I'm not going to go into much detail regarding early SoA, as most fights are fairly simple once you have played vanilla SoA as much as I have and you have divine magic (the awesome protection of remove fear, death ward and chaotic commands plus the fighting ability of skeletons/aerial servants) at your command. If anything interesting happens or anything goes wrong, however, there will be more of an explanation.
I completed all of the shorter, not stronghold-related quests in the city with relative ease, gaining access to my first couple of aerial servants. The only interesting thing that happened here was when I decided to fight Tarnor the Hatchetman and his party: I traded summons for foes one for one, pretty much isolating the mage, Gaius:
However, before he went down, he managed to cast remove magic, stripping me of all my buffs. His next spell was hold person, and I had nothing to protect myself - so I had to rely on luck. Iloïnen made her saving throw with ease, so nothing bad ended up happening. Still, I shouldn't have put myself into that situation to begin with.
The next major mistake occured while getting the key from Ghaal in the old tunnels (just to get access to the lich, I didn't really want to do the cult of the eyeless quest yet). There's this web trap near the shadows - which I actually knew about. I thought to myself "okay, you better get back out here, put free action in your spellbook, rest and return." My next thought was: "Nah, I'm way too lazy for that" - So I triggered the trap on purpose, knowing full well that I could fail the save... why did I do that? So stupid... Of course, I did end up failing the save, but the shadows got webbed themselves, so only the ettercaps were attacking - and thanks to the amulet I got from the Lathander temple for the Sir Sarles quest, my save versus death was good enough so that I couldn't get poisoned at all - I tried to escape the web, but the next save was a failure once again (note that I could've used an invulnerability potion to improve my chances drastically at any point!). I ended up barely making it out of there the next round:
This has to be among the most nonsensical risks I've ever taken in a no-reload run. I have no idea why I did that. Propably huge overconfidence and laziness, I guess.
Anyway, I used a protection from undead scroll to take out three liches in the city and started with the first stronghold quests: The druid grove, the Mae'Var questline, the De'Arnise keep (where I got myself the FoA +3) and the Umar Hills. In the temple ruins, I had my next noteworthy encounter - because I didn't expect to be high level enough to actually meet liches down there. I once again forgot about my protection from undead scrolls, so I fought them the normal way, but I was vastly underprepared for the first one - I ended up losing all of my summons and getting a stone to flesh spell thrown at me - one of the few things that can instantly end a run even with cleric buffs going. My aura was clear, and I activated a protection from petrification scroll:
It was activated in time (though it was extremely close), and once I got rid of the final greater mummy by kiting it through the lava, I summoned more skeleton warriors to kill this lich:
The next one stood less of a chance, because at this point, I was already prepared.
I got my first HLA after killing the Shade Lord (summon deva - after that, I'm making my way to smite) and completed all the ranger stronghold quests to get my hand on Cerberus. At this point, I had also bought any potentially useful items (and I recharged a wand of the heavens, just in case I'd need it). My last action for now was defeating Bodhi and killing Kangaxx with protection from magic and the iMoD +2.
Next time, I plan to go for the astral prison, the planar sphere, the cult of the eyeless and the windspear hills dungeon.
My last report said to be continued, because we aren’t done yet on the Ice Island. Things take a much grimmer turn after a fairly promising start. The events that follow illustrate why I consider myself a decent player but definitely not a great one.
Fighting three high level wizards (Andris, Marcellus, and Beyn) is asking for trouble we reckon, so we decide to use Algernon’s cloak. Works fine with Beyn.
We relieve him of his most dangerous spells and have his own sword spider plus Shar-Teel slay him. We rest again and see if we can pull the same trick on Marcellus. Somehow we forget to cast Invisibility on Shar-Teel before resting (= mistake number 1), and we only realize after Andris starts talking to us. Once done, he cast a Chaos at Shar-Teel, but she enrages. Marcellus casts a Chromatic Orb which deals 20 acid damage but our Barbarian saves against the death effect. Shar-Teel finds her way back to her companions and has Kain cast Invisibility on her. He’s barely done when Andris comes teleporting in. Being the only visible character, unbuffed and with a clouded aura, all he can do is run. Andris follows and casts Lightning Bolt. Kain is wearing Talos’s Gift so he quaffs a potion of insulation to escape unscathed.
He goes invisible and joins the others to go looking for our foes. We find a quiet spot for Vicky to summon some skeleton warriors, but are then accosted by Tellan the Gnome, who somehow knows we have Shandalar’s cloak. He goes hostile immediately and exposes our entire party except Kagain, who’s behind a bit, with a True Sight. Very nasty. We split, with Vicky on one side, and the rest on the other side. Tellan summons a nishruu while Vicky summons more skellies. Impressively, the skeleton warriors finish both Marcellus and the nishruu.
Tellan is more resilient though, thanks in part to a Fireshield: Red that hurts our skeletons. While we're waiting to hear Tellan’s death cry, Andris teleports back into our midst. Kain quickly distributes four invisibility potions - we’re quickly running out of these - for Edwin, Tiax, Shar-Teel, and Kain. Everyone immediately quaffs theirs, except Kain (sloppy handling on my part, mistake number 2). Kain drinks his potion an instant after the others but Andris has already take advantage of the small window he needed to cast a necromancy spell. His Skull Trap instantly kills Shar-Teel, Tiax, and Edwin; Kain escapes with two lousy HPs.
Moments later Tellan, who’s supposed to be fighting skeleton warriors, decides to take a look around. He finds Viconia and kills her with no more than three Minute Meteors.
Kain and Kagain pick up our fallen comrades’ gear and we practise our inventory management skills. Kain heals up and uses a monster summoning charge. The summons leave the Gnome with one HP, which Kain does away with using the wand of fire from out of sight. Tellan generously drops a robe of the evil archmagi. We then finish off Andris with two more charges of the wand of monster summoning,
and leave the island with Kagain requiring a hill giant strength potion to haul 18 winter wolf pelts back to Ulgoth’s Beard.
We get everyone raised at the FAI and return to Ulgoth’s Beard. Tiax boosts his thieving skills with brawling hands + master thievery + perception + DUHM and pickpockets the Kneecapper and some potions off Hurgan, and some nice scrolls from Shandalar. That’s the least he should give us for our trouble.
Bandits, finally…
There aren’t many areas or quests left. There’s a couple of quests and talks that will raise our reputation but we’re not sure if or when we should do those. Maybe by the end of the game? How does reputation work in SoD? Is reputation an issue for the hero of Baldur's Gate? I really don’t want any bounty hunters or law enforcers after my party in SoD if we make it there.
Anyway, we travel to Larswood, where we have Corsone bring Osmadi down to near death before Edwin finishes the latter with a Magic Missile. Our undead then take care of Corsone. We infiltrate the bandit camp with Raiken because we want to loot the camp and we’re not sure if we’ll be able to later.
There’s a spot in Tazok’s tent where Raemon can’t see one (right below the second Chill banner). Viconia takes it to summon three undead, then casts Sanctuary and moves over for Tiax to summon his minions as well. The other companions join him, and he starts a casting of PfE 10’ Radius. However it’s a bit of cramped space. One of the companions or summons pushes him away, which reveals him to Raemon and triggers the battle well before we’re ready for it.
Venkt opens with a Glitterdust that blinds Vicky, Tiax, and Shar-Teel while we’re busy positioning ourselves. This is especially annoying in the case of Vicky and Tiax as it pretty much neutralizes our divine spell casting for several rounds. Our undead occupy most of the archers most of the time. But Raemon, Britik (after effortlessly defeating our ghast), and Venkt all focus on us. Venkt casts a Hold Person at Shar-Teel, so she enrages and gets away from her companions. Edwin Malisons many of our foes, paving the way for a Confusion by Viconia. Venkt then annoyingly casts Remove Magic, which leaves Edwin fully exposed. One arrow by Raemon disrupts the red wizard's casting of Stoneskin (he had the belt of antipode on, so only missile damage) before a Magic Missile by Venkt kills him.
Vicky manages to Confuse pretty much everyone, which is great. But she still gets singled out by some of the bandit archers. She falls. On the plus side Kagain and two of our skeletons occupy themselves with Britik in melee combat and prevail. Tiax Holds two of the bandits and Kain casts a Stinking Cloud from scroll in between singing. Both the spell and the singing make an impact. The spell proves remarkably effective, and the singing helps restore morale of panicking comrades.
Since the skeletons are immune to the cloud, they easily make short work of the bandit archers. We win,
and Kain levels up (8). Without any bow users in our midst, and having just found the long bow of marksmanship, we deem it fitting for Kain to take a pip in long bows. Tiax raises Edwin and Vicky with two raise dead scrolls previously bought at the Ulgoth’s Beard Inn. We go invisible, rest outside, summon five skeleton warriors and our ghast, and have them slay Taugosz Khosann.
Uninterested in bandit scalps, we leave the Bandit Camp for the FAI.
Cloakwood
Shar-Teel reached level 7 as a Barbarian right before the battle at the Bandit Camp. We let her fight that battle as a Barbarian but dual her into Thief right after that. (Possible in my install thanks to Anthology Tweaks.) While it is a bit early still to think of Siege of Dragonspear, we do this specifically with that game in mind. I’d like to use @elminster’s Shar-Teel for SoD mod so that we can keep an all evil party in SoD too, with Baeloth and Dorn taking the places of Tiax and Kagain, and with Shar-Teel taking over Tiax’s thieving work. I kind of mess up by giving her 20 points in Detect lllusions that were meant to go to stealth, so we decide that she’ll get minimal points in open locks and detect traps (just enough to be reliable with potions), and that stealth and illusions will be her forte. She picks proficiencies in scimitars (for Icingdeath) and short bows.
We travel invisibly at all times, wary of Molkar’s and Lamalha’s ambushes, but make it to the 4th area without their ambushes. We defeat Seniyad and his friends with our undead minions, and we kill all the cave bears, wolves, spiders and ettercaps we encounter, including those in ambushes, in order to level Shar-Teel up as far as possible. We leave the druid community alone, killing only Peter and his pet wyverns thanks to a nice Malison + Hold Person by Edwin, but are thorough once more in the 4th area. With Shar-Teel on a break from fighting, Kagain has been doing the hard work, be it from behind invisible walls or with kiting. It’s just enough to bring Shar-Teel to Thief level 5 before we move on to the Mines.
That was the way that I ALWAYS used to kill him. Of course that was before the boss fight was changed. I used to use a solo Imoen who would be hasted and she would backstab, run round a statue, hide, backstab... etc etc. I even once killed him by backstabbing with my fists in a solo pacifist run with a fighter/thief. I was most upset that he died as I was wanting to finish BG 1 without killing anybody!!
Impressive. I've always found that there's so much chaos in that battle that trying to position a backstabber around Sarevok is one too many things to manage, so I'm generally content to snipe at him with range, while a hasted, magic-resistant character leads he and his lackeys on a merry chase through a web spell (I also take his lackeys out with spells and ranged). I've always been amazed by players who can kill him in other ways. Especially melee. I've tried with potions galore but I always miss and he always chews right through me.
As for pacifist runs - that's mind boggling. It must take incredible patience and skill.
I never even tried a pacifist run no-reload. The key was Algernon's Cloak which has since been nerfed. Mulahey could be charmed and his kobolds and skeletons would then kill him. At least one of them then had to be charmed to lure other kobolds away from Mulahey's corpse in order to get at his symbol.
The bandit camp was easy. No fighting, just stealth.
The Cloakwood mines were mainly done by stealth, Davaeorn would be killed by charming him and letting the battle horrors do the work whilst using stealth.
The ducal palace was fought by using every buff available, using fists to fight, and occasionally using healing spells on the dukes.
The final battle was fought by going to the left hand side of the room and getting just in sight of Savarok. An arrow would trigger his response and he would come towards your position.
It was then a case of running round and round a statue, backstabbing whenever possible. Usually I killed him with my fists which was supposed to be impossible.
I only managed it once, but on one occasion he was killed by a trap or one of his cohorts after being seriously wounded by backstabbed with fists.
I don't know which killed him as I had moved my character away from him and simultaneously a lighning bolt from a trap and an arrow of explosions from one of his allies affected him. He was out of sight at the time.
My character was hurt badly by the arrow, but I had enough HP to survive.
I knew that battle was exceedingly lucky so I didn't even try to replicate it.
You have to remember that in those days there were no calls for help, so planning campaigns was much easier than it is today. Over the years the game has changed a lot
While in the Undercity I went to deal with Tamoko to ensure she wouldn't come as a surprise later. Then it was off to Ulgoth's Beard where Shandalar seemed peeved for some reason and sent Beggar off into exile. Dealing with the inhabitants of Ice Island though seemed pretty easy. Garan was a bit of an oddity in that he appeared to have a scripted, undispellable invisibility - but it didn't protect him from being webbed and skull trapped.
Back in Ulgoth's Beard they had a go at Shandalar as he teleported away, but his 80% resistance to missile damage was able to save him.
They picked up the quest for Mendas while in the village and had soon acquired some sea charts for the journey. On the island they cleared the surrounding creatures before working through the ship - generally pulling enemies down one level to find summons and traps waiting. Even with spirit armor and improved invisibility Pauper was hit easily, so straight melee was generally avoided. - the greater wolfwere was resistant even against the seeking sword, so more drastic measures were required.
- back at the camp I was concerned about using up resources as too much sleeping would be very bad for health. Hence the shamanic summons got a bit of a workout to clear some enemies on the way to the caves. Arriving at the ship traps were laid with the intention of enticing Kaishas Gan into them - but unfortunately the first werewolf reinforcements arrived quicker than expected and picked up the traps themselves.
However, I was hopeful that a series of call lightnings would still quickly do the job. Unfortunately she got very lucky with magic resistance and only a single one of the 8 lightning spells hit her. The one successful hit was relatively early on and I was hopeful of a further hit and therefore didn't try and finish her off at that stage. She regenerates very quickly and was soon back to full health, so I tried something different and produced a nymph to try to dominate her - which it did. I immediately started moving her to see if the standard werewolves could hit her, but I'd forgotten she was currently infested with insects and she went hostile again just as she bypassed the invisible blocker. A new block was set up while the nymph sacrificed herself and, once the insects dissipated I tried again - and once more domination was successful. However, not greatly to my surprise the other werewolves couldn't touch her anyway.
I tried shamanic summons, but they refused to even attack her (presumably on the grounds they couldn't hurt her). A group of 3 nymphs (all I had left) then tried a concerted call lightning attack - but all failed to make any impact . MMMs wouldn't work either, so the final throw of the dice appeared to be skull traps (which I'd been hoping to use as finishers on her when already badly wounded). A first pair of those were thrown and, amazingly, both of them went past her magic resistance and she failed her saving throw against both to go down to only 20 HPs.
The next round I only threw one skull trap for fear of killing Pauper and she resisted that, but did take some damage from magic missiles and was affected by an insect plague - but regeneration had still pushed her up to 47 HPs after those spells. Pauper was in no condition to take further damage, but the fact that the insect plague scared Kaishas meant a further 2 skull traps could be cast freely while she was running and they did partial damage to take her back to 35 HPs. A spirit lion was brought out to act as blocker as Pauper got in on the act with a successful holy smite.
That meant that a couple of successful skull traps would probably kill Kaishas (or possibly even one very high value one) - but neither hit.
The sorcerers only had one more skull trap each, but by the time they could cast that Kaishas had regenerated enough they had no chance of killing her - and that was that.
That was rather unfortunate. I think Kaishas has MR of 50% and if half of the call lightning spells had hit she would have died at least a couple of times over. However, I'd been lucky at several points earlier in the run, so I was probably due a dose of bad luck. Of course I could have prepared with significantly better spells for that encounter from both druid and cleric which might well have won the day. Also, if I'd taken the levels most of them had available it's possible that would have also made the difference. The main point though was that I wasn't expecting to need spells at all, but instead was relying on Washout's traps. If I'd sent a blocker further away to make sure no other werewolves could get close enough to trigger the traps all that agony would have been avoided .
There's this web trap near the shadows - which I actually knew about. I thought to myself "okay, you getter get back out here, put free action in your spellbook, rest and return." My next though was: "Nah, I'm way too lazy for that" - So I triggered the trap on purpose, knowing full well that I could fail the save... why did I do that? So stupid... ...This has to be among the most nonsensical risks I've ever taken in a no-reload run. I have no idea why I did that. Propably huge overconfidence and laziness, I guess.l
I'm glad I'm not the only one who does stuff like this, sometimes. I either get lazy, or I make a dumb mistake that could prove costly. Worse yet is when I combine mistakes with laziness. Latest example: I forgot to load up Edwin's spell book with protection from petrification spells before heading to the basilisk map. So I got there and realized I'd have to add the spells there and rest to make them available. But resting on that screen is creating an unnecessary risk. I should have gone back to Beregost to rest, but I was like, 'nah, I can't be bothered.' I got lucky and succeeded, but it was not an example of great play.
I don't think resting on the Basilisks map is all that bad - I do that quite often in fact. If you get ambushed you just get gnolls. Sleep is pretty effective if you do. LEAVING the basilisk's map is probably more dangerous, in fact, since there's a chance of basilisk ambush I think.
@Grond0 condolences on the end of your run. Also: whatever mod you have installed that led to that vast army of werewolves coming at you (third pic from bottom), I want to make sure I never install it.
@Grond0 condolences on the end of your run. Also: whatever mod you have installed that led to that vast army of werewolves coming at you (third pic from bottom), I want to make sure I never install it.
That's SCS improved Balduran's Isle. If you're into farming XP, but don't want to do it artificially through resting or basilisk loop etc, then that's a good location! It's relatively easy for a fighter to hold the line against the hordes who require a critical to hit, while other party members loaded down with magical ammunition chip away at them. I can't remember how many I killed when I was switching the blocking fighter round in a party of 6 dwarven fighters - but it was a lot .
We picked up Tiax before heading for the nashkel Mines. As an Avenger Jaheira was able to cast web against the Dwarven Assassins in the mine. Necklace of missiles was most effective, but to save charges Tiax backstabbed the last of them who was already quite badly hurt.
Just before they approached the band of kobolds just before the three traps Tiax decided to leave the party. (I have the happy Patch installed so thought that this wouldn't happen) To avoid losing equipment we killed Tiax.
Web and necklace of missiles was most effective against the kobolds, but the shaman used stealth and tried a stealth attack. However he was already badly hurt and he was easily disposed of.
Mulahey was held by web and again necklace of missiles was effective.
We killed a Revenant without difficulty.
Nimbul used invisibility to good effect but timidity resulted in death.
"Tristan unt Isolde" were easily dealt with Tenya's Freedom of action spell coming in most usefully.
We then helped Drizzt, killed a mixed bunch of bandits in the area and similarily dealt with some half-ogres.
Lamalha and her cronies ambushed us as we journied and paid the ultimate price.
Near the Temple we culled a number of wolves including two of the vampyric variety.
We, or rather I then went hunting Basilisks and Medusae, the rest of the party joining in when it was time to kill Mutamin.
We then went to Gullykin to recruit Alora only to discover that the mod version that I used to relocate NPCs (SCS) doesn't relocate her. I think that was the one recommended by BWS. I'll have to remember to ignore their recommendation next time.
We then journeyed all the way to the waterfall where we rescued a cat and near there ran into some ogres including an ogre-mage. He cast a fear spell on Tenya just as she cast a silence spell on him. That effectively put them both out of action which turned into a melee fight which we won in the end, but which caused us considerable injury. We therefore retired to a cave where we could rest in peace.
We are now ready to take on the gnoll stronghold again.
EDIT Took on the gnolls, freed Dynaheir, she learnt a lot of spells and slept. Now at Beregost shortly to go to FAI for a ring.
This is unreal. I'm still alive, but I've come so close to death it's mind boggling. This is the single best game of Baldur's Gate I've ever played.
I took on Bassilus and he managed to hold 3 of my 5 party members, including charname. I thought I was done.
But the initial damage I'd done (charname with a potion of fiery oil and Edwin with a wand of fire) left Bassilus wounded enough that Viconia was able to take care of business.
Later I thought I'd see how tough SCS improved spiders were. Damn, they're brutal. Look how close charname was to death, and held in a web:
Yet Edwin and Lamia, protected with mirror image, were able to kill the remaining spiders with wands of frost and fire.
Well, needless to say I'm getting the hell out of the Cloakwood. But having that Spiders Bane sword should bee a major boon, as I no longer have to fear hold person, one of the most devastating status effects imo. Interestingly, the +2 scimitar and wand of frost were missing from the cloakwood map 2. Does anyone know if this is an intentional part of the improved spiders component?
Edit: Tiax died in the spider cave, but is being resurrected...
@Wise_Grimwald medusae??? Jeeze, there are so many mods out there...
They are from the Drizzt saga and so long as you have protection from petrification, they are OK. They also give plenty of experience, so I'm not complaining.
@OrlonKronsteen Doesn't Viconia have "Freedom of Action" ? If I have a cleric, I have her cast that spell on his/herself first and then he/she can cast further freedom of action spells without fear of being held.
Obviously when it is obvious a big battle is coming up, "freedom of action" can be cast beforehand, though there is always the chance that a mage will cast "dispell magic" .
@Grond0: Condolences on the loss, but I'm really impressed you were brave enough to tackle Ice Island and even Balduran's Island in a poverty run in the first place. I deemed that area completely out of the question due to MR and regeneration, but I think you're right--if you hadn't had such incredibly, unrealistically horrible luck, you should have won that fight.
You're an inspiration, @Grond0. And I have to admit, while my run might be in BG2, you're doing a lot more to develop the metagame of a BG1 poverty run, which is the most difficult part of a trilogy poverty run and therefore much more important. Anyone can get through SoA with a Planetar, but it takes real skill to do what you've done in BG1.
@Wise_Grimwald Freedom of Action is a fourth level spell, which Viconia doesn't have yet. My characters were too under-leveled for Cloakwood with improved spiders. It's not a mistake I shall make again, and it's a miracle I managed to learn that lesson without ending my run.
Edit: I haven't even done the bandit camp yet. I installed the Tweaks component that reveals the Cloakwood, because I like to get Spider's Bane ASAP.
That is the advantage of getting Tenya. (Yet another mod) She is the same Tenya that you normally have to fight. She hasn't been changed at all, so if she joins you she is quite powerful. The problem is getting her to join you!! If you are successful you have got yourself a powerful if weak cleric. If not then either you are dead or she is dead.
Interestingly, the +2 scimitar and wand of frost were missing from the cloakwood map 2. Does anyone know if this is an intentional part of the improved spiders component?
Centeol should have the wand of frost (and use it on you - he nearly always empties it in my runs as I don't kill him quickly enough). I would expect the +2 scimitar to be there - did you perhaps retreat from the area after first arriving to dodge some teleporting phase spiders? As the scimitar is just on the ground it will disappear soon if you don't pick it up on first arrival.
Nice to hear you're having fun by the way - it's always particularly enjoyable when you push things to the limit, but don't quite topple over .
Once again, it's probably a good thing Grant Pix lost to Khark. I have no idea how to handle Angelo and his arrows of detonation. (I can handle virtually everything in that battle except for Angelo and his Discount Improved Alacrity Fireballs). Picked up eight reloads just from that.
@Grond0: Condolences on the loss, but I'm really impressed you were brave enough to tackle Ice Island and even Balduran's Island in a poverty run in the first place. I deemed that area completely out of the question due to MR and regeneration, but I think you're right--if you hadn't had such incredibly, unrealistically horrible luck, you should have won that fight.
The issue was more my mistake rather than bad luck. Because she regenerates so fast you really need to hit her with multiple spells at once and I didn't manage that as well as I should have done. If I'd blocked the werewolves arriving I could have set not just the traps for Kaishas (which could potentially have killed her, but probably wouldn't quite have done), but also arranged to hit her with a combination in one round of 7 call lightnings, 2 skull traps and a holy smite. If she survived that lot she really would have been lucky .
Once again, it's probably a good thing Grant Pix lost to Khark. I have no idea how to handle Angelo and his arrows of detonation. (I can handle virtually everything in that battle except for Angelo and his Discount Improved Alacrity Fireballs). Picked up eight reloads just from that.
If your fire resistance from green scroll, potions, equipment is being dispelled, then being spread out is probably your best bet to minimize the threat - dispelling arrows to remove his defenses then hit him with everything you got might not be bad either.
Thanks for the tip, @Corey_Russell - I'll have to remember it for next time.
I was able to beat Sarevok with a combination of using invisibility to bait out Semaj, and a potion of guaranteed saving throws to bait out the web/stinking cloud traps, plus clever use of wands of paralyzation and fire - Sarevok has good saves, but not negative ones. Angelo didn't come out until the end - and wouldn't you know it, Arrows of Detonation will also hurt the big guy.
Grant Pix clocks in at 19 reloads, all told. Far better than I've done in the past, far worse than I had hoped to do. On to Dragonspear with a clean(?) slate
We take out the cultists as we come upon them so that we don't have to fight them on the way out of the temple. Everything goes mostly fine. Ziatar gets utterly destroyed by a Greater Malison + Wand of Paralysis combo.
With our buffs still up from Ziatar, it was time for the Neothelid. I wasn't too worried about this fight since it was usually underwhelming. But Minsc gets charmed at the very start of the fight...
I try several ways to counter it: casting Domination on him, which he saves against; sticking him with an Arrow of Dispelling which does nothing; having Baeloth cast Dispel Magic which also does nothing.
Baeloth and I turn ourselves invisible while Glint and Corwin drink potions of invisibility. M'khiin is near the doorway summoning spirits. The 4 of us that are invisible regroup in one of the corners of the room. I cast Haste on us so we can evade Minsc better.
M'khiins spirits are getting trashed by Minsc, taken out in a round or less, faster than she can summon them. A Mordy's Sword approaches her and I have her stop dancing, but its taking a painfully long time to restore her movement rate back to normal. I run over to her with my double-strength Haste and pass her a potion of invisibility so she will lose aggro.
I've had it up to here with Minsc. I'm almost ready to kill him for his treachery. Baeloth and I use Wands of Summoning to replace M'khiins spirits. Then I decide I just need to disable Minsc somehow. Glint casts Doom on him to lower his saves, then I use my Wand of Paralysis. He fails the save at a combined penalty of -8 vs. wands.
M'khiin tries casting an Insect Plague just to see if it would help at all. It doesn't seem to affect the Neothelid but the insects swarm Minsc. Corwin weakens the Neothelid enough for Baeloth to finish it off with a lucky dart throw.
That wasn't a total disaster but that went way worse than I expected. Glint gained a thief level though. Moving on, I tried to bait Akanna out of her room using spirits, but the Aerial Servants attacked M'khiin instead. Should've used the Summoning Wand. We kill the Aerial Servants, then Glint sneaks into her room to backstab her, but she goes invisible after the dialogue was over. She attempts a True Sight, but I counter it by putting on the Cloak of Non-Detection. Glint detects illusions and reveals Akanna, but his stealth wears off as this happens. We pile into the room and lay down the hurting.
Next was the Shadow Aspect, which I was far more afraid of than the Neothelid. Glint disarms the trap just inside the threshold, then stealths into the room to try to Detect Illusion and reveal the Shadow Aspect. I know that it casts Mislead which is what makes the Shadow Aspect so terrifying if you don't do something about the clone. Glint apparently detects and dispels the Mislead clone, but the Shadow Aspect is still not revealing itself. His stealth wears off and the Aspect casts Darkness 15', blinding him. And a blind thief means its time to set traps.
The trap hits the Aspect, damaging it, but it backstabs Glint for 40-some damage. Glint runs back to our party and Minsc takes on the Aspect. I try to paralyze it, but it saves against the wand twice. Glint is blinded again by retreating back so he sets another trap. Soon the Aspect is dead and we claim the Fractal Blade +3, which would be good if the Short Sword of Backstabbing wasn't way better.
The illithid Darskhelin's group is made short work of. Greater Malison + Emotion: Hopelessness + Silence 15' + Insect Plague utterly debilitates them. Too bad nobody is good with Katanas in our party.
We exit the temple and leave the cave for the crusader's camp at Bridgefort.
We really need lots of XP to get to epic levels and our next step is the De'Arnise Hold. I have Tactics Spirit Trolls installed (I don't know if I intended to), which means we have to worry about Greater Command, Flame Strike, and Unholy Blight. SI: Enchantment is an absolute must for our sorcerers, because Chara can't spare a level 6 spell slot for Wondrous Recall to cover the party with Chaotic Commands; they need both level 6 slots for Conjure Fire Elemental.
Notice we have skeletons again. This time, they're from Asriel, who chose Animate Dead to compensate for the loss of Onion-san. With their help, we have the numbers to take down tough critters like trolls.
TorGal, though, is tough. He has two Yuan-ti Mages alongside him, and our elementals are vulnerable to confusion. I send in nymphs and hamadryads instead, not because they're sturdy but because they're useless.
They have MR and can shrug off some spells, but there's no way they can stand up to the trolls for more than a few moments, so I send in the rest of our summons soon after. Unfortunately, the enemy is extremely strong, and our summons' numerous immunities do not include immunity to troll weapons, which strike as +2.
We keep the party out of the way. Spell Thrust and Secret from the doorway to weaken a Yuan-ti Mage who wanders nearby, a Special Snare thrown through the doorway--nothing game-changing, but nothing committal. And committing to a plan with any chance of losing a party members is not something we can do in this run again. It's always better to hang back and keep our party members alive.
Unfortunately, our tentative probing still invites a Giant Troll into our room, but Asriel holds it off long enough for us to blind it. Asriel's Mirror Images and Stoneskins keep off the Giant Troll, but he's still vulnerable to a Spirit Troll's spells.
Another Flame Strike could be fatal, and there is really no point in keeping our party members so close to the fight that our summons are clearly not winning. We hurry away and re-cast Farsight to monitor the situation.
If you can't let a party member die, then Farsight is the perfect way to study the enemy without committing a party member to a dangerous position. Wizard Eye should work, too, but druids and clerics learn Farsight for free.
I stick around for just a moment longer, just to see if my last summons can take down another enemy. The wait gives me a precious piece of information I didn't know about before: these mages have Chain Lightning.
Retreat, rest, and use Farsight to keep the party safe.
A mage still approaches us (we didn't hang back far enough), but we can render it vulnerable to single-target spells with Secret Word and Spell Thrust. That takes a round before we can hurt it, but Frisky Bits is buffed against almost everything and Mae has been setting normal traps next to the doorway. The lingering poison damage takes out a spell.
That single disrupted spell buys us enough time to kill it.
But our summons are in shambles. We retreat and rest again; a few hamadrayads aren't going to take down TorGal.
At least, not with their melee attacks. But when we go back downstairs to face the enemy for the third time, their Entangle spells net him! It lets us hit him with single-target spells without worrying about our defenses.
Spells alone won't take him down, so I bring over our other summons and we all descend upon TorGal, still entangled. With concerted effort, we slay the troll
We re-cast Farsight and have Frisky Bits toss some Death Fog spells out to bypass the last mage's defenses. Death Fog is really unsafe, but very, very few enemies are immune to its effects.
We bring Carl back into the party just so he can grab the 45,000 quest XP from Nalia, then drop him off at the City Gates. We need to squeeze every last bit of XP out of this game that we can, if we're going to survive without Onion-san until epic levels.
We got a lot of XP from the De'Arnise Hold, but it wasn't enough to get us a single level. Summon Planetar, and therefore Onion-san's revival, is going to be much tougher to reach than that. Not believing that Death Fog would win us the fight with the Temple Ruins liches, I return to Athkatla to pursue the Unseeing Eye questline. I've decided that I'll permit the Rift Device in this run, simply because we really do need its help (and it is a quest item, after all).
On the way, I decide to take down Draug Fea and the Sewer Dwellers. I don't know if this applies for regular installs, but Call Woodland Beings in my install allows me to safely charm neutral critters before they go hostile, since neutral critters ignore summons and the enemy's attack dialogue doesn't trigger when a party member is not in sight.
We can then hit Gaius with a Nymph's Summon Insects spell (the level 3 spell, not the level 5 one) and watch Mae's traps wreck the enemy party.
Another thrown trap and some more charm spells solidify our advantage while Gais stays out of the way, crippled by spell failure. Our Spirit Snakes go right through his defenses, and the battle is won.
We're still a long way from getting Onion-san back, so we really have to scavenge every source of XP we can find. I might just have to take a leaf out of @Harpagornis's book and farm Gauths in the beholder hive below for 9,000 XP a pop, but I'm not decided.
While preparing for the Vampiric Mist ambush in the next area, I realize that with Onion-san gone, no one in the party can cast Restoration. This means that the only way to cure level drain is for us to go through the illithium questline and get the free party-wide Restoration spell after slaying Neb--and if we waste that every-so-special opportunity, we might find ourselves facing half of SoA with a character or two who cannot level up. At all.
We buff everyone with Negative Plane Protection. It's not necessary in the end, but it's still extremely important to anticipate these kinds of threats.
I enter the next area and realize something.
You know, if you give the wrong answer at the riddle bridge before the fallen temple of Amaunator, the game summons a single Skeleton Warrior to fight you. I knew they were decent sources of random scroll drops, but they might actually be a good source of XP to farm, as well.
But the bridge doesn't summon a Skeleton Warrior. It summons a Ghoul Lord. It's only a pitiful 3,000 XP, but by repeatedly clicking the bridge, we can summon a new Ghoul Lord faster than once per round.
And Ghoul Lords can't hurt our Fire Elementals. Their attacks strike as nonmagical or +1 at best; they're totally harmless. And the Ghoul Lords die in about a round as well. We can farm these guys just by sitting around under Invisibility 10' Radius while our summons kill every Ghoul Lord that appears. I don't have to micromanage anything; I can just spawn them constantly while our elementals do all the work.
But I do the math. We have to gather over 1.6 million XP per party member for a group of 4. This method is fast, but I simply don't have the patience to farm these guys until we're at epic levels.
I can, however, double our XP gathering speed for Chara and Frisky Bits by ditching Mae and Asriel in the previous area. We only need Chara's summons to kill the Ghoul Lords, after all; everyone else is extraneous. That's still too slow to get Frisky Bits to level 18, but at least it'll speed up our progress. I have to seal Mae and Asriel behind a door in the previous area so they won't wander all the way back to Frisky Bits and ask to rejoin the party, then I spend a little while clicking on the bridge to summon more Ghoul Lords.
Then I realize that I don't really need Chara there, either. All I need is Chara's summons. If I bring Chara into the party, summon all their elementals and spirit critters, and then drop them off in the previous area, I can have Frisky Bits guide their summons to the bridge and continue the loop, collecting all the XP for themself!
I do the math. It should only take about an hour of mind-numbing grinding to get Frisky Bits to level 18, and that's all we really need. I commit to the task and keep spawning Ghoul Lords for so long that Chara's spirit animals actually vanish, leaving only the longer-lasting Fire Elementals, who can't kill the Ghoul Lords quite as quickly on their own. I keep spawning them, building up a crowd of Ghoul Lords so that I can take a break for a few seconds every now and then to let our summons clear up the crowd.
Then I realize that if I spawn too many Ghoul Lords and then the elementals vanish, Frisky Bits could get stuck, and even with Improved Invisibility, their save vs. death is several points of north of zero. If those Ghoul Lords have a paralysis effect on hit like normal ghouls, and if they have a nonmagical weapon that will bypass Frisky Bits' PFMW, a lucky critical hit could spell the end of the run while Frisky Bits tried using Teleport Field to break free of the group and make their escape.
I resolve to limit the number of times I spawn Ghoul Lords to make sure there's always room for Frisky Bits to escape without having to break invisibility to cast Teleport Field. Sure enough, the Fire Elementals do vanish eventually, and Frisky Bits is able to escape when that happens.
Notice the Ghoul Lords' auras affecting Frisky Bits, showing the disease icon. I don't see any damage or stat drain, so it looks like Frisky Bits is safe, though I don't really know what that aura actually does.
I leave the area, bring Chara back into the party, rest, summon more critters, drop Chara off in the previous area, and continue the process.
The process is extremely slow, and eventually I notice that so many Ghoul Lords have died that the loot they've dropped is causing severe lag. I get rid of the lag by clicking on all of the body parts that the Golem Construction mod adds to undead critters as random drops, reducing over 200 items to a few stacks of bodies... which is saying something about the number of critter we're fighting, because I'm pretty sure the Ghoul Lords only sometimes drop those items, and the real number of dead Ghoul Lords is probably much higher.
It takes over an hour of grinding, and killing probably well over 500 Ghoul Lords, but finally we bump Frisky Bits up to just shy of 3 million XP. I decide not to get them to level 18 just by farming these guys alone, for one simple reason:
I am terrified that there is some mod, hidden deep in my install, that modifies this encounter and adds a script that checks your XP whenever you speak to the riddle bridge. And I'm worried that some diabolical modder has foreseen this exploit and decided to punish people who use it by spawning an instant-kill critter like Arkanis Gath that accuses you of cheating in a one-line dialogue box and then kills the main character out of sheer spite.
Paranoid? Yeah, maybe. I don't think any modder is quite that vindictive outside of Improved Anvil.
But I'm not willing to take the chance. Before I hit level 18, I bring in the whole party, plus Carl, and hit 3 million XP by completing the riddle.
Frisky Bits chooses Summon Planetar and Wish as their first HLA and level 9 spell pick. I also pick Stone to Flesh as their next level 6 spell pick, since we have no other way of curing petrification. We bring Onion-san back to life.
I really didn't want to resort to XP farming to get back a fallen character, but I'm not willing to put the future of the run in jeopardy because some overpowered mod enemies killed an important party member.
It's unfortunate, because I had a working plan for tackling most of SoA until those modded golems killed Onion-san, and now that plan is suboptimal due to Summon Planetar. Like in BG1, I'd prefer a lower-leveled party with evenly-divided XP than a higher-level party with uneven levels.
I said before that we'd be in the clear once we hit epic levels. But I was talking about late in SoA, when the whole party hit epic levels, and we'd have PW: Blind to land instantaneous area-effect Maze traps, three sources of Wish-rests and planetars, a Totemic Druid in Earth Elemental form, and a Cleric of Helm that could spam Holy Word to stack spell failure.
Having a single level 18 sorcerer is a huge plus. But the game isn't over yet; a single planetar is not going to guarantee success in every fight.
Case in point: Death Ray.
And with an unbalanced party, I run the risk of underestimating the importance of my lower-level characters and growing too reliant on the planetar to win fights. If I don't make use of my other resources, I could still get myself killed.
I prepare for the Unseeing Eye, whom I have resolved to kill with the Rift Device. I got a lucky Wish-rest that let me summon two planetars, plus a reminder that Wish can give us items.
Going back to the original Insane Solo Poverty run of BG2, items are acceptable if you create them yourself, so Wish-based potions and wands are legal.
Onion-san, wrapped in numerous buffs, scurries in to hit the Unseeing Eye with the Rift Device. The moment it hits, she scurries back, and Chara casts Farsight to make sure we can keep an eye on the combat without leaving any party members within enemy range.
This allows us to order our planetars to use Flame Strike, expediting the fight. Notice the Insect Plague designed to frustrate the Unseeing Eye's mage spells.
On the way out, I decide to see how many wands and potions I can summon before I run out of Wish spells. Project Image clones can spawn items via Wish as well; you just need to kill them and the items they generate will fall to the ground. Note that, because no one has high lore or the Identify spell, we can only identify wands by getting the Wish option to boost all stats by 25, to get INT- and WIS-based lore bonuses.
I keep up the process for an extremely long time. Even though Frisky Bits has one fewer spell slot per spell level due to being a Dragon Disciple, they still manage to Wish-rest over and over again via Project Image. Only after numerous cycle do they finally run out of level 7 spells. And when I use the WoL trick on their own Wish spells, we end up landing yet another Wish-rest.
I decide to cut the cycle short; I don't want to spend another 15 minutes waiting for it to end. We don't need the potions or wands anyway, and I'm not sure I even want to use the WoL in this run. I've already explored it very thoroughly. I'll probably just let those items waste away in our inventory (though I do plan on using Alchemy to generate usable potions once Mae hits epic levels and gets her thief HLAs).
We report to High Watcher Oisig and our other sorcerers gain a level each, finally netting us the Protection from Acid spell that we'll need to safely use Death Fog (not to mention fight Draconis). This is what our party looks like now:
I think I'll abstain from side quests, just like I did in the BG1 run after bumping Onion-san up to level 9 so we could resurrect Chara and Carl. We've gathered about enough optional XP, I think.
Once at Bridgefort, we clear out the goblin cave for the Circlet of Lost Souls. We go inside the fort and give Neera all the components for her potion that we have, including the Planetar feather.
I have Jegg make us several items. After each item, we rest and I send Glint to seed the crusader camp with traps. He's one level away from being able to inflict poison with them, but that's not for another 186k XP. That is unfortunate since I set the poison traps specifically to heavily wound or kill the casters as the siege starts.
After taking care of the sidequests in Bridgefort, we leave to tell the Flaming Fist that we're ready to attack but run into a tribe of goblins. Baeloth and I roast them with Fireball wand charges, then go down into the big hole and write down Lower Resistance into my spellbook.
Its time for the siege. We let the Flaming Fist take the lead as we buff ourselves, then jump into the fray. M'khiin starts us off with an Insect Plague to shut down Oloneiros. Baeloth debuffs the enemy with Greater Malison.
Oloneiros falls and we gain ground. I cast Chaos which disables half of their forces.
I notice that we're not gaining ground after the Chaos casting and then see that Minsc has been stunned somehow. Glint is in the middle of casting Chant so I have to wait for him to finish before casting Remove Paralysis. I cast Emotion: Hopelessness on the group beating up Minsc and stun some of them. Minsc is getting a severe beatdown, but Glint manages to free Minsc just before he dies. Minsc quaffs an extra healing potion and gets back to fighting.
With the crusaders besieging Bridgefort routed, we destroy their Boareskyr Bridge defense force with another Insect Plague and normal attacks.
With that, the Siege of Bridgefort is over and Khalid thankfully survives. At the Coalition Camp, I trade Corwin for Khalid, dump Jaheira off at the Bloodbark grove, and return to the camp to begin the sidequest-hell that occurs there. After finishing the ones that can be done just within the camp, I set back out to the Bloodbark Grove. I avoid Jaheira as we go down the stairs of the ruined house there and fight the vampire and its wolves. Back outside, Jaheira gives up on talking to me. Phew.
Up north, we fight a group of burning skeletons. I think the Greater Basilisk will leave us alone, but it comes out from the fog of war. This could be bad...
But I've got potions of invulnerability and magic protection to help if it ever starts using gaze attacks and Minsc and Khalid's auras are clear. I have M'khiin attempt to charm it with Algernon's cloak but it fails, so I try again with the Nymph Cloak and it takes this time.
The basilisk doesn't seem to help us at all. Not once did I ever see it use a gaze attack. Instead of risking petrification by killing it while its charmed, I leave it alone since Onoroth won't ask for my help in putting it down. We leave for Dead Man's Pass, and a fairly routine fight with spiders goes awry when Glint's stealth wears off at the worst possible time. He gets tangled in a web shot and eaten alive, which makes him the second casualty of this run. We beat the spiders and M'hkiin raises him from the dead and we go on like nothing happened, though its a powerful reminder that overconfidence is the most insidious killer.
The rest of Dead Man's Pass is cleared and we move on, but get ambushed by the Shadowy Figure. Baeloth and I stay in the back while Glint sets up traps around us to deter anyone from getting close to us. M'khiin summons spirits and Khalid and Minsc charge ahead to bait out the Shadowy Figure. I actually try using the Wand of Paralysis on the Shadowy Figure before the fight starts and then retreat behind our traps. He saves against it. The mercenaries also get too close to the traps intended for the Shadowy Figure and take damage. Having lost sight of him, I continuously pause and unpause the game, trying to figure out who he's going to attack: Me or Baeloth.
After getting backstabbed, Baeloth runs away and drinks an extra-healing potion. Shadowy Figure goes invisible. The dead magic zone dispels his invisibility and Baeloth and I both target him with Scorcher charges from our wands. Shadowy Figure disappears again via Hide in Plain Sight but its too late for him. Quickslot items will track you no matter where you are, no matter how you hide. He gets roasted.
Next update we take on the Underground River area. It's about at this point in SoD where I just wish the slog would be over with.
It still burns. This long itch along my side is only eased by Jaheira's pasty concoctions for so long. The most efficacious of healing magics seem helpless against it, perhaps it is only half physical, and half the memory of dragonfire. It is odd but the pain eases if I lay the dull red bellyscale across the burns. Khalid concurs but Ajantis has declined to try the experiment. His fear of corruption, perhaps it is a strength, perhaps it is a weakness. Ever since those lunatic Tormites tried to slay us at the Friendly Arm he has been quieter, but he looks long at me across the campfire. Khalid too has been quiet since the Bandit Camp. Perhaps he remembers the men who span and flared into light as he burned them with the wand of fire. We are the living, and they and the dragon are the dead.
Whatever the perils of the Cloakwood it is good to rest in the open air. The spiders die when they are killed, and they menace us less now that their strange Queen has fallen. Isra's fine new blade still hums quietly from time to time, but it has ceased to sing and chitter to itself as their lairs grow distant. Yes, this second sky of green is superior by far to that strange and lonely tower of Durlag. The mad ghastly creatures there I could not touch, their minds are too broken and confused. That odd prowling ghost, I still see its confused face as it flitted between floors hurling sorrowful lightning. Even Xan was cheerful when we turned from that dark ruin. He saw his death in that place he said once, as he stretched a long arm and pointed out another of Durlag's 'mousetraps'.
Tonight I must inspect those documents again. This Daeveron, this Tazok, they seem to be pieces on the board set out by the Iron Throne. At the bottom of this there will be blood, and coins of course. Some small minded fool who thought when they overturned the applecart they would be the one to grab something for themselves while so many things of worth are trampled into the mud with the blood.
[Party are at around 70,000 XP, heading toward the mines. No particular scares recently!]
The beginning of a short session today saw Grisol recovering from being stoned at the end of the previous session and taking a bit of revenge on a final basilisk.
Shortly after that we decided it was about time to hit the Nashkel Mine and cruised down to find Mulahey. Neither of us had much in the way of helpful special abilities here and, as usual, we didn't use any defensive buffs. The expectation was that after Melody did a stealth attack that Mulahey would move up the cave to Grisol - but instead he immediately cast rigid thinking on Melody. Grisol tried to protect Melody by dragging opponents back towards Mulahey and successfully distracted them by getting himself held.
Fortunately his dwarvish HPs held out long enough that Melody recovered her senses soon after the remaining enemies returned to her and immediately nipped round a corner to hide before picking them off.
After visiting the temple the duo managed to get the scoring shot against Nimbul (a bit lucky there as both a guard and Rasaad also hit at almost the same time). Tranzig then provided only a brief delay on the way to the Bandit Camp. The bandit archers there did quite a bit of damage to Grisol, so when Taurgosz appeared the only realistic option was to run him round while filling him full of missiles - which didn't take long.
Inside the tent Melody sneaked to the back to take out Hakt, while Grisol entered openly to try and shut Venkt down. The mage was very fortunate there - managing to successfully cast mirror image, horror and 2 acid arrows before spell failure finally hit him. Shortly after that though he fell and Britik lasted only moments longer.
After doing minimal work on the way through the Cloakwood it was time to face Drasus & co. They spotted us a bit quicker than expected and Grisol again took severe damage while killing the mages. Down to 14 HPs with a quick-footed opponent on his heels, Grisol bravely chose to take Drasus for a run to give Melody a chance to sort things out. She quickly used stealth to dump Genthore before going in pursuit wondering if she was going to find a dead body. However, she soon spotted Grisol returning, little dwarvish legs going like the clappers. She fitted some cold arrows to her bow and started shooting while Gate70 showed off by making Grisol run Drasus round in small circles until he collapsed from exhaustion.
Genthore then posed no problem and that provided a good point to save.
We headed for the woods to the East of the FAI. We fought the Black Talon Elite and were injured so we slept. This resulted in an ambush by hordes of bandits. We killed them and again tried to sleep only to be ambushed again. Once more we defeated them and tried to sleep. This time we were successful.
We talked to some other bandits and were taken to the bandit camp where we caused Tazok to allow us to join his band.
We killed another bunch of assassins, had a sleep and took on the bandit camp. Web and fireballs were successful whilst Isra watched our rear. She did an excellent job allowing the rest of us to deal with the bandits and Chili who occasionally broke free. They were joined by more powerful leaders including a mage and powerful fighters.
Extra webs were called for as well as command and sleep. These were enough to allow more fireballs to be cast. To deal with the last of that wave of the enemy, we had to use a wand of fireballs twice. At that point we were able to sleep and with our spells refreshed we were able to clear the area of the remaining bandits.
I made the mistake of taking the paperwork from the chest before dealing with Deke and Tranzig. Lost experience and goodies there!
We went to the FAI and fought some good guys who thought we were bad guys. Sadly we were forced to kill them.
We then headed south and killed Davenport and many other assassins. Dynaheir cast invisibility upon me with the result that I could direct her web spells and fireballs acurately. Some of them did escape from web, but command held them until they were webbed again.
Since the easy parts of SoA were over for Miluiel's team, I decided to dip in just a bit in the tougher quests. I first went into Mekrath's lair to try to have a go against three Yuan-ti mages. Kivan and Alora were firing elemental arrows, Jaheira and Gavin were trying to blind them (with Sunray and False Dawn) and finally Xan and Miluiel were debuffing the mages. All in all, that fight went smoothly; I only took minor damage from them while being in full control all the time. Once the mages were dead, I finished their summons to clean the room.
However, after a some of you advised me to wait before completing the Planar Prison quest, I decided not to pursue further and started the Unseeing Eye quest instead. The only significant fight here was the group of beholders after the bridge. This was more complicated. I decided to rely on summons and range power, but my summons were neutralized fast and we were debuffed quite easily by the beholders. Plus, the shadows not too far off decided to join the fray, which complicated things further, even if they're not much of a threat by themselves. We managed to kill a first beholder fast enough, but we had to retreat sonner than expected. Xan soon found himself disabled, but survived because of his Contingency : Improved Invisibility. After a bit of potshotting, we slowly wore them down. They killed Alora and Kivan, the latter being more problematic because he's my main source of damage. I revived Kivan with a charge of the Rod of Resurrection - which doesn't have finite charges in IR, but is usable twive a day instead, so I didn't feel bad using it. He picked up his stuff and fired back at range again with Jaheira : they slew the rest of the group.
Since the fight was kinda rough, I decided to wait before completing that quest too. It was time to deal with minor stuff : sir Sarles Illitium, the ghost child in the Graveyard, the dude who was buried alive, etc... That netted a few extra xp, which is always welcome. Equipment was also improved : the IMoD and Improved Kitthix were forged.
Next step : Bodhi's lair. It wasn't very tough for us. Fully buffed, Gavin can transform into a magnificient undead killer. With Divine Power, DUHM, Boon of Lathander and Haste, were looking at a dude who's swinging the IMoD at 4 APR with sub-zero THAC0. He, Miluiel (because of the nice dagger she found in the last update), Jaheira and two Fire Elementals were dishing a good 16 APR hasted by Improved Haste from Xan. Note that IH in SR is a group Haste that add only 1 APR to every ally. Level 3 Haste is only single target in SR. I think that's very good balance wise : no more fighter at 10 APR with Critical Strike with SR !
So, we laid waste of all the vampires before tackling Tanova. She can prove to be problematic, but she wasn't too bad here. We put a bunch of pressure on her with summons and melee while Xan and Miluiel were debuffing. Serioulsy, that's all they do in this team : outside of a few Magic Missiles and Melf's Acid Arrows, they don't have any offensive spells memorized. CC and debuffing : that's their role. When we managed to hit Tanova with a few Breach, Kivan slew her with +3 arrows.
Lassal can also be somewhat of a pain in the butt, mainly when he decide to shapchange into an unselectable bat to regenerate, but he didn't has time against us : we trashed him fast.
Against Bodhi herself, I use the most simple strategy you can ever think : I have Xan cast PfMW as soon as she attacks, lure her away from her goons and wait 'til she's bored enough to go away.
Brynnlaw, here we come ! Yesterday, before calling it a day, I decided to attack Perth the Adept. He can be a real danger, because he can cast really high level magic and summon things like Balor among other things. I saw that fight as a test against higher level of opposition. I'm happy to say that I totally managed to control him. We buffed quite a lot, has Alora set a few traps near the entrance (which didn't even trigger during the fight), spread across the room and went for the kill. He precasted a Simulacrum : Alora and Kivan were on duty to kill it. Xan on the other hand casted in order : True Seeing, Spell Thrust (to take down Spell Shield), Pierce Magic, Breach. Meanwhile, Miluiel casted Spell Thrust at him too to take down his Spell Deflection. He still had Globe of Invulnerability on, but since I didn't plan to kill him with spell damage, I simply casted Breach on him. We slipped enough damage to kill him before his next Contingency fired up. Nice.
We got the Book of Infinite Spell with this fight. I was hoping for two things from it : either Spell Turning or True Seeing. I ripped the first page off and got True Seeing right away !
That's a very good news, because it will free up a level 6 spell slot for Miluiel. Even if she's level 17 right now, she only has one level 6 slot, so that's all the more important. Don't forget also that True Seeing function differently in SR : True Seeing effect is a not party wide effect, it only works for the caster of the spell. Consequently, Miluiel will become an even better debuffer because of that book. I actually think it's better to have True Seeing than Spell Turning in my setup.
We make it to the gates of the underground river. Our assault seems to be going fine until 2 crusader mages teleport in and start casting spells.
Glint, M'khiin, and Khalid are confused and Khalid is also panicked. Baeloth casts Dispel Magic to try to dispel the confusion but it only works on M'khiin, though it tears down one of the mage's buffs in the process. I roast him with a scorcher charge. The other mage is dealt with using a combo of Detect Invisibility and Spell Thrust, though I launch a bullet into his skull so the Spell Thrust didn't matter. We kill Rigah and Julanne because I don't want to fight them during the siege of Dragonspear and also because Rigah's awesome sword imports into BG2, wielded by Tazok.
The underground river's sidequests are taken care of. Strunk is taken out so we don't have to fight water elementals during the siege. M'hkiin chooses the path of the shaman and we fight the cabal of necromancers. Glint backstabs Kherriun to break Halatathlaer's soul jar. Baeloth and I both follow up with Scorcher charges to finish her off.
The mages are thrown into a panic now that Halatathlaer is free, making it easy to mop them up.
Glint sets up a bunch of traps around Zhadroth and kills him.
We enter the inner warrens and set Slug free. The ogres haul us up into Dragonspear's basement. I haste all of us as we deal with Belben's group. Glint sneaks past Hephernaan's bunch and free Daeros Dragonspear, but the mages are descending down upon us quickly. He unlocks and untraps the chests, giving me access to Spell Immunity and Spell Shield. M'khiin runs over and poisons the food, while Glint tosses Daeros' Full Plate along the ground with quickloot so we can escape down the ogre elevator.
I'm not going to fight everyone in the basement considering how little incentive there is to do so besides potions and XP, both of which we are chock full of. We escape and run back to Gurgle and Floss, cloaking ourselves with Invisibility 10' so we don't have to fight anyone exiting the underground river. We make it to Dragonspear Castle and save Skie. We do a couple of easy sidequests for fast XP and return to the Coalition Camp to put an end to the sidequest hell. We meet Caelar at the negotiations in Dead Man's pass. Baeloth and M'khiin level up as a result. It's time for the sieges.
Back at the camp, the invasions go well. I choose Archers, Wizard Slayers, and Mages in that order. The last fight is particularly delicious: a Greater Malison + Chaos + Silence 15' combo affects the ENTIRE force, and two hefty sections of them are paralyzed by our warmages. The last battle against Grimgor and co. is trivialized again by a Greater Malison + Chaos combo. We'd be toast too if we had to save vs. spell at -10 or be confused.
Same thing happens at the siege of Dragonspear: Greater Malison + Chaos disables most of the crusaders and we tear right through them.
I free the trolls though they don't seem to help much.
Next we beat the elite crusaders guarding the threshold of Dragonspear. Then Ashatiel wants to 1v1 me, which I accept. Not even a second later, she turns on us and orders her goons to kill us all. I'm not sure how this happened because I wasn't even invisible.
I retreat to the lane leading away from the main threshold of the castle and we fight our way to the back. All of us are fatigued from 2 Haste castings. Baeloth casts yet another Greater Malison and I follow up with a Chaos scroll with a Silence 15' from Glint to get all those clerics to stop casting spells, disabling at least 85% of Ashatiel's men, including Ashatiel herself.
We keep fighting through the crusaders and Glint and I are running out of spells. These named goons in the back are taken care of, starting with the super-annoying backstabbing thief who killed me one time in a previous game. Again, Baeloth and I perform the Greater Malison + Chaos combo and it disables the spellcasters, while the warriors remain strangely unaffected. The fight is much easier when they aren't casting spells.
With the crusader's defenses ruined, we go back to the main entrance and climb the dragon's skeleton inside the castle. Time to go to hell.
Comments
Previous posts:
Part II: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/916040/#Comment_916040
Part III: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/916127/#Comment_916127
Part IV: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/916767/#Comment_916767
Part V: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/917078/#Comment_917078
I'm not going to go into much detail regarding early SoA, as most fights are fairly simple once you have played vanilla SoA as much as I have and you have divine magic (the awesome protection of remove fear, death ward and chaotic commands plus the fighting ability of skeletons/aerial servants) at your command. If anything interesting happens or anything goes wrong, however, there will be more of an explanation.
I completed all of the shorter, not stronghold-related quests in the city with relative ease, gaining access to my first couple of aerial servants. The only interesting thing that happened here was when I decided to fight Tarnor the Hatchetman and his party: I traded summons for foes one for one, pretty much isolating the mage, Gaius:
However, before he went down, he managed to cast remove magic, stripping me of all my buffs. His next spell was hold person, and I had nothing to protect myself - so I had to rely on luck. Iloïnen made her saving throw with ease, so nothing bad ended up happening. Still, I shouldn't have put myself into that situation to begin with.
The next major mistake occured while getting the key from Ghaal in the old tunnels (just to get access to the lich, I didn't really want to do the cult of the eyeless quest yet). There's this web trap near the shadows - which I actually knew about. I thought to myself "okay, you better get back out here, put free action in your spellbook, rest and return." My next thought was: "Nah, I'm way too lazy for that" - So I triggered the trap on purpose, knowing full well that I could fail the save... why did I do that? So stupid...
Of course, I did end up failing the save, but the shadows got webbed themselves, so only the ettercaps were attacking - and thanks to the amulet I got from the Lathander temple for the Sir Sarles quest, my save versus death was good enough so that I couldn't get poisoned at all - I tried to escape the web, but the next save was a failure once again (note that I could've used an invulnerability potion to improve my chances drastically at any point!). I ended up barely making it out of there the next round:
This has to be among the most nonsensical risks I've ever taken in a no-reload run. I have no idea why I did that. Propably huge overconfidence and laziness, I guess.
Anyway, I used a protection from undead scroll to take out three liches in the city and started with the first stronghold quests: The druid grove, the Mae'Var questline, the De'Arnise keep (where I got myself the FoA +3) and the Umar Hills. In the temple ruins, I had my next noteworthy encounter - because I didn't expect to be high level enough to actually meet liches down there. I once again forgot about my protection from undead scrolls, so I fought them the normal way, but I was vastly underprepared for the first one - I ended up losing all of my summons and getting a stone to flesh spell thrown at me - one of the few things that can instantly end a run even with cleric buffs going. My aura was clear, and I activated a protection from petrification scroll:
It was activated in time (though it was extremely close), and once I got rid of the final greater mummy by kiting it through the lava, I summoned more skeleton warriors to kill this lich:
The next one stood less of a chance, because at this point, I was already prepared.
I got my first HLA after killing the Shade Lord (summon deva - after that, I'm making my way to smite) and completed all the ranger stronghold quests to get my hand on Cerberus. At this point, I had also bought any potentially useful items (and I recharged a wand of the heavens, just in case I'd need it). My last action for now was defeating Bodhi and killing Kangaxx with protection from magic and the iMoD +2.
Next time, I plan to go for the astral prison, the planar sphere, the cult of the eyeless and the windspear hills dungeon.
Enuhal
1st report
2nd report
3rd report
Ice island continued
My last report said to be continued, because we aren’t done yet on the Ice Island. Things take a much grimmer turn after a fairly promising start. The events that follow illustrate why I consider myself a decent player but definitely not a great one.
Fighting three high level wizards (Andris, Marcellus, and Beyn) is asking for trouble we reckon, so we decide to use Algernon’s cloak. Works fine with Beyn.
Somehow we forget to cast Invisibility on Shar-Teel before resting (= mistake number 1), and we only realize after Andris starts talking to us. Once done, he cast a Chaos at Shar-Teel, but she enrages. Marcellus casts a Chromatic Orb which deals 20 acid damage but our Barbarian saves against the death effect. Shar-Teel finds her way back to her companions and has Kain cast Invisibility on her. He’s barely done when Andris comes teleporting in. Being the only visible character, unbuffed and with a clouded aura, all he can do is run. Andris follows and casts Lightning Bolt. Kain is wearing Talos’s Gift so he quaffs a potion of insulation to escape unscathed.
We get everyone raised at the FAI and return to Ulgoth’s Beard. Tiax boosts his thieving skills with brawling hands + master thievery + perception + DUHM and pickpockets the Kneecapper and some potions off Hurgan, and some nice scrolls from Shandalar. That’s the least he should give us for our trouble.
Bandits, finally…
There aren’t many areas or quests left. There’s a couple of quests and talks that will raise our reputation but we’re not sure if or when we should do those. Maybe by the end of the game? How does reputation work in SoD? Is reputation an issue for the hero of Baldur's Gate? I really don’t want any bounty hunters or law enforcers after my party in SoD if we make it there.
Anyway, we travel to Larswood, where we have Corsone bring Osmadi down to near death before Edwin finishes the latter with a Magic Missile. Our undead then take care of Corsone.
We infiltrate the bandit camp with Raiken because we want to loot the camp and we’re not sure if we’ll be able to later.
There’s a spot in Tazok’s tent where Raemon can’t see one (right below the second Chill banner). Viconia takes it to summon three undead, then casts Sanctuary and moves over for Tiax to summon his minions as well. The other companions join him, and he starts a casting of PfE 10’ Radius. However it’s a bit of cramped space. One of the companions or summons pushes him away, which reveals him to Raemon and triggers the battle well before we’re ready for it.
Our undead occupy most of the archers most of the time. But Raemon, Britik (after effortlessly defeating our ghast), and Venkt all focus on us. Venkt casts a Hold Person at Shar-Teel, so she enrages and gets away from her companions. Edwin Malisons many of our foes, paving the way for a Confusion by Viconia. Venkt then annoyingly casts Remove Magic, which leaves Edwin fully exposed. One arrow by Raemon disrupts the red wizard's casting of Stoneskin (he had the belt of antipode on, so only missile damage) before a Magic Missile by Venkt kills him.
Cloakwood
Shar-Teel reached level 7 as a Barbarian right before the battle at the Bandit Camp. We let her fight that battle as a Barbarian but dual her into Thief right after that. (Possible in my install thanks to Anthology Tweaks.) While it is a bit early still to think of Siege of Dragonspear, we do this specifically with that game in mind. I’d like to use @elminster’s Shar-Teel for SoD mod so that we can keep an all evil party in SoD too, with Baeloth and Dorn taking the places of Tiax and Kagain, and with Shar-Teel taking over Tiax’s thieving work.
I kind of mess up by giving her 20 points in Detect lllusions that were meant to go to stealth, so we decide that she’ll get minimal points in open locks and detect traps (just enough to be reliable with potions), and that stealth and illusions will be her forte. She picks proficiencies in scimitars (for Icingdeath) and short bows.
We travel invisibly at all times, wary of Molkar’s and Lamalha’s ambushes, but make it to the 4th area without their ambushes. We defeat Seniyad and his friends with our undead minions, and we kill all the cave bears, wolves, spiders and ettercaps we encounter, including those in ambushes, in order to level Shar-Teel up as far as possible. We leave the druid community alone, killing only Peter and his pet wyverns thanks to a nice Malison + Hold Person by Edwin, but are thorough once more in the 4th area. With Shar-Teel on a break from fighting, Kagain has been doing the hard work, be it from behind invisible walls or with kiting. It’s just enough to bring Shar-Teel to Thief level 5 before we move on to the Mines.
The party:
Kain, level 8 Skald, 17 kills (Battle Horror)
Kagain, level 7 Dwarven Defender, 150 kills (Greater Doppelganger), 0 deaths
Shar-Teel, level (7 Barbarian)/5 Thief, 259 kills (Greater Basilisk), 5 deaths
Tiax, level 5/6 Strifeleader of Cyric/Thief, 23 kills (Doomsayer), 2 deaths
Viconia, level 6 Nightcloak of Shar, 18 kills (Ankheg), 2 deaths
Edwin, level 6 Conjurer, 2 kills (Osmadi), 2 deaths
Edit: corrected some typos
The bandit camp was easy. No fighting, just stealth.
The Cloakwood mines were mainly done by stealth, Davaeorn would be killed by charming him and letting the battle horrors do the work whilst using stealth.
The ducal palace was fought by using every buff available, using fists to fight, and occasionally using healing spells on the dukes.
The final battle was fought by going to the left hand side of the room and getting just in sight of Savarok. An arrow would trigger his response and he would come towards your position.
It was then a case of running round and round a statue, backstabbing whenever possible. Usually I killed him with my fists which was supposed to be impossible.
I only managed it once, but on one occasion he was killed by a trap or one of his cohorts after being seriously wounded by backstabbed with fists.
I don't know which killed him as I had moved my character away from him and simultaneously a lighning bolt from a trap and an arrow of explosions from one of his allies affected him. He was out of sight at the time.
My character was hurt badly by the arrow, but I had enough HP to survive.
I knew that battle was exceedingly lucky so I didn't even try to replicate it.
You have to remember that in those days there were no calls for help, so planning campaigns was much easier than it is today. Over the years the game has changed a lot
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/917290/#Comment_917290
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/917550/#Comment_917550
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/917866/#Comment_917866
While in the Undercity I went to deal with Tamoko to ensure she wouldn't come as a surprise later. Then it was off to Ulgoth's Beard where Shandalar seemed peeved for some reason and sent Beggar off into exile. Dealing with the inhabitants of Ice Island though seemed pretty easy. Garan was a bit of an oddity in that he appeared to have a scripted, undispellable invisibility - but it didn't protect him from being webbed and skull trapped.
Back in Ulgoth's Beard they had a go at Shandalar as he teleported away, but his 80% resistance to missile damage was able to save him.
They picked up the quest for Mendas while in the village and had soon acquired some sea charts for the journey. On the island they cleared the surrounding creatures before working through the ship - generally pulling enemies down one level to find summons and traps waiting. Even with spirit armor and improved invisibility Pauper was hit easily, so straight melee was generally avoided.
- the greater wolfwere was resistant even against the seeking sword, so more drastic measures were required.
- back at the camp I was concerned about using up resources as too much sleeping would be very bad for health. Hence the shamanic summons got a bit of a workout to clear some enemies on the way to the caves. Arriving at the ship traps were laid with the intention of enticing Kaishas Gan into them - but unfortunately the first werewolf reinforcements arrived quicker than expected and picked up the traps themselves.
I tried shamanic summons, but they refused to even attack her (presumably on the grounds they couldn't hurt her). A group of 3 nymphs (all I had left) then tried a concerted call lightning attack - but all failed to make any impact
That was rather unfortunate. I think Kaishas has MR of 50% and if half of the call lightning spells had hit she would have died at least a couple of times over. However, I'd been lucky at several points earlier in the run, so I was probably due a dose of bad luck. Of course I could have prepared with significantly better spells for that encounter from both druid and cleric which might well have won the day. Also, if I'd taken the levels most of them had available it's possible that would have also made the difference. The main point though was that I wasn't expecting to need spells at all, but instead was relying on Washout's traps. If I'd sent a blocker further away to make sure no other werewolves could get close enough to trigger the traps all that agony would have been avoided
Journal of Hrothgara
We picked up Tiax before heading for the nashkel Mines.As an Avenger Jaheira was able to cast web against the Dwarven Assassins in the mine.
Necklace of missiles was most effective, but to save charges Tiax backstabbed the last of them who was already quite badly hurt.
Just before they approached the band of kobolds just before the three traps Tiax decided to leave the party. (I have the happy Patch installed so thought that this wouldn't happen) To avoid losing equipment we killed Tiax.
Web and necklace of missiles was most effective against the kobolds, but the shaman used stealth and tried a stealth attack. However he was already badly hurt and he was easily disposed of.
Mulahey was held by web and again necklace of missiles was effective.
We killed a Revenant without difficulty.
Nimbul used invisibility to good effect but timidity resulted in death.
"Tristan unt Isolde" were easily dealt with Tenya's Freedom of action spell coming in most usefully.
We then helped Drizzt, killed a mixed bunch of bandits in the area and similarily dealt with some half-ogres.
Lamalha and her cronies ambushed us as we journied and paid the ultimate price.
Near the Temple we culled a number of wolves including two of the vampyric variety.
We, or rather I then went hunting Basilisks and Medusae, the rest of the party joining in when it was time to kill Mutamin.
We then went to Gullykin to recruit Alora only to discover that the mod version that I used to relocate NPCs (SCS) doesn't relocate her.
We then journeyed all the way to the waterfall where we rescued a cat and near there ran into some ogres including an ogre-mage. He cast a fear spell on Tenya just as she cast a silence spell on him. That effectively put them both out of action which turned into a melee fight which we won in the end, but which caused us considerable injury. We therefore retired to a cave where we could rest in peace.
We are now ready to take on the gnoll stronghold again.
EDIT
Took on the gnolls, freed Dynaheir, she learnt a lot of spells and slept. Now at Beregost shortly to go to FAI for a ring.
Blackguard SCS Run #2 - Part 5
This is unreal. I'm still alive, but I've come so close to death it's mind boggling. This is the single best game of Baldur's Gate I've ever played.I took on Bassilus and he managed to hold 3 of my 5 party members, including charname. I thought I was done.
But the initial damage I'd done (charname with a potion of fiery oil and Edwin with a wand of fire) left Bassilus wounded enough that Viconia was able to take care of business.
Later I thought I'd see how tough SCS improved spiders were. Damn, they're brutal. Look how close charname was to death, and held in a web:
Yet Edwin and Lamia, protected with mirror image, were able to kill the remaining spiders with wands of frost and fire.
Well, needless to say I'm getting the hell out of the Cloakwood. But having that Spiders Bane sword should bee a major boon, as I no longer have to fear hold person, one of the most devastating status effects imo. Interestingly, the +2 scimitar and wand of frost were missing from the cloakwood map 2. Does anyone know if this is an intentional part of the improved spiders component?
Edit: Tiax died in the spider cave, but is being resurrected...
@OrlonKronsteen Doesn't Viconia have "Freedom of Action" ? If I have a cleric, I have her cast that spell on his/herself first and then he/she can cast further freedom of action spells without fear of being held.
Obviously when it is obvious a big battle is coming up, "freedom of action" can be cast beforehand, though there is always the chance that a mage will cast "dispell magic"
You're an inspiration, @Grond0. And I have to admit, while my run might be in BG2, you're doing a lot more to develop the metagame of a BG1 poverty run, which is the most difficult part of a trilogy poverty run and therefore much more important. Anyone can get through SoA with a Planetar, but it takes real skill to do what you've done in BG1.
Edit: I haven't even done the bandit camp yet. I installed the Tweaks component that reveals the Cloakwood, because I like to get Spider's Bane ASAP.
Nice to hear you're having fun by the way - it's always particularly enjoyable when you push things to the limit, but don't quite topple over
I was able to beat Sarevok with a combination of using invisibility to bait out Semaj, and a potion of guaranteed saving throws to bait out the web/stinking cloud traps, plus clever use of wands of paralyzation and fire - Sarevok has good saves, but not negative ones. Angelo didn't come out until the end - and wouldn't you know it, Arrows of Detonation will also hurt the big guy.
Grant Pix clocks in at 19 reloads, all told. Far better than I've done in the past, far worse than I had hoped to do. On to Dragonspear with a clean(?) slate
Brunash "HUGE GUTS" the Halfling Enchanter!
BG1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9SoD: 1, 2
We take out the cultists as we come upon them so that we don't have to fight them on the way out of the temple. Everything goes mostly fine. Ziatar gets utterly destroyed by a Greater Malison + Wand of Paralysis combo.
With our buffs still up from Ziatar, it was time for the Neothelid. I wasn't too worried about this fight since it was usually underwhelming. But Minsc gets charmed at the very start of the fight...
I try several ways to counter it: casting Domination on him, which he saves against; sticking him with an Arrow of Dispelling which does nothing; having Baeloth cast Dispel Magic which also does nothing.
Baeloth and I turn ourselves invisible while Glint and Corwin drink potions of invisibility. M'khiin is near the doorway summoning spirits. The 4 of us that are invisible regroup in one of the corners of the room. I cast Haste on us so we can evade Minsc better.
M'khiins spirits are getting trashed by Minsc, taken out in a round or less, faster than she can summon them. A Mordy's Sword approaches her and I have her stop dancing, but its taking a painfully long time to restore her movement rate back to normal. I run over to her with my double-strength Haste and pass her a potion of invisibility so she will lose aggro.
I've had it up to here with Minsc. I'm almost ready to kill him for his treachery. Baeloth and I use Wands of Summoning to replace M'khiins spirits. Then I decide I just need to disable Minsc somehow. Glint casts Doom on him to lower his saves, then I use my Wand of Paralysis. He fails the save at a combined penalty of -8 vs. wands.
M'khiin tries casting an Insect Plague just to see if it would help at all. It doesn't seem to affect the Neothelid but the insects swarm Minsc. Corwin weakens the Neothelid enough for Baeloth to finish it off with a lucky dart throw.
That wasn't a total disaster but that went way worse than I expected. Glint gained a thief level though. Moving on, I tried to bait Akanna out of her room using spirits, but the Aerial Servants attacked M'khiin instead. Should've used the Summoning Wand. We kill the Aerial Servants, then Glint sneaks into her room to backstab her, but she goes invisible after the dialogue was over. She attempts a True Sight, but I counter it by putting on the Cloak of Non-Detection. Glint detects illusions and reveals Akanna, but his stealth wears off as this happens. We pile into the room and lay down the hurting.
Next was the Shadow Aspect, which I was far more afraid of than the Neothelid. Glint disarms the trap just inside the threshold, then stealths into the room to try to Detect Illusion and reveal the Shadow Aspect. I know that it casts Mislead which is what makes the Shadow Aspect so terrifying if you don't do something about the clone. Glint apparently detects and dispels the Mislead clone, but the Shadow Aspect is still not revealing itself. His stealth wears off and the Aspect casts Darkness 15', blinding him. And a blind thief means its time to set traps.
The trap hits the Aspect, damaging it, but it backstabs Glint for 40-some damage. Glint runs back to our party and Minsc takes on the Aspect. I try to paralyze it, but it saves against the wand twice. Glint is blinded again by retreating back so he sets another trap. Soon the Aspect is dead and we claim the Fractal Blade +3, which would be good if the Short Sword of Backstabbing wasn't way better.
The illithid Darskhelin's group is made short work of. Greater Malison + Emotion: Hopelessness + Silence 15' + Insect Plague utterly debilitates them. Too bad nobody is good with Katanas in our party.
We exit the temple and leave the cave for the crusader's camp at Bridgefort.
Brunash - Enchanter 12
Minsc - Berserker 9
Corwin - Archer 9
Glint - Priest of Tyr 8/Thief 10
M'khiin - Shaman 10
Baeloth - Sorcerer 10
Notice we have skeletons again. This time, they're from Asriel, who chose Animate Dead to compensate for the loss of Onion-san. With their help, we have the numbers to take down tough critters like trolls.
TorGal, though, is tough. He has two Yuan-ti Mages alongside him, and our elementals are vulnerable to confusion. I send in nymphs and hamadryads instead, not because they're sturdy but because they're useless.
They have MR and can shrug off some spells, but there's no way they can stand up to the trolls for more than a few moments, so I send in the rest of our summons soon after. Unfortunately, the enemy is extremely strong, and our summons' numerous immunities do not include immunity to troll weapons, which strike as +2.
We keep the party out of the way. Spell Thrust and Secret from the doorway to weaken a Yuan-ti Mage who wanders nearby, a Special Snare thrown through the doorway--nothing game-changing, but nothing committal. And committing to a plan with any chance of losing a party members is not something we can do in this run again. It's always better to hang back and keep our party members alive.
Unfortunately, our tentative probing still invites a Giant Troll into our room, but Asriel holds it off long enough for us to blind it. Asriel's Mirror Images and Stoneskins keep off the Giant Troll, but he's still vulnerable to a Spirit Troll's spells.
Another Flame Strike could be fatal, and there is really no point in keeping our party members so close to the fight that our summons are clearly not winning. We hurry away and re-cast Farsight to monitor the situation.
If you can't let a party member die, then Farsight is the perfect way to study the enemy without committing a party member to a dangerous position. Wizard Eye should work, too, but druids and clerics learn Farsight for free.
I stick around for just a moment longer, just to see if my last summons can take down another enemy. The wait gives me a precious piece of information I didn't know about before: these mages have Chain Lightning.
Retreat, rest, and use Farsight to keep the party safe.
A mage still approaches us (we didn't hang back far enough), but we can render it vulnerable to single-target spells with Secret Word and Spell Thrust. That takes a round before we can hurt it, but Frisky Bits is buffed against almost everything and Mae has been setting normal traps next to the doorway. The lingering poison damage takes out a spell.
That single disrupted spell buys us enough time to kill it.
But our summons are in shambles. We retreat and rest again; a few hamadrayads aren't going to take down TorGal.
At least, not with their melee attacks. But when we go back downstairs to face the enemy for the third time, their Entangle spells net him! It lets us hit him with single-target spells without worrying about our defenses.
Spells alone won't take him down, so I bring over our other summons and we all descend upon TorGal, still entangled. With concerted effort, we slay the troll
We re-cast Farsight and have Frisky Bits toss some Death Fog spells out to bypass the last mage's defenses. Death Fog is really unsafe, but very, very few enemies are immune to its effects.
We bring Carl back into the party just so he can grab the 45,000 quest XP from Nalia, then drop him off at the City Gates. We need to squeeze every last bit of XP out of this game that we can, if we're going to survive without Onion-san until epic levels.
On the way, I decide to take down Draug Fea and the Sewer Dwellers. I don't know if this applies for regular installs, but Call Woodland Beings in my install allows me to safely charm neutral critters before they go hostile, since neutral critters ignore summons and the enemy's attack dialogue doesn't trigger when a party member is not in sight.
We can then hit Gaius with a Nymph's Summon Insects spell (the level 3 spell, not the level 5 one) and watch Mae's traps wreck the enemy party.
Another thrown trap and some more charm spells solidify our advantage while Gais stays out of the way, crippled by spell failure. Our Spirit Snakes go right through his defenses, and the battle is won.
We're still a long way from getting Onion-san back, so we really have to scavenge every source of XP we can find. I might just have to take a leaf out of @Harpagornis's book and farm Gauths in the beholder hive below for 9,000 XP a pop, but I'm not decided.
While preparing for the Vampiric Mist ambush in the next area, I realize that with Onion-san gone, no one in the party can cast Restoration. This means that the only way to cure level drain is for us to go through the illithium questline and get the free party-wide Restoration spell after slaying Neb--and if we waste that every-so-special opportunity, we might find ourselves facing half of SoA with a character or two who cannot level up. At all.
We buff everyone with Negative Plane Protection. It's not necessary in the end, but it's still extremely important to anticipate these kinds of threats.
I enter the next area and realize something.
You know, if you give the wrong answer at the riddle bridge before the fallen temple of Amaunator, the game summons a single Skeleton Warrior to fight you. I knew they were decent sources of random scroll drops, but they might actually be a good source of XP to farm, as well.
But the bridge doesn't summon a Skeleton Warrior. It summons a Ghoul Lord. It's only a pitiful 3,000 XP, but by repeatedly clicking the bridge, we can summon a new Ghoul Lord faster than once per round.
And Ghoul Lords can't hurt our Fire Elementals. Their attacks strike as nonmagical or +1 at best; they're totally harmless. And the Ghoul Lords die in about a round as well. We can farm these guys just by sitting around under Invisibility 10' Radius while our summons kill every Ghoul Lord that appears. I don't have to micromanage anything; I can just spawn them constantly while our elementals do all the work.
But I do the math. We have to gather over 1.6 million XP per party member for a group of 4. This method is fast, but I simply don't have the patience to farm these guys until we're at epic levels.
I can, however, double our XP gathering speed for Chara and Frisky Bits by ditching Mae and Asriel in the previous area. We only need Chara's summons to kill the Ghoul Lords, after all; everyone else is extraneous. That's still too slow to get Frisky Bits to level 18, but at least it'll speed up our progress. I have to seal Mae and Asriel behind a door in the previous area so they won't wander all the way back to Frisky Bits and ask to rejoin the party, then I spend a little while clicking on the bridge to summon more Ghoul Lords.
Then I realize that I don't really need Chara there, either. All I need is Chara's summons. If I bring Chara into the party, summon all their elementals and spirit critters, and then drop them off in the previous area, I can have Frisky Bits guide their summons to the bridge and continue the loop, collecting all the XP for themself!
I do the math. It should only take about an hour of mind-numbing grinding to get Frisky Bits to level 18, and that's all we really need. I commit to the task and keep spawning Ghoul Lords for so long that Chara's spirit animals actually vanish, leaving only the longer-lasting Fire Elementals, who can't kill the Ghoul Lords quite as quickly on their own. I keep spawning them, building up a crowd of Ghoul Lords so that I can take a break for a few seconds every now and then to let our summons clear up the crowd.
Then I realize that if I spawn too many Ghoul Lords and then the elementals vanish, Frisky Bits could get stuck, and even with Improved Invisibility, their save vs. death is several points of north of zero. If those Ghoul Lords have a paralysis effect on hit like normal ghouls, and if they have a nonmagical weapon that will bypass Frisky Bits' PFMW, a lucky critical hit could spell the end of the run while Frisky Bits tried using Teleport Field to break free of the group and make their escape.
I resolve to limit the number of times I spawn Ghoul Lords to make sure there's always room for Frisky Bits to escape without having to break invisibility to cast Teleport Field. Sure enough, the Fire Elementals do vanish eventually, and Frisky Bits is able to escape when that happens.
Notice the Ghoul Lords' auras affecting Frisky Bits, showing the disease icon. I don't see any damage or stat drain, so it looks like Frisky Bits is safe, though I don't really know what that aura actually does.
I leave the area, bring Chara back into the party, rest, summon more critters, drop Chara off in the previous area, and continue the process.
The process is extremely slow, and eventually I notice that so many Ghoul Lords have died that the loot they've dropped is causing severe lag. I get rid of the lag by clicking on all of the body parts that the Golem Construction mod adds to undead critters as random drops, reducing over 200 items to a few stacks of bodies... which is saying something about the number of critter we're fighting, because I'm pretty sure the Ghoul Lords only sometimes drop those items, and the real number of dead Ghoul Lords is probably much higher.
It takes over an hour of grinding, and killing probably well over 500 Ghoul Lords, but finally we bump Frisky Bits up to just shy of 3 million XP. I decide not to get them to level 18 just by farming these guys alone, for one simple reason:
I am terrified that there is some mod, hidden deep in my install, that modifies this encounter and adds a script that checks your XP whenever you speak to the riddle bridge. And I'm worried that some diabolical modder has foreseen this exploit and decided to punish people who use it by spawning an instant-kill critter like Arkanis Gath that accuses you of cheating in a one-line dialogue box and then kills the main character out of sheer spite.
Paranoid? Yeah, maybe. I don't think any modder is quite that vindictive outside of Improved Anvil.
But I'm not willing to take the chance. Before I hit level 18, I bring in the whole party, plus Carl, and hit 3 million XP by completing the riddle.
Frisky Bits chooses Summon Planetar and Wish as their first HLA and level 9 spell pick. I also pick Stone to Flesh as their next level 6 spell pick, since we have no other way of curing petrification. We bring Onion-san back to life.
I really didn't want to resort to XP farming to get back a fallen character, but I'm not willing to put the future of the run in jeopardy because some overpowered mod enemies killed an important party member.
It's unfortunate, because I had a working plan for tackling most of SoA until those modded golems killed Onion-san, and now that plan is suboptimal due to Summon Planetar. Like in BG1, I'd prefer a lower-leveled party with evenly-divided XP than a higher-level party with uneven levels.
I said before that we'd be in the clear once we hit epic levels. But I was talking about late in SoA, when the whole party hit epic levels, and we'd have PW: Blind to land instantaneous area-effect Maze traps, three sources of Wish-rests and planetars, a Totemic Druid in Earth Elemental form, and a Cleric of Helm that could spam Holy Word to stack spell failure.
Having a single level 18 sorcerer is a huge plus. But the game isn't over yet; a single planetar is not going to guarantee success in every fight.
Case in point: Death Ray.
And with an unbalanced party, I run the risk of underestimating the importance of my lower-level characters and growing too reliant on the planetar to win fights. If I don't make use of my other resources, I could still get myself killed.
I prepare for the Unseeing Eye, whom I have resolved to kill with the Rift Device. I got a lucky Wish-rest that let me summon two planetars, plus a reminder that Wish can give us items.
Going back to the original Insane Solo Poverty run of BG2, items are acceptable if you create them yourself, so Wish-based potions and wands are legal.
Onion-san, wrapped in numerous buffs, scurries in to hit the Unseeing Eye with the Rift Device. The moment it hits, she scurries back, and Chara casts Farsight to make sure we can keep an eye on the combat without leaving any party members within enemy range.
This allows us to order our planetars to use Flame Strike, expediting the fight. Notice the Insect Plague designed to frustrate the Unseeing Eye's mage spells.
On the way out, I decide to see how many wands and potions I can summon before I run out of Wish spells. Project Image clones can spawn items via Wish as well; you just need to kill them and the items they generate will fall to the ground. Note that, because no one has high lore or the Identify spell, we can only identify wands by getting the Wish option to boost all stats by 25, to get INT- and WIS-based lore bonuses.
I keep up the process for an extremely long time. Even though Frisky Bits has one fewer spell slot per spell level due to being a Dragon Disciple, they still manage to Wish-rest over and over again via Project Image. Only after numerous cycle do they finally run out of level 7 spells. And when I use the WoL trick on their own Wish spells, we end up landing yet another Wish-rest.
I decide to cut the cycle short; I don't want to spend another 15 minutes waiting for it to end. We don't need the potions or wands anyway, and I'm not sure I even want to use the WoL in this run. I've already explored it very thoroughly. I'll probably just let those items waste away in our inventory (though I do plan on using Alchemy to generate usable potions once Mae hits epic levels and gets her thief HLAs).
We report to High Watcher Oisig and our other sorcerers gain a level each, finally netting us the Protection from Acid spell that we'll need to safely use Death Fog (not to mention fight Draconis). This is what our party looks like now:
I think I'll abstain from side quests, just like I did in the BG1 run after bumping Onion-san up to level 9 so we could resurrect Chara and Carl. We've gathered about enough optional XP, I think.
Brunash "Gigantor" the Halfling Enchanter!
BG1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9SoD: 1, 2, 3
Once at Bridgefort, we clear out the goblin cave for the Circlet of Lost Souls. We go inside the fort and give Neera all the components for her potion that we have, including the Planetar feather.
I have Jegg make us several items. After each item, we rest and I send Glint to seed the crusader camp with traps. He's one level away from being able to inflict poison with them, but that's not for another 186k XP. That is unfortunate since I set the poison traps specifically to heavily wound or kill the casters as the siege starts.
After taking care of the sidequests in Bridgefort, we leave to tell the Flaming Fist that we're ready to attack but run into a tribe of goblins. Baeloth and I roast them with Fireball wand charges, then go down into the big hole and write down Lower Resistance into my spellbook.
Its time for the siege. We let the Flaming Fist take the lead as we buff ourselves, then jump into the fray. M'khiin starts us off with an Insect Plague to shut down Oloneiros. Baeloth debuffs the enemy with Greater Malison.
Oloneiros falls and we gain ground. I cast Chaos which disables half of their forces.
I notice that we're not gaining ground after the Chaos casting and then see that Minsc has been stunned somehow. Glint is in the middle of casting Chant so I have to wait for him to finish before casting Remove Paralysis. I cast Emotion: Hopelessness on the group beating up Minsc and stun some of them. Minsc is getting a severe beatdown, but Glint manages to free Minsc just before he dies. Minsc quaffs an extra healing potion and gets back to fighting.
With the crusaders besieging Bridgefort routed, we destroy their Boareskyr Bridge defense force with another Insect Plague and normal attacks.
With that, the Siege of Bridgefort is over and Khalid thankfully survives. At the Coalition Camp, I trade Corwin for Khalid, dump Jaheira off at the Bloodbark grove, and return to the camp to begin the sidequest-hell that occurs there. After finishing the ones that can be done just within the camp, I set back out to the Bloodbark Grove. I avoid Jaheira as we go down the stairs of the ruined house there and fight the vampire and its wolves. Back outside, Jaheira gives up on talking to me. Phew.
Up north, we fight a group of burning skeletons. I think the Greater Basilisk will leave us alone, but it comes out from the fog of war. This could be bad...
But I've got potions of invulnerability and magic protection to help if it ever starts using gaze attacks and Minsc and Khalid's auras are clear. I have M'khiin attempt to charm it with Algernon's cloak but it fails, so I try again with the Nymph Cloak and it takes this time.
The basilisk doesn't seem to help us at all. Not once did I ever see it use a gaze attack. Instead of risking petrification by killing it while its charmed, I leave it alone since Onoroth won't ask for my help in putting it down. We leave for Dead Man's Pass, and a fairly routine fight with spiders goes awry when Glint's stealth wears off at the worst possible time. He gets tangled in a web shot and eaten alive, which makes him the second casualty of this run. We beat the spiders and M'hkiin raises him from the dead and we go on like nothing happened, though its a powerful reminder that overconfidence is the most insidious killer.
The rest of Dead Man's Pass is cleared and we move on, but get ambushed by the Shadowy Figure. Baeloth and I stay in the back while Glint sets up traps around us to deter anyone from getting close to us. M'khiin summons spirits and Khalid and Minsc charge ahead to bait out the Shadowy Figure. I actually try using the Wand of Paralysis on the Shadowy Figure before the fight starts and then retreat behind our traps. He saves against it. The mercenaries also get too close to the traps intended for the Shadowy Figure and take damage. Having lost sight of him, I continuously pause and unpause the game, trying to figure out who he's going to attack: Me or Baeloth.
After getting backstabbed, Baeloth runs away and drinks an extra-healing potion. Shadowy Figure goes invisible. The dead magic zone dispels his invisibility and Baeloth and I both target him with Scorcher charges from our wands. Shadowy Figure disappears again via Hide in Plain Sight but its too late for him. Quickslot items will track you no matter where you are, no matter how you hide. He gets roasted.
Next update we take on the Underground River area. It's about at this point in SoD where I just wish the slog would be over with.
It still burns. This long itch along my side is only eased by Jaheira's pasty concoctions for so long. The most efficacious of healing magics seem helpless against it, perhaps it is only half physical, and half the memory of dragonfire. It is odd but the pain eases if I lay the dull red bellyscale across the burns. Khalid concurs but Ajantis has declined to try the experiment. His fear of corruption, perhaps it is a strength, perhaps it is a weakness. Ever since those lunatic Tormites tried to slay us at the Friendly Arm he has been quieter, but he looks long at me across the campfire. Khalid too has been quiet since the Bandit Camp. Perhaps he remembers the men who span and flared into light as he burned them with the wand of fire. We are the living, and they and the dragon are the dead.
Whatever the perils of the Cloakwood it is good to rest in the open air. The spiders die when they are killed, and they menace us less now that their strange Queen has fallen. Isra's fine new blade still hums quietly from time to time, but it has ceased to sing and chitter to itself as their lairs grow distant. Yes, this second sky of green is superior by far to that strange and lonely tower of Durlag. The mad ghastly creatures there I could not touch, their minds are too broken and confused. That odd prowling ghost, I still see its confused face as it flitted between floors hurling sorrowful lightning. Even Xan was cheerful when we turned from that dark ruin. He saw his death in that place he said once, as he stretched a long arm and pointed out another of Durlag's 'mousetraps'.
Tonight I must inspect those documents again. This Daeveron, this Tazok, they seem to be pieces on the board set out by the Iron Throne. At the bottom of this there will be blood, and coins of course. Some small minded fool who thought when they overturned the applecart they would be the one to grab something for themselves while so many things of worth are trampled into the mud with the blood.
[Party are at around 70,000 XP, heading toward the mines. No particular scares recently!]
Melody (Elf Ranger, Grond0); Grisol (Dwarf Wizard Slayer, Gate70)
Previous updates:
The beginning of a short session today saw Grisol recovering from being stoned at the end of the previous session and taking a bit of revenge on a final basilisk.
Shortly after that we decided it was about time to hit the Nashkel Mine and cruised down to find Mulahey. Neither of us had much in the way of helpful special abilities here and, as usual, we didn't use any defensive buffs. The expectation was that after Melody did a stealth attack that Mulahey would move up the cave to Grisol - but instead he immediately cast rigid thinking on Melody. Grisol tried to protect Melody by dragging opponents back towards Mulahey and successfully distracted them by getting himself held.
After visiting the temple the duo managed to get the scoring shot against Nimbul (a bit lucky there as both a guard and Rasaad also hit at almost the same time). Tranzig then provided only a brief delay on the way to the Bandit Camp. The bandit archers there did quite a bit of damage to Grisol, so when Taurgosz appeared the only realistic option was to run him round while filling him full of missiles - which didn't take long.
After doing minimal work on the way through the Cloakwood it was time to face Drasus & co. They spotted us a bit quicker than expected and Grisol again took severe damage while killing the mages. Down to 14 HPs with a quick-footed opponent on his heels, Grisol bravely chose to take Drasus for a run to give Melody a chance to sort things out. She quickly used stealth to dump Genthore before going in pursuit wondering if she was going to find a dead body. However, she soon spotted Grisol returning, little dwarvish legs going like the clappers. She fitted some cold arrows to her bow and started shooting while Gate70 showed off by making Grisol run Drasus round in small circles until he collapsed from exhaustion.
Melody, Ranger 7, 65 HPs, 150 kills
Grisol, Wizard Slayer 6, 75 HPs, 149 kills, 1 death
Journal of Hrothgara
We headed for the woods to the East of the FAI. We fought the Black Talon Elite and were injured so we slept. This resulted in an ambush by hordes of bandits. We killed them and again tried to sleep only to be ambushed again. Once more we defeated them and tried to sleep. This time we were successful.We talked to some other bandits and were taken to the bandit camp where we caused Tazok to allow us to join his band.
We killed another bunch of assassins, had a sleep and took on the bandit camp.
Web and fireballs were successful whilst Isra watched our rear. She did an excellent job allowing the rest of us to deal with the bandits and Chili who occasionally broke free. They were joined by more powerful leaders including a mage and powerful fighters.
Extra webs were called for as well as command and sleep. These were enough to allow more fireballs to be cast. To deal with the last of that wave of the enemy, we had to use a wand of fireballs twice. At that point we were able to sleep and with our spells refreshed we were able to clear the area of the remaining bandits.
I made the mistake of taking the paperwork from the chest before dealing with Deke and Tranzig. Lost experience and goodies there!
We went to the FAI and fought some good guys who thought we were bad guys. Sadly we were forced to kill them.
We then headed south and killed Davenport and many other assassins. Dynaheir cast invisibility upon me with the result that I could direct her web spells and fireballs acurately. Some of them did escape from web, but command held them until they were webbed again.
Miluiel, the elven bard
BG1 posts : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6SoD posts : 1, 2, 3, 4
SoA posts : 1, 2, 3, 4
Notable mods
- SCS (full prebuffs, full Tactical Challenges)
- IR/SR
- Rogue Rebalancing
- plenty of NPC mods
- Tweak Anthology
- Refinements
Since the easy parts of SoA were over for Miluiel's team, I decided to dip in just a bit in the tougher quests. I first went into Mekrath's lair to try to have a go against three Yuan-ti mages. Kivan and Alora were firing elemental arrows, Jaheira and Gavin were trying to blind them (with Sunray and False Dawn) and finally Xan and Miluiel were debuffing the mages. All in all, that fight went smoothly; I only took minor damage from them while being in full control all the time. Once the mages were dead, I finished their summons to clean the room.
However, after a some of you advised me to wait before completing the Planar Prison quest, I decided not to pursue further and started the Unseeing Eye quest instead. The only significant fight here was the group of beholders after the bridge. This was more complicated. I decided to rely on summons and range power, but my summons were neutralized fast and we were debuffed quite easily by the beholders. Plus, the shadows not too far off decided to join the fray, which complicated things further, even if they're not much of a threat by themselves. We managed to kill a first beholder fast enough, but we had to retreat sonner than expected. Xan soon found himself disabled, but survived because of his Contingency : Improved Invisibility. After a bit of potshotting, we slowly wore them down. They killed Alora and Kivan, the latter being more problematic because he's my main source of damage. I revived Kivan with a charge of the Rod of Resurrection - which doesn't have finite charges in IR, but is usable twive a day instead, so I didn't feel bad using it. He picked up his stuff and fired back at range again with Jaheira : they slew the rest of the group.
Since the fight was kinda rough, I decided to wait before completing that quest too. It was time to deal with minor stuff : sir Sarles Illitium, the ghost child in the Graveyard, the dude who was buried alive, etc... That netted a few extra xp, which is always welcome. Equipment was also improved : the IMoD and Improved Kitthix were forged.
Next step : Bodhi's lair. It wasn't very tough for us. Fully buffed, Gavin can transform into a magnificient undead killer. With Divine Power, DUHM, Boon of Lathander and Haste, were looking at a dude who's swinging the IMoD at 4 APR with sub-zero THAC0. He, Miluiel (because of the nice dagger she found in the last update), Jaheira and two Fire Elementals were dishing a good 16 APR hasted by Improved Haste from Xan. Note that IH in SR is a group Haste that add only 1 APR to every ally. Level 3 Haste is only single target in SR. I think that's very good balance wise : no more fighter at 10 APR with Critical Strike with SR !
So, we laid waste of all the vampires before tackling Tanova. She can prove to be problematic, but she wasn't too bad here. We put a bunch of pressure on her with summons and melee while Xan and Miluiel were debuffing. Serioulsy, that's all they do in this team : outside of a few Magic Missiles and Melf's Acid Arrows, they don't have any offensive spells memorized. CC and debuffing : that's their role. When we managed to hit Tanova with a few Breach, Kivan slew her with +3 arrows.
Lassal can also be somewhat of a pain in the butt, mainly when he decide to shapchange into an unselectable bat to regenerate, but he didn't has time against us : we trashed him fast.
Against Bodhi herself, I use the most simple strategy you can ever think : I have Xan cast PfMW as soon as she attacks, lure her away from her goons and wait 'til she's bored enough to go away.
Brynnlaw, here we come ! Yesterday, before calling it a day, I decided to attack Perth the Adept. He can be a real danger, because he can cast really high level magic and summon things like Balor among other things. I saw that fight as a test against higher level of opposition. I'm happy to say that I totally managed to control him. We buffed quite a lot, has Alora set a few traps near the entrance (which didn't even trigger during the fight), spread across the room and went for the kill. He precasted a Simulacrum : Alora and Kivan were on duty to kill it. Xan on the other hand casted in order : True Seeing, Spell Thrust (to take down Spell Shield), Pierce Magic, Breach. Meanwhile, Miluiel casted Spell Thrust at him too to take down his Spell Deflection. He still had Globe of Invulnerability on, but since I didn't plan to kill him with spell damage, I simply casted Breach on him. We slipped enough damage to kill him before his next Contingency fired up. Nice.
We got the Book of Infinite Spell with this fight. I was hoping for two things from it : either Spell Turning or True Seeing. I ripped the first page off and got True Seeing right away !
That's a very good news, because it will free up a level 6 spell slot for Miluiel. Even if she's level 17 right now, she only has one level 6 slot, so that's all the more important. Don't forget also that True Seeing function differently in SR : True Seeing effect is a not party wide effect, it only works for the caster of the spell. Consequently, Miluiel will become an even better debuffer because of that book. I actually think it's better to have True Seeing than Spell Turning in my setup.
Next time, Spellhold...
Brunash "Vertically Privileged" the Halfling Enchanter!
BG1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9SoD: 1, 2, 3, 4
We make it to the gates of the underground river. Our assault seems to be going fine until 2 crusader mages teleport in and start casting spells.
Glint, M'khiin, and Khalid are confused and Khalid is also panicked. Baeloth casts Dispel Magic to try to dispel the confusion but it only works on M'khiin, though it tears down one of the mage's buffs in the process. I roast him with a scorcher charge. The other mage is dealt with using a combo of Detect Invisibility and Spell Thrust, though I launch a bullet into his skull so the Spell Thrust didn't matter. We kill Rigah and Julanne because I don't want to fight them during the siege of Dragonspear and also because Rigah's awesome sword imports into BG2, wielded by Tazok.
The underground river's sidequests are taken care of. Strunk is taken out so we don't have to fight water elementals during the siege. M'hkiin chooses the path of the shaman and we fight the cabal of necromancers. Glint backstabs Kherriun to break Halatathlaer's soul jar. Baeloth and I both follow up with Scorcher charges to finish her off.
The mages are thrown into a panic now that Halatathlaer is free, making it easy to mop them up.
Glint sets up a bunch of traps around Zhadroth and kills him.
We enter the inner warrens and set Slug free. The ogres haul us up into Dragonspear's basement. I haste all of us as we deal with Belben's group. Glint sneaks past Hephernaan's bunch and free Daeros Dragonspear, but the mages are descending down upon us quickly. He unlocks and untraps the chests, giving me access to Spell Immunity and Spell Shield. M'khiin runs over and poisons the food, while Glint tosses Daeros' Full Plate along the ground with quickloot so we can escape down the ogre elevator.
I'm not going to fight everyone in the basement considering how little incentive there is to do so besides potions and XP, both of which we are chock full of. We escape and run back to Gurgle and Floss, cloaking ourselves with Invisibility 10' so we don't have to fight anyone exiting the underground river. We make it to Dragonspear Castle and save Skie. We do a couple of easy sidequests for fast XP and return to the Coalition Camp to put an end to the sidequest hell. We meet Caelar at the negotiations in Dead Man's pass. Baeloth and M'khiin level up as a result. It's time for the sieges.
Back at the camp, the invasions go well. I choose Archers, Wizard Slayers, and Mages in that order. The last fight is particularly delicious: a Greater Malison + Chaos + Silence 15' combo affects the ENTIRE force, and two hefty sections of them are paralyzed by our warmages. The last battle against Grimgor and co. is trivialized again by a Greater Malison + Chaos combo. We'd be toast too if we had to save vs. spell at -10 or be confused.
Same thing happens at the siege of Dragonspear: Greater Malison + Chaos disables most of the crusaders and we tear right through them.
I free the trolls though they don't seem to help much.
Next we beat the elite crusaders guarding the threshold of Dragonspear. Then Ashatiel wants to 1v1 me, which I accept. Not even a second later, she turns on us and orders her goons to kill us all. I'm not sure how this happened because I wasn't even invisible.
I retreat to the lane leading away from the main threshold of the castle and we fight our way to the back. All of us are fatigued from 2 Haste castings. Baeloth casts yet another Greater Malison and I follow up with a Chaos scroll with a Silence 15' from Glint to get all those clerics to stop casting spells, disabling at least 85% of Ashatiel's men, including Ashatiel herself.
We keep fighting through the crusaders and Glint and I are running out of spells. These named goons in the back are taken care of, starting with the super-annoying backstabbing thief who killed me one time in a previous game. Again, Baeloth and I perform the Greater Malison + Chaos combo and it disables the spellcasters, while the warriors remain strangely unaffected. The fight is much easier when they aren't casting spells.
With the crusader's defenses ruined, we go back to the main entrance and climb the dragon's skeleton inside the castle. Time to go to hell.
Brunash - Enchanter 12
Khalid - Fighter 9
Minsc - Berserker 9
Glint - Priest of Tyr 8/Thief 10
M'khiin - Shaman 11
Baeloth - Sorcerer 11