As Shakespeare once wrote: "Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." For my blackguard, that time was tonight. I tried doing the upper floors of Durlag's Tower, but the ghost on the third floor iced me, though I'm not sure how. Protected from confusion by the greenstone amulet, I ran into the chamber where he's initially standing, and expected him to teleport like he does in vanilla to the main room, where I had a skelly waiting for him. Instead he cast defensive spells and turned towards me. I was expecting a lightning bolt so I chugged a potion of absorption. However, according to the game log, he cast cloudkill and I died instantly.
I'm not sure how this happened, as I had more than 4 hd and shouldn't have had to roll a save. In fact, according to the game log, I didn't roll a save, I just died. Can anyone explain this? Is it a bug?
Thanks, all, for reading, and for all your advice in this thread. This is a truly great community. And congrats to those who still have runs going. Your level of play amazes me. I also thought I'd tip my hat to @Mantis37 - your journal-style reports are nicely written!
Commiserations on your demise. Thank you for your praise though . The fruit of too much time thinking about the game vs. actual playing time!
I usually avoid fighting that ghost. The decoying Khalid was almost fried by his Chain Lightning on my present run, which would have likely killed a party member if they'd been bunched. Then it was time to leave . As I recall Cloudkill forces a save at -4 for levels 5-6, were you in that range? Umber Hulks usually roll that save for example. Or do you have any spell-altering mods installed?
@OrlonKronsteen Sorry to hear of your demise. @Arctodus@Flashburn Good to see that you are still going and that Arctodus was fortunate concerning the book of infinite spells.
Not much to say about the next couple of quests: Just a buffed up Iloïnen with her skeleton warriors - and somtimes a deva - attacking foes with the FoA +3 and the Sling of Everard. This way, the astral prison, the planar sphere, the cult of the eyeless and the windspear hills were dealt with. I ignored Firkraag (no need to risk a battle) and returned back to the city to buy at least a couple of potions of magic shielding, in case something goes wrong in the underdark.
After that, I also gathered some more Crom Faeyr materials by hunting down the illithids and killing the shadow dragon, who turned out to be a relatively poor one on one-fighter:
I'm happy that I avoided making any relevant mistakes this time, and I hope this trend will continue as I make my way through the asylum.
It's been a while since my last update and during this time the Crew managed to finish the remaining parts of BG1/ToSC. I'm eager to start SoA so I'll make it quick. As some of you might remember first we were intended to finish Durlag's Tower. SCS v.30 Greater Dopplegangers are far less dangerous than v.21 I'm used to (they now lack confusion on hit) so we dealt with them with ease. And Viconia with her excellent AC and Free Action could tank Mustard Jellies and Skeleton Warriors relatively safe.
For Wardens fight we buffed over the top and Viconia with her skellies opened it.
I cast Web to keep them at bay and we concentrated on Avarice to nullify his vicious backstabs.
Pride, under Righteous Fury, hit like a truck and he has plenty of those, Fear is break free from the Webs and can paralyze while Love have permanent Globe of Invulnerability and unlimited Slow and Dire Charms. We need to be extremely careful. We have Break Enchantment and Remove Paralysis but just so many.
Fear paralyzes Xan but fell to Flame Strikes and Pride is after Xan so I rushed ahead with Invisibility. Xan is safe and Khalid finished Pride with nice critical.
Love is alone but in the heat of the fight I didn't realised that he also protected with Physical Mirror and wasted some time to shoot him with missiles. Once I realised this is pointless I buff Khalid with Strength potion and he chunked Love with Spider's Bane.
The next level is pretty uneventful. Imoen countered Greater Dopple's MI with Detect Illusions and Viconia is brilliant frontliner. As usual. We found Ring of Invisibility there for Imoen so she can now scout ahead looking for traps completely safe. She also hit level 10 and now has 100 in Detect Illusions alone with Locks/Traps. Initially I've thought to dual her to Mage at level 10 but wandering in this halls without a thief seems suicidal to me so she'll stay as a thief to the end of BG1.
Dwarven Doomguards guard Greenstone Amulet (seems I'm luckier here with Randomizer than @Arctodus ) and Kiel's Buckler is perfect addition to Jaheira'a equipment.
Greater Wyverns on the next level are perfectly susceptible to Wands of Flamestrike and Paralyzis to pose no threat. Neither Ghoul Lords if you have Free Action active.
Note to those who are unaware and will face Chessboard fight under SCS for the first time - never move any of your characters after you finish the last elemental room. You'll be instantly teleported to the chessboard and those characters will continue their movement triggering the opposition immediately (SCS v.21 behave a bit differently):
As this is my first v.30 run we have to improvise and act quickly. Khalid fired some arrows of detonation on their Bishops at the back while Jaheira hit with Ice Storm to slow down Pawns and Xan fired Web. Queen cast Confusion on Khalid but we all saved. While Knights were struggling to hit through my AC and Stoneskins I add another Web.
This was devastating. Most opposition fell withing few rounds either being frosen or fried. Rooks are deadly accurate with their bows so Imoen had to use Potion of Invisibility to stay alive.
Knights fell in short order, we revealed the King with Invisibility Purge, removed his MI with Detect Illusions spell and that's it. Both me and Jaheira got a level there but I'm not level up my characters once hitting ToSC level cap (161k) to not break the balance of the game.
Final level is just Field of Wonder in terms of easy nice loot (most of which is useless to us):
We gave Jaheira both Rings of Fire Resistance for 100 res and with her Kiel's Buckler she is immune to Stun. Death Knight opened with PW:Blind (which she countered with Potion of Sight - ex. Potion of Infravision) followed with Symbol of Death while Xan summoned some monsters.
Death Knight hit with Unholy Fireball and looks like with SR it apply not only fire damage but also some other kind as Jaheira was immune to fire damage but was hit with this another source. Funny thing is that Death Knight is not immune to it himself so he was kind enough to bring himself to near death with his own spell. Few shots with Acid Arrows spelled his doom.
Back to civilisation we have one last area unfinished (Red Wizards) but at level cap and between Viconia's MR and Jaheira's Ice Storm there is too little space to manoeuvre:
In Ulgoth' Beard the Cult ambush was countered with Invisibility 10' Radius (casting time 1, 1 turn duration) to reposition, buff and get ready:
For Aec'Letec we applied a ton of buffs only to be immediately dispelled when the fight start. At least we had plenty potions of mirrored eyes to counter death gazes. We killed Tracea during first round and called some monsters to keep Aec'Letec busy while we shot his acolytes with fireballs/arrows of detonation. Once they were killed it was just a matter of time to deal with Aec'Letec. Imoen claimed the coup de grace.
Werewolf Island, with its mostly melee opponents wasn't too threatening. While SR makes Spell Thrust an AOE spell to be able target invisible creatures (which is good in some situations vs groups) it's far less reliable vs fast moving opponents. We befriended Kaishas (I really like this opportunity SCS provide) and we confront her husband back in Ulgoth's Beard only to realize that SR silver dagger is ineffective vs him while mere Gnolls hit him just fine with their halberds:
Ice Island in oppose is filled with mages but Viconia again shine there with her MR. Jaheira's Ice Storm help to bypass MGoI protection.
Andris use Dimention Jump to ambush us hiding near entrance but we always have an escape option like Invisibility 10' Radius.
Even though SR states that undead are immune to Skull Traps, Andris show that this isn't true:
Nonetheless, if Spell Thrust hit and with invisible thief detecting illusions nearby, the BG1 Mage is doomed:
The rest of the Isle inhabitants are far less threatening and we even discovered that Tellan could be talked out of fight. Xan got his own Stoneskin scroll to memorize.
Back in the City we rushed through the endgame saving Duke Eltan, killing Cythandria with her pet golems (I was ready to spare her life when she surrended but I can't stop Viconia's Flame Strike already fired)
and gaining the invitations for the meeting where Sarevok is going to become a Grand Dude. We also looted another Tome of Constitution (the one randomized from Durlag's Tower) and Dagger of Venom:
In the Palace I immediately cast Invisibility on Lija and tanked Greater Dopples while the rest of the Crew concentrated on Dopple Mage quickly sending it on the run in fear and Dopple Assassin. This allowed Dopple Shaman to hit with Unholy Blight once but he was killed immediately after to not let him do any more harm. Assassin was next to fell with Mage in close proximity. Remaining three Greater Dopples aren't a threat. Both Dukes survived with Lija unharmed at all and Belt barely scratched. I lured him to one of the back rooms so Sarevok can't reach him after realizing that all his plans are crumbled.
Vs Undercity party Viconia called for her skellies and controlled some more in nearby ruins to serve as meat shield. Those dudes are dangerous but their end is no other than death nonetheless. Tamoko was persuaded to not throw her life aside and we enter the old Bhaal's Temple:
Inside Viconia lured Sarevok and most his followers to the NE corner and parked them there sipping the potion of invisibility while Angelo was lured to the SE corner to deal with:
His Skeleton Warrior was disassembled in short order and Xan revealed Semaj's location with Detect Invisibility. Cloudkill from the scroll softened Semaj and Tazok and a couple of Fireballs finished them.
Viconia showed herself to separate Diarmid and Sarevok from Skeleton Warriors and some monsters kept them busy while we disassembled those ones. With Sarevok chasing some Dire Wolves we killed Diarmid and then I and Xan were busy to supply the constant flow of monsters while Khalid and Jaheira shot Sarevok with their best ammunition. Viconia hit with Flame Strikes occasionally and soon its was all over:
Before reporting to Belt we all level up to have all spells available in Irenicus dungeon as we only can rest there once and now I just came to sences in some cell with Imoen whispering into my ear: "Wake up! Wake up you! We must get out of here!"
edit: some thought about this part of the run and setup. I'm quite pleased with how it goes and setup IMO is just perfectly balanced, realistic, reasonably challenging and interesting. I also pleased to have only one NPC death so far (not counting Dynaheir's vs Shoal) and eager to learn what SoA could provide in that matter.
Fine work @Serg_BlackStrider, congratulations and good luck in Amn! As for the chess board, I'll give that a try. I've had to console my characters there in recent installs.
@Mantis37 You're absolutely right about cloudkill. Darn, for some reason I had it in my head that the save was for 4 HD or less. And I'd forgotten that the game log only records saving throws made, and doesn't mention saving throws failed. No-reload is such a brutal teacher.
We rest up and venture into hell. Glint gets charmed by Illaruel but M'khiin cures him of it with Spiritual Clarity.
Up the stairs, we fight some minor devils and Glint levels up. We kill more devils and answer Thrix's riddle, obtaining the Tongue of Acid +3 for Khalid. On the way up the elevator, Glint levels up again.
Time to fight Belhifet. Caelar joins us. I start the fight with a Haste and our tanks drink potions of fire resistance, having them attack Big B. I'm waiting to see what Belhifet starts off with. He doesn't do anything except attack on this first round, so I move our casters away from the elevator grate and toward the cages. Baeloth and I cast Lower Resistance on Belhifet as he calls down a fire storm.
M'khiin casts Insect Plague on Belhifet, though he resists it the first time. He teleports away into the southeast corner, so Baeloth and I reposition ourselves as Minsc and Khalid clean up Hephernaan and the devils Big B summoned. Belhifet goes Improved Invisible, which I dispel with Detect Invisibility. Baeloth lowers his magic resistance again and M'khiin casts Insect Plague on him again, which takes this time, though it doesn't seem to hamper his spellcasting in any way.
She follows up with a Static Charge, which does a fair amount of damage to him. Baeloth casts Greater Malison which lowers his saves, so I attempt a Hold Monster, which he resists. Suddenly,
Dammit Caelar!
After the fight's over, I pack up all the exportable items into my Bag of Holding toss away all my scrolls to make room for exportable items so they'll see use in SoA. Putting them into a Bag of Holding for export does not work.
That was SoD on Core Rules. My last playthrough was on Hard and it didn't seem much more difficult than this was. Next time I do no-reload, I'll play SoD on Insane so I can push myself harder. I'm moving on to BG2, with SCS installed so this should be quite the difficulty spike.
After the fight's over, I pack up all the exportable items into my Bag of Holding so they'll see use in SoA.
I thought that items didn't get exported if they are in bags, though my experience of this is limited.
Yeah, I found that out just now as I noticed the Golden Pantaloons weren't in the trapped picture with the Jailkeep Golem. Went back to my last save in SoD and fixed that.
We head out to Brynnlaw and tackle Perth the Adept. Perth wastes a precious round Breaching Mae, our Bounty Hunter, while we apply spell failure using Holy Word.
Perth has no Fire Shields active, so we have our Planetar use Insect Plague. Hoping to bypass Perth's spell turning buff, the planetar targets itself with Insect Plague, only to find that it won't spread to Perth.
Perth begins casting an Enchantment spell, but Carl and Asriel cast SI: Enchantment in time to avoid it. Frisk doesn't bother; they already have Chaotic Commands active.
We dispel Perth's invisibility via Detect Illusions and hit him with Secret Word, Spell Thrust, and another Holy Word. But Perth is still perfectly capable of casting spells.
Either Perth's script ignores spell failure, the 50% spell failure in Holy Word no longer stacks in EE and Perth got lucky, or Perth is the wrong alignment and therefore immune to Holy Word outright. In any case, Perth's PFMW has run out and he appears to have no PFMW Contingency to replace it.
Killing Perth turns out to be quite necessary; apparently 15 Charisma isn't enough to talk our way into Spellhold. On the way we spot some Sirines, replacing the less interesting critters that normally show up outside Spellhold. Frisky Bits has CON bonuses from their Dragon Disciple kit, so we sacrifice a point of CON in the Spellhold dream and let our Planetar deal with Bhaal.
The Coiled Cabal is a common problem for me in the labyrinth. I bait out some spells using summons, but then the Yuan-ti start teleporting over to the party. Mae's pre-set traps deal poison damage, which disrupts the enemy's spells and buys us enough time to throw out some magic attacks, though Horrid Wilting wins the fight anyway.
Notice that Mae has been sitting on her next level up for a long time. I've realized that there's very little reason to level up beyond Bounty Hunter level 15 until you're level 21. At level 15, you already have plenty of HP and skill points and so forth, and you also have the best snares, the level 11 version that deals lingering poison damage and is very excellent at disrupting spells. Once you hit level 16, though, they deal fire damage, only once. Worse yet, Special Snares apply a Resilient Sphere effect at level 16 and deal no damage.
Only at level 21 does the level up become worth it, because that's when a Bounty Hunter gets Maze traps. Mae will be at level 15 until she hits 2.4 million XP.
Bodhi ambushes the party every X number of hours in my install, but Invisibility is enough to dissuade her, making that mod more of an inconvenience than a challenge.
I'm worried about the lich in this area, so I hang out right next to the exit so I can escape at a moment's notice. I send a stream of summons down south to deal with the lich. I don't want to send them out all at once, or else the lich will wipe them all out with a Death Spell.
I'm pretty sure the lich can teleport over to the party, so to make sure we're prepared, we cast Spell Immunity in expectation of a dangerous Remove Magic spell. Sure enough, the lich pays the party a visit, but I failed to consider one factor: Improved Alacrity.
I had assumed that we'd have 6 seconds to respond after the lich cast Dimension Door, since the lich's aura would be clouded. But with Improved Alacrity, we have no such delay, and the lich is already summoning a Fallen Planetar. Our auras are clouded, which means we have to wait 6 seconds to cast PFMW.
I've never proved the theory in-game, but based on what I've seen in Near Infinity, I'm pretty sure the dispel magic effect in a planetar's sword strikes before the vorpal strike, which means Death Ward offers NO defense against the instant death effect. That amounts to a slim chance of a game-ending vorpal strike on Frisky Bits with every attack roll the planetar makes. I know better than to gamble with that, especially without a Teleport Field on the map or summons to distract it. I flee the area and escape a Spell Sequencer as well.
I don't like using area transitions to wait out enemy mage spells, but I like vorpal strikes even less. While we're waiting, I get a Wish-rest.
We return, but the lich's power is not yet spent. Our Spell Thrusts strike as level 4 spells and cannot touch the lich, while the lich's Wish Breach hits everyone but Frisky Bits, who chose Spell Shield as a level 5 spell pick for just this reason.
Secret Word does work on the lich, but it doesn't matter; the lich has already lost its PFMW.
The lich's Pit Fiend casts Unholy Word, a spell I rarely see and did not anticipate at all. Frisky Bits suffers deafness and therefore 50% spell failure, but manages to get PFMW off the ground, which could be extremely helpful if the Pit Fiend has nasty on-hit effects (I've seen Pit Fiends in Tactics that deal 999 poison damage on a failed save).
With PFMW on our Charname and no PFMW on the lich, the outcome is certain.
We never did kill the Greater Mummies in the lich's room, and they've been spamming Animate Dead for a long time. We wipe one out with some spare summons and Horrid Wilting, but the other one paralyzes two of our sorcerers with a fear aura. I failed to appreciate that Remove Fear wore off due to our 20 rounds in the next area.
Frisky Bits got lucky with that saving throw, but it's not necessary; Onion-san still has Remove Fear to cure the effect.
By the way: Mist Horrors can cast Chaos. I never thought of them as remotely dangerous critters, but in a different context that could have been a game-changer.
Killing the Umber Hulks and opening the door to the next level (I didn't bother with the riddles or the portal) gets both Onion-san and Chara up to level 14, giving us access to both Nature's Beauty and Holy Word.
Oddly enough, Sime turns out to be a vampire, even though Aran Linvail, whom we previous killed, introduced her to us as a friend. I think there's a mistake with the Assassinations mod somewhere.
By the way, does anyone else do this?
Because I do.
I decide that paying off Lonk does not count as a quest expense and therefore isn't allowed in this run. Luckily for us, Lonk forgot to cast his pre-buffs. He starts the fight completely defenseless.
I had originally intended on using a Cone of Cold spell to disrupt Jon-bon's first spell, but I decide against it. Instead, we hit him with magic attacks and use Insect Plague on Onion-san so it spreads to Irenicus.
Onion-san's clone is apparently evil-aligned and can cast Unholy Word, but this time, Frisky Bits is unaffected--apparently they were out of range. Only Asriel suffers deafness. Our sorcerers take down the last of Jon-bon's defenses.
A PFMW Contingency keeps Irenicus safe for a moment, and a Spell Sequencer robs Carl of his next Breach spell, but Chara finishes casting Nature's Beauty, permanently blinding Irenicus.
Wanev stops time, which lets the Insect Plague on Irenicus run out. But Wanev also throws out two Horrid Wilting spells, and the fight is over a second after Time Stop ends.
I think I'm going to hold off on Summon Planetar for the most part. Fights are more interesting without its vorpal strikes and Globes of Blades and instant-casting Insect Plagues and Fire Storms and Holy Words and True Seeing and Flame Strike spells.
Poverty runs are vicious, but we actually have enough resources to handle midgame SoA without relying on our highest-level options. Sorcerers, Bounty Hunters, and Totemic Druids are all powerful classes who don't really need items to perform their essential functions, which means Onion-san is the only one who's truly crippled by the lack of items (mostly because of her poor AC). And with Shield, Spirit Armor, Chaotic Commands, Protection from Petrification, Death Ward, Remove Fear, Spell Shield, Protection from Cold, Protection from Acid, Protection from Electricity, innate immunity to fire, Protection from Magical Energy, Spell Turning, Stoneskin, and a free aura to cast Spell Immunity and PFMW, Frisky Bits is immune to basically everything but poison and Slow, the latter of which can be cured with Haste (Free Action could block Slow, but I don't trust its duration or its immunity to haste).
We just need to make sure that Frisky Bits is protected from all sources of poison whenever Spell Turning is active, because otherwise we'd need to burn through 12 spell levels before we could cast Neutralize Poison on them.
@semiticgod I believe there have been quite a few vanilla original BG runs in the old forums. To mention only one: My first success, the druid Kalis, was played in unmodded original Baldur's Gate (which is why he had no kit). I also remember some people still playing the original BG1 even as most people had moved on to Tutu or BGT (I think @Corey_Russell might have been playing the original game for quite a long time, if I recall correctly).
When you refer to Assassinations, do you mean Alternatives? That's the one that gives you 2 more routes to Spellhold, unless the Assassinations questline does too...?
@Enuhal: Do you know if there were any solo trilogy runs featuring the original games? If somebody did 1998 BG1 followed by 2000 BG2 and 2001 ToB, I wouldn't bother. But I thought playing with the original SoA UI and mechanics would be nice, and it would be worth it if I could do something new in the process.
@Mantis37: Alternatives, I guess. I thought "Assassinations" was the name of the questline with Malficus, since he says it involves lots of assassinations (it involves one, actually).
Some of these are outdated mainly because installing new versions on a heavily modded game takes FOREVER to get back to the way the game was before, especially with SCS installed.
-SCS (long-duration mage/priest prebuffs only, no consistent Breach, no Tactics challenges except Original Tactics Improved Bodhi, various Improved creatures w/ normal HP, smarter ToB bosses) -BP Ascension v15 BETA (all tougher ToB bosses) -NPC_EE -aTweaks (no fiendish gating or ethereal plane shifting, no mental combat vs. summoned elementals) -Rogue Rebalancing -IWDification -Tweaks Anthology -Item Upgrade -More Style For Mages -ding0 tweaks (anyone can set off traps, animated ioun stones) -Oversight (monk HLAs only) -Enchant the Missile Launchers -Unofficial Item Pack -Skip Chateau Irenicus (its better than Dungeon-Be-Gone) -Golem Construction -Coran -Assorted personal mods and tweaks
Here we go, BG2. Imoen frees me and I collect the Pantaloons, then release Minsc and Jaheira. Courtesy of Skip Chateau Irenicus, I teleport to the surface and collect all the goodies from the dungeon's rubble and console in a Bag of Holding, because God knows I need it for BG2. Item Upgrade and Golem Construction basically require you to have one in your possession because there's no way you can hold on to all of the components needed for certain things for as long as it takes you to either gather them all, or level up high enough to assemble them.
I sell what nobody is going to use and head over to Gaelan's, then the Copper Coronet to assemble the crew of this playthrough. Amalas challenges me, which I accept. I turn invisible, apply Stoneskin, and blow him away with a Wand of Lightning charged Wand of Frost.
Korgan, Anomen, and Nalia are recruited. Korgan stays as he is, Anomen is turned into a Priest of Helm, and Nalia has been made a sorcerer since she sucked at trying to imitate Imoen. I hate the process of trying to gather party members.
I dump Minsc and Jaheira and set off for the city gates but get ambushed. Our fighters are probably going to die.
Nalia and I start off invisible as our fighters try to hold off the melee enemies. Our equipment is garbage and I forgot to tweak Anomen's AI, causing him to use a sling for the first round of the fight while in melee, so Anomen dies pretty quickly. Korgan holds on by enraging. Nalia casts Greater Malison on the group as I use a WoL-charged Hold Person scroll to attempt to hold everyone. It only manages to paralyze the mage and another fighter since Nalia uses a Spell Thrust to strip the minor globe. She uses a WoL-charged Chromatic Orb to try to thin their ranks more though it only causes instant death on the thief archer.
Soon they're all dead, though I'm feeling pretty irritated that a party member has died already partly due to my own lack of attention.
We make it to the City Gates and recruit Coran since I want Nalia as my secondary support caster, no point in using Yoshimo, I don't want a second wizard in the party so Jan's out, and I don't want to micromanage Hexxat's stupid cloak. I kit Coran into a Bounty Hunter.
The shadow thieves the vampire is fighting drop some good loot. We get to the temple district and rez Anomen, who reminds me I need to tweak his AI as he casts Sanctuary after he returns. I'm killing him myself if I ever catch him with his sling out in melee combat again.
We make it to Trademeet and recruit Rasaad. The gang's all here now, so I can finally get this game underway properly.
We return to the Copper Coronet blessedly without incident and rest. Hendak is freed and Korgan gets the Stonefire Axe +3. We go back to the Promenade to buy a couple things and pickpocket Ribald's Ring of Regeneration, which I give to Korgan. The circus tent is cleared out and the Pebblecrusher party is reduced to smithereens with a bunch of skeleton warriors and a Harm spell from Anomen toasting Pebblecrusher himself.
Korgan starts complaining so we go to the Graveyard and clear out the topside tombs and then the ones further down. Pai'na is dealt with, so Improved Kitthix will be made soon. Rasaad gets the Pale Green Ioun Stone. In the lower tombs, I summon an Air Elemental to help us and it is cleared out with ease. We try to go to the Temple district but get the Renfeld ambush. We take Renfeld to the Harper HQ and then finish off Korgan's quest. The slavers are run out of business and Lilarcor is retrieved, causing Coran and Nalia to gain a level. Reporting back to Hendak earns Anomen and Rasaad a level. Now its Nalia's turn to complain about her quest, so we go to the de'Arnise keep.
Now things are getting interesting. Trolls are putting the hurting on Anomen, but I give him my Girdle of Piercing so he doesn't get hit as much. Upstairs we run into the golem sentries.
They hit pretty hard because our armor isn't very good yet. Korgan gets badly injured and I choose to enrage him instead of trying to heal. He gets poisoned just afterward, and Anomen doesn't have Neutralize Poison memorized. Not that it mattered. The iron golem hits Korgan again and he dies.
We retreat because the golems' damage resistance is too great to overcome without Korgan, as he was the only tank with a +3 weapon. Falling back is made difficult because the golems are chasing us while hasted, but we eventually close the door on the Iron Golem and make our way back around from the other side. Coran scouts out where the Iron golem is and lays down standard traps. Constructs, Elementals, Oozes, and Undead are immune to the nonlethal damage part of Bounty Hunter traps, which also cannot be thrown anymore.
With his new Elven Court Bow +3, Coran can damage the golem. He lures it into his traps, though they don't do much damage. But suddenly, a new vulnerability appears:
While they may not be poisoned in the conventional way, it seems these iron golems can still take poison damage. This is probably because I'm using v3.1 of Golem Construction instead of the latest release which is v5.3. Coran kites the golem down the hallway as the poison eats away at it, and it eventually falls.
Anomen memorizes Raise Dead and brings back Korgan, casting Heal on him afterwards.
We kill Glaicus and reforge the Flail of Ages. Back in the cellars, we prepare to fight Tor'Gal. Anomen protects us from evil so I can gate in a Nabassu. I prefer these as my Cacofiend summon because they can drain 2 levels per hit.
There isn't a whole lot else I can do because the trolls are immune to most disablers, and that's what an Enchanter does best. The Nabassu does its job and level drains a giant troll to death, then does the same to Tor'Gal.
We return to the Promenade and sell the spoils. I buy the Robe of Vecna and Korgan levels up from some scrolls that I scribe.
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 !
In latest SR beta 15, provided by @Aasim aka Kreso, level 3 Haste spell is party wide again. It add 1/2 APR only though unlike vanilla or pre beta 15 SR. This beta was published after I set my current setup and since I don't like its single target behaviour I just fixed it with NI.
@Serg_BlackStrider I think it's a bit sad, because I liked the single target version. Since it also gives a small boost to thac0, AC and save vs breath, it thought it was pretty well balanced. Is the various bonus still there in the new version ? Because otherwise I think it might be a little overpowered. +1/2 apr and +2 to thac0, AC and save vs breath party-wide is a bit much for a level 3 spell.
It's been a while but Blaggerd's patron digs him out of the ground. From memory the last attempt failed somewhere in Siege of Dragonspear several months back.
Blaggerd, Human Male Blackguard. Stats today: Str 18/84, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 15, Wis 3, Cha 18 ** Two Handed Sword, Dagger
After ditching Gorion, Imoen was met and dumped. Montaron would do the dirty work better than her. For once, Blaggerd was looking to recruit Rasaad and Neera. It didn't take long to decide Xzar and Montaron were going to be troublesome from a reputation standpoint so Imoen was retrieved by Mr indecisive instead. Kivan briefly joined but after reviewing party formation Blaggerd decided he'd prefer a healer to a ranged killer and swapped him out for Branwen.
By this time there had been a few party deaths. After escaping one bandit circle of death (see screenshot), a second was less successful and Rasaad was raised at a temple. Droth the Ogre Mage was on the back foot and Branwen about to use a second Command on him when Blaggerd suggested she not bother as everything was under control, and that resulted in a lightning bolt downing Imoen and Rasaad. Branwen used her Command and all ended well.
@Serg_BlackStrider I think it's a bit sad, because I liked the single target version. Since it also gives a small boost to thac0, AC and save vs breath, it thought it was pretty well balanced. Is the various bonus still there in the new version ? Because otherwise I think it might be a little overpowered. +1/2 apr and +2 to thac0, AC and save vs breath party-wide is a bit much for a level 3 spell.
Nope, aside from +1/2 APR and movement rate bonus there are no other bonuses in new version. It also has scaled duration though (1 turn + 1 round per level) but that's it.
Well, that's not too bad then. I just found out the change log and going through it. It does seem to be a good improvement. Wave of Fatigue and Greater Malison seem a lot better, for example.
In Cloakwood we mediated between the hunters and the druids and came up with a peaceful solution. We eliminated several aggressive spiders but the wolves were not agressive so we left them alone.
We agreed to help some druids by killing a dragon and we also killed Centeol. I got the others to buff me befor retiring to Centeol's lair whilst I took on the dragon. Due to my buffs it hardly injured me at all before I at last managed to kill it. My friends then healed me before having a well-earned rest.
In transit Iwe were attacked by Molkar and Cronies. Web and command enabled us to defeat them without too many injuries.
Upon reaching the shadow druid area we rested before proceeding onward where I killed three winter wolves single handed before calling for help when confronted by two extremely fast bears. We were forced to kill a crazy dryad, Miranda the witch and a number of druids before carrying on to Beador.
I have been thinking about avoiding side quests so I don't gain too much XP and break the challenge of the game. Then I realized I was worrying about making a no-reload poverty tetralogy run of SCS and Ascension "too easy."
I'm running into the Terl bug. He's a messenger for Anomen. He walks up to him and doesn't initiate dialog, just stalks us the whole time. How do I fix this?
Anomen already knows his sister was killed and we talked to his father, and talked to Bylanna as well. I think his knighthood trial is supposed to start now.
Xzar's quest is finished, earning Coran a level, and Improved Kitthix is forged. The sewer gang is dealt with pretty easily thanks to a lucky Conjure Fire Elemental roll, which got us a normal and Greater Fire Elemental at the same time.
Haer'Dalis is freed. We steal the Weathermistress' amulet, which earns Anomen and Rasaad a level. When we turn it in to Mae'var, I gain a level too. Despite encountering the Terl bug, we press on anyway and finish Mae'var's questline, buying the Shield of CheeseBalduran from the Promenade. Next is the Cult of the Eyeless quest. We reach the lich and use Protection from Undead scrolls on everyone. We fail to kill the lich in the first round after it spawns, reducing it to Near Death. It uses a contingency to summon 2 Mordy Swords and casts the spell to summon a third one. We retreat out the door while Hasted and close it behind us. After a couple rounds, we open the door and have Korgan tank the swords as Nalia and I cast Magic Missiles at them to kill them.
After all 3 swords are dead, we rush back in and kill the Lich, but not before it gates in a Fallen Planetar which goes Improved Invisible.
We book it back out the door and close it behind us, waiting for the Fallen Planetar to get unsummoned. It eventually leaves and we collect the bones from the sarcophagus. The level below is conquered easily thanks to Balduran's Shield. How are you supposed to balance an enemy that can spam damage, disablers, death rays, and anti-magic rays an unlimited amount of times? You can't.
The Unseeing Eye is killed.
I charm Gaal and he paralyzes 2 of the cultist guards with a Hold Person.
We reforge Anomen's shield with the Saving Grace shield to make the Delryn Family Shield +4 and we buy the Headband of Focus from SoD from Ribald.
At the Bridge District, we decide to go Lich hunting. The first one is put down easily with Protection from Undead scrolls.
While the scroll's power was still active, I decide to challenge the Lich hanging out at the City Gates. It does not go well. It is protected by a wall of force which prevents escape once inside its lair. Coran dies first from a Wail of the Banshee spell.
Korgan dies next from a failed save against Horrid Wilting while debuffed with Greater Malison.
Then Nalia from another Horrid Wilting.
Anomen gets petrified by a Prismatic Spray.
The only one left to deal with the lich besides myself is Rasaad. Still protected from undead, he punches through its Stoneskins and beats it to death.
I pack up everyone's stuff into the Bag of Holding and memorize Stone to Flesh. 8 hours later, I unpetrify Anomen, who also happens to be Feebleminded, which is fixed by a Dispel Magic.
Battered and demoralized, we go to the Temple district and raise Coran and Korgan. We don't have enough gold to raise Nalia.
Anomen memorizes Raise Dead again and we rest, then raise and heal Nalia.
I think I'm beginning to suffer from "option overload," which tends to happen at around this time in SoA where I get lazy and get WAY too conservative with caster resources since our fighters are usually enough to take care of most jobs. I'm terribly afflicted by a "but what if I need this more, later?" mindset because I don't find the idea of resting after every fight to be appealing. Guess I'll have to fight at 100% now if I want to survive any further than this.
Blaggerd foolishly hunts down Adoy and makes a bad start to the ensuing combat with Ekandor. Neera turns the tide, but Ekandor shoots her down with a Flame Arrow and switches his attention back to the blackguard. Branwen is too far away and three or four seconds too late in attempting to cast a Cure Light Wounds, while Blaggerd cannot gulp blue potions quickly enough to prevent cold, fire and magic missile damage from mounting up. 4hp left with two of five missiles still inbound is enough to seal matters.
Rolled again and started, may be a while before next update.
Comments
SCS Blackguard Run #2 - The Final Chapter
As Shakespeare once wrote: "Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust." For my blackguard, that time was tonight. I tried doing the upper floors of Durlag's Tower, but the ghost on the third floor iced me, though I'm not sure how. Protected from confusion by the greenstone amulet, I ran into the chamber where he's initially standing, and expected him to teleport like he does in vanilla to the main room, where I had a skelly waiting for him. Instead he cast defensive spells and turned towards me. I was expecting a lightning bolt so I chugged a potion of absorption. However, according to the game log, he cast cloudkill and I died instantly.I'm not sure how this happened, as I had more than 4 hd and shouldn't have had to roll a save. In fact, according to the game log, I didn't roll a save, I just died. Can anyone explain this? Is it a bug?
Thanks, all, for reading, and for all your advice in this thread. This is a truly great community. And congrats to those who still have runs going. Your level of play amazes me. I also thought I'd tip my hat to @Mantis37 - your journal-style reports are nicely written!
I usually avoid fighting that ghost. The decoying Khalid was almost fried by his Chain Lightning on my present run, which would have likely killed a party member if they'd been bunched. Then it was time to leave
@Arctodus @Flashburn Good to see that you are still going and that Arctodus was fortunate concerning the book of infinite spells.
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
Part VI: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/917934/#Comment_917934
Not much to say about the next couple of quests: Just a buffed up Iloïnen with her skeleton warriors - and somtimes a deva - attacking foes with the FoA +3 and the Sling of Everard. This way, the astral prison, the planar sphere, the cult of the eyeless and the windspear hills were dealt with. I ignored Firkraag (no need to risk a battle) and returned back to the city to buy at least a couple of potions of magic shielding, in case something goes wrong in the underdark.
After that, I also gathered some more Crom Faeyr materials by hunting down the illithids and killing the shadow dragon, who turned out to be a relatively poor one on one-fighter:
I'm happy that I avoided making any relevant mistakes this time, and I hope this trend will continue as I make my way through the asylum.
Enuhal
Setup/WeiDU: (BWS/BGT: SCS/Spell Revisions/Item Revisions/aTweaks/Polytweak/Item Randomiser)
TOC:
1. Einleitung.
2. Chapter I.
3. Chapter II.
4. Chapter III .
5. Chapter IV.
6. Chapter V.
7. Chapter VI.
8. Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
It's been a while since my last update and during this time the Crew managed to finish the remaining parts of BG1/ToSC. I'm eager to start SoA so I'll make it quick. As some of you might remember first we were intended to finish Durlag's Tower.
SCS v.30 Greater Dopplegangers are far less dangerous than v.21 I'm used to (they now lack confusion on hit) so we dealt with them with ease. And Viconia with her excellent AC and Free Action could tank Mustard Jellies and Skeleton Warriors relatively safe.
For Wardens fight we buffed over the top and Viconia with her skellies opened it.
I cast Web to keep them at bay and we concentrated on Avarice to nullify his vicious backstabs.
Pride, under Righteous Fury, hit like a truck and he has plenty of those, Fear is break free from the Webs and can paralyze while Love have permanent Globe of Invulnerability and unlimited Slow and Dire Charms. We need to be extremely careful. We have Break Enchantment and Remove Paralysis but just so many.
Fear paralyzes Xan but fell to Flame Strikes and Pride is after Xan so I rushed ahead with Invisibility. Xan is safe and Khalid finished Pride with nice critical.
Love is alone but in the heat of the fight I didn't realised that he also protected with Physical Mirror and wasted some time to shoot him with missiles. Once I realised this is pointless I buff Khalid with Strength potion and he chunked Love with Spider's Bane.
The next level is pretty uneventful. Imoen countered Greater Dopple's MI with Detect Illusions and Viconia is brilliant frontliner. As usual. We found Ring of Invisibility there for Imoen so she can now scout ahead looking for traps completely safe. She also hit level 10 and now has 100 in Detect Illusions alone with Locks/Traps. Initially I've thought to dual her to Mage at level 10 but wandering in this halls without a thief seems suicidal to me so she'll stay as a thief to the end of BG1.
Dwarven Doomguards guard Greenstone Amulet (seems I'm luckier here with Randomizer than @Arctodus ) and Kiel's Buckler is perfect addition to Jaheira'a equipment.
Greater Wyverns on the next level are perfectly susceptible to Wands of Flamestrike and Paralyzis to pose no threat. Neither Ghoul Lords if you have Free Action active.
Note to those who are unaware and will face Chessboard fight under SCS for the first time - never move any of your characters after you finish the last elemental room. You'll be instantly teleported to the chessboard and those characters will continue their movement triggering the opposition immediately (SCS v.21 behave a bit differently):
As this is my first v.30 run we have to improvise and act quickly. Khalid fired some arrows of detonation on their Bishops at the back while Jaheira hit with Ice Storm to slow down Pawns and Xan fired Web. Queen cast Confusion on Khalid but we all saved. While Knights were struggling to hit through my AC and Stoneskins I add another Web.
This was devastating. Most opposition fell withing few rounds either being frosen or fried. Rooks are deadly accurate with their bows so Imoen had to use Potion of Invisibility to stay alive.
Knights fell in short order, we revealed the King with Invisibility Purge, removed his MI with Detect Illusions spell and that's it.
Both me and Jaheira got a level there but I'm not level up my characters once hitting ToSC level cap (161k) to not break the balance of the game.
Final level is just Field of Wonder in terms of easy nice loot (most of which is useless to us):
We gave Jaheira both Rings of Fire Resistance for 100 res and with her Kiel's Buckler she is immune to Stun. Death Knight opened with PW:Blind (which she countered with Potion of Sight - ex. Potion of Infravision) followed with Symbol of Death while Xan summoned some monsters.
Death Knight hit with Unholy Fireball and looks like with SR it apply not only fire damage but also some other kind as Jaheira was immune to fire damage but was hit with this another source. Funny thing is that Death Knight is not immune to it himself so he was kind enough to bring himself to near death with his own spell. Few shots with Acid Arrows spelled his doom.
Back to civilisation we have one last area unfinished (Red Wizards) but at level cap and between Viconia's MR and Jaheira's Ice Storm there is too little space to manoeuvre:
In Ulgoth' Beard the Cult ambush was countered with Invisibility 10' Radius (casting time 1, 1 turn duration) to reposition, buff and get ready:
For Aec'Letec we applied a ton of buffs only to be immediately dispelled when the fight start. At least we had plenty potions of mirrored eyes to counter death gazes. We killed Tracea during first round and called some monsters to keep Aec'Letec busy while we shot his acolytes with fireballs/arrows of detonation. Once they were killed it was just a matter of time to deal with Aec'Letec. Imoen claimed the coup de grace.
Werewolf Island, with its mostly melee opponents wasn't too threatening. While SR makes Spell Thrust an AOE spell to be able target invisible creatures (which is good in some situations vs groups) it's far less reliable vs fast moving opponents. We befriended Kaishas (I really like this opportunity SCS provide) and we confront her husband back in Ulgoth's Beard only to realize that SR silver dagger is ineffective vs him while mere Gnolls hit him just fine with their halberds:
Ice Island in oppose is filled with mages but Viconia again shine there with her MR. Jaheira's Ice Storm help to bypass MGoI protection.
Andris use Dimention Jump to ambush us hiding near entrance but we always have an escape option like Invisibility 10' Radius.
Even though SR states that undead are immune to Skull Traps, Andris show that this isn't true:
Nonetheless, if Spell Thrust hit and with invisible thief detecting illusions nearby, the BG1 Mage is doomed:
The rest of the Isle inhabitants are far less threatening and we even discovered that Tellan could be talked out of fight. Xan got his own Stoneskin scroll to memorize.
Back in the City we rushed through the endgame saving Duke Eltan, killing Cythandria with her pet golems (I was ready to spare her life when she surrended but I can't stop Viconia's Flame Strike already fired)
and gaining the invitations for the meeting where Sarevok is going to become a Grand Dude. We also looted another Tome of Constitution (the one randomized from Durlag's Tower) and Dagger of Venom:
In the Palace I immediately cast Invisibility on Lija and tanked Greater Dopples while the rest of the Crew concentrated on Dopple Mage quickly sending it on the run in fear and Dopple Assassin. This allowed Dopple Shaman to hit with Unholy Blight once but he was killed immediately after to not let him do any more harm. Assassin was next to fell with Mage in close proximity. Remaining three Greater Dopples aren't a threat. Both Dukes survived with Lija unharmed at all and Belt barely scratched. I lured him to one of the back rooms so Sarevok can't reach him after realizing that all his plans are crumbled.
Vs Undercity party Viconia called for her skellies and controlled some more in nearby ruins to serve as meat shield. Those dudes are dangerous but their end is no other than death nonetheless. Tamoko was persuaded to not throw her life aside and we enter the old Bhaal's Temple:
Inside Viconia lured Sarevok and most his followers to the NE corner and parked them there sipping the potion of invisibility while Angelo was lured to the SE corner to deal with:
His Skeleton Warrior was disassembled in short order and Xan revealed Semaj's location with Detect Invisibility. Cloudkill from the scroll softened Semaj and Tazok and a couple of Fireballs finished them.
Viconia showed herself to separate Diarmid and Sarevok from Skeleton Warriors and some monsters kept them busy while we disassembled those ones. With Sarevok chasing some Dire Wolves we killed Diarmid and then I and Xan were busy to supply the constant flow of monsters while Khalid and Jaheira shot Sarevok with their best ammunition. Viconia hit with Flame Strikes occasionally and soon its was all over:
Before reporting to Belt we all level up to have all spells available in Irenicus dungeon as we only can rest there once and now I just came to sences in some cell with Imoen whispering into my ear: "Wake up! Wake up you! We must get out of here!"
The Crew state after defeating Sarevok:
Grim Face: Cleric (7) / Illusionist (7), 286 kills (Angelo);
Jaheira: Fighter (7) / Druid (8), 666 kills (Death Knight); 1 death
Khalid: Fighter (8), 589 kills (Greater Wolfwere);
Imoen: Thief (10), 233 kills (Invisible Stalker);
Viconia: Cleric (8), 308 kills (Sil);
Xan: Enchanter (9), 121 kills (Jalantha Mistmyr).
Onto the Amn!
to be continued...
edit: some thought about this part of the run and setup. I'm quite pleased with how it goes and setup IMO is just perfectly balanced, realistic, reasonably challenging and interesting. I also pleased to have only one NPC death so far (not counting Dynaheir's vs Shoal) and eager to learn what SoA could provide in that matter.
As for the chess board, I'll give that a try. I've had to console my characters there in recent installs.
Brunash the Berserker Packin' Man-and-a-Halfling Enchanter!
BG1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9SoD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
We rest up and venture into hell. Glint gets charmed by Illaruel but M'khiin cures him of it with Spiritual Clarity.
Up the stairs, we fight some minor devils and Glint levels up. We kill more devils and answer Thrix's riddle, obtaining the Tongue of Acid +3 for Khalid. On the way up the elevator, Glint levels up again.
Time to fight Belhifet. Caelar joins us. I start the fight with a Haste and our tanks drink potions of fire resistance, having them attack Big B. I'm waiting to see what Belhifet starts off with. He doesn't do anything except attack on this first round, so I move our casters away from the elevator grate and toward the cages. Baeloth and I cast Lower Resistance on Belhifet as he calls down a fire storm.
M'khiin casts Insect Plague on Belhifet, though he resists it the first time. He teleports away into the southeast corner, so Baeloth and I reposition ourselves as Minsc and Khalid clean up Hephernaan and the devils Big B summoned. Belhifet goes Improved Invisible, which I dispel with Detect Invisibility. Baeloth lowers his magic resistance again and M'khiin casts Insect Plague on him again, which takes this time, though it doesn't seem to hamper his spellcasting in any way.
She follows up with a Static Charge, which does a fair amount of damage to him. Baeloth casts Greater Malison which lowers his saves, so I attempt a Hold Monster, which he resists. Suddenly,
Dammit Caelar!
After the fight's over, I pack up all the exportable items into my Bag of Holding toss away all my scrolls to make room for exportable items so they'll see use in SoA. Putting them into a Bag of Holding for export does not work.
That was SoD on Core Rules. My last playthrough was on Hard and it didn't seem much more difficult than this was. Next time I do no-reload, I'll play SoD on Insane so I can push myself harder. I'm moving on to BG2, with SCS installed so this should be quite the difficulty spike.
Congratulations on beating SoD, @Flashburn , and congratulations on beating BG1, @Serg_BlackStrider
We head out to Brynnlaw and tackle Perth the Adept. Perth wastes a precious round Breaching Mae, our Bounty Hunter, while we apply spell failure using Holy Word.
Perth has no Fire Shields active, so we have our Planetar use Insect Plague. Hoping to bypass Perth's spell turning buff, the planetar targets itself with Insect Plague, only to find that it won't spread to Perth.
Perth begins casting an Enchantment spell, but Carl and Asriel cast SI: Enchantment in time to avoid it. Frisk doesn't bother; they already have Chaotic Commands active.
We dispel Perth's invisibility via Detect Illusions and hit him with Secret Word, Spell Thrust, and another Holy Word. But Perth is still perfectly capable of casting spells.
Either Perth's script ignores spell failure, the 50% spell failure in Holy Word no longer stacks in EE and Perth got lucky, or Perth is the wrong alignment and therefore immune to Holy Word outright. In any case, Perth's PFMW has run out and he appears to have no PFMW Contingency to replace it.
Killing Perth turns out to be quite necessary; apparently 15 Charisma isn't enough to talk our way into Spellhold. On the way we spot some Sirines, replacing the less interesting critters that normally show up outside Spellhold. Frisky Bits has CON bonuses from their Dragon Disciple kit, so we sacrifice a point of CON in the Spellhold dream and let our Planetar deal with Bhaal.
The Coiled Cabal is a common problem for me in the labyrinth. I bait out some spells using summons, but then the Yuan-ti start teleporting over to the party. Mae's pre-set traps deal poison damage, which disrupts the enemy's spells and buys us enough time to throw out some magic attacks, though Horrid Wilting wins the fight anyway.
Notice that Mae has been sitting on her next level up for a long time. I've realized that there's very little reason to level up beyond Bounty Hunter level 15 until you're level 21. At level 15, you already have plenty of HP and skill points and so forth, and you also have the best snares, the level 11 version that deals lingering poison damage and is very excellent at disrupting spells. Once you hit level 16, though, they deal fire damage, only once. Worse yet, Special Snares apply a Resilient Sphere effect at level 16 and deal no damage.
Only at level 21 does the level up become worth it, because that's when a Bounty Hunter gets Maze traps. Mae will be at level 15 until she hits 2.4 million XP.
Bodhi ambushes the party every X number of hours in my install, but Invisibility is enough to dissuade her, making that mod more of an inconvenience than a challenge.
I'm worried about the lich in this area, so I hang out right next to the exit so I can escape at a moment's notice. I send a stream of summons down south to deal with the lich. I don't want to send them out all at once, or else the lich will wipe them all out with a Death Spell.
I'm pretty sure the lich can teleport over to the party, so to make sure we're prepared, we cast Spell Immunity in expectation of a dangerous Remove Magic spell. Sure enough, the lich pays the party a visit, but I failed to consider one factor: Improved Alacrity.
I had assumed that we'd have 6 seconds to respond after the lich cast Dimension Door, since the lich's aura would be clouded. But with Improved Alacrity, we have no such delay, and the lich is already summoning a Fallen Planetar. Our auras are clouded, which means we have to wait 6 seconds to cast PFMW.
I've never proved the theory in-game, but based on what I've seen in Near Infinity, I'm pretty sure the dispel magic effect in a planetar's sword strikes before the vorpal strike, which means Death Ward offers NO defense against the instant death effect. That amounts to a slim chance of a game-ending vorpal strike on Frisky Bits with every attack roll the planetar makes. I know better than to gamble with that, especially without a Teleport Field on the map or summons to distract it. I flee the area and escape a Spell Sequencer as well.
I don't like using area transitions to wait out enemy mage spells, but I like vorpal strikes even less. While we're waiting, I get a Wish-rest.
We return, but the lich's power is not yet spent. Our Spell Thrusts strike as level 4 spells and cannot touch the lich, while the lich's Wish Breach hits everyone but Frisky Bits, who chose Spell Shield as a level 5 spell pick for just this reason.
Secret Word does work on the lich, but it doesn't matter; the lich has already lost its PFMW.
The lich's Pit Fiend casts Unholy Word, a spell I rarely see and did not anticipate at all. Frisky Bits suffers deafness and therefore 50% spell failure, but manages to get PFMW off the ground, which could be extremely helpful if the Pit Fiend has nasty on-hit effects (I've seen Pit Fiends in Tactics that deal 999 poison damage on a failed save).
With PFMW on our Charname and no PFMW on the lich, the outcome is certain.
We never did kill the Greater Mummies in the lich's room, and they've been spamming Animate Dead for a long time. We wipe one out with some spare summons and Horrid Wilting, but the other one paralyzes two of our sorcerers with a fear aura. I failed to appreciate that Remove Fear wore off due to our 20 rounds in the next area.
Frisky Bits got lucky with that saving throw, but it's not necessary; Onion-san still has Remove Fear to cure the effect.
By the way: Mist Horrors can cast Chaos. I never thought of them as remotely dangerous critters, but in a different context that could have been a game-changer.
Killing the Umber Hulks and opening the door to the next level (I didn't bother with the riddles or the portal) gets both Onion-san and Chara up to level 14, giving us access to both Nature's Beauty and Holy Word.
Oddly enough, Sime turns out to be a vampire, even though Aran Linvail, whom we previous killed, introduced her to us as a friend. I think there's a mistake with the Assassinations mod somewhere.
By the way, does anyone else do this?
Because I do.
I decide that paying off Lonk does not count as a quest expense and therefore isn't allowed in this run. Luckily for us, Lonk forgot to cast his pre-buffs. He starts the fight completely defenseless.
I had originally intended on using a Cone of Cold spell to disrupt Jon-bon's first spell, but I decide against it. Instead, we hit him with magic attacks and use Insect Plague on Onion-san so it spreads to Irenicus.
Onion-san's clone is apparently evil-aligned and can cast Unholy Word, but this time, Frisky Bits is unaffected--apparently they were out of range. Only Asriel suffers deafness. Our sorcerers take down the last of Jon-bon's defenses.
A PFMW Contingency keeps Irenicus safe for a moment, and a Spell Sequencer robs Carl of his next Breach spell, but Chara finishes casting Nature's Beauty, permanently blinding Irenicus.
Wanev stops time, which lets the Insect Plague on Irenicus run out. But Wanev also throws out two Horrid Wilting spells, and the fight is over a second after Time Stop ends.
I think I'm going to hold off on Summon Planetar for the most part. Fights are more interesting without its vorpal strikes and Globes of Blades and instant-casting Insect Plagues and Fire Storms and Holy Words and True Seeing and Flame Strike spells.
Poverty runs are vicious, but we actually have enough resources to handle midgame SoA without relying on our highest-level options. Sorcerers, Bounty Hunters, and Totemic Druids are all powerful classes who don't really need items to perform their essential functions, which means Onion-san is the only one who's truly crippled by the lack of items (mostly because of her poor AC). And with Shield, Spirit Armor, Chaotic Commands, Protection from Petrification, Death Ward, Remove Fear, Spell Shield, Protection from Cold, Protection from Acid, Protection from Electricity, innate immunity to fire, Protection from Magical Energy, Spell Turning, Stoneskin, and a free aura to cast Spell Immunity and PFMW, Frisky Bits is immune to basically everything but poison and Slow, the latter of which can be cured with Haste (Free Action could block Slow, but I don't trust its duration or its immunity to haste).
We just need to make sure that Frisky Bits is protected from all sources of poison whenever Spell Turning is active, because otherwise we'd need to burn through 12 spell levels before we could cast Neutralize Poison on them.
@Mantis37: Alternatives, I guess. I thought "Assassinations" was the name of the questline with Malficus, since he says it involves lots of assassinations (it involves one, actually).
Brunash "Tall, Dark, and Handsome" the Enchanter!
BG1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9SoD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Notable mods:
-SCS (long-duration mage/priest prebuffs only, no consistent Breach, no Tactics challenges except Original Tactics Improved Bodhi, various Improved creatures w/ normal HP, smarter ToB bosses)
-BP Ascension v15 BETA (all tougher ToB bosses)
-NPC_EE
-aTweaks (no fiendish gating or ethereal plane shifting, no mental combat vs. summoned elementals)
-Rogue Rebalancing
-IWDification
-Tweaks Anthology
-Item Upgrade
-More Style For Mages
-ding0 tweaks (anyone can set off traps, animated ioun stones)
-Oversight (monk HLAs only)
-Enchant the Missile Launchers
-Unofficial Item Pack
-Skip Chateau Irenicus (its better than Dungeon-Be-Gone)
-Golem Construction
-Coran
-Assorted personal mods and tweaks
Here we go, BG2. Imoen frees me and I collect the Pantaloons, then release Minsc and Jaheira. Courtesy of Skip Chateau Irenicus, I teleport to the surface and collect all the goodies from the dungeon's rubble and console in a Bag of Holding, because God knows I need it for BG2. Item Upgrade and Golem Construction basically require you to have one in your possession because there's no way you can hold on to all of the components needed for certain things for as long as it takes you to either gather them all, or level up high enough to assemble them.
I sell what nobody is going to use and head over to Gaelan's, then the Copper Coronet to assemble the crew of this playthrough. Amalas challenges me, which I accept. I turn invisible, apply Stoneskin, and blow him away with a Wand of Lightning charged Wand of Frost.
Korgan, Anomen, and Nalia are recruited. Korgan stays as he is, Anomen is turned into a Priest of Helm, and Nalia has been made a sorcerer since she sucked at trying to imitate Imoen. I hate the process of trying to gather party members.
I dump Minsc and Jaheira and set off for the city gates but get ambushed. Our fighters are probably going to die.
Nalia and I start off invisible as our fighters try to hold off the melee enemies. Our equipment is garbage and I forgot to tweak Anomen's AI, causing him to use a sling for the first round of the fight while in melee, so Anomen dies pretty quickly. Korgan holds on by enraging. Nalia casts Greater Malison on the group as I use a WoL-charged Hold Person scroll to attempt to hold everyone. It only manages to paralyze the mage and another fighter since Nalia uses a Spell Thrust to strip the minor globe. She uses a WoL-charged Chromatic Orb to try to thin their ranks more though it only causes instant death on the thief archer.
Soon they're all dead, though I'm feeling pretty irritated that a party member has died already partly due to my own lack of attention.
We make it to the City Gates and recruit Coran since I want Nalia as my secondary support caster, no point in using Yoshimo, I don't want a second wizard in the party so Jan's out, and I don't want to micromanage Hexxat's stupid cloak. I kit Coran into a Bounty Hunter.
The shadow thieves the vampire is fighting drop some good loot. We get to the temple district and rez Anomen, who reminds me I need to tweak his AI as he casts Sanctuary after he returns. I'm killing him myself if I ever catch him with his sling out in melee combat again.
We make it to Trademeet and recruit Rasaad. The gang's all here now, so I can finally get this game underway properly.
We return to the Copper Coronet blessedly without incident and rest. Hendak is freed and Korgan gets the Stonefire Axe +3. We go back to the Promenade to buy a couple things and pickpocket Ribald's Ring of Regeneration, which I give to Korgan. The circus tent is cleared out and the Pebblecrusher party is reduced to smithereens with a bunch of skeleton warriors and a Harm spell from Anomen toasting Pebblecrusher himself.
Korgan starts complaining so we go to the Graveyard and clear out the topside tombs and then the ones further down. Pai'na is dealt with, so Improved Kitthix will be made soon. Rasaad gets the Pale Green Ioun Stone. In the lower tombs, I summon an Air Elemental to help us and it is cleared out with ease. We try to go to the Temple district but get the Renfeld ambush. We take Renfeld to the Harper HQ and then finish off Korgan's quest. The slavers are run out of business and Lilarcor is retrieved, causing Coran and Nalia to gain a level. Reporting back to Hendak earns Anomen and Rasaad a level. Now its Nalia's turn to complain about her quest, so we go to the de'Arnise keep.
Now things are getting interesting. Trolls are putting the hurting on Anomen, but I give him my Girdle of Piercing so he doesn't get hit as much. Upstairs we run into the golem sentries.
They hit pretty hard because our armor isn't very good yet. Korgan gets badly injured and I choose to enrage him instead of trying to heal. He gets poisoned just afterward, and Anomen doesn't have Neutralize Poison memorized. Not that it mattered. The iron golem hits Korgan again and he dies.
We retreat because the golems' damage resistance is too great to overcome without Korgan, as he was the only tank with a +3 weapon. Falling back is made difficult because the golems are chasing us while hasted, but we eventually close the door on the Iron Golem and make our way back around from the other side. Coran scouts out where the Iron golem is and lays down standard traps. Constructs, Elementals, Oozes, and Undead are immune to the nonlethal damage part of Bounty Hunter traps, which also cannot be thrown anymore.
With his new Elven Court Bow +3, Coran can damage the golem. He lures it into his traps, though they don't do much damage. But suddenly, a new vulnerability appears:
While they may not be poisoned in the conventional way, it seems these iron golems can still take poison damage. This is probably because I'm using v3.1 of Golem Construction instead of the latest release which is v5.3. Coran kites the golem down the hallway as the poison eats away at it, and it eventually falls.
Anomen memorizes Raise Dead and brings back Korgan, casting Heal on him afterwards.
We kill Glaicus and reforge the Flail of Ages. Back in the cellars, we prepare to fight Tor'Gal. Anomen protects us from evil so I can gate in a Nabassu. I prefer these as my Cacofiend summon because they can drain 2 levels per hit.
There isn't a whole lot else I can do because the trolls are immune to most disablers, and that's what an Enchanter does best. The Nabassu does its job and level drains a giant troll to death, then does the same to Tor'Gal.
We return to the Promenade and sell the spoils. I buy the Robe of Vecna and Korgan levels up from some scrolls that I scribe.
Brunash - Enchanter 13
Korgan - Berserker 13
Anomen - Fighter 7 -> Priest of Helm 13
Rasaad - Sun Soul Monk 13
Coran - Fighter 10/Bounty Hunter 13
Nalia - Sorcerer 13
Blaggerd, Human Male Blackguard. Stats today: Str 18/84, Dex 18, Con 18, Int 15, Wis 3, Cha 18
** Two Handed Sword, Dagger
After ditching Gorion, Imoen was met and dumped. Montaron would do the dirty work better than her. For once, Blaggerd was looking to recruit Rasaad and Neera. It didn't take long to decide Xzar and Montaron were going to be troublesome from a reputation standpoint so Imoen was retrieved by Mr indecisive instead. Kivan briefly joined but after reviewing party formation Blaggerd decided he'd prefer a healer to a ranged killer and swapped him out for Branwen.
By this time there had been a few party deaths. After escaping one bandit circle of death (see screenshot), a second was less successful and Rasaad was raised at a temple. Droth the Ogre Mage was on the back foot and Branwen about to use a second Command on him when Blaggerd suggested she not bother as everything was under control, and that resulted in a lightning bolt downing Imoen and Rasaad. Branwen used her Command and all ended well.
Screenshots
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Journal of Hrothgara
In Cloakwood we mediated between the hunters and the druids and came up with a peaceful solution. We eliminated several aggressive spiders but the wolves were not agressive so we left them alone.We agreed to help some druids by killing a dragon and we also killed Centeol. I got the others to buff me befor retiring to Centeol's lair whilst I took on the dragon. Due to my buffs it hardly injured me at all before I at last managed to kill it. My friends then healed me before having a well-earned rest.
Upon reaching the shadow druid area we rested before proceeding onward where I killed three winter wolves single handed before calling for help when confronted by two extremely fast bears.
We were forced to kill a crazy dryad, Miranda the witch and a number of druids before carrying on to Beador.
Anomen already knows his sister was killed and we talked to his father, and talked to Bylanna as well. I think his knighthood trial is supposed to start now.
Brunash "Halfling Plus Half Again" the Halfling Enchanter!
BG1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9SoD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
SoA: 1
Xzar's quest is finished, earning Coran a level, and Improved Kitthix is forged. The sewer gang is dealt with pretty easily thanks to a lucky Conjure Fire Elemental roll, which got us a normal and Greater Fire Elemental at the same time.
Haer'Dalis is freed. We steal the Weathermistress' amulet, which earns Anomen and Rasaad a level. When we turn it in to Mae'var, I gain a level too. Despite encountering the Terl bug, we press on anyway and finish Mae'var's questline, buying the Shield of CheeseBalduran from the Promenade. Next is the Cult of the Eyeless quest. We reach the lich and use Protection from Undead scrolls on everyone. We fail to kill the lich in the first round after it spawns, reducing it to Near Death. It uses a contingency to summon 2 Mordy Swords and casts the spell to summon a third one. We retreat out the door while Hasted and close it behind us. After a couple rounds, we open the door and have Korgan tank the swords as Nalia and I cast Magic Missiles at them to kill them.
After all 3 swords are dead, we rush back in and kill the Lich, but not before it gates in a Fallen Planetar which goes Improved Invisible.
We book it back out the door and close it behind us, waiting for the Fallen Planetar to get unsummoned. It eventually leaves and we collect the bones from the sarcophagus. The level below is conquered easily thanks to Balduran's Shield. How are you supposed to balance an enemy that can spam damage, disablers, death rays, and anti-magic rays an unlimited amount of times? You can't.
The Unseeing Eye is killed.
I charm Gaal and he paralyzes 2 of the cultist guards with a Hold Person.
We reforge Anomen's shield with the Saving Grace shield to make the Delryn Family Shield +4 and we buy the Headband of Focus from SoD from Ribald.
At the Bridge District, we decide to go Lich hunting. The first one is put down easily with Protection from Undead scrolls.
While the scroll's power was still active, I decide to challenge the Lich hanging out at the City Gates. It does not go well. It is protected by a wall of force which prevents escape once inside its lair. Coran dies first from a Wail of the Banshee spell.
Korgan dies next from a failed save against Horrid Wilting while debuffed with Greater Malison.
Then Nalia from another Horrid Wilting.
Anomen gets petrified by a Prismatic Spray.
The only one left to deal with the lich besides myself is Rasaad. Still protected from undead, he punches through its Stoneskins and beats it to death.
I pack up everyone's stuff into the Bag of Holding and memorize Stone to Flesh. 8 hours later, I unpetrify Anomen, who also happens to be Feebleminded, which is fixed by a Dispel Magic.
Battered and demoralized, we go to the Temple district and raise Coran and Korgan. We don't have enough gold to raise Nalia.
Anomen memorizes Raise Dead again and we rest, then raise and heal Nalia.
I think I'm beginning to suffer from "option overload," which tends to happen at around this time in SoA where I get lazy and get WAY too conservative with caster resources since our fighters are usually enough to take care of most jobs. I'm terribly afflicted by a "but what if I need this more, later?" mindset because I don't find the idea of resting after every fight to be appealing. Guess I'll have to fight at 100% now if I want to survive any further than this.
Brunash - Enchanter 14
Korgan - Berserker 14
Anomen - Fighter 7 -> Priest of Helm 15
Rasaad - Sun Soul Monk 15
Coran - Fighter 11/Bounty Hunter 14
Nalia - Sorcerer 14
Rolled again and started, may be a while before next update.