I seem to recall thief detect illusions ability seeing through invisibility potions, but not fully sure. I will try to check it out in a current run. I am not sure about the Sandthief ring as I rarely use it.
As usual, another day meant trying to remember what we'd planned. To recap, we were in the old temple ruins with only a few mummies, skeleton warriors and a dragon between us and the Shade Lord outside. We're quite low-level so Sapper expected to be sneaking past the dragon, but Kolla clumped seven skulltraps together and... the dragon survived. A few rounds later Kolla used an eighth skulltrap to claim the kill.
. Shade Lord vs SapperStar next.
Where next. The De'Arnise Hold? Yep, all done within 30 minutes or so, although we tried doing half a job before remembering to wander down to Tor'Gal.
Our final action of the (short) session was to open up the Planar Sphere. On the way Kolla remembered that selling a helm of charm protection because she had the shield of harmony was a bad idea - since she only had a 2 handed staff and 2 handed bow. Despite being charmed after this screenshot, she was never at risk thanks to Sapper splitting her away from the remaining vampire and staking it with his sword.
Kolla muttered about picking up the recently-stashed Foebane +3, and Sapper turned to head back but Kolla wasn't so keen and into the sphere we went without full charm cover. What can possibly go wrong?
Gate70: Teere, human female Priest of Tyr. Corey Russell: Corarcher, elf male Archer. Grond0: Mis, elf female Archer.
We're at the coast. The save is called Sirines. They're clues pointing to what lies ahead.
Corarcher and Mis are busy discussing if they are elves or half elves, with charm resistance or limited charm resistance. After a minute or two they realise Teere is nowhere to be seen, and ask how she arrived so far to the south. Try and keep up ;-)
After helping Ardrouine we use a brace of skeletons to deal with six sirines and enter a cave to look for treasure. Corarcher is held by a trap while Mis gamely shoots at flesh golems, with Teere taking a couple of hits as she tries to run distraction.
A final sirine tries to interrupt our rest and falls to Command.
Zal and Vax wouldn't have been much trouble, but a winter wolf joined in to make life more challenging.
Caldo and Krumm, both commanded.
After finishing our previous trio session, it's time for a spot of revenge against Zargal. Oh, Mis - we all know you could survive if only you drank the fnargling antidote... Your dying breath was "we need to visit the temple to hand in Bassilus' symbol anyway"
Nashkel Mine holds no fears for us, Mulahey taking too many arrows for Teere to get her final spell cast. Outside, it is more of the same for the Amazons.
As for the bandit camp, Teere was tired and wanted to rest but the archers pressed on meaning Taugosz had to be run around until he dropped. Inside, we sneaked around but Corarcher was spotted and Raemon moved towards him - and Commanded while still neutral. We shot him down (bang bang) as a skeleton occupied their mage, and Hakt was held leaving Britik to suffer another Command.
Some shopping had been done at Ulgoths Beard, and Corarcher picked up Spiders Bane in Centeol's lair. It looks a forboding place to rest but that's where we are camped until next session.
(various other maps visited, e.g. gnoll stronghold for gauntlets and tome, map above it for the bear, Meilum for his bracers).
Alesia's been doing a lot of travelling in recent years, but has popped up on the Forums a few times and with luck will do so again in the future
Pop!
A.
(Fyi, I'm considering a run. If it happens it will happen soon. Next week! In any case, best wishes to all the challengers! I'm super-glad that the No Reload community is alive and well!)
(Fyi, I'm considering a run. If it happens it will happen soon. Next week! In any case, best wishes to all the challengers! I'm super-glad that the No Reload community is alive and well!)
Good to hear from you again. As a fan of your posts back at the Bioware forums, I would be eager to read again your adventures. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
What especially bothers me is that I'm not sure how I would have won this fight, with this party or any party, without the mod items I had in the Undergate run.
Considering my 277 HP, -13 AC, poison-immune, 40% damage resistance tank died in two rounds, I do not believe there is any way to stay alive in this encounter without either being in jelly form (for immunity to piercing damage) or having mage-style defenses. But they can get past PFMW. They can dispel Stoneskin. And if you used a Spell Trigger or Chain Contingency to cast both PFMW and Stoneskin and SI: Abjuration, they also have at least two mages who use magic attacks to remove spell protections.
And if you have a Barbarian or Dwarven Defender or Fighter/Druid with 80-90% damage resistance? That's not enough; they'll just kill you with Harm instead.
Non-mages will simply die; the enemy's APR, THAC0, and backstab damage will be fatal to anyone who can't attain at least 90% immunity to piercing damage. But mages lose all of their buffs due to a script, and the enemy has the resources to break down anything short of a Chain Contingency+Spell Trigger setup followed by an aura-ignoring SI spell. You can try jelly form to block the piercing damage and Harm, but the enemy has slashing and crushing weapons, too.
Has anyone else in this thread beaten the Chosen of Cyric encounter in Chapter 6? Is there any way for a character to survive the first few rounds without being an epic-level mage?
I have defeated it, though I think it took 2 or 3 tries in a limited reload (lose an npc per death style). I remember the mislead clones running off behind traps being severely annoying as I never use that sort of cheese myself. I also remember using the Slayer to kill their leader and potions of fire breath/ explosions to deal with the Sorceress immediately- I wasn't interested in customised chain contingencies as they assume too much foreknowledge. Strong summons like Shambling Mounds were also quite useful. Possibly my mod load-out- Spell Revisions etc. - may have made it easier of course.
The mines went without much trouble, aside from Xzar dying during the Mulahey fight due to a confused Kagain whacking on him. Also met and murdered a mopey mage, only to find to my great disappointment that his Moonblade cannot be sold. Though I suppose the "not usable by anyone else" thing would decrease market value...
Killed Nimbul and used the Find Familiar scroll to gain a much needed HP increase for Larissa - I'd had a few too many close calls already. Then it was time to go after the bandits. I killed one of the bandit groups (the one whose leader drops a +1 warhammer), and offered to join the other.
I wasn't certain if I could take on the group inside Tazok's tent, so I temporarily recruited Tiax and had him loot the tent while under Sanctuary. Did I say temporarily? I meant permanently. Sorry Vicky, but none can compete with the great Tiax.
Unfortunately, dumping Vicky bumped my rep up to 10 and I forgot to do something to lower it before I rested, so I got the shitty special ability. D'oh!
Anyway, it was time to head for Cloakwood, where I took great pleasure murdering every single druid I came across. Everything went smoothly until we ran into Drasus's group outside the mines. They made their saves against everything we threw at them, while we got feared, confused, and picked apart. Only Larissa and Dorn survived.
Not all was lost though, since thanks to Dorn's massive carrying capacity, we didn't have to leave anything valuable behind this time. I don't think I would've had the will to carry on after losing all the gear again.
Round 2 went much better, since this time none of them made their saves against silence or horror. Everything would have been perfect except for the fact that Drasus ran off into the woods at sanic speed while feared and it took ages to hunt him down. Time for the mines next...
Not a very detailed writeup this time, as everything went pretty smoothly. Cleared Cloakwood, then did Firewine, the Archaeological Site and Ulcaster, which got me the Vampiric Sword - enabling Kagain to be even more effective in his role as 'health battery'. Works rather well, if you ask me:
If you ask Kagain? After that, went to Baldur's Gate and did some quests, including Dorn, Xzar and Tiax's companion quests, the Thieves' Guild stuff, Arkion and Nemphre, Varci Roaringhorn's quest, Ramazith and Ragefast, and a bunch of more minor stuff.
Nearly had a heart attack when fighting Niemain's group as they managed to get off a horror on everybody except Tiax and Dorn. Luckily Tiax's Hold Person caught two of them, and Dorn killed the remaining one (one was already dead at that point) before they could do any more damage.
Hi there, friends! It was some time since I last post of new incarnation of Grim Face and moreover I've fiddled a bit with BigWorldSetup during that new run and made something like my "dream setup" so I've restarted Grim Face in it before I roamed too far in the run. I only tried BGT once in the past but with quite a number of mods I now have installed it's far more suited for Trilogy run and easier to maintain (no need to make two separate installs of all those mods in TuTu and SoA/ToB). I also think of making Imoen Thief(10)/Mage so she has 100 in Locks/Traps/Detect Illusions and hope it will be easier to accomplish in BGT rather than in TuTu>SoA/ToB.
WeiDU (outer link as forum says my post is too long if placing WeiDU.log in the message body)
The most notable mods in this setup are:
1. Full SCS with Ascension (obviously); 2. Spell Revisions (SR); 3. Item Revisions (IR) (with "Revised Critical Hit Aversion" and "Allow Spellcasting in Armor -> With Casting Speed Penalties for Arcane Casters"). The latter component severely impacts Cleric/Mages as due to engine limitations it implies casting speed penalties on both arcane and divine spells (and innates) even when wearing shields only (without armor). "PnP Equipment for Druids -> Druids and Fighter/Druids" drastically changes my approach with Jaheira - she shuns any metal equipment (helmets, armors and shields aside of bucklers) so instead of being my main tank she is now my main ranged damage dealer with throwing daggers (those have base 2APR in IR while all bows have 'only' 1.5APR); 4. aTweaks (PnP Undead, Mephits and Fey creatures). No PnP Fiends this time as those does not cope well with SR; 5. Polytweak. The most notable are "PnP Mind Flayers". Their attacks now drain 25% of HP with each successful hit so if you don't have Stoneskins and are disabled with their other abilities you are doomed (as Xan often say); 6. Item Randomiser (obviously).
I've also added The Wheels of Prophecy and Alternatives for the first time... just for a change
Character:
For not make you suffer all those readings all over again I'll cover Grim Face's exploits in this new run in one go up to the point when he fell with his first incarnation (i.e up to the Baldur's Gate City, where he just arrived).
I and Tenya went to the basilisk area and discovered that the green scroll wasn't necessary as the summoned skeletons were highly effective against both basilisks and medusae. After summoning them, strength of one and bless were cast to make them super powerful. However there was Mutamin and a few medusae left alive, so we returned to Beregost for a rest. Lindin and co was a difficult battle, but the skeletons took the brunt of their attack.
We then did some shopping which impoverished us. A dwarf at the FAI upgraded a belt such that it gave Tenya a much stronger strength. (It cost 10,000 gp but it means that strength potions are a thing of the past. ) A couple of helms of charm protection were also bought.
There then followed an ambush in transit by Lamalha and her cohorts. Tenya cast sanctuary whilst I ran away from her, engaging one of the minions. This enabled Tenya to avoid combat whilst summoning skeletons. The fist three of them attacked giving me some respite whilst she then summoned three more. The battle then went more and more in our favour until we finally prevailed.
We then went to the lighthouse area where we killed four sirine before meeting up with Sil whom we befriended. She gave us a cloak. No idea what it does, but it looks impressive. I took a potion of absorbtiond before entering the cave. This enabled me to safely take on the fleash golems inside. In the chest I found a number of unidentified goodies as well as a potion of absorbtion to replace the one that I had just used.
We rescued the boy in the lighthouse before killing a number of pirates.
Before leaving the area, we took the boy to his mother before resting. Another sirine attacked us but went invisible. Tenya dispelled the invisibility which enabled us to kill the sirine.
We then slept successfully and went south. We met Charleston Neb and followed him inside his excavations. His workmen seemed to become possessed and attacked us. Sadly all were killed in the ensuing fracas. We took the idol outside and fought Kozah who was killed with the aid of the wand of frost. We then gave the idol to a paladin at the Morninglord Temple who gave us a tome as a reward. Apparently it turns a paladin into an Inquisitor.
We beat Shoal and Droth and then went to help Mad Arcand. However there were a load of sirine there together with some fighter mages and a very powerful golem. Valuing our lives, we didn't take them on head to head but sent in wave after wave of skeletons until they survived. We did have to take on some fighter mages, but only three at a time which we deemed fair odds. We won.
We had to use dispell invisibility to find and kill the last of them.
There was one sirine who wasn't hostile. she wouldn't talk, but we surmised that it was she who had Durin's missing axe. After killing her we found the axe on her body and returned it. We were given a tome as a reward for the axe. We were given a useful eye as a reward for returning the red bag. (Long Road to Shara Tur)
EDIT
Seini then opened up his shop which looks as if it would be useful for monks. It wasn't to me however.
We then dealt with Lady Valeria and Mutamin gaining a reputation of 19 in the process. This enabled me to buy a very high quality bow, but it left me almost pennyless as it cost over 17,000 gold pieces.
Tenya, Vynd and I then went to Durlag's Tower. It was a very bad mistake. Firstly Vynd got trapped between the battle horrors and as a result was killed. Then inside the tower Tenya was killed by a trap. I picked up as much loot as I could, did a deal with Kirinhale and killed the basilisks on the tower roof. I then had to raise my earstwhile friends. To do so I had to raise them which meant that I had to sell gear that I had been hoping to save until later.
A factor that I hadn't realised was that my full plate armour had been desroyed without me realising it. (Unlike when your weapon breaks, broken armour is not so obvious. I hadn't realised that I had installed the breakable armour modification. I said no to it in one mod, but it was installed in another. )
Sadly every time I engage with Osmadi, the game crashes. I will just have to avoid him.
We convinced Tazok to let us join his group and the proceeded to kill Brotus Bloodthirsty and his group.
This time Æthelberht the Axe, a dwarf starting with ** in Axes and ** in dual wielding. Name means noble and famous. I was amazed that I got an even better roll than last time. On this occasion I am not planning to dual class, but am intending to dual class a Gallant to a cleric in the future.
EDIT
It looks like I am going to have to do a re-install. Whenever I speak to Tenya the game ends up freezing. The same thing happened with Osmadi, so I am thinking that a Gog update is causing chaos. Both of these were working fine previously.
The journey of Larissa has come to an end as she walked into a trap in the Candlekeep catacombs - just plain not paying attention. Oh well. Frankly, I hadn't expected to get this far in the first place.
I've played a range of different solo characters as part of this LoB / SCS challenge without ever getting past the early stages of SoD. The most recent attempt I made was with a shaman. That class doesn't make for easy progress and I've not even managed to get to Baldur's Gate yet with him in a number of attempts. However, in principle I don't think there are any huge obstacles in the way of at least beating up Sarevok. Progressing through SoD (which I've still never beaten in any form in single player) may be a different matter of course ...
As it's a while since I've documented a run on this thread I thought I would see if the discipline of posting will help keep Shagrat going this time - my aim will be to take a risk-free approach, but I'd better not guarantee I won't be distracted away from that over time . I'm planning to restrict sessions for this run to no more than an hour a day, so, given the extra HPs from LoB, this run may take rather longer than is typical for me. Here's his starting record.
In Candlekeep, Shagrat picked up a bonus 300 gold by talking to Firebead 30 times (it's wise to slow down talking to him at the end as it's possible to skip over the 300 if you talk to him again before he has a chance to hand it over). He also got a bit more loot by slinging the nobleman upstairs until he was near death and then knocking him unconscious (in order to be able to open the chest without him calling the guards).
Although Carbos, Shank and the rats are all doable, I didn't bother with those this time. Shagrat also hung on to the antidote and identify scroll to sell them later rather than completing those quests. He also stole an additional healing potion from the infirmary - dodging the arriving guard around the table to avoid any unpleasantness there.
Shagrat didn't abort the cut-scene on leaving Candlekeep until the archer had fired all 4 shots (normally only 3, but LoB gives everything 1 additional APR) - that's to avoid a shot being fired during the cut-scene that continues across the main map and kills the PC. I don't allow recruitment of PCs, so an immediate pause was made to allow Imoen to be targeted. She's not able to run away into unexplored territory so there's no danger of running into further enemies while killing her.
After picking up a few valuables Shagrat shot at Xzar, but missed. No problem though as he'd stepped back out of sight before Xzar realised he was under attack and had chosen his position such that a spirit summoned by his dance would be in sight of Xzar - and that quickly dealt with the necromancer and his companion (as NPCs don't get the bonus HPs from LoB).
Next, there was an immediate trip south - that being accomplished during the hours of daylight to ensure there was no chance of a potentially deadly skeleton archer ambush. Moving straight on to the coast, Shagrat fired a sling bullet at Shoal before running her round until he was able to produce a summons. Until 6th level the shaman can only summon 2 spirits, which attack for either 1-2 or 1-3 damage and they therefore take quite a while to kill even something like a kobold. However, Shoal's failure to equip a proper weapon offers a +4 to hit and damage bonus and allows the spirits to make pretty quick work of her.
The 2 levels gained Shagrat 19 HPs - an excellent start. Before leaving the area he found a ring for Mad Arcand and got a magic protection potion by talking to The Surgeon.
Moving straight on to Beregost, Shagrat got another 300 gold from Firebead before calming Marl down. He then continued his extermination campaign against NPCs - making sure to keep out of talking range of Neera to avoid having to deal with a mage.
He then bought a sling upgrade before putting that to good use on Algernon, who had made the unforgivable social error of not taking his cloak off after retiring to his room.
Before leaving Beregost, Shagrat visited the manor house to see what he could find (a potion of invisibility being the main thing sought). Then, with reputation already having taken a knock, Shagrat headed north in search of Dushai where a further reputation hit would be expected (as the amount of reputation lost is tied to how much you currently have you lose less overall by concentrating your killings). Once again he timed his travel on the way to avoid dangerous ambushes. He stopped off to charm an ogre and inherit a belt to reduce his vulnerability to missiles a bit, as well as picking up a couple of rings from holes in the ground. He also took a dislike to a bunch of fishermen and was well rewarded by Tenya for recovering her bowl from them - he used her house to dodge round to be able to get past the ankheg without being shot at there.
It took 32 attempts to charm Dushai and draw him away from the village where some summons could eat him (using the same technique as with Xzar). Like Shoal he doesn't have a melee weapon, so the fight was much quicker than the charming process.
Back at the FAI one of the hobgoblins with Joia's ring was charmed and helped cut down the other two. After returning the ring Shagrat was getting close to level 4 and charmed a couple of guards to deal with Tarnesh (possible as the charm lasts long enough to rest between attempts) - two were used for safety as the mage has a pretty good chance of winning a fight against just one. Inside the inn Jaheira was charmed and pulled outside by trying to cast a CLW spell at Shagrat before being shot for her invisibility potion (the other NPCs there were left alone as they don't have much of interest). Shagrat is still 60 XP short of level 4, but his first hour was up so a couple more hobgoblins nearby get a reprieve for a day or so.
@Grond0 It looks to me that Shagrat is evil rather than neutral, but he looks to be an interesting character. I usually spend all but one gold piece and then pay the fine. That way, I don't have to resort to violence.
Shagrat quickly mopped up a couple of hobgoblins, by charming one of them, in order to get to level 4. He got a respectable 8 HPs from the level along with an enhancement to his charming ability.
Back in Beregost he helped out Firebead before visiting the local temple. A series of sirines there were charmed and pulled outside by trying to cast improved invisibility on him. They were then run around over potential encounter points to find dogs to wear them down while they keep constantly moving (to avoid shooting or switching away from their bow weapon and losing the +4 bonus to attacks). Bears can be used as well, but do a lot more damage, so make it harder to get the sirines' HPs to low levels (those can be checked using ctrl+M) without killing them. At his current level, with no standard summons available, there is a slight danger of being shot at when trying to finish the sirines off. I tend to do that by shooting from distance, but probably the best technique is to take slightly more time to prepare by wasting the sirine's charm spells and then running it into a Writhing Fog with summons pre-positioned next to it (doing that next to the map edge just in case it does manage to get a shot off). Shagrat successfully acquired the XP from the first 3 sirines (though he didn't quite manage to get all of their arrows - and had to use an area transition to cure one lot of poison). However, a dog found a high-value critical to steal the XP from the final one.
Still travelling by day, Shagrat went down to Nashkel (picking up Mr Colquetle's amulet on the way to avoid that disappearing). He told Oublek he wasn't Greywolf and robbed the mayor's house of another invisibility potion before, taking to heart the disapproval about his genocidal tendencies, Shagrat let Noober go after talking to him. However, surely no-one could condemn him for dealing harshly with an obvious criminal type at the Carnival?
He also used his high strength there to break open one of the potion seller's chests, as well as picking up the red and violet potions.
After resting to get LMD (as he's got lots of healing ability anyway I didn't bother going for CLW with his first Bhaal power, though that would tend to be my choice with most characters), Shagrat went to save Arabelle. There was plenty of kiting there as he activated the xvarts one at a time, but several of them were a bit reluctant to chase him and Arabelle had had large chunks bitten out of her by the time Shagrat managed to finish off the last of the attackers.
With both that encounter and the work on sirines being slow though that ended the allotted hour with just the single level being gained this time.
Lost a solo no-reload run early in Icewind Dale 2 to a Hold Person spell from an Orc Shaman.
IWD2 is actually a very curious puzzle for solo no-reload runs. In the unmodded game, things are pretty simple, and it shouldn't require too much art (relatively speaking) to beat it with a solo character without reloading. But with the Tactics4IWD2 mod, things get complicated really fast.
See, Icewind Dale 2 has critical failures on saving throws, so saves alone will never be enough to guarantee survival. You need immunities instead. But immunities are also far harder to get in IWD2.
Without additional mods, the only way to get immunity to stun is to use Blood Rage, Anti-Magic Shell, or Seven Eyes. But Blood Rage imposes berserk, prevents healing, and imposes heavy penalties after it runs out; Anti-Magic Shell removes all buffs and prevents spellcasting (it's basically a Protection from Magic scroll as a level 6 spell); and Seven Eyes only blocks one stun effect and cannot be re-cast until the 15-round duration is over.
Immunity to Dispel Magic is also hard to come by. Aegis and (Minor) Globe of Invulnerability can block it, but MGOI vanishes after absorbing a Dispel Magic spell. Aegis will persist, but it also only lasts 10 rounds and is a level 9 spell.
Physical defenses are also a problem. High AC will protect you from normal mobs, but not late-game critters like half-dragons and mages with Mordenkainen's Sword--they'll cut right through it. Mirror Image is the opposite; it works great against the latter but isn't enough for the former. But character builds with high AC tend to have few Mirror Images, and character builds with lots of Mirror Images have low AC.
It looks like tackling Tactics4IWD2 as a solo no-reload character requires 9 big things in a character build:
1. High AC 2. High physical damage output 3. Mirror Image and other mage buffs like Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Blur, and Blink 4. Immunity to Dispel Magic, or the ability to operate without buffs 5. Immunity to stun 6. Immunity to confusion and hopelessness 7. Immunity to Disintegrate 8. Immunity to paralysis 9. Immunity to Finger of Death
But getting all 9 of those things is very tricky, because you can only get 30 levels in IWD2, XP is scarce, and XP penalties are easy to run into (you can mod the game to go all the way to level 40, but the XP values to reach level 40 are extremely hard to reach). To get these things, you need:
1. High Wisdom and 1 level as a monk (which requires lawful alignment), the Expertise feat (which requires 13 Intelligence), and/or the deep gnome race (which imposes hideous XP penalties) 2. At least 3 mage/sorcerer levels, but ideally 7-9 levels, and with high Intelligence or Charisma 3. Minor Globe of Invulnerability (7-8 mage/sorcerer levels) or Aegis (17 or 18 levels in mage, sorcerer, or cleric of Helm) 4. An evil alignment can block Blasphemy and MGOI can block Icelance, but true immunity is not feasible 5. At least 15-16 mage/sorcerer levels for Mind Blank or at least 5 cleric levels for Exaltation (which takes a full round to cast and only lasts 10 rounds) 6. Anti-Magic Shell or the Tactics4IWD2 component that grants immunity at level 26, if you're in Heart of Fury mode 7. At least 7 cleric levels for Freedom of Movement, or Heart of Fury mode for an early item to grant Freedom of Movement 8. Same as number 7, but with Death Ward 9. High Strength, lots of summons (which means high spellcaster levels), or at least 13-14 mage/sorcerer levels for Mordenkainen's Sword
Only a few character builds can fill in all of these blanks, and they suffer horrible XP penalties that slow down leveling. In normal mode, it's especially difficult to satisfy critera 3-8, because immunities are so scarce without HoF items. In HoF mode, it's especially difficult to satisfy criteria 4-9, because enemies are so much bigger.
Long story short:
1. Mages will die to the stuff that clerics can survive 2. Clerics will die to the stuff that mages can survive 3. Cleric/mages won't have enough levels to survive either 4. Fighters, rangers, paladins, barbarians, monks, rogues and bards will die to everything
Go with LE monk 1/mask X. The cleric of mask gives mirror image as well along with all useful high level domain spells (save aegis). Add some other class for miscellaneous bonuses if you want. I can only imagine dispel magic to matter then, but you can plan around that I think.
High wisdom, dexterity, medium intelligence for feats and splash-balance the rest.
@Iroumen: I don't think that will quite cut it in Tactics4IWD2. Clerics of Mask only get a single casting of Mirror Image, and blocking 5 attacks won't be enough when you hit the late game, when half-dragons converge on you and get near-guaranteed hits even on a deep gnome monk tank. The Blind-fight feat is also pretty ubiquitous in Tactics4IWD2, halving the effectiveness of the cleric of Mask's Improved Invisibility domain spell.
And without mage levels, that character will have no defense against Dispel Magic, which you'll have to deal with everywhere from the Horde Fortress to the final battle. One bad save and all those critical defenses go down in an instant.
I've actually found XP penalties to be pretty significant even when playing solo, playing HoF mode, or both at the same time. The challenge rating system is extremely cruel to high-level characters. It's not like BG2, where a solo character can hit level 26 in Chapter 2, while a normal party would be at level 12. Even in Heart of Fury mode, it can take a very long time for a solo character to even approach level 30, or even 26.
Given the same amount of XP at the same stage of the game, a solo human sorcerer at level 18 can throw out 30 DC Wail of the Banshee spells, while a solo deep gnome multi-class at level 13 has just learned to cast Heal.
I guess my experience is outside tactics4iwd2. In vanilla I do not recall much dispel usage, but if in the mod it is every fight then yes... sounds troublesome. I would not like that in a mod.
For mirror image. Would it make a difference to take a few sorceress levels? I guess you do not get enough good mirror image castings from it. Deep gnome cleric of mask has 2 casts, very low ac... I am sure the ac can be capitalised more in some way to counter the enemy thac0. What about summons usage, what does the cleric bring to the table to help alleviate the pressure? I am rusty in the Iwd spell selection these days.
For XP, I remember that differently. I ran a 2 person party once and they hopelessly overleveled very fast. It was quite a cakewalk through dragons eye, though I never finished that game fully due to irl issues.
As usual, another day meant trying to remember what we'd planned. To recap, this was session number 13. Lucky. For some.
We were in the Planar Sphere. Liberal use of Death Spell was made to thin down enemies while Sapper benefitted from protection against fire or cold when suitable. Kolla stepped in with mirror images and stoneskin to give him a break against golems but we emerged none the worse for wear unlike one of Kolla's new magely apprentices (hence no robe of the Apprenti). There was even time to use a Rune of Imprisonment - Kolla doing so while Sapper was stuck in multiplayer dialogue freeze and unable to help.
Sapper mentioned once more that Kolla should purchase the robe of Vecna. Reputation is still 18 (reason for not purchasing last session), so we consult our map and determine Windspear to be the best place to make a name for ourselves. Reputation 20 or bust. Perhaps best to move on a bit so Garren doesn't wander into the Cloudkill...
Another abandoned structure lies ahead.
Um. Um. Ugh. Kolla was a bit keen to deal with Chieftain Digdag, breaking invisibility slightly before Sapper. It was bad enough that Digdag gadded off without being killed, worse that Kolla was held and subjected to poison. Sapper sanguinely remarked that she'd be OK with plenty of hit points remaining but he hadn't seen the number of arrows that had found their mark and the poison ticked away at a mortifying (literally in this case) rate. So endeth attempt 135.
Comments
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 in the old temple ruins with only a few mummies, skeleton warriors and a dragon between us and the Shade Lord outside. We're quite low-level so Sapper expected to be sneaking past the dragon, but Kolla clumped seven skulltraps together and... the dragon survived. A few rounds later Kolla used an eighth skulltrap to claim the kill.
Our final action of the (short) session was to open up the Planar Sphere. On the way Kolla remembered that selling a helm of charm protection because she had the shield of harmony was a bad idea - since she only had a 2 handed staff and 2 handed bow. Despite being charmed after this screenshot, she was never at risk thanks to Sapper splitting her away from the remaining vampire and staking it with his sword.
Gate70: Teere, human female Priest of Tyr.
Corey Russell: Corarcher, elf male Archer.
Grond0: Mis, elf female Archer.
We're at the coast. The save is called Sirines. They're clues pointing to what lies ahead.
Corarcher and Mis are busy discussing if they are elves or half elves, with charm resistance or limited charm resistance. After a minute or two they realise Teere is nowhere to be seen, and ask how she arrived so far to the south. Try and keep up ;-)
After helping Ardrouine we use a brace of skeletons to deal with six sirines and enter a cave to look for treasure. Corarcher is held by a trap while Mis gamely shoots at flesh golems, with Teere taking a couple of hits as she tries to run distraction.
(various other maps visited, e.g. gnoll stronghold for gauntlets and tome, map above it for the bear, Meilum for his bracers).
A.
(Fyi, I'm considering a run. If it happens it will happen soon. Next week! In any case, best wishes to all the challengers! I'm super-glad that the No Reload community is alive and well!)
As a fan of your posts back at the Bioware forums, I would be eager to read again your adventures. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Killed Nimbul and used the Find Familiar scroll to gain a much needed HP increase for Larissa - I'd had a few too many close calls already. Then it was time to go after the bandits. I killed one of the bandit groups (the one whose leader drops a +1 warhammer), and offered to join the other.
I wasn't certain if I could take on the group inside Tazok's tent, so I temporarily recruited Tiax and had him loot the tent while under Sanctuary. Did I say temporarily? I meant permanently. Sorry Vicky, but none can compete with the great Tiax.
Unfortunately, dumping Vicky bumped my rep up to 10 and I forgot to do something to lower it before I rested, so I got the shitty special ability. D'oh!
Anyway, it was time to head for Cloakwood, where I took great pleasure murdering every single druid I came across. Everything went smoothly until we ran into Drasus's group outside the mines. They made their saves against everything we threw at them, while we got feared, confused, and picked apart. Only Larissa and Dorn survived.
Not all was lost though, since thanks to Dorn's massive carrying capacity, we didn't have to leave anything valuable behind this time. I don't think I would've had the will to carry on after losing all the gear again.
Round 2 went much better, since this time none of them made their saves against silence or horror. Everything would have been perfect except for the fact that Drasus ran off into the woods at sanic speed while feared and it took ages to hunt him down. Time for the mines next...
After that, went to Baldur's Gate and did some quests, including Dorn, Xzar and Tiax's companion quests, the Thieves' Guild stuff, Arkion and Nemphre, Varci Roaringhorn's quest, Ramazith and Ragefast, and a bunch of more minor stuff.
Nearly had a heart attack when fighting Niemain's group as they managed to get off a horror on everybody except Tiax and Dorn. Luckily Tiax's Hold Person caught two of them, and Dorn killed the remaining one (one was already dead at that point) before they could do any more damage.
Setup/WeiDU: (BWS/BGT: SCS/Spell Revisions/Item Revisions/aTweaks/Polytweak/Item Randomiser)
1. Einleitung.
Hi there, friends! It was some time since I last post of new incarnation of Grim Face and moreover I've fiddled a bit with BigWorldSetup during that new run and made something like my "dream setup" so I've restarted Grim Face in it before I roamed too far in the run. I only tried BGT once in the past but with quite a number of mods I now have installed it's far more suited for Trilogy run and easier to maintain (no need to make two separate installs of all those mods in TuTu and SoA/ToB). I also think of making Imoen Thief(10)/Mage so she has 100 in Locks/Traps/Detect Illusions and hope it will be easier to accomplish in BGT rather than in TuTu>SoA/ToB.
WeiDU (outer link as forum says my post is too long if placing WeiDU.log in the message body)
The most notable mods in this setup are:
1. Full SCS with Ascension (obviously);
2. Spell Revisions (SR);
3. Item Revisions (IR) (with "Revised Critical Hit Aversion" and "Allow Spellcasting in Armor -> With Casting Speed Penalties for Arcane Casters"). The latter component severely impacts Cleric/Mages as due to engine limitations it implies casting speed penalties on both arcane and divine spells (and innates) even when wearing shields only (without armor). "PnP Equipment for Druids -> Druids and Fighter/Druids" drastically changes my approach with Jaheira - she shuns any metal equipment (helmets, armors and shields aside of bucklers) so instead of being my main tank she is now my main ranged damage dealer with throwing daggers (those have base 2APR in IR while all bows have 'only' 1.5APR);
4. aTweaks (PnP Undead, Mephits and Fey creatures). No PnP Fiends this time as those does not cope well with SR;
5. Polytweak. The most notable are "PnP Mind Flayers". Their attacks now drain 25% of HP with each successful hit so if you don't have Stoneskins and are disabled with their other abilities you are doomed (as Xan often say);
6. Item Randomiser (obviously).
I've also added The Wheels of Prophecy and Alternatives for the first time... just for a change
Character:
For not make you suffer all those readings all over again I'll cover Grim Face's exploits in this new run in one go up to the point when he fell with his first incarnation (i.e up to the Baldur's Gate City, where he just arrived).
So, lets the story begins.
... coming soon.
Journal of Hrodwyn Halberdier the Gallant
I and Tenya went to the basilisk area and discovered that the green scroll wasn't necessary as the summoned skeletons were highly effective against both basilisks and medusae. After summoning them, strength of one and bless were cast to make them super powerful. However there was Mutamin and a few medusae left alive, so we returned to Beregost for a rest. Lindin and co was a difficult battle, but the skeletons took the brunt of their attack.We then did some shopping which impoverished us. A dwarf at the FAI upgraded a belt such that it gave Tenya a much stronger strength. (It cost 10,000 gp but it means that strength potions are a thing of the past.
There then followed an ambush in transit by Lamalha and her cohorts. Tenya cast sanctuary whilst I ran away from her, engaging one of the minions. This enabled Tenya to avoid combat whilst summoning skeletons. The fist three of them attacked giving me some respite whilst she then summoned three more. The battle then went more and more in our favour until we finally prevailed.
We then went to the lighthouse area where we killed four sirine before meeting up with Sil whom we befriended. She gave us a cloak. No idea what it does, but it looks impressive. I took a potion of absorbtiond before entering the cave. This enabled me to safely take on the fleash golems inside. In the chest I found a number of unidentified goodies as well as a potion of absorbtion to replace the one that I had just used.
We rescued the boy in the lighthouse before killing a number of pirates.
Before leaving the area, we took the boy to his mother before resting. Another sirine attacked us but went invisible. Tenya dispelled the invisibility which enabled us to kill the sirine.
We then slept successfully and went south. We met Charleston Neb and followed him inside his excavations. His workmen seemed to become possessed and attacked us. Sadly all were killed in the ensuing fracas. We took the idol outside and fought Kozah who was killed with the aid of the wand of frost. We then gave the idol to a paladin at the Morninglord Temple who gave us a tome as a reward. Apparently it turns a paladin into an Inquisitor.
We beat Shoal and Droth and then went to help Mad Arcand. However there were a load of sirine there together with some fighter mages and a very powerful golem. Valuing our lives, we didn't take them on head to head but sent in wave after wave of skeletons until they survived. We did have to take on some fighter mages, but only three at a time which we deemed fair odds.
We had to use dispell invisibility to find and kill the last of them.
There was one sirine who wasn't hostile. she wouldn't talk, but we surmised that it was she who had Durin's missing axe. After killing her we found the axe on her body and returned it. We were given a tome as a reward for the axe. We were given a useful eye as a reward for returning the red bag. (Long Road to Shara Tur)
EDIT
Seini then opened up his shop which looks as if it would be useful for monks. It wasn't to me however.We then dealt with Lady Valeria and Mutamin gaining a reputation of 19 in the process. This enabled me to buy a very high quality bow, but it left me almost pennyless as it cost over 17,000 gold pieces.
Tenya, Vynd and I then went to Durlag's Tower. It was a very bad mistake. Firstly Vynd got trapped between the battle horrors and as a result was killed. Then inside the tower Tenya was killed by a trap. I picked up as much loot as I could, did a deal with Kirinhale and killed the basilisks on the tower roof. I then had to raise my earstwhile friends. To do so I had to raise them which meant that I had to sell gear that I had been hoping to save until later.
A factor that I hadn't realised was that my full plate armour had been desroyed without me realising it.
Sadly every time I engage with Osmadi, the game crashes.
We convinced Tazok to let us join his group and the proceeded to kill Brotus Bloodthirsty and his group.
Journal of Hrodwyn Halberdier the Gallant Final Entry
All the bandits plus Venkt, Taughoz etc proved to be too much for this trio.EDIT
I did think of a better way of fighting this battle afterwards. If only we had hindsight a little earlier in the process.
New run also with a Gallant Protagonist.
This time Æthelberht the Axe, a dwarf starting with ** in Axes and ** in dual wielding.Name means noble and famous.
I was amazed that I got an even better roll than last time.
On this occasion I am not planning to dual class, but am intending to dual class a Gallant to a cleric in the future.
EDIT
It looks like I am going to have to do a re-install. Whenever I speak to Tenya the game ends up freezing. The same thing happened with Osmadi, so I am thinking that a Gog update is causing chaos.I've played a range of different solo characters as part of this LoB / SCS challenge without ever getting past the early stages of SoD. The most recent attempt I made was with a shaman. That class doesn't make for easy progress and I've not even managed to get to Baldur's Gate yet with him in a number of attempts. However, in principle I don't think there are any huge obstacles in the way of at least beating up Sarevok. Progressing through SoD (which I've still never beaten in any form in single player) may be a different matter of course ...
As it's a while since I've documented a run on this thread I thought I would see if the discipline of posting will help keep Shagrat going this time - my aim will be to take a risk-free approach, but I'd better not guarantee I won't be distracted away from that over time
In Candlekeep, Shagrat picked up a bonus 300 gold by talking to Firebead 30 times (it's wise to slow down talking to him at the end as it's possible to skip over the 300 if you talk to him again before he has a chance to hand it over). He also got a bit more loot by slinging the nobleman upstairs until he was near death and then knocking him unconscious (in order to be able to open the chest without him calling the guards).
Shagrat didn't abort the cut-scene on leaving Candlekeep until the archer had fired all 4 shots (normally only 3, but LoB gives everything 1 additional APR) - that's to avoid a shot being fired during the cut-scene that continues across the main map and kills the PC. I don't allow recruitment of PCs, so an immediate pause was made to allow Imoen to be targeted. She's not able to run away into unexplored territory so there's no danger of running into further enemies while killing her.
Next, there was an immediate trip south - that being accomplished during the hours of daylight to ensure there was no chance of a potentially deadly skeleton archer ambush. Moving straight on to the coast, Shagrat fired a sling bullet at Shoal before running her round until he was able to produce a summons. Until 6th level the shaman can only summon 2 spirits, which attack for either 1-2 or 1-3 damage and they therefore take quite a while to kill even something like a kobold. However, Shoal's failure to equip a proper weapon offers a +4 to hit and damage bonus and allows the spirits to make pretty quick work of her.
Moving straight on to Beregost, Shagrat got another 300 gold from Firebead before calming Marl down. He then continued his extermination campaign against NPCs - making sure to keep out of talking range of Neera to avoid having to deal with a mage.
Before leaving Beregost, Shagrat visited the manor house to see what he could find (a potion of invisibility being the main thing sought). Then, with reputation already having taken a knock, Shagrat headed north in search of Dushai where a further reputation hit would be expected (as the amount of reputation lost is tied to how much you currently have you lose less overall by concentrating your killings). Once again he timed his travel on the way to avoid dangerous ambushes. He stopped off to charm an ogre and inherit a belt to reduce his vulnerability to missiles a bit, as well as picking up a couple of rings from holes in the ground. He also took a dislike to a bunch of fishermen and was well rewarded by Tenya for recovering her bowl from them - he used her house to dodge round to be able to get past the ankheg without being shot at there.
It took 32 attempts to charm Dushai and draw him away from the village where some summons could eat him (using the same technique as with Xzar). Like Shoal he doesn't have a melee weapon, so the fight was much quicker than the charming process.
Back at the FAI one of the hobgoblins with Joia's ring was charmed and helped cut down the other two. After returning the ring Shagrat was getting close to level 4 and charmed a couple of guards to deal with Tarnesh (possible as the charm lasts long enough to rest between attempts) - two were used for safety as the mage has a pretty good chance of winning a fight against just one. Inside the inn Jaheira was charmed and pulled outside by trying to cast a CLW spell at Shagrat before being shot for her invisibility potion (the other NPCs there were left alone as they don't have much of interest). Shagrat is still 60 XP short of level 4, but his first hour was up so a couple more hobgoblins nearby get a reprieve for a day or so.
I usually spend all but one gold piece and then pay the fine. That way, I don't have to resort to violence.
Previous updates
Shagrat quickly mopped up a couple of hobgoblins, by charming one of them, in order to get to level 4. He got a respectable 8 HPs from the level along with an enhancement to his charming ability.
Back in Beregost he helped out Firebead before visiting the local temple. A series of sirines there were charmed and pulled outside by trying to cast improved invisibility on him. They were then run around over potential encounter points to find dogs to wear them down while they keep constantly moving (to avoid shooting or switching away from their bow weapon and losing the +4 bonus to attacks). Bears can be used as well, but do a lot more damage, so make it harder to get the sirines' HPs to low levels (those can be checked using ctrl+M) without killing them. At his current level, with no standard summons available, there is a slight danger of being shot at when trying to finish the sirines off. I tend to do that by shooting from distance, but probably the best technique is to take slightly more time to prepare by wasting the sirine's charm spells and then running it into a Writhing Fog with summons pre-positioned next to it (doing that next to the map edge just in case it does manage to get a shot off). Shagrat successfully acquired the XP from the first 3 sirines (though he didn't quite manage to get all of their arrows - and had to use an area transition to cure one lot of poison). However, a dog found a high-value critical to steal the XP from the final one.
Still travelling by day, Shagrat went down to Nashkel (picking up Mr Colquetle's amulet on the way to avoid that disappearing). He told Oublek he wasn't Greywolf and robbed the mayor's house of another invisibility potion before, taking to heart the disapproval about his genocidal tendencies, Shagrat let Noober go after talking to him. However, surely no-one could condemn him for dealing harshly with an obvious criminal type at the Carnival?
After resting to get LMD (as he's got lots of healing ability anyway I didn't bother going for CLW with his first Bhaal power, though that would tend to be my choice with most characters), Shagrat went to save Arabelle. There was plenty of kiting there as he activated the xvarts one at a time, but several of them were a bit reluctant to chase him and Arabelle had had large chunks bitten out of her by the time Shagrat managed to finish off the last of the attackers.
IWD2 is actually a very curious puzzle for solo no-reload runs. In the unmodded game, things are pretty simple, and it shouldn't require too much art (relatively speaking) to beat it with a solo character without reloading. But with the Tactics4IWD2 mod, things get complicated really fast.
See, Icewind Dale 2 has critical failures on saving throws, so saves alone will never be enough to guarantee survival. You need immunities instead. But immunities are also far harder to get in IWD2.
Without additional mods, the only way to get immunity to stun is to use Blood Rage, Anti-Magic Shell, or Seven Eyes. But Blood Rage imposes berserk, prevents healing, and imposes heavy penalties after it runs out; Anti-Magic Shell removes all buffs and prevents spellcasting (it's basically a Protection from Magic scroll as a level 6 spell); and Seven Eyes only blocks one stun effect and cannot be re-cast until the 15-round duration is over.
Immunity to Dispel Magic is also hard to come by. Aegis and (Minor) Globe of Invulnerability can block it, but MGOI vanishes after absorbing a Dispel Magic spell. Aegis will persist, but it also only lasts 10 rounds and is a level 9 spell.
Physical defenses are also a problem. High AC will protect you from normal mobs, but not late-game critters like half-dragons and mages with Mordenkainen's Sword--they'll cut right through it. Mirror Image is the opposite; it works great against the latter but isn't enough for the former. But character builds with high AC tend to have few Mirror Images, and character builds with lots of Mirror Images have low AC.
It looks like tackling Tactics4IWD2 as a solo no-reload character requires 9 big things in a character build:
1. High AC
2. High physical damage output
3. Mirror Image and other mage buffs like Stoneskin, Improved Invisibility, Blur, and Blink
4. Immunity to Dispel Magic, or the ability to operate without buffs
5. Immunity to stun
6. Immunity to confusion and hopelessness
7. Immunity to Disintegrate
8. Immunity to paralysis
9. Immunity to Finger of Death
But getting all 9 of those things is very tricky, because you can only get 30 levels in IWD2, XP is scarce, and XP penalties are easy to run into (you can mod the game to go all the way to level 40, but the XP values to reach level 40 are extremely hard to reach). To get these things, you need:
1. High Wisdom and 1 level as a monk (which requires lawful alignment), the Expertise feat (which requires 13 Intelligence), and/or the deep gnome race (which imposes hideous XP penalties)
2. At least 3 mage/sorcerer levels, but ideally 7-9 levels, and with high Intelligence or Charisma
3. Minor Globe of Invulnerability (7-8 mage/sorcerer levels) or Aegis (17 or 18 levels in mage, sorcerer, or cleric of Helm)
4. An evil alignment can block Blasphemy and MGOI can block Icelance, but true immunity is not feasible
5. At least 15-16 mage/sorcerer levels for Mind Blank or at least 5 cleric levels for Exaltation (which takes a full round to cast and only lasts 10 rounds)
6. Anti-Magic Shell or the Tactics4IWD2 component that grants immunity at level 26, if you're in Heart of Fury mode
7. At least 7 cleric levels for Freedom of Movement, or Heart of Fury mode for an early item to grant Freedom of Movement
8. Same as number 7, but with Death Ward
9. High Strength, lots of summons (which means high spellcaster levels), or at least 13-14 mage/sorcerer levels for Mordenkainen's Sword
Only a few character builds can fill in all of these blanks, and they suffer horrible XP penalties that slow down leveling. In normal mode, it's especially difficult to satisfy critera 3-8, because immunities are so scarce without HoF items. In HoF mode, it's especially difficult to satisfy criteria 4-9, because enemies are so much bigger.
Long story short:
1. Mages will die to the stuff that clerics can survive
2. Clerics will die to the stuff that mages can survive
3. Cleric/mages won't have enough levels to survive either
4. Fighters, rangers, paladins, barbarians, monks, rogues and bards will die to everything
I can only imagine dispel magic to matter then, but you can plan around that I think.
High wisdom, dexterity, medium intelligence for feats and splash-balance the rest.
Don't worry about XP penalties when soloing.
And without mage levels, that character will have no defense against Dispel Magic, which you'll have to deal with everywhere from the Horde Fortress to the final battle. One bad save and all those critical defenses go down in an instant.
I've actually found XP penalties to be pretty significant even when playing solo, playing HoF mode, or both at the same time. The challenge rating system is extremely cruel to high-level characters. It's not like BG2, where a solo character can hit level 26 in Chapter 2, while a normal party would be at level 12. Even in Heart of Fury mode, it can take a very long time for a solo character to even approach level 30, or even 26.
Given the same amount of XP at the same stage of the game, a solo human sorcerer at level 18 can throw out 30 DC Wail of the Banshee spells, while a solo deep gnome multi-class at level 13 has just learned to cast Heal.
For mirror image. Would it make a difference to take a few sorceress levels? I guess you do not get enough good mirror image castings from it. Deep gnome cleric of mask has 2 casts, very low ac... I am sure the ac can be capitalised more in some way to counter the enemy thac0. What about summons usage, what does the cleric bring to the table to help alleviate the pressure? I am rusty in the Iwd spell selection these days.
For XP, I remember that differently. I ran a 2 person party once and they hopelessly overleveled very fast. It was quite a cakewalk through dragons eye, though I never finished that game fully due to irl issues.
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, this was session number 13. Lucky. For some.
We were in the Planar Sphere. Liberal use of Death Spell was made to thin down enemies while Sapper benefitted from protection against fire or cold when suitable. Kolla stepped in with mirror images and stoneskin to give him a break against golems but we emerged none the worse for wear unlike one of Kolla's new magely apprentices (hence no robe of the Apprenti). There was even time to use a Rune of Imprisonment - Kolla doing so while Sapper was stuck in multiplayer dialogue freeze and unable to help.
Um. Um. Ugh. Kolla was a bit keen to deal with Chieftain Digdag, breaking invisibility slightly before Sapper. It was bad enough that Digdag gadded off without being killed, worse that Kolla was held and subjected to poison. Sapper sanguinely remarked that she'd be OK with plenty of hit points remaining but he hadn't seen the number of arrows that had found their mark and the poison ticked away at a mortifying (literally in this case) rate. So endeth attempt 135.