance are both very high.
I pull Carl back so he can set some traps; they're one of the few ways to guarantee a successful hit. Meanwhile, Chara casts Static Charge in the hopes of dealing some heavy damage later on in the fight (I expect this will take a long time).
Snowy Tae has high APR thanks to the Bastard Sword of Action +1 and dual-wielding, but her AC is terrible. Once again, her Archer armor restrictions are proving troublesome. Snowy Tae quickly approaches death. Growing desperate, I decide to pull a cheap trick: blocking the spider's path using Frisk, and then turning Frisk invisible to trap the spider at a safe distance, where it cannot hurt us.
Unfortunately, the spider has True Seeing somehow.
Half the party is an inch from death, and worse yet, we pre-buffed with Haste. And the fatigue penalties from Haste are twice that of BG; a single casting is enough to impose a -1 luck penalty.
Carl uses the Bone Talisman to cast Vampiric Touch on the spider, but we're not making much progress with these tiny little bits of magic damage. I need to bring back Chara and their strong damage output. I didn't memorize Cure Disease, but I do have some Philters of Purification and Mummy's Tea.
Carl's traps trigger, but the spider is resistant.
Both Carl and Snowy Tae are going to have a hard time taking down this spider.
Chara's dagger will tack on much needed damage, but how are we going to keep Chara safe when their Constitution is only at 8? Simple.
Snowy Tae downs an Oil of Speed for a little extra boost, and when Chara's strength starts to flag, Frisk summons some undead to buy Chara time to defend themself.
The fight drags on, but the spider seems to be regenerating; we're not going to make it if things keep going as they are. I scour our inventory for new options (you can buy a very helpful Bag of Holding in Kuldahar from the IWD Mega Mod) and track down a summoning staff from back in Dragon's Eye. It only gets so many charges, and due to a coding problem from vanilla, it takes almost two rounds for it to work, but the staff lets us summon a very helpful ally indeed.
I've been trying to land a disabler for many rounds now, but when I see it roll a 1 and still make it, I give up.
This spider is effectively immune to disablers. Its saving throws are just too ridiculously low.
The spider applies pressure on both our HP and our CON, but Mirror Image and potions can counter both threats.
The party is a wreck, but we manage to cling to life just long enough to squash the spider.
Generic SCS works, but does not take the SR changes into account. I had a run with SR and generic SCS before I knew about the correct version. Never finished it, but everything seemed at least functionnal, if not optimal.
Thanks. This is helpful. I will try this version with SR.
A lapse of concentration led to the death of both dukes in the palace. Complete and utter stupidity on my part. Neglected to have some characters protected from web and then cast it.
I'm thinking of doing an EET installation which I have never done before. Never done BGT before either. It was always Tutu for me.
Pseudonatural is a template in the epic players hand book of version 3.0 DnD, i wanted to use it somewhere, and i thought that would be a great place to do so
As usual, another day meant trying to remember what we'd planned. To recap, we were stood outside the entrance to the Blushing Mermaid. Eventually we remember about taking the antidote from Marek's lifeless and somewhat limbless body.
There were a few odd jobs left in the city so we set about them. Sapper booted down a door and went inside, gleefully shouting that Ramazith's twin brother was in town - one of him remained at the base of the tower to be killed while the other teleported to the top but that didn't save him. Rings of Protecton +2 all around then, double the trouble meaning double the loot.
Durlags Tower provided a brief distraction, with basilisks on the roof and a tome of wisdom for Kolla. Then back to the city and into the Iron Throne headquarters. Kolla opened with web, stinking cloud, skulltrap and greater malison.
A second skulltrap floated aimlessly as Sapper used arrows of detonation to finish off Zhalimar and Alai before it landed. Sapper gamely spurred Genthore into running combat and through the skulltrap.
Candlekeep saw Kolla use a minor globe, knock and protection from fire to allow the safe looting of three tombs. Prat and his gang took a fatal dose of stinking web skulltrap detonations on the way out.
Slythe took full advantage of camera movement to attack Kolla but she wasn't too badly wounded and Sapper was a much tougher proposition. Krystin was up for revenge but Kolla was shooting arrows of fire into her rear (aim higher!) as Sapper shot arrows of dispelling from the front.
Little wonder that tickets to the Coronation are hard to come by, there's fun for everyone.
We then chased Sarevok through the thieves maze, Kolla using glitterdust to blind a pair of battle horrors and Sapper using a scroll of protection from undead to down a brace of skeleton warriors.
Rahvin and his gang were treated to a double dose of arrows of detonation, then Sapper used the remaining life of his undead protection to mop up five more skeleton warriors before heading into the newly re-opened temple of Bhaal. Sapper suggested resting as Kolla had minor wounds but she used two ability cures to heal up and elected not to rest. Who needs spells.
There now follows the sort of combat that is extremely enjoyable but is thoroughly not recommended in no-reload
Once inside Kolla pushed her luck by attempting to shoot Sarevok without starting invisible, and with no protective buffs active. Her arrow of dispelling missed and Sarevok started to chase as she ran. After a few moments it becomes clear that he has stopped so she attempts a second maximum range shot and misses again. This time Sarevok gives chase for real.
Area disablers fire as Kolla retreats and she briefly realises Sapper will be shaking his head in disbelief. More so because Kolla makes her saves and Sarevok does not. We're not able to shake him down while immobile though as Semaj joins the fray. We hit him with dispelling arrows, and again when he re-mirrors.
He manages to throw out a Cloudkill, forcing us to cower in small areas while trying to finish him off. We are ultimately successful but Sarevok has recovered enough to carve chunks out of Sapper before his mage perishes. (note: intentional friendly fire here as Sapper has been spelled-up by Semaj)
Sapper and Sarevok are running around the clouds enough to draw out a battle horror. Kolla gives Sapper some breathing room with summons from a wand, and then blinds the battle horror. Sapper has by this time drawn a second battle horror out, but returned to deal with the first while the summons distract other enemies. Kolla breathes a sigh of relief. Back in control, although choking from cloudkill.
Ouch. Who let him out? Where's that potion of invisibility...
The clouds dissipate moments after Kolla has gone invisible, so she adds more wand summons and everything looks bright once more with a chance for us to use ranged attacks.
Sapper runs out of ammo and auto-switches to the next slot. Kolla has visions of being too close to the light and runs backwards as fast as possible.
Another wand summoning is enough to break the patience, and spirit, of Sarevok.
On to Siege now. We've got arrows of detonation at the ready, with three necklaces of missiles, and two wands of fire. That's our plan.
Kolla did OK with 141 kills but Sapper is way ahead with 269. Here's their SoD starting gear.
Mages seem to be get better pre-buffs in the IWD Mega Mod, and they like to open with Remove Magic, much like SCS mages.
The enemy fighters aren't a major threat due to Chara's excellent AC and Ironskins, but neither of those defenses means much against spell damage.
We clear out the shadowy swordsmen pretty quick, but our best options are useless against the mage's defenses.
I have brought Chara down south. One of the critical weaknesses of the mega mod's AI is that enemies don't really chase you if you run away, so that mage just sits there and waits for us to come back. In the meantime, we slay one of his fellow mages in another room.
Frisk has a perfect option for this situation. Lucky for us, this mage doesn't know to use Lower Resistance against a blob of jelly.
Frisk wiggles their hips. The wizard scowls at us. What a meaningful conversation!
Some of the spells bypass MR...
...but with the mage distracted and focused on a near-invincible target, he's no longer a threat.
Notice the contingency, erroneously fired twice.
Most of the fights are less complex, winnable using Fireballs and not much else. But it seems that some of the traps are deadlier than I remember.
Enemies appear from nowhere, and now I have a real problem.
Per my normal rules, I can re-create a character in the case of chunking, but not if the chunking is due to petrification. If an area-effect spell hits Chara, we lose our only tank to a permanent shattering. We have to make our escape. Mollyboo uses a fast-casting Invisibility spell so Frisk can hide the rest of the party with a slow-casting Invisibility 10' Radius spell.
We hurry back to Kuldahar, buy some Stone to Flesh scrolls, and return to clear out the enemies so we can get Chara back.
The rest of the Severed Hand gives us no trouble. Before we move on to Dorn's Deep, I re-visit Kuldahar Valley. Now that Chara is a druid, they can cure Ghereg's head problems.
Finding a rare nonviolent solution in a hack-and-slash environment fills us with determination.
Well I started this no reload Challenge yesterday and wanted to record my tales of my all evil party of clergy using the Faith and Powers mod for the run, just to give it a whirl. However, in one of my First area transitions I ran into a lovely archer ambush killing the entire party in one go. I have never done a no reload before and I must say that it was rather eye opening how quickly you can die without that lovely reload screen. I may try another run tonight using a Ranger and druid themed party based off the faith and powers mod since I didn't get a chance to really explore it.
Sorry to hear about that, @RVNS - you can ignore this advice if you want, but if you are not familiar with the safe routes to travel, then for a 1st time no-reload being any character that can wear heavy armor and large shield is the best chance of survival of the archer ambushes in the early going. Possibly very fast characters (monks, barbarians) might be sufficient too if you are solo.
@RVNS: Area transitions are always rough. @Grond0, perhaps the single most experienced BG1 no-reloader of us all, can probably tell you how to deal with the perilous early game, and maybe @JuliusBorisov could give us a link to some more advice--I recall there was a thread dedicated to crucial information about no-reload challenges, and JB often seems to know where important older threads are found.
My only other piece of advice is to not be afraid to start over if you really like how a run is going. I lost a BG1 run to a Ducal Palace fiasco once, but rather than come up with a new character in a new run, I just went back to Candlekeep at level 1 with the same protagonist.
The no-reload challenge only forbids reloading; not restarting.
@rvns by 'experienced' no-reloader @semiticgod really means I'm an experienced reloader, i.e. I've died many, many times. As he said just start again - one of the advantages of an early death is you shouldn't feel too much has been invested in the run yet.
There is a skeleton archer ambush you can get in your first area transition if you go south from the crossroads, which is a pretty nasty trick so early on. I don't know if you're talking about that one or possibly a bandit ambush a bit later on - lots of no-reloaders will have had bad experiences with the latter. Other vicious ranged ambushes possible include hobgoblins south of the carnival and kobolds (including kobold commandos) north of the carnival.
While those ambushes can be nasty I really wouldn't expect them to be fatal for your clerical party. As @Corey_Russell said clerics can wear armor and use large shields - they can also wear helmets. Personally I might well not bother buying armor in Candlekeep, but if you did so at least for the protagonist that would make them pretty safe. Other things you could do include: - using command to disable archers very quickly (doesn't work on skeletons). - running immediately (even if a couple of your party is shot down that's a relatively minor problem; trying to defeat the attackers in melee could result in everyone dying). Note that in that situation you'll be much more efficient in your movements if you take the time to issue movement commands to each individual, rather than trying to move the whole party in formation. - sending a cleric to attack in melee any archer attacking your PC. That only needs to be done for a second or two to make the attacker switch from missile to melee weapon. Once they've done that they won't switch back to your PC (as their AI is programmed to attack the nearest enemy - though SCS can potentially change that). - get better armor when you can. A party of clerics could justifiably be annoyed by being suspected of being bandits by a group of 3 Flaming Fist soldiers south of Beregost and evil ones would have no compunction about shooting them down (they have no missile weapons so are easy to kill if you take a bit of care - and it doesn't cost you any reputation). The 3 sets of plate you get there will make ambushes significantly less dangerous.
I tend to find that if you sleep once in the area where you get ambushed there is a chance you get ambushed when going East and south. It has something to do with ambushes taking place between travel regions at certain timeslots. Generally it is only a time range of a few hours. But hey, there are three potential arrow magnets that can join you in that area and then use a good party layout (the circle with you in the middle works okay) until you are confident with survival.
Running is always good. Fight or flight as they say. You either commit or you don't.
Comments
Kolla (Female Half-Elf Fighter/Mage), Gate70
Sapper (Male Dwarf Fighter), Grond0
A very short session followed by just under 2 hours today for which I made no notes and no screenshots.
Our reputation started very high, allowing Kolla to upgrade her quarterstaff to +3 at Ulgoths Beard. Sapper got the cloak of displacement and greenstone amulet, not that we expect him to use the latter much (there's your chance Davaeorn, now don't fluff it...).
A brief tour of Nashkel mine ended badly for Mulahey, while the Amazons outside gamely took a skulltrap in their strides but were unable to skirmish and ended up falling quickly. Kolla tried to blind Tranzig but a double-click saw her talk to him instead. Not that it made much difference with Sapper killing him shortly afterwards.
The bandit camp was steam-rollered until Kolla tried skulltrapping two bandits outside the largest tent as they shot at Sapper. One switched targets and disrupted her spell, forcing her to step back. Sapper had killed the remaining enemies by this time and only held back in expectation of the skulltrap. As Kolla moved back, he ran forward and the area was ours.
Kolla used invisibility x2, but only managed to blind Venkt with 4 spells to her repertoire. A skulltrap was used instead and Sapper once more cleared up. With Hakt, Britik and Raemon dead, the blinded Venkt was briefly mocked by Sapper "It's all down to you now". Ender Sai's no reload challenge once more failed as Sapper made absolutely certain of killing him with a lightning bolt trap.
Sapper raced through Cloakwood. Hang on, hang on. Don't you want to investigate the spider nest for anything shiny? Ooh, a +2 Spiders Bane sword, just what the dwarf wanted (well, other than the cursed berserking sword that the puny half-elf protagonist kept out of his reach).
Drasus realised too late that Genthore had been blinded, and a stinking cloud kept his mages rubbing their eyes and noses instead of casting spells. As the lone protector of Cloakwood Mine Drasus was not to be cowed and attacked Sapper. The dwarf kept his bow aimed at the enemy mages though, and Kolla blinded Drasus. Sapper stepped a few paces to the side and finished off the mages before equipping his sword to cleave their leader in two.
Kolla used his boots of speed to avoid guards as the mine deepened, Sapper using his armour and sword to cut down anything in his path. Several minutes of dwarven fury later the duo reached Davaeorn's area. Kolla blinded both Battle Horrors, and then the two handed sword and quarterstaff were used to safely dispose of them.
Sapper gulped a potion to give him 5 rounds of fun with Davaeorn but the crafty mage was having none of it and managed to teleport away and avoid the dwarf. He re-appeared just in time to use a dire charm as Kolla closed in so she ran away again rather than become targeted by dwarf and foe.
A few rounds later the charm wore off and Davaeorn ran out of spells soon afterwards. The eventual price for interfering with a dwarven mine was for his bloodied corpse to be washed away in a flood.
Baldur's Gate was next, with a brief bit of shopping and a few quests. Notably, Lothander evaded hasted wand summons to keep his boots of speed and his life, while Kolla lost her gauntlets (double-clicked them and off they vanished - lovely bug). Not to be outdone, Sapper spoke to a bereaved father twice in rapid succession only to realise that he should allow a multiplayer wait between the chats so as not to vamoosh the body of the child. Losing your gauntlets is careless, losing the dearly departed is remiss.
There is still plenty to do (or forfeit at this rate) in the city.
Post on whichever run you like! We'll enjoy reading it.
I wrote a review of SR and IR in the first issue of the community magazine Wild Surge. You can read the review here, on page 7.
One more thing though : you have to install the SR specific version of SCS to have mage using SR spells. Generic SCS do not fully exploit SR changes.
I just updated the original post with these runs.
Is it stable?
Does the SCS AI successfully incorporate it into consideration?
Also, only the SR specific version of SCS fully take the changes of SR in consideration. You can find it here :
http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=28249&page=1.
Generic SCS works, but does not take the SR changes into account. I had a run with SR and generic SCS before I knew about the correct version. Never finished it, but everything seemed at least functionnal, if not optimal.
And it also means that you can safely tank Yxunomei almost indefinitely by using Mustard Jelly form, as she only attacks using short swords and the jelly form has 100% piercing resistance.
Underdale 1: Frisk in Icewind Dale
Part 6
Frisk, Cleric/IllusionistChara, Fighter(7)->Druid
Asriel, Sorcerer
Mollyboo, Sorcerer
Carl, Bounty Hunter
Snowy Tae, Archer
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/887489/#Comment_887489
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/888222/#Comment_888222
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/889290/#Comment_889290
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/889719/#Comment_889719
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/890634/#Comment_890634
The Severed Hand has always been a boring slog for me (basically every fight can be won by spamming Fireball, and by this point all of my parties have had easy access to Protection from Fire), but the IWD Mega Mod adds a few new critters to keep things interesting.
Pretty colors! Cloudburst is a very beautiful spell. It's a shame it's so weak: 2d6 damage on average (7 total) with a save for half on normal enemies, or 2d6+2d3 damage (11 total) for fire- and cold-dwelling critters.
My normal tactics still work; the enemies are still vulnerable to Fireball and traps. The de-randomization part of the mega mod works to our advantage here, because there are several very excellent random drops in the Severed Hand that are now guaranteed.
The Great Shield has 5% less resistance than the vanilla version, but it's still a spectacular tool. If Chara ever hits level 15 (very unlikely unless I take them through most of Heart of Winter), they will be practically invincible. The Bone Marrow Belt is also heavily nerfed, but it doesn't matter--due to alignment restrictions, only Carl can use it anyway, and I only use Carl for tanking when I'm truly desperate, like when we got overwhelmed by Skeleton Elites in the Vale of Shadows and Yxunomei beneath Dragon's Eye.
Anyhoo, most of the fights in the Severed Hand look like this.
The high priest of the area survives an unnaturally long time and disables Chara with fear effects and berserk, but the rest of the party maintains a safe distance until the cleric's defenses wear thin.
There was one fight, however, that truly caught me by surprise.
I don't know what "Pseudonatural" is supposed to mean, but it seems the spider applies a very, very dangerous disease effect on hit.
Chara has only gotten hit once or twice. Why is their Constitution so low?
Well, fighters need very high stats to dual-class into druids. And because I don't like using Intelligence as a dump stat, I gave Chara 18 Dexterity at the cost of 8 Constitution, thinking their HP would be high enough without the bonuses.
But that low Constitution score means Chara is in absolutely no condition to tank this spider. I send them away and have Snowy Tae and Carl chase it down, as they have the highest Constitution scores. Our sorcerers attempt to paralyze the spider with Chromatic Orbs, but the spider's saves and magic resistance are both very high.
I pull Carl back so he can set some traps; they're one of the few ways to guarantee a successful hit. Meanwhile, Chara casts Static Charge in the hopes of dealing some heavy damage later on in the fight (I expect this will take a long time).
Snowy Tae has high APR thanks to the Bastard Sword of Action +1 and dual-wielding, but her AC is terrible. Once again, her Archer armor restrictions are proving troublesome. Snowy Tae quickly approaches death. Growing desperate, I decide to pull a cheap trick: blocking the spider's path using Frisk, and then turning Frisk invisible to trap the spider at a safe distance, where it cannot hurt us.
Unfortunately, the spider has True Seeing somehow.
Half the party is an inch from death, and worse yet, we pre-buffed with Haste. And the fatigue penalties from Haste are twice that of BG; a single casting is enough to impose a -1 luck penalty.
Carl uses the Bone Talisman to cast Vampiric Touch on the spider, but we're not making much progress with these tiny little bits of magic damage. I need to bring back Chara and their strong damage output. I didn't memorize Cure Disease, but I do have some Philters of Purification and Mummy's Tea.
Carl's traps trigger, but the spider is resistant.
Both Carl and Snowy Tae are going to have a hard time taking down this spider.
Chara's dagger will tack on much needed damage, but how are we going to keep Chara safe when their Constitution is only at 8? Simple.
Snowy Tae downs an Oil of Speed for a little extra boost, and when Chara's strength starts to flag, Frisk summons some undead to buy Chara time to defend themself.
The fight drags on, but the spider seems to be regenerating; we're not going to make it if things keep going as they are. I scour our inventory for new options (you can buy a very helpful Bag of Holding in Kuldahar from the IWD Mega Mod) and track down a summoning staff from back in Dragon's Eye. It only gets so many charges, and due to a coding problem from vanilla, it takes almost two rounds for it to work, but the staff lets us summon a very helpful ally indeed.
I've been trying to land a disabler for many rounds now, but when I see it roll a 1 and still make it, I give up.
This spider is effectively immune to disablers. Its saving throws are just too ridiculously low.
The spider applies pressure on both our HP and our CON, but Mirror Image and potions can counter both threats.
The party is a wreck, but we manage to cling to life just long enough to squash the spider.
Eating spider donuts fills us with determination.
Tag-5,
Don't get cocky,I popped into a cave to gab a sword... then wiped out spiders for Neera, and reshuffled my party at camp to deal with a couple of quest loose ends.
N.t.s, when things are going smooth... LOOK BEHIND YOU!
SD- Start,
A new run,I’m re-entering the challenge with another group;
· Sarah Bluetop a Halfling Neutral Avenger
· Puk Grumbleblock a Dwarf LG Wizard Slayer
Sarah has little care for the world of man!
Mods: Sarah is a Halfling to better match the portrait
Beamdog version install ... I’m playing on insane level with extra damage turned off.
I'm thinking of doing an EET installation which I have never done before. Never done BGT before either. It was always Tutu for me.
Kolla (Female Half-Elf Fighter/Mage), Gate70
Sapper (Male Dwarf Fighter), Grond0
As usual, another day meant trying to remember what we'd planned. To recap, we were stood outside the entrance to the Blushing Mermaid. Eventually we remember about taking the antidote from Marek's lifeless and somewhat limbless body.
There were a few odd jobs left in the city so we set about them. Sapper booted down a door and went inside, gleefully shouting that Ramazith's twin brother was in town - one of him remained at the base of the tower to be killed while the other teleported to the top but that didn't save him. Rings of Protecton +2 all around then, double the trouble meaning double the loot.
Durlags Tower provided a brief distraction, with basilisks on the roof and a tome of wisdom for Kolla. Then back to the city and into the Iron Throne headquarters. Kolla opened with web, stinking cloud, skulltrap and greater malison.
Candlekeep saw Kolla use a minor globe, knock and protection from fire to allow the safe looting of three tombs. Prat and his gang took a fatal dose of stinking web skulltrap detonations on the way out.
Slythe took full advantage of camera movement to attack Kolla but she wasn't too badly wounded and Sapper was a much tougher proposition. Krystin was up for revenge but Kolla was shooting arrows of fire into her rear (aim higher!) as Sapper shot arrows of dispelling from the front.
Little wonder that tickets to the Coronation are hard to come by, there's fun for everyone.
Rahvin and his gang were treated to a double dose of arrows of detonation, then Sapper used the remaining life of his undead protection to mop up five more skeleton warriors before heading into the newly re-opened temple of Bhaal. Sapper suggested resting as Kolla had minor wounds but she used two ability cures to heal up and elected not to rest. Who needs spells.
There now follows the sort of combat that is extremely enjoyable but is thoroughly not recommended in no-reload
Once inside Kolla pushed her luck by attempting to shoot Sarevok without starting invisible, and with no protective buffs active. Her arrow of dispelling missed and Sarevok started to chase as she ran. After a few moments it becomes clear that he has stopped so she attempts a second maximum range shot and misses again. This time Sarevok gives chase for real.
Area disablers fire as Kolla retreats and she briefly realises Sapper will be shaking his head in disbelief. More so because Kolla makes her saves and Sarevok does not. We're not able to shake him down while immobile though as Semaj joins the fray. We hit him with dispelling arrows, and again when he re-mirrors.
He manages to throw out a Cloudkill, forcing us to cower in small areas while trying to finish him off. We are ultimately successful but Sarevok has recovered enough to carve chunks out of Sapper before his mage perishes.
(note: intentional friendly fire here as Sapper has been spelled-up by Semaj)
Ouch. Who let him out? Where's that potion of invisibility...
On to Siege now. We've got arrows of detonation at the ready, with three necklaces of missiles, and two wands of fire. That's our plan.
Kolla did OK with 141 kills but Sapper is way ahead with 269. Here's their SoD starting gear.
Underdale 1: Frisk in Icewind Dale
Part 7
Frisk, Cleric/IllusionistChara, Fighter(7)->Druid
Asriel, Sorcerer
Mollyboo, Sorcerer
Carl, Bounty Hunter
Snowy Tae, Archer
Previous posts here:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/887489/#Comment_887489
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/888222/#Comment_888222
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/889290/#Comment_889290
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/889719/#Comment_889719
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/890634/#Comment_890634
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/890876/#Comment_890876
Mages seem to be get better pre-buffs in the IWD Mega Mod, and they like to open with Remove Magic, much like SCS mages.
The enemy fighters aren't a major threat due to Chara's excellent AC and Ironskins, but neither of those defenses means much against spell damage.
We clear out the shadowy swordsmen pretty quick, but our best options are useless against the mage's defenses.
I have brought Chara down south. One of the critical weaknesses of the mega mod's AI is that enemies don't really chase you if you run away, so that mage just sits there and waits for us to come back. In the meantime, we slay one of his fellow mages in another room.
Frisk has a perfect option for this situation. Lucky for us, this mage doesn't know to use Lower Resistance against a blob of jelly.
Frisk wiggles their hips. The wizard scowls at us. What a meaningful conversation!
Some of the spells bypass MR...
...but with the mage distracted and focused on a near-invincible target, he's no longer a threat.
Notice the contingency, erroneously fired twice.
Most of the fights are less complex, winnable using Fireballs and not much else. But it seems that some of the traps are deadlier than I remember.
Enemies appear from nowhere, and now I have a real problem.
Per my normal rules, I can re-create a character in the case of chunking, but not if the chunking is due to petrification. If an area-effect spell hits Chara, we lose our only tank to a permanent shattering. We have to make our escape. Mollyboo uses a fast-casting Invisibility spell so Frisk can hide the rest of the party with a slow-casting Invisibility 10' Radius spell.
We hurry back to Kuldahar, buy some Stone to Flesh scrolls, and return to clear out the enemies so we can get Chara back.
The rest of the Severed Hand gives us no trouble. Before we move on to Dorn's Deep, I re-visit Kuldahar Valley. Now that Chara is a druid, they can cure Ghereg's head problems.
Finding a rare nonviolent solution in a hack-and-slash environment fills us with determination.
My only other piece of advice is to not be afraid to start over if you really like how a run is going. I lost a BG1 run to a Ducal Palace fiasco once, but rather than come up with a new character in a new run, I just went back to Candlekeep at level 1 with the same protagonist.
The no-reload challenge only forbids reloading; not restarting.
Thank you for the advice!
There is a skeleton archer ambush you can get in your first area transition if you go south from the crossroads, which is a pretty nasty trick so early on. I don't know if you're talking about that one or possibly a bandit ambush a bit later on - lots of no-reloaders will have had bad experiences with the latter. Other vicious ranged ambushes possible include hobgoblins south of the carnival and kobolds (including kobold commandos) north of the carnival.
While those ambushes can be nasty I really wouldn't expect them to be fatal for your clerical party. As @Corey_Russell said clerics can wear armor and use large shields - they can also wear helmets. Personally I might well not bother buying armor in Candlekeep, but if you did so at least for the protagonist that would make them pretty safe. Other things you could do include:
- using command to disable archers very quickly (doesn't work on skeletons).
- running immediately (even if a couple of your party is shot down that's a relatively minor problem; trying to defeat the attackers in melee could result in everyone dying). Note that in that situation you'll be much more efficient in your movements if you take the time to issue movement commands to each individual, rather than trying to move the whole party in formation.
- sending a cleric to attack in melee any archer attacking your PC. That only needs to be done for a second or two to make the attacker switch from missile to melee weapon. Once they've done that they won't switch back to your PC (as their AI is programmed to attack the nearest enemy - though SCS can potentially change that).
- get better armor when you can. A party of clerics could justifiably be annoyed by being suspected of being bandits by a group of 3 Flaming Fist soldiers south of Beregost and evil ones would have no compunction about shooting them down (they have no missile weapons so are easy to kill if you take a bit of care - and it doesn't cost you any reputation). The 3 sets of plate you get there will make ambushes significantly less dangerous.
Best of luck!
But hey, there are three potential arrow magnets that can join you in that area and then use a good party layout (the circle with you in the middle works okay) until you are confident with survival.
Running is always good. Fight or flight as they say. You either commit or you don't.