The Crew whipped through the Nashkel Mine quickly without the need for any resting until they got to Mulahey's cave. Their volume of attacks was then too much for Mulahey to handle.
Back in Nashkel they reported to the mayor to push reputation up to 20. Nimbul's only chance was to be aggressive, but as SCS mages tend to do he tried to build a defense only for it to be overwhelmed by the weight of attacks. A similar fate befell Tranzig, but I didn't fancy going straight on to the Bandit Camp. Instead the Crew set off for Ulgoth's Beard to do some shopping, but were ambushed on the way by Molkar & co. The Crew were able to comfortably out-damage their opponents though.
Al had bought a magic staff in Ulgoth's Beard and Mad Dog picked up an axe in Beregost. That meant Baby Face decided it was about time that Arghain was forced to hand over a magical 2-handed sword. With other purchases including the Dagger of Venom, the Army Scythe and full plate that exhausted current funds.
Moving on to Durlag's Tower the external walls were soon cleared - with everyone except Vito now having a proficient melee weapon even the battle horrors were hit relatively easily. Inside the Tower, ghasts put the Crew on the verge of levelling up and I decided to have a go at Riggilo to tip them over. He was surrounded so he couldn't backstab Al, but in the event he never actually got an attack in anyway. On the roof Carlo used potions to protect him while meleeing the basilisks - allowing Vito to grab the +2 scimitar and become the last of the Crew to acquire a proficient magical melee weapon.
With level 7 being such a long way off I decided to do a bit of the underground area of the Tower for a change. The main traps on the first level are fire and lightning, so with a combination of helm, ring & boots giving 60% and 70% protection against those it wasn't too difficult to make progress and there were no real alarms until I attacked the 4 warders. I tried pulling those away individually and killed the first 2 at the cost of a couple of potions. Avarice was near death being run round by Mad Dog (while the others used missile fire) when he decided to cloud kill on top of himself. Mad Dog got just enough warning to be able to run out of the cloud, but Bugsy (who had been throwing darts) was just close enough to get caught and died instantly.
On the way to the temple to raise Bugsy the amazons appeared. With a healthy party I would have been happy to take them on, but with 1 man down and HPs low I just ran for it.
Back at the Tower I decided with HPs at maximum to go for the quick kill. Hence, after dodging an initial cloudkill, everyone attacked in melee. Vito was hit with one backstab, but was missed with a second and Avarice didn't have time for a third. After resting they looked for Love and eventually tracked him down in the side corridors. He wasn't keen to come out, but finally did so and a general attack was successful.
On the next level I killed a number of dopplegangers in order to open a passageway. A choice was between a multitude of traps one way and a rather nasty one the other. I chose the nasty one thinking that it should be possible to get everyone through that and then rest on the other side. Unfortunately I couldn't remember how far it was to the next trap beyond that and chose to go only slightly beyond where the trap was shown. The result of that was that as the second dwarf came through the trap caught the first one as well - chunking him. As that was the run over for me I did a bit of further testing of the trap. As you can see in this screenshot it regularly hits people in the corridor just beyond the trap.
While posting this I thought I would load the autosave from the first level and go back down to test the trap further. In particular I wanted to see what ctrl+4 showed about the location of the trap - that was consistent with the animation, i.e. it didn't extend to the end of the corridor. However, I also sent the Crew through the trap once more, but had them wait well down the corridor. For the first 4 of them there were no surprises, but when the 5th went through two of those waiting were hit again by the trap, so you definitely don't want to be anywhere near it when someone else triggers it .
Incidentally, I've also just gone back to my starting save and used Tresset's anti-chunking fix on it, so next time I wouldn't have to worry about a trap chunking people .
Maybe you could write your own mod quests someday?
@semiticgod And include in it some of the spells that you think are missing.
I don't think I have enough interest to devote much time to learning scripting, but I have thought it would be nice to have some fights that differed from the typical mold of the IE games. Most fights boil down to three major types:
1. Lots of fighters with no special abilities 2. A single high-level mage 3. One mage, one cleric, one thief, and three fighters
I'd like to see more low-level spellcasters, druids, fighter/spellcasters, and fighters who do more than just deal damage and soak up damage, plus a higher prevalence of kits. I'd also like to see clerics who buff their allies, like the player does, instead of just themselves.
I've giving another shot at a solo poverty Seducer run and it's still ridiculously hard. Recruited followers retain their normal scripts, which should allow them to use some of the powers they otherwise couldn't (which could be extremely important if I ever make it to BG2 and manage to charm some gauths), but it also makes them very difficult to control. Some followers will actually go hostile mid-combat and turn against you right when you were counting on them to win the fight for you.
You know how fast you can mow down kobolds when you're a level 3 party? Well, that's just how fast a group of kobold followers can vanish in a single battle. In the Nashkel mines, I went from 25 followers to one when my strongest followers went hostile during the fight with Mulahey and a gang of Hobgoblin Elites and Hobgoblin Captains ambushed us right outside.
An army of followers just can't bounce back if they get hit too hard. Not during the fight, because they have no potions, and not after the fight, because you can't raise them. You can build up your group's power over many smaller fights, only to see everything suddenly come crashing down.
A brief update on Stirkus the psypher. I spent a little bit of time 'finding' his character and what sort of companions he would find amenable. He's quite grim and humourless, slightly prejudiced against nonhumans, and a believer in the established social order. His studies in Candlekeep have taught him- rightly or wrongly- that one tampers with revolution at one's peril, though one must also respect the principles of chivalry. He may grow more tyrannical (LE), more noble (LG), or more cynically thoughtful (N) depending on events, but for now he is a firm LN.
At present his party are at around 13,000xp and wandering the wilderness after bouncing off the upgraded Nashkel Mines. They consist of Stirkus- psypher. Isra- Cherub of Sune. Ajantis- Everwatch knight. Gavin- Priest of Lathander. Imoen- who'll soon dual class to mage. Kagain- Dwarven Defender. Stirkus favours aristocratic law-abiding humans where possible. In the long term Drake may come in for Gavin, Xan for Kagain, and Skie for Imoen- I'll just assume that Skie was held captive with Xan so Stirkus can have a nice blueblood party. Since Xan & Skie are a bit more fragile their classes may be switched up a bit as well- Herald for Skie and F/M or Dirgesinger for Xan.
Now a few words from the man himself...
There is nothing so dangerous to the welfare of a land as misrule. The Sword Coast has only pockets of civilization, swamped by chaos. The bandits and the iron plague are two sides of the assault on order, and I shall do my best to combat them, once threats to local order have been disposed with. It is with shame that I allowed looser heads such as Garrick and poor vengeful Kivan to prevail upon me for overlong. I will have order. A pity that Jaheira and Khalid could not be more patient concerning this, but they have duties and loyalties which bind them differently.
It is with some pride that I have led my fellows to disposing of a variety of menaces thus far however. The fell priest Bassilus had murdered many before we claimed his life. Then at the urging of Gavin's superiors we defeated the crazed mage Mutamin, and rid the area of his basilisks. A pity the adventurers in the area were so unappreciative, but fortunately they did no more than breach the peace with words, rather than weapons.
The mysterious assassins who have so far attempted to claim my life have failed on every occasion to resist the demons of their own id. They, and their masters, have underestimated my powers thus far. The one known has Neira came closest after that brute Tarnesh, but on this occasion at least Gavin was not overgentle with her. A pity his fellow Lathendarites were not quicker to respond when we were forced to slay a vampiric wolf in front of the high altar itself however!
The Nashkel Mines have proved a harder nut to crack. Infested with kobolds as they are, they nearly killed the lady Isra, who we had helped defend from the overenthusiastic assault of Greywolf the bounty hunter. Hmm. That reminds me, we must return those emeralds once we can remove them... For now it seems important that we find the lost captain Brage. The local garrison are demoralised in his absence, and require leadership if worse is not to befall.
(A word on my install. It contains Dark Side, Dark Horizons, & SCS but I have purged many opponents of excessive mod items and it has a 30% reduction in items from item randomiser on top of that. A decent challenge, as I don't really know the BG1 mods that well.)
Mantis37 said: (A word on my install. It contains Dark Side, Dark Horizons, & SCS but I have purged many opponents of excessive mod items and it has a 30% reduction in items from item randomiser on top of that. A decent challenge, as I don't really know the BG1 mods that well.)
If you don't know the Dark Horizons Assassins you will die! Once you know them, you can neutralise their strengths however, but some of them are still tough. The big question is what to do about their powerful weapons. If they don't have them, then they are no longer powerful enemies. If they do have them, you can acquire them. One that is of particular import is a short sword that has a good chance of "holding" an enemy after a successful strike. I myself have no qualms about using them as I have the Grey Wolf Episode and The Drizzt Saga installed. I will need those weapons then!
The fight against Teyngan and his corhorts was not easy until Tenya managed to hold him. After that it was more straightforward.
We then helped Drizzt and killed the half-ogres in the area. In transit we were attacked by a ghast. Singly, they are not a problem and killing it took me up a level. We then killed the ogre with the belt fetish. One of them is quite useful. At the FAI Khalid and Jaheira joined the party. Jaheira is an Avenger and Khalid is a Cleric/Ranger who is a Holy Strategist of the Red Knight.
Together, we went down an ankheg burrow and upon emerging to relearn spells we were attacked no fewer than three times whilst we attempted to rest.
Since we survived it was all good experience plus gold in the moneybag. Tenya told us of a witch at the Firewine Ruins who might know how to activate her bowl, however in Beregost we had been warned about the dangers of that area so perhaps a visit to that witch will need to be postponed. South of Beregost we killed three over-officious Flaming Fist Mercenaries who provided us with plate armour. Sadly so far we have not been able to upgrade Jaheira's armour as she is unable to wear it. She couldn't even wear high quality leathers.
(I made a mistake joining up with Khalid and Jaheira so early in the game as they were still at a low level. If it hadn't been a no-reload game I would have reloaded at that point.)
Well... to be honest I took a look at some of that stuff in EE Keeper after installing and replaced most of their overpowered items with less powerful versions. I don't need 30 copies of Varscona or 200 potions of speed in my game... and I will also ignore most of the more powerful items onsale until I take on the endgame. In the long run item inflation will usually just make the game easier for Charname, even if half the party have to die from time to time while the main character flees with an unclouded aura! Still, I enjoy not knowing what's coming! Thanks for the advice though...
Well... to be honest I took a look at some of that stuff in EE Keeper after installing and replaced most of their overpowered items with less powerful versions. I don't need 30 copies of Varscona or 200 potions of speed in my game... and I will also ignore most of the more powerful items onsale until I take on the endgame. In the long run item inflation will usually just make the game easier for Charname, even if half the party have to die from time to time while the main character flees with an unclouded aura! Still, I enjoy not knowing what's coming! Thanks for the advice though...
As you rightly said, the potions of oil of speed are not necessary.
Also the Varscona swords are not actually a problem as all they do is make the oponents harder and you richer.
It is other items like the sword that holds you that is more of a problem. If your PC is struck with that, it could be game over. It is actually more powerful than Varscona as it can take a mage out of the game with one blow and it is useable by a thief. Therefore it is possible to backstab the mage before he knows that you are there.
Oh I understand that a sword that stuns is more deadly/ gamebreaking... I just find it immersion breaking when Varscona's copyright protection is so greviously violated . "Vaaarscona! Get your Varrrscona! 6 for the price of 5 my lovelies, just fallen off the back of a lorry."
On Monday, I had four hours with nothing to do while on a train. I had forgotten to take a book with me, so I used that time to think about Arbogast's upcoming Amelyssan battle, trying to plan out all the aspects of the fight, making sure I didn't miss anything, that I'd use all my resources, come with the right spell selection, the right spellscrolls and potions, the right use of HLAs etc. Let's see if that payed off.
My starting chain contingencies for Nahema and Imoen were both times 2 mordy swords and improved haste upon seeing an enemy. This would provide me with quick summons for the first battle, and I'd save at least one casting of improved haste. Their spell triggers were similiar, but mostly aimed at the purpose of renewing buffs after getting them dispelled mid-combat - improved haste, stoneskin and spirit armor for imoen (fireshield: blue for Nahema instead of the spirit armor, because... no reason really).
In terms of spell selection, some important notes: Massive amounts of death wards and chaotic commands with lots of wondrous recalls for Anomen and Arbogast. I was ready to rebuff my entire party multiple times, because I know Amelyssan likes to dispel buffs. All level 6 mage spells went into improved haste. I also wanted to have a planetar for every Amelyssan fight and as many mordy swords as possible.
Since I never had to use any potions except for healing purposes in ToB, I still had lots of cloud/storm giant strength, heroism and invulnerability potions plus oils of speed in my inventory. My opening buffs: Death wards, chaotic commands, remove fear and PfE 10' radius for everyone, improved haste for Aikar and Mazzy (plus for Nahema and Imoen via contingencies and for Arbogast via energy blades), AoF + SotA for Arbogast and Anomen (who also used DUHM), heroism, invulnerability and fire giant strength for the fighter-types. Not too much all in all, because I was afraid of an early dispel magic. With many improved haste spells going, I didn't use any fighter HLAs during the first fight: Amelyssans only successful move was a sunray, quickly negated by a bunch of healing potions (with the invulnerability potions, saving against the blindness effect was easy). A spawned-in death tyrant was taken out by Aikar with the Ravager + 6 vorpal hit:
Though it did manage to use its anti-magic ray on Nahema before being killed, Amelyssan wasn't able to capitalize on this, as she was quickly forced to flee, only getting in one or two hits on Mazzy:
As I still had some duration going on my 4 mordy swords and the planetar (instantly gated in by Imoen at the start of the fight), I quickly approached the prince of air. This battle didn't drain me of any ressources, and the only danger was presented by one vampiric wraith who tried to kill Imoen (though the AoP prevented any level drain):
However, my summons and improved haste spells ran out at the end of the fight. I renewed all the initial buffs on Nahema, and she cast improved haste on herself, Mazzy and Aikar. As for summons, I used three mordy swords, a dark planetar (summoned by Nahema) and an elemental prince, with the extra-addition of a Nahema-simulacrum (she had 3 simmy spells in her spellbook and two scrolls, so why not use them?). The second Mel battle went very well indeed: The first summon, a slayer shadows, was distracted by a mordy sword, and when the first death tyrant appeared, Amelyssan already had to retreat again:
Once again, no fighter HLAs had to be used at all, and no dispel magic affected my party. This time, Mel's only successful spell was a greater malison (basically already countered by invulnerability potions), and she once again attacked Mazzy a couple of times. I sent my summons to the prince of ice while my party used six cold resistance scrolls and potions I had prepared for this encounter, just in case. Aikar went in with the Wave to take out the two ice salamanders, everything else was killed with ranged weapons:
Summons ran out once again, though I still had improved haste going this time. Once again, a planetar, mordy swords and an elemental prince were called, plus another Nahema simulacrum. This was the critical incarnation of Mel, where she would use her "kick the party away, call slayer shadows and teleport"-trick. Once the slayer shadows appeared, I switched most of my party to weapons granting level drain-immunity (like Angurvidal +5, Rune Hammer +5 and Spectral Brand +5). Some slayer shadows were distracted by my summons. Arbogast himself was, thankfully, left completely alone. When Mel teleported away, my party quickly followed, but her next spell was dispel magic - finally. She hit Anomen, Aikar, Mazzy and Imoen - Nahema, who went the other way around, hadn't caught up to Mel yet, and Arbogast stayed away deliberately.
I thought for a bit what to do with the auras of the dispelled characters - the fighters could use GWWs for quick damage or invulnerability for safety - I decided on the latter. Imoen used her spell trigger, which had been prepared for such an occasion. Nahema's improved haste had run out at this point - so after my auras were clear once again, this was the time to go for fighter HLAs. Aikar, who was getting into trouble with a bone fiend, went back to his trusted firetooth +3 and used two GWWs, Imoen rebuffed Nahema with improved Haste while she used smite, Mazzy used a GWW herself. I had to move my fighters around a couple of times because some of Mels summons caught up to them. The other problem: Mel used dispel magic once again (after I managed to interrupt her timestop attempt) - this time, the only one concerned with defense was Nahema, who just used her spell trigger and remained perfectly fine. The others just went for more damage and used GWWs again. This was enough to take down Mel for the third and penultimate time.
Everyone except for Arbogast had lost most of their buffs at this point, so I took some time to use a couple of wondrous recalls to get all the initial buffs going again - but this time, the strength potions were for storm giant strength, and the only one with improved haste was Nahema (who still had it from her spell trigger). As for summons, I added four skeleton warriors and a deva. My plan for the fallen solar and his companions was based on Nahema anyway: She used a potion of wisdom, a limited wish scroll and asked for control over time:
She brought the solar to half hp with her 10 apr before the timestop ended - while fleeing, I sent in my summons, and Nahema cast another timestop from a scroll - this time, it was enough to kill the fallen solar:
With her remaining time, she damaged the alu-fiend, and the party used ranged weapons and breach charges from wands to take care of everything else. I cast two wish spells (one from a scroll), hoping for the rest option, but I got nothing useful at all. Bad luck.
Let's do this one last time. Imoens last improved haste spells were cast on Aikar, Mazzy and Nahema (in case I needed more, I still had one spellscrolls and the item-based activations going). Energy blades for Arbogast, hardiness just because I had it, let's also add bless for good luck. The deva was replaced by my last planetar, I also added mirror images, another Nahema simmy and the Mazzy simmy from the Helm of Vhailor:
One important addition: Nahema and Imoen used spell immunity: abjuration to protect their buffs this time, as they had no spell triggers available to them anymore. Amelyssan is quickly taking damage. Two demons are summoned to help her, and I have Aikar attack them with Ravager +6 and a GWW. No lucky vorpal strike. Mel dispels our buffs, but Nahema and Imoen are protected:
Arbogast retreats, recasting some defensive buffs. He has to stay safe. My fighters use one aura to rebuff with storm giant strength. Nahema delivers big damage, and we also have the planetar going - our foe is almost defeated:
And there we have it: Victory!
We still had half of our fighter HLAs ready to go, so I feel like this was a fairly convincing victory overall. Most importantly, Mel never got to use her dreaded timestop - except for dispel magic, she only managed to pull of a single greater malison, a single sunray and some regular attacks. This is also the first time (with the exception of the Ravager) that I actually used my fighter's dual-wielding abilities to their full extent, as this fight is very much a damage-race in many ways, especially because Mel uses an undispellable stoneskin that has to be brought down via normal attacks.
Let's see some final stats, and I'll share some thoughts on each party member:
Sir Anomen:
Why did I take Anomen into my party? Simple - I wanted to have more death wards and chaotic commands at my disposal, because of the druid leveling progression only allowing Arbogast to have a few of those for a very long time. I also wanted more fighting power and someone to use all those blunt weapons - no one else had any proficiency with them. Anomen did his job, as he always does. I had no one else to use the gauntlets of dexterity, so he also provided some decent ranged damage with slings. Always a very solid choice. Nothing exceptional, but blessed with excellent utility and a generally quite strong class combination.
Aikar:
Look at those killstats. Aikar was simply a monster - over 50% of kills in the final chapter of the game? In a party with three other great fighter-types? This dagger-throwing grandmastery single class Kensai build is a powerhouse. Remember: He outdamaged my Archer in BG1 already! And the fact that there's no +4 throwing dagger only even came up once or twice, and even then, it didn't matter at all. He also did great work with the Wave, Daystar and the Answerer. He might've only made it here because others got targetted by most SoD backstabs, but his presence was greatly appreciated.
Mazzy:
A constant source of reliable damage, and with much better saving throws than Aikar. However, her damage eventually waned compared to his. Still, when she equipped a sling, summoned a simmy and used her GWWs, she could bring down dragons in no time, and I did turn her into a 9 APR dual-wielder for the Mel battles. Still one of the best fighter NPCs in the game.
Nahema:
You can tell how much Nahema's damage output suffered in SoA and ToB, mostly because I used her as a shield-using tank and kept her offensive abilities in reserve, mostly using her aura just for emergencies. She wasn't proficient with any good ranged weapons, so for many battles, she just stood around doing nothing. However, she delivered at the throne, with her timestop moves, undispellable 10 apr and useful proficiencies. It took her quite a while to get there: She only got access to 9th level spells in Watcher's Keep level 3! However, she was the MVP in SoD (along with Arbogast), and still the only one even capable of tanking most LoB opponents in SoA + ToB. She certainly would've shone even more in a smaller party.
Imoen:
Almost no kills here, but what would you expect from a mage in LoB? She provided the party with great buffs and summons plus her utility as a thief, so there can be no question of the usefulness of her contributions. Would Jan have been better? Honestly, propably not! With him, I wouldn't have had access to planetars for a very, very long time, and I think the usefulness of thief HLAs suffers quite a bit on LoB (well, UAI would've been great, that's true).
Arbogast:
The master of staying back while others risk their lives. Great choice for a no-reload run, and his spirit animals + fire elementals were crucial in BG1, SoD and early SoA. Later on, he still contributed with buffs, elemental princes, nature's beauty and energy blades, but most importantly, he didn't die.
Let's also take a moment to think of those who have fallen: Firun, our trusted archer who provided reliable damage throughout most of BG1 - killed by a fireball and a poorly applied belt on the Ice Island. Ifirn, chunked by wyverns in SoD, because I wasn't paying attention - she provided the party with her amazing skald song for all of BG1. Sybia, who stood no chance when the Shadow Aspect picked her as a target. Her utility as a cleric/thief was unmatched. Safana, who replaced Sybia for a short while - before a crusader scout got to her. And finally, Jan, who searched his potion bag for a potion of absorption when confronted with chain lighting in the planar prison, but failed to find anything useful.
Overall, this has been a great run with many ups and downs. The highlight of Arbogast's adventures was certainly SoD this time around, because it's clearly the most difficult part of an unmodded LoB game. The battles against the Shadow Aspect and Belhifet himself were particularily memorable. Difficulty dropped quite a bit in SoA and even ToB, though the Watcher's Keep provided us with some interesting challenges (especially when fighting in no-magic zones or against dragons). As I mentioned when I started this run, this will propably be my last venture into LoB, at least for now. While I enjoyed what the mode brought to the game in SoD, early BG1 is a chore to work through, and I don't think LoB does anything too useful for SoA and ToB. At times, I didn't even want to play on during some of the more tedious ToB parts, but I'm glad I finished this one - Watcher's Keep and the Throne of Bhaal were actually quite a bit of fun once again. Also, shoutout to the "Nightmare Mode" thread in this forum, as I picked up many useful tips from there.
Meanwhile, I have already started a solo run with a cleric/ranger, because I haven't attempted soloing SoD yet. So far, I've managed to keep it no-reload, so I might start posting about it at some point.
Molkar and Halacan just killed me in my solo poverty run. I got to the edge of the map and almost escaped, but when I realized I had Boots of Speed on (a convenience cheat for out-of-combat stuff), so I gave him a moment to keep attacking me for the sake of fairness, even though he had already landed a critical hit on the first round.
Kudos to @Enuhal ! What a joy to read, and in the same time VERY insightful. Your win will stay as an example for those who will try to complete the game with a party on the LoB (myself included, but I have a lot of work currently).
This is an amazing tale, I'd even call it a very important milestone in all no-reload games of Baldur's Gate.
Tried again, died again. This time it was the bandit camp. I couldn't find the bandits who introduce you to Tazok, which meant I couldn't go to the camp while it was neutral and then recruit everyone outside--though I'm pretty sure they would have gone hostile right afterwards anyway, so I'm not sure my main plan would have really worked.
The bandit camp obliterated my army. We had fewer people, worse stats, no spells, no wands, and no potions. Recruit Follower might be good in a normal run with other resources or in BG2 when there are better critters and higher levels, but in BG1, it's not good enough to deal with major fights on its own.
There are only so many critters you can use Recruit Follower on, and once they're dead, they're gone. And they die so, so easily.
I don't know what the next run is going to be. Even if a solo Seducer poverty run based on Recruit Follower is viable, it's still far too challenging. Maybe I'll just finish off Mae's run and figure something out later.
Tried again, died again. This time it was the bandit camp. I couldn't find the bandits who introduce you to Tazok, which meant I couldn't go to the camp while it was neutral and then recruit everyone outside--though I'm pretty sure they would have gone hostile right afterwards anyway, so I'm not sure my main plan would have really worked.
I think it might have done. My experience is that if you attack the bandits outside the word is spread so all those both outside and inside go hostile. However, if you charm those outside and then attack inside the ones outside do not go hostile.
I have an accidental no-reload game going in BG2. I ran my blackguard (one reload through BG1) through the SOD opening dungeon and then decided I wanted to get right into BG2, so I exported my character. I'm now about half-way through chapter 2 (I'm doing all the quests) and I haven't died, despite somewhat careless play. It's core rules, non-scs so it's not under the austere rule-sets you advanced no-reloaders are using, but for me it's pretty good.
Edit: I had a no-reload going. I screwed up on Hexxat's quest.
@Grond0 I do plan to up the difficulty level after I'm done with my cleric/ranger run (which I had already started while playing with Arbogast's party, so it is entirely vanilla), though it will mostly be through mods (if I can get them to work) and restrictions during character creation. Don't worry, there are many failures yet to come!
@Ygramul I've brought the relevant data for my run into a usable form for the Hall of Heroes, so it can be easily copied:
Arbogast, the Totemic Druid: @Enuhal Notable mods: None Difficulty: Legacy of Bhaal Starting and finishing posts for the specific parts of the tetralogy:
A vist to the lighthouse region left three sirines dead, but Sil and her party were pacified by a soft answer.
We killed the pirates and then helped both Charleston and Brage killing Gallor in the process.
Upon arriving at Nashkel with Brage we decided to investigate the area. We rescued a cow from some xvarts and killed a few ogres before doing some shopping and heading west. WE bought a necklace of missiles that proved highly useful against some assassins. We investigated the southern caves killing all hostile beings before heading north, clearing out large numbers of gnoll on the way.
Lots of small and average things were done in the last few days.
First, Mae'Var's questline was done. The fetch quest were not too hard, but I did learned against Rayic Gethras that IR's True Sight from a druid or a cleric does not outright dispel illusions; it renders an enemy targetable, but only for the character who actually casted the True Sight/True Seeing spell. It's a really nice little touch. It makes my life a bit more complicated against mages, but these are the kind of subtlety that makes me love IR.
Anyway, the fight against Mae'Var himself was... really underwhelming. We buffed up like usual and, for some reason, Mae'Var came to the fight only with Stoneskin active, no other prebuff. Then, he decided to melee us. What the hell ? He seemed to be broken, I don't know why... Anyway, I managed to Feeblemind him and thrashed him and his team easily.
Mencar Pebblecrusher was next, mainly because I wanted the Invisibility ring for Alora. I was a bit cheap in this fight, because I went straight for the backstab against Amon : Alora chunked him. The rest of his party followed soon after.
With the loot, I equipped a bit, mainly bought the Dakkon Zerth blade for Miluiel. I kept the vanilla one, not the IR's version, because I installed a mod that will let me upgrade it a bit. It's now a +2 weapon that gives me an extra spell from level 1 to 4. The upgrade will change the blade to a +3 weapon with bonus spells from 1 to 6. Nothing game breaking, just something that will actually be worthy of carrying into ToB. And those extra spells are super useful in SoA right now. It does change Miluiel's playstyle from now on, because she always have to have the weapon equipped to have the bonus spell. No more range weapon for her, thus more melee. It's not too bad though, because, fully buffed, she definitively can hold her own. Just have to be careful with her...
Trademeet was next. After discovering the problems this community had, we went to the Druid's Grove. We attacked the Troll Hut. Some people don't like Tactics' Spirit Trolls, but I think they're not too bad. Slightly annoying, but not too hard to tackle. Anyway, easy fights with summons.
After uneventful fights against Kylan Lind, we fought the Myconids spread across the brigde. The weirdest graphic bug then happened to me there : Kivan's sprite was changed to a Giant one. Look at that :
Nothing like that ever happened to me before. Since Giants don't have ranged animations, it actually was kinda funny to see him "throw" his melee attacks. I opened EEKeeper and change his sprite back to normal.
Then, I got into Ihtafeer's lair. I killed him and his two buddy by having Gavin and Jaheira draw aggro from them. I did not went in and out to waste their spells, I merely was attacking them with the two persons equipped with weapons enchantment high enough to hurt them. Only when they suffured too much damage that Jaheira and Gavin got out to heal properly. I try to keep the cheese to a minimum. I try. When they were out of spells, we all went in to finish the job.
So, there we were, almost in front of the Druid Grove itself, only having to kill three druids to pass. Since everything had been quite smooth so far, I got (again) a bit too confident. I just don't learn. I buffed only minimaly (apart from Miluiel, who received her full usual treatment, (safety first after all)). I thought that I would blow those guys away. Boy was I wrong. They started to cast lots of bears, snakes, but most importantly Call Woodland Being. Then, Hamadryads started to chain cast Nature's Beauty one after the other and, soon enough, I found myself surrounded by a massive amount of enemies while my team was either charmed (Jaheira) or totally blinded (the rest of my people except Miluiel). Look at the mayhem these three druids caused :
Three freakin' druids, damn it ! After they managed to kill Alora, I decided to take the safe option : I went invisible and waited for their summons to vanish. They did after a while, so we proceeded to slay those annoying spell casters...
In the Druid Grove itself, Jaheira took care of Faldorn. Gavin prepared Raise Dead in his spellbook, just in case. Jaheira started with Insect Plague, then went with a Fire Elemental. After having cast Stoneskin, Insect Plague wore off and one of the Hamadryads Faldorn summoned at the start of the fight blinded Jaheira. Right after, Faldorn also managed to charm Jaheira. I thought that I would have to start that fight again, but the Fire Elemental came through : he killed Faldorn pretty much on his own. Nice.
We got back to Trademeet and were acclaimed like the heroes we are... I then bought another piece of equipment, this one for Kivan. You probably don't remember, but, in BG1, I gave the Tome of Strength to Kivan. Why, you might ask : he's a freakin' archer in your install. That's why :
This superb bow requires 19 strength to be used, but it gives +10 to damage every hit. If you count the bonus damage an archer gets as he level up, this will make Kivan an absolute monster later in the game. He will use this weapon until the end of this run, only to be replaced when I'll need +4 enchantment to hit something.
To test that beauty, we went in the sewers to kill Tarnor the Hatchetman's party. OK, I got a bit chessy again... Alora started with a backstab of Gaius. She chunked him (she becomes quite good at chunking mages). Tarnor and his team were then killed by melee, Confusion spell and highly damaging range attacks, all that while incurring minimal damage ourselves.
So, things are going good for us. I'm not sure where I'll go next... Since I've been spending all my money up until now, I still have to find myself 15 000 $, so I must keep hunting down sidequests. I recently bought the Mace of Disruption (you have to buy it at Lathander's Temple with IR), so I guess I will head toward Firkraag's lair. See you next time...
Beggar's Opera - poverty run (1st and final update)
Right, I've rolled up a party for a poverty run consisting of a Cleric of Helm, Totemic Druid, Shaman, Bounty Hunter and 2 Sorcerers. They're using an SCS/Ascension installation and playing at Core difficulty. Here are the characters rolled.
My definition of a poverty run is: 1) You can never buy or sell any items (including any items required for quests). 2) You can never use or equip any items (but can pick things up for quests). 3) You may pay for quests (such as Gaelan Bayle), but not anything else (temples, inns etc).
My initial attempt seemed to be going well with most of the basilisks dead and everyone up to at least level 4. I was writing notes up while shaman summons were nibbling another basilisk when I returned to the game to find this though.
That was the result of only killing 3 of the 4 bears that spawned the previous day. I've noted before that random spawns have a chance of persisting after a rest, but as the bear had wandered away I couldn't easily tell if that had happened in this case (so should have been more wary of course ).
I'm away for a few days now, but will see if I can make better progress when I get back.
Iloïnen (solo cleric/ranger) - Part I: Erämaan Viimeinen
This is a vanilla solo run, played on core rules, that I started during my recent LoB playthrough. I mostly played Iloïnen when I didn't have the time or the inclination to deal with a full party of six and the prolonged battles that ToB LoB has to offer. At this point, she has just gotten past Korlasz's tomb, but I'll start my report with her early BG1 adventures.
First of all, her stats:
She started with **War Hammer and **Sling (as well as **Two Weapon Style thanks to being a ranger)
The first thing I did was selling Evermemory and buying a wand of sleep and a couple of protective potions for various situations to ensure my safety. I gained some experience via Beregost quests - enemies in the nearby wilderness areas were simply kited and shot with my sling or commanded and killed, larger groups were put to sleep. I quickly boosted up my reputation this way and, after leveling up a bit, added DUHM and hold person to my arsenal. With a couple of extra hitpoints, I also felt ready to take out Tarnesh:
I decided to gather some equipment next, which provided me with the opportunity to use hold person against Meilum:
Another reason I travelled far to the east was access to Durlag's Tower and Ulgoth's Beard in order to buy more items. A wand of the heavens was a welcome addition to my arsenal. At this point, I mostly sought single enemies or small groups without spellcasters, just to get enough experience for cleric level 5:
Having achieved that, I was able to add some skeletons to my army, whose several immunites allowed me to start taking down spellcasters - most importantly Bassilus, who provided me with a great new weapon:
By now, all I had to do was gather as much experience as possible before progressing with the plot, so I hunted down the basilisks. I also used skeletons and hold person to complete my collection of three belts that I'd swap in and out depending on enemy weapon types:
Now, THAT is a good hold person spell right there:
The final adventuring party running around in the wilderness were the amazons, who resisted hold person but were unable to deal with Iloïnens sling - I already had access to level 4 spells at this point:
Just to complete the various wilderness encounters, I took out some tougher opponents like the doomsayer and the battle horrors at Durlag's with the help of some wand of the heavens charges. I also killed Lendarn, but decided to skip the Firewine Dungeon and the Ulcaster Ruins:
Finally, I made my way to the three available tomes, using greenstone amulet charges for the tome of wisdom and the traps in the flesh golem cave, while the flesh golems were defeated in combat:
Next time, we will quickly progress through the chapters, as Iloïnen really didn't need to gather any more experience at this point, so everything that wasn't either mandatory or involved the acquisitions of new and useful items was simply skipped.
I found that I couldn't identify with Fergus so started a new game with a fighter mage dwarf. (My set-up allows this) This came to an end fighting Tenya. The Tenya mod makes her much more powerful. The spells that she uses start with sleep. This is effective, but not overly so, then DUHM and spiritual hammer. That makes her a better fighter. Rigid thinking comes next which can be a pain as you continue to fight her even after she has yeilded if you succumb to it. Nesxt come two hold spells.
It was the hold spell that finished my run. It makes me think that unless you are a berserker a party is needed for dealing with her in this set-up. I played the battle three times. Twice she won due to hold. On the third occasion I was forced to kill her due to attacking her after she had yeilded. That was due to rigid thinking.
I have therefore expect my next run to be either berserker or berserker/mage rather than fighter/conjurer as in my last run.
Elemental level of Watcher's keep: we have two Detect Traps spells memorized as well as Jan constantly detecting. We also have multiple "Protection from" spells memorized, though I'm only worried about electricity. Sebastian collects the Poison head for the FoA, and all the puzzles in each room are cleared without much mishap. The final guardian falls:
And the Chromatic demon is a tad annoying. A Dispel takes out our fire resistances, and he manages to get 2 Fireballs off while Alina and Mazzy use their elemental ammunition to hurt it slowly. No deaths, but several healing potions used before Mazzy finishes it off with an Ice Arrow.
SCS Draconis is actually easier than normal Draconis, in my opinion. Either that or I got better. Whichever is true, Baroque had 5 Pro. Acid spells at his disposal, and Draconis only manages to dispel Sarevok, who immediately green scrolled back up. Without his cheesy aura-less Invisibility, we easily respond to whatever defensive spells he tries to throw up, and the acid-breathing dragon dies.
While collecting items in the Enclave, I realize that I installed SCS's improved Abazigal's Lair. The second dragon fight I'm completely unprepared for, but her own breath weapon is piercing and we tank it out with health to spare.
We're sent to get a rope, and return... For some reason I thought that the 4 dragon fight was Ascension, but nope, it's SCS. Without immunity from normal weapons, though, we can always deal damage to everything, and Sebastian and Sarevok keep their health and saving throws up. A mistake near the beginning kills Jan, but a Resurrection from the Paladin's bracers gets him back up. The first two fall:
And I have time to prepare for the other two, though I have no screenshots.
The worst fight here is actually the Tyrant Golems and Death Tyrants. Anti-magic rays hit basically everyone, and we're relying on Sebastian's sub-zero saving throws to tank up their rays, though their damage rays are still doing good damage. I don't keep track of healing potions quaffed here, but it's at least a dozen.
Finally, Abazigal himself. We're buffed with Pro. Electricity, 3 from Baroque and 3 from Alina. Sarevok is Dispelled, but a Potion of Absorption gets his resistances back up to 50. He tries to knock everyone unconscious, but Sarevok and Sebastian remain up and tanking damage, so our spread-out backline is unaffected and shoot him down with bolts and arrows.
The Slayer fight is easy, as the A.I. is to chase CHARNAME no matter what else happens. Sendai's lair is next.
After all this time, I still have a healthy and irrational fear of all things Beholder. Here's a Hive Mother dying.
Hordes are highly stompable with this type of team: nothing gives us any trouble until Odamaron. Essentially the beginning of the fight:
He's continually applying PfMW whenever possible, and Jan isn't quite going to win a battle with that. Having permanent Negative Plane Protection, Sebastian goes after the Vampire first, and is soon able to convince her to turn to bat form. Not sure if I got any experience for it, but whatever. Alina summons a Deva, Jan starts summoning Magical Swords, and Mazzy and Sarevok start on the two Skeleton Warriors.
Problem, though. The Lich Apprentice is still doing stuff, including apparently summoning two Fallen Planetars. It's chaos for awhile: Sarevok is Charmed, Sebastian is on top of the Apprentice, Jan is being chased by the two Fallen Planetars while their Insect Plagues are stopping any further casting. The two Skeleton Warriors fall. Odamaron is focusing on the Deva who is somehow still undamaged. PfMW is on the Apprentice too, and we can do basically nothing but sing and shoot the Fallen Planetars. Fortunately. the Apprentice keeps disrupting his own spells by targeting Sebastian: an item from IR, the Saving Grace +3 shield, damages undead whenever they target the wielder.
Finally, 4 rounds pass. PfMW falls. The Apprentice falls too.
We clean up the Fallen Planetars soon after, and Odamaron is finally out of defenses as well. The second his protections drop... He gets Destroyed by the Deva. The round must've ended right then and there, since the Deva's weapon wasn't working until now.
The Beholder/Drow ambush wasn't expected, and we ended up retreating back into Odamaron's room, where they followed and were summarily destroyed. Continuing on, we hadn't used many of our combat HLAs, so I felt comfortable tackling Ogremoch. Two Breaches from Jan made life considerably easier, and the last of the elemental princes die.
On the left room, someone forgot to add Protection from Evil to their demon summoning. Alina casts Farsight to see what's going on over there.
We're still in fairly good shape after taking down the Near Death Hive Mother and the drow lackie, so onto the Spectator Beholder room. I thought I could get someone else to duel for me, but nope, Baroque's in the pit. How do I get out of this without getting another kill? Well, Kitthix is deadly.
We rest, grab 6 Mind Shields in our level 5 slots (Chaotic Commands that last Round/level instead of Turn. Divine remix and all that) and fight off the Illithids. Sarevok is hit twice on separate occasions, but no one was in danger of dying this time.
Right. Sendai. I have the Improved Enclave again from SCS, so there's supposedly only a round in between each statue animating, as well as Drow constantly entering the room. I'm reminded a bit of Davaeorn, except a single Pro. Magic scroll isn't going to end this encounter for us. Our prebuffs are Improved Haste on Sebastian, Sarevok, and Mazzy, Haste on everyone else, Death Ward on everyone save Sebastian, Pro. Fire on Baroque, Sarevok, and Sebastian, Divine Shell and Endurance of Ilmater on Sebastian, Stoneskin on Baroque and Jan, True Seeing on Jan, and finally a Mass Invisibility from Baroque. We have around 3 turns of Improved Invisibility.
The plan is for Sebastian to deal with the Drow, Alina and Jan summoning rounds 1 and 2, while Sarevok and Mazzy go Sendai hunting. Baroque is in the center singing, of course. Statue one goes down before Jan even finishes the Stone Golem summon. 1!
The second one takes a bit longer: there's two active on the map at the moment. Or there were. Back to one. I think Alina was busy summoning, and Sarevok had to run across the battlefield. Sebastian is apparently dealing with the Sendai that spawned near him, the Drow completely cleared for now. 2!
The Fighter doesn't last long, but there's a mage up top that we have to deal with. Alina and Mazzy swap ammunition. 3!
The mage drops at some point: I think I had Baroque use a Wand of Striking charge to take out whatever protection spell was being used, since it seems to be an Acid Arrow +2 that sealed the deal. 4!
The Archer does some serious damage to Alina, who forgot to buff with Physical Mirror. No matter: she dies upon trying to teleport in the top left. A Drow chased down Jan, who couldn't escape. 5!
Alina casts Mass Raise Dead to get Jan back up. Another Mage spawns in the north, and is using Improved Mantle as well as a Mislead clone. It takes two or three rounds to start on the mage itself, and in the meantime the Thief spawns in the bottom and is quickly massacred. 6!
Sarevok joins Mazzy in the +5 weapon slaughtering of the mage. Jan is back up, and struggling to re-equip himself. 7!
Everyone converges on the real Sendai. No more tricks. 8!
We ensure the Solar of our good intentions, and return to pick up the potions. On a whim I check to see how many extra potions I have: these are the contents of my Potion bag.
Sebastian also carries around 40 Potions of Invulnerability.
Cyric's talked down: apparently if you deal with the Rogue Rebalancing encounter peacefully, Cyric doesn't make his followers attack. It was a foregone conclusion anyways, with True Seeing running and a fully physical party. Not having Ascension, though, Balthazar can't be.
This lasted at most two rounds.
The final challege, the Ravager! This is a bit of a grind-fest, both sides just trading blows. Eventually we overwhelm him, though, and there's only one thing left standing in our way
Final stats before the battle for the throne. Baroque, the Rogue Rebalanced almost-pacifist-Skald 33, who accidentally killed a Shadow. It's undead, though, so...? The challenge was to see whether the force multiplier of a Skald's song was really worth never doing any damage. And I think... Yeah. There's almost no way to make a level 20 Warrior even more accurate, and adding +5 to all attack rolls has been guaranteeing hits with 2s for 2 million experience. His song deflected so many stun attempts, and his high level guarantees crucial elemental protections remain up in the face of dragons and liches. The +5 damage per hit is just gravy at this point: without using any other buffs, my party has 18 APR, so that's a possible 90 damage extra per round. With buffs, it goes up to something silly like 34 APR, and assuming most of those hit, that's 170 damage. The immunities and spells have been the most important thing, though.
Sebastian, Painbearer of Ilmater 11/Fighter 26. Why not just straight Paladin, which is arguably 100% better? I didn't trust myself to not need Raise Dead, so wanted level 5 Cleric slots. Regardless, Sebastian has been the bastion of this team from Candlekeep until now. He's died twice, gotten petrified once, but he's now able to push his saves well into the negative, has a pretty good AC, courtesy of Baroque, and can sit around with Hardiness and Armor of Faith active and laugh at most attacks. He has no WWs or GWWs, instead having 3 Hardiness, 1 Power Attack, 1 Critical Strike, 1 Death Blow, 1 Greater Death Blow.
Sarevok, Fighter 25. The replacement in ToB for Valygar, and secondary front line and damage threat. He's been performing well as a damage source, with multiple GWWs to try to get off a Death Bringer assault. I think he's sitting at 1 WW, 3 GWW, 2 Hardiness.
Alina, Archer 9/Cleric 29. The true Cleric of the team, and Alina's been solid throughout the series as well. In BG1, she was simply an Archer backed by a Skald and doing silly amounts of damage. And now, in BG2, she's been critical in providing higher level Death wards and replenishing elemental protections when necessary. She can still function as an Archer, as her THAC0 drops to -6 with the Skald song, but she's spending more time summoning and laying down crowd control with her HLAs. She literally has one of everything; I dunno what happens if she levels up again.
Mazzy, Fighter 27. The replacement for Cato, our pre-made Archer, and she's been doing a pretty darn good job. She swaps between 3 weapons now, the Iron Bow of Gesen, the Sling of Everand, and the Darkfire bow +5. With all this damage, she still has the highest number of kills in BG2, and that's not discounting the portion before I reached her. HLAs are 1 Power Attack, 3 Critical Strike, 1 Smite, 1 Whirlwind, 2 GWW.
Jan, Illusionist 15/Thief 19. Replacement for Imoen, who was a replacement for Vista. He doesn't even have level 8 spells going into the Throne, but he's here for 4 things: traps, Detect Invisibility, Morde swords, and Breach. He has one Spike trap (nerfed to do Piercing and thus stoppable by Stoneskin), 1 Explosion trap, and 2 Acid traps as well as the mandatory Use Any Item.
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The Crew whipped through the Nashkel Mine quickly without the need for any resting until they got to Mulahey's cave. Their volume of attacks was then too much for Mulahey to handle.
Back in Nashkel they reported to the mayor to push reputation up to 20. Nimbul's only chance was to be aggressive, but as SCS mages tend to do he tried to build a defense only for it to be overwhelmed by the weight of attacks. A similar fate befell Tranzig, but I didn't fancy going straight on to the Bandit Camp. Instead the Crew set off for Ulgoth's Beard to do some shopping, but were ambushed on the way by Molkar & co. The Crew were able to comfortably out-damage their opponents though.
Al had bought a magic staff in Ulgoth's Beard and Mad Dog picked up an axe in Beregost. That meant Baby Face decided it was about time that Arghain was forced to hand over a magical 2-handed sword. With other purchases including the Dagger of Venom, the Army Scythe and full plate that exhausted current funds.
Moving on to Durlag's Tower the external walls were soon cleared - with everyone except Vito now having a proficient melee weapon even the battle horrors were hit relatively easily. Inside the Tower, ghasts put the Crew on the verge of levelling up and I decided to have a go at Riggilo to tip them over. He was surrounded so he couldn't backstab Al, but in the event he never actually got an attack in anyway. On the roof Carlo used potions to protect him while meleeing the basilisks - allowing Vito to grab the +2 scimitar and become the last of the Crew to acquire a proficient magical melee weapon.
With level 7 being such a long way off I decided to do a bit of the underground area of the Tower for a change. The main traps on the first level are fire and lightning, so with a combination of helm, ring & boots giving 60% and 70% protection against those it wasn't too difficult to make progress and there were no real alarms until I attacked the 4 warders. I tried pulling those away individually and killed the first 2 at the cost of a couple of potions. Avarice was near death being run round by Mad Dog (while the others used missile fire) when he decided to cloud kill on top of himself. Mad Dog got just enough warning to be able to run out of the cloud, but Bugsy (who had been throwing darts) was just close enough to get caught and died instantly.
On the way to the temple to raise Bugsy the amazons appeared. With a healthy party I would have been happy to take them on, but with 1 man down and HPs low I just ran for it.
Back at the Tower I decided with HPs at maximum to go for the quick kill. Hence, after dodging an initial cloudkill, everyone attacked in melee. Vito was hit with one backstab, but was missed with a second and Avarice didn't have time for a third. After resting they looked for Love and eventually tracked him down in the side corridors. He wasn't keen to come out, but finally did so and a general attack was successful.
On the next level I killed a number of dopplegangers in order to open a passageway. A choice was between a multitude of traps one way and a rather nasty one the other. I chose the nasty one thinking that it should be possible to get everyone through that and then rest on the other side. Unfortunately I couldn't remember how far it was to the next trap beyond that and chose to go only slightly beyond where the trap was shown. The result of that was that as the second dwarf came through the trap caught the first one as well - chunking him. As that was the run over for me I did a bit of further testing of the trap. As you can see in this screenshot it regularly hits people in the corridor just beyond the trap.
While posting this I thought I would load the autosave from the first level and go back down to test the trap further. In particular I wanted to see what ctrl+4 showed about the location of the trap - that was consistent with the animation, i.e. it didn't extend to the end of the corridor. However, I also sent the Crew through the trap once more, but had them wait well down the corridor. For the first 4 of them there were no surprises, but when the 5th went through two of those waiting were hit again by the trap, so you definitely don't want to be anywhere near it when someone else triggers it
Incidentally, I've also just gone back to my starting save and used Tresset's anti-chunking fix on it, so next time I wouldn't have to worry about a trap chunking people
1. Lots of fighters with no special abilities
2. A single high-level mage
3. One mage, one cleric, one thief, and three fighters
I'd like to see more low-level spellcasters, druids, fighter/spellcasters, and fighters who do more than just deal damage and soak up damage, plus a higher prevalence of kits. I'd also like to see clerics who buff their allies, like the player does, instead of just themselves.
You know how fast you can mow down kobolds when you're a level 3 party? Well, that's just how fast a group of kobold followers can vanish in a single battle. In the Nashkel mines, I went from 25 followers to one when my strongest followers went hostile during the fight with Mulahey and a gang of Hobgoblin Elites and Hobgoblin Captains ambushed us right outside.
An army of followers just can't bounce back if they get hit too hard. Not during the fight, because they have no potions, and not after the fight, because you can't raise them. You can build up your group's power over many smaller fights, only to see everything suddenly come crashing down.
At present his party are at around 13,000xp and wandering the wilderness after bouncing off the upgraded Nashkel Mines. They consist of Stirkus- psypher. Isra- Cherub of Sune. Ajantis- Everwatch knight. Gavin- Priest of Lathander. Imoen- who'll soon dual class to mage. Kagain- Dwarven Defender. Stirkus favours aristocratic law-abiding humans where possible. In the long term Drake may come in for Gavin, Xan for Kagain, and Skie for Imoen- I'll just assume that Skie was held captive with Xan so Stirkus can have a nice blueblood party. Since Xan & Skie are a bit more fragile their classes may be switched up a bit as well- Herald for Skie and F/M or Dirgesinger for Xan.
Now a few words from the man himself...
There is nothing so dangerous to the welfare of a land as misrule. The Sword Coast has only pockets of civilization, swamped by chaos. The bandits and the iron plague are two sides of the assault on order, and I shall do my best to combat them, once threats to local order have been disposed with. It is with shame that I allowed looser heads such as Garrick and poor vengeful Kivan to prevail upon me for overlong. I will have order. A pity that Jaheira and Khalid could not be more patient concerning this, but they have duties and loyalties which bind them differently.
It is with some pride that I have led my fellows to disposing of a variety of menaces thus far however. The fell priest Bassilus had murdered many before we claimed his life. Then at the urging of Gavin's superiors we defeated the crazed mage Mutamin, and rid the area of his basilisks. A pity the adventurers in the area were so unappreciative, but fortunately they did no more than breach the peace with words, rather than weapons.
The mysterious assassins who have so far attempted to claim my life have failed on every occasion to resist the demons of their own id. They, and their masters, have underestimated my powers thus far. The one known has Neira came closest after that brute Tarnesh, but on this occasion at least Gavin was not overgentle with her. A pity his fellow Lathendarites were not quicker to respond when we were forced to slay a vampiric wolf in front of the high altar itself however!
The Nashkel Mines have proved a harder nut to crack. Infested with kobolds as they are, they nearly killed the lady Isra, who we had helped defend from the overenthusiastic assault of Greywolf the bounty hunter. Hmm. That reminds me, we must return those emeralds once we can remove them... For now it seems important that we find the lost captain Brage. The local garrison are demoralised in his absence, and require leadership if worse is not to befall.
(A word on my install. It contains Dark Side, Dark Horizons, & SCS but I have purged many opponents of excessive mod items and it has a 30% reduction in items from item randomiser on top of that. A decent challenge, as I don't really know the BG1 mods that well.)
(A word on my install. It contains Dark Side, Dark Horizons, & SCS but I have purged many opponents of excessive mod items and it has a 30% reduction in items from item randomiser on top of that. A decent challenge, as I don't really know the BG1 mods that well.)
If you don't know the Dark Horizons Assassins you will die! Once you know them, you can neutralise their strengths however, but some of them are still tough. The big question is what to do about their powerful weapons. If they don't have them, then they are no longer powerful enemies. If they do have them, you can acquire them. One that is of particular import is a short sword that has a good chance of "holding" an enemy after a successful strike. I myself have no qualms about using them as I have the Grey Wolf Episode and The Drizzt Saga installed. I will need those weapons then!
Diary of Fergus Firehair
The fight against Teyngan and his corhorts was not easy until Tenya managed to hold him. After that it was more straightforward.(I made a mistake joining up with Khalid and Jaheira so early in the game as they were still at a low level. If it hadn't been a no-reload game I would have reloaded at that point.)
Also the Varscona swords are not actually a problem as all they do is make the oponents harder and you richer.
It is other items like the sword that holds you that is more of a problem. If your PC is struck with that, it could be game over. It is actually more powerful than Varscona as it can take a mage out of the game with one blow and it is useable by a thief. Therefore it is possible to backstab the mage before he knows that you are there.
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
Part LV: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/914226/#Comment_914226
On Monday, I had four hours with nothing to do while on a train. I had forgotten to take a book with me, so I used that time to think about Arbogast's upcoming Amelyssan battle, trying to plan out all the aspects of the fight, making sure I didn't miss anything, that I'd use all my resources, come with the right spell selection, the right spellscrolls and potions, the right use of HLAs etc. Let's see if that payed off.
My starting chain contingencies for Nahema and Imoen were both times 2 mordy swords and improved haste upon seeing an enemy. This would provide me with quick summons for the first battle, and I'd save at least one casting of improved haste. Their spell triggers were similiar, but mostly aimed at the purpose of renewing buffs after getting them dispelled mid-combat - improved haste, stoneskin and spirit armor for imoen (fireshield: blue for Nahema instead of the spirit armor, because... no reason really).
In terms of spell selection, some important notes: Massive amounts of death wards and chaotic commands with lots of wondrous recalls for Anomen and Arbogast. I was ready to rebuff my entire party multiple times, because I know Amelyssan likes to dispel buffs. All level 6 mage spells went into improved haste. I also wanted to have a planetar for every Amelyssan fight and as many mordy swords as possible.
Since I never had to use any potions except for healing purposes in ToB, I still had lots of cloud/storm giant strength, heroism and invulnerability potions plus oils of speed in my inventory. My opening buffs: Death wards, chaotic commands, remove fear and PfE 10' radius for everyone, improved haste for Aikar and Mazzy (plus for Nahema and Imoen via contingencies and for Arbogast via energy blades), AoF + SotA for Arbogast and Anomen (who also used DUHM), heroism, invulnerability and fire giant strength for the fighter-types. Not too much all in all, because I was afraid of an early dispel magic. With many improved haste spells going, I didn't use any fighter HLAs during the first fight: Amelyssans only successful move was a sunray, quickly negated by a bunch of healing potions (with the invulnerability potions, saving against the blindness effect was easy). A spawned-in death tyrant was taken out by Aikar with the Ravager + 6 vorpal hit:
Though it did manage to use its anti-magic ray on Nahema before being killed, Amelyssan wasn't able to capitalize on this, as she was quickly forced to flee, only getting in one or two hits on Mazzy:
As I still had some duration going on my 4 mordy swords and the planetar (instantly gated in by Imoen at the start of the fight), I quickly approached the prince of air. This battle didn't drain me of any ressources, and the only danger was presented by one vampiric wraith who tried to kill Imoen (though the AoP prevented any level drain):
However, my summons and improved haste spells ran out at the end of the fight. I renewed all the initial buffs on Nahema, and she cast improved haste on herself, Mazzy and Aikar. As for summons, I used three mordy swords, a dark planetar (summoned by Nahema) and an elemental prince, with the extra-addition of a Nahema-simulacrum (she had 3 simmy spells in her spellbook and two scrolls, so why not use them?). The second Mel battle went very well indeed: The first summon, a slayer shadows, was distracted by a mordy sword, and when the first death tyrant appeared, Amelyssan already had to retreat again:
Once again, no fighter HLAs had to be used at all, and no dispel magic affected my party. This time, Mel's only successful spell was a greater malison (basically already countered by invulnerability potions), and she once again attacked Mazzy a couple of times. I sent my summons to the prince of ice while my party used six cold resistance scrolls and potions I had prepared for this encounter, just in case. Aikar went in with the Wave to take out the two ice salamanders, everything else was killed with ranged weapons:
Summons ran out once again, though I still had improved haste going this time. Once again, a planetar, mordy swords and an elemental prince were called, plus another Nahema simulacrum. This was the critical incarnation of Mel, where she would use her "kick the party away, call slayer shadows and teleport"-trick. Once the slayer shadows appeared, I switched most of my party to weapons granting level drain-immunity (like Angurvidal +5, Rune Hammer +5 and Spectral Brand +5). Some slayer shadows were distracted by my summons. Arbogast himself was, thankfully, left completely alone.
When Mel teleported away, my party quickly followed, but her next spell was dispel magic - finally. She hit Anomen, Aikar, Mazzy and Imoen - Nahema, who went the other way around, hadn't caught up to Mel yet, and Arbogast stayed away deliberately.
I thought for a bit what to do with the auras of the dispelled characters - the fighters could use GWWs for quick damage or invulnerability for safety - I decided on the latter. Imoen used her spell trigger, which had been prepared for such an occasion. Nahema's improved haste had run out at this point - so after my auras were clear once again, this was the time to go for fighter HLAs. Aikar, who was getting into trouble with a bone fiend, went back to his trusted firetooth +3 and used two GWWs, Imoen rebuffed Nahema with improved Haste while she used smite, Mazzy used a GWW herself. I had to move my fighters around a couple of times because some of Mels summons caught up to them. The other problem: Mel used dispel magic once again (after I managed to interrupt her timestop attempt) - this time, the only one concerned with defense was Nahema, who just used her spell trigger and remained perfectly fine. The others just went for more damage and used GWWs again. This was enough to take down Mel for the third and penultimate time.
Everyone except for Arbogast had lost most of their buffs at this point, so I took some time to use a couple of wondrous recalls to get all the initial buffs going again - but this time, the strength potions were for storm giant strength, and the only one with improved haste was Nahema (who still had it from her spell trigger). As for summons, I added four skeleton warriors and a deva. My plan for the fallen solar and his companions was based on Nahema anyway: She used a potion of wisdom, a limited wish scroll and asked for control over time:
She brought the solar to half hp with her 10 apr before the timestop ended - while fleeing, I sent in my summons, and Nahema cast another timestop from a scroll - this time, it was enough to kill the fallen solar:
With her remaining time, she damaged the alu-fiend, and the party used ranged weapons and breach charges from wands to take care of everything else. I cast two wish spells (one from a scroll), hoping for the rest option, but I got nothing useful at all. Bad luck.
Let's do this one last time. Imoens last improved haste spells were cast on Aikar, Mazzy and Nahema (in case I needed more, I still had one spellscrolls and the item-based activations going). Energy blades for Arbogast, hardiness just because I had it, let's also add bless for good luck. The deva was replaced by my last planetar, I also added mirror images, another Nahema simmy and the Mazzy simmy from the Helm of Vhailor:
One important addition: Nahema and Imoen used spell immunity: abjuration to protect their buffs this time, as they had no spell triggers available to them anymore.
Amelyssan is quickly taking damage. Two demons are summoned to help her, and I have Aikar attack them with Ravager +6 and a GWW. No lucky vorpal strike. Mel dispels our buffs, but Nahema and Imoen are protected:
Arbogast retreats, recasting some defensive buffs. He has to stay safe. My fighters use one aura to rebuff with storm giant strength. Nahema delivers big damage, and we also have the planetar going - our foe is almost defeated:
And there we have it: Victory!
We still had half of our fighter HLAs ready to go, so I feel like this was a fairly convincing victory overall. Most importantly, Mel never got to use her dreaded timestop - except for dispel magic, she only managed to pull of a single greater malison, a single sunray and some regular attacks. This is also the first time (with the exception of the Ravager) that I actually used my fighter's dual-wielding abilities to their full extent, as this fight is very much a damage-race in many ways, especially because Mel uses an undispellable stoneskin that has to be brought down via normal attacks.
Let's see some final stats, and I'll share some thoughts on each party member:
Sir Anomen:
Why did I take Anomen into my party? Simple - I wanted to have more death wards and chaotic commands at my disposal, because of the druid leveling progression only allowing Arbogast to have a few of those for a very long time. I also wanted more fighting power and someone to use all those blunt weapons - no one else had any proficiency with them. Anomen did his job, as he always does. I had no one else to use the gauntlets of dexterity, so he also provided some decent ranged damage with slings. Always a very solid choice. Nothing exceptional, but blessed with excellent utility and a generally quite strong class combination.
Aikar:
Look at those killstats. Aikar was simply a monster - over 50% of kills in the final chapter of the game? In a party with three other great fighter-types? This dagger-throwing grandmastery single class Kensai build is a powerhouse. Remember: He outdamaged my Archer in BG1 already! And the fact that there's no +4 throwing dagger only even came up once or twice, and even then, it didn't matter at all. He also did great work with the Wave, Daystar and the Answerer. He might've only made it here because others got targetted by most SoD backstabs, but his presence was greatly appreciated.
Mazzy:
A constant source of reliable damage, and with much better saving throws than Aikar. However, her damage eventually waned compared to his. Still, when she equipped a sling, summoned a simmy and used her GWWs, she could bring down dragons in no time, and I did turn her into a 9 APR dual-wielder for the Mel battles. Still one of the best fighter NPCs in the game.
Nahema:
You can tell how much Nahema's damage output suffered in SoA and ToB, mostly because I used her as a shield-using tank and kept her offensive abilities in reserve, mostly using her aura just for emergencies. She wasn't proficient with any good ranged weapons, so for many battles, she just stood around doing nothing. However, she delivered at the throne, with her timestop moves, undispellable 10 apr and useful proficiencies. It took her quite a while to get there: She only got access to 9th level spells in Watcher's Keep level 3! However, she was the MVP in SoD (along with Arbogast), and still the only one even capable of tanking most LoB opponents in SoA + ToB. She certainly would've shone even more in a smaller party.
Imoen:
Almost no kills here, but what would you expect from a mage in LoB? She provided the party with great buffs and summons plus her utility as a thief, so there can be no question of the usefulness of her contributions. Would Jan have been better? Honestly, propably not! With him, I wouldn't have had access to planetars for a very, very long time, and I think the usefulness of thief HLAs suffers quite a bit on LoB (well, UAI would've been great, that's true).
Arbogast:
The master of staying back while others risk their lives. Great choice for a no-reload run, and his spirit animals + fire elementals were crucial in BG1, SoD and early SoA. Later on, he still contributed with buffs, elemental princes, nature's beauty and energy blades, but most importantly, he didn't die.
Let's also take a moment to think of those who have fallen:
Firun, our trusted archer who provided reliable damage throughout most of BG1 - killed by a fireball and a poorly applied belt on the Ice Island.
Ifirn, chunked by wyverns in SoD, because I wasn't paying attention - she provided the party with her amazing skald song for all of BG1.
Sybia, who stood no chance when the Shadow Aspect picked her as a target. Her utility as a cleric/thief was unmatched.
Safana, who replaced Sybia for a short while - before a crusader scout got to her.
And finally, Jan, who searched his potion bag for a potion of absorption when confronted with chain lighting in the planar prison, but failed to find anything useful.
Overall, this has been a great run with many ups and downs. The highlight of Arbogast's adventures was certainly SoD this time around, because it's clearly the most difficult part of an unmodded LoB game. The battles against the Shadow Aspect and Belhifet himself were particularily memorable. Difficulty dropped quite a bit in SoA and even ToB, though the Watcher's Keep provided us with some interesting challenges (especially when fighting in no-magic zones or against dragons). As I mentioned when I started this run, this will propably be my last venture into LoB, at least for now. While I enjoyed what the mode brought to the game in SoD, early BG1 is a chore to work through, and I don't think LoB does anything too useful for SoA and ToB. At times, I didn't even want to play on during some of the more tedious ToB parts, but I'm glad I finished this one - Watcher's Keep and the Throne of Bhaal were actually quite a bit of fun once again. Also, shoutout to the "Nightmare Mode" thread in this forum, as I picked up many useful tips from there.
Meanwhile, I have already started a solo run with a cleric/ranger, because I haven't attempted soloing SoD yet. So far, I've managed to keep it no-reload, so I might start posting about it at some point.
Good luck to everyone else!
Enuhal
This is an amazing tale, I'd even call it a very important milestone in all no-reload games of Baldur's Gate.
@Ygramul: Would you add Enuhal's entry to the Hall of Heroes? I do believe this is the first no-reload LoB tetralogy run ever.
The bandit camp obliterated my army. We had fewer people, worse stats, no spells, no wands, and no potions. Recruit Follower might be good in a normal run with other resources or in BG2 when there are better critters and higher levels, but in BG1, it's not good enough to deal with major fights on its own.
There are only so many critters you can use Recruit Follower on, and once they're dead, they're gone. And they die so, so easily.
I don't know what the next run is going to be. Even if a solo Seducer poverty run based on Recruit Follower is viable, it's still far too challenging. Maybe I'll just finish off Mae's run and figure something out later.
Edit: I had a no-reload going. I screwed up on Hexxat's quest.
@Grond0 I do plan to up the difficulty level after I'm done with my cleric/ranger run (which I had already started while playing with Arbogast's party, so it is entirely vanilla), though it will mostly be through mods (if I can get them to work) and restrictions during character creation. Don't worry, there are many failures yet to come!
@Ygramul I've brought the relevant data for my run into a usable form for the Hall of Heroes, so it can be easily copied:
Arbogast, the Totemic Druid: @Enuhal
Notable mods: None
Difficulty: Legacy of Bhaal
Starting and finishing posts for the specific parts of the tetralogy:
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
ToB end: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/914548/#Comment_914548
Diary of Fergus Firehair
A vist to the lighthouse region left three sirines dead, but Sil and her party were pacified by a soft answer.We killed the pirates and then helped both Charleston and Brage killing Gallor in the process.
Upon arriving at Nashkel with Brage we decided to investigate the area. We rescued a cow from some xvarts and killed a few ogres before doing some shopping and heading west. WE bought a necklace of missiles that proved highly useful against some assassins. We investigated the southern caves killing all hostile beings before heading north, clearing out large numbers of gnoll on the way.
Miluiel, the elven bard
BG1 posts : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6SoD posts : 1, 2, 3, 4
SoA posts : 1, 2, 3
Notable mods
- SCS (full prebuffs, full Tactical Challenges)
- IR/SR
- Rogue Rebalancing
- plenty of NPC mods
- Tweak Anthology
- Refinements
Lots of small and average things were done in the last few days.
First, Mae'Var's questline was done. The fetch quest were not too hard, but I did learned against Rayic Gethras that IR's True Sight from a druid or a cleric does not outright dispel illusions; it renders an enemy targetable, but only for the character who actually casted the True Sight/True Seeing spell. It's a really nice little touch. It makes my life a bit more complicated against mages, but these are the kind of subtlety that makes me love IR.
Anyway, the fight against Mae'Var himself was... really underwhelming. We buffed up like usual and, for some reason, Mae'Var came to the fight only with Stoneskin active, no other prebuff. Then, he decided to melee us. What the hell ? He seemed to be broken, I don't know why... Anyway, I managed to Feeblemind him and thrashed him and his team easily.
Mencar Pebblecrusher was next, mainly because I wanted the Invisibility ring for Alora. I was a bit cheap in this fight, because I went straight for the backstab against Amon : Alora chunked him. The rest of his party followed soon after.
With the loot, I equipped a bit, mainly bought the Dakkon Zerth blade for Miluiel. I kept the vanilla one, not the IR's version, because I installed a mod that will let me upgrade it a bit. It's now a +2 weapon that gives me an extra spell from level 1 to 4. The upgrade will change the blade to a +3 weapon with bonus spells from 1 to 6. Nothing game breaking, just something that will actually be worthy of carrying into ToB. And those extra spells are super useful in SoA right now. It does change Miluiel's playstyle from now on, because she always have to have the weapon equipped to have the bonus spell. No more range weapon for her, thus more melee. It's not too bad though, because, fully buffed, she definitively can hold her own. Just have to be careful with her...
Trademeet was next. After discovering the problems this community had, we went to the Druid's Grove. We attacked the Troll Hut. Some people don't like Tactics' Spirit Trolls, but I think they're not too bad. Slightly annoying, but not too hard to tackle. Anyway, easy fights with summons.
After uneventful fights against Kylan Lind, we fought the Myconids spread across the brigde. The weirdest graphic bug then happened to me there : Kivan's sprite was changed to a Giant one. Look at that :
Nothing like that ever happened to me before. Since Giants don't have ranged animations, it actually was kinda funny to see him "throw" his melee attacks. I opened EEKeeper and change his sprite back to normal.
Then, I got into Ihtafeer's lair. I killed him and his two buddy by having Gavin and Jaheira draw aggro from them. I did not went in and out to waste their spells, I merely was attacking them with the two persons equipped with weapons enchantment high enough to hurt them. Only when they suffured too much damage that Jaheira and Gavin got out to heal properly. I try to keep the cheese to a minimum. I try. When they were out of spells, we all went in to finish the job.
So, there we were, almost in front of the Druid Grove itself, only having to kill three druids to pass. Since everything had been quite smooth so far, I got (again) a bit too confident. I just don't learn. I buffed only minimaly (apart from Miluiel, who received her full usual treatment, (safety first after all)). I thought that I would blow those guys away. Boy was I wrong. They started to cast lots of bears, snakes, but most importantly Call Woodland Being. Then, Hamadryads started to chain cast Nature's Beauty one after the other and, soon enough, I found myself surrounded by a massive amount of enemies while my team was either charmed (Jaheira) or totally blinded (the rest of my people except Miluiel). Look at the mayhem these three druids caused :
Three freakin' druids, damn it ! After they managed to kill Alora, I decided to take the safe option : I went invisible and waited for their summons to vanish. They did after a while, so we proceeded to slay those annoying spell casters...
In the Druid Grove itself, Jaheira took care of Faldorn. Gavin prepared Raise Dead in his spellbook, just in case. Jaheira started with Insect Plague, then went with a Fire Elemental. After having cast Stoneskin, Insect Plague wore off and one of the Hamadryads Faldorn summoned at the start of the fight blinded Jaheira. Right after, Faldorn also managed to charm Jaheira. I thought that I would have to start that fight again, but the Fire Elemental came through : he killed Faldorn pretty much on his own. Nice.
We got back to Trademeet and were acclaimed like the heroes we are... I then bought another piece of equipment, this one for Kivan. You probably don't remember, but, in BG1, I gave the Tome of Strength to Kivan. Why, you might ask : he's a freakin' archer in your install. That's why :
This superb bow requires 19 strength to be used, but it gives +10 to damage every hit. If you count the bonus damage an archer gets as he level up, this will make Kivan an absolute monster later in the game. He will use this weapon until the end of this run, only to be replaced when I'll need +4 enchantment to hit something.
To test that beauty, we went in the sewers to kill Tarnor the Hatchetman's party. OK, I got a bit chessy again... Alora started with a backstab of Gaius. She chunked him (she becomes quite good at chunking mages). Tarnor and his team were then killed by melee, Confusion spell and highly damaging range attacks, all that while incurring minimal damage ourselves.
So, things are going good for us. I'm not sure where I'll go next... Since I've been spending all my money up until now, I still have to find myself 15 000 $, so I must keep hunting down sidequests. I recently bought the Mace of Disruption (you have to buy it at Lathander's Temple with IR), so I guess I will head toward Firkraag's lair. See you next time...
Right, I've rolled up a party for a poverty run consisting of a Cleric of Helm, Totemic Druid, Shaman, Bounty Hunter and 2 Sorcerers. They're using an SCS/Ascension installation and playing at Core difficulty. Here are the characters rolled.
My definition of a poverty run is:
1) You can never buy or sell any items (including any items required for quests).
2) You can never use or equip any items (but can pick things up for quests).
3) You may pay for quests (such as Gaelan Bayle), but not anything else (temples, inns etc).
My initial attempt seemed to be going well with most of the basilisks dead and everyone up to at least level 4. I was writing notes up while shaman summons were nibbling another basilisk when I returned to the game to find this though.
I'm away for a few days now, but will see if I can make better progress when I get back.
This is a vanilla solo run, played on core rules, that I started during my recent LoB playthrough. I mostly played Iloïnen when I didn't have the time or the inclination to deal with a full party of six and the prolonged battles that ToB LoB has to offer. At this point, she has just gotten past Korlasz's tomb, but I'll start my report with her early BG1 adventures.
First of all, her stats:
She started with **War Hammer and **Sling (as well as **Two Weapon Style thanks to being a ranger)
The first thing I did was selling Evermemory and buying a wand of sleep and a couple of protective potions for various situations to ensure my safety. I gained some experience via Beregost quests - enemies in the nearby wilderness areas were simply kited and shot with my sling or commanded and killed, larger groups were put to sleep. I quickly boosted up my reputation this way and, after leveling up a bit, added DUHM and hold person to my arsenal. With a couple of extra hitpoints, I also felt ready to take out Tarnesh:
I decided to gather some equipment next, which provided me with the opportunity to use hold person against Meilum:
Another reason I travelled far to the east was access to Durlag's Tower and Ulgoth's Beard in order to buy more items. A wand of the heavens was a welcome addition to my arsenal. At this point, I mostly sought single enemies or small groups without spellcasters, just to get enough experience for cleric level 5:
Having achieved that, I was able to add some skeletons to my army, whose several immunites allowed me to start taking down spellcasters - most importantly Bassilus, who provided me with a great new weapon:
By now, all I had to do was gather as much experience as possible before progressing with the plot, so I hunted down the basilisks. I also used skeletons and hold person to complete my collection of three belts that I'd swap in and out depending on enemy weapon types:
Now, THAT is a good hold person spell right there:
The final adventuring party running around in the wilderness were the amazons, who resisted hold person but were unable to deal with Iloïnens sling - I already had access to level 4 spells at this point:
Just to complete the various wilderness encounters, I took out some tougher opponents like the doomsayer and the battle horrors at Durlag's with the help of some wand of the heavens charges. I also killed Lendarn, but decided to skip the Firewine Dungeon and the Ulcaster Ruins:
Finally, I made my way to the three available tomes, using greenstone amulet charges for the tome of wisdom and the traps in the flesh golem cave, while the flesh golems were defeated in combat:
Next time, we will quickly progress through the chapters, as Iloïnen really didn't need to gather any more experience at this point, so everything that wasn't either mandatory or involved the acquisitions of new and useful items was simply skipped.
Enuhal
It was the hold spell that finished my run. It makes me think that unless you are a berserker a party is needed for dealing with her in this set-up. I played the battle three times. Twice she won due to hold. On the third occasion I was forced to kill her due to attacking her after she had yeilded. That was due to rigid thinking.
I have therefore expect my next run to be either berserker or berserker/mage rather than fighter/conjurer as in my last run.
Update 1
Update 2
Update 3,
BG1 end
Update 4, SoA start
Update 5
Update 6
Update 7
Update 8,
SoA end
Update 9,
ToB start
Elemental level of Watcher's keep: we have two Detect Traps spells memorized as well as Jan constantly detecting. We also have multiple "Protection from" spells memorized, though I'm only worried about electricity. Sebastian collects the Poison head for the FoA, and all the puzzles in each room are cleared without much mishap. The final guardian falls:
And the Chromatic demon is a tad annoying. A Dispel takes out our fire resistances, and he manages to get 2 Fireballs off while Alina and Mazzy use their elemental ammunition to hurt it slowly. No deaths, but several healing potions used before Mazzy finishes it off with an Ice Arrow.
SCS Draconis is actually easier than normal Draconis, in my opinion. Either that or I got better. Whichever is true, Baroque had 5 Pro. Acid spells at his disposal, and Draconis only manages to dispel Sarevok, who immediately green scrolled back up. Without his cheesy aura-less Invisibility, we easily respond to whatever defensive spells he tries to throw up, and the acid-breathing dragon dies.
While collecting items in the Enclave, I realize that I installed SCS's improved Abazigal's Lair. The second dragon fight I'm completely unprepared for, but her own breath weapon is piercing and we tank it out with health to spare.
We're sent to get a rope, and return... For some reason I thought that the 4 dragon fight was Ascension, but nope, it's SCS. Without immunity from normal weapons, though, we can always deal damage to everything, and Sebastian and Sarevok keep their health and saving throws up. A mistake near the beginning kills Jan, but a Resurrection from the Paladin's bracers gets him back up. The first two fall:
And I have time to prepare for the other two, though I have no screenshots.
The worst fight here is actually the Tyrant Golems and Death Tyrants. Anti-magic rays hit basically everyone, and we're relying on Sebastian's sub-zero saving throws to tank up their rays, though their damage rays are still doing good damage. I don't keep track of healing potions quaffed here, but it's at least a dozen.
Finally, Abazigal himself. We're buffed with Pro. Electricity, 3 from Baroque and 3 from Alina. Sarevok is Dispelled, but a Potion of Absorption gets his resistances back up to 50. He tries to knock everyone unconscious, but Sarevok and Sebastian remain up and tanking damage, so our spread-out backline is unaffected and shoot him down with bolts and arrows.
The Slayer fight is easy, as the A.I. is to chase CHARNAME no matter what else happens. Sendai's lair is next.
Update 1
Update 2
Update 3,
BG1 end
Update 4, SoA start
Update 5
Update 6
Update 7
Update 8,
SoA end
Update 9,
ToB start
Update 10
After all this time, I still have a healthy and irrational fear of all things Beholder. Here's a Hive Mother dying.
Hordes are highly stompable with this type of team: nothing gives us any trouble until Odamaron. Essentially the beginning of the fight:
He's continually applying PfMW whenever possible, and Jan isn't quite going to win a battle with that. Having permanent Negative Plane Protection, Sebastian goes after the Vampire first, and is soon able to convince her to turn to bat form. Not sure if I got any experience for it, but whatever. Alina summons a Deva, Jan starts summoning Magical Swords, and Mazzy and Sarevok start on the two Skeleton Warriors.
Problem, though. The Lich Apprentice is still doing stuff, including apparently summoning two Fallen Planetars. It's chaos for awhile: Sarevok is Charmed, Sebastian is on top of the Apprentice, Jan is being chased by the two Fallen Planetars while their Insect Plagues are stopping any further casting. The two Skeleton Warriors fall. Odamaron is focusing on the Deva who is somehow still undamaged. PfMW is on the Apprentice too, and we can do basically nothing but sing and shoot the Fallen Planetars. Fortunately. the Apprentice keeps disrupting his own spells by targeting Sebastian: an item from IR, the Saving Grace +3 shield, damages undead whenever they target the wielder.
Finally, 4 rounds pass. PfMW falls. The Apprentice falls too.
We clean up the Fallen Planetars soon after, and Odamaron is finally out of defenses as well. The second his protections drop... He gets Destroyed by the Deva. The round must've ended right then and there, since the Deva's weapon wasn't working until now.
The Beholder/Drow ambush wasn't expected, and we ended up retreating back into Odamaron's room, where they followed and were summarily destroyed. Continuing on, we hadn't used many of our combat HLAs, so I felt comfortable tackling Ogremoch. Two Breaches from Jan made life considerably easier, and the last of the elemental princes die.
On the left room, someone forgot to add Protection from Evil to their demon summoning. Alina casts Farsight to see what's going on over there.
We're still in fairly good shape after taking down the Near Death Hive Mother and the drow lackie, so onto the Spectator Beholder room. I thought I could get someone else to duel for me, but nope, Baroque's in the pit. How do I get out of this without getting another kill? Well, Kitthix is deadly.
We rest, grab 6 Mind Shields in our level 5 slots (Chaotic Commands that last Round/level instead of Turn. Divine remix and all that) and fight off the Illithids. Sarevok is hit twice on separate occasions, but no one was in danger of dying this time.
Right. Sendai. I have the Improved Enclave again from SCS, so there's supposedly only a round in between each statue animating, as well as Drow constantly entering the room. I'm reminded a bit of Davaeorn, except a single Pro. Magic scroll isn't going to end this encounter for us. Our prebuffs are Improved Haste on Sebastian, Sarevok, and Mazzy, Haste on everyone else, Death Ward on everyone save Sebastian, Pro. Fire on Baroque, Sarevok, and Sebastian, Divine Shell and Endurance of Ilmater on Sebastian, Stoneskin on Baroque and Jan, True Seeing on Jan, and finally a Mass Invisibility from Baroque. We have around 3 turns of Improved Invisibility.
The plan is for Sebastian to deal with the Drow, Alina and Jan summoning rounds 1 and 2, while Sarevok and Mazzy go Sendai hunting. Baroque is in the center singing, of course. Statue one goes down before Jan even finishes the Stone Golem summon. 1!
The second one takes a bit longer: there's two active on the map at the moment. Or there were. Back to one. I think Alina was busy summoning, and Sarevok had to run across the battlefield. Sebastian is apparently dealing with the Sendai that spawned near him, the Drow completely cleared for now. 2!
The Fighter doesn't last long, but there's a mage up top that we have to deal with. Alina and Mazzy swap ammunition. 3!
The mage drops at some point: I think I had Baroque use a Wand of Striking charge to take out whatever protection spell was being used, since it seems to be an Acid Arrow +2 that sealed the deal. 4!
The Archer does some serious damage to Alina, who forgot to buff with Physical Mirror. No matter: she dies upon trying to teleport in the top left. A Drow chased down Jan, who couldn't escape. 5!
Alina casts Mass Raise Dead to get Jan back up. Another Mage spawns in the north, and is using Improved Mantle as well as a Mislead clone. It takes two or three rounds to start on the mage itself, and in the meantime the Thief spawns in the bottom and is quickly massacred. 6!
Sarevok joins Mazzy in the +5 weapon slaughtering of the mage. Jan is back up, and struggling to re-equip himself. 7!
Everyone converges on the real Sendai. No more tricks. 8!
We ensure the Solar of our good intentions, and return to pick up the potions. On a whim I check to see how many extra potions I have: these are the contents of my Potion bag.
Sebastian also carries around 40 Potions of Invulnerability.
Cyric's talked down: apparently if you deal with the Rogue Rebalancing encounter peacefully, Cyric doesn't make his followers attack. It was a foregone conclusion anyways, with True Seeing running and a fully physical party. Not having Ascension, though, Balthazar can't be.
This lasted at most two rounds.
The final challege, the Ravager! This is a bit of a grind-fest, both sides just trading blows. Eventually we overwhelm him, though, and there's only one thing left standing in our way
Final stats before the battle for the throne.
Baroque, the Rogue Rebalanced almost-pacifist-Skald 33, who accidentally killed a Shadow. It's undead, though, so...? The challenge was to see whether the force multiplier of a Skald's song was really worth never doing any damage. And I think... Yeah. There's almost no way to make a level 20 Warrior even more accurate, and adding +5 to all attack rolls has been guaranteeing hits with 2s for 2 million experience. His song deflected so many stun attempts, and his high level guarantees crucial elemental protections remain up in the face of dragons and liches. The +5 damage per hit is just gravy at this point: without using any other buffs, my party has 18 APR, so that's a possible 90 damage extra per round. With buffs, it goes up to something silly like 34 APR, and assuming most of those hit, that's 170 damage. The immunities and spells have been the most important thing, though.
Sebastian, Painbearer of Ilmater 11/Fighter 26. Why not just straight Paladin, which is arguably 100% better? I didn't trust myself to not need Raise Dead, so wanted level 5 Cleric slots.
Sarevok, Fighter 25. The replacement in ToB for Valygar, and secondary front line and damage threat. He's been performing well as a damage source, with multiple GWWs to try to get off a Death Bringer assault. I think he's sitting at 1 WW, 3 GWW, 2 Hardiness.
Alina, Archer 9/Cleric 29. The true Cleric of the team, and Alina's been solid throughout the series as well. In BG1, she was simply an Archer backed by a Skald and doing silly amounts of damage. And now, in BG2, she's been critical in providing higher level Death wards and replenishing elemental protections when necessary. She can still function as an Archer, as her THAC0 drops to -6 with the Skald song, but she's spending more time summoning and laying down crowd control with her HLAs. She literally has one of everything; I dunno what happens if she levels up again.
Mazzy, Fighter 27. The replacement for Cato, our pre-made Archer, and she's been doing a pretty darn good job. She swaps between 3 weapons now, the Iron Bow of Gesen, the Sling of Everand, and the Darkfire bow +5. With all this damage, she still has the highest number of kills in BG2, and that's not discounting the portion before I reached her. HLAs are 1 Power Attack, 3 Critical Strike, 1 Smite, 1 Whirlwind, 2 GWW.
Jan, Illusionist 15/Thief 19. Replacement for Imoen, who was a replacement for Vista. He doesn't even have level 8 spells going into the Throne, but he's here for 4 things: traps, Detect Invisibility, Morde swords, and Breach. He has one Spike trap (nerfed to do Piercing and thus stoppable by Stoneskin), 1 Explosion trap, and 2 Acid traps as well as the mandatory Use Any Item.
One way or another, the next update's my last.