I avoided the fight at the Iron Throne; I just used invisibility to grab the documents for Duke Eltan. I didn't deem the XP to be worth the massive risk, despite our desperate need for XP.
I have a mod that steals the History of the Nether Scrolls from you and forces you to fight through the newly drow-infested Nashkel mines, and while the quest gives you tens of thousands of XP, I decided that it would not be worth the risk. Even if we trapped everything to death (basically the only way we could win any of the fights), we'd still be running the risk of a fatal backstab somewhere along the way. It's not possible to safely uninstall any mod that was installed via BWS, so I just used CTRL-Y on the quest giver to skip the quest entirely.
When Eltan teleports you to Candlekeep, do you still keep your buffs? I assumed that you did not, so I intentionally arrived in Candlekeep without any buffs. I ensured our survival by spending the first round casting Remove Fear to counter Horror, Invisibility 10' Radius to buy us time to set up further buffs, and an Invisibility spell on Charname to make sure the Invisibility 10' Radius was not disrupted. A Special Snare at the start of combat also helped. But I'm concerned that a Chromatic Orb, Charm Person, or Magic Missile could have doomed our attempts to hide.
@Grond0, if you always arrive unbuffed to that fight, you may want to set up a plan for dealing with the ogre mages. I can easily see them stunning Charname with a Chromatic Orb and ending the run within a few rounds. The good news is that you get enough time to lay a trap before the fight begins.
I wanted to avoid the fight with Rieltar, but I couldn't figure out how to get falsely accused, so I just trapped them and stunned them with Emotion: Hopelessness so our skeletons could take them down.
Our Bounty Hunter couldn't disarm any of the traps beneath Candlekeep, so our cleric had to tank them. But we were in incredible luck: there was a Zombie Lord guarding one of the containers!
Zombie Lords, whatever mod they're from, will spawn a Ghast or Fell Ghast every single round as long as you're close by. The Ghasts don't wander around and the Zombie Lord apparently can neither see through invisibility nor use divination spells. This means that we were able to wait around the corner, let the Zombie Lord summon a bunch of (Fell) Ghasts, then put up a wall of skeletons so we could bomb the ghasts with Special Snares and Fireballs. The Zombie Lord was stuck behind a wall (which seems to happen a lot), so it never did anything but summon more ghasts.
Between rests, I let the game run for a few minutes to build up a group of ghasts for us to bomb. We got tens of thousands of XP this way and nearly got my cleric to level 9, but somewhere along the way, the Zombie Lord vanished or somehow died, ending an otherwise fabulous source of XP.
For safety's sake, I snuck past the doppelgangers, the spiders, the Medusas who replaced the basilisks, and the enemy party at the end. I gathered a little more XP and got my Bounty Hunter to level 11 by fighting Bassilus, Zargal and his two Ettin buddies, and a mod ambush just south of the Friendly Arm Inn (which had two mages with Stoneskin, but such low HP that two introductory Fireballs killed them instantly). I also used Mental Domination to lure the Sirines out of the temple of Lathander and killed them with traps and skeletons.
We're just a few thousand XP from getting Raise Dead. Our Totemic Druid will be just shy of level 9, and our third sorcerer will be just shy of level 6, when we raise them.
@semiticgod Which mod is it that repopulates the mines with drow? It's not one that I have come across, and I have come across many.
Journal of Hrothgara
Tenya and I killed tarnesh with no problems, we then headed southwards and killed 2 ogrillon, 3 flaming fist mercenaries, and a few hobgoblins. Lord Foreshadow gave me a ring, we helped Jumper and found some nice-looking boots. South-west of Nashkel we found some scrolls and helped Rufie. We then took on Vax and killed him.:)
@Wise_Grimwald: It's the "Return to Nashkel" quest in a mod called the Vault. BWS installed it. It's the same mod that introduces those ogres to Gullykin.
After killing some Greater Wyverns that a mod-introduced shopkeeper named Kieran unleashed on me in the Cloakwood when I attacked him, we finally got Raise Dead and brought back our third sorcerer and our Totemic Druid. After farming 41 wyverns, we got the third sorcerer to level 7, the other sorcerers to level 10 and the druid to level 9.
I think we're about ready for Sarevok, but I really wanted to fight him with a level Totemic Druid so our summons will be at maximum strength. Unfortunately, the druid was dead for an extremely long time, and as a result, our XP is very unevenly divided.
It's kind of incredible. A single decision in the Cloakwood mines radically changed the entire course of this BG1 run: my decision to send my third sorcerer just two steps into a Web to get a peek at Davaeorn.
If I hadn't done that, my third sorcerer never would have died to Minute Meteors. Which means I probably wouldn't have gone to Ulcaster, which means my Totemic Druid would never have died to Chromatic Orb, which means I wouldn't have bothered farming all those ogres and wyverns and ghasts.
Aside from costing me a massive amount of time (and nearly ending the run when my cleric almost died), it subtracted 1 level from my druid and third sorcerer and added 3 levels to my Bounty Hunter, 2 levels to the other two sorcerers, and 1 level to my cleric. We gained 6 levels overall, but our party is still weaker for Sarevok because the lost levels took away a lot of power and the extra levels gave us very little--the notable exception being our Bounty Hunter, who has an extra use of both types of traps, and whose normal traps now deal 21 lingering poison damage on average over three rounds.
I think I'm going to seed the Ducal Palace with traps; that's usually an easy way to do it. Hopefully my Bounty Hunter can disarm the traps in the maze with only 70 in Detect Traps. As for Sarevok, it looks like it will all revolve around whether or not I can deal with Angelo. We have three sorcerers with Fireball and should be able to blow up Tazok, Diarmid, and Semaj, and Sarevok is bugged to be harmless. I'm worried that Angelo will screw up our plans with an enchantment spell or something.
I wasn't sure I wanted to do another attempt at this immediately, but decided to give it one more go. This time I did more initial tasks around Beregost and the FAI before going down to Nashkel. As a result they didn't get their first levels until Tenya - she managed to disappear with 1 HP left, but had already given them a reward for returning the bowl.
A second level didn't take too long, thanks to the ankhegs.
The next level also came quite quickly as a result of a visit to the basilisk area.
After that though, rather than seek out more high value work, I made my way through the southern areas clearing them reasonably thoroughly. The slow, but steady, accumulation finally paid a dividend with another level just before successfully restoring Melicamp.
Things speeded up then with a raid on the Beregost temple followed by the outer and upper parts of Durlag's Tower, Shoal's area and then the lighthouse. Still needing a bit more for another level it was back to Durlag's where some greater dopplegangers and spiders underground did the business.
With find traps now up to 100 I had a go at clearing the remainder of the first underground level. With the shaman now up to level 6 his summons could kill things like mustard jellies, though it took a while to set appropriate positions up where summons could attack without the enemies being able to attack the shaman. Then it was time to take on the 4 dwarven warders. A stack of 7 traps successfully killed Fear and Avarice.
Pride wasn't easy as he hits like a truck and even a full stack of traps won't kill him. However, eventually he fell as well to a combination of traps, magic missiles and summons.
That left Love and more traps were set at the entrance to have a go at him. Regrettably though: - the traps use missile projectiles. - Love's buffs include physical mirror. - the projectiles don't rebound on the trap, but on the trapper! Is that fair - I don't think so. Unfortunately no one ever said life was fair .
My main summons had ineffective weapons against Love and using shamanic summons wasn't really practical because of the infinite spells he has. However, the remaining party did eventually manage to take him down using Shillelaghs and some stair hopping.
It's a tough ask now to make it into SoD for a chance to raise Washout, but I'll have a go ...
@Grond0: I have to say, your XP gathering is a lot more interesting than my XP farming. Killing 40 ankhegs in a row is just not as cool.
I've seen traps reflected off of Physical Mirror as well, though thankfully it never proved fatal. Bear in mind that Hephernaan at the end of the underground river also comes pre-buffed with Physical Mirror. I've had the same problem with the cleric statues in Watcher's Keep.
I'm glad I didn't fight the Warders. I probably would have lost my Bounty Hunter, too; I didn't know any of them used Physical Mirror. There's so much I don't know about BG1, even now.
For future reference, how many points does a BG1 thief need in Detect Traps? I've left it at 50 for a long time because I wanted to max out Detect Illusions instead. My install reduces trap XP to near-zero, so tanking traps isn't that much different from disarming them.
For being the main editor of Playithardcore, it always felt kind of wrong to me for never having played a no-reload game before. With the knowledge I have amassed by going into NearInfinity and dissecting each and every spell for both the arcane and divine sides of the aisle, in addition to playing BG for years, I think its finally time I put it to the test.
This will be 3 things I've never done before: 1) Playing an Enchanter CHARNAME 2) Playing a Halfling 3) Playing no-reload
Introducing,
Brunash, the Halfling Enchanter
(Afflicted with Gigantism!)
Halflings apparently do not have sprites for being mages so they default to Human Fighter, it seems.
Starting spells: Sleep, Armor, Charm Person.
Relevant mods:
Tweaks Anthology Rogue Rebalancing aTweaks More Style for Mages IWDification NPC_EE Enchant the Missile Launchers (I would use SCS but I think it would make BG1 unreasonably hard, plus I worry about SoD compatibility, though SoD's AI is more than adequate)
Here we go. Candlekeep. I do all the sidequests here since they're safe and ignore Shank and Carbos completely. Not taking the risk as I remember being gibbed by them when I had Sneak Attack turned on. Sneak attack is not enabled in this run; we're going back to Backstabs, although that's going to make Venduris' band from Rogue Rebalancing in BG2 quite a bit more deadly - assuming I even get that far.
After Gorion is killed, Imoen joins me. I decide to kit her into a Bounty Hunter. I head north to pick up Gorion's loot but a Diseased Gibberling crosses our path before we can reach him. Imoen kills the grass monkey in two shots.
We get Gorion's stuff. We head back south to get back to the road and pass Xzar and Montaron. Then north to get the diamond in the tree, but the famous n00b-slaying Wolf appears! I attempt Sleep, sure that saving vs. death at -5 will put it out cold, but it succeeds on its save. Imoen kites it as I use her Wand of Missiles and she occasionally shoots back at it. It dies to a crit from Imoen.
After this latest attempt at foolishness on my part, I pick up Xzar and Monty. I turn Monty into an Assassin and dump Xzar on Lion's Way.
I take the ring of protection hidden in the hidey-hole just north of the road, then book it for Beregost to avoid Tarnesh the Terrible and ignore the Belt Ogre. We arrive without incident.
Kagain is recruited and is turned into a Dwarven Defender.
We sell our stuff at Feldepost's Inn, deal with Marl, and recruit Tiax. Tiax is turned into a Priest of Talos. I'd prefer priest of Tyr for the Acclamation ability but that just wouldn't sit right with me.
Firebead recieves his book. The Stupifier Mace is looted. Everyone except Brunash outfitted with new equipment at Taerom's. Neera is killed for her gem bag, robe, and staff. Travenhurst manor is raided for the Wand of Lightning and potions. The rest of Beregost is halfway looted but none of our thieves have high enough Open Locks to unlock everything.
We decide to try out Karlat, feeling confident in my plan to have Tiax knock him out with Command and follow up with Sleep if necessary. Karlat gets knocked out but I accidentally use my wand of missiles on Karlat while he's KO'd instead of waiting to use Sleep after he wakes up. Kagain takes minor damage while in defensive stance but Karlat goes berserk after reaching low health. He hits Tiax for half his health and I cast sleep. Imoen finishes Karlat with a critical before the Sleep projectile hits. Phew. We sleep off the damage. Forgot to take a screenshot of this part.
We head north from Beregost to the Friendly Arm for the Ring of Wizardry. We accept Joia's sidequest and kill all the hobgoblins around the FAI and give her ring back. Monty scout out where exactly Tarnesh is and I place a map note. We're avoiding him for now.
We head north from FAI to the ankheg farmlands, well aware of the danger. We loot the fishermen's homes and pick up Ajantis, turning him into a Cavalier. An ankheg appears as we return from Brun's house. We decide to run instead of challenging the ankheg as we are still ill-equipped to deal with them. We need more HP under out belts for that.
We return to FAI and rest, remembering that Tenya's quest should be easy, as it simply involves hitting her once. We kill a couple of bandits and make it to Wyrm's Crossing. Tenya is easily beaten and we return to the farmlands for the bowl. We take the bowl from Sonner's bunch and we kill them anyway for the +1 Flail. We return to Tenya and give her the bowl.
Got ambushed by half-ogres on the way back to Beregost. I put one to sleep and Ajantis beat down the other. Made it back to Feldepost's and sell the +1 Flail.
We head south of Beregost and kill the Ogrillons with Mirianne's husband's letter, resulting in Imoen gaining a level. I dump all her points into trap setting. Kagain takes half his health in damage but regenerates it all back when we return to deliver the letter. I love his 20 CON.
We go back south of Beregost and kill the hobgoblins surrounding the cave, picking Zhurlong's boots. We loot the cave and return to give the boots back. We kill Zhurlong anyway for the extra XP and give the boots back to Monty to make backstabs easier.
Since Ajantis is now immune to poison from becoming a Cavalier, we take on Landrin's spiders. He goes inside and lures them all back outside. I cast sleep and knock out all of them for an easy victory.
We go to the Beregost Temple area. I charm one of Cattacks goons before attacking them. I put the rest of his goons to sleep as we wail on Cattack himself. They are easily disposed of.
Next we move on to the wolf pack hanging out in the northeast. Monty pulls them one at a time and it gives Kagain a level.
We rest back in the temple and return for the vampiric wolves. Kagain buffs with a potion of agility and with Ajantis' Protection from Evil. At the start of the fight I remember that Tiax can summon a ghast that's immune to the vampiric wolf's hold effect AND strikes as +1 weapon! Thankfully Kagain doesn't get hit at all and the first one is down, finally getting my first level and Tiax gets one too.
I memorize 2 more spells and we rest at the temple again. We return a third time to finish off the last vampiric wolf, now completely aware of Tiax's ghast's power. Monty strikes the wolf with a bullet and lures it back to the ghast who tanks it. Kagain uses Beruel's Retort +1 and Ajantis uses the Stupifier mace to help, and I use the Wand of Missiles. Soon its dead, resulting in another level for Imoen and one for Monty. So far, so good.
How good is the Stupefier exactly? I heard a while back that it can stun-lock things very easily, but last I checked, it only had a 10% chance of stunning the target and offered a save vs. spell to negate the effect. Was it nerfed?
How good is the Stupefier exactly? I heard a while back that it can stun-lock things very easily, but last I checked, it only had a 10% chance of stunning the target and offered a save vs. spell to negate the effect. Was it nerfed?
It used to be pretty good as it was a 25% chance with no save for 1d4 rounds, but it was nerfed to 10% with save vs. spell for 1 round in v2.1.
I've decided to go ahead and bump my Totemic Druid up to level 10 and therefore attacked Love et al in Durlag's Tower. My third sorcerer got chunked during the fight somehow, but all of my runs are chunk-free (I just forgot to apply Tresset's fix), so I had to re-fight the battle to get him back.
The first time around, I placed 7 traps so that none of them were within reach of Love. I kept the whole party invisible except for our summons, then used our second sorcerer to talk to the Warders so he could quickly cast Invisibility after the enemy appeared. From there, Minute Meteors, Magic Missiles, and our summons finished off Pride and Avarice, but when Fear paralyzed and killed my Totemic Druid, I was forced to flee.
We rested, returned, and used Insect Plague on Love, only to find that it was immune to spell failure and spell disruption. But our second sorcerer, the only one with Minute Meteors, was an elf and therefore resisted Dire Charm, and also had Haste and could easily counter Slow. Love failed to make any impact before we killed it. Upstairs, we swarmed Fear with summons and pelted it with Minute Meteors until it fell.
The second time around, I set 12 traps, essentially wiping out the enemy except for Love, who again proved unable to disable my second sorcerer while our summons and Insect Plague chipped away at its defenses.
For future reference, how many points does a BG1 thief need in Detect Traps? I've left it at 50 for a long time because I wanted to max out Detect Illusions instead. My install reduces trap XP to near-zero, so tanking traps isn't that much different from disarming them.
Depends what you're trying to do. All traps can be easily avoided or tanked if necessary so you don't need the skill. 50 will do most things. 70 is probably enough for traps you'll encounter in a fairly streamlined run. I only boosted it up to 100 this time as some traps in Durlags are hard and I don't reliably know their exact locations and effects the way I do with most BG1 traps.
Okay, I got our Totemic Druid up to level 10 but stopped short of getting my third sorcerer to level 8 and therefore Stoneskin. I only set seven traps in the Ducal Palace (my mods remove the trap and summoning caps, but I don't like abusing them very much), which wasn't enough to take down all the doppelgangers, but thanks to a blind Bounty Hunter hurling level 11 snares with lingering poison damage, we shut down both the doppelganger mage and the shaman, and our cleric of Helm's True Seeing ability exposed the assassin. As always, Invisibility kept Liia Jannath safe.
Inside the maze, I had my Bounty Hunter disarm the traps. Apparently 70 in Detect Traps is sufficient for all of them. My mods added some Skeleton Warriors to the maze, but our summons were enough to take all of them down.
I avoided the Undercity party. Not content to rely on invisibility, I actually walked all the way around the north end of the map just so I wouldn't have to worry about a divination spell. Because last I checked, the archer in that fight uses Arrows of Detonation.
I discovered in the temple of Bhaal that it was still possible for us to leave after we entered--apparently, the trigger that sealed off the exit is either nonexistent in my install or only triggers after speaking with Sarevok.
This means I was able to set as many traps as I wanted to in the final area, rest outside, and then set more. But I didn't do that because I thought my existing battle plan would be enough.
I started out by luring Sarevok to the southeast corner with Asriel. Even though Sarevok cannot deal damage in my install due to wielding 7 gold coins instead of a sword, I buffed Asriel with Shield and Mirror Image on top of his Stoneskin to make sure he was able to cast Invisibility without disruption. And because I was terrified that a Chaos spell might come out of nowhere, or that a Remove Magic would reveal him after he went invisible, I spent one of his three level 5 spell slots reassuring my paranoia.
Finally, I hasted him, breaking invisibility, and sent him to talk to Sarevok before pulling him back. Notice Semaj getting stunned by his own introductory Thunderslap spell that pops up occasionally in my install.
I turned Asriel invisible, waited for Sarevok's buddies to join him, and then used quick-saving to determine Angelo's location.
I wanted to make sure that we weren't in sight when we summoned our first critter, lest he hit us with confusion.
I sent out a Dire Wolf at first, prompting a Wand of Lightning charge and a rather terrifying Improved Haste buff, underscoring just how deadly Angelo is.
I ordered the Dire Wolf to run around, hoping to get Angelo to waste his spells before he butchered it. Sure enough, he used both Confusion and Chaos on the poor thing, even when the first spell was successful. He torches it with Sunfire
All three of those spells could have ended our game if we hadn't baited them out.
I decided to wait out his buffs before provoking him further. Angelo noticed Asriel spying on him and used a divination spell, and I just barely got Asriel out of the way before he was discovered. Everyone lost their invisibility except for Frisky Bits, who apparently was protected by a column.
Terrified of losing Asriel, I turned Carl invisible and ordered him to take Asriel's place in monitoring Angelo.
Then, to my horror, I discovered that Angelo can find us wherever we hide.
I weighed my options and they looked absolutely horrible. Angelo was right on top of our party and we had zero buffs besides Stoneskin. Angelo could take down Frisky Bits with Confusion, Chromatic Orb, Sunfire, or anything, as far as I knew. Unwilling to commit Frisky Bits' aura to anything, I sent them away and had Chara summons a Spirit Snake while Onion-san used True Seeing to give the snake a headstart on Angelo. It seems that removing his Mirror Images was enough to force him to vanish, buying us another round.
I buffed both of our level 10 sorcerers with SI: Enchantment, still petrified of a Confusion spell or the like, and tucked the party up in a northern corner where Mae set a trap. Meanwhile, our Spirit Snake chased Angelo. For good measure, we summoned an extra critter and turned the party invisible.
The snake kept targeting Angelo, but Angelo wouldn't target it back. I had to keep pulling the snake away, because I didn't want Sarevok and company to see it and join the fight, but Angelo just wouldn't engage the snake. I poked around and discovered the problem.
Angelo was hiding behind his friends; we couldn't approach him without everyone else joining in. Eventually, though, he wandered away from his friends and engaged the snake.
But he didn't wander far enough. Sarevok and company spotted the snake and the whole enemy group started moving.
Amazingly enough, Diarmid targeted the snake with normal arrows, and since Tazok uses a normal weapon and Sarevok was fighting with pocket change, the snake was actually immune to everyone but Angelo and Semaj.
Unfortunately, Angelo was enough.
We probably could have avoided all of this if I simply maintained constant invisibility to ensure that Angelo didn't chase us around using Dimension Door. We could have waited out his defenses and then pounced on him with a Spirit Snake and maybe some Acid Arrows. But by letting him use that divination spell and allowing him to teleport to us, he wandered around until he was safely tucked behind his allies.
The only way to extricate him from his friends that I could think of was to use an area-effect spell to hurt all of them, in the hopes that Angelo alone would come out to investigate (or, better yet, just sit there and take it). Since Diarmid still had his Protection from Magic scroll active (I missed my chance to wait out the enemy's defenses), I used a Special Snare.
Against the odds, Angelo failed his save.
But now I had a problem. If I used Fireballs on the enemy, I could take down Angelo while he was disabled. But Tazok would take half damage, and Diarmid would take none. But if I waited, I might lose a chance to kill Angelo, the biggest wild card in this fight.
In the end, I decided to bomb the enemy (notably, this involved constantly ordering Onion-san's skeleton to leave Semaj alone). Angelo recovered from the hold effect before he died, but he just drank a single healing potion, which wasn't enough to save him. Both mages went down.
If I hadn't permitted that Detect Invisibility and Dimension Door to screw up our positioning, none of this nonsense would have been necessary. But once it happened, we had no choice but to adapt.
One of the resurrected Skeleton Warriors engaged us despite the party being out of visual range, and I discovered that its MR was much higher than I had thought.
This left me with the question of how I was going to kill all those Skeleton Warriors, since our only means of killing magic-immune Sarevok was melee combat, and Skeleton Warriors would butcher us if we tried that while they were still standing. So I deployed some more summons and Asriel's Minute Meteors, only to discover that Asriel had run perilously low on level 3 spells.
We managed to bring the first Skeleton Warrior down. Tazok was at Near Death and could be finished off with a Fireball, but we used a Special Snare instead, since I still wanted to wait out Diarmid's scroll before we used Fireballs on him.
Then I realized that waiting out Diarmid's scroll might not have been an option to begin with. My animal summons would vanish if I waited out the scroll, and I was sure I'd really need them to beat Tazok's and Diarmid's Skeleton Warriors. So I just buffed up the party and focused on taking down the second Skeleton Warrior, belonging to one of the mages.
It came at a heavy cost; we lost one of our own skeletons and our other summons were badly hurt.
With those Skeleton Warriors' massive HP and sky-high MR, I didn't think we could kill them if I waited out Diarmid's scroll. Instead, I cast more buffs and rushed Diarmid, hoping to take him and Tazok's skeleton down early. Both sides suffered heavy damage very fast.
We finally took down Tazok's Skeleton Warrior, but we were in pretty bad shape. Onion-san was approaching death, and Diarmid was on the upswing.
Fortunately, I had prepared for this possibility: Mae had set a pair of normal traps in the center of the arena while Diarmid was busy, and by luring Diarmid across them, we could deal a lot of lingering poison damage without having to make any attack rolls. Notice Chara making a save against an Acid Arrow for some reason.
Finally, Diarmid was down. But the last Skeleton Warrior rose in its place, and we were running very low on resources for tackling those skeletons.
The Skeleton Warrior's MR was simply too high; we had to deploy the Seeking Sword to bring it down (and fortunately Chara had an extra Barkskin spell to compensate for Onion-san's terrible AC).
The Skeleton Warrior was still too dangerous for Onion-san; I had to keep pulling her back so the skeleton wouldn't chop her up. And then Chara's Shillelagh ran out.
This is when I realized that I had horribly, horribly mismanaged our resources.
I had been banking on using Sarevok's lack of damage output to beat him up with our bare hands so we could finish him off with Shillelagh or something. But I had cast Shillelagh too early because I needed to take down the other enemies, all of which were too magic-resistant for us to kill with spells.
I already used up Mae's traps, Chara's Shillelagh spell, Asriel's Minute Meteors, Onion-san's Flame Blade spell, and now I had just cast Onion-san's Seeking Sword, our last source of nonmagical lethal damage. Sarevok still had 180 HP; there was no way we could have killed him before Seeking Sword ran out.
My heart sank. I had overspent our limited resources and lost our chance to kill Sarevok. The best I could hope for was an endless stalemate, which also meant an end to the run.
I went over my remaining options. It might have been possible to get past Sarevok's MR by casting Skull Trap on self or something, but I wasn't sure that trick still worked.
Then I realized I still had exactly one trap left on the map, tucked away in a corner to the north. If I could take down the Skeleton Warrior and severely wound Sarevok, I could bring him over to the trap and finish him off.
Knowing that I could just have the Flaming Fist healer at the start of SoD resurrect any fallen party members, I sent in my unarmed party members to help take down the Skeleton Warrior, despite the risk to themselves. Eventually, we brought down the skeleton.
Sarevok was finally alone. We surrounded him and started slapping him about. Miraculously, our Skeleton Warrior had survived, which meant we didn't need to rely on that trap to the north to finish off Sarevok.
Then I realized that Frisky Bits was a Dragon Disciple and therefore had a breath weapon that dealt nonmagical fire damage, which also could have killed Sarevok. But it turns out that you don't even need lethal damage to kill Sarevok.
To my relief and amazement, we managed to survive the fight with Sarevok despite horribly mismanaging Angelo. A lot of that was luck; some lower dice rolls, like the Spirit Snake's saving throw against Angelo's Chromatic Orb, could have swung the battle to Sarevok. Part of it also depended on our Totemic Druid being level 10, and therefore the success of this run was also dependent on the XP farming that was largely possible thanks to mod enemies (though, granted, mod enemies are also the only reason that farming was necessary in the first place).
The lesson is to not monitor Angelo from afar like I wanted to; just wait out his buffs without watching him. And if you do get your invisibility dispelled, restore it right afterward, lest Angelo teleport to the party and start wandering around.
@Grond0: I really appreciate your sage advice. I'm not sure I would have survived that fight without your help.
This is what the party looks like right now:
Onion-san is a minor character from Undertale; the portrait is from Littletale. Notice I've got a new portrait for Frisky Bits. The picture comes from a gif by dreamy94 at tumblr who has a very charming art style (and is very fond of shipping Chara and Frisk).
Tiax loots more Beregost homes with an improved Open Locks skills and raids the Thunderhammer smithy to get a +1 bastard sword for Ajantis. Monty's getting impatient, so we go to Nashkel. We go to the North Nashkel Road and kill the hobgoblins who slaughtered Mr. Colquetle's family. We encounter some kobolds and gibberlings along the path but they are taken down easily.
Arriving in Nashkel and talking to Berren Ghastkill should get Monty to shut up now. I buy the bag of Plenty from the Nashkel store for him to use and dig up the Ankheg Plate Mail in the fields for Ajantis to wear. Noober is tolerated for XP, earning Ajantis a level.
Tiax raids houses all over Nashkel and steals a +1 short sword from the Amnish guards' barracks for Monty. Monty stealths and body-blocks Neira from approaching Kagain as I cast Charm Person on her. I get her to burn her two most dangerous spells on herself: Hold Person and Rigid Thinking (which she fails the saving throw against, resulting in her standing still the whole battle). Her AC was great as everyone had trouble inflicting damage upon her, but she eventually fell.
We raided the Nashkel manor house and beat up Samantha so we could take what was in her room without guards being called. Then we went to the carnival, which we completely cleared: killed Vitiare, bought the red and violet potions from the merchant, and stole what was in his chest. Zordral is down.
Next up is the Lonely Peaks. A lone ogre berserker confronted us but it was handily beaten down, giving Tiax a cleric level.
The xvarts were after Hulrik's cow again and I used Zordral's Color Spray scroll against them, knocking them all out and turning the cow hostile! Thankfully the quest can still be completed normally if all the xvarts are dead.
We mopped up Sarhedra's ogre band by putting them all to sleep. Next came the most challenging fight yet: Ioin Gallchobhar's group. Kagain was repeatedly at death's door, kept from shuffling off this mortal coil by healing potions. The thieves and I had a hard time hitting the group due to their armor. Sleep had no effect on them and Charm Person would suddenly be cut short despite none of my party members attacking a charmed enemy. Tiax knocked out one of them with Command so we could gang up on him, but it wasn't enough. He summoned his ghast and paralyzed Billy, who we promptly killed. With one of them down, the fight was much easier as I had Ajantis tank instead of Kagain. Soon the fight was over and Monty gained a level. Ajantis is swapping armor with Kagain now.
Next was the ettercap and Arghain's group, who were no trouble. We returned to Beregost and returned Mr. Colquetle's amulet, then headed for High Hedge. Kagain lured one of Thalantyr's flesh golems outside and entered defensive stance while Tiax summoned his ghast. The first golem was killed with only minor damage sustained to Kagain, granting me another level. Ajantis lured out the second golem so it would fight Kagain who was still in defensive stance. This one was also decisively killed, granting a level of Monty and Imoen.
We went inside, I bought some scrolls from Thalantyr, and we rested. Killed a couple skeletons so I could go to Bassilus' area and help Melicamp. Zargal and co. were sent off to beddy-bye and Melicamp was rescued. We encountered Bassilus and chose the correct dialogue options but his undead army didn't collapse around him for some reason. I interrupted his Rigid Thinking casting by charming him, but I didn't have anything to interrupt his Hold Person spells. He had 2 of them and the first one hit Kagain while the second hit Ajantis. Tiax summoned his ghast and I tried Sleep to no effect. Tiax saved the day again as he Commanded Bassilus, letting his ghast kill him. After Kagain and Ajantis were free, we killed the undead that were supposed to have died already.
Imoen finally has a good enough Set Trap score to set traps reliably without failure and without them backfiring. She sets up 4 sets of both normal and alchemical traps around Silke. I'm pretty sure this will kill her. We talk to Garrick and refuse to help Silke kill Feldepost's guys. All the traps go off which interrupt her Improved Invisibility, and Monty slugs a bullet through her skull, killing her. Still lots more to do.
Then I realized that Frisky Bits was a Dragon Disciple and therefore had a breath weapon that dealt nonmagical fire damage, which also could have killed Sarevok. But it turns out that you don't even need lethal damage to kill Sarevok.
Yes. Sarevok is actually protected by a min HP item, so technically his death is a scripted one when he gets down to 1 HP, so non-lethal damage is fine. I've found that extremely annoying in the past when doing a pacifist run - I'd set it up really nicely so that Sarevok got killed by his friends, only to find that his scripted death was still credited to me as a kill to spoil my record .
Well done for surviving the fight. It's nice when a plan works out perfectly, but it's always more thrilling when it doesn't work out, but you pull through somehow anyway .
I find Angelo is the biggest danger in that fight due to his strong defences and ability to kill with both spells and missile weapons. Malison and paralysation can often act as a short-cut in a standard run, but obviously weren't an option for you. I suspect that using single summons at a time and waiting out his buffs in between is probably the most cost-effective method in a poverty run.
By the way it's not necessary to kill the skeleton warriors in that fight (though I always try to do so). When Sarevok dies the combat ends anyway.
When Eltan teleports you to Candlekeep, do you still keep your buffs? I assumed that you did not, so I intentionally arrived in Candlekeep without any buffs. I ensured our survival by spending the first round casting Remove Fear to counter Horror, Invisibility 10' Radius to buy us time to set up further buffs, and an Invisibility spell on Charname to make sure the Invisibility 10' Radius was not disrupted. A Special Snare at the start of combat also helped. But I'm concerned that a Chromatic Orb, Charm Person, or Magic Missile could have doomed our attempts to hide.
You indeed always arrive unbuffed. This is why it's the place in BG:EE with SCS where soloing as a Wizard Slayer depends only on luck (a saving throw against Charm Person).
You indeed always arrive unbuffed. This is why it's the place in BG:EE with SCS where soloing as a Wizard Slayer depends only on luck (a saving throw against Charm Person).
If you time it right you have the opportunity to start casting before the ogre magi appear - thus allowing you to guarantee getting a scroll of PfM active before any spells arrive.
Hey everyone, I've just read over ten pages of awesome no-reload work, so a big compliment to all of you who are keeping this thread going. Congratulations @Neverused for beating Mel! Outstanding work, especially considering it was your first no-reload playthrough of ToB. @Enuhal, congrats for you too man! Didn't you say this was your first (and possibly your last) try at LoB? Amazing that you just went on to complete the tetralogy! You're a top player. @Arctodus, very nice work with with your Bard. Keep it up in SoA!
@Grond0, @JuliusBorisov, and @Enuhal have inspired me with their interesting LoB party runs to try one myself, or actually not just one lol, but several in the past few weeks. I've kept trying with Skalds but have had no luck so far. I aborted my run with Skald 1 because I didn't get Rogue Rebalancing Skald song to work. I later managed to repair the song in Near Infinity, but Skald 2 fell in an ambush after quite some work had been done already. (I was playing with Item Randomisation and no one had sold or dropped an Invisibility scroll, so ambushes were really tricky). Skald 3 did very well, well into Cloakwood, until a Druid cast Call Lightning and that spell actually hit and killed my Skald after he had entered Amarande's tree house. I never knew tsuch a thing was possible.)
Kain, NE Half-Elf LoB Skald
Am currently building up experience with Skald 4, Kain. Unlike his predecessors, he's evil, and he's running with evil NPC companions whose classes I may have edited in EEKeeper into something to my liking.
Notable mods are: BG1 NPC Project, Unfinished Business, (some) Anthology Tweaks for convenience, Minor Quests and Encounters (which gives a bit of easy XP early on and which lightens the mood a bit), Rogue Rebalancing, SCS with full pre-buffing, Divine Remix, Thalantyr Item Upgrades (which I'll allow myself to use pretty liberally). All characters in the game get max HPs. And I'm actually role-playing the evil alignment, much like Julius is doing with the good-alignment of his adventurers. Am going to keep reputation low.
In order to be more involved with the forum I've decided to post on his progress even though my expectations of success are low haha.
Here's Kain:
I no longer allow myself to adjust stat rolls, so Kain's roll is actually very, very good!
I think I'll try to get Kain and company ready for the Nashkel Mines, and then post a first report this weekend.
Rasal, TN solo Gnome Illusionist
Because a full party LoB playthrough is hard work with slow progress, I also started a solo run on core difficulty. I'm playing in the same install but with only one restriction compared to the LoB run: I can't use any items from mods. Otherwise I don't want to impose any restrictions, since this run is first and foremost meant to be fun, and I won't mind it if my character actually feels powerful once in a while. I've come to like single-classes better than multis and duals, and I know there is no documented no-reload SCS/Ascension trilogy (let alone tetralogy) success of a solo mage, so why not try to make that my niche?
Here's Rasal, Gnome Illusionist:
The very handsome stat roll was again taken as is. (Otherwise I would have taken points from WIS and CHA for DEX and CON.) Rasal is still busy exploring the Sword Coast, getting ready for the main quest. Expect a report soon, hopefully the weekend as well.
The good thing about two different, concurrent runs is, that if one fails, I'll always have the other
When Eltan teleports you to Candlekeep, do you still keep your buffs? I assumed that you did not, so I intentionally arrived in Candlekeep without any buffs. I ensured our survival by spending the first round casting Remove Fear to counter Horror, Invisibility 10' Radius to buy us time to set up further buffs, and an Invisibility spell on Charname to make sure the Invisibility 10' Radius was not disrupted. A Special Snare at the start of combat also helped. But I'm concerned that a Chromatic Orb, Charm Person, or Magic Missile could have doomed our attempts to hide.
You indeed always arrive unbuffed. This is why it's the place in BG:EE with SCS where soloing as a Wizard Slayer depends only on luck (a saving throw against Charm Person).
In my current setup (BWS/BGT) my Crew even were not teleported by Eltan at all and had to travel to Candlekeep on foot. This just seems right thing to me. Obviously, it makes those Ogre Mages under SCS with pre-buffs far more challenging.
Grond0 said: semiticgod said:Then I realized that Frisky Bits was a Dragon Disciple and therefore had a breath weapon that dealt nonmagical fire damage, which also could have killed Sarevok. But it turns out that you don't even need lethal damage to kill Sarevok.
Yes. Sarevok is actually protected by a min HP item, so technically his death is a scripted one when he gets down to 1 HP, so non-lethal damage is fine. I've found that extremely annoying in the past when doing a pacifist run - I'd set it up really nicely so that Sarevok got killed by his friends, only to find that his scripted death was still credited to me as a kill to spoil my record .
That happened to me too on a pacific run. However on another he was killed by a trap. My solo fighter/thief had brought him near death with his fists and the trap killed him. That was the only run that I have managed without killing anyone and that was more luck than good management.
I helped a dryad, rescued 'drienne's cat, found a +1 halberd and returned to Nashkel.
There I helped Bentha at Aerie's request. As a reward she identified ALL my unidentified items. That would have cost me 1000gp elsewhere. I bought a +1 sling for Tenya and a belt as well. After buying a few ordinary bullets and arrows, I am now down to 1gp.
I desperately need to either sell some equipment or earn some gold as she had other equipment that I would have liked to buy.
@Blackraven Thanks! Looking very much forward to both of your runs (get that illusionist into the hall!) - interesting that you decided to do the same thing as I did by playing a solo run on core rules to relax from the LoB full party run (though mine is modless and thus far more relaxing ).
Yes, I did mention that this would most likely be my only LoB no-reload attempt - the reason being: I just don't like making my way through the tedious BG1 early game (I had previously tried a bit of LoB to get a feel for the difficulty, which is why I already knew that I wasn't going to enjoy the first couple of levels). I decided that I could force myself to get through this part at least once, because I wanted a complete LoB run under my belt, be it no-reload or otherwise. I didn't see a reason not to start this one run as a no-reload attempt, but I wouldn't have tried again if I had failed and instead just completed the game the normal way (unless my failure would have been very early on in the game, but I had already played ahead when I started posting, so I knew this wouldn't be the case).
Btw, due to some poor decisions on my part, Iloïnen was just subjected to a timestop in SoD. Somehow, she's still alive - I was already mentally preparing to take a death screenshot and post her final update. Seems like a certain lich doesn't always choose to cast the best spells for the situation. More on that later today (that fight was hilarious - both the lich and me proved to be incredibly incompetent, so I'm not sure who played their options worse - me or the SoD script).
For Charm on a solo wizard slayer at the Ogre Mage ambush, isn't there a helm of charm protection in Feldepost's inn, or is that a mod addition?
That's Unfinished Business. I wouldn't feel bad about using the helm though. I've lost at least one Wizard Slayer before the gates of Candlekeep. To me Baldur's Gate is more about skill than luck, so I'd limit or remove any scenarios where pure luck makes the difference between life or death. I haven't tried Grond0's strategy of timing the green scroll of PfMagic though.
For Charm on a solo wizard slayer at the Ogre Mage ambush, isn't there a helm of charm protection in Feldepost's inn, or is that a mod addition?
Edit: googled it, definitely a mod addition. I've no idea which of my mods did that...
In my setup it's added by Item Randomizer. In my current run one of Iron Throne flunkies had dropped it but it could be placed on some 'in-or-past-Candlekeep' areas (Rieltar or Tuth, Candlekeep catacombs, Krystin or Slythe or even in Undercity) so one shouldn't count on getting it too much.
Cracking on with the main quest the Opera went invisibly through the Nashkel Mines and silenced Mulahey. I hadn't checked reputation recently though and that had crept up enough for Beggar to get CLW when resting.
They ran away from the amazons on the way to the Bandit Camp where sanctuary and protection from lightning was used to loot the chest.
The Cloakwood areas were thoroughly cleaned this time. That included taking on all comers during ambushes (including Molkar). The extra XP resulted in getting a level while beating up some druids.
I also fully cleared the Cloakwood Mine - quite a bit of invisible blocking used there. Skull traps did most of the damage on Davaeorn.
I again tried to do all the main encounters in the City. Without a thief I couldn't help Narlen and I once more tried to talk to Nadine with the wrong character and put her off. I was lucky to get away with the fight at the Helm & Cloak where I failed to kill the thief quickly and then lost track of him after he went invisible and he got a backstab in on Skint just before she was about to disappear. Fortunately this one wasn't a critical.
However, that was symptomatic of me getting a bit lazy and shortly after that proved costly with very little left to do in the City. Attacking the Seven Suns Pauper had been hit a couple of times while using his Seeking Sword and was down to 24 HPs with one doppleganger left. I did actually try to keep him out of that combat, but the pathfinding difficulty in the narrow spaces means care needs to be taken and I didn't take care - which was a fatal mistake.
With not much required remaining I'll try and quickly run through that with the 4 remaining party members to see what Sarevok has to offer ...
Edit: or perhaps not. As tends to happen when I think a run should really be over, but try and continue anyway I lost concentration. Arriving at Candlekeep unrested I had few spells left and Beggar was held by the ogre magi's initial attack. He had scared a couple of them first with Bhaal horror though and the rest of the party were able to draw attacks on themselves to save Beggar - but at the cost of deaths for Hardup and Aspire. I'll leave the run there I think .
Corthief XIV the human thief micro-update Traveling with: Shar-Teel, Khalid, Viconia, Imoen (dualed to mage at level 2 thief)
The run is still going. We battled it out in Ulcaster "School". The party did fine, no deaths. Khalid made it to level 6. I didn't have a lot of time this morning, we'll have a talk with Melium next session - am sure Viconia wants to practice her hold person spell.
Comments
I have a mod that steals the History of the Nether Scrolls from you and forces you to fight through the newly drow-infested Nashkel mines, and while the quest gives you tens of thousands of XP, I decided that it would not be worth the risk. Even if we trapped everything to death (basically the only way we could win any of the fights), we'd still be running the risk of a fatal backstab somewhere along the way. It's not possible to safely uninstall any mod that was installed via BWS, so I just used CTRL-Y on the quest giver to skip the quest entirely.
When Eltan teleports you to Candlekeep, do you still keep your buffs? I assumed that you did not, so I intentionally arrived in Candlekeep without any buffs. I ensured our survival by spending the first round casting Remove Fear to counter Horror, Invisibility 10' Radius to buy us time to set up further buffs, and an Invisibility spell on Charname to make sure the Invisibility 10' Radius was not disrupted. A Special Snare at the start of combat also helped. But I'm concerned that a Chromatic Orb, Charm Person, or Magic Missile could have doomed our attempts to hide.
@Grond0, if you always arrive unbuffed to that fight, you may want to set up a plan for dealing with the ogre mages. I can easily see them stunning Charname with a Chromatic Orb and ending the run within a few rounds. The good news is that you get enough time to lay a trap before the fight begins.
I wanted to avoid the fight with Rieltar, but I couldn't figure out how to get falsely accused, so I just trapped them and stunned them with Emotion: Hopelessness so our skeletons could take them down.
Our Bounty Hunter couldn't disarm any of the traps beneath Candlekeep, so our cleric had to tank them. But we were in incredible luck: there was a Zombie Lord guarding one of the containers!
Zombie Lords, whatever mod they're from, will spawn a Ghast or Fell Ghast every single round as long as you're close by. The Ghasts don't wander around and the Zombie Lord apparently can neither see through invisibility nor use divination spells. This means that we were able to wait around the corner, let the Zombie Lord summon a bunch of (Fell) Ghasts, then put up a wall of skeletons so we could bomb the ghasts with Special Snares and Fireballs. The Zombie Lord was stuck behind a wall (which seems to happen a lot), so it never did anything but summon more ghasts.
Between rests, I let the game run for a few minutes to build up a group of ghasts for us to bomb. We got tens of thousands of XP this way and nearly got my cleric to level 9, but somewhere along the way, the Zombie Lord vanished or somehow died, ending an otherwise fabulous source of XP.
For safety's sake, I snuck past the doppelgangers, the spiders, the Medusas who replaced the basilisks, and the enemy party at the end. I gathered a little more XP and got my Bounty Hunter to level 11 by fighting Bassilus, Zargal and his two Ettin buddies, and a mod ambush just south of the Friendly Arm Inn (which had two mages with Stoneskin, but such low HP that two introductory Fireballs killed them instantly). I also used Mental Domination to lure the Sirines out of the temple of Lathander and killed them with traps and skeletons.
We're just a few thousand XP from getting Raise Dead. Our Totemic Druid will be just shy of level 9, and our third sorcerer will be just shy of level 6, when we raise them.
Journal of Hrothgara
Tenya and I killed tarnesh with no problems, we then headed southwards and killed 2 ogrillon, 3 flaming fist mercenaries, and a few hobgoblins.Lord Foreshadow gave me a ring, we helped Jumper and found some nice-looking boots. South-west of Nashkel we found some scrolls and helped Rufie.
We then took on Vax and killed him.:)
After killing some Greater Wyverns that a mod-introduced shopkeeper named Kieran unleashed on me in the Cloakwood when I attacked him, we finally got Raise Dead and brought back our third sorcerer and our Totemic Druid. After farming 41 wyverns, we got the third sorcerer to level 7, the other sorcerers to level 10 and the druid to level 9.
I think we're about ready for Sarevok, but I really wanted to fight him with a level Totemic Druid so our summons will be at maximum strength. Unfortunately, the druid was dead for an extremely long time, and as a result, our XP is very unevenly divided.
It's kind of incredible. A single decision in the Cloakwood mines radically changed the entire course of this BG1 run: my decision to send my third sorcerer just two steps into a Web to get a peek at Davaeorn.
If I hadn't done that, my third sorcerer never would have died to Minute Meteors. Which means I probably wouldn't have gone to Ulcaster, which means my Totemic Druid would never have died to Chromatic Orb, which means I wouldn't have bothered farming all those ogres and wyverns and ghasts.
Aside from costing me a massive amount of time (and nearly ending the run when my cleric almost died), it subtracted 1 level from my druid and third sorcerer and added 3 levels to my Bounty Hunter, 2 levels to the other two sorcerers, and 1 level to my cleric. We gained 6 levels overall, but our party is still weaker for Sarevok because the lost levels took away a lot of power and the extra levels gave us very little--the notable exception being our Bounty Hunter, who has an extra use of both types of traps, and whose normal traps now deal 21 lingering poison damage on average over three rounds.
I think I'm going to seed the Ducal Palace with traps; that's usually an easy way to do it. Hopefully my Bounty Hunter can disarm the traps in the maze with only 70 in Detect Traps. As for Sarevok, it looks like it will all revolve around whether or not I can deal with Angelo. We have three sorcerers with Fireball and should be able to blow up Tazok, Diarmid, and Semaj, and Sarevok is bugged to be harmless. I'm worried that Angelo will screw up our plans with an enchantment spell or something.
Previous run
I wasn't sure I wanted to do another attempt at this immediately, but decided to give it one more go. This time I did more initial tasks around Beregost and the FAI before going down to Nashkel. As a result they didn't get their first levels until Tenya - she managed to disappear with 1 HP left, but had already given them a reward for returning the bowl.
A second level didn't take too long, thanks to the ankhegs.
After that though, rather than seek out more high value work, I made my way through the southern areas clearing them reasonably thoroughly. The slow, but steady, accumulation finally paid a dividend with another level just before successfully restoring Melicamp.
Things speeded up then with a raid on the Beregost temple followed by the outer and upper parts of Durlag's Tower, Shoal's area and then the lighthouse. Still needing a bit more for another level it was back to Durlag's where some greater dopplegangers and spiders underground did the business.
With find traps now up to 100 I had a go at clearing the remainder of the first underground level. With the shaman now up to level 6 his summons could kill things like mustard jellies, though it took a while to set appropriate positions up where summons could attack without the enemies being able to attack the shaman. Then it was time to take on the 4 dwarven warders. A stack of 7 traps successfully killed Fear and Avarice.
That left Love and more traps were set at the entrance to have a go at him. Regrettably though:
- the traps use missile projectiles.
- Love's buffs include physical mirror.
- the projectiles don't rebound on the trap, but on the trapper!
Is that fair - I don't think so. Unfortunately no one ever said life was fair
My main summons had ineffective weapons against Love and using shamanic summons wasn't really practical because of the infinite spells he has. However, the remaining party did eventually manage to take him down using Shillelaghs and some stair hopping.
It's a tough ask now to make it into SoD for a chance to raise Washout, but I'll have a go ...
Beggar, Totemic Druid - L7, 58 HPs, 37 kills
Pauper, Priest of Helm - L6, 54 HPs, 99 kills, 0 deaths
Hardup, Shaman - L6, 40 HPs, 141 kills, 0 deaths
Washout, Bounty Hunter - L7, 48 HPs, 28 kills, 1 death
Aspire, Sorcerer - L6, 33 HPs, 50 kills, 0 deaths
Skint, Sorcerer - L6, 27 HPs, 61 kills, 0 deaths
I've seen traps reflected off of Physical Mirror as well, though thankfully it never proved fatal. Bear in mind that Hephernaan at the end of the underground river also comes pre-buffed with Physical Mirror. I've had the same problem with the cleric statues in Watcher's Keep.
I'm glad I didn't fight the Warders. I probably would have lost my Bounty Hunter, too; I didn't know any of them used Physical Mirror. There's so much I don't know about BG1, even now.
For future reference, how many points does a BG1 thief need in Detect Traps? I've left it at 50 for a long time because I wanted to max out Detect Illusions instead. My install reduces trap XP to near-zero, so tanking traps isn't that much different from disarming them.
This will be 3 things I've never done before:
1) Playing an Enchanter CHARNAME
2) Playing a Halfling
3) Playing no-reload
Introducing,
Brunash, the Halfling Enchanter
(Afflicted with Gigantism!)
Halflings apparently do not have sprites for being mages so they default to Human Fighter, it seems.Starting spells: Sleep, Armor, Charm Person.
Relevant mods:
Rogue Rebalancing
aTweaks
More Style for Mages
IWDification
NPC_EE
Enchant the Missile Launchers
(I would use SCS but I think it would make BG1 unreasonably hard, plus I worry about SoD compatibility, though SoD's AI is more than adequate)
Here we go. Candlekeep. I do all the sidequests here since they're safe and ignore Shank and Carbos completely. Not taking the risk as I remember being gibbed by them when I had Sneak Attack turned on. Sneak attack is not enabled in this run; we're going back to Backstabs, although that's going to make Venduris' band from Rogue Rebalancing in BG2 quite a bit more deadly - assuming I even get that far.
After Gorion is killed, Imoen joins me. I decide to kit her into a Bounty Hunter. I head north to pick up Gorion's loot but a Diseased Gibberling crosses our path before we can reach him. Imoen kills the grass monkey in two shots.
We get Gorion's stuff. We head back south to get back to the road and pass Xzar and Montaron. Then north to get the diamond in the tree, but the famous n00b-slaying Wolf appears! I attempt Sleep, sure that saving vs. death at -5 will put it out cold, but it succeeds on its save. Imoen kites it as I use her Wand of Missiles and she occasionally shoots back at it. It dies to a crit from Imoen.
After this latest attempt at foolishness on my part, I pick up Xzar and Monty. I turn Monty into an Assassin and dump Xzar on Lion's Way.
I take the ring of protection hidden in the hidey-hole just north of the road, then book it for Beregost to avoid Tarnesh the Terrible and ignore the Belt Ogre. We arrive without incident.
Kagain is recruited and is turned into a Dwarven Defender.
We sell our stuff at Feldepost's Inn, deal with Marl, and recruit Tiax. Tiax is turned into a Priest of Talos. I'd prefer priest of Tyr for the Acclamation ability but that just wouldn't sit right with me.
Firebead recieves his book. The Stupifier Mace is looted. Everyone except Brunash outfitted with new equipment at Taerom's. Neera is killed for her gem bag, robe, and staff. Travenhurst manor is raided for the Wand of Lightning and potions. The rest of Beregost is halfway looted but none of our thieves have high enough Open Locks to unlock everything.
We decide to try out Karlat, feeling confident in my plan to have Tiax knock him out with Command and follow up with Sleep if necessary. Karlat gets knocked out but I accidentally use my wand of missiles on Karlat while he's KO'd instead of waiting to use Sleep after he wakes up. Kagain takes minor damage while in defensive stance but Karlat goes berserk after reaching low health. He hits Tiax for half his health and I cast sleep. Imoen finishes Karlat with a critical before the Sleep projectile hits. Phew. We sleep off the damage. Forgot to take a screenshot of this part.
We head north from Beregost to the Friendly Arm for the Ring of Wizardry. We accept Joia's sidequest and kill all the hobgoblins around the FAI and give her ring back. Monty scout out where exactly Tarnesh is and I place a map note. We're avoiding him for now.
We head north from FAI to the ankheg farmlands, well aware of the danger. We loot the fishermen's homes and pick up Ajantis, turning him into a Cavalier. An ankheg appears as we return from Brun's house. We decide to run instead of challenging the ankheg as we are still ill-equipped to deal with them. We need more HP under out belts for that.
We return to FAI and rest, remembering that Tenya's quest should be easy, as it simply involves hitting her once. We kill a couple of bandits and make it to Wyrm's Crossing. Tenya is easily beaten and we return to the farmlands for the bowl. We take the bowl from Sonner's bunch and we kill them anyway for the +1 Flail. We return to Tenya and give her the bowl.
Got ambushed by half-ogres on the way back to Beregost. I put one to sleep and Ajantis beat down the other. Made it back to Feldepost's and sell the +1 Flail.
We head south of Beregost and kill the Ogrillons with Mirianne's husband's letter, resulting in Imoen gaining a level. I dump all her points into trap setting. Kagain takes half his health in damage but regenerates it all back when we return to deliver the letter. I love his 20 CON.
We go back south of Beregost and kill the hobgoblins surrounding the cave, picking Zhurlong's boots. We loot the cave and return to give the boots back. We kill Zhurlong anyway for the extra XP and give the boots back to Monty to make backstabs easier.
Since Ajantis is now immune to poison from becoming a Cavalier, we take on Landrin's spiders. He goes inside and lures them all back outside. I cast sleep and knock out all of them for an easy victory.
We go to the Beregost Temple area. I charm one of Cattacks goons before attacking them. I put the rest of his goons to sleep as we wail on Cattack himself. They are easily disposed of.
Next we move on to the wolf pack hanging out in the northeast. Monty pulls them one at a time and it gives Kagain a level.
We rest back in the temple and return for the vampiric wolves. Kagain buffs with a potion of agility and with Ajantis' Protection from Evil. At the start of the fight I remember that Tiax can summon a ghast that's immune to the vampiric wolf's hold effect AND strikes as +1 weapon! Thankfully Kagain doesn't get hit at all and the first one is down, finally getting my first level and Tiax gets one too.
I memorize 2 more spells and we rest at the temple again. We return a third time to finish off the last vampiric wolf, now completely aware of Tiax's ghast's power. Monty strikes the wolf with a bullet and lures it back to the ghast who tanks it. Kagain uses Beruel's Retort +1 and Ajantis uses the Stupifier mace to help, and I use the Wand of Missiles. Soon its dead, resulting in another level for Imoen and one for Monty. So far, so good.
Brunash - Enchanter 2
Kagain - Dwarven Defender 2
Ajantis - Cavalier 2
Montaron - Fighter 1/Assassin 2
Tiax - Priest of Talos 2/Thief 3
Imoen - Bounty Hunter 3
The first time around, I placed 7 traps so that none of them were within reach of Love. I kept the whole party invisible except for our summons, then used our second sorcerer to talk to the Warders so he could quickly cast Invisibility after the enemy appeared. From there, Minute Meteors, Magic Missiles, and our summons finished off Pride and Avarice, but when Fear paralyzed and killed my Totemic Druid, I was forced to flee.
We rested, returned, and used Insect Plague on Love, only to find that it was immune to spell failure and spell disruption. But our second sorcerer, the only one with Minute Meteors, was an elf and therefore resisted Dire Charm, and also had Haste and could easily counter Slow. Love failed to make any impact before we killed it. Upstairs, we swarmed Fear with summons and pelted it with Minute Meteors until it fell.
The second time around, I set 12 traps, essentially wiping out the enemy except for Love, who again proved unable to disable my second sorcerer while our summons and Insect Plague chipped away at its defenses.
Okay, I got our Totemic Druid up to level 10 but stopped short of getting my third sorcerer to level 8 and therefore Stoneskin. I only set seven traps in the Ducal Palace (my mods remove the trap and summoning caps, but I don't like abusing them very much), which wasn't enough to take down all the doppelgangers, but thanks to a blind Bounty Hunter hurling level 11 snares with lingering poison damage, we shut down both the doppelganger mage and the shaman, and our cleric of Helm's True Seeing ability exposed the assassin. As always, Invisibility kept Liia Jannath safe.
Inside the maze, I had my Bounty Hunter disarm the traps. Apparently 70 in Detect Traps is sufficient for all of them. My mods added some Skeleton Warriors to the maze, but our summons were enough to take all of them down.
I avoided the Undercity party. Not content to rely on invisibility, I actually walked all the way around the north end of the map just so I wouldn't have to worry about a divination spell. Because last I checked, the archer in that fight uses Arrows of Detonation.
I discovered in the temple of Bhaal that it was still possible for us to leave after we entered--apparently, the trigger that sealed off the exit is either nonexistent in my install or only triggers after speaking with Sarevok.
This means I was able to set as many traps as I wanted to in the final area, rest outside, and then set more. But I didn't do that because I thought my existing battle plan would be enough.
My battle plan didn't go very well.
This is our party:
Frisky Bits, Dragon Disciple 10 (Charname)
Chara, Totemic Druid 10
Asriel, Sorcerer 10
Mae, Bounty Hunter 11
Onion-san, Cleric of Helm 9
Carl, Sorcerer 7
I started out by luring Sarevok to the southeast corner with Asriel. Even though Sarevok cannot deal damage in my install due to wielding 7 gold coins instead of a sword, I buffed Asriel with Shield and Mirror Image on top of his Stoneskin to make sure he was able to cast Invisibility without disruption. And because I was terrified that a Chaos spell might come out of nowhere, or that a Remove Magic would reveal him after he went invisible, I spent one of his three level 5 spell slots reassuring my paranoia.
Finally, I hasted him, breaking invisibility, and sent him to talk to Sarevok before pulling him back. Notice Semaj getting stunned by his own introductory Thunderslap spell that pops up occasionally in my install.
I turned Asriel invisible, waited for Sarevok's buddies to join him, and then used quick-saving to determine Angelo's location.
I wanted to make sure that we weren't in sight when we summoned our first critter, lest he hit us with confusion.
I sent out a Dire Wolf at first, prompting a Wand of Lightning charge and a rather terrifying Improved Haste buff, underscoring just how deadly Angelo is.
I ordered the Dire Wolf to run around, hoping to get Angelo to waste his spells before he butchered it. Sure enough, he used both Confusion and Chaos on the poor thing, even when the first spell was successful. He torches it with Sunfire
All three of those spells could have ended our game if we hadn't baited them out.
I decided to wait out his buffs before provoking him further. Angelo noticed Asriel spying on him and used a divination spell, and I just barely got Asriel out of the way before he was discovered. Everyone lost their invisibility except for Frisky Bits, who apparently was protected by a column.
Terrified of losing Asriel, I turned Carl invisible and ordered him to take Asriel's place in monitoring Angelo.
Then, to my horror, I discovered that Angelo can find us wherever we hide.
I weighed my options and they looked absolutely horrible. Angelo was right on top of our party and we had zero buffs besides Stoneskin. Angelo could take down Frisky Bits with Confusion, Chromatic Orb, Sunfire, or anything, as far as I knew. Unwilling to commit Frisky Bits' aura to anything, I sent them away and had Chara summons a Spirit Snake while Onion-san used True Seeing to give the snake a headstart on Angelo. It seems that removing his Mirror Images was enough to force him to vanish, buying us another round.
I buffed both of our level 10 sorcerers with SI: Enchantment, still petrified of a Confusion spell or the like, and tucked the party up in a northern corner where Mae set a trap. Meanwhile, our Spirit Snake chased Angelo. For good measure, we summoned an extra critter and turned the party invisible.
The snake kept targeting Angelo, but Angelo wouldn't target it back. I had to keep pulling the snake away, because I didn't want Sarevok and company to see it and join the fight, but Angelo just wouldn't engage the snake. I poked around and discovered the problem.
Angelo was hiding behind his friends; we couldn't approach him without everyone else joining in. Eventually, though, he wandered away from his friends and engaged the snake.
But he didn't wander far enough. Sarevok and company spotted the snake and the whole enemy group started moving.
Amazingly enough, Diarmid targeted the snake with normal arrows, and since Tazok uses a normal weapon and Sarevok was fighting with pocket change, the snake was actually immune to everyone but Angelo and Semaj.
Unfortunately, Angelo was enough.
We probably could have avoided all of this if I simply maintained constant invisibility to ensure that Angelo didn't chase us around using Dimension Door. We could have waited out his defenses and then pounced on him with a Spirit Snake and maybe some Acid Arrows. But by letting him use that divination spell and allowing him to teleport to us, he wandered around until he was safely tucked behind his allies.
The only way to extricate him from his friends that I could think of was to use an area-effect spell to hurt all of them, in the hopes that Angelo alone would come out to investigate (or, better yet, just sit there and take it). Since Diarmid still had his Protection from Magic scroll active (I missed my chance to wait out the enemy's defenses), I used a Special Snare.
Against the odds, Angelo failed his save.
But now I had a problem. If I used Fireballs on the enemy, I could take down Angelo while he was disabled. But Tazok would take half damage, and Diarmid would take none. But if I waited, I might lose a chance to kill Angelo, the biggest wild card in this fight.
In the end, I decided to bomb the enemy (notably, this involved constantly ordering Onion-san's skeleton to leave Semaj alone). Angelo recovered from the hold effect before he died, but he just drank a single healing potion, which wasn't enough to save him. Both mages went down.
If I hadn't permitted that Detect Invisibility and Dimension Door to screw up our positioning, none of this nonsense would have been necessary. But once it happened, we had no choice but to adapt.
One of the resurrected Skeleton Warriors engaged us despite the party being out of visual range, and I discovered that its MR was much higher than I had thought.
This left me with the question of how I was going to kill all those Skeleton Warriors, since our only means of killing magic-immune Sarevok was melee combat, and Skeleton Warriors would butcher us if we tried that while they were still standing. So I deployed some more summons and Asriel's Minute Meteors, only to discover that Asriel had run perilously low on level 3 spells.
We managed to bring the first Skeleton Warrior down. Tazok was at Near Death and could be finished off with a Fireball, but we used a Special Snare instead, since I still wanted to wait out Diarmid's scroll before we used Fireballs on him.
Then I realized that waiting out Diarmid's scroll might not have been an option to begin with. My animal summons would vanish if I waited out the scroll, and I was sure I'd really need them to beat Tazok's and Diarmid's Skeleton Warriors. So I just buffed up the party and focused on taking down the second Skeleton Warrior, belonging to one of the mages.
It came at a heavy cost; we lost one of our own skeletons and our other summons were badly hurt.
With those Skeleton Warriors' massive HP and sky-high MR, I didn't think we could kill them if I waited out Diarmid's scroll. Instead, I cast more buffs and rushed Diarmid, hoping to take him and Tazok's skeleton down early. Both sides suffered heavy damage very fast.
We finally took down Tazok's Skeleton Warrior, but we were in pretty bad shape. Onion-san was approaching death, and Diarmid was on the upswing.
Fortunately, I had prepared for this possibility: Mae had set a pair of normal traps in the center of the arena while Diarmid was busy, and by luring Diarmid across them, we could deal a lot of lingering poison damage without having to make any attack rolls. Notice Chara making a save against an Acid Arrow for some reason.
Finally, Diarmid was down. But the last Skeleton Warrior rose in its place, and we were running very low on resources for tackling those skeletons.
The Skeleton Warrior's MR was simply too high; we had to deploy the Seeking Sword to bring it down (and fortunately Chara had an extra Barkskin spell to compensate for Onion-san's terrible AC).
The Skeleton Warrior was still too dangerous for Onion-san; I had to keep pulling her back so the skeleton wouldn't chop her up. And then Chara's Shillelagh ran out.
This is when I realized that I had horribly, horribly mismanaged our resources.
I had been banking on using Sarevok's lack of damage output to beat him up with our bare hands so we could finish him off with Shillelagh or something. But I had cast Shillelagh too early because I needed to take down the other enemies, all of which were too magic-resistant for us to kill with spells.
I already used up Mae's traps, Chara's Shillelagh spell, Asriel's Minute Meteors, Onion-san's Flame Blade spell, and now I had just cast Onion-san's Seeking Sword, our last source of nonmagical lethal damage. Sarevok still had 180 HP; there was no way we could have killed him before Seeking Sword ran out.
My heart sank. I had overspent our limited resources and lost our chance to kill Sarevok. The best I could hope for was an endless stalemate, which also meant an end to the run.
I went over my remaining options. It might have been possible to get past Sarevok's MR by casting Skull Trap on self or something, but I wasn't sure that trick still worked.
Then I realized I still had exactly one trap left on the map, tucked away in a corner to the north. If I could take down the Skeleton Warrior and severely wound Sarevok, I could bring him over to the trap and finish him off.
Knowing that I could just have the Flaming Fist healer at the start of SoD resurrect any fallen party members, I sent in my unarmed party members to help take down the Skeleton Warrior, despite the risk to themselves. Eventually, we brought down the skeleton.
Sarevok was finally alone. We surrounded him and started slapping him about. Miraculously, our Skeleton Warrior had survived, which meant we didn't need to rely on that trap to the north to finish off Sarevok.
Then I realized that Frisky Bits was a Dragon Disciple and therefore had a breath weapon that dealt nonmagical fire damage, which also could have killed Sarevok. But it turns out that you don't even need lethal damage to kill Sarevok.
To my relief and amazement, we managed to survive the fight with Sarevok despite horribly mismanaging Angelo. A lot of that was luck; some lower dice rolls, like the Spirit Snake's saving throw against Angelo's Chromatic Orb, could have swung the battle to Sarevok. Part of it also depended on our Totemic Druid being level 10, and therefore the success of this run was also dependent on the XP farming that was largely possible thanks to mod enemies (though, granted, mod enemies are also the only reason that farming was necessary in the first place).
The lesson is to not monitor Angelo from afar like I wanted to; just wait out his buffs without watching him. And if you do get your invisibility dispelled, restore it right afterward, lest Angelo teleport to the party and start wandering around.
@Grond0: I really appreciate your sage advice. I'm not sure I would have survived that fight without your help.
This is what the party looks like right now:
Onion-san is a minor character from Undertale; the portrait is from Littletale. Notice I've got a new portrait for Frisky Bits. The picture comes from a gif by dreamy94 at tumblr who has a very charming art style (and is very fond of shipping Chara and Frisk).
Brunash the Abnormally-Large Halfling Enchanter!
BG1: 1Tiax loots more Beregost homes with an improved Open Locks skills and raids the Thunderhammer smithy to get a +1 bastard sword for Ajantis. Monty's getting impatient, so we go to Nashkel. We go to the North Nashkel Road and kill the hobgoblins who slaughtered Mr. Colquetle's family. We encounter some kobolds and gibberlings along the path but they are taken down easily.
Arriving in Nashkel and talking to Berren Ghastkill should get Monty to shut up now. I buy the bag of Plenty from the Nashkel store for him to use and dig up the Ankheg Plate Mail in the fields for Ajantis to wear. Noober is tolerated for XP, earning Ajantis a level.
Tiax raids houses all over Nashkel and steals a +1 short sword from the Amnish guards' barracks for Monty. Monty stealths and body-blocks Neira from approaching Kagain as I cast Charm Person on her. I get her to burn her two most dangerous spells on herself: Hold Person and Rigid Thinking (which she fails the saving throw against, resulting in her standing still the whole battle). Her AC was great as everyone had trouble inflicting damage upon her, but she eventually fell.
We raided the Nashkel manor house and beat up Samantha so we could take what was in her room without guards being called. Then we went to the carnival, which we completely cleared: killed Vitiare, bought the red and violet potions from the merchant, and stole what was in his chest. Zordral is down.
Next up is the Lonely Peaks. A lone ogre berserker confronted us but it was handily beaten down, giving Tiax a cleric level.
The xvarts were after Hulrik's cow again and I used Zordral's Color Spray scroll against them, knocking them all out and turning the cow hostile! Thankfully the quest can still be completed normally if all the xvarts are dead.
We mopped up Sarhedra's ogre band by putting them all to sleep. Next came the most challenging fight yet: Ioin Gallchobhar's group. Kagain was repeatedly at death's door, kept from shuffling off this mortal coil by healing potions. The thieves and I had a hard time hitting the group due to their armor. Sleep had no effect on them and Charm Person would suddenly be cut short despite none of my party members attacking a charmed enemy. Tiax knocked out one of them with Command so we could gang up on him, but it wasn't enough. He summoned his ghast and paralyzed Billy, who we promptly killed. With one of them down, the fight was much easier as I had Ajantis tank instead of Kagain. Soon the fight was over and Monty gained a level. Ajantis is swapping armor with Kagain now.
Next was the ettercap and Arghain's group, who were no trouble. We returned to Beregost and returned Mr. Colquetle's amulet, then headed for High Hedge. Kagain lured one of Thalantyr's flesh golems outside and entered defensive stance while Tiax summoned his ghast. The first golem was killed with only minor damage sustained to Kagain, granting me another level. Ajantis lured out the second golem so it would fight Kagain who was still in defensive stance. This one was also decisively killed, granting a level of Monty and Imoen.
We went inside, I bought some scrolls from Thalantyr, and we rested. Killed a couple skeletons so I could go to Bassilus' area and help Melicamp. Zargal and co. were sent off to beddy-bye and Melicamp was rescued. We encountered Bassilus and chose the correct dialogue options but his undead army didn't collapse around him for some reason. I interrupted his Rigid Thinking casting by charming him, but I didn't have anything to interrupt his Hold Person spells. He had 2 of them and the first one hit Kagain while the second hit Ajantis. Tiax summoned his ghast and I tried Sleep to no effect. Tiax saved the day again as he Commanded Bassilus, letting his ghast kill him. After Kagain and Ajantis were free, we killed the undead that were supposed to have died already.
Imoen finally has a good enough Set Trap score to set traps reliably without failure and without them backfiring. She sets up 4 sets of both normal and alchemical traps around Silke. I'm pretty sure this will kill her. We talk to Garrick and refuse to help Silke kill Feldepost's guys. All the traps go off which interrupt her Improved Invisibility, and Monty slugs a bullet through her skull, killing her. Still lots more to do.
Brunash - Enchanter 3
Kagain - Dwarven Defender 3
Ajantis - Cavalier 3
Montaron - Fighter 2/Assassin 3
Tiax - Priest of Talos 3/Thief 3
Imoen - Bounty Hunter 4
Well done for surviving the fight. It's nice when a plan works out perfectly, but it's always more thrilling when it doesn't work out, but you pull through somehow anyway
I find Angelo is the biggest danger in that fight due to his strong defences and ability to kill with both spells and missile weapons. Malison and paralysation can often act as a short-cut in a standard run, but obviously weren't an option for you. I suspect that using single summons at a time and waiting out his buffs in between is probably the most cost-effective method in a poverty run.
By the way it's not necessary to kill the skeleton warriors in that fight (though I always try to do so). When Sarevok dies the combat ends anyway.
Congratulations @Neverused for beating Mel! Outstanding work, especially considering it was your first no-reload playthrough of ToB.
@Enuhal, congrats for you too man! Didn't you say this was your first (and possibly your last) try at LoB? Amazing that you just went on to complete the tetralogy! You're a top player.
@Arctodus, very nice work with with your Bard. Keep it up in SoA!
@Grond0, @JuliusBorisov, and @Enuhal have inspired me with their interesting LoB party runs to try one myself, or actually not just one lol, but several in the past few weeks. I've kept trying with Skalds but have had no luck so far. I aborted my run with Skald 1 because I didn't get Rogue Rebalancing Skald song to work. I later managed to repair the song in Near Infinity, but Skald 2 fell in an ambush after quite some work had been done already. (I was playing with Item Randomisation and no one had sold or dropped an Invisibility scroll, so ambushes were really tricky). Skald 3 did very well, well into Cloakwood, until a Druid cast Call Lightning and that spell actually hit and killed my Skald after he had entered Amarande's tree house. I never knew tsuch a thing was possible.)
Kain, NE Half-Elf LoB Skald
Am currently building up experience with Skald 4, Kain. Unlike his predecessors, he's evil, and he's running with evil NPC companions whose classes I may have edited in EEKeeper into something to my liking.
Notable mods are: BG1 NPC Project, Unfinished Business, (some) Anthology Tweaks for convenience, Minor Quests and Encounters (which gives a bit of easy XP early on and which lightens the mood a bit), Rogue Rebalancing, SCS with full pre-buffing, Divine Remix, Thalantyr Item Upgrades (which I'll allow myself to use pretty liberally). All characters in the game get max HPs. And I'm actually role-playing the evil alignment, much like Julius is doing with the good-alignment of his adventurers. Am going to keep reputation low.
In order to be more involved with the forum I've decided to post on his progress even though my expectations of success are low haha.
Here's Kain:
I think I'll try to get Kain and company ready for the Nashkel Mines, and then post a first report this weekend.
Rasal, TN solo Gnome Illusionist
Because a full party LoB playthrough is hard work with slow progress, I also started a solo run on core difficulty. I'm playing in the same install but with only one restriction compared to the LoB run: I can't use any items from mods. Otherwise I don't want to impose any restrictions, since this run is first and foremost meant to be fun, and I won't mind it if my character actually feels powerful once in a while.
I've come to like single-classes better than multis and duals, and I know there is no documented no-reload SCS/Ascension trilogy (let alone tetralogy) success of a solo mage, so why not try to make that my niche?
Here's Rasal, Gnome Illusionist:
The good thing about two different, concurrent runs is, that if one fails, I'll always have the other
Happy hunting everyone!
I too now prefer to take rolls without any adjusting, which, to me, makes the rolling process interesting again.
I wish you to keep your inspiration and willingness till the end and actually do it. Looking forward to your reports!
Yes. Sarevok is actually protected by a min HP item, so technically his death is a scripted one when he gets down to 1 HP, so non-lethal damage is fine. I've found that extremely annoying in the past when doing a pacifist run - I'd set it up really nicely so that Sarevok got killed by his friends, only to find that his scripted death was still credited to me as a kill to spoil my record
That happened to me too on a pacific run. However on another he was killed by a trap. My solo fighter/thief had brought him near death with his fists and the trap killed him. That was the only run that I have managed without killing anyone and that was more luck than good management.
Journal of Hrothgara
I helped a dryad, rescued 'drienne's cat, found a +1 halberd and returned to Nashkel.There I helped Bentha at Aerie's request. As a reward she identified ALL my unidentified items. That would have cost me 1000gp elsewhere.
I desperately need to either sell some equipment or earn some gold as she had other equipment that I would have liked to buy.
Yes, I did mention that this would most likely be my only LoB no-reload attempt - the reason being: I just don't like making my way through the tedious BG1 early game (I had previously tried a bit of LoB to get a feel for the difficulty, which is why I already knew that I wasn't going to enjoy the first couple of levels). I decided that I could force myself to get through this part at least once, because I wanted a complete LoB run under my belt, be it no-reload or otherwise. I didn't see a reason not to start this one run as a no-reload attempt, but I wouldn't have tried again if I had failed and instead just completed the game the normal way (unless my failure would have been very early on in the game, but I had already played ahead when I started posting, so I knew this wouldn't be the case).
Btw, due to some poor decisions on my part, Iloïnen was just subjected to a timestop in SoD. Somehow, she's still alive - I was already mentally preparing to take a death screenshot and post her final update. Seems like a certain lich doesn't always choose to cast the best spells for the situation. More on that later today (that fight was hilarious - both the lich and me proved to be incredibly incompetent, so I'm not sure who played their options worse - me or the SoD script).
Enuhal
Edit: googled it, definitely a mod addition. I've no idea which of my mods did that...
Previous updates
Cracking on with the main quest the Opera went invisibly through the Nashkel Mines and silenced Mulahey. I hadn't checked reputation recently though and that had crept up enough for Beggar to get CLW when resting.
They ran away from the amazons on the way to the Bandit Camp where sanctuary and protection from lightning was used to loot the chest.
The Cloakwood areas were thoroughly cleaned this time. That included taking on all comers during ambushes (including Molkar). The extra XP resulted in getting a level while beating up some druids.
I also fully cleared the Cloakwood Mine - quite a bit of invisible blocking used there. Skull traps did most of the damage on Davaeorn.
I again tried to do all the main encounters in the City. Without a thief I couldn't help Narlen and I once more tried to talk to Nadine with the wrong character and put her off. I was lucky to get away with the fight at the Helm & Cloak where I failed to kill the thief quickly and then lost track of him after he went invisible and he got a backstab in on Skint just before she was about to disappear. Fortunately this one wasn't a critical.
However, that was symptomatic of me getting a bit lazy and shortly after that proved costly with very little left to do in the City. Attacking the Seven Suns Pauper had been hit a couple of times while using his Seeking Sword and was down to 24 HPs with one doppleganger left. I did actually try to keep him out of that combat, but the pathfinding difficulty in the narrow spaces means care needs to be taken and I didn't take care - which was a fatal mistake.
With not much required remaining I'll try and quickly run through that with the 4 remaining party members to see what Sarevok has to offer ...
Beggar, Totemic Druid - L8, 61 HPs, 46 kills
Pauper, Priest of Helm - L7, 60 HPs, 113 kills, 1 death
Hardup, Shaman - L7, 45 HPs, 184 kills, 0 deaths
Washout, Bounty Hunter - L7, 48 HPs, 28 kills, 1 death
Aspire, Sorcerer - L7, 39 HPs, 134 kills, 0 deaths
Skint, Sorcerer - L67, 33 HPs, 109 kills, 0 deaths
Edit: or perhaps not. As tends to happen when I think a run should really be over, but try and continue anyway I lost concentration. Arriving at Candlekeep unrested I had few spells left and Beggar was held by the ogre magi's initial attack. He had scared a couple of them first with Bhaal horror though and the rest of the party were able to draw attacks on themselves to save Beggar - but at the cost of deaths for Hardup and Aspire. I'll leave the run there I think
Traveling with: Shar-Teel, Khalid, Viconia, Imoen (dualed to mage at level 2 thief)
The run is still going. We battled it out in Ulcaster "School". The party did fine, no deaths. Khalid made it to level 6. I didn't have a lot of time this morning, we'll have a talk with Melium next session - am sure Viconia wants to practice her hold person spell.
We'll keep at it.