After a failed parley I used some potions and set some summons up ready for an attack. The ogres and trolls were confronted with archers and me firing detonation arrows and were beaten back. The mages were faced with wizard slayers and were no problem with more detonation and dispelling arrows thrown into the mix. The third lot of enemies were faced with warmages as well as more detonation arrows. The myconids unsummoned early in the fight, but another potion of firebreath proved deadly to the remaining enemies. The final crusaders then found themselves being regularly backstabbed by coalition spies.
Moving on to the Castle for the first time in SP I quickly found Ashatiel and challenged her to a duel. With missile AC of -28 I wanted to keep things at range and it didn't take long to take her down (the game then immediately went into a cut-scene which prevented a screen-shot being taken).
Inside the Castle I eventually managed to find my way downstairs to confront Caelar and then chased her into the abyss. Everything seemed to be moving very slowly - at first I thought that was lag associated with the siege before realising I hadn't reset the game to 60 fps after playing MP yesterday (like I said to @semiticgod it was still a bit early for me). With that done, the initial demons fell quickly on the way to Thrix. I had forgotten that the demons he summons include a hamatula with a fire shield type effect - resulting in me doing a lot of damage to myself while being surrounded by demons. A potion of invisibility was used to get out of that trap while regeneration pushed HPs back up before thrown axes saw the end of Thrix.
I eventually managed to work out how to activate the lift in the next room and buffed up while going up in that. In the MP games I've played Caelar has fought against Belhifet (though not as one of the party) and I was aiming to do that - but obviously didn't know the correct dialogue route and Caelar joined with the devil. At least though in compensation for that Hephernaan was killed in the cut-scene.
At the start of the fight I nipped in to attack Belhifet and dealt him a smashing blow - only to see it bounce off as I'd forgotten he requires +3 weapons to hit. After a bit of running round exploding arrows killed the initial demons, but Caelar just used healing potions to keep going. Her blackguard poison bypassed the green scroll protection I had, so most of the time I nipped in and out just attacking Belhifet. However, the lack of any strength damage with the void hammer meant slow progress with killing the devil and I decided to switch tactics and attack Caelar first. Magic resistance meant firebreath was no good, but she eventually ran out of healing and invisibility potions.
Looking through my bag for options to make things easier with Belhifet I decided to give stone golems a chance. It appeared that you could only summon one of those at once though and I don't think any of them ever rolled a critical hit, so I don't know if they could actually hit him anyway. Despite lack of proficiency in short swords, strength bonus meant I actually had a better THAC0 with the fractal blade than the void hammer, though APR was 2 rather than 3. Together with the greater damage per hit that seemed the former seemed the better option. It also gave a small potential to grow mirror images and dispel Belhifet's improved invisibility
- though the latter was actually unhelpful as it just prompted Belhifet to cast it again and get the possibility of a free bonus attack.
I wore Belhifet down to badly injured at one stage, but after a while of not summoning any new demons he started doing so with increasing frequency and the absorb healths from the cornugons were proving painful. However, attacking the demons gave Belhifet the chance to regenerate so I concluded it was a mug's game to play with his summons. Instead, I dug in my potion case for potions of magic protection before concentrating once more on the main 'man' - and finally: I still had to find my way through the anti-climactic epilogue, but managed to do so without being exploded by a slime or held by a carrion crawler and eventually the game came to an end. That's the first time I've completed SoD in single player, so let's see if I can make that count and go on through BG2 ...
Tynea, halfling Cleric (Gate70) Brave, human Skald (Grond0)
Tynea again fails to write anything down about her adventures. She can remember the first action of the day was to speak to Ardrouine again - and found her still begging for help. We've saved your son already, least you could do is say thank you. C:GetGlobal("WorgsDead","GLOBAL") returns 2 instead of 3. We might have killed two at the same time. So off we go. We pick up Rufie for a few seconds then treat Zal and Vax to a Command Command Hold combo from which they fail to recover.
Then we head west to hold Caldo and Krumm.
Zargal and his buddies refuse to be Held but a Command or two interlaced with Magic Missiles cuts them down in their prime.
Brave wants to delve into Nashkel Mine, where we find a Silenced half-orc cleric, from a letter on his body we deduced his name was Mulahey.
Outside the mine are four amazon assassins.
Nimbul is yet another assassin. Hah, they sure don't like our spells.
Tranzig dies a silent death, and on his body there are details of a bandit camp to the north. Taugosz Khosann leads the defence of this camp, refusing to be Commanded twice, eventually Held. We sneak inside the largest of the tents and take care of those within.
Next, an ambush. There's nothing moving in the area though - a couple of spiders already dead as we arrive!
A mercenary group led by Drasus are guarding a mine deep within Cloakwood. Spells and skels send them to the hells.
It doesn't take us long to get to the base of the mine, and after dealing with Battle Horrors our spells are running a bit low. Tynea casts a Silence with little expectation of success, and has little in reserve apart from a Command.
Baldur's Gate - a fine city. Although a double-date ends badly for Desreta and Vay-ya.
It's been a good day for us, but Brave tries to play upstairs downstairs with ghastly results. Tynea is half a room and a flight of stairs away from Brave, plus blocked by two ghasts. She casts a smite before racing downstairs - too late. Worse, after raising the Skald she realises her save vs paralyzation was at -3 so she could simply have meleed them.
The obligatory death should keep Grond0 happy until the next session.
Well it's so far so good, with a very clean start to BG2. In theory everything except the final few ToB battles should be pretty straight-forward, but theory is one thing and practice another ...
After using a shield for virtually all of BG1 and SoD I started the dungeon by dual-wielding. The use of Bhaal horror there made sure that nothing nasty would happen where there was even a hint of possible danger, while a firebreath potion ensured that Ulvaryl wouldn't get away.
I realised that perhaps I should have brought along the Claw of Kazgaroth rather than the Helm of Balduran, but the dwarven defender's saves are good enough that shouldn't really matter. More annoying is that the pantaloons didn't transfer. I had those, but as they were in a bag of holding they didn't register. Oh well - again that's far less of an issue for a fighter type than some other characters, so it's just a point to remember (or try to) for the future.
Arriving at the Promenade I immediately invested in some reputation at the Temple before clearing the circus. After reporting to Gaelan Bayle I got to level 11 on the way to tackle the Beastmaster.
Continuing to take no chances I went straight on to the sewers to recover Lilarcor and take on the slavers. With defensive stance my spell saving throw could be reduced to 1, so there was no problem against the cleric - while both mages were scared by rumors of my arrival.
With reputation at 19 I decided to do the Fallen Paladins next to maximise that. For the fight with them I mainly used hit and run tactics, though I did exchange a few blows with Anarg in normal melee.
I then bought the Blade of Roses from Bernard in order to push charisma to 20 and get best shop prices - a considerable saving resulting from that on the Defender of Easthaven.
Bernard also supplied Azuredge and that was put to use in the Promenade when I saw Hareishan attacking some thieves. I was just too slow to save any of the thieves, but just in time to take revenge for them .
I was on the way at that point to get the Ring of Air Control and that was almost immediately put to use when the Suna Seni ambush triggered. With the mage dead there was no need for any potions - the enemies would struggle to hit anyway and with 80% physical resistance they wouldn't do much if they did.
Arriving at Watcher's Keep I bought the potion case to aid inventory management. Inside I quickly got up to level 12 thanks to more Azuredging.
The first level was cleared including the statues - they were separated and taken on individually, leaving them no chance against my resistances.
Back in the City the final action of the session was obtaining a suit of full plate from Officer Dirth.
Dwarven defender L12, 136 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 237 kills (+928 kills in BG1)
Deeper in Spellhold, Mayday gains a level and chooses a new spell: Vestcakes Floating Curse (what a weird name), a very strange spell that uses the Ice Storm projectile, which strikes 4 times, and deals lingering electrical damage, about 100 in all, that bypasses spell protections and magic resistance and offers no saving throw. It's no good against liches, since undead are immune to electricity for some reason, but it could be really useful in lots of places because it bypasses so many defenses.
Jon-bon is no trouble, really. Fire Seeds strike as +6 weapons and can therefore bypass Irenicus' Improved Mantle with a direct hit, and Jon-bon comes with no resistance against cold damage. That's what Cone of Cold is for.
Irenicus doesn't put up much of a fight, and our clones' defenses prove insufficient. We actually have far more anti-mage options than we really need. Witch Dagger can apply spell failure with Fire Seeds or nonmagical darts, we have a staff that casts a version of Insect Plague that bypasses SCS Fire Shields, and on top of that we have Vestcakes Floating Curse and Cone of Cold, though Cone of Cold isn't quite as strong when we don't have the Robe of Vecna or Amulet of Power to make sure the target doesn't move out of the way before the spell finishes casting.
On to City Sushi! The Priestess of Sekolah just north of King Ixilthetocal buys stuff at the best prices in the game, so I've been saving up our items just so we can sell them all off to her. Putting aside all the crazy mod items we've got, we also have lots of vanilla items we can't use and therefore can pawn off. We get 150,000 gold from selling potions, 79,000 from selling ammunition, and 509,000 from selling other gear. We have basically nothing to spend it on, but it's nice to know that we never have to even think about money again.
Just for fun I decide to see how much damage Killer can do in one hit. Emotion: Courage gives +3 to damage instead of Emotion: Hope's +2 (though Hope is much better because of the save bonuses) and also stacks, so I cast as many Emotion: Courage spells as I possibly could and have Killer backstab Trash Mammal.
City Sushi is uneventful. I close it out with more backstabs.
Once again, we have to deal with an overpowered drow ambush right after entering the Underdark. We sneak past them while invisible but Witch Dagger has to break invisibility to make sure the rest of the party is safe. The drow mage's defenses activate but the spell failure lingers.
Unfortunately, the local air elementals decide to join the fray, and one of my mods makes them far, far stronger. Witch Dagger focuses on holding down the mage while the rest of the party bolsters their defenses.
Uncertain about the future of this fight because we entered it completely unprepared (we would have been able to keep the party out of sight if we only had Potions of Invisibility), Witch Dagger uses the Insect Plague staff on the drow. It seems to be working.
To solidify our advantage, Mayday deploys Vestcakes Floating Curse.
While the mages are disabled, we focus on the fighters, who have no special tricks to pull. Once they're down, the mages only manage to get a Sunfire spell off the ground before we put them down.
The improved elementals nearby deal massive damage due to spamming Earthquakes and so forth, but Trash Mammal stays afloat using our Heal belt. We use the same tactics, Fire Seeds, nonmagical darts, and Vestcakes Floating Curse, against the vanilla drow ambush and stun-lock the Balor using Thunderslap.
Seven traps and a well-buffed party crush the Death Knights before they get a chance to harm us.
We deploy Vestcakes Floating Curse against the drow at the Underdark exit using a Project Image clone, but once again I fail to protect my mages from the Glabrezu's PW: Stun.
But the drow are doomed and the Glabrezus can be easily stun-locked.
There's an entrance to a mod area around here. I avoided it in my previous runs, but now I'm going to poke around.
It does not look good.
But the three liches are decoys with no defenses, and once we kill them, the real lich appears. Witch Dagger dutifully throws her Fire Seeds at Killer to get past the lich's PFMW.
Witch Dagger keeps him from casting any spells, but I notice something odd. Even when Killer reveals the lich using Detect Illusions, I still can't target him.
He's... untouchable. Like he has the protection from critter type opcode that makes him untargetable by any of my characters. True Seeing doesn't help, either. All I can do is just chase him around and watch him fail to cast any spells due to the lingering spell failure.
I discover that our skeletons can attack him, but that just prompts a Spell Trigger that leaves him invulnerable.
I refresh the spell failure with Fire Seeds. We'll have to wait out his PFMW so the skeletons can hit him again.
Then I discover that our party can attack him if I simply turn on party AI.
It seems that the lich wanted to see the surface world, so we're supposed to bring his phylactery out of the Underdark. Why not?
To Ust Natha! Last time, Na'ashtar killed himself and most of his party with Vestcakes Floating Curse due to some coding error, but this time, he falls to Killer's traps, set well in advance of beginning the Ust Natha questline.
I'm not familiar with the Qilue fight since I normally talk my way out of doing it, so I play things safe and leave as soon as I kill her, avoiding the well-defended mages. It's not hard; Qilue is not a mage.
I hate Taso Kala with a passion, but for the first time in a long time, I decide to actually fight the Ghaunadaur priests. Though "fight" is something of a misnomer in this case.
On the way back to Adalon after retrieving her eggs, a mind flayer appears, and this time I talk to him instead of backstabbing him. Apparently this just teleports you to the mind flayer city.
So, now we have to fight our way out of the city without properly preparing for mind flayer fights.
Or we could just use Teleport to escape, probably. But I don't want to lock myself out of this questline by screwing with the sequence. Unfortunately, Witch Dagger and Trash Mammal, our only sources of Chaotic Commands, have extremely low INT and will die in two hits. I have to draw them away from the fight whenever they get hit even once--only intensive micromanagement and careful positioning keeps them alive.
Mae has Enrage to block stun effects, but unlike a Barbarian's rage, a Berserker's rage has a cooldown period during which you can't reactivate it, which means we need Chaotic Commands to keep her safe when Enrage runs out.
We can't use Control Circlets, which means we need to either use Slayer form or lure a mind flayer into the right spot in order to open doors. I don't like using Slayer form, so I just hug the walls to get the mind flayers to open the way.
We cast Entropy Shield to force the mind flayers to roll 20s to hit Trash Mammal and Witch Dagger, but the final fight is very brief.
We're not done with psionic critters. Next up is the silver dragon blood quest. Adalon gives us one day to kill the Aboleth.
I set traps in advance of this fight, but it seems the Aboleth has reinforcements. The moment its guards die, more drow appear on the bodies of their predecessors.
The Aboleth uses a Cause Serious Wounds ray on us and a Dispel Magic effects fails due to good luck on our part. Witch Dagger focuses on the mages while the rest of the party tackles the fighters.
Mayday has no Spell Shield and the Aboleth nails her with an Anti-Magic Ray (don't know why a psionic critter is using beholder rays, but whatever). She scrounges up a Mislead scroll to stay alive and we use some other scrolls to weaken the drow.
The enemy crumples and the Aboleth alerts the city of our presence before it dies, forcing us to flee. I have no interest in fighting the Siege of Ust Natha again.
Remember when we totally murdered Drizzt in cold blood with a Thunderslap spell? Well, Drizzy doesn't remember.
We recharge some low-end wands and spend a tiny fraction of our money supply on Cromwell, who uses a Control Circlet to forge an upgraded +5 Lilarcor that grants immunity to INT drain, plus a stronger version of the Helm of Charm Protection. Nothing game-changing, but it's not like we have anything better to spend our money on.
I decide to revisit some Chapter 2 quests. They're not that hard after the Underdark.
I want to take down Firkraag without using the Sorcerer's Staff to petrify him. Unfortunately for Edwin, we turn Firkraag hostile just a couple seconds too early, which means Edwin's SI: Abjuration spell didn't come out in time to save him.
Firkraag Breaches Witch Dagger and wounds Trash Mammal, forcing them to retreat to restore their buffs. Mae holds the fort in their place.
I foolishly neglect their fire resistance, which almost ends Witch Dagger's life, but our priests survive long enough to heal themselves. Again, Mae keeps Firkraag away from our more vulnerable party members.
Notice Mayday using spell damage. Spell damage is a bad way to deal with dragons in SCS, but it's the best use of her time regardless.
Trash Mammal uses Armor Melt to penalize Firkraag's AC, making it easier for Mae to land hits (dual-classed fighter/mages seldom have strong enough THAC0 to hit major bosses reliably) and we proceed as normal once our party members are properly buffed.
Firkraag just isn't strong enough to get through Mae's defenses, and he applies far too little pressure to our other party members. The dragon goes down.
Watcher's Keep level 4: The party quickly cleared out the illithid lair, backed up by a planetar protected with cc:
The githyanki didn't provide much of a challenge either - once again, true sight and some summons were helpful:
Aikar took down the demi-lich using protection from magic and Daystar:
I prepared for Saladrex by adding protection from fire to my usual buffs. I also added a planetar, elemental prince and some magical swords to distract the dragon. The fight started out well, but after one or two rounds, Saladrex used remove magic, targetting Aikar, just as Mazzy/Simmy started using Sling or Arvoreen + GWWs to really get some damage going. The remove magic also hit Imoen and Arbogast, so I paused to look through my bags of holding, trying to get fire resistance as high as possible for my now unbuffed party members.
I got everyone to at least 70 fr with items and had them drink some of the few fire protection potions I still had left as soon as their auras were clear. Saladrex didn't use his breath weapon before everyone was back at 100 fire resistance, and I was able to get Imoen started at casting resist fear:
However, while the fight had been going on, I didn't realize that Saladrex had managed to get through Nahema's stoneskins, and that my fighter/illusionist was (for some reason) fighting the dragon in melee range with her bow equipped. When the dragon hit her (once with wing bufet, once with a normal attack) she almost died:
Luckily, she was able to run away, while Saladrex focused his attention on Imoen, who had no stoneskins going because she had to use her aura for more important buffs. One hit was almost fatal, but it triggered her chain contingency, which included stoneskin and mirror image, so she was safe for now - and shortly after that, Mazzy finally managed to kill the dragon:
The only thing left to do on this level was killing Rock and Garock - rather easy compared to the dragon battle:
In level 5, I started by clearing the golem group to the north-east with the help of some mordy swords:
The north-western riddle, the imp riddle and the orc army were quickly dealt with, and it was time for another dragon battle - here, I made a huge mistake in assuming (or rather, falsely remembering) that this dragon would be using an acid breath weapon, so I buffed with protection from acid. Things started out great, as he used his remove magic on my summons before my party was even close enough to get affected:
However, the rude awakening was quickly to follow: He used his breath weapon, dealing massive damage to some of my party (mostly Mazzy and her simulacrum) and killing Imoen instantly - I was lucky she didn't get chunked here:
All right, so his breath weapon does poison damage. Not good. Well, kind of. Arbogast is immune by virtue of being a high level druid, Aikar has Vongoethe's ring, Nahema is wearing the Ring of Gaxx. I forgot about the poison immunity necklace from the druid grove, which would've allowed me to protect a fourth party member, so it remained in one of my gem bags. I think these are the only ways to protect against poison breath, as I know that protection from poison scrolls don't actually work. Anyway, I used a RoR charge to heal Mazzy, and Anomen drank a healing potion:
After his initial success with the breath weapon, the dragon failed to do anything of note during his very short remaining lifespan:
The planetar picked up Imoen, and Arbogast navigated the spirit warrior maze using the N/E/N/E/N/W/W combination (I had previously created a test game to console a character to WK level 5 and test this one, as I didn't want to throw away this run to things outside of my control - this seems to be a fairly reliable method, provided interaction is limited to picking up and using the gibberling scroll).
Next time, we will try to take down the seal guardians.
Wow, two of you are in Watcher's Keep. That sounds scary as heck. I dread those dead magic zones plus demon fear. It's bad enough with reloads. Why did I start this crazy no-reload stuff? Oh yeah: the adrenaline.
Speaking of: I faced my fears and went into the next level of Durlag's. I played a disciplined game and cleared out the whole level fairly easily (using Vicky's magic resistance to tank spells and deal with the cloud kill and sleeping gas those doppelgangers use). However, tragedy struck on the very last fight when I took on those Dwarven Doomguards. I always underestimate how tough they are. They went right through my summons and started chewing up my party. Our wands of frost and flame-strike just weren't doing enough damage. Why the heck are they worth only 2000 exp. a piece??? In the panic my discipline broke down and I lost track of my necromancer just long enough for her to be killed, but at least I split up the Doomguards and used Vicky with the boots of speed to lead them into an unused corridor. So, my necromancer is dead, but not permanently so. I've scooped up her gear and I'm going to leave Durlag's Tower to get her resurrected. There are three Doomguards left to come back for. Those bastards!
Progress was comfortable doing tasks in the Docks, with a nice saving throw and APR bonus gained from getting to level 13 while working for Mae'Var.
That meant there was no danger for instance from the pirate mage's attempt to dominate me.
Shortly after that Rayic Gethras lost some early spells to an arrow of biting and his attempt to disintegrate me just before he died was doomed to failure.
Mae'Var himself fared no better and I got up to level 14 by reporting his death.
After killing Prebek
and looting the harpers, gold was building up to around 50k and I decided to invest in Vhailor's Helm (along with Balduran's and Reflection shields). I'd also had a warning from the Cowled Wizards about using the Ring of Air Control and paid up for a license (I don't usually do that, but am trying to minimise risks this run). There was a bit more XP for saving Sansuki, though doing so wasn't value for money. Without level drain protection I couldn't use defensive stance to get saving throws safe against domination and thought I'd already activated the Ring of Air Control - so used up a potion of invulnerability.
In fact though when I checked after the combat I could have used the ring.
Sir Sarles turned his nose up at some illithium alloy and I returned a talisman to the Temple of Lathander before heading for the Graveyard. Clearing the upper tombs there got me to level 15, gaining further improvement in saving throws and physical resistance.
The lower tombs were no more difficult and I picked up a potential summons there.
With no pantaloons at stake a kidnap victim found herself free without any need to pay a ransom. While in the Bridge District I decided to clean up the rest of the area. The mage with Captain Dennis managed to buff despite being webbed which prolonged that conflict - though not enough to save them.
The Rune Assassins were badly outclassed, so I didn't even bother luring them upstairs separately like I normally do.
Dracandros & co were lured outside however
before reporting to Lt Aegisfield was enough for level 16.
DuHM now provided enough strength without the use of any potions to do the liches, so I went to open those up. In doing that I also cleared a way through the Temple sewers and picked up a new cloak.
After killing the Shade Lich and then the Elemental Lich I realised I hadn't picked up the first body part and had to go all the way back to the Temple sewers. That meant there was less time left on my PfU scroll than normal, but I still managed to kill all the liches without resorting to a potion of speed.
Building on that improvement I decided it was time to pay Gaelan Bayle and pick up a +2 ring of protection. That takes unbuffed saving throw vs spells down to -3 and all other saves negative. Along with high physical resistance and regeneration that really only leaves level drain as a potential weakness at the moment - so patching that will be the next task.
Dwarven defender L16, 148 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 452 kills (+928 kills in BG1)
I made my way to the FAI where I killed some hobgoblins to retrieve Joia's ring. Heading north I helped a widow against a zombie who was pestering her and then helped Tenya against Sonner. She then joined my party and is amazingly powerful for one so small. We then killed an ankheg with the help of a summoned skeleton, command, and our +1 weapons. We clmed Marl down and are now ogrillon hunting.
(No rigid thinking from Tenya this time. Perhaps it didn't work due to me having a fit of rage. )
I quickly ran through Aran Linvail's tasks, getting up to level 17 in the process.
However, I found the game wasn't holding my full attention and started listening to the radio as well. That immediately led to a slight glitch when I paid insufficient attention to some muggers and managed to give away my worldly goods.
That meant searching through my bags to find things to sell in order to forge the improved MoD.
I was thinking that the iMoD would allow clearing the rest of the vampires to be easy, but in fact I hit an immediate problem against Tanova. She resisted a couple of attacks with Azuredge and chased after me. As she was faster than me I would have needed to use a potion of speed to keep away, but didn't think that was necessary - I hadn't remembered her as casting maze, so didn't particularly try and keep out of touch range. That proved fatal and it was small comfort that I took Tanova with me ...
@OrlonKronsteen The BEGINNING of Watcher's keep, for me: I'm not going any further than the Elemental level which is the final one before I start recalling tons of trouble. Condolences for your Dwarven defender, Grond0. What class is next up the line for you?
Thanks @Neverused. It's a while since I had a go with my Wrecking Crew of dwarf fighters (my first love of parties made up of a single class), so I thought I'd give them a go. They've never been in SoD, but would go there this time if they get past Sarevok.
Originally the Crew were rolled in BGT, but were transposed into EE for my previous run with them. This time I've adjusted their starting proficiencies slightly. The main changes are to make them legal for BGEE in having no more than two pips in a starting proficiency and to swap a proficiency for darts to daggers as the latter is preferable in the EE as a result of strength bonus being applied to damage. This run is in my SCS/Ascension installation using Core difficulty.
After leaving Candlekeep the Crew stopped off in High Hedge to kill a few skeletons for their throwing daggers before moving on to Beregost. Algernon lost his cloak (and his life) there, before there was an early first casualty for the Crew - who were nearly all unarmored when running into a full bandit ambush.
After a visit to the temple they tried again - and once more found some bandits on the road, but this time only a small group and everyone survived the ambush.
At the FAI some hobgoblins provided everyone with basic armor and a helmet before they continued north. Carlo picked up their first magical weapon with a flail that Sonner no longer needed before they handed a bowl back to Tenya - who was fortunate to survive when disappearing as an arrow was about to kill her.
They dodged the nearby ankheg in order to get to Ulgoth's Beard where Dushai was lured away to look at Vito's etchings and didn't return.
The roads seemed to be dangerous at the moment with more bandits on the way back to the FAI, but everyone survived again and their reputation started its climb back by returning Joia's ring. Tarnesh failed to buff in time to survive the hail of missiles at him there.
Back in Beregost the Crew acquired their first metal bit of armor by shooting down Karlat.
They were soon able to improve considerably on that though thanks to a patrol of 3 arrogant Flaming Fists south of Beregost.
Some buried armor in Nashkel offered a further improvement, but I realised on arrival there that reputation was still looking pretty poor. Thanks to high constitution though travelling around to do several quests before any resting was no problem - and that ensured that Al would learn CLW as a first Bhaal power. Those quests included getting everyone to level 2 after sorting out Greywolf.
To be perfectly honest, this run has been kind of boring for a very long time now. I thought the item restrictions would be absolutely crippling, but with the mod items I haven't yet used, I was still able to properly equip the party, to the extent where we're honestly not that much weaker than we'd be if we simply swore off mod items and let ourselves use all the normal vanilla and EE items instead--and that's only because I've been letting some of our most powerful items sit in the Bag of Holding, unused. If we pushed our mod items to the limit, our gear would be above-average in quality.
On top of that, I picked the most overpowered party I could think of, and while our party could certainly be improved upon (now that I know how unimportant Trash Mammal and Mayday were, relatively speaking), merely having a Wizard Slayer/Druid and a Bounty Hunter in the party with a Berserker/Mage as Charname has been enough to neutralize the biggest threats we might face.
I don't know how to kill my party anymore. We don't have any holes in our defenses for me to patch.
The mind flayers in the Alhoon lair kill Witch Dagger with a couple of lucky criticals and the fight gets ugly, but Killer turns the tables by using her traps mid-combat courtesy of a PW: Blind spell from Edwin.
Why are we fighting these guys in the first place? Well, we want the Hammer of Thunderbolts to forge Crom Faeyr.
Nope. I have not in fact used Crom Faeyr in my previous playthroughs; I never had a fighter who specialized in hammers that would have made it worth it to lose the Girdle of Frost Giant Strength. Crom Faeyr is one of the few BG2 items that's still allowed in this run.
Anyhoo, the Alhoon has all the powers of a normal mind flayer combined with lich immunities, mage spells, and extremely low THAC0, enough to make AC completely unreliable unless we stacked Potions of Absorption (which we can't due to our item restrictions) to grant +10 AC vs. crushing attacks like a mind flayer's attack. He also has Improved Alacrity. So we really have to take this guy seriously. We start by baiting his Absolute Immunity spell by sending out a dryad.
The Alhoon is a devastating threat and we have no Control Circlets we could use to charm it. We let the Alhoon summon its demons and send out some more summons to handle the dangerous early rounds.
A triple Remove Magic Spell Sequencer takes down half the party's buffs, but Mae rushes ahead with Lilarcor +5 to distract the Alhoon and blocks the Alhoon from reaching the rest of the party.
The Alhoon, however, can teleport. But as it hops over to the rest of the party and triggers Killer's pre-set traps, we discover that the Alhoon, despite being a lich, is not immune to poison damage!
With three mages in the party, we don't even need Witch Dagger's Fire Seeds or the Insect Plague staff or whatever other anti-mage capabilities we have that I don't even remember. We break down the Alhoon's defenses with magic attacks, only to find that the Alhoon has run out of PFMW anyway. Calamari.
We still need the Gauntlets of Ogre Power to forge Crom Faeyr, which means a stop by the Planar Sphere. But first... I'm tired of Edwin. I want somebody more interesting. Enter Haer'dalis!
I have no patience for fighting mid-level enemies when we're inches away from epic levels. I speed through Mekrath's dungeon using Emotion: Hope stacking.
The fight with the Coiled Cabal in the Planar Prison is chaotic as always, but Witch Dagger applies enough spell failure to make it much simpler than normal. As for the Warden, Witch Dagger throws Fire Seeds at the Yuan-ti Mages and then nonmagical darts at the Warden himself, who is buffed with PFMW but not Protection from Normal Missiles (which, to be honest, any enemy mage with PFMW should be).
We now have Haer'dalis! I wanted to get his upgraded swords, which I've never actually used before, so I'll have a stat drain kill option for ToB, should the need arise. But first, we need Arbane's Sword and Ilbratha, and while I have the former in Thalantyr's Bag of Holding, Ilbratha is nowhere in sight.
I scour Athkatla and the surrounding areas for whatever merchant I might have sold it to, only to realize that I sold it off to the Priestess of Sekolah. Who is in the now-inaccessible City of Caverns and also is hostile.
But it seems that Teleport can get us back to City Sushi, and a simple charm spell is enough to get her to sell us back Ilbratha!
I encounter a weird bug that prevents us from using Teleport to escape...
...but since I know it's a bug based on previous experience, I use the console re-set a global variable to fix the problem and teleport back to Cromwell, who forges Haer'dalis new swords.
It's a little underwhelming considering we could just use Enchanted Weapon to make the sword strike as a +3 weapon, but since I've used the +2 version in previous runs, only this version is legal for this run.
Haer'dalis is accused of murder back in Athkatla, we clear his name in a short quest, and Haer'dalis fails to spawn in the prison when we go to free him. Even though Edwin is probably stronger than Haer'dalis, even though Killer can already use the Chaos Blade once she gets Use Any Item, and even though I don't like Haer'dalis' mod-introduced banters (I've seen them already), and even though I normally roll with non-fatal bugs, I decide to use the console to spawn him in. Like in all of my runs, he will be underleveled for the rest of the game.
Trio Update (Corey_Russell, Grond0, Gate70) Corthief XIV - elven thief (protagonist, controlled by Corey_Russell) Berk - dwarven berserker, (controlled by Grond0) Stinkimo - dwarven defender (controlled by Gate70)
Setup: BG 2 EE, no mods
The party did well in getting out of the beginning dungeon. The circus was also solved without much ado. Freeing Hendak went pretty well as well. However, things started going south when we did the Lilacor quest. Stinkimo got held and nearly died, but Corthief XIV and Berk managed to kill the enemies just in time.
We approached via the sewers the moored slave ship. The initial battle was difficult, but successful. The trolls were killed with fire arrows.
The 2nd half though, with the mages didn't quite so well. Corthief XIV tried for a backstab but the stealth failed at the worst possible time - right in the middle of the enemies. Corthief XIV retreated immediately, and the dwarves did a good job of distracting the enemies. But problem was the dwarves got held and killed. So Corthief XIV had to run/hid/backstab and repeat until the enemies were dead.
Corthief XIV then went to the slums temple to raise his comrades. But problem was the slum muggers appeared (it was night). So naked Stinkimo used his stance, with Berk assisting with a longbow and some arrows Corthief XIV had around. The party defeated the muggers with only 4 HP left for Stinkimo. We nevertheless went back to the death scene and got our equipment back.
After selling, we met Valen, so decided to head to Galen's place but ran out of time, so will do so next session.
The Crew got close to another level by charming and hacking down the sirines in the Beregost Temple. A bit more exploring High Hedge looking for skeletons then did the trick.
A skull was also picked up there and put to good use when successfully reviving Melicamp.
A trip through the Cloud Peaks saw reputation grow further, while everyone acquired a magical weapon of some sort even if largely non-proficient. I mis-clicked on the conversation with Lena though and missed out on the chance to save Samuel. That quest could have brought up level 4 for everyone, but instead that was done at the Valley of the Tombs.
The extra level persuaded the Crew to have a successful go at the Revenant.
Narcillicus' jellies managed to poison Baby Face, but died in time to be able to cure him by resting.
The mage had some success with emotion, sleep and charm - but had little damage potential to back that up and eventually ran out of stoneskins.
Further reputation gains were tied up with high XP awards from the ankheg nest (no damage being taken there)
and then the basilisks. Carlo, who had proficiency with his magical flail, soloed them with the green scroll. Korax helped out with Mutamin and the last 2 basilisks - getting everyone up to level 5.
He wasn't quite able to finish off Kirian's mob as well, but I suppose that saved me the trouble of killing him .
At the Lighthouse the high weight of fire from this group meant that the first group of sirines died with minimal trouble and the second even less.
The golems were meleed and only managed one hit between them.
Further up the coast Vito sacrificed himself to Shoal in order to get some better headgear. He then took a rather nastier revenge on Shoal for their abusive relationship than a critical post on social media.
After resting up the ogre clan didn't last long and another lot of sirines was no more successful than the earlier ones.
With reputation only at 19 and no more available outside the main quest, I think it's time for the Nashkel Mine.
I have found the spell command to be invaluable as it enabled me to take on the ogrillons, Zargos Flintblade and Greywolf in safety. Tenya and I also took on a lot of kobolds near the Nashkel mines.
In Nashkel we had a prolonged scintillating conversation with Noober and it was there that we found some amkheg armour which I gave to Tenya.
EDIT
We then headed west where we reunited Rufie with his owner, killed Vax and Zal, helped a dryad and Drienne's cat and killed a winter wolf whilst on the way back to Nashkel.
In Nashkel we took on and killed Neira, but we were a bit lucky. We foolishly did not pick up her possessions immediately, for by the time we had finished resting, they had disappeared. Presumably one of the patrons thought "Finders keepers, losers weepers!"
Well, my run came to an end rather unceremoniously. Last night I took some serious prescription medication which has the side effects of making you really drowsy, dizzy and confused. Foolishly, I thought I could manage it but I made one mistake after another.
After leaving Durlag's Tower and getting my necromancer resurrected, I decided to pick up Edwin as a secondary caster. I then went to the ice island (via Ulgoth's Beard) to get the scroll of stoneskin (I'd just learned how fast an unprotected mage could die, after all). Using meta, non-SCS, it's a pretty easy dungeon for me. Safana was scouting ahead for traps but in my dopiness I rushed one corridor too much and she was killed. Luckily, once again, she wasn't perma-dead. I was able to finish the dungeon and get her resurrected, but it was a stupid mistake and making long trips to temples for resurrection gets boring.
After that, I went back to Durlag's for revenge on those Doomguards and to hit the next level. Well, the Doomguards had moved from the corridor Vicky had stranded them so I wasn't ready. And my party was walking willy-nilly. Due to path-finding randomness, my necromancer ended up in the lead. I hadn't casted stoneskin on her yet, and she got killed. Again, not permanently. I was able to defeat the Doomguards, but my party got chewed up pretty badly. Once again I had to leave the tower, go to a temple, get her resurrected, and come all the way back.
Onto the next level, which went really well, surprisingly. I wiped out the giant wyverns and did the four challenges without any fuss. But on the chessboard I had Edwin cast a web. Unfortunately, in my druggy stupor I aimed too far and failed to stop him from walking out into the board, where he was seen by the enemy. All hell ensued, and he was killed. I managed to win the rest of the fight, but Edwin was dead and I was left with the prospect of leaving the tower once again to get him resurrected. By that point I'd had enough. I wasn't thinking clearly, but I couldn't deal with another resurrection journey so I decided to pack it in. I tipped over my King, to use a chess analogy.
Looking at it this morning, I've decided to continue the game, but with reloads. I dont' feel like starting over at Candlekeep right now with a new character, and I'd like to take another run through Siege of Dragonspear (I only played through it once, in August 2016) starting tonight, hopefully, and then maybe BG2. So, in summary, I didn't finish my no reload run, but at least my main character never died, and I know I could have, if I'd had the patience to resurrect Edwin, or the discipline not to play on those meds in the first place (thank god I don't drink anymore, lol). I still could have died, but I might have made it too. Cause for hope. I don't know if I'll try no-reload again (I give you permission to laugh at me if you see me posting about a new run in the next 24 hours), but if I do I'm going to install SCS and use smarter priests and mages and all the other nasty components to make it a truly challenging task.
Next, the Planar Prison to get the Gauntlets of Ogre Power and forge Crom Faeyr. Our halfling Bounty Hunter obliterates the halfling cannibals.
Lavok buffs with PFMW. Worthless with Witch Dagger in the party.
Tolgerias survives a backstab, but he too buffs with PFMW. It's hopeless.
Cromwell won't forge Crom Faeyr for us and I discover that we don't have the scroll in our inventory. But I remember collecting it from Thaxll'ssillyia's body and assume it must have gotten eaten by a Bag of Holding or something. I console it in, forge the hammer, and head over to Bodhi's lair.
The fight with Tanova is long and complicated. To simplify things: Witch Dagger died in two hits to SCS vampire CON drain, I let Killer die to level drain, and without our best anti-mage characters on hand, we had to use magic attacks to debuff her.
I used to have trouble with Bodhi and her mage friends, but when I discovered that Manasseh and Hazzerbazzer vanished when Bodhi died, this fight became much simpler. The enemy debuffed Witch Dagger and Mayday and drained levels from Killer, but Bodhi herself has few defenses and you can take her down with brute force surprisingly quickly, obviating the need for playing wizard chess with Manasseh and Haberdasher while avoiding level drain from the Fledgling Vampires.
I just realized I typed Haberdasher instead of Hazzerbazzer. For those who are curious, his name is Hazarmaveth.
Outside, we are greeted by another drow ambush, which normally spawns on top of the Bodhi ambush. Killer once again proves instrumental, severely wounding the leader and whisking away everyone but the mage with a Special Snare.
On his own, the mage (labeled a priestess despite using arcane spells) is helpless. Wizard Slayers are crazy overpowered.
A new mage appears from the Maze effect and Witch Dagger switches targets. The leader also reappears, and apparently she's a mage, too.
Since we can't use the Cloak of the Stars and its darts +5, we have to use Fire Seeds to bypass Improved Mantle. Trash Mammal attacks the Mislead clone and another mage appears from the Maze.
Trash Mammal takes a lot of damage and has to deploy the Heal belt to survive, but the enemy is more or less broken.
Notice Haer'dalis bypassing Improved Mantle with Crom Faeyr, which strikes as +5 weapon and deals an undocumented 5 electrical damage, though I don't know if that's due to a mod.
The mages fall and the fighters return one by one, finding themselves alone and surrounded. We get another batch of overpowered mod items I've never seen before and can therefore add to our gear.
I get surprised by the Chosen of Cyric, but despite Mae's low WIS, she has the stats to circle around and eventually get Venduris to let us alone. Malchor Harpell appears, and since I'm worried that he might imprison the party if I drop Frostbrand on the ground before he speaks, I let him take it.
We return to Suldannessellar. It's time to bring Shadows of Amn to an end.
We have hit epic levels and now we have two Planetars and Use Any Item on Killer, plus an Earth Elemental Token for Witch Dagger (I'm treating the token as a shapeshift spell, so our item restrictions permit it). Crom Faeyr and Horrid Wilting greatly simplify the fights at Suldannessellar.
Mae hacks at Nizidramanii'yt during Time Stop, only to find several rounds later that Wish restoration heals enemies despite the text that says it only heals the party.
It doesn't matter. The party has excellent damage output and lots of instant-casting Heal spells from our celestials.
We kill Suneer. How could we not? We have a Wizard Slayer in the party.
We also beat Irenicus. How could we not? We have Witch Dagger.
I pick all of the good options in Hell because I don't like the evil options or turning Neutral Evil, which would have the added penalty of preventing Mae from getting the full benefits of Trash Mammal's Righteous Wrath of the Faithful. Unfortunately, one of my mods apparently makes the good Hell path change your alignment, too.
As usual, I pull back everyone in the party who does not have SI: Abjuration. Some Remove Magic spells get through, but to my surprise, we don't lose all of our buffs.
Jon-bon summons a Fallen Planetar, but it doesn't last long.
This party is just way too strong. We focus our attention on the demons while Witch Dagger uses Fire Seeds on the Slayer. Again, Wizard Slayers slay wizards.
We put down the last of the demons and the Slayer, unable to actually cast any spells, has to rely on a Contingency to stay safe.
By himself, and unable to get a single spell off the ground, Jon-bon is harmless. We break down his defenses and start hacking him apart.
He transforms, but fails to deliver his final line. No matter what we do to him, he won't trigger his death cutscene.
A reload fixes the problem. Shadows of Amn comes to an end, and I am left feeling somewhat empty. Wizard Slayers and Bounty Hunters are just... so stupidly strong. They can completely neutralize the two of the three biggest threats in the game: mages and large groups of fighters.
The gameplay was still novel in BG1 because I know so little about the game, but now that I'm into BG2 territory, everything is going to get much easier. The rest of this run will revolve around about a half-dozen major fights, and only the last one is truly worrying.
@semiticgod The hammer does 5 points of electrical damage in vanilla games
I have played the Grey clan mod a couple of times, and have some intell as well. @Wise_Grimwald has got the fight in FAI right. The fight in Beregost can be a bit easier if you plan ahead. The mod introduces a halberd +1 that dispels on hit. A level +7 barbarian or beserker with two pips in halberds, hasted and buffed can tank and dispel the mages, while the rest stay in the background and shoot the down with arrows of biting. Its simple - and I remeber it working.
According to the walktrough the mages are level 19 and 25 so no wonder that the fight is hard.. But I had always considered the halberd and not the necklace the most OP plot from the mod. Because it works so well in the mage fights on ice island and in DsotSC (as I regale others had a similar view)
Btw great stuff (as usual). But I dont hear often, that wizard slayers are crazy OP . But I guess its the player not the Kit that counts...
Illasera attacks but does not turn hostile, and neither do her cronies. The fight costs us a life but is otherwise uneventful.
We try to summon Keldorn via the Fate Spirit but it says his fate is no longer connected to mine--in fact, basically all NPCs, even those I've met or even had in the party briefly, are inaccessible.
Jon-bon catches us by surprise with Remove Magic, but Mae and Mayday were out of range at the time. Haer'dalis dies to Dragon's Breath and Bodhi chunks Killer via level drain.
Bored with the fight and unwilling to work out the kinks conventionally, I just use a Time Stop scroll to petrify Bodhi.
A familiar bug causes the enemy Fallen Planetar's Globe of Blades to do massive damage, but another Time Stop puts him down.
One more Time Stop wears out Jon-bon's weapon immunities, allowing Witch Dagger to shut him down using nonmagical darts instead of the less-reliable Fire Seeds. All he can do is throw Energy Blades, though it kills Trash Mammal.
A quick look at EEKeeper confirms that Killer's chunking was due to a bug: on beginning ToB, the SCS anti-chunking component overrode Tresset's fix, once again setting the "Disable Permanent Death" opcode to the wrong parameter. So I can reload to fix the chunking.
Except...
Remember the fight with Thaxll'ssillyia? Well, shortly after entering beating the first Pocket Plane challenge, I glanced at the screenshot after Thaxll'ssillyia's death and realized that there was no Crom Faeyr scroll on his body...
...which means that, unless I clicked on the scroll before making that screenshot and it also got eaten by a Bag of Holding, I wasn't supposed to have that scroll, because a mod must have moved it. Which means, per the terms of the run, I'm supposed to re-play all the fights during which I used Crom Faeyr. I made that rule specifically because I thought I might accidentally find myself using a forbidden item by force of habit. Even though this is a slightly different case, and even though Crom Faeyr hardly made any difference in the previous fights, illegally getting the Crom Faeyr scroll is enough for me to justify going back and beating SoA properly.
The latest save file I have before forging Crom Faeyr puts me shortly into Chapter 6, right after the Underdark. Back to Shadows of Amn!
The first seal guardians I dealt with were the rilmani. I procted my entire party from cold damage for this fight. The aurumach rilmani wasted his timestop, doing nothing for the entire time - everyone was simply too far away:
Meanwhile, my party and a couple of summons started taking out the ferrumach rilmani one by one, and I soon realized that, despite their ToB extra levels, their dispel magic wasn't strong enough to remove my buffs, making this a rather simple fight:
Finally, I summoned a couple of spirit animals to kill the aurumach rilmani, as they hit with +6 weapons, and I was too lazy to switch everyone to weapons with higher enchantment levels:
For the next seal (Azamantes and the flaming skulls), I also prepared a full 3 AHW chain contingency, just to see if it would deal significant damage on LoB. It really didn't, but when I actually killed the first flaming skull with mostly melee attacks, I had to be reminded the hard way that they explode with a skull trap upon death:
I retreated with most of the party, letting the planetar deal with Azamantes and drinking some healing potions. The lich managed to imprison my celestial ally, so after his timestop ended, I decided to go oldschool SoA and just throw summon after summon at him, draining him of his spells - eventually, he was just a helpless target:
Now, for the final and most interesting seal: My party moved to the right before starting the battle, trying to get away from the dangerous succubus and the hive mother (don't want any anti-magic rays to hit me). Some initial success was achieved by entangling the archer via Sword of Mask (thanks, simulacrum) and blinding the fighter with a word of power:
Aikar provided additional control with smite, mostly isolating the succubus - our first target to kill:
The hive mother, unaffected by any of my crowd control, caught up to my party, and Nahema used her own smite to kick her away (she used anti-magic ray on Imoen, but I was able to renew her buffs after a short while). Thus, the fighter and the archer, the only ones not affected by smite, were isolated. Anomen used implosion and Xei Win Toh was defeated:
The Huntress quickly shared her fate (as did the cleric), and while the returned hive mother tried to throw some spells at Arbogast, the shield of the archons proved superior. The party took out the Marilith, and Aikar tried out his newly-acquired Ravager +6 to see if we could end this battle sooner rather than later - we could:
I used Helm's scroll and made my way back to the pocket plane to fight the Ravager. My mordy swords and planetar were in the perfect position to keep all the bone blades busy, allowing my party an easy time at casting their spells - and my initial plan was to speed things up with harm:
While I had fired five lower resistance spells at the ravager via spell triggers, Anomen, who hit with harm (unlike Arbogast, who managed to miss), ran into magic resistance. Still, I was able to do some serious damage when I started spamming HLAs and Imoen cast most of her spellbook with improved alacrity:
Arbogast's third harm attempt finally managed to succeed - if the combat log is to believed, he actually hit the Ravager with a 5 - that sounds strange.
And now, we only have the throne to worry about. I will try to finish this run on wednesday - one way or the other.
Back to Chapter 6 to win the fights I won with Crom Faeyr erroneously in my inventory. This time around, I pick Keldorn over Haer'dalis, because Item Upgrade can get me a +5 version of his sword that dispels magic on hit, just like Carsomyr, but unlike Carsomyr, is not nerfed by SCS so that the dispel effect offers a save. It also silences the target for 2 rounds with no save, which just seems excessive, but whatever.
I don't like taking Keldorn away from his family, so once I reunite him with his wife and estranged children, I use CTRL-T to rapidly advance time. I let him spend a whole month with his family before I ask him to rejoin the party.
We still need to collect some materials for item crafting, which means a visit to the Planar Sphere. Killer takes care of our numerous enemies on the way.
As for Tolgerias, we get lucky with a Spook and Blindness Minor Sequencer, which prevents him from speaking to us and activating his defenses. His mage friend goes down to a Sunfire Spell Trigger and we finish off Tolgerias himself with ranged attacks.
Grabbing an extra demon heart nets us the Hallowed Redeemer +5.
The fight with the drow in the Graveyard District goes about the same as before, except Killer manages to kill the leader early thanks to Quietus, the Item Upgrades dagger that grants +1 to backstab multiplier.
The fight with Tanova starts out better because Trash Mammal opens with Holy Word, imposing guaranteed spell failure on the vampire, but when I don't apply enough pressure on the other vampires, we lose three characters to level drain and CON drain and have to rest before finishing off Tanova--I failed to appreciate that the primary threat to our party was not the mage, but the fighters. There's no way to cure CON drain, and fighters have no way to prevent it, either.
As for Bodhi, I figured that our best chance was to wipe out Bodhi early using triggers and sequencers.
Notice Witch Dagger being extremely dead. I deemed her disposable because the mages vanish when Bodhi does, and because there was precious little chance of keeping her alive when CON drain could kill her in two hits anyway. Also notice Keldorn having the Berserker rage icon--an item upgrade mod of some sort lets Thalantyr let the Cursed Berserking Sword +3 cast Enrage once per day, and we have three copies of the sword.
Bodhi doesn't go down quite as fast I hoped since only Mae can attack her in melee without dying of CON drain, but by having Killer slip into a nearby chamber and toss a Special Snare into the main room, we can Maze the vampire mages and keep them from causing trouble while we wrestle with Bodhi.
The mages come back soon due to their high INT, but a level 24+ thief has 6 Maze traps a day. Killer keeps them at bay until Bodhi goes down.
It would probably be most practical to just throw out the Maze traps from the south at the start of the fight. Bodhi should be immune to Maze, at least until she casts Heal on herself, which means the trap will leave Bodhi completely alone.
As long as we're back in SoA, we may as well try out some mod quests I missed earlier. I stop by Innershade, but I don't pay much attention to the plot and the fights aren't too complicated, largely because of Witch Dagger's absurd item-based MR.
There's not much else to say. We move on to another area and Killer discovers a petrification trap while she's scouting around.
I hurry over to un-petrify her and bring her back into the party, since my rules treat petrification-related chunking as permanent, and I don't want to lose one of our star players. But then, just as Mayday arrives to check out the situation, Killer just... vanishes.
Mae hurries over with a blue Stone to Flesh scroll and Killer reappears, only to vanish before I can actually cure her.
Then Killer stays vanished. I simply can't see her. Even divination magic won't reveal her.
I run around and around and around Killer's fallen gear, hoping she'll show up, and for a moment, I'm not sure she'll ever turn up. Finally she reappears and I pause the game to make sure we can target her with a Stone to Flesh scroll. I give her the Boots of Boredom to make sure she doesn't get petrified again.
I'm very upset by these traps. Not only do they trigger once every second, they're actually ground triggers, not traps, which means it's totally impossible to see them without CTRL-4. Even the Find Traps spell cannot reveal them.
We talk to a druid who belatedly warns us about the petrification traps and we get a club that grants +1 APR--the first speed weapon I've ever seen that's usable by clerics.
We also get a club that's supposed to be used on the boss of this quest, the White Queen. Apparently she and her minions are obsessed with the color white. I know folks like that.
The White Queen's lair is crawling with mages, but we don't even need Wizard Slayer spell failure to get past them. We're so high-level at this point that the mages can't actually dispel our buffs, despite multiple attempts.
Suffice to say, these fights aren't too interesting. The loot has a couple of, um... weird-sounding weapons, one of which is apparently named after a fictional serial killer.
We reach the White Queen, a fighter accompanied by golems who cast Cone of Cold. Mae is safe due to her typical pre-buffs, but the rest of the party suffers.
I hack away at the White Queen for quite some time, watching her regenerate over and over every time I bring her to Near Death, until I remember the druid gave us a club to use against her. We hit her once with the club and her MINHP1 item goes away.
She told us the Old Druid was actually a bad guy for reasons I don't remember, so we fight him outside. But he's just a druid, which means...
...yeah. I like druids, but their defenses just aren't that special.
I want to get back to ToB, and brute force wins us every fight in Suldannessellar. Traps simplify the already-easy fight with Irenicus.
This time, he doesn't bounce back from the damage.
The Slayer begins casting Time Stop, but surprisingly enough, we didn't even need Fire Seeds to disrupt it: a lucky vorpal strike on a Balor creates a posthumous explosion that gets past the Slayer's defenses.
I've done this fight before with the same party and just want to get through it. I didn't rely on Time Stop before, but I do this time, if only to get rid of the demons and force the Slayer's PFMW to expire.
When another PFMW pops up via Contingency, Witch Dagger switches to Fire Seeds and we use magic attacks while we wait.
We break through its defenses and, to my surprise, the Slayer actually suffers from moral failure of all things.
We tear him apart and enter ToB for the second time, this time for real.
@semiticgod I think that, the way you've been thrashing the game lately, you're due to have a go at a solo run. It might be the only way for you to find some kind of challenge in this game.
Perhaps without pause. While being blinded. And with no sound. Maybe then you'd have a challenge again...
P.S. What happened to your War Hulk kit ? We've rarely seen it in this thread...
@Arctodus: The War Hulk kit is fun but it's not very complex. I like the Seducer kit because it's just so incredibly weird.
I've been leery of solo runs. I've gotten so accustomed to keeping Charname's aura clear that it feels like a solo run would feel extremely pressured, and the only class I'm interested in that hasn't been done with SCS and Ascension is a cleric/illusionist, and I'm not liking my prospects against Melissan with 4 maximum APR and one spell or item per round. I see one viable path and that's it.
1. Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power for instant-cast SI: Abjuration 2. Shield of Reflection for Illasera's arrows and Fallen Solar arrows 3. Pre-cast Teleport Fields to avoid attacks without relying on a PFMW contingency that might trigger too late 4. Protection from Magic scroll on Abazigal on round 1 to avoid a fatal Time Stop. 5. Protection from Magic scroll on Sendai to block Heal spells. 6. Bring Gromnir, Illasera, Sendai, and Abazigal to Near Death by spamming summoning spells, and maybe Improved Alacrity, a very long and dicey prospect. 7. Control Circlet on Sarevok. 8. Kill Yaga-Shura. 9. Pre-cast Focus, alternating with PFMW, and kite everyone forever.
But think about it. Winning that fight depends on a narrow subset of items and spells. And while you can beat the game with virtually any class (though a Transmuter might fail against Ascension Melissan), if you go without a certain subset of items... things seem different.
When it comes to no-reload runs with SCS and Ascension--successful runs--we're no longer playing a game of wizards and druids and thieves and clerics and warriors and bards.
We're playing a game of Robes of Vecna.
We're playing a game of Arrows of Dispelling.
We're playing a game of Shields of Reflection.
We're playing a game of Amulets of Power and Potions of Clarity and Wands of Fire and Rings of Gaxx and Slings of Everard and scrolls of Protection from Undead.
It's the same game. The game of items. But if I throw them all away, I'm left with the game of spells. The game of PFMW and SI: Abjuration and Hardiness and GWW and Insect Plague and Chaotic Commands and Protection from Fire. And those things are even more mandatory than the items; there's no spell that can replace a PFMW or Hardiness spell the way Celestial Fury can replace the Flail of Ages.
It's not like the game of items and spells is simple. It's massively complicated. But when I think about a solo run with no other gimmicks, all I see is myself using the same strategies harder. Even a typical poverty run, by itself, just seems like playing the game of spells instead of the game of items, trying to squeeze more power out of the normal spells rather than actually using any new strategies. It's the same problem I have with LoB mode. It shifts the balance in favor of summoning spells and multi-classed fighters, but I want more than a balance shift.
I could try mod items instead. But there are just so many overpowered ones and so many underpowered ones, and it's not like you can draw a clear line in the sand where one item is fun and interesting while another item is simply reductive. And mod spells are extremely scarce. And both mod items and mod spells are extremely offensive-oriented; you'd be hard-pressed to find any decent defensive options.
I could try Item Revisions and Spell Revisions again, but they're so properly balanced, and the exploits I find are bound to get patched sooner or later. I could try mod quests, but so far they've been so broken. I could try Improved Anvil, but that's completely at odds with the concept of novel gameplay.
A poverty run featuring a Seducer and no proper spellcasters would solve both the item problem and the spell problem. Collecting an army of non-leveling followers--whom I cannot raise from the dead and therefore must continually replace--means that my party's capabilities will vary constantly, and so I'll need to improvise every step of the way, relying entirely on strategies I've never tried before.
Comments
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913526/#Comment_913526
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913597/#Comment_913597
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913667/#Comment_913667
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913679/#Comment_913679
After a failed parley I used some potions and set some summons up ready for an attack. The ogres and trolls were confronted with archers and me firing detonation arrows and were beaten back. The mages were faced with wizard slayers and were no problem with more detonation and dispelling arrows thrown into the mix. The third lot of enemies were faced with warmages as well as more detonation arrows. The myconids unsummoned early in the fight, but another potion of firebreath proved deadly to the remaining enemies. The final crusaders then found themselves being regularly backstabbed by coalition spies.
Moving on to the Castle for the first time in SP I quickly found Ashatiel and challenged her to a duel. With missile AC of -28 I wanted to keep things at range and it didn't take long to take her down (the game then immediately went into a cut-scene which prevented a screen-shot being taken).
Inside the Castle I eventually managed to find my way downstairs to confront Caelar and then chased her into the abyss. Everything seemed to be moving very slowly - at first I thought that was lag associated with the siege before realising I hadn't reset the game to 60 fps after playing MP yesterday (like I said to @semiticgod it was still a bit early for me). With that done, the initial demons fell quickly on the way to Thrix. I had forgotten that the demons he summons include a hamatula with a fire shield type effect - resulting in me doing a lot of damage to myself while being surrounded by demons. A potion of invisibility was used to get out of that trap while regeneration pushed HPs back up before thrown axes saw the end of Thrix.
I eventually managed to work out how to activate the lift in the next room and buffed up while going up in that. In the MP games I've played Caelar has fought against Belhifet (though not as one of the party) and I was aiming to do that - but obviously didn't know the correct dialogue route and Caelar joined with the devil. At least though in compensation for that Hephernaan was killed in the cut-scene.
At the start of the fight I nipped in to attack Belhifet and dealt him a smashing blow - only to see it bounce off as I'd forgotten he requires +3 weapons to hit. After a bit of running round exploding arrows killed the initial demons, but Caelar just used healing potions to keep going. Her blackguard poison bypassed the green scroll protection I had, so most of the time I nipped in and out just attacking Belhifet. However, the lack of any strength damage with the void hammer meant slow progress with killing the devil and I decided to switch tactics and attack Caelar first. Magic resistance meant firebreath was no good, but she eventually ran out of healing and invisibility potions.
Looking through my bag for options to make things easier with Belhifet I decided to give stone golems a chance. It appeared that you could only summon one of those at once though and I don't think any of them ever rolled a critical hit, so I don't know if they could actually hit him anyway. Despite lack of proficiency in short swords, strength bonus meant I actually had a better THAC0 with the fractal blade than the void hammer, though APR was 2 rather than 3. Together with the greater damage per hit that seemed the former seemed the better option. It also gave a small potential to grow mirror images and dispel Belhifet's improved invisibility
I wore Belhifet down to badly injured at one stage, but after a while of not summoning any new demons he started doing so with increasing frequency and the absorb healths from the cornugons were proving painful. However, attacking the demons gave Belhifet the chance to regenerate so I concluded it was a mug's game to play with his summons. Instead, I dug in my potion case for potions of magic protection before concentrating once more on the main 'man' - and finally:
I still had to find my way through the anti-climactic epilogue, but managed to do so without being exploded by a slime or held by a carrion crawler and eventually the game came to an end. That's the first time I've completed SoD in single player, so let's see if I can make that count and go on through BG2 ...
Dwarven defender L10, 125 HPs, 928 kills
Tynea, halfling Cleric (Gate70)
Brave, human Skald (Grond0)
Tynea again fails to write anything down about her adventures. She can remember the first action of the day was to speak to Ardrouine again - and found her still begging for help. We've saved your son already, least you could do is say thank you.
C:GetGlobal("WorgsDead","GLOBAL") returns 2 instead of 3. We might have killed two at the same time.So off we go. We pick up Rufie for a few seconds then treat Zal and Vax to a Command Command Hold combo from which they fail to recover.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913526/#Comment_913526
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913597/#Comment_913597
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913667/#Comment_913667
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913679/#Comment_913679
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913841/#Comment_913841
Well it's so far so good, with a very clean start to BG2. In theory everything except the final few ToB battles should be pretty straight-forward, but theory is one thing and practice another ...
After using a shield for virtually all of BG1 and SoD I started the dungeon by dual-wielding. The use of Bhaal horror there made sure that nothing nasty would happen where there was even a hint of possible danger, while a firebreath potion ensured that Ulvaryl wouldn't get away.
Arriving at the Promenade I immediately invested in some reputation at the Temple before clearing the circus. After reporting to Gaelan Bayle I got to level 11 on the way to tackle the Beastmaster.
With reputation at 19 I decided to do the Fallen Paladins next to maximise that. For the fight with them I mainly used hit and run tactics, though I did exchange a few blows with Anarg in normal melee.
Bernard also supplied Azuredge and that was put to use in the Promenade when I saw Hareishan attacking some thieves. I was just too slow to save any of the thieves, but just in time to take revenge for them
Arriving at Watcher's Keep I bought the potion case to aid inventory management. Inside I quickly got up to level 12 thanks to more Azuredging.
Back in the City the final action of the session was obtaining a suit of full plate from Officer Dirth.
Dwarven defender L12, 136 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 237 kills (+928 kills in BG1)
Night in the Woods: Mae in Shadows of Amn
Part 13https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909103/#Comment_909103
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909200/#Comment_909200
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909567/#Comment_909567
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909861/#Comment_909861
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911181/#Comment_911181
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911202/#Comment_911202
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912037/#Comment_912037
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912042/#Comment_912042
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912054/#Comment_912054
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912697/#Comment_912697
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913059/#Comment_913059
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913800/#Comment_913800
Deeper in Spellhold, Mayday gains a level and chooses a new spell: Vestcakes Floating Curse (what a weird name), a very strange spell that uses the Ice Storm projectile, which strikes 4 times, and deals lingering electrical damage, about 100 in all, that bypasses spell protections and magic resistance and offers no saving throw. It's no good against liches, since undead are immune to electricity for some reason, but it could be really useful in lots of places because it bypasses so many defenses.
Jon-bon is no trouble, really. Fire Seeds strike as +6 weapons and can therefore bypass Irenicus' Improved Mantle with a direct hit, and Jon-bon comes with no resistance against cold damage. That's what Cone of Cold is for.
Irenicus doesn't put up much of a fight, and our clones' defenses prove insufficient. We actually have far more anti-mage options than we really need. Witch Dagger can apply spell failure with Fire Seeds or nonmagical darts, we have a staff that casts a version of Insect Plague that bypasses SCS Fire Shields, and on top of that we have Vestcakes Floating Curse and Cone of Cold, though Cone of Cold isn't quite as strong when we don't have the Robe of Vecna or Amulet of Power to make sure the target doesn't move out of the way before the spell finishes casting.
On to City Sushi! The Priestess of Sekolah just north of King Ixilthetocal buys stuff at the best prices in the game, so I've been saving up our items just so we can sell them all off to her. Putting aside all the crazy mod items we've got, we also have lots of vanilla items we can't use and therefore can pawn off. We get 150,000 gold from selling potions, 79,000 from selling ammunition, and 509,000 from selling other gear. We have basically nothing to spend it on, but it's nice to know that we never have to even think about money again.
Just for fun I decide to see how much damage Killer can do in one hit. Emotion: Courage gives +3 to damage instead of Emotion: Hope's +2 (though Hope is much better because of the save bonuses) and also stacks, so I cast as many Emotion: Courage spells as I possibly could and have Killer backstab Trash Mammal.
City Sushi is uneventful. I close it out with more backstabs.
Once again, we have to deal with an overpowered drow ambush right after entering the Underdark. We sneak past them while invisible but Witch Dagger has to break invisibility to make sure the rest of the party is safe. The drow mage's defenses activate but the spell failure lingers.
Unfortunately, the local air elementals decide to join the fray, and one of my mods makes them far, far stronger. Witch Dagger focuses on holding down the mage while the rest of the party bolsters their defenses.
Uncertain about the future of this fight because we entered it completely unprepared (we would have been able to keep the party out of sight if we only had Potions of Invisibility), Witch Dagger uses the Insect Plague staff on the drow. It seems to be working.
To solidify our advantage, Mayday deploys Vestcakes Floating Curse.
While the mages are disabled, we focus on the fighters, who have no special tricks to pull. Once they're down, the mages only manage to get a Sunfire spell off the ground before we put them down.
The improved elementals nearby deal massive damage due to spamming Earthquakes and so forth, but Trash Mammal stays afloat using our Heal belt. We use the same tactics, Fire Seeds, nonmagical darts, and Vestcakes Floating Curse, against the vanilla drow ambush and stun-lock the Balor using Thunderslap.
Seven traps and a well-buffed party crush the Death Knights before they get a chance to harm us.
We deploy Vestcakes Floating Curse against the drow at the Underdark exit using a Project Image clone, but once again I fail to protect my mages from the Glabrezu's PW: Stun.
But the drow are doomed and the Glabrezus can be easily stun-locked.
There's an entrance to a mod area around here. I avoided it in my previous runs, but now I'm going to poke around.
It does not look good.
But the three liches are decoys with no defenses, and once we kill them, the real lich appears. Witch Dagger dutifully throws her Fire Seeds at Killer to get past the lich's PFMW.
Witch Dagger keeps him from casting any spells, but I notice something odd. Even when Killer reveals the lich using Detect Illusions, I still can't target him.
He's... untouchable. Like he has the protection from critter type opcode that makes him untargetable by any of my characters. True Seeing doesn't help, either. All I can do is just chase him around and watch him fail to cast any spells due to the lingering spell failure.
I discover that our skeletons can attack him, but that just prompts a Spell Trigger that leaves him invulnerable.
I refresh the spell failure with Fire Seeds. We'll have to wait out his PFMW so the skeletons can hit him again.
Then I discover that our party can attack him if I simply turn on party AI.
It seems that the lich wanted to see the surface world, so we're supposed to bring his phylactery out of the Underdark. Why not?
To Ust Natha! Last time, Na'ashtar killed himself and most of his party with Vestcakes Floating Curse due to some coding error, but this time, he falls to Killer's traps, set well in advance of beginning the Ust Natha questline.
I'm not familiar with the Qilue fight since I normally talk my way out of doing it, so I play things safe and leave as soon as I kill her, avoiding the well-defended mages. It's not hard; Qilue is not a mage.
I hate Taso Kala with a passion, but for the first time in a long time, I decide to actually fight the Ghaunadaur priests. Though "fight" is something of a misnomer in this case.
On the way back to Adalon after retrieving her eggs, a mind flayer appears, and this time I talk to him instead of backstabbing him. Apparently this just teleports you to the mind flayer city.
So, now we have to fight our way out of the city without properly preparing for mind flayer fights.
Or we could just use Teleport to escape, probably. But I don't want to lock myself out of this questline by screwing with the sequence. Unfortunately, Witch Dagger and Trash Mammal, our only sources of Chaotic Commands, have extremely low INT and will die in two hits. I have to draw them away from the fight whenever they get hit even once--only intensive micromanagement and careful positioning keeps them alive.
Mae has Enrage to block stun effects, but unlike a Barbarian's rage, a Berserker's rage has a cooldown period during which you can't reactivate it, which means we need Chaotic Commands to keep her safe when Enrage runs out.
We can't use Control Circlets, which means we need to either use Slayer form or lure a mind flayer into the right spot in order to open doors. I don't like using Slayer form, so I just hug the walls to get the mind flayers to open the way.
We cast Entropy Shield to force the mind flayers to roll 20s to hit Trash Mammal and Witch Dagger, but the final fight is very brief.
We're not done with psionic critters. Next up is the silver dragon blood quest. Adalon gives us one day to kill the Aboleth.
I set traps in advance of this fight, but it seems the Aboleth has reinforcements. The moment its guards die, more drow appear on the bodies of their predecessors.
The Aboleth uses a Cause Serious Wounds ray on us and a Dispel Magic effects fails due to good luck on our part. Witch Dagger focuses on the mages while the rest of the party tackles the fighters.
Mayday has no Spell Shield and the Aboleth nails her with an Anti-Magic Ray (don't know why a psionic critter is using beholder rays, but whatever). She scrounges up a Mislead scroll to stay alive and we use some other scrolls to weaken the drow.
The enemy crumples and the Aboleth alerts the city of our presence before it dies, forcing us to flee. I have no interest in fighting the Siege of Ust Natha again.
Remember when we totally murdered Drizzt in cold blood with a Thunderslap spell? Well, Drizzy doesn't remember.
We recharge some low-end wands and spend a tiny fraction of our money supply on Cromwell, who uses a Control Circlet to forge an upgraded +5 Lilarcor that grants immunity to INT drain, plus a stronger version of the Helm of Charm Protection. Nothing game-changing, but it's not like we have anything better to spend our money on.
I decide to revisit some Chapter 2 quests. They're not that hard after the Underdark.
I want to take down Firkraag without using the Sorcerer's Staff to petrify him. Unfortunately for Edwin, we turn Firkraag hostile just a couple seconds too early, which means Edwin's SI: Abjuration spell didn't come out in time to save him.
Firkraag Breaches Witch Dagger and wounds Trash Mammal, forcing them to retreat to restore their buffs. Mae holds the fort in their place.
I foolishly neglect their fire resistance, which almost ends Witch Dagger's life, but our priests survive long enough to heal themselves. Again, Mae keeps Firkraag away from our more vulnerable party members.
Notice Mayday using spell damage. Spell damage is a bad way to deal with dragons in SCS, but it's the best use of her time regardless.
Trash Mammal uses Armor Melt to penalize Firkraag's AC, making it easier for Mae to land hits (dual-classed fighter/mages seldom have strong enough THAC0 to hit major bosses reliably) and we proceed as normal once our party members are properly buffed.
Firkraag just isn't strong enough to get through Mae's defenses, and he applies far too little pressure to our other party members. The dragon goes down.
Berserker/Mages are all but impossible to kill.
Previous posts:
BG1 end: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/904835/#Comment_904835
SoD start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/904866/#Comment_904866
SoD end: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/906579/#Comment_906579
BG2 start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/906698/#Comment_906698
BG2 end: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909375/#Comment_909375
ToB start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909665/#Comment_909665
Part IXL: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/910474/#Comment_910474
Part L: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911556/#Comment_911556
Part LI: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912871/#Comment_912871
Part LII: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912977/#Comment_912977
Part LIII: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913802/#Comment_913802
Watcher's Keep level 4: The party quickly cleared out the illithid lair, backed up by a planetar protected with cc:
The githyanki didn't provide much of a challenge either - once again, true sight and some summons were helpful:
Aikar took down the demi-lich using protection from magic and Daystar:
I prepared for Saladrex by adding protection from fire to my usual buffs. I also added a planetar, elemental prince and some magical swords to distract the dragon. The fight started out well, but after one or two rounds, Saladrex used remove magic, targetting Aikar, just as Mazzy/Simmy started using Sling or Arvoreen + GWWs to really get some damage going. The remove magic also hit Imoen and Arbogast, so I paused to look through my bags of holding, trying to get fire resistance as high as possible for my now unbuffed party members.
I got everyone to at least 70 fr with items and had them drink some of the few fire protection potions I still had left as soon as their auras were clear. Saladrex didn't use his breath weapon before everyone was back at 100 fire resistance, and I was able to get Imoen started at casting resist fear:
However, while the fight had been going on, I didn't realize that Saladrex had managed to get through Nahema's stoneskins, and that my fighter/illusionist was (for some reason) fighting the dragon in melee range with her bow equipped. When the dragon hit her (once with wing bufet, once with a normal attack) she almost died:
Luckily, she was able to run away, while Saladrex focused his attention on Imoen, who had no stoneskins going because she had to use her aura for more important buffs. One hit was almost fatal, but it triggered her chain contingency, which included stoneskin and mirror image, so she was safe for now - and shortly after that, Mazzy finally managed to kill the dragon:
The only thing left to do on this level was killing Rock and Garock - rather easy compared to the dragon battle:
In level 5, I started by clearing the golem group to the north-east with the help of some mordy swords:
The north-western riddle, the imp riddle and the orc army were quickly dealt with, and it was time for another dragon battle - here, I made a huge mistake in assuming (or rather, falsely remembering) that this dragon would be using an acid breath weapon, so I buffed with protection from acid. Things started out great, as he used his remove magic on my summons before my party was even close enough to get affected:
However, the rude awakening was quickly to follow: He used his breath weapon, dealing massive damage to some of my party (mostly Mazzy and her simulacrum) and killing Imoen instantly - I was lucky she didn't get chunked here:
All right, so his breath weapon does poison damage. Not good. Well, kind of. Arbogast is immune by virtue of being a high level druid, Aikar has Vongoethe's ring, Nahema is wearing the Ring of Gaxx. I forgot about the poison immunity necklace from the druid grove, which would've allowed me to protect a fourth party member, so it remained in one of my gem bags. I think these are the only ways to protect against poison breath, as I know that protection from poison scrolls don't actually work. Anyway, I used a RoR charge to heal Mazzy, and Anomen drank a healing potion:
After his initial success with the breath weapon, the dragon failed to do anything of note during his very short remaining lifespan:
The planetar picked up Imoen, and Arbogast navigated the spirit warrior maze using the N/E/N/E/N/W/W combination (I had previously created a test game to console a character to WK level 5 and test this one, as I didn't want to throw away this run to things outside of my control - this seems to be a fairly reliable method, provided interaction is limited to picking up and using the gibberling scroll).
Next time, we will try to take down the seal guardians.
Enuhal
Speaking of: I faced my fears and went into the next level of Durlag's. I played a disciplined game and cleared out the whole level fairly easily (using Vicky's magic resistance to tank spells and deal with the cloud kill and sleeping gas those doppelgangers use). However, tragedy struck on the very last fight when I took on those Dwarven Doomguards. I always underestimate how tough they are. They went right through my summons and started chewing up my party. Our wands of frost and flame-strike just weren't doing enough damage. Why the heck are they worth only 2000 exp. a piece??? In the panic my discipline broke down and I lost track of my necromancer just long enough for her to be killed, but at least I split up the Doomguards and used Vicky with the boots of speed to lead them into an unused corridor. So, my necromancer is dead, but not permanently so. I've scooped up her gear and I'm going to leave Durlag's Tower to get her resurrected. There are three Doomguards left to come back for. Those bastards!
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913526/#Comment_913526
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913597/#Comment_913597
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913667/#Comment_913667
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913679/#Comment_913679
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913841/#Comment_913841
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913922/#Comment_913922
Progress was comfortable doing tasks in the Docks, with a nice saving throw and APR bonus gained from getting to level 13 while working for Mae'Var.
After killing Prebek
Sir Sarles turned his nose up at some illithium alloy and I returned a talisman to the Temple of Lathander before heading for the Graveyard. Clearing the upper tombs there got me to level 15, gaining further improvement in saving throws and physical resistance.
With no pantaloons at stake a kidnap victim found herself free without any need to pay a ransom. While in the Bridge District I decided to clean up the rest of the area. The mage with Captain Dennis managed to buff despite being webbed which prolonged that conflict - though not enough to save them.
DuHM now provided enough strength without the use of any potions to do the liches, so I went to open those up. In doing that I also cleared a way through the Temple sewers and picked up a new cloak.
Building on that improvement I decided it was time to pay Gaelan Bayle and pick up a +2 ring of protection. That takes unbuffed saving throw vs spells down to -3 and all other saves negative. Along with high physical resistance and regeneration that really only leaves level drain as a potential weakness at the moment - so patching that will be the next task.
Dwarven defender L16, 148 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 452 kills (+928 kills in BG1)
Diary of Fergus Firehair
I made my way to the FAI where I killed some hobgoblins to retrieve Joia's ring. Heading north I helped a widow against a zombie who was pestering her and then helped Tenya against Sonner. She then joined my party and is amazingly powerful for one so small. We then killed an ankheg with the help of a summoned skeleton, command, and our +1 weapons.(No rigid thinking from Tenya this time. Perhaps it didn't work due to me having a fit of rage.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913526/#Comment_913526
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913597/#Comment_913597
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913667/#Comment_913667
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913679/#Comment_913679
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913841/#Comment_913841
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913922/#Comment_913922
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913954/#Comment_913954
I quickly ran through Aran Linvail's tasks, getting up to level 17 in the process.
I was thinking that the iMoD would allow clearing the rest of the vampires to be easy, but in fact I hit an immediate problem against Tanova. She resisted a couple of attacks with Azuredge and chased after me. As she was faster than me I would have needed to use a potion of speed to keep away, but didn't think that was necessary - I hadn't remembered her as casting maze, so didn't particularly try and keep out of touch range. That proved fatal and it was small comfort that I took Tanova with me ...
Condolences for your Dwarven defender, Grond0. What class is next up the line for you?
Previous run
Originally the Crew were rolled in BGT, but were transposed into EE for my previous run with them. This time I've adjusted their starting proficiencies slightly. The main changes are to make them legal for BGEE in having no more than two pips in a starting proficiency and to swap a proficiency for darts to daggers as the latter is preferable in the EE as a result of strength bonus being applied to damage. This run is in my SCS/Ascension installation using Core difficulty.
After leaving Candlekeep the Crew stopped off in High Hedge to kill a few skeletons for their throwing daggers before moving on to Beregost. Algernon lost his cloak (and his life) there, before there was an early first casualty for the Crew - who were nearly all unarmored when running into a full bandit ambush.
At the FAI some hobgoblins provided everyone with basic armor and a helmet before they continued north. Carlo picked up their first magical weapon with a flail that Sonner no longer needed before they handed a bowl back to Tenya - who was fortunate to survive when disappearing as an arrow was about to kill her.
The roads seemed to be dangerous at the moment with more bandits on the way back to the FAI, but everyone survived again and their reputation started its climb back by returning Joia's ring. Tarnesh failed to buff in time to survive the hail of missiles at him there.
Back in Beregost the Crew acquired their first metal bit of armor by shooting down Karlat.
Vito - L2, 25 HPs, 19 kills, 1 death, ** scimitar / ** sling
Bugsy - L2, 28 HPs, 17 kills, 0 deaths, ** katana / ** dagger
Baby Face - L2, 24 HPs, 9 kills, 0 deaths, ** 2-handed sword / ** crossbow
Carlo - L2, 27 HPs, 8 kills, 0 deaths, ** flail / ** shortbow
Mad Dog - L2, 28 HPs, 12 kills, 0 deaths, ** axe / ** dual wielding
Al (PC) - L2, 26 HPs, 22 kills ** quarterstaff / ** longbow
Night in the Woods: Mae in Shadows of Amn
Part 14https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909103/#Comment_909103
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909200/#Comment_909200
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909567/#Comment_909567
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909861/#Comment_909861
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911181/#Comment_911181
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911202/#Comment_911202
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912037/#Comment_912037
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912042/#Comment_912042
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912054/#Comment_912054
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912697/#Comment_912697
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913059/#Comment_913059
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913800/#Comment_913800
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913925/#Comment_913925
To be perfectly honest, this run has been kind of boring for a very long time now. I thought the item restrictions would be absolutely crippling, but with the mod items I haven't yet used, I was still able to properly equip the party, to the extent where we're honestly not that much weaker than we'd be if we simply swore off mod items and let ourselves use all the normal vanilla and EE items instead--and that's only because I've been letting some of our most powerful items sit in the Bag of Holding, unused. If we pushed our mod items to the limit, our gear would be above-average in quality.
On top of that, I picked the most overpowered party I could think of, and while our party could certainly be improved upon (now that I know how unimportant Trash Mammal and Mayday were, relatively speaking), merely having a Wizard Slayer/Druid and a Bounty Hunter in the party with a Berserker/Mage as Charname has been enough to neutralize the biggest threats we might face.
I don't know how to kill my party anymore. We don't have any holes in our defenses for me to patch.
The mind flayers in the Alhoon lair kill Witch Dagger with a couple of lucky criticals and the fight gets ugly, but Killer turns the tables by using her traps mid-combat courtesy of a PW: Blind spell from Edwin.
Why are we fighting these guys in the first place? Well, we want the Hammer of Thunderbolts to forge Crom Faeyr.
Nope. I have not in fact used Crom Faeyr in my previous playthroughs; I never had a fighter who specialized in hammers that would have made it worth it to lose the Girdle of Frost Giant Strength. Crom Faeyr is one of the few BG2 items that's still allowed in this run.
Anyhoo, the Alhoon has all the powers of a normal mind flayer combined with lich immunities, mage spells, and extremely low THAC0, enough to make AC completely unreliable unless we stacked Potions of Absorption (which we can't due to our item restrictions) to grant +10 AC vs. crushing attacks like a mind flayer's attack. He also has Improved Alacrity. So we really have to take this guy seriously. We start by baiting his Absolute Immunity spell by sending out a dryad.
The Alhoon is a devastating threat and we have no Control Circlets we could use to charm it. We let the Alhoon summon its demons and send out some more summons to handle the dangerous early rounds.
A triple Remove Magic Spell Sequencer takes down half the party's buffs, but Mae rushes ahead with Lilarcor +5 to distract the Alhoon and blocks the Alhoon from reaching the rest of the party.
The Alhoon, however, can teleport. But as it hops over to the rest of the party and triggers Killer's pre-set traps, we discover that the Alhoon, despite being a lich, is not immune to poison damage!
With three mages in the party, we don't even need Witch Dagger's Fire Seeds or the Insect Plague staff or whatever other anti-mage capabilities we have that I don't even remember. We break down the Alhoon's defenses with magic attacks, only to find that the Alhoon has run out of PFMW anyway. Calamari.
We still need the Gauntlets of Ogre Power to forge Crom Faeyr, which means a stop by the Planar Sphere. But first... I'm tired of Edwin. I want somebody more interesting. Enter Haer'dalis!
I have no patience for fighting mid-level enemies when we're inches away from epic levels. I speed through Mekrath's dungeon using Emotion: Hope stacking.
The fight with the Coiled Cabal in the Planar Prison is chaotic as always, but Witch Dagger applies enough spell failure to make it much simpler than normal. As for the Warden, Witch Dagger throws Fire Seeds at the Yuan-ti Mages and then nonmagical darts at the Warden himself, who is buffed with PFMW but not Protection from Normal Missiles (which, to be honest, any enemy mage with PFMW should be).
We now have Haer'dalis! I wanted to get his upgraded swords, which I've never actually used before, so I'll have a stat drain kill option for ToB, should the need arise. But first, we need Arbane's Sword and Ilbratha, and while I have the former in Thalantyr's Bag of Holding, Ilbratha is nowhere in sight.
I scour Athkatla and the surrounding areas for whatever merchant I might have sold it to, only to realize that I sold it off to the Priestess of Sekolah. Who is in the now-inaccessible City of Caverns and also is hostile.
But it seems that Teleport can get us back to City Sushi, and a simple charm spell is enough to get her to sell us back Ilbratha!
I encounter a weird bug that prevents us from using Teleport to escape...
...but since I know it's a bug based on previous experience, I use the console re-set a global variable to fix the problem and teleport back to Cromwell, who forges Haer'dalis new swords.
It's a little underwhelming considering we could just use Enchanted Weapon to make the sword strike as a +3 weapon, but since I've used the +2 version in previous runs, only this version is legal for this run.
Haer'dalis is accused of murder back in Athkatla, we clear his name in a short quest, and Haer'dalis fails to spawn in the prison when we go to free him. Even though Edwin is probably stronger than Haer'dalis, even though Killer can already use the Chaos Blade once she gets Use Any Item, and even though I don't like Haer'dalis' mod-introduced banters (I've seen them already), and even though I normally roll with non-fatal bugs, I decide to use the console to spawn him in. Like in all of my runs, he will be underleveled for the rest of the game.
Corthief XIV - elven thief (protagonist, controlled by Corey_Russell)
Berk - dwarven berserker, (controlled by Grond0)
Stinkimo - dwarven defender (controlled by Gate70)
Setup: BG 2 EE, no mods
The party did well in getting out of the beginning dungeon. The circus was also solved without much ado. Freeing Hendak went pretty well as well. However, things started going south when we did the Lilacor quest. Stinkimo got held and nearly died, but Corthief XIV and Berk managed to kill the enemies just in time.
We approached via the sewers the moored slave ship. The initial battle was difficult, but successful. The trolls were killed with fire arrows.
The 2nd half though, with the mages didn't quite so well. Corthief XIV tried for a backstab but the stealth failed at the worst possible time - right in the middle of the enemies. Corthief XIV retreated immediately, and the dwarves did a good job of distracting the enemies. But problem was the dwarves got held and killed. So Corthief XIV had to run/hid/backstab and repeat until the enemies were dead.
Corthief XIV then went to the slums temple to raise his comrades. But problem was the slum muggers appeared (it was night). So naked Stinkimo used his stance, with Berk assisting with a longbow and some arrows Corthief XIV had around. The party defeated the muggers with only 4 HP left for Stinkimo. We nevertheless went back to the death scene and got our equipment back.
After selling, we met Valen, so decided to head to Galen's place but ran out of time, so will do so next session.
Screenshots of our adventure:
Previous updates
The Crew got close to another level by charming and hacking down the sirines in the Beregost Temple. A bit more exploring High Hedge looking for skeletons then did the trick.
A trip through the Cloud Peaks saw reputation grow further, while everyone acquired a magical weapon of some sort even if largely non-proficient. I mis-clicked on the conversation with Lena though and missed out on the chance to save Samuel. That quest could have brought up level 4 for everyone, but instead that was done at the Valley of the Tombs.
Further reputation gains were tied up with high XP awards from the ankheg nest (no damage being taken there)
At the Lighthouse the high weight of fire from this group meant that the first group of sirines died with minimal trouble and the second even less.
With reputation only at 19 and no more available outside the main quest, I think it's time for the Nashkel Mine.
Vito - L5, 59 HPs, 79 kills, 2 deaths, *** scimitar / ** sling
Bugsy - L5, 71 HPs, 90 kills, 0 deaths, *** katana / ** dagger
Baby Face - L5, 56 HPs, 54 kills, 0 deaths, *** 2-handed sword / ** crossbow
Carlo - L5, 64 HPs, 86 kills, 0 deaths, *** flail / ** shortbow
Mad Dog - L5, 65 HPs, 57 kills, 0 deaths, *** axe / ** dual wielding
Al (PC) - L5, 58 HPs, 101 kills ** quarterstaff / *** longbow
Diary of Fergus Firehair
I have found the spell command to be invaluable as it enabled me to take on the ogrillons, Zargos Flintblade and Greywolf in safety. Tenya and I also took on a lot of kobolds near the Nashkel mines.In Nashkel we had a prolonged scintillating conversation with Noober and it was there that we found some amkheg armour which I gave to Tenya.
EDIT
We then headed west where we reunited Rufie with his owner, killed Vax and Zal, helped a dryad and Drienne's cat and killed a winter wolf whilst on the way back to Nashkel.In Nashkel we took on and killed Neira, but we were a bit lucky. We foolishly did not pick up her possessions immediately, for by the time we had finished resting, they had disappeared.
More annoying is that the pantaloons didn't transfer.
Did you check the trapped painting? Thats where it was in our EE run.
After that, I went back to Durlag's for revenge on those Doomguards and to hit the next level. Well, the Doomguards had moved from the corridor Vicky had stranded them so I wasn't ready. And my party was walking willy-nilly. Due to path-finding randomness, my necromancer ended up in the lead. I hadn't casted stoneskin on her yet, and she got killed. Again, not permanently. I was able to defeat the Doomguards, but my party got chewed up pretty badly. Once again I had to leave the tower, go to a temple, get her resurrected, and come all the way back.
Onto the next level, which went really well, surprisingly. I wiped out the giant wyverns and did the four challenges without any fuss. But on the chessboard I had Edwin cast a web. Unfortunately, in my druggy stupor I aimed too far and failed to stop him from walking out into the board, where he was seen by the enemy. All hell ensued, and he was killed. I managed to win the rest of the fight, but Edwin was dead and I was left with the prospect of leaving the tower once again to get him resurrected. By that point I'd had enough. I wasn't thinking clearly, but I couldn't deal with another resurrection journey so I decided to pack it in. I tipped over my King, to use a chess analogy.
Looking at it this morning, I've decided to continue the game, but with reloads. I dont' feel like starting over at Candlekeep right now with a new character, and I'd like to take another run through Siege of Dragonspear (I only played through it once, in August 2016) starting tonight, hopefully, and then maybe BG2. So, in summary, I didn't finish my no reload run, but at least my main character never died, and I know I could have, if I'd had the patience to resurrect Edwin, or the discipline not to play on those meds in the first place (thank god I don't drink anymore, lol). I still could have died, but I might have made it too. Cause for hope. I don't know if I'll try no-reload again (I give you permission to laugh at me if you see me posting about a new run in the next 24 hours), but if I do I'm going to install SCS and use smarter priests and mages and all the other nasty components to make it a truly challenging task.
Night in the Woods: Mae in Shadows of Amn
Part 15https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909103/#Comment_909103
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909200/#Comment_909200
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909567/#Comment_909567
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909861/#Comment_909861
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911181/#Comment_911181
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911202/#Comment_911202
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912037/#Comment_912037
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912042/#Comment_912042
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912054/#Comment_912054
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912697/#Comment_912697
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913059/#Comment_913059
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913800/#Comment_913800
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913925/#Comment_913925
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/914005/#Comment_914005
Next, the Planar Prison to get the Gauntlets of Ogre Power and forge Crom Faeyr. Our halfling Bounty Hunter obliterates the halfling cannibals.
Lavok buffs with PFMW. Worthless with Witch Dagger in the party.
Tolgerias survives a backstab, but he too buffs with PFMW. It's hopeless.
Cromwell won't forge Crom Faeyr for us and I discover that we don't have the scroll in our inventory. But I remember collecting it from Thaxll'ssillyia's body and assume it must have gotten eaten by a Bag of Holding or something. I console it in, forge the hammer, and head over to Bodhi's lair.
The fight with Tanova is long and complicated. To simplify things: Witch Dagger died in two hits to SCS vampire CON drain, I let Killer die to level drain, and without our best anti-mage characters on hand, we had to use magic attacks to debuff her.
I used to have trouble with Bodhi and her mage friends, but when I discovered that Manasseh and Hazzerbazzer vanished when Bodhi died, this fight became much simpler. The enemy debuffed Witch Dagger and Mayday and drained levels from Killer, but Bodhi herself has few defenses and you can take her down with brute force surprisingly quickly, obviating the need for playing wizard chess with Manasseh and Haberdasher while avoiding level drain from the Fledgling Vampires.
I just realized I typed Haberdasher instead of Hazzerbazzer. For those who are curious, his name is Hazarmaveth.
Outside, we are greeted by another drow ambush, which normally spawns on top of the Bodhi ambush. Killer once again proves instrumental, severely wounding the leader and whisking away everyone but the mage with a Special Snare.
On his own, the mage (labeled a priestess despite using arcane spells) is helpless. Wizard Slayers are crazy overpowered.
A new mage appears from the Maze effect and Witch Dagger switches targets. The leader also reappears, and apparently she's a mage, too.
Since we can't use the Cloak of the Stars and its darts +5, we have to use Fire Seeds to bypass Improved Mantle. Trash Mammal attacks the Mislead clone and another mage appears from the Maze.
Trash Mammal takes a lot of damage and has to deploy the Heal belt to survive, but the enemy is more or less broken.
Notice Haer'dalis bypassing Improved Mantle with Crom Faeyr, which strikes as +5 weapon and deals an undocumented 5 electrical damage, though I don't know if that's due to a mod.
The mages fall and the fighters return one by one, finding themselves alone and surrounded. We get another batch of overpowered mod items I've never seen before and can therefore add to our gear.
I get surprised by the Chosen of Cyric, but despite Mae's low WIS, she has the stats to circle around and eventually get Venduris to let us alone. Malchor Harpell appears, and since I'm worried that he might imprison the party if I drop Frostbrand on the ground before he speaks, I let him take it.
We return to Suldannessellar. It's time to bring Shadows of Amn to an end.
Night in the Woods: Mae in Shadows of Amn
Part 16https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909103/#Comment_909103
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909200/#Comment_909200
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909567/#Comment_909567
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909861/#Comment_909861
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911181/#Comment_911181
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911202/#Comment_911202
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912037/#Comment_912037
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912042/#Comment_912042
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912054/#Comment_912054
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912697/#Comment_912697
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913059/#Comment_913059
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913800/#Comment_913800
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913925/#Comment_913925
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/914005/#Comment_914005
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/914199/#Comment_914199
We have hit epic levels and now we have two Planetars and Use Any Item on Killer, plus an Earth Elemental Token for Witch Dagger (I'm treating the token as a shapeshift spell, so our item restrictions permit it). Crom Faeyr and Horrid Wilting greatly simplify the fights at Suldannessellar.
Mae hacks at Nizidramanii'yt during Time Stop, only to find several rounds later that Wish restoration heals enemies despite the text that says it only heals the party.
It doesn't matter. The party has excellent damage output and lots of instant-casting Heal spells from our celestials.
We kill Suneer. How could we not? We have a Wizard Slayer in the party.
We also beat Irenicus. How could we not? We have Witch Dagger.
I pick all of the good options in Hell because I don't like the evil options or turning Neutral Evil, which would have the added penalty of preventing Mae from getting the full benefits of Trash Mammal's Righteous Wrath of the Faithful. Unfortunately, one of my mods apparently makes the good Hell path change your alignment, too.
As usual, I pull back everyone in the party who does not have SI: Abjuration. Some Remove Magic spells get through, but to my surprise, we don't lose all of our buffs.
Jon-bon summons a Fallen Planetar, but it doesn't last long.
This party is just way too strong. We focus our attention on the demons while Witch Dagger uses Fire Seeds on the Slayer. Again, Wizard Slayers slay wizards.
We put down the last of the demons and the Slayer, unable to actually cast any spells, has to rely on a Contingency to stay safe.
By himself, and unable to get a single spell off the ground, Jon-bon is harmless. We break down his defenses and start hacking him apart.
He transforms, but fails to deliver his final line. No matter what we do to him, he won't trigger his death cutscene.
A reload fixes the problem. Shadows of Amn comes to an end, and I am left feeling somewhat empty. Wizard Slayers and Bounty Hunters are just... so stupidly strong. They can completely neutralize the two of the three biggest threats in the game: mages and large groups of fighters.
The gameplay was still novel in BG1 because I know so little about the game, but now that I'm into BG2 territory, everything is going to get much easier. The rest of this run will revolve around about a half-dozen major fights, and only the last one is truly worrying.
The hammer does 5 points of electrical damage in vanilla games
I have played the Grey clan mod a couple of times, and have some intell as well. @Wise_Grimwald has got the fight in FAI right. The fight in Beregost can be a bit easier if you plan ahead. The mod introduces a halberd +1 that dispels on hit. A level +7 barbarian or beserker with two pips in halberds, hasted and buffed can tank and dispel the mages, while the rest stay in the background and shoot the down with arrows of biting. Its simple - and I remeber it working.
According to the walktrough the mages are level 19 and 25 so no wonder that the fight is hard.. But I had always considered the halberd and not the necklace the most OP plot from the mod. Because it works so well in the mage fights on ice island and in DsotSC (as I regale others had a similar view)
Btw great stuff (as usual). But I dont hear often, that wizard slayers are crazy OP
Night in the Woods: Mae in Throne of Bhaal
Part 17https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909103/#Comment_909103
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909200/#Comment_909200
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909567/#Comment_909567
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909861/#Comment_909861
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911181/#Comment_911181
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911202/#Comment_911202
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912037/#Comment_912037
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912042/#Comment_912042
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912697/#Comment_912697
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Illasera attacks but does not turn hostile, and neither do her cronies. The fight costs us a life but is otherwise uneventful.
We try to summon Keldorn via the Fate Spirit but it says his fate is no longer connected to mine--in fact, basically all NPCs, even those I've met or even had in the party briefly, are inaccessible.
Jon-bon catches us by surprise with Remove Magic, but Mae and Mayday were out of range at the time. Haer'dalis dies to Dragon's Breath and Bodhi chunks Killer via level drain.
Bored with the fight and unwilling to work out the kinks conventionally, I just use a Time Stop scroll to petrify Bodhi.
A familiar bug causes the enemy Fallen Planetar's Globe of Blades to do massive damage, but another Time Stop puts him down.
One more Time Stop wears out Jon-bon's weapon immunities, allowing Witch Dagger to shut him down using nonmagical darts instead of the less-reliable Fire Seeds. All he can do is throw Energy Blades, though it kills Trash Mammal.
A quick look at EEKeeper confirms that Killer's chunking was due to a bug: on beginning ToB, the SCS anti-chunking component overrode Tresset's fix, once again setting the "Disable Permanent Death" opcode to the wrong parameter. So I can reload to fix the chunking.
Except...
Remember the fight with Thaxll'ssillyia? Well, shortly after entering beating the first Pocket Plane challenge, I glanced at the screenshot after Thaxll'ssillyia's death and realized that there was no Crom Faeyr scroll on his body...
...which means that, unless I clicked on the scroll before making that screenshot and it also got eaten by a Bag of Holding, I wasn't supposed to have that scroll, because a mod must have moved it. Which means, per the terms of the run, I'm supposed to re-play all the fights during which I used Crom Faeyr. I made that rule specifically because I thought I might accidentally find myself using a forbidden item by force of habit. Even though this is a slightly different case, and even though Crom Faeyr hardly made any difference in the previous fights, illegally getting the Crom Faeyr scroll is enough for me to justify going back and beating SoA properly.
The latest save file I have before forging Crom Faeyr puts me shortly into Chapter 6, right after the Underdark. Back to Shadows of Amn!
Previous posts:
BG1 end: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/904835/#Comment_904835
SoD start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/904866/#Comment_904866
SoD end: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/906579/#Comment_906579
BG2 start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/906698/#Comment_906698
BG2 end: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909375/#Comment_909375
ToB start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909665/#Comment_909665
Part IXL: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/910474/#Comment_910474
Part L: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911556/#Comment_911556
Part LI: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912871/#Comment_912871
Part LII: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912977/#Comment_912977
Part LIII: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913802/#Comment_913802
Part LIV: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913933/#Comment_913933
The first seal guardians I dealt with were the rilmani. I procted my entire party from cold damage for this fight. The aurumach rilmani wasted his timestop, doing nothing for the entire time - everyone was simply too far away:
Meanwhile, my party and a couple of summons started taking out the ferrumach rilmani one by one, and I soon realized that, despite their ToB extra levels, their dispel magic wasn't strong enough to remove my buffs, making this a rather simple fight:
Finally, I summoned a couple of spirit animals to kill the aurumach rilmani, as they hit with +6 weapons, and I was too lazy to switch everyone to weapons with higher enchantment levels:
For the next seal (Azamantes and the flaming skulls), I also prepared a full 3 AHW chain contingency, just to see if it would deal significant damage on LoB. It really didn't, but when I actually killed the first flaming skull with mostly melee attacks, I had to be reminded the hard way that they explode with a skull trap upon death:
I retreated with most of the party, letting the planetar deal with Azamantes and drinking some healing potions. The lich managed to imprison my celestial ally, so after his timestop ended, I decided to go oldschool SoA and just throw summon after summon at him, draining him of his spells - eventually, he was just a helpless target:
Now, for the final and most interesting seal: My party moved to the right before starting the battle, trying to get away from the dangerous succubus and the hive mother (don't want any anti-magic rays to hit me). Some initial success was achieved by entangling the archer via Sword of Mask (thanks, simulacrum) and blinding the fighter with a word of power:
Aikar provided additional control with smite, mostly isolating the succubus - our first target to kill:
The hive mother, unaffected by any of my crowd control, caught up to my party, and Nahema used her own smite to kick her away (she used anti-magic ray on Imoen, but I was able to renew her buffs after a short while). Thus, the fighter and the archer, the only ones not affected by smite, were isolated. Anomen used implosion and Xei Win Toh was defeated:
The Huntress quickly shared her fate (as did the cleric), and while the returned hive mother tried to throw some spells at Arbogast, the shield of the archons proved superior. The party took out the Marilith, and Aikar tried out his newly-acquired Ravager +6 to see if we could end this battle sooner rather than later - we could:
I used Helm's scroll and made my way back to the pocket plane to fight the Ravager. My mordy swords and planetar were in the perfect position to keep all the bone blades busy, allowing my party an easy time at casting their spells - and my initial plan was to speed things up with harm:
While I had fired five lower resistance spells at the ravager via spell triggers, Anomen, who hit with harm (unlike Arbogast, who managed to miss), ran into magic resistance. Still, I was able to do some serious damage when I started spamming HLAs and Imoen cast most of her spellbook with improved alacrity:
Arbogast's third harm attempt finally managed to succeed - if the combat log is to believed, he actually hit the Ravager with a 5 - that sounds strange.
And now, we only have the throne to worry about. I will try to finish this run on wednesday - one way or the other.
Enuhal
Night in the Woods: Mae in Shadows of Amn (again)
Part 18https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909103/#Comment_909103
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909200/#Comment_909200
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909567/#Comment_909567
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/909861/#Comment_909861
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/911181/#Comment_911181
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912042/#Comment_912042
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/912697/#Comment_912697
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913059/#Comment_913059
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/913800/#Comment_913800
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https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/914218/#Comment_914218
Back to Chapter 6 to win the fights I won with Crom Faeyr erroneously in my inventory. This time around, I pick Keldorn over Haer'dalis, because Item Upgrade can get me a +5 version of his sword that dispels magic on hit, just like Carsomyr, but unlike Carsomyr, is not nerfed by SCS so that the dispel effect offers a save. It also silences the target for 2 rounds with no save, which just seems excessive, but whatever.
I don't like taking Keldorn away from his family, so once I reunite him with his wife and estranged children, I use CTRL-T to rapidly advance time. I let him spend a whole month with his family before I ask him to rejoin the party.
We still need to collect some materials for item crafting, which means a visit to the Planar Sphere. Killer takes care of our numerous enemies on the way.
As for Tolgerias, we get lucky with a Spook and Blindness Minor Sequencer, which prevents him from speaking to us and activating his defenses. His mage friend goes down to a Sunfire Spell Trigger and we finish off Tolgerias himself with ranged attacks.
Grabbing an extra demon heart nets us the Hallowed Redeemer +5.
The fight with the drow in the Graveyard District goes about the same as before, except Killer manages to kill the leader early thanks to Quietus, the Item Upgrades dagger that grants +1 to backstab multiplier.
The fight with Tanova starts out better because Trash Mammal opens with Holy Word, imposing guaranteed spell failure on the vampire, but when I don't apply enough pressure on the other vampires, we lose three characters to level drain and CON drain and have to rest before finishing off Tanova--I failed to appreciate that the primary threat to our party was not the mage, but the fighters. There's no way to cure CON drain, and fighters have no way to prevent it, either.
As for Bodhi, I figured that our best chance was to wipe out Bodhi early using triggers and sequencers.
Notice Witch Dagger being extremely dead. I deemed her disposable because the mages vanish when Bodhi does, and because there was precious little chance of keeping her alive when CON drain could kill her in two hits anyway. Also notice Keldorn having the Berserker rage icon--an item upgrade mod of some sort lets Thalantyr let the Cursed Berserking Sword +3 cast Enrage once per day, and we have three copies of the sword.
Bodhi doesn't go down quite as fast I hoped since only Mae can attack her in melee without dying of CON drain, but by having Killer slip into a nearby chamber and toss a Special Snare into the main room, we can Maze the vampire mages and keep them from causing trouble while we wrestle with Bodhi.
The mages come back soon due to their high INT, but a level 24+ thief has 6 Maze traps a day. Killer keeps them at bay until Bodhi goes down.
It would probably be most practical to just throw out the Maze traps from the south at the start of the fight. Bodhi should be immune to Maze, at least until she casts Heal on herself, which means the trap will leave Bodhi completely alone.
As long as we're back in SoA, we may as well try out some mod quests I missed earlier. I stop by Innershade, but I don't pay much attention to the plot and the fights aren't too complicated, largely because of Witch Dagger's absurd item-based MR.
There's not much else to say. We move on to another area and Killer discovers a petrification trap while she's scouting around.
I hurry over to un-petrify her and bring her back into the party, since my rules treat petrification-related chunking as permanent, and I don't want to lose one of our star players. But then, just as Mayday arrives to check out the situation, Killer just... vanishes.
Mae hurries over with a blue Stone to Flesh scroll and Killer reappears, only to vanish before I can actually cure her.
Then Killer stays vanished. I simply can't see her. Even divination magic won't reveal her.
I run around and around and around Killer's fallen gear, hoping she'll show up, and for a moment, I'm not sure she'll ever turn up. Finally she reappears and I pause the game to make sure we can target her with a Stone to Flesh scroll. I give her the Boots of Boredom to make sure she doesn't get petrified again.
I'm very upset by these traps. Not only do they trigger once every second, they're actually ground triggers, not traps, which means it's totally impossible to see them without CTRL-4. Even the Find Traps spell cannot reveal them.
We talk to a druid who belatedly warns us about the petrification traps and we get a club that grants +1 APR--the first speed weapon I've ever seen that's usable by clerics.
We also get a club that's supposed to be used on the boss of this quest, the White Queen. Apparently she and her minions are obsessed with the color white. I know folks like that.
The White Queen's lair is crawling with mages, but we don't even need Wizard Slayer spell failure to get past them. We're so high-level at this point that the mages can't actually dispel our buffs, despite multiple attempts.
Suffice to say, these fights aren't too interesting. The loot has a couple of, um... weird-sounding weapons, one of which is apparently named after a fictional serial killer.
We reach the White Queen, a fighter accompanied by golems who cast Cone of Cold. Mae is safe due to her typical pre-buffs, but the rest of the party suffers.
I hack away at the White Queen for quite some time, watching her regenerate over and over every time I bring her to Near Death, until I remember the druid gave us a club to use against her. We hit her once with the club and her MINHP1 item goes away.
She told us the Old Druid was actually a bad guy for reasons I don't remember, so we fight him outside. But he's just a druid, which means...
...yeah. I like druids, but their defenses just aren't that special.
I want to get back to ToB, and brute force wins us every fight in Suldannessellar. Traps simplify the already-easy fight with Irenicus.
This time, he doesn't bounce back from the damage.
The Slayer begins casting Time Stop, but surprisingly enough, we didn't even need Fire Seeds to disrupt it: a lucky vorpal strike on a Balor creates a posthumous explosion that gets past the Slayer's defenses.
I've done this fight before with the same party and just want to get through it. I didn't rely on Time Stop before, but I do this time, if only to get rid of the demons and force the Slayer's PFMW to expire.
When another PFMW pops up via Contingency, Witch Dagger switches to Fire Seeds and we use magic attacks while we wait.
We break through its defenses and, to my surprise, the Slayer actually suffers from moral failure of all things.
We tear him apart and enter ToB for the second time, this time for real.
1. Poverty run with a solo Seducer
2. Poverty run with 6 Seducers
3. Poverty run with one Seducer and 5 Warlocks
Perhaps without pause. While being blinded. And with no sound. Maybe then you'd have a challenge again...
P.S. What happened to your War Hulk kit ? We've rarely seen it in this thread...
I've been leery of solo runs. I've gotten so accustomed to keeping Charname's aura clear that it feels like a solo run would feel extremely pressured, and the only class I'm interested in that hasn't been done with SCS and Ascension is a cleric/illusionist, and I'm not liking my prospects against Melissan with 4 maximum APR and one spell or item per round. I see one viable path and that's it.
1. Robe of Vecna and Amulet of Power for instant-cast SI: Abjuration
2. Shield of Reflection for Illasera's arrows and Fallen Solar arrows
3. Pre-cast Teleport Fields to avoid attacks without relying on a PFMW contingency that might trigger too late
4. Protection from Magic scroll on Abazigal on round 1 to avoid a fatal Time Stop.
5. Protection from Magic scroll on Sendai to block Heal spells.
6. Bring Gromnir, Illasera, Sendai, and Abazigal to Near Death by spamming summoning spells, and maybe Improved Alacrity, a very long and dicey prospect.
7. Control Circlet on Sarevok.
8. Kill Yaga-Shura.
9. Pre-cast Focus, alternating with PFMW, and kite everyone forever.
But think about it. Winning that fight depends on a narrow subset of items and spells. And while you can beat the game with virtually any class (though a Transmuter might fail against Ascension Melissan), if you go without a certain subset of items... things seem different.
When it comes to no-reload runs with SCS and Ascension--successful runs--we're no longer playing a game of wizards and druids and thieves and clerics and warriors and bards.
We're playing a game of Robes of Vecna.
We're playing a game of Arrows of Dispelling.
We're playing a game of Shields of Reflection.
We're playing a game of Amulets of Power and Potions of Clarity and Wands of Fire and Rings of Gaxx and Slings of Everard and scrolls of Protection from Undead.
It's the same game. The game of items. But if I throw them all away, I'm left with the game of spells. The game of PFMW and SI: Abjuration and Hardiness and GWW and Insect Plague and Chaotic Commands and Protection from Fire. And those things are even more mandatory than the items; there's no spell that can replace a PFMW or Hardiness spell the way Celestial Fury can replace the Flail of Ages.
It's not like the game of items and spells is simple. It's massively complicated. But when I think about a solo run with no other gimmicks, all I see is myself using the same strategies harder. Even a typical poverty run, by itself, just seems like playing the game of spells instead of the game of items, trying to squeeze more power out of the normal spells rather than actually using any new strategies. It's the same problem I have with LoB mode. It shifts the balance in favor of summoning spells and multi-classed fighters, but I want more than a balance shift.
I could try mod items instead. But there are just so many overpowered ones and so many underpowered ones, and it's not like you can draw a clear line in the sand where one item is fun and interesting while another item is simply reductive. And mod spells are extremely scarce. And both mod items and mod spells are extremely offensive-oriented; you'd be hard-pressed to find any decent defensive options.
I could try Item Revisions and Spell Revisions again, but they're so properly balanced, and the exploits I find are bound to get patched sooner or later. I could try mod quests, but so far they've been so broken. I could try Improved Anvil, but that's completely at odds with the concept of novel gameplay.
A poverty run featuring a Seducer and no proper spellcasters would solve both the item problem and the spell problem. Collecting an army of non-leveling followers--whom I cannot raise from the dead and therefore must continually replace--means that my party's capabilities will vary constantly, and so I'll need to improvise every step of the way, relying entirely on strategies I've never tried before.
The Seducer kit just opens up so many doors.