We can't continue like this. We are at too big of a disadvantage. But I don't want to just rest and restart the battle--I want to kill that drow today.
Eliza drinks a Potion of Invulnerability to keep her save vs. death low. Hopefully, this will prevent a vorpal strike from the Planetar. We run around the area, grabbing the loot of our fallen. A lot of stuff has to be crammed into the Bag of Holding. The enemy keeps attacking us all the way.
I leave the area. The Glabrezus and the mage follow me out. I run into the svirfneblin settlement, hoping the locals will help me out. They do not... I suppose I would have expected the naturally cautious deep gnomes wouldn't fight the drow just to help some random surfacer who stumbled into their homes. It's not like I saved their town from a freaking Balor or anything.
The Glabrezus keep wasting Confusion spells on me while I struggle to make headway with darts. Eliza is holding the Shield of Harmony and therefore is immune to confusion spells, but the Glabrezus don't get it. In between the attacks, I take measures to keep Eliza safe. Among other things, she drinks two Potions of Magic Protection, re-casts SI: Abjuration, and casts Spell Shield via a scroll to make sure that mage doesn't pull any new tricks on her if he should catch up to us.
I manage to Slow one of the Glabrezus, and so I single him out for attacks. His Mirror Images go away.
Soon, he falls. I turn my attention to the other.
But the Glabrezu survives. Eliza's poor THAC0 makes it hard to land a hit on the Glabrezu, and she needs to spend much of her time running away--not so much to avoid the Glabrezu's melee attacks, but to avoid the steep THAC0 penalties that would cripple her dart-throwing.
The Glabrezu keeps chasing Eliza all around the town. We find that the local innkeeper is very ungrateful about our earlier work on the Balor.
He makes ominous threats about Eliza's knees. I don't want to fight him, or else I might lose reputation. Instead, I focus on the Glabrezu. Eliza summons an Efreeti to hold the Glabrezu still, and give her more time to throw the Crimson Dart.
But the Glabrezu just won't go down. Finally, I resort to using a precious resource--Darts of Stunning. But the Glabrezu resists them. It turns out that Darts of Stunning don't bypass magic resistance in my install.
She goes through an entire stack of 40 before managing to stun-lock the Glabrezu. Finally, she takes it down.
The mage has rejoined the fight--he is responsible for the unconscious Efreeti, thanks to his Emotion spell.
But that mage has gone invisible. Shadow Door. And we've run out of means of revealing him. We have no Seducer to use Detect Illusions, and the Book of Daily spell has already been used. The drow just waits there while the Innkeeper attacks us. I summon a Berserk Warrior in the hopes that it'll draw the drow out of invisibility, but it doesn't work, and forces me to stop the warrior from attacking the innkeeper every few seconds.
I go over our inventory again. We don't seem to have the Ring of Human Influence, so we can't charm the Innkeeper and make him go away, but we do have an important summoning scroll.
Nishruus and Hakeashars can see through invisibility. The drow's Shadow Door is no obstacle to a Nishruu.
But the drow keeps running, and he lures us into yet another ungrateful deep gnome. And this one is much more dangerous than the Innkeeper.
That's the exact same gnome who thanked us for sealing away the Balor. Why is he so mad at me? The drow and demons I brought with me aren't even attacking any of the locals.
The Nishruu gets badly hurt by the enemy's melee attacks, but can heal itself by hitting Goldander Blackenrock's Fire Shield.
More importantly, this screenshot shows we can target the drow mage--before, he was just a shimmering white-blue circle on the ground. Either his Shadow Door ran out or he broke his invisibility by attacking the Nishruu.
I bring out another set of Darts of Stunning and attack the mage. His Spell Turning is still active, but his other defenses are gone.
He doesn't even fight back. He lost almost all of his spells in the rounds before. Improved Alacrity really wore him out. Now he's got nothing to use against me. Eventually, Eliza stuns him, and switches to the Crimson Dart to save on Darts of Stunning. The drow finally falls.
We head back to the previous area, ignoring the svirfneblin, and search for enemies. The Fallen Planetar has vanished, the drow thief is already dead at Eliza's hands, and Fire Storm took out the golem and remaining drow. Eliza raises Gloom with the Rod of Resurrection.
Gloom can then raise Margot and Lithos, and the party will be back to normal.
Crazy stuff keeps happening. This run was already weird before Spellhold, but after Jon-bon and Alky, the gameplay has been hideously unpredictable. Stuff keeps going wrong.
I enter the Mind Flayer lair with a completely revamped spellbook. You can't rest in the Mind Flayer lair in SCS2, so our spells are going to be very limited. We memorize many copies of Blur, Protection from Fire, Teleport Field, Sunfire, Free Action, Chaotic Commands, PFMW, Water Jet, and True Seeing. Sunfire and Water Jet will bypass the Mind Flayers' MR; True Seeing will let us target the Mind Flayers (who arrive invisible and stay that way) with Charm and Steal Shadow. The other spells will protect us from Psionic Blast and INT drain.
We chat a bit with the other new hires. I love this line.
I recited the latter part of that line aloud while Simyaz was saying it. It just sounds great.
We don't have enough Chaotic Commands spell to cover everyone, and Free Action, which also protects against stun in my install (it shouldn't, conceptually, but whatever), is too short-duration to rely upon. So how do we stave off stun? Well, Eliza has the Ring of Free Action, and Margot has Arbane's Sword. What about Lithos?
She doesn't even need immunity to stun. Her saves are perfect. Though I really should have gotten Mazzy's sword for this anyway.
We trash the Mind Flayers on the way to saving the captives, and find that Psionic Blast is not the only tool at the enemy's disposal.
Lithos will be immune only if she drinks a Potion of Invulnerability; the other characters need Chaotic Commands. But since Maze is non-lethal, I decide we don't need to change our strategy.
To save on Control Circlets, we lure a Mind Flayer over to the door we need opened, rather than using a circlet.
The Mind Flayer doesn't need to be under your control; it just has to set foot in front of that door.
For the first major battle, Eliza spawns clones from Project Image and Simulacrum, who then fill the hallway with a couple of Teleport Field spells. This will keep Eliza safe despite not being able to act. The Mind Flayers won't get automatic hits on her, and her AC will hold them off.
It takes time to bring down the Mind Flayers. Things start to look a bit different as time goes on.
In retrospect, I suppose Teleport Field wouldn't have much impact in a crowded hallway, since the enemies can't be teleported that far away. Plus, they can teleport at will. But I'm sure Eliza's modified 22 INT will keep her safe.
Hm.
Yup.
Okay, Project Image is not going to work here, at least not in close quarters. We reload and switch out Project Image with Limited Wish. Maybe this time...
It turns out you can't really skimp on AC just because Mind Flayers have lousy THAC0. Margot is very easy for the Mind Flayers to catch.
It's not that the enemy is bound to roll an 18 every once in a while. It's that the Ulitharid also hit Margot on a 12.
We raise her with the Rod of Resurrection and lure the next group of enemies into the same room, and this time we pre-cast Teleport Field. We also call in some adorable summons to distract the Mind Flayers with their fluffy cuteness.
Beneath those hideous flesh pods are 20 cute little bunny rabbits. You can't see them, but trust me, they're darling. The bunnies form a protective wall around us, allowing us to tear down the Mind Flayers with ranged weapons. Eliza does most of the work, as she's the only competent archer of the group, but once the area clears and we're not stuck behind the wall of bunnies, Lithos can chip in, too.
I also make sure to move around the party members in the middle of the fight. Combined with Teleport Field and the open space, this means all our party members can stay out of range of the Mind Flayers and avoid any chance of INT drain.
We waste a Control Circlet on an Ulitharid, trying to open up the door to the Master Brain. Teleport Field dropped one of the Mind Flayers right in front of the door, obviating the need for a circlet.
Finally, after over half a dozen tries, Lithos (I almost said Bloody Howard) manages to steal a Mind Flayer's shadow. This is barely more than flavor, really. We're already in total control of the situation.
The Master Brain realizes the old tricks aren't working. It takes out the most dangerous threat with a single spell.
This is a bad sign. We don't have Teleport Field active, and the other party members have little defense against INT drain without it. If they die while Eliza is stuck in the maze, the game is over.
But Eliza returns within a few seconds. High INT is always a good thing in this area. She makes a dramatic entrance.
She unloads the other Sunfire spells she was saving up for the rest of the dungeon. Soon, all that's left is a single Mind Flayer that Margot managed to charm.
We slay the last survivor in the cruelest way: a backstab from the little halfling it thought was its friend.
Now the Staff of Domination is in our hands. Mostly for thematic reasons, Margot keeps it.
The Staff of Domination has 20 charges and can charm any enemy for 10 rounds, without save. Magic resistance can block the effect, and the charm strikes as a level 5 spell, so it can be blocked by spell level immunities and spell protections. Also, the Staff of Domination can't charm critters immune to charm. Charm, meanwhile, offers a save, but bypasses MR, spell protections, and innate immunities. She can alternate between the two depending on the situation.
We leave the Mind Flayer prison triumphant, and the leader of the Mind Flayer slaves thanks us. We finally hit 20 reputation for being such good awesome great heroic hero peoples.
To make sure the coast is clear on the way out, we send a Wizard Eye to poke around. To my relief, no nasty svirfneblin show up. I was worried, because I saw Goldander Blackenrock cast Shadow Door in the dialog box. I go up to talk to the githyanki.
Turns out they're not alone. I forgot that Shadow Door would naturally have hidden Goldander Blackenrock from view.
The gnomes are attacking us. Again. What is their grief with us? Do you little stepping stones know what happens to the few people who actually manage to hurt us? Do you know what we did to the Beholder Hive?
But Goldander McRocksoundingname is not alone. Because we teleported around the map via CTRL-J, we've only just now triggered the fight with Chandrilla, N'ashtar, Boz, Damien, Simja, and some random Skeleton.
Now we get to fight the whole jolly gang. Hooray.
I don't like the high-level buffs on N'ashtar and Goldilocks. We're completely unbuffed and need time. I send out a Simulacrum and some minor summons to distract the enemy. The bridge is a convenient choke point.
Apparently Damien is from Athkatla. I wonder how he got here. He's probably just here to save his hot sister from a pervy sorcerer with a creepy mask and crippling emotional problems, but recently got roped into a suicidal fetch quest to infiltrate a hostile police state run by professional torturers and slavers to help this big cranky metallic dragon with a stupid-looking fin on her head instead of horns get a hold of her eggs, only to have fourteen separate people reveal their secret plan to betray their closest allies by creating fake eggs so the other idiots make an omelette for a lesser demon lord to convince him to lay siege to an over-hyped treehouse where the sorcerer plans on sucking out the tree sap to give himself super maple syrup powers. Or some other nonsensical plot like that.
Anyway, Margot uses two charges from the Staff of Domination to break down Goldilocks' spell protections and then take control of him. The enemies quickly change targets.
Eliza's clone does a decent job of holding back the enemy, though it's not very sturdy without buffs.
A Stoneskin fails to protect the clone from Boz the Burly Bigass Brutish Noggin-Bopper.
Boz's weapon is Dragon's Breath +4, hence the four separate points of damage. He's able to break through Stoneskin because his mace is actually a halberd. Makes perfect sense.
Boz the Bubbly Hug-Bug bashes in Goldilocks' noggin as well. Finally, the gnome won't be bothering us anymore. Plus, we've got a new target to soak up the enemy's attacks.
Otyughs take up so much space. Sometimes it's a crippling disadvantage; other times, it's precisely what we need.
Now that we have some buffs active, we can wear down the enemy. The fight had been drifting eastward as we were forced to retreat, but now, the battle is moving in the opposite direction. We finally beat back Boz the Beautiful Butterfly, and slice up Simbja the Silly Sharpshooter. N'ashtar the Nasty Knave stays hidden, so Margot uses Detect Illusions while invisible.
N'ashtar turns visible, courtesy of Margot's Detect Illusions skill (it's already up to 75 now), and we whack away the wicked warlock's wards with a Warding Whip from our wonderful witch.
I should do all of these posts when I'm tired. It sounds so much better.
Well, time to kill a dragon. Because she's not going to let us escape the Underdark without her eggs, and that quest is long since past.
I have a decent plan for killing Adalon, but you don't actually need to kill her to leave the Underdark; you just need to turn her hostile. But I want to try and bring her down. First, I chat with her.
It's not the dialog I was expecting.
That's not what she's supposed to be saying. We failed the Ust Natha questline by spending too much time preparing for wiping out the Beholders at the local hive. Adalon should be furious with us for not bringing her eggs back. She says she won't even help you leave the Underdark, as she has better things to do.
But here, she's asking us to resume the quest. Maybe we still have a shot at finishing that quest! I return to Ust Natha and find the door is still open.
The place is perfectly peaceful, too.
Nobody's trying to murder us. What gives? I thought Phaere declared us fair game. We don't even have drow avatars anymore. We're clearly not drow.
We head over to Phaere's place, waiting for somebody to attack us. SCS2 makes Ust Natha really dangerous if the place goes hostile... it's designed to be impossible to take on the city. But we've got multiple Teleport Field spells in case any drow spawn in and block the way to the exit.
Then, Taso Kala interrupts us. She tells us to go slay the Ghaunadaur priests (misspelled as Ghaundaur in-game). Taso Kala normally interrupts you on the way to Phaere's house when she's about to reveal her plot against Matron Mother Ardulace, and so you have to kill the priests within an hour or fail the questline. I usually talk-block Taso Kala if I can help it, but I got caught off-guard. Now we have to go kill the priests.
I hurry, just in case we're at risk of failing the questline still, which means Eliza reaches the fight long before the rest of the party.
Why is she casting Teleport Field? Well... we don't actually have much else we could use in this fight.
Eliza is alone and facing a half-dozen spellcasters, one of which is a mage, plus a bunch of oozes. She has memorized no area-effect damage spells, and the only such spells we have on our person are Cloudkill, either from Gloom or from a Wand of Cloudkill, and Acid Bloom.
But these are priests of Ghaunadaur. They're going to be immune to poison damage, and surely also acid. Stinking Cloud also wouldn't work, and they're likely immune to Horror and perhaps Confusion as well since they're clerics. And Teleport Field won't do much of anything because so many oozes use ranged attacks.
Our only decent attack option is a Fireball from our Efreeti, who arrived on the first round. Otherwise, we're really unprepared for this fight. We have barely any buffs active, our spells are completely inappropriate for the occasion, and Eliza has stumbled onto the battlefield alone.
The Efreeti's spells are immediately shut down by the oozes' ranged attacks. Eliza turns invisible to keep herself safe.
Turns out her timing was perfect. Greater Command hit her just seconds later.
Eliza is now completely vulnerable, but the enemy can't see her. She'll be safe as long as the enemy doesn't cast any divination spells.
But we don't know when that might happen. So we have to hurry over and rescue her, because if the enemy targets her, they get automatic attacks, and Teleport Field is not going to hold them back.
Lithos arrives soon to draw enemy fire. A bit too literally, I'm afraid.
Shadow Stealers don't fare well against Flame Strike. Or anything, really. They're very fragile critters.
Gloom arrives as well. She also draws enemy fire.
She manages to drink a potion right afterward, but her Ironskins vanish a second later. And the enemy clerics already have just the summons to finish her off.
Aerial Servants do 4d8+11 damage per hit. Left unchecked, they can quickly and without warning kill most anything without Stoneskin.
Finally, Eliza's simulacrum arrives. Eliza had summoned the simulacrum on the way to the fight, but the clone couldn't haste itself, and therefore lagged behind. The clone gets to work, while Eliza herself remains fast asleep and unnoticed amongst the slime and sludge.
Out of concern for Eliza, I allow her clone to use a quick item: the Golem Manual. It chips in a bit.
Margot tries to Charm the enemy, and has little luck. She switches to the Staff of Domination, which works much better. The enemy clerics have high MR, which blocks the Staff of Domination, but Aerial Servants, the heaviest hitters on the field, have no such defense. We send out the enemy's own summons back at them.
Finally, Eliza wakes up. First things first: we get her to safety.
Half the party is dead and the Rod of Resurrection won't buy us much, not when Lithos is so vulnerable and Gloom has so few useful spells for this fight. We need to take control with Eliza and Margot alone.
Relonar, the only enemy mage, could prove a problem. We don't know what he's capable of, and his buffs are pretty solid. Margot turns invisible and uses Detect Illusions.
Relonar responds in kind, casting Oracle the moment he turns visible. But we have a counter for this.
SCS2 spellcasters would be awful if they used potions. Mostly SCS2 only gives potions to enemy fighters, I suppose because it's easier to randomize without making their scripts unnecessarily complicated. Does this mage spend a round casting a spell or drinking a potion? It would depend on which potions they have.
Eliza flees the arena to cast Project Image out of sight, by the door to the temple. Relonar starts to follow after her, directed by SCS2's curious AI that lets enemies track you down even while invisible. But I catch him in time, and position Margot to get in his way.
The Aerial Servant belongs to the enemy; a previously charmed Otyugh, now dead, has diseased it. Anyway, with Margot blocking the bridge, Relonar can't reach Eliza, and Eliza may send out her clone safely.
She does still get attacked by some minor enemies. To preserve her Stoneskins, Margot jumps in to help her out.
She's badly punished for her efforts, however. After a stream of pointless Mental Domination spells--Seducers are immune to charm and domination--one of the clerics finally gets the idea to try another spell. It works.
But Margot breaks out of it shortly thereafter.
How? Well, Seducers are very tricky to disable. Nine seconds after being rendered helpless, they automatically recover from any disablers that may be active on them. They suffer some penalties afterward, but otherwise they come out okay.
I actually forgot about this feature, and now that I've seen it, it seems like too much. I thought they had to wait three full rounds to escape a disabler, but the delay is only half that. Another tweak I'll have to make to balance the kit.
Relonar turns out to be a very nonthreatening spellcaster. He doesn't use much of anything on us; he just soaks up attacks. His Stoneskins break down with little resistance.
Relonar crumples soon after, at which point our Flesh Golem (the second one, summoned by Eliza herself; the previous one got clobbered by an Aerial Servant) and Eliza's Project Image clone despawn, leaving us alone once more.
Margot's Charm spells got interrupted, which means she doesn't get it back after four rounds. I need to reduce the casting time to zero to prevent this from happening. It can also happen if the Seducer dies during the cooldown period for Charm. Seducers may cast a spell called Rest to bring back Charm and any other abilities they might have lost (the Feeblemind, Confusion, and Sleep abilities also have cooldown periods), but it doesn't actually fully rest the character; it just removes and replaces the abilities. But the spell takes two rounds to cast and another two rounds to take effect, which prevents it from being used in combat to circumvent the cooldown period.
Margot casts the Rest spell while invisible, positioning herself so she blocks the enemy from reaching Eliza, who needs time to finally cast her buffs.
Eventually, I decide that we could use Lithos, and bring her back with the Rod of Resurrection. But some of her equipment is still stuck behind the oozes--I only grabbed a few items that I felt Margot and Eliza could use. I piece together some items for Lithos. A spare suit of Full Plate Mail that happened to be in the Bag of Holding rounded out the set.
These are the minor improvisations that can slightly increase the success of an encounter. This is all new to me, and I find it terribly interesting figuring out ways to overcome unexpected dangers, with limited options.
Lithos doesn't do much, however. Most of the battle is won by now. I think we wasted a charge of the Rod of Resurrection in bringing back Lithos.
We poke around and find one last priest hiding on the steps of a nearby tower. I notice the local drow don't lift a finger to help us.
We report back to Taso Kala. It's an unsatisfying quest for an ungrateful questgiver.
Now we visit the temple, to see if Matron Mother Ardulace will still accept the blood she wanted.
Much to our disappointment, Matron Mother Ardulace is not even present in the temple. I check in on Phaere instead.
She appears for just a moment before vanishing. I was hoping another copy of her would remain.
I check back on the temple and find the quest is truly broken.
The quest must have partially failed, as we took to long to complete the quest, but did not allow Phaere to give her little speech announcing it.
I really do have to fight Adalon. I try using Charm on her, which is a non-hostile spell.
That was lucky. Even with a save, a non-humanoid target has a 50% chance of shrugging it off.
Now Adalon is ours. We try out a Feeblemind spell. It works on the second try, cast by a clone alongside the original Eliza.
We just beat Adalon. Even if Charm turned the target hostile after the spell ended, or charmed targets didn't revert to green after going hostile, we still would have succeeded.
Lithos joins in. A dragon fight begins.
Very nice.
The Underdark quests are complete. Freedom awaits us.
We turn ourselves invisible before leaving the Underdark, but encounter a problem on the way out.
Those drow are remnants of the fight where the deep gnomes first attacked us. Now they're blocking the way. I retreat so we can rest and try something else, but the drow follow us.
As I blocked Relonar and Achra Diagott, so the enemy is blocking me. But eventually I squirm my way out and fight one of the clerics. Her shadow does her in with a Symbol: Stun spell.
I then prepare a See Enemy: Teleport Field contingency before returning to the previous area. The contingency triggers and moves the enemies out of the way, without breaking our invisibility.
Wow @semiticgod, you've been keeping this thread hot! Have to catch up with most of your progress still.
In the meantime, let me introduce:
Bartholomew 'Dandy' Birnbaum, Gnome Cleric/Thief
Dandy is nimble, dashing and charismatic, or so he believes. He's also a con man, though he wouldn't seriously harm others with his tricks. His actions are all intended to be in keeping with his benign deity Baravar Cloakshadow's dogma.
Selfie:
Dandy's already left Candlekeep, witnessed the slaughter of his foster father Gorion, and teamed up with his childhood friend Imoen, a fellow Gnome and a bit of a trickster herself:
Although he envies her magical skills and although he thinks the girl's nose is laughably small, Dandy is quite protective of Imoen, and brooks no hostility against her.
The two have not accomplished much so far, apart from a couple of simple errands in and around Beregost. Xzar and Montaron have traveled with the duo for a few days, but they aren't around anymore. Dandy and Imoen have recently made it to Nashkel. I haven't decided yet which way I want to go with Dandy in terms of party size and composition though I'm inclined to go with shorties and prioritize cheerful, goodish characters. Finch and Alora are top candidates to join in BG1. Yeslick, Quayle and Kagain might join for a while as well for roleplaying purposes: all the NPCs I've mentioned except Finch will be available in SoA too (thanks to the BG1NPCSoA mod), so for continuity purposes I'd like Dandy to at least meet them in BG1. With Jan, Mazzy and maybe Korgan, BG2 should offer interesting possibilities as well, both from a RP vantage and from a game mechanics viewpoint.
We spend several tens of thousands of gold on level 9 scrolls for Eliza, and finally purchase the Defender of Easthaven and the Staff of Arundel.
Since we did so well against the Underdark Mind Flayers--you know, aside from dying--I decide we're equipped to take on the Mind Flayers of the sewers. Fortunately, I don't CTRL-J right to the entrance, and trigger the psionic trap on the way.
Why is this lucky? It reminds me that Eliza doesn't have the Ring of Free Action. She switched it out for the Ring of Human Influence when we were buying stuffs.
Our spell setup is much the same as it was in the last Mind Flayer place. But now we get to murder humans as well as Mind Flayers.
Things look great until we get to the Alhoon, who has SI: Abjuration and SI: Divination on top of his Absolute Immunity spell. Mind Flayers are tough enough without mage buffs. Also, the Alhoon uses a Psionic Blast with a hefty save penalty. Lithos, reliant on her saves rather than immunities, is the only one who can't resist it.
I have no illusions about her prospects. She's not coming out of this alive. Instead, I focus on the other characters' safety, conjuring another bunny horde.
I considered using a Limited Wish Time Stop instead, but I wouldn't be able to attack the Alhoon anyway. Not with Absolute Immunity active.
We make slow progress on the Mind Flayers and Ulitharids, but don't bother with the Alhoon. It's too far for Gloom, with her poor movement rate, to debuff with Warding Whip. It's better just to wait out the Alhoon's buffs. We bring back Lithos via the Rod of Resurrection, but we have to be extra careful about her positioning, as she has no full plate mail to keep off INT drain. The Alhoon continues its spellcasting without our interference.
But due to a quirk in how Steal Shadow works, its Glabrezu is turned into a Shadow, removing the Glabrezu as a threat entirely.
See, it's not actually possible to create a friendly simulacrum of a hostile critter. You need a separate spell to create the simulacrum and then turn into a shadow, and there are a bunch of other spells that are needed to prevent Steal Shadow from affecting friendly creatures, already stolen shadows, enemies who already have had their shadow stolen for 10 rounds, and any other critter for 5 rounds. There is a 1-second opening during which any summoned creature may be turned into a shadow, since the creature wasn't here to be affected by the spell which prevented that from happening. Hence the Glabrezu turning into a shadow. There is no way to fix this without using a script of some sort--it's a function of the game engine.
I hear an abjuration spell coming from the Alhoon, which could be Remove Magic or a Symbol spell (Symbol spells have the incantation and visual effect of abjuration spells, despite being conjuration spells). Both pose a big risk, so I disrupt it at the cost of the rabbits who were keeping us safe.
By now, the Alhoon's weapon immunities have worn out. We have weathered the storm. The Alhoon is out of ammo.
We get the Wand of Wonder and the Hammer of Thunderbolts. I doubt I'll forge Crom Faeyr, since nobody in the party has pips in hammers. Crom Faeyr bypasses Improved Mantle, but not many enemies in the future will be using that spell--Absolute Immunity and PFMW are more common in ToB.
There aren't that many more things to do in Athkatla, but I really want to get Gloom to 3 million XP. We keep searching for quests.
Finally I meet Teos in the Planar Sphere. I was supposed to do that weeks ago. We get an ambush. It's not really hard.
It's just mid-level melee grunts. No defenses or debuffers; just weapons.
Teos tells us to Imprison some guy who doesn't like wizards, Ketlaar Argrim. Evidently they were planning on doing this for a while, and have a special rune to do it for us, but they wanted us to do it, and staged or lured the Planar Sphere ambush to motivate us.
Pretty horrible thing to do, to Imprison somebody. Whatever. Let's just say we cast Freedom on him later and give him a proper death. None of that solitary confinement stuff.
The Cowled Wizards' plan doesn't really make sense. They want him to disappear instead of die, to make it look like he ran away, but they could do that just as easily by hiding his body. Dimension Door the body away and then Disintegrate it. He vanishes just as well, but at a much lower cost.
Morul talks to us and says he'll give us potions every week if we come back to the Planar Sphere. We won't need them, though.
More tiny quests! We finish the illithium quest, giving the illithium to Sir Sarles. In retrospect, this might have been a mistake, since the Mace of Disruption gives negative plane protection when upgraded.
The Temple of Lathander sends us to retrieve a ring of theirs. The Talassans who stole it pay with blood.
Must have been a pretty important ring, to justify the human cost.
After convincing the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart to send some meatheads to help us chop up vampires, we head to the Graveyard to start working on Bodhi's lair. We rest immediately after arriving, to make the vampire ambush vanish in the sunlight.
I didn't really feel like fighting vampires without our buffs. The area transition includes a time change, and even if we traveled at night, I'm pretty sure the time change would still occur and cost us our buffs.
We get swarmed in Bodhi's lair, and the pressure is overwhelming. We've got multiple Ancient and Elder Vampires hanging around, and even though Hareishan's stolen shadow keeps some of them occupied, the sheer number of enemies constrains our movement and our options. Lithos dies despite her immunity to level drain (the Bog Witch version of Negative Plane Protection lasts 10 rounds instead of 5). The vampires just do horrible damage, and I think it's part of their CON drain attack. Eliza has to hit Lithos with a Magic Missile to make sure Lithos doesn't get chunked.
We start to clear up the hallway, and the vampires mow down Hareishan's shadow in the other room. The vampires have excellent regeneration and lots of HP, so they take a while to kill.
I don't want to rest and come back, so I use up a Protection from Undead scroll on Eliza and turn Gloom invisible. Now we can attack them in safety. Drizzt, summons, and clones help keep the vampires out of hiding. If you're not visible, they'll turn invisible, too, so Protection from Undead by itself won't let you clear out vampires.
Tanova is easily debuffed and slain. She's a problem enemy because she's flagged as humanoid rather than undead and she sees right through Protection from Undead scrolls, but Warding Whip, cast from Eliza rather than Gloom, and a Breach from the Wand of Spell Striking, are sufficient to bring her down. Drizzt wastes many rounds trying to kill Tanova's Mordenkainen's Sword, while Eliza actually attacks the vampires.
I raise our party members and leave the area. After studying Eliza's spellbook, I decide I really want a Ring of Wizardry. To do that, we need another person in our group.
You can get a guaranteed Ring of Wizardry from Jaheira's quest in the Harper hold. I thought it came from Baron Ployer, so it worries me when she leaves the party, moments after joining.
But she comes back soon--I've seen her vanish forever in the past--and we meet Galvarey.
Jaheira gives a passionate speech about something or other, and Galvarey attacks. We successfully steal the enemy mage's shadow, only for it to be confused a second later.
But it doesn't matter. This encounter is balanced for Chapter 2 parties. Horrid Wilting and Celestial Fury kind of break it.
I really want Gloom to get to level 15 before Bodhi, but we're out of easy quests. It's all uphill from here. We return to the Graveyard District.
Using Called Shot during a Limited Wish Time Stop would give us a guaranteed kill on Bodhi, but it would cost us 91,000 XP as well as a precious Limited Wish option. I keep Limited Wish on hand in case we need it, but I want to try fighting Bodhi without it.
I've got the SCS2+Tactics version of Bodhi, but she doesn't use her special powers as aggressively as she would on Hard mode or Insane. In any case, she's a tough cookie. Plus, she comes with two high-level vampire mages on her side, one of which can see through Protection from Undead.
We put Eliza, Lithos, and Margot under Protection from Undead and hold Gloom back from the fray. We don't have great damage output against Bodhi, but we can attack her in safety, since Eliza's clone, which has no Protection from Undead scroll, draws most of the vampires' attention.
Gloom enters the fray, but has to flee from a Cloud of Bats. Plus, Eliza's clone gets confused, since the clone has no Chaotic Commands spell. Progress against Bodhi is slow with only Eliza dealing reliable damage.
Then, our fortune changes: Bodhi failed saves against both Charm and Steal Shadow. They take effect simultaneously. We send her after the second most important target.
Teleport Field hampers our efforts. Our party specializes in ranged attacks, so Teleport Field doesn't affect our damage output much. But Bodhi is a melee fighter, and Teleport Field screws up her targeting. We have to divide our attention between Manasseh and a Glabrezu, depending on which of our attackers is where. but when Bodhi does land a hit, the effect is huge.
Manasseh ends up outside of the Teleport Field, allowing us to corner her. She's out of options.
Her counterpart, Hazzerbazzer, is not here to help her, as he chased Gloom out of the room and down the hall. Gloom foiled his efforts with a couple Potions of Invisibility, and he had no recourse: it was Manasseh who had True Seeing, not him. Bodhi crushes her.
The Glabrezu also appears to be vulnerable to level drain, and can't stop Bodhi's attacks. But by the time we finish it off, half the party gets disabled.
With Power Word: Stun holding her down, Lithos isn't going to survive long, Teleport Field or no. In her absence, Bodhi and her shadow wipe out the last of the enemies... except for Hazzerbazzer, who Gloom has left behind in the hallway.
Finally, the room is clear, and we turn on Bodhi.
Bodhi goes hostile on and off, but Margot keeps her locked under Charm, and Bodhi isn't able to do much to us as we wear her down. She gets one of her special powers off the ground, and hurts herself in the process.
See the character in the upper left corner of the screen? That's Eliza's clone. That circle under her feet is from the Shield of Reflection. The other circle is the reflection animation, which appears briefly when a character is bouncing a projectile (like an arrow, with Physical Mirror) or a spell (like Flame Arrow, with Spell Turning).
It's appearing here because Eliza's clone got confused and started attacking Eliza with the Crimson Dart. Since the Shield of Reflection bounces darts and both are wearing it, the Crimson Dart is bouncing between them endlessly, with no effect. Eliza might actually die instantly if she takes off the shield before the clone is gone, depending on how many darts have been thrown.
Bodhi goes hostile, but she's still disoriented from the multiple Charm spells.
She just stands there. It's not supposed to happen, but it makes sense for an enemy who's failed multiple saves against mind-affecting magic. She's kinda messed up right now.
While Margot tries to regain control over Bodhi, we pay a visit to Hazzerbazzer. His GOI has run out, making his spells painfully easy to disrupt.
Also makes him easy to Breach.
Thus ends Hazzerbazzer. We regain control of Bodhi, though she still lashes out at us, to little effect.
We all gang up on her while she's reeling under Margot's spell. The single unlikeliest candidate lands the final blow.
Gloom was blinded when she made that attack. Her THAC0 was 22. As Bodhi's killer, she gets to put the stake through her heart.
Once we're outside, we rest and Gloom casts Restoration on herself. Good news.
Now Gloom has 7 spell slots per spell level. Our divine spellcasting power has gone through the roof.
Also, Gloom gains access to Bog Witch HLAs. First up is the Bodyless HLA:
After extensive meditation, the Bog Witch permanently transforms its body into a semi-transparent, non-corporeal form. The Bog Witch resists all nonmagical weapons, and its body can no longer be affected by Entangle, Web, Grease, hold spells, paralysis, disintegration, or petrification. Even the movement rate penalties of the Bog Witch's own spells do not have any effect. The caster also cannot be slowed or backstabbed, and is immune the effects of Time Stop.
After many months of a pause, I decided to go back to having a no-reload run.
My original character "Khael the Defiant" (FMC as per the beginning of this thread) was lost to .... restartitis. (I cannot maintain attention to more than one character. So, I just HAD TO delete him to start a new run...)
Just started making progress with an awesome new Dragon Disciple with a fantastic roll -- only to have her shot down by one single lousy Bandit south of Beregost. She died the same moment the Bandit hit the ground.
We have some room for practice before Kangaxx: the Shade Lich and Elemental Lich are so far undisturbed. We go after the Shade Lich first.
As with Alchra Diagott, we foolishly position ourselves close by when the fight begins. Margot can't handle the lich's Chain Contingency.
Unlike in the early game, Gloom doesn't have many high-powered offensive options, but Bog Witches get crazy immunities--including Time Stop. The Shade Lich casts Time Stop on the first round, giving Gloom three rounds of uninterrupted spellcasting.
The lich's spell protections break down. But a Fallen Planetar is on the screen, and it's right next to Eliza, who has neither PFMW nor a clear aura to cast one. Fortunately, the Fallen Planetar whiffs its first chance to end our game.
It lands a hit right afterward, but fails to get a vorpal strike.
With its spell protections gone, the Shade Lich's defenses are easy to remove. The lich renews its PFMW, but a Breach is already on its way.
Shorn of its Spell Shield, Spell Turning, and SI: Abjuration, any other defensive spells it might want are doomed to fail.
The Shade Lich goes down.
The Elemental Lich begins much the same, though the Fallen Planetar gives us much more grief, as we're forced to toss the Boots of Speed to Margot to make sure she can run from the Fallen Planetar and avoid a vorpal strike. The lich and Gloom trade debuffs--a losing trade for the lich, who needs its buffs more than Gloom does.
The Elemental Lich soon loses its buffs, and the Fallen Planetar is stymied by Margot's running.
Sensing its strategy isn't working, the Planetar resorts to its spells. But the Elemental Lich is doomed without PFMW--the Planetar's efforts do nothing but drain a few potions, of which we have many.
Once the lich is down, we punish the Planetar for its troublemaking. Eliza once again proves an effective counter to a Planetar's raw power.
We're not yet tough enough to deal with Kangaxx just yet--I want a little more strength before we take him on--so we move on to Suldanessellar.
On entering Suldanessellar, Eliza hits level 18, gaining her first HLA, Summon Planetar, and her first level 9 spell slot, which she uses for Time Stop.
We underestimate the Rakshasas. They were sturdy enough to survive a Planetar, and our efforts to contain the threat are too half-hearted and poorly thought-out to work. Lithos and Margot are unbuffed and easily fall to enemy spell damage and melee attacks. Gloom and Eliza survive thanks to their buffs, but the Rakshasas have come prepared with ample debuffers, maintaining heavy pressure on us all the way. And with their awesome spell level immunities, there's not much we can do against them.
Then the weaker link, Gloom, perishes, and Eliza is forced to flee under invisibility. She renews her defenses on a bridge I've never set foot on before.
To keep the cats at bay, Eliza uses the Golem Manual. Turns out the Flesh Golem is immune to their attacks.
It's immune to nonmagical weapons, the only kind Rakshasas ever use, and has 100% MR. With the Rakshasas busy not killing the golem, Eliza can raise Gloom and turn the tides against the Rakshasas. Even then, Stoneskin slows down the process.
Raamilat, normally a major threat, is a pushover. Why? Because Margot manages to charm him just as he gets an important spell off the ground.
After wasting some spells on the nearby Nabassu, I realize we can empty out Raamilat's spellbook much more quickly simply by having him start spells, cancel them immediately afterwards, and start new ones. The spells are lost the moment the caster begins casting, not when they're done casting. We can drain many more spells from his spellbook by canceling spells than we could by finishing casting them.
He's only left with a smattering of spells by the time his Improved Alacrity runs out.
We summon a Fallen Planetar and turn it on its master once Raamilat recovers from Charm. I've tweaked Charm to has a duration of 6 rounds, a cooldown period of three rounds, and a 3-second pause on caster on casting. I've also dropped the casting time down to zero, to prevent disruption. The Planetar remains under control even after Charm ends and its summoner dies, a factor of the game system. We send the Planetar after some other Rakshasas.
Two major enemies remain in Suldanessellar, not counting Irenicus: Nizidramanii'yt, and Suneer. I have a perfect solution for Nizidramanii'yt, which Eliza can perform on her own.
First, Eliza casts Improved Haste on herself. Next, she casts Time Stop. Then, she activates Called Shot and attacks the dragon during Time Stop for automatic hits, inflicting massive save penalties on the dragon. In between shots, she casts Lower Resistance twice. Finally, she hits the dragon with Feeblemind. The dragon's MR will be at zero, and its save vs. spell at more than 20, by the time Feeblemind makes contact, guaranteeing a failed save.
We botch the first attempt, however, as we fail to follow up on the Feeblemind when using a Project Image clone. This costs us the save penalties; our only progress was lowering Nizidramanii'yt's MR. Then, we botch the second attempt, as we only cast Improved Haste during Time Stop, when it can't yet affect Eliza. Still, we manage to get in a failed save.
Nizidramanii'yt is done for.
Feeblemind is a traditional mainstay for me when it comes to fighting dragons, since I play caster-heavy parties that don't have many other options. But it's very special to me that I can guarantee a failed save on this spell, and reduce the risk of failure to zero.
By now, Gloom has gained another level. She now has all the immunities of Chaotic Commands and Death Ward, plus immunity to normal weapons, level drain, Time Stop, vorpal strikes, Imprisonment, and INT, WIS, and CHA drain. She's impossible to disable by any means short of Resilient Sphere, and can maintain immunity to most anything else for many rounds if she keeps a few select buffs active. Kangaxx would find it nearly impossible to harm her.
Pity there's almost nothing she could do to hurt Kangaxx, or protect Eliza from him.
Phew... this was a lengthy hiatus from BG. (... and as per my last post, I paid for my rustiness with an immediate death.)
My gratitude to everyone who kept this thread alive all this time, especially to @semiticgod and @Blackraven for their persistent support and to @Alesia_BH for the morsels of frequent wisdom.
--
I just started a new run: I give you Adhanis Runeblade [picture], a master of the Katana and of growing magic prowess. (He is a fairly rolled F/M with 13/16/16/15/14/17 -- a bit of a low INT for a mage class, but a very good roll otherwise.)
House rules for this run:
- I bent my munchkining rules a bit here: he is a human Kensai/Mage multi-class (Really wanted to go back to a Kensai, but I just can't be bothered to spend 100+ hours into BG2 to dual class him into mage).
- His mother was a miner.... no wait.... his mother was a blademaster: a magic using master of the sword. Her Katana was given to Adhanis by Gorion and he spent his entire life practicing with it, along with magic from her journals under Gorion's tutelage. (Adhanis gets ++++ in Katanas for his proficiencies and her mother's non-magical katana, unaffected by the iron crisis because it predates such concerns. [Thanks EEkeeper])
(Yes, I know Katanas suck in BG1. Adhanis doesn't care. It was his mother's blade, alright!)
- Imoen is again a sorcerer, as per my head cannon. They studied magic together since children.
- I'm having a mostly canon party: Imoen, Jaheira, Viconia, Minsc, Dynaheir
Viconia, because Adhanis is attracted to her vigorous charms. (So, there was no room for Khalid.) Also, upon rescuing her Dynaheir was 'convinced' to earn her keep by learning the thieving arts. (So, Dynaheir is a T/M multiclass from lvl 1. Neither Imoen's nor Dyanheir's stats were changed.)
- Adhanis is Lawful Good and will act like it dammit! (Beautiful Viconia can be turned to the light, he believes deep within. [EEkeeper will keep reputation below 18; a fair price for harboring a dark elf.])
Currently, Adhanis is slowly cleaning up the areas from Beregost to Nashkel from bandits and marauders.
As per usual, this is played with SCS with most AI/tactical options on -- except for Mages/Clerics instabuffing (as discussed in the opening of the thread, I find that tedious and unfair).
Forgot to add (a minor but important detail):
Adhanis also wears his mother's (unenchanted) *circlet* -- though it provides no protection, it helps him focus and avoid critical hits. (I really did not want to babysit him behind the line until I find my first Ioun Stone. This is reasonably fair, I think.)
Also, an additional house rule:
- No spells from Necromancy school (to mea culpa a bit for the breach of munchkining otherwise)
--
Thoughts on Kensai in BG:
Almost all your Kensai bonuses (+2 hit/+2 dam/+2AC by the end) are annulled by you opting out of Balduran's Helmet and the Gauntlets of Whatsit. So, it is largely a flavor thing. Admittedly, a mage multi-class compensates your greatest weakness in close combat. So, yes, this is a power class, slightly better perhaps than a regular FM, but not by a far margin.
--
NOTES:
- Minsc died on me 6 times already, since he charges everything blindly on.
- Adhanis does stand back at first on iffy opponents (Oh, hello, pair of Ogres that could two-shot me.)
- Still no magical Katana, of course. On any opponent requiring such, he is a rather mediocre 13-strength fighter wielding the 'Whistling' Short Sword.
After careful study, we enter Kangaxx's lair with all the spells we think we might need. Our party boasts an 18th-level mage with strong THAC0 with missile weapons; a 17th-level druid with immunity to vorpal strikes, unconsciousness, level drain, and Imprisonment; a 12th-level fighter with a shot at creating a high-level mage summons; and a 15th-level thief that could neutralize the enemy entirely if luck is on our side. We have a double Teleport Field+Minor Spell Deflection Spell Sequencer to help us evade a Planetar, a double Pierce Shield+Warding Whip Chain Contingency on hit to instantly debuff anyone who hits Eliza, and a spare Limited Wish in case we need another casting of Time Stop.
Kangaxx makes his saves against both Steal Shadow and Charm. His buff list is a doozy.
He goes for an alteration spell, either Improved Alacrity, or, hopefully, Time Stop. Ruby Ray of Reversal takes down his Spell Shield, while a Contingency of Eliza's fortifies her position.
Kangaxx finishes casting Improved Alacrity. Bad news. But with Spell Shield gone, and no Spell Trap on Kangaxx's person, Warding Whip removes his spell protections, opening him up to Breach on the second round of combat.
Kangaxx is already screwed. Sheer force of debuffers have rendered him vulnerable to direct attack.
His lich form crumples. It's a pathetic sight, but that's the power of Warding Whip in SCS2, when Spell Trap is no longer standard for high-level mages and liches. Kangaxx transforms.
I reorganize our inventory in preparation. Notably, we need to move Firetooth from Margot to Eliza before Margot gets imprisoned. Midway through our preparations, we are instantly defeated by the most powerful enemy in the game.
I start over, and because I'm too lazy to repeat the last three or four rounds of combat (Kangaxx stuck around for a round or two before finally transforming), I just hit Kangaxx with CTRL-Y to get to his demi-lich form. None of our success depended on rolls, so it shouldn't make any difference.
After his initial demi-lich wail, Kangaxx tries to Imprison Eliza.
This means we're actually fighting the vanilla Kangaxx, not the smarter SCS2 version. The SCS2 version won't try to Imprison Charname, and the spell Kangaxx uses is called "Trap the Soul," not "Imprisonment."
I quit the game, fix our install, and return to Kangaxx. I use CTRL-Y again. It's a testament to my impatience that I'm willing to use cheats to skip a 20-second fight. I do the same thing with gibberlings.
This time, Kangaxx works properly. Better yet, we get a lucky roll.
See those little green magical stuffs floating around Kangaxx? After tweaking the duration and cooldown for Charm (6 round duration, 3 round cooldown, 1 round to take effect, half round pause on caster), I also added a visual effect to show when the target failed its save against Charm. Kangaxx will be ours within a round.
During his initial Time Stop, Gloom and Kangaxx both concentrate on debuffing spells. Kangaxx casts Spellstrike on Eliza, but I don't worry. He'll be ours midway through the Time Stop.
He casts his second spell, and then another. Something is wrong.
He should have turned green by now. Charm didn't work. As I later realized, the visual effect only indicates a failed save; it doesn't prove that Charm worked. Non-human critters get a 50% chance to avoid the spell even on a failed save. Kangaxx failed the save, and got the visual effect, but 6 seconds later, when the real charm spell hit him, he got the version that doesn't affect non-human critters like himself.
We might have one more chance to Charm him before Margot gets imprisoned. If that doesn't work, we'll be fighting Kangaxx at his full power.
And Eliza is about to get her defenses broken down.
Whatever his saving throws against Steal Shadow or Charm, Kangaxx is still staring at lots of debuffing spells in the face. His PFMW and Stoneskin spells won't matter much if we can Breach him at any time.
Kangaxx stays focused on rendering Eliza vulnerable. Gloom has the same job.
But Gloom can't target Kangaxx with Breach. Only Khelben's Warding Whip can get through Kangaxx's Shadow Door, and SI: Divination, which will only go down after Warding Whip hits outside of Time Stop, keeps True Seeing from dispelling Shadow Door. Gloom is forced to stand around and do nothing while Kangaxx keeps going.
When time returns to normal, Eliza's mountain of buffs wears off. Spell Shield, Minor Spell Deflection, Spell turning, and SI: Abjuration. It all goes down, just through force of Kangaxx's debuffs. And then Breach comes.
Eliza runs away and casts Time Stop. She needs it to restore some of her buffs safely; Kangaxx could destroy her with his spells if she's not protected.
Lithos by now has already been imprisoned. She didn't have enough time to make Steal Shadow work. Same goes for Margot, a round later. Eliza's simulacrum vanishes as well. But our MR blocks a dangerous Emotion spell, we manage to break down down Kangaxx's defenses, and now only Stoneskin stands in our way.
Kangaxx, however, has lots of Stoneskin spells, and Eliza's THAC0 isn't quite good enough to hit Kangaxx reliably. On top of that, Kangaxx regenerates 2 HP per round thanks to his ring. It's going to take time to wear him down.
And Kangaxx has many, many rounds to debuff and destroy us. He forces Eliza to renew her spell protections, and she is running perilously low already.
Why is this such a problem, if Kangaxx doesn't use Trap the Soul on the main character in SCS2? Well, he has lots of other crazy powers as well. Kangaxx's spellbook in demi-lich form is very well optimized to bring down almost any character, and all of his weaknesses are properly covered by his buffs.
Kangaxx attacks using Horrid Wilting, Flame Arrow, and Magic Missile. He disables using Emotion, since immunity to unconsciousness is so uncommon, and once a character falls to Emotion, he can easily kill them with Minute Meteors. Greater Malison will help soften up characters, meaning negative saving throws aren't necessarily sufficient.
If his target has buffs active, he has multiple means of removing them. Remove Magic will take down almost anything, and without SI: Abjuration, there is basically no chance of maintaining one's buffs. If SI: Abjuration is present, Kangaxx can tear it down with magic attacks. Specific protections can be removed using Breach. Finally, he protects himself with PFMW and Stoneskin, and it takes lots of time to break through all of his many Stoneskins, not counting the extra rounds of total immunity granted by PFMW.
His spellbook is crammed with these spells, so you can't really hope to tank him out. You will run out of spell protections before he runs out of magic attacks. You will run out of Breach before he runs out of combat protections. Your save bonuses and immunities will run out before he runs out of Emotion. Your resistances will run out before he runs out of damage spells.
In a nutshell, Kangaxx has a check on every character type. Fighters and thieves die to spell damage and disablers. Clerics can druids are hit with Remove Magic, and then die to spell damage and disablers. Mages are hit with magic attacks, followed by Remove Magic, and then die to spell damage and disablers. He's practically designed to end no-reload runs.
Normally, Kangaxx would imprison everybody besides Charname, and you'd have to fight him on your own. For no-reload runs, the pressure is severe, as you have to divide time between healing and maintaining your defenses.
But Gloom is totally immune to Trap the Soul, including the secondary level drain effect that SCS2 adds to the imprisonment effect, so Eliza has an extra character to help her out.
By the way... Kangaxx can cast a spell and use Trap the Soul in the same round. So Gloom isn't drawing any pressure off of Eliza.
Finally, we break through his Stoneskins and Kangaxx starts losing health. We're in bad shape, but he's getting weaker as well.
Gloom has a tough time maintaining her defenses. With her poor casting time, her spells are very easy to disrupt. It takes careful management to make sure her defenses don't break down. She can't cast a spell unless Kangaxx is busy with Eliza.
Notice the spell deflection effect on Eliza: that's not from a spell. That's from the Rod of Absorption. The rod is normally not very useful, as its absorption effect only lasts four rounds. But it blocks 9 spell levels, up to level 9, and requires no spell slots. This makes it a good backup defense against Breach, if not Remove Magic.
And there's the problem with this match: Remove Magic can only be blocked by SI: Abjuration. When Gloom runs out of Spell Immunity spells, she can no longer protect her potion buffs. Gloom and Eliza both drank two Potions of Magic Protection at the beginning of the fight to gain 100 MR, but potions are treated as level 10 spells, so Remove Magic dispels them automatically. Once they're gone, Gloom is very fragile indeed.
Eliza runs out of SI: Abjuration spells, too, and her potion buffs are also removed very quickly. But Eliza was especially dependent on that 100 MR. Unlike Gloom, Eliza has no immunity to unconsciousness. A single Emotion spell could kill her. When Eliza loses her MR, she has to flee to the corner to make sure she can drink her next potion before Kangaxx's next spell hits her.
She uses a Potion of Magic Shielding, as it gives her automatic saves against Emotion, and with the Belt of Inertial Barrier, she has immunity to magic damage as well. Gloom also bought Eliza some time by getting in Kangaxx's way, as he can't quite reach Eliza's corner from his position at the center of the room.
Stymied by Eliza's item-based defenses, Kangaxx tries to kill Gloom instead. But his Cloudkill and Emotion spells have no effect on Gloom, thanks to her Bog Witch kit and HLAs, and his other spells are weathered with potions. Meanwhile, Eliza plucks away from the corner with Firetooth.
But our defenses are getting weak, and we're getting more vulnerable as time goes on. I really want a Spell Immunity spell, and cast Limited Wish for the restore spells option.
But Limited Wish only restores up to level 4 spells. That gives us nothing. I consider choosing the Time Stop option, but it doesn't feel quite necessary, with Kangaxx as weak as he is. Instead, I summon some bunnies, in the hope that Kangaxx will lose a bit of time on them. Turns out he was already casting the perfect spell.
Kangaxx tries to debuff Eliza, but it seems he's out of Remove Magic spells. All he has left are Breach spells, and Eliza's constant use of the Rod of Absorption blocks all attempts to Breach her.
Kangaxx is out of ammo. We are not.
The Ring of Gaxx is ours, though arguably it's not as useful as the four Potions of Magic Protection, three Potions of Magic Shielding, and several charges from the Rod of Resurrection and Rod of Absorption that we used during the fight.
Though Eliza provided the killing blow, Gloom played a huge role at the beginning and end of the fight. Her immunity to Time Stop didn't let her Breach Kangaxx, but it did let her take down all of his spell protections, allowing Eliza to Breach him instead. This broke the entire fight with Kangaxx's lich form, as he had no time to take offensive action beyond debuffing Eliza. Further, during the demi-lich phase, Gloom soaked up a few of Kangaxx's offensive options besides Trap the Soul, including two Horrid Wilting spells, an Emotion spell, and a disrupted Remove Magic spell. This probably saved us at least one Potion of Magic Shielding.
The Bog Witch HLAs so far seem fairly balanced. They certainly made this fight much easier, but they came at tremendous cost. Gloom needed three HLAs to make sure she could survive this encounter. Also, Bog Witches don't have the right offensive abilities to make the most of their immunities. Immunity to Time Stop and all on-hit effects would be much more useful for a fighter, who has the APR to deal big damage during Time Stop and the HP and resistances to survive in melee combat. Immunity to instant death effects and disablers, meanwhile, is largely redundant for a druid, who already has lots of Chaotic Commands and Death Ward spells. The HLAs shore up the Bog Witch's defenses, but the Bog Witch can't translate that enhanced durability into offensive output, the way another class could.
Bartholomew hasn't had much time yet to make a name for himself on the Sword Coast, but he's lived enough to warrant a first (brief) update. As I reported on the Bioware Forums but not here, Imoen died at the excavation site. Apparent misclicking on my part prevented her from casting Sleep on the diggers, while my receiving a drink in RL ensured that the diggers could kill Imoen. She didn't get chunked, but I was so unhappy about this situation that I decided to restart anyway. Unfortunately that didn't mean that Imoen would fare much better. The good thing though is that she never got chunked, and that I could live with the ways in which she died.
This run is a roleplayed one, and includes suboptimal decisions like this one:
but my reporting will be rather succinct, in order to keep the play-write ratio a balanced one for me.
Dandy and his best friend and fellow Gnome Imoen ignored Gorion's advice to seek out friends of his at the FAI. Instead they traveled to Beregost where they ran the errands we all know. They then headed further south, to Nashkel, obtaining a CHA-enhancing ring from Lord Foreshadow on the way there. The mayor begged the Gnomes to investigate the disappearances of people and the contamination of iron ore in the Nashkel Mines, but as the Iron Crisis had no bearing whatsoever on their existence, the duo decided to pursue other, more rewarding and more pleasant activities. The two really enjoyed traveling, so that in itself kept them roaming the Sword Coast. They were also very interested in being seen favorably, but at the same time they were aware that a heroic status generally required heroic deeds. Dandy and Imoen decided to try and become 'heroes' making a minimal effort, and taking minimal risk. This meant mostly being nice to commoners and fellow adventurers such as Oublek, Joia, Mrs. Blackwood, Bjornin, Charleston Nib, Captain Brage, and Farmer Brun.
Despite their resolution to be cautious and to avoid risk, peril presented itself on several occasions. At the FAI, a bounty hunting wizard tried to kill them.
(Tarnesh had to be talked to, since this is a RPed run.) Dandy Commanded him to sleep and Imoen followed with an arcane Sleep, allowing the duo to prevail.
Tenya the child priestess Held Imoen before Bartholomew's sling bullet convinced the girl to accept the Gnomes' help against three fishermen.
(The fishermen were spared after they went hostile, again for RPing purposes, even though their +1 Flail might suit future companions like Finch or Quayle.) The lands north of Beregost up to Baldur's Gate were very dangerous. The friends got ambushed more than once during their travels there. One such ambush was particularly painful:
(We had Jaheira's invisibility potion, but Imoen went with a healing potion and trusted she would outrun the Skeletons. The Skeletons clearly decided otherwise. Shield might have been an option, taking into account the relatively low speed of the throwing daggers.)
At Feldepost's Inn Bart nicked Algernon's Cloak in two instances. This turned out to be not good enough. Like Algernon, the dude - forgot his name - in the room adjacent to Algernon's went hostile, and he went downstairs. Bartholomew barely managed to buy a Helm of Charm Protection from the innkeeper before the crowd, including the innkeeper, went hostile as well.
(I allowed pickpcoketing of the cloak because I like the store discount too much for party playthroughs.)
After this misadventure, the rogues decided to head for the country for a while. They had a brief stop in Nashkel, where they faced another bounty hunter, a priestess this time. Dandy Held her before she could do any harm.
On the coast Bartholomew nearly got himself killed in Black Alaric's Cave (in a somewhat desperate effort on my part to boost the duo's XP and wealth).
He survived (and destroyed) the Flesh Golems though. Amongst the duo's somewhat meager possessions was Aule's Staff. Bartholomew used it because he thought it made him look distinguished and sagely, but thanks to its Thac0 bonus and long reach, it was also a good weapon for sneak attacks.
The duo's biggest test of their prowess thus far awaited them in the Red Canyons area: Bassilus, surrounded by Skeletons and Zombies. Somewhat surprisingly, given their interest in gossip, the Gnomes hadn't heard of the priest before (except for nearby Footy's cryptic remark). Roleplaying therefore compelled Bartholomew to approach and salute the priest. Dandy had no objections per se against Animating Dead, he wished he could cast that spell, but he was unsure of the cleric's intentions. Therefore he decided he would quaff a potion of invisibility if necessary. Bassilus made it perfectly clear he didn't appreciate the Gnomes' presence. Imoen tried twice to stun the angry priest with a wand her friend had found in Black Alaric's cave, but to no avail. Bassilus in turn, cast two Unholy Blights at Imoen. She barely survived the first one (down to 1 HP),
tried to run away and then heard the incantation of the second one. At that point going invisible doesn't stop the Unholy Blight I think, so Imoen merely healed 9 HPs with a healing potion. The second Holy Blight then killed her. I feared a chunking, and thus the end of this playthrough, but Immy suffered 'only' 15 HPs of damage.
Bartholomew then dealt with Bassilus on his own, and quite competently so, I may add: the Gnome scouted his foe's whereabouts, Silenced him from a safe distance,
Held him,
hit him 9 times with his Staff, tried a second Hold Person right before the first would expire but saw Bassilus save, retreated, avoided a Hold Person by hiding in shadows, disrupted a casting of Sanctuary with his sling,
and finally finished him off with a backstab.
At the Temple of Lathander in Beregost, Bartholomew was pleased not only to see his dear friend brought back to life, but also to receive 5k GP for Bassilus' Holy Symbol.
The companions have circa 15k XP each, which makes Bartholomew a lvl 4/4 Cleric/Thief and Imoen a lvl 3/4 Illusionist/Thief. They have a bit more than 5k GP plus a few items they've held on to (for future companions): the Ashideena, a +1 Medium Shield, some Darts of Stunning/Wounding and a suit of Ankheg Armor. They're going to buy some Illusion spell scrolls for Imoen (which she should be able to scribe without risk of failure thanks to Illusion/Phantasm being her school). Both still feel quite weak, and underequipped, so I'm inclined have them farm some XP (Basilisks probably) before they welcome any other NPCs into the party. I'd still like Quayle and Alora to join though, and maybe Finch and Yeslick too.
Dandy and his best friend and fellow Gnome Imoen ignored Gorion's advice to seek out friends of his at the FAI. .... The two really enjoyed traveling, so that in itself kept them roaming the Sword Coast. They were also very interested in being seen favorably, but at the same time they were aware that a heroic status generally required heroic deeds. Dandy and Imoen decided to try and become 'heroes' making a minimal effort, and taking minimal risk. This meant mostly being nice to commoners and fellow adventurers such as Oublek, Joia, Mrs. Blackwood, Bjornin, Charleston Nib, Captain Brage, and Farmer Brun.
Ah, I'm wishing I had a Gnome instead. (Early pulls of restartitis, I fear.)
Perhaps, I should write a fictional (I mean, fictionally fictional) narrative of the adventures of a Gnome while still playing my all-so-serious [basso profundo] "Adhanis, the Master of Katana".
A sort of FMCT quadruple class Gnome, kitted into Wizard Slayer/Wild Mage/Cleric of Baervan Wildwanderer/Swashbuckler.
(I'd party up with Jan, Quayle, Aerie, and, of course, Minsc. Because Minsc!)
Ah, I'm wishing I had a Gnome instead. (Early pulls of restartitis, I fear.)
Perhaps, I should write a fictional (I mean, fictionally fictional) narrative of the adventures of a Gnome while still playing my all-so-serious [basso profundo] "Adhanis, the Master of Katana".
I'd love to see Finkle Burpworth in action! And I completely hear you on the restartitis. My Dwarven Fighter/Thief Glorydd is begging me to let her leave Candlekeep. And I found a really nice Halfling portrait that screams: roll a Swashbuckler! Anyway I'm sticking to Bartholomew, for now.
Btw all-too-serious can be nice too. Hope to see more from Adhanis (good name btw).
Bartholomew, 2nd BG1 update
Bart and Imoen both felt that in spite of their accomplishments thus far, they were still too vulnerable, little Gnomes who had to rely on themselves in a big, dangerous world. They would to take a gradual approach in pursuit of recognition as 'those loveable heroes of the Sword Coast'. They decided to explore the lands east of the Coast Way.
Both Gnomes were unfond of killing, and blood and gore disgusted Bartholomew. (At least he fought with a staff so he didn't have to worry about blood or bits of organs on his weapon.) Ideally Bartholomew'd be everyone's friend, and Imoen was much the same. But many dwellers of the Sword Coast had other ideas. In order to become more experienced adventurers they couldn't always run when hostilities broke out, so they ended up fighting, and killing. Take Meilum for example. He was just way too serious about a duel with Imoen to measure their swordsmanship. Meilum sought to injure or even kill Imoen, so Bart ended up Holding the warrior, and Imoen slew him with one of her arrows. There were also creatures (monsters) whose hostility was expected: Hobgblins south of the Ulcaster School (including one who dropped a pair of Boots of Stealth, meaning that now both Bart and Imoen owned a pair of those), Battle Horrors near Durlag's Tower,
and Basilisks, to the northeast.
With the Basilisks was a fellow Gnome, Mutamin.
In Mutamin's defense it must be said he was no racial supremacist, for he was quite clearly out to kill Bart and Imoen, or at least get them petrified. He killed a charmed Ghoul, with an ease that surprised Bartholomew. (Imoen didn't witness any of this; she was invisible and at a distance.) Bart retreated and hid in shadows, where he waited for Mutamin's buffs to wear off. There was sadness in his eyes, but no hesitation in his movement as he felled Mutamin with a punishing backsmack.
The two friends returned to Durlag's Tower, and this time actually entered it. It was heavily trapped, which made the Gnomes realize that a proper looting of the place would have to wait until their trap detection/removal (Bart) and lockpicking (Imoen) skills were further honed. Bart did pick up a Tome of Wisdom though and an enchanted scimitar after his first castings of Animate Dead allowed for more Basilisk killing.
The scimitar and some other loot were sold in Beregost, and Bart bought a suit of Shadow Armor for himself. They hadn't the gold for an Archmagi robe for Imoen, but they had enough to pick up some trinkets they'd seen at the Nashkel Carnival. Entering the wrong tent at the wrong time resulted in more needless deaths:
They Gnomes did eventually acquire a number of enchanted amulets (Shield, Missiles), and they welcomed another Gnome into their midst: Quayle, or - as he would soon after be called by both Bart and Imoen - 'Uncle' Quayle. Uncle Quayle acted like he knew everything best. He was also a bit older than the others. His hair was already silver and his glasses weren't designed to make the wearer look stately (Bart) or to identify things (Imoen, she has Glasses of ID in her inventory, courtesy of her portrait for this run), but to actually read better. Quayle was a Cleric (Hoodwinker of Baravar Cloakshadow) and an Illusionist. His first feat was the defeat of Greywolf the bounty hunter after Imoen had Blinded and Bart had Held the man. Greywolf's quarry had been Prism, a sculptor who died moments after the completion of his rock carving of Ellessime the Elven queen. Imoen stood on Bart's shoulders to remove two emeralds that Prism had used for Ellessime's eyes. Sooner or later someone would make of with the gems anyway, might as well beat them to it they reckoned.
The tricksy trio explored the Cloudpeaks, and found the denizens of the valley most inhospitable. Two bandits, Vax and Zal, were Blinded/Held/Webbed and slain. A huntress named Sendai and two archer friends of hers fell thanks to Skeletal intervention on the Gnomes' behalf. Two brutes that wanted to fell a tree were Held and dispatched.
Further west the Gnomes discovered an old fortress. They wanted to take a closer look, but they had to kill two Ogrillons first (Bart's backstabs) and when they approached the structure they found it occupied by Gnolls. Although they considered these monsters slow and dumb, they decided not to bother with the fortress. Bart found a tome the reading of which increased his Charisma, but the area was otherwise uninteresting. More than a day's trek north of the fortress lay Ogre's Reach. The Gnomes saved a nobleman from a Mountain Bear there (yielding Quayle a pair of Boots of the North), and they were pickpocketed by a rogue after Bart jested that he was going to attack him.
Speaking of pickpocketing, in Ulgoth's Beard Imoen learned she needed to work on that skill. She did manage to secure an enchanted ring from a Gnome named Dushai (just a keepsake to remember Dushai with, after her refusal to travel with the tricksy three), but the lass failed to do so without being noticed. After Feldepost's Inn in Beregost, Ulgoth's Beard became another place where the Gnomes shouldn't expect a warm welcome on future visits.
The ring turned out to be a Ring of Free Action. Imoen gave it to Bart but she made him promise memorize Remove Paralysis for her.
The Gnomes traveled back to the coast via the Red Canyons (where three Hobgoblins bequeathed Imoen a Short Sword +2 after they mysteriously died). On the North Coast a Nereid Charmed and Death-Kissed Quayle.
Bart, immune to Charm thanks to his helmet, and summoned Skeletons then injured the creature sufficiently to make her stop and raise Uncle Quayle. She called an Ogre Mage to her side though. The Skeletons occupied it, Bart Silenced it, and Imoen Blinded and eventually slew the monster.
Meanwhile, Adhanis is cautiously clearing the country of threatening monster. Almost all the Sword Coast is cleansed of evil. (Adhanis is and party a comfortable lvl 5ish already.)
He would go to Nashkel Mines (heaven knows, Jaheira has been nagging him about it), but... you see... he heard rumors that there be ... KOBOLDS... in Nashkel Mines. Kobolds, you hear. He cannot possibly face a den of Kobolds unprepared. So, he will attack some basilisks, mages, possibly liches or lichen or whatever -- and maybe hang out with Volo for a few days, listening to his tales. But not them Kobolds!
He is not afraid of Kobolds. No sir. It's just there are so many of them down there. He imagines the place just crawling with them.
He will come and clean Nashkel surely. After he is ready. Maybe after he learns a contingency with Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wiltings in it. That should be useful against Kobolds. Maybe.
Maybe after he learns a contingency with Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wiltings in it. That should be useful against Kobolds. Maybe.
Just buy the Shield of Reflection from Ribald and those Kobolds won't be able to touch you. Or, stack Hardiness with the Belt of Inertial Barrier and Orc Leather +3, and cast Protection from Fire for immunity to missile and fire damage. Then equip Sanchuudoku and Acidic Backlash will kill the enemies for you.
Maybe after he learns a contingency with Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wiltings in it. That should be useful against Kobolds. Maybe.
Just buy the Shield of Reflection from Ribald and those Kobolds won't be able to touch you. Or, stack Hardiness with the Belt of Inertial Barrier and Orc Leather +3, and cast Protection from Fire for immunity to missile and fire damage. Then equip Sanchuudoku and Acidic Backlash will kill the enemies for you.
I don't know.... it seems unlikely that a Kobold *Shaman* would not have already used divination magics to expect all that. Aldhanis is not willing to just walk into an obvious trap.
Perhaps, if I wait long enough the Iron Crisis can be resolved by Market Forces (lvl 10 mage spell from the "Economy" school). Then he can just visit the Nashkel Mines at his leisure.
Guys...I love you! Thank you for sharing your attempts! I've gone through 185 post here and I'm positively sure that the whole "let's try a BG no-reload game" concept illustrates the real life:
Try, and if you fail, try again. You'd do better next time!
It's amazing, really, how a computer game in fact, gives a proof to the reasons we now travel by cars and not by horses.
"We cannot withstand against such firepower." - Admiral Ackbar, on kobold commandos
In all seriousness, I hate kobolds with a passion. And, so, therefore, do all my characters.
How can a greater basilisk be worth 1000 kobolds in XP. Just 10 of them can reliably kill a starting character that can, with some clever management, bring down a basilisk. Ugh!
To illustrate, come have a look at what happened in my last run:
--
Adhanis and his team of battle hardened heroes did, in fact, go to Nashkel Mines.
In the first picture, you see a lvl 5 Minsc killed by a Kobold commando in TWO FRIGGING ROUNDS!! Yes, a shortbow and fire arrows can hit him dead with a little bit of bad luck. (I'm playing without maximized HP rolls and Minsc wasn't particularly lucky with his.)
This is when Ackbar, I mean, Adhanis, said that we cannot withstand against the firepower of the Kobolds for long. So, I opened with every Magic Missile and Melf's Acid Arrow in retaliation. There is "overkill" of a Kobold.
Later on, further down in the Mines, a persistent Shaman and a refuses-to-die Chieftain almost wiped my party [2nd pic]. The Shaman Horrored all the party, except Jaheira. (Really stupid of me, I know.) and the resulting Benny Hill show had Viconia playing minefield in the Traps area near the exit and everyone providing target practice for the Kobold Commando's. Jaheira had to provide distraction to save Adhanis and others and died to the poisonous arrows of the Chieftain and the fire arrows of the Commandos, after drinking half my potion supply.
Luckily, Horror does wear out eventually, and my wounded party gulped even more potions and won the day.
Mulahey was child's play after this. As was Nimbul, Tranzig etc.
--
Seriously, most of my characters do Davaeorn before they tackle Firewine...
Comments
Eliza drinks a Potion of Invulnerability to keep her save vs. death low. Hopefully, this will prevent a vorpal strike from the Planetar. We run around the area, grabbing the loot of our fallen. A lot of stuff has to be crammed into the Bag of Holding. The enemy keeps attacking us all the way.
I leave the area. The Glabrezus and the mage follow me out. I run into the svirfneblin settlement, hoping the locals will help me out. They do not... I suppose I would have expected the naturally cautious deep gnomes wouldn't fight the drow just to help some random surfacer who stumbled into their homes. It's not like I saved their town from a freaking Balor or anything.
The Glabrezus keep wasting Confusion spells on me while I struggle to make headway with darts. Eliza is holding the Shield of Harmony and therefore is immune to confusion spells, but the Glabrezus don't get it. In between the attacks, I take measures to keep Eliza safe. Among other things, she drinks two Potions of Magic Protection, re-casts SI: Abjuration, and casts Spell Shield via a scroll to make sure that mage doesn't pull any new tricks on her if he should catch up to us.
I manage to Slow one of the Glabrezus, and so I single him out for attacks. His Mirror Images go away.
Soon, he falls. I turn my attention to the other.
But the Glabrezu survives. Eliza's poor THAC0 makes it hard to land a hit on the Glabrezu, and she needs to spend much of her time running away--not so much to avoid the Glabrezu's melee attacks, but to avoid the steep THAC0 penalties that would cripple her dart-throwing.
The Glabrezu keeps chasing Eliza all around the town. We find that the local innkeeper is very ungrateful about our earlier work on the Balor.
He makes ominous threats about Eliza's knees. I don't want to fight him, or else I might lose reputation. Instead, I focus on the Glabrezu. Eliza summons an Efreeti to hold the Glabrezu still, and give her more time to throw the Crimson Dart.
But the Glabrezu just won't go down. Finally, I resort to using a precious resource--Darts of Stunning. But the Glabrezu resists them. It turns out that Darts of Stunning don't bypass magic resistance in my install.
She goes through an entire stack of 40 before managing to stun-lock the Glabrezu. Finally, she takes it down.
The mage has rejoined the fight--he is responsible for the unconscious Efreeti, thanks to his Emotion spell.
But that mage has gone invisible. Shadow Door. And we've run out of means of revealing him. We have no Seducer to use Detect Illusions, and the Book of Daily spell has already been used. The drow just waits there while the Innkeeper attacks us. I summon a Berserk Warrior in the hopes that it'll draw the drow out of invisibility, but it doesn't work, and forces me to stop the warrior from attacking the innkeeper every few seconds.
I go over our inventory again. We don't seem to have the Ring of Human Influence, so we can't charm the Innkeeper and make him go away, but we do have an important summoning scroll.
Nishruus and Hakeashars can see through invisibility. The drow's Shadow Door is no obstacle to a Nishruu.
But the drow keeps running, and he lures us into yet another ungrateful deep gnome. And this one is much more dangerous than the Innkeeper.
That's the exact same gnome who thanked us for sealing away the Balor. Why is he so mad at me? The drow and demons I brought with me aren't even attacking any of the locals.
The Nishruu gets badly hurt by the enemy's melee attacks, but can heal itself by hitting Goldander Blackenrock's Fire Shield.
More importantly, this screenshot shows we can target the drow mage--before, he was just a shimmering white-blue circle on the ground. Either his Shadow Door ran out or he broke his invisibility by attacking the Nishruu.
I bring out another set of Darts of Stunning and attack the mage. His Spell Turning is still active, but his other defenses are gone.
He doesn't even fight back. He lost almost all of his spells in the rounds before. Improved Alacrity really wore him out. Now he's got nothing to use against me. Eventually, Eliza stuns him, and switches to the Crimson Dart to save on Darts of Stunning. The drow finally falls.
We head back to the previous area, ignoring the svirfneblin, and search for enemies. The Fallen Planetar has vanished, the drow thief is already dead at Eliza's hands, and Fire Storm took out the golem and remaining drow. Eliza raises Gloom with the Rod of Resurrection.
Gloom can then raise Margot and Lithos, and the party will be back to normal.
Next up: the Mind Flayer lair.
I enter the Mind Flayer lair with a completely revamped spellbook. You can't rest in the Mind Flayer lair in SCS2, so our spells are going to be very limited. We memorize many copies of Blur, Protection from Fire, Teleport Field, Sunfire, Free Action, Chaotic Commands, PFMW, Water Jet, and True Seeing. Sunfire and Water Jet will bypass the Mind Flayers' MR; True Seeing will let us target the Mind Flayers (who arrive invisible and stay that way) with Charm and Steal Shadow. The other spells will protect us from Psionic Blast and INT drain.
We chat a bit with the other new hires. I love this line.
I recited the latter part of that line aloud while Simyaz was saying it. It just sounds great.
We don't have enough Chaotic Commands spell to cover everyone, and Free Action, which also protects against stun in my install (it shouldn't, conceptually, but whatever), is too short-duration to rely upon. So how do we stave off stun? Well, Eliza has the Ring of Free Action, and Margot has Arbane's Sword. What about Lithos?
She doesn't even need immunity to stun. Her saves are perfect. Though I really should have gotten Mazzy's sword for this anyway.
We trash the Mind Flayers on the way to saving the captives, and find that Psionic Blast is not the only tool at the enemy's disposal.
Lithos will be immune only if she drinks a Potion of Invulnerability; the other characters need Chaotic Commands. But since Maze is non-lethal, I decide we don't need to change our strategy.
To save on Control Circlets, we lure a Mind Flayer over to the door we need opened, rather than using a circlet.
The Mind Flayer doesn't need to be under your control; it just has to set foot in front of that door.
For the first major battle, Eliza spawns clones from Project Image and Simulacrum, who then fill the hallway with a couple of Teleport Field spells. This will keep Eliza safe despite not being able to act. The Mind Flayers won't get automatic hits on her, and her AC will hold them off.
It takes time to bring down the Mind Flayers. Things start to look a bit different as time goes on.
In retrospect, I suppose Teleport Field wouldn't have much impact in a crowded hallway, since the enemies can't be teleported that far away. Plus, they can teleport at will. But I'm sure Eliza's modified 22 INT will keep her safe.
Hm.
Yup.
Okay, Project Image is not going to work here, at least not in close quarters. We reload and switch out Project Image with Limited Wish. Maybe this time...
Total reloads: 2
It's not that the enemy is bound to roll an 18 every once in a while. It's that the Ulitharid also hit Margot on a 12.
We raise her with the Rod of Resurrection and lure the next group of enemies into the same room, and this time we pre-cast Teleport Field. We also call in some adorable summons to distract the Mind Flayers with their fluffy cuteness.
Beneath those hideous flesh pods are 20 cute little bunny rabbits. You can't see them, but trust me, they're darling. The bunnies form a protective wall around us, allowing us to tear down the Mind Flayers with ranged weapons. Eliza does most of the work, as she's the only competent archer of the group, but once the area clears and we're not stuck behind the wall of bunnies, Lithos can chip in, too.
I also make sure to move around the party members in the middle of the fight. Combined with Teleport Field and the open space, this means all our party members can stay out of range of the Mind Flayers and avoid any chance of INT drain.
We waste a Control Circlet on an Ulitharid, trying to open up the door to the Master Brain. Teleport Field dropped one of the Mind Flayers right in front of the door, obviating the need for a circlet.
Finally, after over half a dozen tries, Lithos (I almost said Bloody Howard) manages to steal a Mind Flayer's shadow. This is barely more than flavor, really. We're already in total control of the situation.
The Master Brain realizes the old tricks aren't working. It takes out the most dangerous threat with a single spell.
This is a bad sign. We don't have Teleport Field active, and the other party members have little defense against INT drain without it. If they die while Eliza is stuck in the maze, the game is over.
But Eliza returns within a few seconds. High INT is always a good thing in this area. She makes a dramatic entrance.
She unloads the other Sunfire spells she was saving up for the rest of the dungeon. Soon, all that's left is a single Mind Flayer that Margot managed to charm.
We slay the last survivor in the cruelest way: a backstab from the little halfling it thought was its friend.
Now the Staff of Domination is in our hands. Mostly for thematic reasons, Margot keeps it.
The Staff of Domination has 20 charges and can charm any enemy for 10 rounds, without save. Magic resistance can block the effect, and the charm strikes as a level 5 spell, so it can be blocked by spell level immunities and spell protections. Also, the Staff of Domination can't charm critters immune to charm. Charm, meanwhile, offers a save, but bypasses MR, spell protections, and innate immunities. She can alternate between the two depending on the situation.
We leave the Mind Flayer prison triumphant, and the leader of the Mind Flayer slaves thanks us. We finally hit 20 reputation for being such good awesome great heroic hero peoples.
Turns out they're not alone. I forgot that Shadow Door would naturally have hidden Goldander Blackenrock from view.
The gnomes are attacking us. Again. What is their grief with us? Do you little stepping stones know what happens to the few people who actually manage to hurt us? Do you know what we did to the Beholder Hive?
But Goldander McRocksoundingname is not alone. Because we teleported around the map via CTRL-J, we've only just now triggered the fight with Chandrilla, N'ashtar, Boz, Damien, Simja, and some random Skeleton.
Now we get to fight the whole jolly gang. Hooray.
I don't like the high-level buffs on N'ashtar and Goldilocks. We're completely unbuffed and need time. I send out a Simulacrum and some minor summons to distract the enemy. The bridge is a convenient choke point.
Apparently Damien is from Athkatla. I wonder how he got here. He's probably just here to save his hot sister from a pervy sorcerer with a creepy mask and crippling emotional problems, but recently got roped into a suicidal fetch quest to infiltrate a hostile police state run by professional torturers and slavers to help this big cranky metallic dragon with a stupid-looking fin on her head instead of horns get a hold of her eggs, only to have fourteen separate people reveal their secret plan to betray their closest allies by creating fake eggs so the other idiots make an omelette for a lesser demon lord to convince him to lay siege to an over-hyped treehouse where the sorcerer plans on sucking out the tree sap to give himself super maple syrup powers. Or some other nonsensical plot like that.
Anyway, Margot uses two charges from the Staff of Domination to break down Goldilocks' spell protections and then take control of him. The enemies quickly change targets.
Eliza's clone does a decent job of holding back the enemy, though it's not very sturdy without buffs.
A Stoneskin fails to protect the clone from Boz the Burly Bigass Brutish Noggin-Bopper.
Boz's weapon is Dragon's Breath +4, hence the four separate points of damage. He's able to break through Stoneskin because his mace is actually a halberd. Makes perfect sense.
Boz the Bubbly Hug-Bug bashes in Goldilocks' noggin as well. Finally, the gnome won't be bothering us anymore. Plus, we've got a new target to soak up the enemy's attacks.
Otyughs take up so much space. Sometimes it's a crippling disadvantage; other times, it's precisely what we need.
Now that we have some buffs active, we can wear down the enemy. The fight had been drifting eastward as we were forced to retreat, but now, the battle is moving in the opposite direction. We finally beat back Boz the Beautiful Butterfly, and slice up Simbja the Silly Sharpshooter. N'ashtar the Nasty Knave stays hidden, so Margot uses Detect Illusions while invisible.
N'ashtar turns visible, courtesy of Margot's Detect Illusions skill (it's already up to 75 now), and we whack away the wicked warlock's wards with a Warding Whip from our wonderful witch.
I should do all of these posts when I'm tired. It sounds so much better.
Well, time to kill a dragon. Because she's not going to let us escape the Underdark without her eggs, and that quest is long since past.
It's not the dialog I was expecting.
That's not what she's supposed to be saying. We failed the Ust Natha questline by spending too much time preparing for wiping out the Beholders at the local hive. Adalon should be furious with us for not bringing her eggs back. She says she won't even help you leave the Underdark, as she has better things to do.
But here, she's asking us to resume the quest. Maybe we still have a shot at finishing that quest! I return to Ust Natha and find the door is still open.
The place is perfectly peaceful, too.
Nobody's trying to murder us. What gives? I thought Phaere declared us fair game. We don't even have drow avatars anymore. We're clearly not drow.
We head over to Phaere's place, waiting for somebody to attack us. SCS2 makes Ust Natha really dangerous if the place goes hostile... it's designed to be impossible to take on the city. But we've got multiple Teleport Field spells in case any drow spawn in and block the way to the exit.
Then, Taso Kala interrupts us. She tells us to go slay the Ghaunadaur priests (misspelled as Ghaundaur in-game). Taso Kala normally interrupts you on the way to Phaere's house when she's about to reveal her plot against Matron Mother Ardulace, and so you have to kill the priests within an hour or fail the questline. I usually talk-block Taso Kala if I can help it, but I got caught off-guard. Now we have to go kill the priests.
I hurry, just in case we're at risk of failing the questline still, which means Eliza reaches the fight long before the rest of the party.
Why is she casting Teleport Field? Well... we don't actually have much else we could use in this fight.
Eliza is alone and facing a half-dozen spellcasters, one of which is a mage, plus a bunch of oozes. She has memorized no area-effect damage spells, and the only such spells we have on our person are Cloudkill, either from Gloom or from a Wand of Cloudkill, and Acid Bloom.
But these are priests of Ghaunadaur. They're going to be immune to poison damage, and surely also acid. Stinking Cloud also wouldn't work, and they're likely immune to Horror and perhaps Confusion as well since they're clerics. And Teleport Field won't do much of anything because so many oozes use ranged attacks.
Our only decent attack option is a Fireball from our Efreeti, who arrived on the first round. Otherwise, we're really unprepared for this fight. We have barely any buffs active, our spells are completely inappropriate for the occasion, and Eliza has stumbled onto the battlefield alone.
The Efreeti's spells are immediately shut down by the oozes' ranged attacks. Eliza turns invisible to keep herself safe.
Turns out her timing was perfect. Greater Command hit her just seconds later.
Eliza is now completely vulnerable, but the enemy can't see her. She'll be safe as long as the enemy doesn't cast any divination spells.
But we don't know when that might happen. So we have to hurry over and rescue her, because if the enemy targets her, they get automatic attacks, and Teleport Field is not going to hold them back.
Shadow Stealers don't fare well against Flame Strike. Or anything, really. They're very fragile critters.
Gloom arrives as well. She also draws enemy fire.
She manages to drink a potion right afterward, but her Ironskins vanish a second later. And the enemy clerics already have just the summons to finish her off.
Aerial Servants do 4d8+11 damage per hit. Left unchecked, they can quickly and without warning kill most anything without Stoneskin.
Finally, Eliza's simulacrum arrives. Eliza had summoned the simulacrum on the way to the fight, but the clone couldn't haste itself, and therefore lagged behind. The clone gets to work, while Eliza herself remains fast asleep and unnoticed amongst the slime and sludge.
Out of concern for Eliza, I allow her clone to use a quick item: the Golem Manual. It chips in a bit.
Margot tries to Charm the enemy, and has little luck. She switches to the Staff of Domination, which works much better. The enemy clerics have high MR, which blocks the Staff of Domination, but Aerial Servants, the heaviest hitters on the field, have no such defense. We send out the enemy's own summons back at them.
Finally, Eliza wakes up. First things first: we get her to safety.
Half the party is dead and the Rod of Resurrection won't buy us much, not when Lithos is so vulnerable and Gloom has so few useful spells for this fight. We need to take control with Eliza and Margot alone.
Relonar responds in kind, casting Oracle the moment he turns visible. But we have a counter for this.
SCS2 spellcasters would be awful if they used potions. Mostly SCS2 only gives potions to enemy fighters, I suppose because it's easier to randomize without making their scripts unnecessarily complicated. Does this mage spend a round casting a spell or drinking a potion? It would depend on which potions they have.
Eliza flees the arena to cast Project Image out of sight, by the door to the temple. Relonar starts to follow after her, directed by SCS2's curious AI that lets enemies track you down even while invisible. But I catch him in time, and position Margot to get in his way.
The Aerial Servant belongs to the enemy; a previously charmed Otyugh, now dead, has diseased it. Anyway, with Margot blocking the bridge, Relonar can't reach Eliza, and Eliza may send out her clone safely.
She does still get attacked by some minor enemies. To preserve her Stoneskins, Margot jumps in to help her out.
She's badly punished for her efforts, however. After a stream of pointless Mental Domination spells--Seducers are immune to charm and domination--one of the clerics finally gets the idea to try another spell. It works.
But Margot breaks out of it shortly thereafter.
How? Well, Seducers are very tricky to disable. Nine seconds after being rendered helpless, they automatically recover from any disablers that may be active on them. They suffer some penalties afterward, but otherwise they come out okay.
I actually forgot about this feature, and now that I've seen it, it seems like too much. I thought they had to wait three full rounds to escape a disabler, but the delay is only half that. Another tweak I'll have to make to balance the kit.
Relonar turns out to be a very nonthreatening spellcaster. He doesn't use much of anything on us; he just soaks up attacks. His Stoneskins break down with little resistance.
Relonar crumples soon after, at which point our Flesh Golem (the second one, summoned by Eliza herself; the previous one got clobbered by an Aerial Servant) and Eliza's Project Image clone despawn, leaving us alone once more.
Margot's Charm spells got interrupted, which means she doesn't get it back after four rounds. I need to reduce the casting time to zero to prevent this from happening. It can also happen if the Seducer dies during the cooldown period for Charm. Seducers may cast a spell called Rest to bring back Charm and any other abilities they might have lost (the Feeblemind, Confusion, and Sleep abilities also have cooldown periods), but it doesn't actually fully rest the character; it just removes and replaces the abilities. But the spell takes two rounds to cast and another two rounds to take effect, which prevents it from being used in combat to circumvent the cooldown period.
Margot casts the Rest spell while invisible, positioning herself so she blocks the enemy from reaching Eliza, who needs time to finally cast her buffs.
Eventually, I decide that we could use Lithos, and bring her back with the Rod of Resurrection. But some of her equipment is still stuck behind the oozes--I only grabbed a few items that I felt Margot and Eliza could use. I piece together some items for Lithos. A spare suit of Full Plate Mail that happened to be in the Bag of Holding rounded out the set.
These are the minor improvisations that can slightly increase the success of an encounter. This is all new to me, and I find it terribly interesting figuring out ways to overcome unexpected dangers, with limited options.
Lithos doesn't do much, however. Most of the battle is won by now. I think we wasted a charge of the Rod of Resurrection in bringing back Lithos.
We poke around and find one last priest hiding on the steps of a nearby tower. I notice the local drow don't lift a finger to help us.
We report back to Taso Kala. It's an unsatisfying quest for an ungrateful questgiver.
Now we visit the temple, to see if Matron Mother Ardulace will still accept the blood she wanted.
She appears for just a moment before vanishing. I was hoping another copy of her would remain.
I check back on the temple and find the quest is truly broken.
The quest must have partially failed, as we took to long to complete the quest, but did not allow Phaere to give her little speech announcing it.
I really do have to fight Adalon. I try using Charm on her, which is a non-hostile spell.
That was lucky. Even with a save, a non-humanoid target has a 50% chance of shrugging it off.
Now Adalon is ours. We try out a Feeblemind spell. It works on the second try, cast by a clone alongside the original Eliza.
We just beat Adalon. Even if Charm turned the target hostile after the spell ended, or charmed targets didn't revert to green after going hostile, we still would have succeeded.
Lithos joins in. A dragon fight begins.
Very nice.
The Underdark quests are complete. Freedom awaits us.
Those drow are remnants of the fight where the deep gnomes first attacked us. Now they're blocking the way. I retreat so we can rest and try something else, but the drow follow us.
As I blocked Relonar and Achra Diagott, so the enemy is blocking me. But eventually I squirm my way out and fight one of the clerics. Her shadow does her in with a Symbol: Stun spell.
I then prepare a See Enemy: Teleport Field contingency before returning to the previous area. The contingency triggers and moves the enemies out of the way, without breaking our invisibility.
Total reloads: 2
In the meantime, let me introduce:
Bartholomew 'Dandy' Birnbaum, Gnome Cleric/Thief
Dandy is nimble, dashing and charismatic, or so he believes. He's also a con man, though he wouldn't seriously harm others with his tricks. His actions are all intended to be in keeping with his benign deity Baravar Cloakshadow's dogma.
Selfie:
The two have not accomplished much so far, apart from a couple of simple errands in and around Beregost. Xzar and Montaron have traveled with the duo for a few days, but they aren't around anymore. Dandy and Imoen have recently made it to Nashkel.
I haven't decided yet which way I want to go with Dandy in terms of party size and composition though I'm inclined to go with shorties and prioritize cheerful, goodish characters. Finch and Alora are top candidates to join in BG1. Yeslick, Quayle and Kagain might join for a while as well for roleplaying purposes: all the NPCs I've mentioned except Finch will be available in SoA too (thanks to the BG1NPCSoA mod), so for continuity purposes I'd like Dandy to at least meet them in BG1. With Jan, Mazzy and maybe Korgan, BG2 should offer interesting possibilities as well, both from a RP vantage and from a game mechanics viewpoint.
Since we did so well against the Underdark Mind Flayers--you know, aside from dying--I decide we're equipped to take on the Mind Flayers of the sewers. Fortunately, I don't CTRL-J right to the entrance, and trigger the psionic trap on the way.
Why is this lucky? It reminds me that Eliza doesn't have the Ring of Free Action. She switched it out for the Ring of Human Influence when we were buying stuffs.
Our spell setup is much the same as it was in the last Mind Flayer place. But now we get to murder humans as well as Mind Flayers.
Things look great until we get to the Alhoon, who has SI: Abjuration and SI: Divination on top of his Absolute Immunity spell. Mind Flayers are tough enough without mage buffs. Also, the Alhoon uses a Psionic Blast with a hefty save penalty. Lithos, reliant on her saves rather than immunities, is the only one who can't resist it.
I have no illusions about her prospects. She's not coming out of this alive. Instead, I focus on the other characters' safety, conjuring another bunny horde.
I considered using a Limited Wish Time Stop instead, but I wouldn't be able to attack the Alhoon anyway. Not with Absolute Immunity active.
We make slow progress on the Mind Flayers and Ulitharids, but don't bother with the Alhoon. It's too far for Gloom, with her poor movement rate, to debuff with Warding Whip. It's better just to wait out the Alhoon's buffs. We bring back Lithos via the Rod of Resurrection, but we have to be extra careful about her positioning, as she has no full plate mail to keep off INT drain. The Alhoon continues its spellcasting without our interference.
But due to a quirk in how Steal Shadow works, its Glabrezu is turned into a Shadow, removing the Glabrezu as a threat entirely.
See, it's not actually possible to create a friendly simulacrum of a hostile critter. You need a separate spell to create the simulacrum and then turn into a shadow, and there are a bunch of other spells that are needed to prevent Steal Shadow from affecting friendly creatures, already stolen shadows, enemies who already have had their shadow stolen for 10 rounds, and any other critter for 5 rounds. There is a 1-second opening during which any summoned creature may be turned into a shadow, since the creature wasn't here to be affected by the spell which prevented that from happening. Hence the Glabrezu turning into a shadow. There is no way to fix this without using a script of some sort--it's a function of the game engine.
I hear an abjuration spell coming from the Alhoon, which could be Remove Magic or a Symbol spell (Symbol spells have the incantation and visual effect of abjuration spells, despite being conjuration spells). Both pose a big risk, so I disrupt it at the cost of the rabbits who were keeping us safe.
By now, the Alhoon's weapon immunities have worn out. We have weathered the storm. The Alhoon is out of ammo.
We get the Wand of Wonder and the Hammer of Thunderbolts. I doubt I'll forge Crom Faeyr, since nobody in the party has pips in hammers. Crom Faeyr bypasses Improved Mantle, but not many enemies in the future will be using that spell--Absolute Immunity and PFMW are more common in ToB.
There aren't that many more things to do in Athkatla, but I really want to get Gloom to 3 million XP. We keep searching for quests.
It's just mid-level melee grunts. No defenses or debuffers; just weapons.
Teos tells us to Imprison some guy who doesn't like wizards, Ketlaar Argrim. Evidently they were planning on doing this for a while, and have a special rune to do it for us, but they wanted us to do it, and staged or lured the Planar Sphere ambush to motivate us.
Pretty horrible thing to do, to Imprison somebody. Whatever. Let's just say we cast Freedom on him later and give him a proper death. None of that solitary confinement stuff.
The Cowled Wizards' plan doesn't really make sense. They want him to disappear instead of die, to make it look like he ran away, but they could do that just as easily by hiding his body. Dimension Door the body away and then Disintegrate it. He vanishes just as well, but at a much lower cost.
Morul talks to us and says he'll give us potions every week if we come back to the Planar Sphere. We won't need them, though.
More tiny quests! We finish the illithium quest, giving the illithium to Sir Sarles. In retrospect, this might have been a mistake, since the Mace of Disruption gives negative plane protection when upgraded.
The Temple of Lathander sends us to retrieve a ring of theirs. The Talassans who stole it pay with blood.
Must have been a pretty important ring, to justify the human cost.
After convincing the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart to send some meatheads to help us chop up vampires, we head to the Graveyard to start working on Bodhi's lair. We rest immediately after arriving, to make the vampire ambush vanish in the sunlight.
I didn't really feel like fighting vampires without our buffs. The area transition includes a time change, and even if we traveled at night, I'm pretty sure the time change would still occur and cost us our buffs.
We get swarmed in Bodhi's lair, and the pressure is overwhelming. We've got multiple Ancient and Elder Vampires hanging around, and even though Hareishan's stolen shadow keeps some of them occupied, the sheer number of enemies constrains our movement and our options. Lithos dies despite her immunity to level drain (the Bog Witch version of Negative Plane Protection lasts 10 rounds instead of 5). The vampires just do horrible damage, and I think it's part of their CON drain attack. Eliza has to hit Lithos with a Magic Missile to make sure Lithos doesn't get chunked.
We start to clear up the hallway, and the vampires mow down Hareishan's shadow in the other room. The vampires have excellent regeneration and lots of HP, so they take a while to kill.
I don't want to rest and come back, so I use up a Protection from Undead scroll on Eliza and turn Gloom invisible. Now we can attack them in safety. Drizzt, summons, and clones help keep the vampires out of hiding. If you're not visible, they'll turn invisible, too, so Protection from Undead by itself won't let you clear out vampires.
Tanova is easily debuffed and slain. She's a problem enemy because she's flagged as humanoid rather than undead and she sees right through Protection from Undead scrolls, but Warding Whip, cast from Eliza rather than Gloom, and a Breach from the Wand of Spell Striking, are sufficient to bring her down. Drizzt wastes many rounds trying to kill Tanova's Mordenkainen's Sword, while Eliza actually attacks the vampires.
I raise our party members and leave the area. After studying Eliza's spellbook, I decide I really want a Ring of Wizardry. To do that, we need another person in our group.
But she comes back soon--I've seen her vanish forever in the past--and we meet Galvarey.
Jaheira gives a passionate speech about something or other, and Galvarey attacks. We successfully steal the enemy mage's shadow, only for it to be confused a second later.
But it doesn't matter. This encounter is balanced for Chapter 2 parties. Horrid Wilting and Celestial Fury kind of break it.
I really want Gloom to get to level 15 before Bodhi, but we're out of easy quests. It's all uphill from here. We return to the Graveyard District.
I've got the SCS2+Tactics version of Bodhi, but she doesn't use her special powers as aggressively as she would on Hard mode or Insane. In any case, she's a tough cookie. Plus, she comes with two high-level vampire mages on her side, one of which can see through Protection from Undead.
We put Eliza, Lithos, and Margot under Protection from Undead and hold Gloom back from the fray. We don't have great damage output against Bodhi, but we can attack her in safety, since Eliza's clone, which has no Protection from Undead scroll, draws most of the vampires' attention.
Gloom enters the fray, but has to flee from a Cloud of Bats. Plus, Eliza's clone gets confused, since the clone has no Chaotic Commands spell. Progress against Bodhi is slow with only Eliza dealing reliable damage.
Then, our fortune changes: Bodhi failed saves against both Charm and Steal Shadow. They take effect simultaneously. We send her after the second most important target.
Teleport Field hampers our efforts. Our party specializes in ranged attacks, so Teleport Field doesn't affect our damage output much. But Bodhi is a melee fighter, and Teleport Field screws up her targeting. We have to divide our attention between Manasseh and a Glabrezu, depending on which of our attackers is where. but when Bodhi does land a hit, the effect is huge.
Manasseh ends up outside of the Teleport Field, allowing us to corner her. She's out of options.
Her counterpart, Hazzerbazzer, is not here to help her, as he chased Gloom out of the room and down the hall. Gloom foiled his efforts with a couple Potions of Invisibility, and he had no recourse: it was Manasseh who had True Seeing, not him. Bodhi crushes her.
The Glabrezu also appears to be vulnerable to level drain, and can't stop Bodhi's attacks. But by the time we finish it off, half the party gets disabled.
With Power Word: Stun holding her down, Lithos isn't going to survive long, Teleport Field or no. In her absence, Bodhi and her shadow wipe out the last of the enemies... except for Hazzerbazzer, who Gloom has left behind in the hallway.
Finally, the room is clear, and we turn on Bodhi.
Bodhi goes hostile on and off, but Margot keeps her locked under Charm, and Bodhi isn't able to do much to us as we wear her down. She gets one of her special powers off the ground, and hurts herself in the process.
See the character in the upper left corner of the screen? That's Eliza's clone. That circle under her feet is from the Shield of Reflection. The other circle is the reflection animation, which appears briefly when a character is bouncing a projectile (like an arrow, with Physical Mirror) or a spell (like Flame Arrow, with Spell Turning).
It's appearing here because Eliza's clone got confused and started attacking Eliza with the Crimson Dart. Since the Shield of Reflection bounces darts and both are wearing it, the Crimson Dart is bouncing between them endlessly, with no effect. Eliza might actually die instantly if she takes off the shield before the clone is gone, depending on how many darts have been thrown.
Bodhi goes hostile, but she's still disoriented from the multiple Charm spells.
She just stands there. It's not supposed to happen, but it makes sense for an enemy who's failed multiple saves against mind-affecting magic. She's kinda messed up right now.
While Margot tries to regain control over Bodhi, we pay a visit to Hazzerbazzer. His GOI has run out, making his spells painfully easy to disrupt.
Also makes him easy to Breach.
Thus ends Hazzerbazzer. We regain control of Bodhi, though she still lashes out at us, to little effect.
We all gang up on her while she's reeling under Margot's spell. The single unlikeliest candidate lands the final blow.
Gloom was blinded when she made that attack. Her THAC0 was 22. As Bodhi's killer, she gets to put the stake through her heart.
Once we're outside, we rest and Gloom casts Restoration on herself. Good news.
Now Gloom has 7 spell slots per spell level. Our divine spellcasting power has gone through the roof.
Also, Gloom gains access to Bog Witch HLAs. First up is the Bodyless HLA:
Maybe it's time for Kangaxx.
*sigh*
After many months of a pause, I decided to go back to having a no-reload run.
My original character "Khael the Defiant" (FMC as per the beginning of this thread) was lost to .... restartitis.
(I cannot maintain attention to more than one character. So, I just HAD TO delete him to start a new run...)
Just started making progress with an awesome new Dragon Disciple with a fantastic roll -- only to have her shot down by one single lousy Bandit south of Beregost. She died the same moment the Bandit hit the ground.
*moment of silence*
I love this game.
As with Alchra Diagott, we foolishly position ourselves close by when the fight begins. Margot can't handle the lich's Chain Contingency.
Unlike in the early game, Gloom doesn't have many high-powered offensive options, but Bog Witches get crazy immunities--including Time Stop. The Shade Lich casts Time Stop on the first round, giving Gloom three rounds of uninterrupted spellcasting.
The lich's spell protections break down. But a Fallen Planetar is on the screen, and it's right next to Eliza, who has neither PFMW nor a clear aura to cast one. Fortunately, the Fallen Planetar whiffs its first chance to end our game.
It lands a hit right afterward, but fails to get a vorpal strike.
With its spell protections gone, the Shade Lich's defenses are easy to remove. The lich renews its PFMW, but a Breach is already on its way.
Shorn of its Spell Shield, Spell Turning, and SI: Abjuration, any other defensive spells it might want are doomed to fail.
The Shade Lich goes down.
The Elemental Lich begins much the same, though the Fallen Planetar gives us much more grief, as we're forced to toss the Boots of Speed to Margot to make sure she can run from the Fallen Planetar and avoid a vorpal strike. The lich and Gloom trade debuffs--a losing trade for the lich, who needs its buffs more than Gloom does.
The Elemental Lich soon loses its buffs, and the Fallen Planetar is stymied by Margot's running.
Sensing its strategy isn't working, the Planetar resorts to its spells. But the Elemental Lich is doomed without PFMW--the Planetar's efforts do nothing but drain a few potions, of which we have many.
Once the lich is down, we punish the Planetar for its troublemaking. Eliza once again proves an effective counter to a Planetar's raw power.
We're not yet tough enough to deal with Kangaxx just yet--I want a little more strength before we take him on--so we move on to Suldanessellar.
We underestimate the Rakshasas. They were sturdy enough to survive a Planetar, and our efforts to contain the threat are too half-hearted and poorly thought-out to work. Lithos and Margot are unbuffed and easily fall to enemy spell damage and melee attacks. Gloom and Eliza survive thanks to their buffs, but the Rakshasas have come prepared with ample debuffers, maintaining heavy pressure on us all the way. And with their awesome spell level immunities, there's not much we can do against them.
Then the weaker link, Gloom, perishes, and Eliza is forced to flee under invisibility. She renews her defenses on a bridge I've never set foot on before.
To keep the cats at bay, Eliza uses the Golem Manual. Turns out the Flesh Golem is immune to their attacks.
It's immune to nonmagical weapons, the only kind Rakshasas ever use, and has 100% MR. With the Rakshasas busy not killing the golem, Eliza can raise Gloom and turn the tides against the Rakshasas. Even then, Stoneskin slows down the process.
Raamilat, normally a major threat, is a pushover. Why? Because Margot manages to charm him just as he gets an important spell off the ground.
After wasting some spells on the nearby Nabassu, I realize we can empty out Raamilat's spellbook much more quickly simply by having him start spells, cancel them immediately afterwards, and start new ones. The spells are lost the moment the caster begins casting, not when they're done casting. We can drain many more spells from his spellbook by canceling spells than we could by finishing casting them.
He's only left with a smattering of spells by the time his Improved Alacrity runs out.
We summon a Fallen Planetar and turn it on its master once Raamilat recovers from Charm. I've tweaked Charm to has a duration of 6 rounds, a cooldown period of three rounds, and a 3-second pause on caster on casting. I've also dropped the casting time down to zero, to prevent disruption. The Planetar remains under control even after Charm ends and its summoner dies, a factor of the game system. We send the Planetar after some other Rakshasas.
Two major enemies remain in Suldanessellar, not counting Irenicus: Nizidramanii'yt, and Suneer. I have a perfect solution for Nizidramanii'yt, which Eliza can perform on her own.
First, Eliza casts Improved Haste on herself. Next, she casts Time Stop. Then, she activates Called Shot and attacks the dragon during Time Stop for automatic hits, inflicting massive save penalties on the dragon. In between shots, she casts Lower Resistance twice. Finally, she hits the dragon with Feeblemind. The dragon's MR will be at zero, and its save vs. spell at more than 20, by the time Feeblemind makes contact, guaranteeing a failed save.
We botch the first attempt, however, as we fail to follow up on the Feeblemind when using a Project Image clone. This costs us the save penalties; our only progress was lowering Nizidramanii'yt's MR. Then, we botch the second attempt, as we only cast Improved Haste during Time Stop, when it can't yet affect Eliza. Still, we manage to get in a failed save.
Nizidramanii'yt is done for.
Feeblemind is a traditional mainstay for me when it comes to fighting dragons, since I play caster-heavy parties that don't have many other options. But it's very special to me that I can guarantee a failed save on this spell, and reduce the risk of failure to zero.
By now, Gloom has gained another level. She now has all the immunities of Chaotic Commands and Death Ward, plus immunity to normal weapons, level drain, Time Stop, vorpal strikes, Imprisonment, and INT, WIS, and CHA drain. She's impossible to disable by any means short of Resilient Sphere, and can maintain immunity to most anything else for many rounds if she keeps a few select buffs active. Kangaxx would find it nearly impossible to harm her.
Pity there's almost nothing she could do to hurt Kangaxx, or protect Eliza from him.
My gratitude to everyone who kept this thread alive all this time, especially to @semiticgod and @Blackraven for their persistent support and to @Alesia_BH for the morsels of frequent wisdom.
--
I just started a new run: I give you Adhanis Runeblade [picture], a master of the Katana and of growing magic prowess.
(He is a fairly rolled F/M with 13/16/16/15/14/17 -- a bit of a low INT for a mage class, but a very good roll otherwise.)
House rules for this run:
- I bent my munchkining rules a bit here: he is a human Kensai/Mage multi-class (Really wanted to go back to a Kensai, but I just can't be bothered to spend 100+ hours into BG2 to dual class him into mage).
- His mother was a miner.... no wait.... his mother was a blademaster: a magic using master of the sword. Her Katana was given to Adhanis by Gorion and he spent his entire life practicing with it, along with magic from her journals under Gorion's tutelage. (Adhanis gets ++++ in Katanas for his proficiencies and her mother's non-magical katana, unaffected by the iron crisis because it predates such concerns. [Thanks EEkeeper])
(Yes, I know Katanas suck in BG1. Adhanis doesn't care. It was his mother's blade, alright!)
- Imoen is again a sorcerer, as per my head cannon. They studied magic together since children.
- I'm having a mostly canon party:
Imoen, Jaheira, Viconia, Minsc, Dynaheir
Viconia, because Adhanis is attracted to her vigorous charms. (So, there was no room for Khalid.)
Also, upon rescuing her Dynaheir was 'convinced' to earn her keep by learning the thieving arts. (So, Dynaheir is a T/M multiclass from lvl 1. Neither Imoen's nor Dyanheir's stats were changed.)
- Adhanis is Lawful Good and will act like it dammit! (Beautiful Viconia can be turned to the light, he believes deep within. [EEkeeper will keep reputation below 18; a fair price for harboring a dark elf.])
Currently, Adhanis is slowly cleaning up the areas from Beregost to Nashkel from bandits and marauders.
Wish him luck for fulfilling his mother's legacy.
Best of luck with this new setup and team!
Is there any particular mod installed for this playthrough ?
As per usual, this is played with SCS with most AI/tactical options on -- except for Mages/Clerics instabuffing (as discussed in the opening of the thread, I find that tedious and unfair).
Forgot to add (a minor but important detail):
Adhanis also wears his mother's (unenchanted) *circlet* -- though it provides no protection, it helps him focus and avoid critical hits. (I really did not want to babysit him behind the line until I find my first Ioun Stone. This is reasonably fair, I think.)
Also, an additional house rule:
- No spells from Necromancy school (to mea culpa a bit for the breach of munchkining otherwise)
--
Thoughts on Kensai in BG:
Almost all your Kensai bonuses (+2 hit/+2 dam/+2AC by the end) are annulled by you opting out of Balduran's Helmet and the Gauntlets of Whatsit. So, it is largely a flavor thing. Admittedly, a mage multi-class compensates your greatest weakness in close combat. So, yes, this is a power class, slightly better perhaps than a regular FM, but not by a far margin.
--
NOTES:
- Minsc died on me 6 times already, since he charges everything blindly on.
- Adhanis does stand back at first on iffy opponents (Oh, hello, pair of Ogres that could two-shot me.)
- Still no magical Katana, of course. On any opponent requiring such, he is a rather mediocre 13-strength fighter wielding the 'Whistling' Short Sword.
Kangaxx makes his saves against both Steal Shadow and Charm. His buff list is a doozy.
He goes for an alteration spell, either Improved Alacrity, or, hopefully, Time Stop. Ruby Ray of Reversal takes down his Spell Shield, while a Contingency of Eliza's fortifies her position.
Kangaxx finishes casting Improved Alacrity. Bad news. But with Spell Shield gone, and no Spell Trap on Kangaxx's person, Warding Whip removes his spell protections, opening him up to Breach on the second round of combat.
Kangaxx is already screwed. Sheer force of debuffers have rendered him vulnerable to direct attack.
His lich form crumples. It's a pathetic sight, but that's the power of Warding Whip in SCS2, when Spell Trap is no longer standard for high-level mages and liches. Kangaxx transforms.
I reorganize our inventory in preparation. Notably, we need to move Firetooth from Margot to Eliza before Margot gets imprisoned. Midway through our preparations, we are instantly defeated by the most powerful enemy in the game.
I start over, and because I'm too lazy to repeat the last three or four rounds of combat (Kangaxx stuck around for a round or two before finally transforming), I just hit Kangaxx with CTRL-Y to get to his demi-lich form. None of our success depended on rolls, so it shouldn't make any difference.
After his initial demi-lich wail, Kangaxx tries to Imprison Eliza.
This means we're actually fighting the vanilla Kangaxx, not the smarter SCS2 version. The SCS2 version won't try to Imprison Charname, and the spell Kangaxx uses is called "Trap the Soul," not "Imprisonment."
I quit the game, fix our install, and return to Kangaxx. I use CTRL-Y again. It's a testament to my impatience that I'm willing to use cheats to skip a 20-second fight. I do the same thing with gibberlings.
This time, Kangaxx works properly. Better yet, we get a lucky roll.
See those little green magical stuffs floating around Kangaxx? After tweaking the duration and cooldown for Charm (6 round duration, 3 round cooldown, 1 round to take effect, half round pause on caster), I also added a visual effect to show when the target failed its save against Charm. Kangaxx will be ours within a round.
During his initial Time Stop, Gloom and Kangaxx both concentrate on debuffing spells. Kangaxx casts Spellstrike on Eliza, but I don't worry. He'll be ours midway through the Time Stop.
He casts his second spell, and then another. Something is wrong.
He should have turned green by now. Charm didn't work. As I later realized, the visual effect only indicates a failed save; it doesn't prove that Charm worked. Non-human critters get a 50% chance to avoid the spell even on a failed save. Kangaxx failed the save, and got the visual effect, but 6 seconds later, when the real charm spell hit him, he got the version that doesn't affect non-human critters like himself.
We might have one more chance to Charm him before Margot gets imprisoned. If that doesn't work, we'll be fighting Kangaxx at his full power.
And Eliza is about to get her defenses broken down.
Kangaxx stays focused on rendering Eliza vulnerable. Gloom has the same job.
But Gloom can't target Kangaxx with Breach. Only Khelben's Warding Whip can get through Kangaxx's Shadow Door, and SI: Divination, which will only go down after Warding Whip hits outside of Time Stop, keeps True Seeing from dispelling Shadow Door. Gloom is forced to stand around and do nothing while Kangaxx keeps going.
When time returns to normal, Eliza's mountain of buffs wears off. Spell Shield, Minor Spell Deflection, Spell turning, and SI: Abjuration. It all goes down, just through force of Kangaxx's debuffs. And then Breach comes.
Eliza runs away and casts Time Stop. She needs it to restore some of her buffs safely; Kangaxx could destroy her with his spells if she's not protected.
Lithos by now has already been imprisoned. She didn't have enough time to make Steal Shadow work. Same goes for Margot, a round later. Eliza's simulacrum vanishes as well. But our MR blocks a dangerous Emotion spell, we manage to break down down Kangaxx's defenses, and now only Stoneskin stands in our way.
Kangaxx, however, has lots of Stoneskin spells, and Eliza's THAC0 isn't quite good enough to hit Kangaxx reliably. On top of that, Kangaxx regenerates 2 HP per round thanks to his ring. It's going to take time to wear him down.
And Kangaxx has many, many rounds to debuff and destroy us. He forces Eliza to renew her spell protections, and she is running perilously low already.
Why is this such a problem, if Kangaxx doesn't use Trap the Soul on the main character in SCS2? Well, he has lots of other crazy powers as well. Kangaxx's spellbook in demi-lich form is very well optimized to bring down almost any character, and all of his weaknesses are properly covered by his buffs.
Kangaxx attacks using Horrid Wilting, Flame Arrow, and Magic Missile. He disables using Emotion, since immunity to unconsciousness is so uncommon, and once a character falls to Emotion, he can easily kill them with Minute Meteors. Greater Malison will help soften up characters, meaning negative saving throws aren't necessarily sufficient.
If his target has buffs active, he has multiple means of removing them. Remove Magic will take down almost anything, and without SI: Abjuration, there is basically no chance of maintaining one's buffs. If SI: Abjuration is present, Kangaxx can tear it down with magic attacks. Specific protections can be removed using Breach. Finally, he protects himself with PFMW and Stoneskin, and it takes lots of time to break through all of his many Stoneskins, not counting the extra rounds of total immunity granted by PFMW.
His spellbook is crammed with these spells, so you can't really hope to tank him out. You will run out of spell protections before he runs out of magic attacks. You will run out of Breach before he runs out of combat protections. Your save bonuses and immunities will run out before he runs out of Emotion. Your resistances will run out before he runs out of damage spells.
In a nutshell, Kangaxx has a check on every character type. Fighters and thieves die to spell damage and disablers. Clerics can druids are hit with Remove Magic, and then die to spell damage and disablers. Mages are hit with magic attacks, followed by Remove Magic, and then die to spell damage and disablers. He's practically designed to end no-reload runs.
Normally, Kangaxx would imprison everybody besides Charname, and you'd have to fight him on your own. For no-reload runs, the pressure is severe, as you have to divide time between healing and maintaining your defenses.
But Gloom is totally immune to Trap the Soul, including the secondary level drain effect that SCS2 adds to the imprisonment effect, so Eliza has an extra character to help her out.
By the way... Kangaxx can cast a spell and use Trap the Soul in the same round. So Gloom isn't drawing any pressure off of Eliza.
Finally, we break through his Stoneskins and Kangaxx starts losing health. We're in bad shape, but he's getting weaker as well.
Gloom has a tough time maintaining her defenses. With her poor casting time, her spells are very easy to disrupt. It takes careful management to make sure her defenses don't break down. She can't cast a spell unless Kangaxx is busy with Eliza.
Notice the spell deflection effect on Eliza: that's not from a spell. That's from the Rod of Absorption. The rod is normally not very useful, as its absorption effect only lasts four rounds. But it blocks 9 spell levels, up to level 9, and requires no spell slots. This makes it a good backup defense against Breach, if not Remove Magic.
And there's the problem with this match: Remove Magic can only be blocked by SI: Abjuration. When Gloom runs out of Spell Immunity spells, she can no longer protect her potion buffs. Gloom and Eliza both drank two Potions of Magic Protection at the beginning of the fight to gain 100 MR, but potions are treated as level 10 spells, so Remove Magic dispels them automatically. Once they're gone, Gloom is very fragile indeed.
Eliza runs out of SI: Abjuration spells, too, and her potion buffs are also removed very quickly. But Eliza was especially dependent on that 100 MR. Unlike Gloom, Eliza has no immunity to unconsciousness. A single Emotion spell could kill her. When Eliza loses her MR, she has to flee to the corner to make sure she can drink her next potion before Kangaxx's next spell hits her.
She uses a Potion of Magic Shielding, as it gives her automatic saves against Emotion, and with the Belt of Inertial Barrier, she has immunity to magic damage as well. Gloom also bought Eliza some time by getting in Kangaxx's way, as he can't quite reach Eliza's corner from his position at the center of the room.
Stymied by Eliza's item-based defenses, Kangaxx tries to kill Gloom instead. But his Cloudkill and Emotion spells have no effect on Gloom, thanks to her Bog Witch kit and HLAs, and his other spells are weathered with potions. Meanwhile, Eliza plucks away from the corner with Firetooth.
But our defenses are getting weak, and we're getting more vulnerable as time goes on. I really want a Spell Immunity spell, and cast Limited Wish for the restore spells option.
But Limited Wish only restores up to level 4 spells. That gives us nothing. I consider choosing the Time Stop option, but it doesn't feel quite necessary, with Kangaxx as weak as he is. Instead, I summon some bunnies, in the hope that Kangaxx will lose a bit of time on them. Turns out he was already casting the perfect spell.
Kangaxx tries to debuff Eliza, but it seems he's out of Remove Magic spells. All he has left are Breach spells, and Eliza's constant use of the Rod of Absorption blocks all attempts to Breach her.
Kangaxx is out of ammo. We are not.
The Ring of Gaxx is ours, though arguably it's not as useful as the four Potions of Magic Protection, three Potions of Magic Shielding, and several charges from the Rod of Resurrection and Rod of Absorption that we used during the fight.
Though Eliza provided the killing blow, Gloom played a huge role at the beginning and end of the fight. Her immunity to Time Stop didn't let her Breach Kangaxx, but it did let her take down all of his spell protections, allowing Eliza to Breach him instead. This broke the entire fight with Kangaxx's lich form, as he had no time to take offensive action beyond debuffing Eliza. Further, during the demi-lich phase, Gloom soaked up a few of Kangaxx's offensive options besides Trap the Soul, including two Horrid Wilting spells, an Emotion spell, and a disrupted Remove Magic spell. This probably saved us at least one Potion of Magic Shielding.
The Bog Witch HLAs so far seem fairly balanced. They certainly made this fight much easier, but they came at tremendous cost. Gloom needed three HLAs to make sure she could survive this encounter. Also, Bog Witches don't have the right offensive abilities to make the most of their immunities. Immunity to Time Stop and all on-hit effects would be much more useful for a fighter, who has the APR to deal big damage during Time Stop and the HP and resistances to survive in melee combat. Immunity to instant death effects and disablers, meanwhile, is largely redundant for a druid, who already has lots of Chaotic Commands and Death Ward spells. The HLAs shore up the Bog Witch's defenses, but the Bog Witch can't translate that enhanced durability into offensive output, the way another class could.
Bartholomew hasn't had much time yet to make a name for himself on the Sword Coast, but he's lived enough to warrant a first (brief) update. As I reported on the Bioware Forums but not here, Imoen died at the excavation site. Apparent misclicking on my part prevented her from casting Sleep on the diggers, while my receiving a drink in RL ensured that the diggers could kill Imoen. She didn't get chunked, but I was so unhappy about this situation that I decided to restart anyway. Unfortunately that didn't mean that Imoen would fare much better. The good thing though is that she never got chunked, and that I could live with the ways in which she died.
This run is a roleplayed one, and includes suboptimal decisions like this one:
Dandy and his best friend and fellow Gnome Imoen ignored Gorion's advice to seek out friends of his at the FAI. Instead they traveled to Beregost where they ran the errands we all know. They then headed further south, to Nashkel, obtaining a CHA-enhancing ring from Lord Foreshadow on the way there. The mayor begged the Gnomes to investigate the disappearances of people and the contamination of iron ore in the Nashkel Mines, but as the Iron Crisis had no bearing whatsoever on their existence, the duo decided to pursue other, more rewarding and more pleasant activities. The two really enjoyed traveling, so that in itself kept them roaming the Sword Coast. They were also very interested in being seen favorably, but at the same time they were aware that a heroic status generally required heroic deeds. Dandy and Imoen decided to try and become 'heroes' making a minimal effort, and taking minimal risk. This meant mostly being nice to commoners and fellow adventurers such as Oublek, Joia, Mrs. Blackwood, Bjornin, Charleston Nib, Captain Brage, and Farmer Brun.
Despite their resolution to be cautious and to avoid risk, peril presented itself on several occasions. At the FAI, a bounty hunting wizard tried to kill them.
The lands north of Beregost up to Baldur's Gate were very dangerous. The friends got ambushed more than once during their travels there. One such ambush was particularly painful:
At Feldepost's Inn Bart nicked Algernon's Cloak in two instances. This turned out to be not good enough. Like Algernon, the dude - forgot his name - in the room adjacent to Algernon's went hostile, and he went downstairs. Bartholomew barely managed to buy a Helm of Charm Protection from the innkeeper before the crowd, including the innkeeper, went hostile as well.
After this misadventure, the rogues decided to head for the country for a while. They had a brief stop in Nashkel, where they faced another bounty hunter, a priestess this time. Dandy Held her before she could do any harm.
The duo's biggest test of their prowess thus far awaited them in the Red Canyons area: Bassilus, surrounded by Skeletons and Zombies. Somewhat surprisingly, given their interest in gossip, the Gnomes hadn't heard of the priest before (except for nearby Footy's cryptic remark). Roleplaying therefore compelled Bartholomew to approach and salute the priest. Dandy had no objections per se against Animating Dead, he wished he could cast that spell, but he was unsure of the cleric's intentions. Therefore he decided he would quaff a potion of invisibility if necessary. Bassilus made it perfectly clear he didn't appreciate the Gnomes' presence. Imoen tried twice to stun the angry priest with a wand her friend had found in Black Alaric's cave, but to no avail. Bassilus in turn, cast two Unholy Blights at Imoen. She barely survived the first one (down to 1 HP),
The companions have circa 15k XP each, which makes Bartholomew a lvl 4/4 Cleric/Thief and Imoen a lvl 3/4 Illusionist/Thief. They have a bit more than 5k GP plus a few items they've held on to (for future companions): the Ashideena, a +1 Medium Shield, some Darts of Stunning/Wounding and a suit of Ankheg Armor. They're going to buy some Illusion spell scrolls for Imoen (which she should be able to scribe without risk of failure thanks to Illusion/Phantasm being her school).
Both still feel quite weak, and underequipped, so I'm inclined have them farm some XP (Basilisks probably) before they welcome any other NPCs into the party. I'd still like Quayle and Alora to join though, and maybe Finch and Yeslick too.
Perhaps, I should write a fictional (I mean, fictionally fictional) narrative of the adventures of a Gnome while still playing my all-so-serious [basso profundo] "Adhanis, the Master of Katana".
A sort of FMCT quadruple class Gnome, kitted into Wizard Slayer/Wild Mage/Cleric of Baervan Wildwanderer/Swashbuckler.
(I'd party up with Jan, Quayle, Aerie, and, of course, Minsc. Because Minsc!)
Btw all-too-serious can be nice too. Hope to see more from Adhanis (good name btw).
Bartholomew, 2nd BG1 update
Bart and Imoen both felt that in spite of their accomplishments thus far, they were still too vulnerable, little Gnomes who had to rely on themselves in a big, dangerous world. They would to take a gradual approach in pursuit of recognition as 'those loveable heroes of the Sword Coast'. They decided to explore the lands east of the Coast Way.
Both Gnomes were unfond of killing, and blood and gore disgusted Bartholomew. (At least he fought with a staff so he didn't have to worry about blood or bits of organs on his weapon.) Ideally Bartholomew'd be everyone's friend, and Imoen was much the same. But many dwellers of the Sword Coast had other ideas. In order to become more experienced adventurers they couldn't always run when hostilities broke out, so they ended up fighting, and killing. Take Meilum for example. He was just way too serious about a duel with Imoen to measure their swordsmanship. Meilum sought to injure or even kill Imoen, so Bart ended up Holding the warrior, and Imoen slew him with one of her arrows.
There were also creatures (monsters) whose hostility was expected: Hobgblins south of the Ulcaster School (including one who dropped a pair of Boots of Stealth, meaning that now both Bart and Imoen owned a pair of those), Battle Horrors near Durlag's Tower,
The scimitar and some other loot were sold in Beregost, and Bart bought a suit of Shadow Armor for himself. They hadn't the gold for an Archmagi robe for Imoen, but they had enough to pick up some trinkets they'd seen at the Nashkel Carnival. Entering the wrong tent at the wrong time resulted in more needless deaths:
Quayle was a Cleric (Hoodwinker of Baravar Cloakshadow) and an Illusionist. His first feat was the defeat of Greywolf the bounty hunter after Imoen had Blinded and Bart had Held the man. Greywolf's quarry had been Prism, a sculptor who died moments after the completion of his rock carving of Ellessime the Elven queen. Imoen stood on Bart's shoulders to remove two emeralds that Prism had used for Ellessime's eyes. Sooner or later someone would make of with the gems anyway, might as well beat them to it they reckoned.
The tricksy trio explored the Cloudpeaks, and found the denizens of the valley most inhospitable. Two bandits, Vax and Zal, were Blinded/Held/Webbed and slain. A huntress named Sendai and two archer friends of hers fell thanks to Skeletal intervention on the Gnomes' behalf. Two brutes that wanted to fell a tree were Held and dispatched.
Further west the Gnomes discovered an old fortress. They wanted to take a closer look, but they had to kill two Ogrillons first (Bart's backstabs) and when they approached the structure they found it occupied by Gnolls. Although they considered these monsters slow and dumb, they decided not to bother with the fortress. Bart found a tome the reading of which increased his Charisma, but the area was otherwise uninteresting. More than a day's trek north of the fortress lay Ogre's Reach. The Gnomes saved a nobleman from a Mountain Bear there (yielding Quayle a pair of Boots of the North), and they were pickpocketed by a rogue after Bart jested that he was going to attack him.
The Gnomes traveled back to the coast via the Red Canyons (where three Hobgoblins bequeathed Imoen a Short Sword +2 after they mysteriously died). On the North Coast a Nereid Charmed and Death-Kissed Quayle.
--
Meanwhile, Adhanis is cautiously clearing the country of threatening monster. Almost all the Sword Coast is cleansed of evil. (Adhanis is and party a comfortable lvl 5ish already.)
He would go to Nashkel Mines (heaven knows, Jaheira has been nagging him about it), but... you see... he heard rumors that there be ... KOBOLDS... in Nashkel Mines. Kobolds, you hear. He cannot possibly face a den of Kobolds unprepared. So, he will attack some basilisks, mages, possibly liches or lichen or whatever -- and maybe hang out with Volo for a few days, listening to his tales. But not them Kobolds!
He is not afraid of Kobolds. No sir. It's just there are so many of them down there. He imagines the place just crawling with them.
He will come and clean Nashkel surely.
After he is ready.
Maybe after he learns a contingency with Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wiltings in it.
That should be useful against Kobolds.
Maybe.
Perhaps, if I wait long enough the Iron Crisis can be resolved by Market Forces (lvl 10 mage spell from the "Economy" school). Then he can just visit the Nashkel Mines at his leisure.
Try, and if you fail, try again. You'd do better next time!
It's amazing, really, how a computer game in fact, gives a proof to the reasons we now travel by cars and not by horses.
- Admiral Ackbar, on kobold commandos
In all seriousness, I hate kobolds with a passion. And, so, therefore, do all my characters.
How can a greater basilisk be worth 1000 kobolds in XP. Just 10 of them can reliably kill a starting character that can, with some clever management, bring down a basilisk. Ugh!
To illustrate, come have a look at what happened in my last run:
--
Adhanis and his team of battle hardened heroes did, in fact, go to Nashkel Mines.
In the first picture, you see a lvl 5 Minsc killed by a Kobold commando in TWO FRIGGING ROUNDS!! Yes, a shortbow and fire arrows can hit him dead with a little bit of bad luck. (I'm playing without maximized HP rolls and Minsc wasn't particularly lucky with his.)
This is when Ackbar, I mean, Adhanis, said that we cannot withstand against the firepower of the Kobolds for long. So, I opened with every Magic Missile and Melf's Acid Arrow in retaliation. There is "overkill" of a Kobold.
Later on, further down in the Mines, a persistent Shaman and a refuses-to-die Chieftain almost wiped my party [2nd pic]. The Shaman Horrored all the party, except Jaheira. (Really stupid of me, I know.) and the resulting Benny Hill show had Viconia playing minefield in the Traps area near the exit and everyone providing target practice for the Kobold Commando's. Jaheira had to provide distraction to save Adhanis and others and died to the poisonous arrows of the Chieftain and the fire arrows of the Commandos, after drinking half my potion supply.
Luckily, Horror does wear out eventually, and my wounded party gulped even more potions and won the day.
Mulahey was child's play after this. As was Nimbul, Tranzig etc.
--
Seriously, most of my characters do Davaeorn before they tackle Firewine...
#$%^@#^ Kobolds!
*sigh*