Just relating a funny story that happened in this new run, which is still going.
I thought handling Neira should be easy, now that Viconia had hold person, silence and commands. Well I was kinda right. But problem was Neira managed to get off a rigid thinking off Khalid! Khalid starts going on a rampage, killing the Innkeeper and a commoner. Eventually Neira does go down, by using the last magic missile wand charge (Corthief XIII and Imoen (who dualed to mage immediately on getting to level 2) can't hit the side of a barn. Once the rigid thinking wears off, Khalid says, "Change your course before I am forced to stop you!". Hey Khalid, WE didn't kill any commoners - YOU DID! NPCs, when will they learn? Good thing I wasn't a paladin or ranger, as our reputation dropped to 5 in all that.
On a different topic, the Evermemory ring did not work for Imoen - even after resting, she did not get double 1st level spells as described, so we sold it.
Incidentally, here is Corthief XIII: Incidentally, my thieves have never made it through the trilogy, despite usually being shorties. So since being a shorty never saved me, decided to be a human for RP purposes. He's not intending to dual.
Here is also a scary ambush we were in - we ran like cowards.
Could you point to a sequence of links and an idiot-proof install guide if at all possible.
(I am running Mac/Steam.)
I'm not on Mac so can't comment on that. For my current setup I've used BigWorldSetup and it make sure all is installed in proper order. The link to Revised SCS is here. You might get some answers there. And check readme file for on MacOS installation and installation order with other mods (I just don't know which ones you might want to use). I also strongly recommend to use Item Revisions in conjunction with Spell Revisions or you might get some weird issues (fighting SR Basilisks without Pro vs Petrification and some items/spells not working as you are used to is not a fun, especially in no-reload run).
Hm, I've been running just SR in this run and noticed on one or two occasions that items didn't protect me as expected. I guess that's a possible explanation. I should really have done a full reinstall but wasn't sure of the BWS situation then.
@Ygramul Since I'm on a Mac too and I use IR/SR, here's my list of manual install order for BG1 and BG2.
Everything seems to be ok, but I have messed up strings on animal summons (be it for familiar, animal summons from druids, etc), so there might be optimization to be done with my lists. However, everything else works : armor changes, spell changes, wizard's spell choices, etc... That's the only thing I noticed on my install, and I went deep into ToB with it. It should be a good starting point for you.
Oh, and replace CDTweaks with Anthology Tweaks for the BG2 list. Since I know Anthology depreciated a bunch of tweak mods, I didn't replace it on my list.
And no, I don't always install everything on my list (specially in BG2), it's just a reminder for general order of things.
So how about those 10000 hp kobolds? Well, the Nashkel mine wasn't that difficult to deal with with our overleveled party. When we reached Mulahey, our skeletons distracted his minions while the group plus spirit lions took down the boss:
Back in Nashkel, Nimbul was blinded on the very first try:
Meanwhile, Sybia had reached 100 in find traps, so I cleared the Ulcaster dungeon - that one was quite easy, I didn't even need to rest. However, the Firewine dungeon would've been a nightmare to completely clear. These kobold commandos... a single one of them is perfectly capable of killing a careless party member by itself, and these big groups take out summons quite quickly. To keep my sanity intact, I just made my way to the undead knight while also blocking one of the primary kobold respawn points (after invisibly disarming all of the traps):
Though I lost all of my summons, a heroic Sybia used hold person to get past the final kobold commando and complete the quest in there:
We killed Tranzig, Teven and Raiken next. No trouble here. At bandit camp, our summons took a lot of damage, but a hold person on Taugosz helped a lot:
We eventually overwhelmed all of the archers, rested and entered the various tents. With areas like the gnoll cave, we don't start out with summons and lack the room to maneouver, so spirit animals with their quick cast time and hard crowd control like hold person is especially valuable:
At Tazok's tent, our ranged weapon users quickly took out the mage while Arbogast summoned some fodder. Sybia once again held an opponent, so this fight was over rather quickly:
The Troll Claw Woods saw the monks progress through a variety of relatively easy encounters. There was no use of resources required here, with stunning blows supplemented by the odd horror.
A cave had quite a few trolls in, but they had no answer to the monks bouncing in and out of it. A group of hobgoblins on the road pinched the monks tactics by throwing a fireball at them, but fortunately none of them were particularly low on HPs at the time and they proceeded on to clear the area. As I've not done a lot of SoD I resorted to a walkthrough here to double-check I'd done everything before moving on.
An encounter area saw a bunch of goblins running scared.
A big hole there contained various fungi and their immunity to stun meant they lasted longer than expected. However, the confusion they caused only affected a couple of the monks at a time and everyone survived.
The obvious next destination was Boareskyr Bridge, but in MP play we've gone to the Forest of Wyrms first and I followed that tradition. A first group of wyverns died there without trouble, but the monks had to run from the second to cure poison.
That led them to find a baby green dragon in an encounter area and aiding it gained them a bit more treasure - including another ioun stone (though following up on a conversation with @Alesia_BH I did confirm that the new ioun stones in SoD don't provide critical protection). Back again at the Forest they were greeted by not only the last of the wyverns from before, but several giant spiders. That was potentially dangerous as monks could have been webbed, preventing travel, so they quickly unlimbered their wands for the first time in a while.
Along the trail they found a spider cave. I'm not sure if I've cleared that before and was soon in trouble when Spirit was both rendered unconscious and poisoned by a gargantuan spider. The monks hadn't rested since a previous encounter with wyverns and Chimera couldn't cure her - resulting in her first death of the run.
While she was busy dying, Phantom had been webbed and also poisoned and he soon followed Spirit - though not his first death .
With 2 dead characters in the party for the first time and more spiders approaching it was definitely time to bail out and they ran away to find Mizhena once more. With everyone rested they returned and managed to beat up the remaining spiders - though they did resort to wands again when Phantom got stuck in a web trap with spiders bearing down on him.
The spiders were replaced by beetles,
but those are far less dangerous as long as you stay away from the spray from the rear orifice of the bombardiers .
Inside the next cave a sleeping dragon waited. The depth of its sleep seems very variable in my experience. In our last MP run Gate70 told me off for attacking the dragon after he had already done so - on the grounds that it was possible to attack it several times in a row without it waking up . However, it's never been that generous to me and, on this occasion, it awoke even before anyone had attacked.
There was still the opportunity there for a second or so to retreat, but I wasn't sure if a dagger would still be able to kill it straight after it awoke and the time taken to get a hit gave the opportunity for Chimera to fail a save against fear (luckily all the others were more fortunate).
The flying dagger was also blocked by an erupting stoneskin - oh well, there's always more than 1 way to kill a dragon.
There was still danger though as Chimera's icon was stuck against the greater wyverns, but fortunately they didn't attack him and a few seconds later he was free.
I was then actually minded for the others to retreat to use ranged attacks, but didn't do so as I couldn't find Phantom. That proved a problem a moment later when he emerged from under the remaining greater wyvern, freshly poisoned. With Chimera running round, slow poison or resting were not an option. So, rather than trudge back to Camp again, this time I invested a green scroll to cure him.
With the monks now needing only around 10k each for another level, I suspect that's possible in the temple area ahead.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 137 part 12345 6 Hyra (Elf Ranger, Gate70); Dave (Half-elf Cleric/Ranger, Grond0) Recap: Stood outside the Underground River entrance having placed explosive and poison.
Dave is itching to defend the coalition camp against waves of Crusaders. First though, we attempt to pin down a Shadowy Figure. A few fiery explosions and a careful search later we're gutted to discover the figure has no intention of dying with his colleagues. Hindsight: arrows of detonation should have been used to cut down the escape route chances.
We hear trolls are among the first wave so having archers seems a good choice. With little chance of our allies trying to melee it is safe for Hyra to use a few arrows of detonation. They do their job, leaving Yarok with a couple of near-dead companions. By the time our melee picks off the stricken, coalition archers had dealt with their leader.
Mages next. We've got wizardslayers. Then a group of crusaders. We'll ask the warmages to help.
That leaves our assassins free to help in the final defence, the enemy leader sanctuarying twice to try and stay alive but the assassins chunk him before we can claim the kill.
On to Dragonspear Castle where the siege is well underway. Hyra lets herself in and agrees to 1-1 combat so long as she can use a scroll of Protection from Magic. Confident in her melee ability she soon discovers Ashatiel has enough buffs to cause trouble. Retreating to shoot arrows is little better, Ashatiel returning damage at a similar rate. Dave is muttering about Hyra never bothering with decent armour and tosses a girdle at his companion in frustration. She won't use it... and gulps a potion of invisibility.
Ashatiel starts casting a Divination spell so Hyra shoots an arrow and gulps another invisibility potion. Ashatiel is disrupted, but casts again to either detect invisibility or reveal illusion, at least it isn't a true sight. Hyra pops in another arrow or two and gulps a third invisibility potion.
Between all this, Hyra has gulped a potion of regeneration, potion of heroism and potion of defence. She's ready to attack. Now!
Only Ashatiel, from Sanctuary, calls foul. (why did I rush in again without thinking - been caught out by Ashatiel a few times in this manner)
OK, we'll do it the old fashioned way. Repeating traps and all.
Ashatiel can have an arrow of dispelling with a wand of heavens to go.
We've survived, but Hyra has used a lot of exotic arrows up - not that arrows of detonation are much good where we're heading.
I'm having a problem in my run. I dual classed Imoen to mage, but things aren't working right. (I'm just BG 1 EE, no mods other than SoD) The Evermemory (the ring that supposedly doubles 1st level mage spells) didn't work for her. In addition, she got just go to level 2, and the game claimed she got another level 1 spell slot, but she actually did not. If I get her to level 3, but she doesn't get a level 2 spell slot, I may have to abandon her - and not ever dual in EE too, since maybe my own characters might get the same problem.
I realised that I could use the magic called Shadowkeeper to correct the errors in my installation, so I won't have to await a new installation to dual-class my Gallant Dwarf. We returned a rabbit to Kessy much to her delight. We then saved Bentha much to Aerie's delight and at her instigation we helped Branwen.
After we entered the Cloakwood, Seniyad was the first to fall to our wrath:
Now, the second Cloakwood area offered some interesting considerations. First, I had Nahema cast invisibilty on Sybia to get all of those pesky traps out of the way. Phase spiders are quite deadly in LoB, as they can get to your vulnerable party members at will, so I had to stay alert at all times. Their poison deals so much damage that waiting for Arbogast to get there and cast slow poison isn't always fast enough, so I actually had to use some antidotes despite having a willing druid at the ready. For Centeol's nest, I simply lured the spiders outside, where I had my summons waiting:
There's not a lot to say about the next two cloakwood areas, so I will continue with the fight against Drasus' party. This was another case for web and web-immune summons, and we have our boots of speed now:
We sent a couple of summons into Hareishan's room, and they did manage to kill a couple of guards, though Hareishan herself survived. She ended up in this unusual spot:
At this point, I had to return to level 1 and rest, as I wanted to get my webs and spirit animals back:
Hareishan eventually showed up and was quickly interrupted and defeated:
Now, entering the next level was a somewhat scary proposition, as there's the initial ambush, which I'd have to face without summons - it's quite possible for a party member to die right away there, so I needed to disable as many enemies as soon as possible. Eventually, I figured that the best way to do it would be my two wands of fear and a wand of monster summoning for instant fodder, and it turned out to be a great idea:
The ogre mage was forced to duel with a spirit lion:
Now, he did manage to hit Sybia with horror while my party entered to speed up the battle, but I blocked her way so she couldn't pull additional enemies:
Finally, Natasha was able to deal with quite a few summons, but a forest being was her undoing:
After resting once again, it was time for the ultimate duel: Davaeorn versus a single spirit lion. Originally, I just wanted to use the animal to draw out his most dangerous spells, but it even disrupted some of his casting attempts:
Now, while Monster Summoning III forced me to control my spirit lion and run around with it until Davaeorn's monsters expired, after that, the animal was perfectly capable of winning the battle on its own - not one of my party members ever had to touch Davaeorn.
I should also mention that I eventually took out the doomsayer with the help of some summoned skeletons:
So all of the content outside of Baldur's Gate (plus Candlekeep) and TotSC is done now. Tomorrow, we shall finally explore the city (or rather I'll tell you about how exploring it turned out for me, as I've already played ahead, as usual).
After the death of Morentherene and her greater wyverns I briefly dropped my guard and just let the monks attack a bunch of bugbears without closely controlling them - oops, time for what I think might be the first invisibility potion of the run.
There were more bugbears and several traps to come, which cost a greater restoration scroll to cure a feeblemind on Wraith after the bugbears were dead.
After killing Ziatar's guards to prevent them coming to her aid the monks tried a sneak attack on the dragon lady with the aim of conserving resources. She managed to escape into sanctuary at near death, but I've played that game before a time or two.
I went for a quick win against the Neothelid, but its magic resistance shrugged off all the wand blasts at it. However, the monks all saved against its mental attacks and were able to finish it off by physical assault.
Knocking on Akanna's door prompted both aerial servants to chase Phantom down - he only survived thanks to the bonus HPs from his bracers while wand blasts took revenge. The death of the second one of those got everyone up to level 9.
With all hit dice rolled Phantom and Chimera are relatively poor with 65 HPs, but still above the notional average of 62. The others though with 75, 79, 80 and 81 out of 90 are all extremely good. Once Phantom had recovered he tempted Akanna out of invisibility and the Wardstone was soon safely pouched.
The Shadow Aspect proved to be more difficult to handle than I'd hoped - it was extremely resistant to fire damage and immune to magic damage. The attempt to use magic missiles on it also proved costly when it released a horror that sent Chimera and Spirit running (normally I don't bother with any protections, but that was a dangerous situation and Chimera would have taken a potion protection if his aura was not clouded). The reduction in damage handed out and able to be received meant Wraith had to stay close longer than she wanted and she lost her first life (only Spook now survives untouched along with Chimera).
Spectre picked Wraith's boots of speed off the floor thinking they would have a good chance of allowing her to kite while the others eliminated the Shadow Aspect's last 4 HPs, but in fact it was only an instant later that Phantom found a critical.
Rather than go all the way back to Camp, Phantom did this time use a raise dead scroll to get Wraith back on her feet. Chimera used a fire giant strength potion to get the Fractal Blade, which is a nice +3 weapon (although only one of the monks has short sword proficiency, so the existing Shadow Blade is not that useful now).
Darskhelin was next and his friends got a warm welcome from the visiting monks. A few follow-ups to the first barrage saw off all but a fighter before the mindflayer found a hail of missiles too much for him - without managing to stun or charm anyone.
Moving on to Boareskyr Bridge the monks cleared the exterior map first before going into the camp. I thought that Vichand would have a scroll for a quest inside, but killing him produced nothing and I thought that presumably you had to activate the quest first. I worried that meant no void bullets, which I was counting on for Belhifet. I wasn't really sure what I should be doing, but recruited both Khalid's defenders and the Fist and followed them into combat - eventually burning down the Barghest as a final victim.
When looting the camp I found Vichand's scroll in a container, but found when I talked to Wynan Hess that he'd got a duplicate anyway and had cured the problem himself (making it indeed impossible to get the void bullets) .
Aestica has made significant progress since her last update- enough to justify a round of "Where-Have-I-Been?" Guess which quests Aestica has completed based on her inventory
Aestica, Halfling Fighter: Windspear Hills- Part 2
The last time I posted on the Windspear Hills, I had promised a catastrophe. I didn't deliver. I mentioned a wasted Pro Undead scroll, and a questionable PoI quaff in the battle with Kaol and the Gang, but that's far from a disaster. The disaster was just a round the corner.
Following the Samia fight, Aestica rested in preparation for the greater wolfweres or, as I prefer to call them, the greater cheese dogs. Back in the pre-Fixpack, pre-Baldurdash days, these blokes were bugged. If you rested in the Pleasure Palace, their regenerate could be reapplied, making them nigh unkillable. The first time this happened to me, it was incredibly frustrating. I had no idea what was going on. I thought my game was just over. Hence the nickname, greater cheese dogs, and hence my decision to rest before engaging them: those formative experiences made an impression.
Here we see Aestica full buffed for the cheese dogs. She prevailed with ease.
Just after the cheese dogs fell, I realized we had another obstacle ahead that would or should require buffing: the golems. Why you ask? Well, Aestica has an unbuffed save v spells of -4. Golem Slow has a-4 save penalty. That sounds fine, at first. The problem is that Golem Slow is a schoolless spell, cast by an unkitted NPC. That means that due to matching 0s in the school and kit fields, the -2 specialist penalty will apply, thus Aestica's save v spells should be at -5. She should be running RoAC II. Arvoreen, you say? For the stone golems, sure, but what about the juggernaut? The correct way to fight this fight is with RoAC II + Ilbratha MI + Girdle of Bluntness + Ages. That would have required a rest, however, and I didn't feel like rest spamming- nor did I wish to waste a potion buff. We engaged. And, sure enough, we rolled that 1.
Now, had I not been halfway into a bottle of wine -and watching a movie- I could have managed to thwart that with Arvoreen. Further, if I failed to do so, I would have understood that the thing to do was to bite the bullet, quaff a Potion of Invisibility, and regroup. But being compromised and distracted, I led Aestica down an alley into this mess, where we had to quaff a Potion of Invisibility anyways:
And now the bill gets higher, since we have to heal all that damage. In total, this encounter cost 4 Potions of Extra Healing and 2 Potions of Invisibility. That's a crazy, crazy, high bill for a fight as simple as this should have been.
Maybe that doesn't seem like a catastrophe to you, dear readers, but it sure does to me: I don't like wasting potions. Aestica doesn't like wasting potions either. She hates me now.
Moving on...
Fun fact: The EE team made very few changes to the Baldur's Gate storyline. They did, however, delay Tazok's appearance on Extreme Makeover: Half-Orc Edition. In the original, Tazok had just returned from his appearance. In EE, he's still awaiting the call from his agent.
Try that look on, big fella
And finally, Conster. This went reasonably well, save a pair of half-drunken screws-ups.
Aestica took her usual buffs and then engaged. Once Conster clouded his aura, we dropped Mr. Efreeti. Remove consumed one round. Mr. Efreeti had consumed at least one other. We should have easily made it through Conster's ProMW, and thus the battle, without taking any damage. Were it not for foolishness on my part we would have. Here's the sit. Conster had engaged Mr Efreeti. He had said "vita" and was clearly targeting the djinni. The casting time was long -definitely longer than 5. We all know what that means. And we all know what Aestica should have been doing: Aestica should have been distancing herself from Mr. Efreeti to escape the blast radius of what will surely be a Horrid Wilting. Not hard to catch. I dropped the ball, nonetheless. Virtually cookie to the person who identifies the second screwup based on the screenshot
Whatever. His ProMW is tapped, so the fight is basically over. Epic BG2 mage, meet lowly BG1 weapon.
Gotcha!
DUHM->Ages for the finish
There we have it: quest complete. And as sloppy as it was, from beginning to end, I'm kind of glad this happened, despite the potion bill. Aestica's time in the Windspear Hills was humbling. It reminded me that errors are a product of inattention and they can happen to any character -any player- at any time. We are all fallible. And we only live once. I will play with greater care going forward
That led them to find a baby green dragon in an encounter area and aiding it gained them a bit more treasure - including another ioun stone (though following up on a conversation with @Alesia_BH I did confirm that the new ioun stones in SoD don't provide critical protection).
Noted. So the newly introduced ones don't provide critical hit protection, but the old ones do?
Noted. So the newly introduced ones don't provide critical hit protection, but the old ones do?
I don't think so. I think that the intention was to remove critical protection in all games, but that the fix didn't work in BG2. I suspect that when they release the next update that's likely to 'correct' the situation in BG2.
I've very little experience of this area, so the monks spent a fair amount of time wandering around the Coalition Camp doing a few quests - several of them not totally successfully I think.
Leaving the Camp they had an encounter with a Shadowy Figure - a full salvo of fireballs only persuaded it to run rather than killing it.
Progress through Dead Man's Pass was initially quick, but then Wraith surprisingly died once more - being hit by two shambling mounds at once, one of them a critical.
Under my standard rules of engagement enemies deserve to have the chance for the odd kill when they get lucky, so that seemed forgiveable. However, not long afterwards I was conducting a running fight with some orogs and saw a hold person being thrown at Spectre. I saw that he made his save, so just continued running - only to realise a few seconds later there was someone missing from the party. It appeared Phantom must have been too close to Spectre when the spell hit and she had been held - and by that stage it was too late to save her.
There was still more trouble to come in Dead Man's Pass when Chimera had to use a potion and DUHM to bust the lock on a container, but fortunately caution reared its head in time for him to sub-contract the job of opening it to Spook.
Examining a scroll case produced a stone to flesh scroll and the party were quickly on their way. In a further indication that I wasn't at my best this morning, there was some careless play in a cave when the party were successfully surprised by a mimic ambush, but everyone survived
and the area was finally cleared.
A quick side-trip to Dragonspear Castle released Skie from some mercenaries. I'm not quite sure why that should be done at that point, but Gate70 always does it, so who am I to argue?
Moving on to Bloodbark Grove and I think it's time to give you dear reader a good giggle. As a bit of preparation for the story I'll say I don't sleep particularly well and quite a bit of the Baldur's Gate I play is done in the wee small hours when concentration doesn't always come easy. That was probably particularly true today having played through a series of find quests (which are not really interesting to me) and dealing with a bunch of trash mobs in Dead Man's Pass. Right, so I've set up my excuses in advance for not being at my sharpest, but even so was the following really reasonable? I had discovered a vampire's hide-out and immediately retreated from his accompanying wolves. Coming back in to the cellar under stealth the party attacked the wolves near the door, when 2 new characters appeared out of nowhere called Wraith and Spectre. I thought that they must be servants to the vampire and had just been under invisibility (which wraiths do in SoD), so gave them a quick taste of wands - and then was somewhat surprised to see 2 of my party suddenly severely damaged.When the vampire did eventually appear the targeting on him made rather better sense
(I also noted in this combat that the dread wolves were acting like trolls - needing fire damage to actually kill them once they were unconscious).
I don't think so. I think that the intention was to remove critical protection in all games, but that the fix didn't work in BG2.
That's possible, too. The distinction could be SoD vs BG2, rather than old stone vs new stone. It would depend, in part, on how the change was implemented.
I suspect that when they release the next update that's likely to 'correct' the situation in BG2.
That's a possibility. EE's intentions regarding the stones seem clear. I like using them on warriors: they provide excellent bonuses and they look nice. But I do see the logic in stripping them of their critical protection abilities.
I don't think so. I think that the intention was to remove critical protection in all games, but that the fix didn't work in BG2.
That's possible, too. The distinction could be SoD vs BG, rather than old stone vs new stone. It would depend, in part, on how the change was implemented.
It would be easy enough to test, if we cared to.
OK - tested. Ioun stones don't provide critical protection in BG1, whether with or without SoD. They do protect in BG2, though the intention appears to be that they shouldn't - so watch out for the next patch.
In the Underground River area I had misremembered the effects of the myconid cloud and everyone except Chimera was confused. That led to a few nasty moments, but everyone recovered just in time to help Chimera rescue Spectre when she wandered off to find a group of spiders. The fatigue of dealing with the never-ending stream of enemies told soon after though when I attacked a group of orcs without taking due care and Wraith took several nasty arrow hits in a row.
There may still have been enough time to retreat at that point, but if there was a window of opportunity it was brief as the archers all turned their attention to Chimera. He could have gone invisible pre-emptively, but after being hit several times in rapid succession he was down low on HPs as well as poisoned. He couldn't go invisible at that point as that would prevent someone curing the poison for him and he tried to run - but couldn't find a clear path and a final volley of shots ended his pain.
That would have been easy enough to avoid, e.g. by better use of stealth, keeping the PC at the rear or using a series of fireballs, but the usual consequence of playing too intensely took its toll ...
Fresh off her defeat of Conster, Aestica felt ready to take on Bodhi's Guild. But first, she had to jump through Aran's hoops and deal with a backlog of vampire spawns.
Here we see Aestica facing Del, her first vampire of the run. Del's friends were to arrive shortly.
Lacking NPP, Aestica had no interest in taking on three vamps at the same time. Enter our secret weapon: The Short Sword of the Mask
Stab and fade.
And that's how you face your vamps -indeed any group of enemies- one at a time.
Lassal got the same treatment.
Into the lair. Aestica's first duel was with Gellal. Call of the Night->Backstab earned Gellal a taste of blood, but left him tied up a moment later
Faded and finished with the aid of Mr. Efreeti.
Durst was insta-killed with Azuredge. We forged the iMod and headed for the inner sanctum.
The fledgling vamps were taken down with the iMod and Harmony, the grim warders with Ages and The Reflex
In his re-match, Lassal faired even worse. iMod one hit.
Finally Bodhi. With her speed, reach, and ability to drain both constitution and levels, SCS Bodhi is not to be trifled with. Fortunately, she's a crusher and that means Girdle of Bluntness + Potion of Absorption fixes her. Note the -14 crushing modifier stacked atop the base AC of -12. Note, too, the RoAC + Potion of Invulnerability buffed saves, and the Potion of Stone Giant Strength + DUHM buffed strength
It all adds up to an unhappy little Bodhi-Woedy. Here she is whiffing on an 18, while Aestica thumps away.
A critical paired with a successful Touch of Death was the sole, umm, bright spot for Ms. Trampy-Vampy
Beholders are fearsome. Or not. It depends. It depends on your character, your items, your strategy.
As a high level handling warrior, equipped with the Claw, the Ring of Protection +2, the Cloak of Displacement, the Belt of Inertial Barrier, the Dragon Shield and the Dragon Helm, Aestica has little to fear in Beholder-dom. The beholders, in contrast had a lot to fear. Sling bullets hurt.
Before we go on, I should take a moment to update everyone on Aestica's proficiencies. DPS geeks, be prepared to cringe. Or laugh. Or both. But don't be surprised to see Aestica continue her march. And don't be shocked if she appears in the Hall of Heroes within a few weeks. This little halfling knows what she's doing. Her proficiencies are as follows:
Slings x 5, Short Swords x 2, Flails x 2, Darts, Shortbows, Maces
As for dual-wielding points, Aestica doesn't have them. She likes shields. Go ahead. Laugh.
The Unseeing Eye quest consisted of three encounters: the beholder fight in the sewers, the beholder fight by the bridge, and the final confrontation with the Unseeing Eye and his flanking death tyrants. Saves kept Aestica safe from disables and installs. The Belt of Inertial Barrier cushion Cause Wounds damage; the Dragon Helm and Dragon Shield, Lightning Bolt damage. It all worked.
Here we see Aestica in sewers, at work with her sling. She does far, far less damage post Anti-Magic Ray due to the loss of DUHM
Aestica opened beholder battle 2 by using her first HLA, Greater Whirlwind. Despite losing her DUHM to Anti-Magic Ray, she managed to take down two large beholders quickly
But wow! Even with the BoIB and 40% electricity resistance, damage adds up quick. And those shadows? They're not helping. Potion of Invisibility->heal->regroup
Re-engaged from another angle. This time we got to keep our DUHM.
Finally, the Unseeing Eye. Standard Rift Device->Mr Efreeti take-down
Best,
A.
Btw. Since that was a short post, I thought I'd tack on Draug Fea et al.
Opened with an Whirlwind, targeting the clerics and the melee fighting Draug Fea. Zorl was dropped immediately.
Draug Fea fell just as he was about to close. Meanwhile, his friends Gallchobhair and Tarnor jacked themselves on The Reflex.
Gallchobhair and Tarnor were dropped in melee after they set aside their ranged weapons and closed. Rengard, who had evaded early death with an improbable Santuary, fell to the sling later. Gaius was felled with the aid of Aestica's newly acquired Power Attack. It's been a good run, Darts of Stunning, but it's time for us to move on
I'm having a problem in my run. I dual classed Imoen to mage, but things aren't working right. (I'm just BG 1 EE, no mods other than SoD) The Evermemory (the ring that supposedly doubles 1st level mage spells) didn't work for her. In addition, she got just go to level 2, and the game claimed she got another level 1 spell slot, but she actually did not. If I get her to level 3, but she doesn't get a level 2 spell slot, I may have to abandon her - and not ever dual in EE too, since maybe my own characters might get the same problem.
Would EE Keeper be the answer? It was the answer when my mods weren't working as I intended.
Journal of Ragnor Final Update
Things were going swimmingly. Greywolf was defeated. Isra had joined and had a +1 Two-handed sword courtesy of a gnoll.
We went to fight some sirine. Being a Cavalier Isra was the tank due to her resistance to charm.
It might have been all right if some hobgoblins hadn't joined in.
Isra was feeblemided together with rigid thinking.
I realised that she would need help, so I joined in using ranged weapons. However the sirine then charmed me. I couldn't heal Sirene, so when she died it was end of game.
If I had bought the helm of charm protection first, I MIGHT have survived.
I took my last chance to shop, grabbing arrows of detonation, some nice goggles and a bag to carry it before setting off... I excepted Edwin as my mage because he doesn't come with a batty ranger but we almost lost him to a rebounded spell.
we saved some dwarfs from undead but I'm not in the mood for lich hunting and the bridge attack wasn't so much a victory as a tie.
Morale of the unwashed is low so we removed the unpopular enlistments in the name of righteousness (both the drow are now keeping their heads down) and cleared a nearby cave of trolls with most the loot sold to recharge wands but I keep a necklace for myself.
party;
Edwin ... a fear | web fast cast and fireballs Rasaad ... magic dart and heavens wand with some scouting (cannon folder if I'm honest) Corwin ... exploding, bitting or fire arrows Safana ... my thief
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 137 part 123456 7 Hyra (Elf Ranger, Gate70); Dave (Half-elf Cleric/Ranger, Grond0) Recap: The castle is ours but what lies below?
As the portal opens and we step through Dave suggests he use a scroll of Chaotic Commands. Good idea - and his four summoned skeletons make sure Illaruel is less trouble than usual.
Next, he suggests we should buff against enemies. Another good idea Dave.
We're taking damage though, and Hyra gulps a few potions to keep some pressure on Thrix. Dave has stepped back but Thrix can see he's in trouble and aims a lightning bolt.
Hyra is on her own and her protection (potion, automatic saves, 3 turns) is ticking so she keeps up the pressure and drops Thrix. A couple more enemies go quickly and she's into her stride.
So much into her stride that she's watching enemy attacks miss and not the combat text. She realises something is up but too late. Dave has been watching from beyond the grave and as Hyra joins him they discuss how Barbed Defence must be like fireshield / blade barrier and a ranged attack would be more suitable (or not attack Thrix).
The tale of Grant Pix, Part 3 "The Nobody of Parting"
Now in delicious video form! (I'm aware of the audio issues now; it was editing this very video that clued me in to what was causing the issues!) https://youtu.be/B9FOJ2Lu6HI
For those who don't care to watch the full video, here are the highlights: 5:54 We killed Greywolf without dying (for a change) 23:39 Resting before Mulahey summoned a bunch of kobolds for us to deal with. Words cannot do justice what happened there, though the phrase "Wild Surge: Fireball" comes close. 35:00 There's a bunch of resting, identifying, and trap-setting that goes on around this point. I almost feel sorry for Nimbul (I managed to set three traps out of four). 43:25 Mulahey goes down pretty quickly. Also I remembered to use my rage! Yay! 48:45 And now the daily dose of stupid! The reason that doing this fight is risky is because, while it has always scaled with level, it likes to jump up well above where you are. You don't normally get ravaged by glyphs of warding if you go straight to Mulahey and then this fight, but if you spend some time leveling before doing Mulahey (without doing any of the really good quests/maps like Ankheg Farm or Mutamin's Garden or Lighthouse) this fight becomes very... eurgh. Especially for a back-liner CHARNAME. Still not as bad as it could have been, considering Greywolf was changed in the EEs to directly walk up to Gorion's Ward instead of the party leader.
Comments
Just relating a funny story that happened in this new run, which is still going.
I thought handling Neira should be easy, now that Viconia had hold person, silence and commands. Well I was kinda right. But problem was Neira managed to get off a rigid thinking off Khalid! Khalid starts going on a rampage, killing the Innkeeper and a commoner. Eventually Neira does go down, by using the last magic missile wand charge (Corthief XIII and Imoen (who dualed to mage immediately on getting to level 2) can't hit the side of a barn. Once the rigid thinking wears off, Khalid says, "Change your course before I am forced to stop you!". Hey Khalid, WE didn't kill any commoners - YOU DID! NPCs, when will they learn? Good thing I wasn't a paladin or ranger, as our reputation dropped to 5 in all that.
On a different topic, the Evermemory ring did not work for Imoen - even after resting, she did not get double 1st level spells as described, so we sold it.
Incidentally, here is Corthief XIII:
Incidentally, my thieves have never made it through the trilogy, despite usually being shorties. So since being a shorty never saved me, decided to be a human for RP purposes. He's not intending to dual.
Here is also a scary ambush we were in - we ran like cowards.
Everything seems to be ok, but I have messed up strings on animal summons (be it for familiar, animal summons from druids, etc), so there might be optimization to be done with my lists. However, everything else works : armor changes, spell changes, wizard's spell choices, etc... That's the only thing I noticed on my install, and I went deep into ToB with it. It should be a good starting point for you.
Oh, and replace CDTweaks with Anthology Tweaks for the BG2 list. Since I know Anthology depreciated a bunch of tweak mods, I didn't replace it on my list.
And no, I don't always install everything on my list (specially in BG2), it's just a reminder for general order of things.
Hope that helps.
@Corey_Russell my goto tactic for that fight is to start invis... they trigger on script so can't see you and it bunchs them up for an easy kill
as you know SOD on insane or Lob is harder than most scs fights but I've never lost this battle with the tactic I use
note that you don't have long to move into pos because the mage will counter the invis
Previous posts:
Part II: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903150/#Comment_903150
Part III: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903226/#Comment_903226
Part IV: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903521/#Comment_903521
So how about those 10000 hp kobolds? Well, the Nashkel mine wasn't that difficult to deal with with our overleveled party. When we reached Mulahey, our skeletons distracted his minions while the group plus spirit lions took down the boss:
Back in Nashkel, Nimbul was blinded on the very first try:
Meanwhile, Sybia had reached 100 in find traps, so I cleared the Ulcaster dungeon - that one was quite easy, I didn't even need to rest. However, the Firewine dungeon would've been a nightmare to completely clear. These kobold commandos... a single one of them is perfectly capable of killing a careless party member by itself, and these big groups take out summons quite quickly. To keep my sanity intact, I just made my way to the undead knight while also blocking one of the primary kobold respawn points (after invisibly disarming all of the traps):
Though I lost all of my summons, a heroic Sybia used hold person to get past the final kobold commando and complete the quest in there:
We killed Tranzig, Teven and Raiken next. No trouble here. At bandit camp, our summons took a lot of damage, but a hold person on Taugosz helped a lot:
We eventually overwhelmed all of the archers, rested and entered the various tents. With areas like the gnoll cave, we don't start out with summons and lack the room to maneouver, so spirit animals with their quick cast time and hard crowd control like hold person is especially valuable:
At Tazok's tent, our ranged weapon users quickly took out the mage while Arbogast summoned some fodder. Sybia once again held an opponent, so this fight was over rather quickly:
Let's explore the Cloakwood Forest next time!
Enuhal
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903092/#Comment_903092
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903108/#Comment_903108
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903136/#Comment_903136
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903185/#Comment_903185
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903348/#Comment_903348
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903485/#Comment_903485
The Troll Claw Woods saw the monks progress through a variety of relatively easy encounters. There was no use of resources required here, with stunning blows supplemented by the odd horror.
An encounter area saw a bunch of goblins running scared.
The obvious next destination was Boareskyr Bridge, but in MP play we've gone to the Forest of Wyrms first and I followed that tradition. A first group of wyverns died there without trouble, but the monks had to run from the second to cure poison.
Along the trail they found a spider cave. I'm not sure if I've cleared that before and was soon in trouble when Spirit was both rendered unconscious and poisoned by a gargantuan spider. The monks hadn't rested since a previous encounter with wyverns and Chimera couldn't cure her - resulting in her first death of the run.
Inside the next cave a sleeping dragon waited. The depth of its sleep seems very variable in my experience. In our last MP run Gate70 told me off for attacking the dragon after he had already done so - on the grounds that it was possible to attack it several times in a row without it waking up
Chimera - L8, 62 HPs, 300 kills
Phantom - L8, 68 HPs (incl. 10 HPs from bracers), 285 kills, 6 deaths
Spectre - L8, 70 HPs, 196 kills, 2 deaths
Wraith - L8, 71 HPs, 255 kills, 0 deaths
Spook - L8, 74 HPs, 316 kills, 0 deaths
Spirit - L8, 68 HPs, 278 kills, 1 death
Hyra (Elf Ranger, Gate70); Dave (Half-elf Cleric/Ranger, Grond0)
Recap: Stood outside the Underground River entrance having placed explosive and poison.
Dave is itching to defend the coalition camp against waves of Crusaders. First though, we attempt to pin down a Shadowy Figure. A few fiery explosions and a careful search later we're gutted to discover the figure has no intention of dying with his colleagues. Hindsight: arrows of detonation should have been used to cut down the escape route chances.
Then a group of crusaders. We'll ask the warmages to help.
On to Dragonspear Castle where the siege is well underway. Hyra lets herself in and agrees to 1-1 combat so long as she can use a scroll of Protection from Magic. Confident in her melee ability she soon discovers Ashatiel has enough buffs to cause trouble. Retreating to shoot arrows is little better, Ashatiel returning damage at a similar rate. Dave is muttering about Hyra never bothering with decent armour and tosses a girdle at his companion in frustration. She won't use it... and gulps a potion of invisibility.
Between all this, Hyra has gulped a potion of regeneration, potion of heroism and potion of defence. She's ready to attack. Now!
Only Ashatiel, from Sanctuary, calls foul.
(why did I rush in again without thinking - been caught out by Ashatiel a few times in this manner)
We returned a rabbit to Kessy much to her delight. We then saved Bentha much to Aerie's delight and at her instigation we helped Branwen.
Previous posts:
Part II: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903150/#Comment_903150
Part III: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903226/#Comment_903226
Part IV: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903521/#Comment_903521
Part V: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903598/#Comment_903598
After we entered the Cloakwood, Seniyad was the first to fall to our wrath:
Now, the second Cloakwood area offered some interesting considerations. First, I had Nahema cast invisibilty on Sybia to get all of those pesky traps out of the way. Phase spiders are quite deadly in LoB, as they can get to your vulnerable party members at will, so I had to stay alert at all times. Their poison deals so much damage that waiting for Arbogast to get there and cast slow poison isn't always fast enough, so I actually had to use some antidotes despite having a willing druid at the ready.
For Centeol's nest, I simply lured the spiders outside, where I had my summons waiting:
There's not a lot to say about the next two cloakwood areas, so I will continue with the fight against Drasus' party. This was another case for web and web-immune summons, and we have our boots of speed now:
We sent a couple of summons into Hareishan's room, and they did manage to kill a couple of guards, though Hareishan herself survived. She ended up in this unusual spot:
At this point, I had to return to level 1 and rest, as I wanted to get my webs and spirit animals back:
Hareishan eventually showed up and was quickly interrupted and defeated:
Now, entering the next level was a somewhat scary proposition, as there's the initial ambush, which I'd have to face without summons - it's quite possible for a party member to die right away there, so I needed to disable as many enemies as soon as possible. Eventually, I figured that the best way to do it would be my two wands of fear and a wand of monster summoning for instant fodder, and it turned out to be a great idea:
The ogre mage was forced to duel with a spirit lion:
Now, he did manage to hit Sybia with horror while my party entered to speed up the battle, but I blocked her way so she couldn't pull additional enemies:
Finally, Natasha was able to deal with quite a few summons, but a forest being was her undoing:
After resting once again, it was time for the ultimate duel: Davaeorn versus a single spirit lion. Originally, I just wanted to use the animal to draw out his most dangerous spells, but it even disrupted some of his casting attempts:
Now, while Monster Summoning III forced me to control my spirit lion and run around with it until Davaeorn's monsters expired, after that, the animal was perfectly capable of winning the battle on its own - not one of my party members ever had to touch Davaeorn.
I should also mention that I eventually took out the doomsayer with the help of some summoned skeletons:
So all of the content outside of Baldur's Gate (plus Candlekeep) and TotSC is done now. Tomorrow, we shall finally explore the city (or rather I'll tell you about how exploring it turned out for me, as I've already played ahead, as usual).
Enuhal
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903092/#Comment_903092
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903108/#Comment_903108
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903136/#Comment_903136
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903185/#Comment_903185
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903348/#Comment_903348
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903485/#Comment_903485
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903599/#Comment_903599
After the death of Morentherene and her greater wyverns I briefly dropped my guard and just let the monks attack a bunch of bugbears without closely controlling them - oops, time for what I think might be the first invisibility potion of the run.
After killing Ziatar's guards to prevent them coming to her aid the monks tried a sneak attack on the dragon lady with the aim of conserving resources. She managed to escape into sanctuary at near death, but I've played that game before a time or two.
Knocking on Akanna's door prompted both aerial servants to chase Phantom down - he only survived thanks to the bonus HPs from his bracers while wand blasts took revenge. The death of the second one of those got everyone up to level 9.
The Shadow Aspect proved to be more difficult to handle than I'd hoped - it was extremely resistant to fire damage and immune to magic damage. The attempt to use magic missiles on it also proved costly when it released a horror that sent Chimera and Spirit running (normally I don't bother with any protections, but that was a dangerous situation and Chimera would have taken a potion protection if his aura was not clouded). The reduction in damage handed out and able to be received meant Wraith had to stay close longer than she wanted and she lost her first life (only Spook now survives untouched along with Chimera).
Rather than go all the way back to Camp, Phantom did this time use a raise dead scroll to get Wraith back on her feet. Chimera used a fire giant strength potion to get the Fractal Blade, which is a nice +3 weapon (although only one of the monks has short sword proficiency, so the existing Shadow Blade is not that useful now).
Darskhelin was next and his friends got a warm welcome from the visiting monks. A few follow-ups to the first barrage saw off all but a fighter before the mindflayer found a hail of missiles too much for him - without managing to stun or charm anyone.
Moving on to Boareskyr Bridge the monks cleared the exterior map first before going into the camp. I thought that Vichand would have a scroll for a quest inside, but killing him produced nothing and I thought that presumably you had to activate the quest first. I worried that meant no void bullets, which I was counting on for Belhifet. I wasn't really sure what I should be doing, but recruited both Khalid's defenders and the Fist and followed them into combat - eventually burning down the Barghest as a final victim.
The monks prevented the bridge being destroyed
Chimera - L9, 65 HPs, 279 kills
Phantom - L9, 75 HPs (incl. 10 HPs from bracers), 315 kills, 6 deaths
Spectre - L9, 80 HPs, 240 kills, 2 deaths
Wraith - L9, 79 HPs, 269 kills, 1 death
Spook - L9, 81 HPs, 357 kills, 0 deaths
Spirit - L9, 75 HPs, 310 kills, 1 death
Aestica has made significant progress since her last update- enough to justify a round of "Where-Have-I-Been?" Guess which quests Aestica has completed based on her inventory
Best,
A.
The last time I posted on the Windspear Hills, I had promised a catastrophe. I didn't deliver. I mentioned a wasted Pro Undead scroll, and a questionable PoI quaff in the battle with Kaol and the Gang, but that's far from a disaster. The disaster was just a round the corner.
Following the Samia fight, Aestica rested in preparation for the greater wolfweres or, as I prefer to call them, the greater cheese dogs. Back in the pre-Fixpack, pre-Baldurdash days, these blokes were bugged. If you rested in the Pleasure Palace, their regenerate could be reapplied, making them nigh unkillable. The first time this happened to me, it was incredibly frustrating. I had no idea what was going on. I thought my game was just over. Hence the nickname, greater cheese dogs, and hence my decision to rest before engaging them: those formative experiences made an impression.
Here we see Aestica full buffed for the cheese dogs. She prevailed with ease.
Just after the cheese dogs fell, I realized we had another obstacle ahead that would or should require buffing: the golems. Why you ask? Well, Aestica has an unbuffed save v spells of -4. Golem Slow
has a-4 save penalty. That sounds fine, at first. The problem is that Golem Slow is a schoolless spell, cast by an unkitted NPC. That means that due to matching 0s in the school and kit fields, the -2 specialist penalty will apply, thus Aestica's save v spells should be at -5. She should be running RoAC II. Arvoreen, you say? For the stone golems, sure, but what about the juggernaut? The correct way to fight this fight is with RoAC II + Ilbratha MI + Girdle of Bluntness + Ages. That would have required a rest, however, and I didn't feel like rest spamming- nor did I wish to waste a potion buff. We engaged. And, sure enough, we rolled that 1.
Now, had I not been halfway into a bottle of wine -and watching a movie- I could have managed to thwart that with Arvoreen. Further, if I failed to do so, I would have understood that the thing to do was to bite the bullet, quaff a Potion of Invisibility, and regroup. But being compromised and distracted, I led Aestica down an alley into this mess, where we had to quaff a Potion of Invisibility anyways:
And now the bill gets higher, since we have to heal all that damage. In total, this encounter cost 4 Potions of Extra Healing and 2 Potions of Invisibility. That's a crazy, crazy, high bill for a fight as simple as this should have been.
Maybe that doesn't seem like a catastrophe to you, dear readers, but it sure does to me: I don't like wasting potions. Aestica doesn't like wasting potions either. She hates me now.
Moving on...
Fun fact: The EE team made very few changes to the Baldur's Gate storyline. They did, however, delay Tazok's appearance on Extreme Makeover: Half-Orc Edition. In the original, Tazok had just returned from his appearance. In EE, he's still awaiting the call from his agent.
Try that look on, big fella
And finally, Conster. This went reasonably well, save a pair of half-drunken screws-ups.
Aestica took her usual buffs and then engaged. Once Conster clouded his aura, we dropped Mr. Efreeti. Remove consumed one round. Mr. Efreeti had consumed at least one other. We should have easily made it through Conster's ProMW, and thus the battle, without taking any damage. Were it not for foolishness on my part we would have. Here's the sit. Conster had engaged Mr Efreeti. He had said "vita" and was clearly targeting the djinni. The casting time was long -definitely longer than 5. We all know what that means. And we all know what Aestica should have been doing: Aestica should have been distancing herself from Mr. Efreeti to escape the blast radius of what will surely be a Horrid Wilting. Not hard to catch. I dropped the ball, nonetheless. Virtually cookie to the person who identifies the second screwup based on the screenshot
Whatever. His ProMW is tapped, so the fight is basically over. Epic BG2 mage, meet lowly BG1 weapon.
Gotcha!
DUHM->Ages for the finish
There we have it: quest complete. And as sloppy as it was, from beginning to end, I'm kind of glad this happened, despite the potion bill. Aestica's time in the Windspear Hills was humbling. It reminded me that errors are a product of inattention and they can happen to any character -any player- at any time. We are all fallible. And we only live once. I will play with greater care going forward
Best,
A.
Best,
A.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903092/#Comment_903092
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903108/#Comment_903108
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903136/#Comment_903136
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903185/#Comment_903185
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903348/#Comment_903348
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903485/#Comment_903485
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903599/#Comment_903599
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903789/#Comment_903789
I've very little experience of this area, so the monks spent a fair amount of time wandering around the Coalition Camp doing a few quests - several of them not totally successfully I think.
Progress through Dead Man's Pass was initially quick, but then Wraith surprisingly died once more - being hit by two shambling mounds at once, one of them a critical.
A quick side-trip to Dragonspear Castle released Skie from some mercenaries. I'm not quite sure why that should be done at that point, but Gate70 always does it, so who am I to argue?
Moving on to Bloodbark Grove and I think it's time to give you dear reader a good giggle. As a bit of preparation for the story I'll say I don't sleep particularly well and quite a bit of the Baldur's Gate I play is done in the wee small hours when concentration doesn't always come easy. That was probably particularly true today having played through a series of find quests (which are not really interesting to me) and dealing with a bunch of trash mobs in Dead Man's Pass. Right, so I've set up my excuses in advance for not being at my sharpest, but even so was the following really reasonable? I had discovered a vampire's hide-out and immediately retreated from his accompanying wolves. Coming back in to the cellar under stealth the party attacked the wolves near the door, when 2 new characters appeared out of nowhere called Wraith and Spectre. I thought that they must be servants to the vampire and had just been under invisibility (which wraiths do in SoD), so gave them a quick taste of wands - and then was somewhat surprised to see 2 of my party suddenly severely damaged.
Chimera - L9, 65 HPs, 308 kills
Phantom - L9, 75 HPs (incl. 10 HPs from bracers), 331 kills, 7 deaths
Spectre - L9, 80 HPs, 260 kills, 2 deaths
Wraith - L9, 79 HPs, 295 kills, 2 deaths
Spook - L9, 81 HPs, 394 kills, 0 deaths
Spirit - L9, 75 HPs, 331 kills, 1 death
It would be easy enough to test, if we cared to. That's a possibility. EE's intentions regarding the stones seem clear. I like using them on warriors: they provide excellent bonuses and they look nice. But I do see the logic in stripping them of their critical protection abilities.
Best,
A.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903092/#Comment_903092
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903108/#Comment_903108
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903136/#Comment_903136
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903185/#Comment_903185
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903348/#Comment_903348
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903485/#Comment_903485
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903599/#Comment_903599
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903789/#Comment_903789
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/903802/#Comment_903802
In the Underground River area I had misremembered the effects of the myconid cloud and everyone except Chimera was confused. That led to a few nasty moments, but everyone recovered just in time to help Chimera rescue Spectre when she wandered off to find a group of spiders. The fatigue of dealing with the never-ending stream of enemies told soon after though when I attacked a group of orcs without taking due care and Wraith took several nasty arrow hits in a row.
That would have been easy enough to avoid, e.g. by better use of stealth, keeping the PC at the rear or using a series of fireballs, but the usual consequence of playing too intensely took its toll ...
Fresh off her defeat of Conster, Aestica felt ready to take on Bodhi's Guild. But first, she had to jump through Aran's hoops and deal with a backlog of vampire spawns.
Here we see Aestica facing Del, her first vampire of the run. Del's friends were to arrive shortly.
Lacking NPP, Aestica had no interest in taking on three vamps at the same time. Enter our secret weapon: The Short Sword of the Mask
Stab and fade.
And that's how you face your vamps -indeed any group of enemies- one at a time.
Lassal got the same treatment.
Into the lair. Aestica's first duel was with Gellal. Call of the Night->Backstab earned Gellal a taste of blood, but left him tied up a moment later
Faded and finished with the aid of Mr. Efreeti.
Durst was insta-killed with Azuredge. We forged the iMod and headed for the inner sanctum.
The fledgling vamps were taken down with the iMod and Harmony, the grim warders with Ages and The Reflex
In his re-match, Lassal faired even worse. iMod one hit.
Finally Bodhi. With her speed, reach, and ability to drain both constitution and levels, SCS Bodhi is not to be trifled with. Fortunately, she's a crusher and that means Girdle of Bluntness + Potion of Absorption fixes her. Note the -14 crushing modifier stacked atop the base AC of -12. Note, too, the RoAC + Potion of Invulnerability buffed saves, and the Potion of Stone Giant Strength + DUHM buffed strength
It all adds up to an unhappy little Bodhi-Woedy. Here she is whiffing on an 18, while Aestica thumps away.
A critical paired with a successful Touch of Death was the sole, umm, bright spot for Ms. Trampy-Vampy
Away, away!
The Unseeing Eye is next
Best,
A.
Beholders are fearsome. Or not. It depends. It depends on your character, your items, your strategy.
As a high level handling warrior, equipped with the Claw, the Ring of Protection +2, the Cloak of Displacement, the Belt of Inertial Barrier, the Dragon Shield and the Dragon Helm, Aestica has little to fear in Beholder-dom. The beholders, in contrast had a lot to fear. Sling bullets hurt.
Before we go on, I should take a moment to update everyone on Aestica's proficiencies. DPS geeks, be prepared to cringe. Or laugh. Or both. But don't be surprised to see Aestica continue her march. And don't be shocked if she appears in the Hall of Heroes within a few weeks. This little halfling knows what she's doing. Her proficiencies are as follows:
Slings x 5, Short Swords x 2, Flails x 2, Darts, Shortbows, Maces
As for dual-wielding points, Aestica doesn't have them. She likes shields. Go ahead. Laugh.
The Unseeing Eye quest consisted of three encounters: the beholder fight in the sewers, the beholder fight by the bridge, and the final confrontation with the Unseeing Eye and his flanking death tyrants. Saves kept Aestica safe from disables and installs. The Belt of Inertial Barrier cushion Cause Wounds damage; the Dragon Helm and Dragon Shield, Lightning Bolt damage. It all worked.
Here we see Aestica in sewers, at work with her sling. She does far, far less damage post Anti-Magic Ray due to the loss of DUHM
Aestica opened beholder battle 2 by using her first HLA, Greater Whirlwind. Despite losing her DUHM to Anti-Magic Ray, she managed to take down two large beholders quickly
But wow! Even with the BoIB and 40% electricity resistance, damage adds up quick. And those shadows? They're not helping. Potion of Invisibility->heal->regroup
Re-engaged from another angle. This time we got to keep our DUHM.
Finally, the Unseeing Eye. Standard Rift Device->Mr Efreeti take-down
Best,
A.
Btw. Since that was a short post, I thought I'd tack on Draug Fea et al.
Opened with an Whirlwind, targeting the clerics and the melee fighting Draug Fea. Zorl was dropped immediately.
Draug Fea fell just as he was about to close. Meanwhile, his friends Gallchobhair and Tarnor jacked themselves on The Reflex.
Gallchobhair and Tarnor were dropped in melee after they set aside their ranged weapons and closed. Rengard, who had evaded early death with an improbable Santuary, fell to the sling later. Gaius was felled with the aid of Aestica's newly acquired Power Attack. It's been a good run, Darts of Stunning, but it's time for us to move on
Fin!
Journal of Ragnor Final Update
Things were going swimmingly. Greywolf was defeated. Isra had joined and had a +1 Two-handed sword courtesy of a gnoll.We went to fight some sirine. Being a Cavalier Isra was the tank due to her resistance to charm.
It might have been all right if some hobgoblins hadn't joined in.
Isra was feeblemided together with rigid thinking.
I realised that she would need help, so I joined in using ranged weapons. However the sirine then charmed me. I couldn't heal Sirene, so when she died it was end of game.
If I had bought the helm of charm protection first, I MIGHT have survived.
PT-2,
collect them all,I took my last chance to shop, grabbing arrows of detonation, some nice goggles and a bag to carry it before setting off... I excepted Edwin as my mage because he doesn't come with a batty ranger but we almost lost him to a rebounded spell.
we saved some dwarfs from undead but I'm not in the mood for lich hunting and the bridge attack wasn't so much a victory as a tie.
Morale of the unwashed is low so we removed the unpopular enlistments in the name of righteousness (both the drow are now keeping their heads down) and cleared a nearby cave of trolls with most the loot sold to recharge wands but I keep a necklace for myself.
party;
Edwin ... a fear | web fast cast and fireballs
Rasaad ... magic dart and heavens wand with some scouting (cannon folder if I'm honest)
Corwin ... exploding, bitting or fire arrows
Safana ... my thief
Hyra (Elf Ranger, Gate70); Dave (Half-elf Cleric/Ranger, Grond0)
Recap: The castle is ours but what lies below?
As the portal opens and we step through Dave suggests he use a scroll of Chaotic Commands. Good idea - and his four summoned skeletons make sure Illaruel is less trouble than usual.
So much into her stride that she's watching enemy attacks miss and not the combat text. She realises something is up but too late. Dave has been watching from beyond the grave and as Hyra joins him they discuss how Barbed Defence must be like fireshield / blade barrier and a ranged attack would be more suitable (or not attack Thrix).
On to MP138 and beyond
"The Nobody of Parting"
For those who don't care to watch the full video, here are the highlights:
5:54 We killed Greywolf without dying (for a change)
23:39 Resting before Mulahey summoned a bunch of kobolds for us to deal with. Words cannot do justice what happened there, though the phrase "Wild Surge: Fireball" comes close.
35:00 There's a bunch of resting, identifying, and trap-setting that goes on around this point. I almost feel sorry for Nimbul (I managed to set three traps out of four).
43:25 Mulahey goes down pretty quickly. Also I remembered to use my rage! Yay!
48:45 And now the daily dose of stupid! The reason that doing this fight is risky is because, while it has always scaled with level, it likes to jump up well above where you are. You don't normally get ravaged by glyphs of warding if you go straight to Mulahey and then this fight, but if you spend some time leveling before doing Mulahey (without doing any of the really good quests/maps like Ankheg Farm or Mutamin's Garden or Lighthouse) this fight becomes very... eurgh. Especially for a back-liner CHARNAME. Still not as bad as it could have been, considering Greywolf was changed in the EEs to directly walk up to Gorion's Ward instead of the party leader.