I decide to deal with Abazigal's lair first, more out of habit than any other reason. We throw a bunch of summons at Draconis to neutralize his mage form, but our summons instantly die on his transformation.
Turns out Farsight and summons are enough to deal with his second form, too. We never take a point of damage.
The funny thing is that my mods make armies of celestials harder to create, not easier: although my install has no cap on celestials, SCS also makes mage and priest HLAs into innate abilities, which means clones can't cast them. In the unmodded game, a Project Image clone could summon 6 planetars with no need for Wish-resting.
We get a minor scare when the Greater Werewyvern proves able to attack through invisibility and poisons Frisky Bits, but Frisky Bits has a clear aura and can break their invisibility right after we slip outside, allowing Chara to target them with Neutralize Poison.
Another sobering reminder of Frisky Bits' vulnerability to poison damage.
Or at least, it should have been a reminder.
Anadramatis, whom I believe is a mod-introduced dragon, apparently has two breath weapons, dealing piercing damage or fire damage depending on which it uses. I thought she was in a separate area, so I arrive unbuffed as well as without summons. I try to hit her with a Maze trap after nailing Mae with PW: Blind, but Anadramatis has a MINHP1 item to ensure she doesn't die during the duel, and that item also grants her immunity to Maze effects. We have to fight Anadramatis as-is.
Feeling desperate, I resort to the WoL trick (I just hate that Carl and Onion-san still haven't gotten their first HLAs) and land a Time Stop. We inadvertently slay Anadramatis instead of winning the duel.
Demons spawn on the way back, but I saw them coming and set Maze traps to give us time to summon celestials before engaging the enemy.
The Kuo-toa and Water Elemental area is uneventful aside from a curious surprise: Spirit Wolves are vulnerable to stun! I thought all spirit critters were immune to all disablers by level 10.
The monk in this area has no rope to give us in my install, so we have to go back to Amkethran to get some from the inn. This is just a device to ensure we have to fight the quadruple dragon ambush outside Abazigal's lair. But since I know two dragons with acid breath are waiting for us to the far northwest and won't attack us until we enter their line of sight...
...we have more than enough time to summon an army. I don't bother with the WoL trick this time. But summons are not so strong against the dragons; no summons except for Magical Swords are immune to acid, and the dragons' acid breath bypasses MR and spell protections. That means our army suffers horribly to an attack that would be largely harmless to our well-buffed party itself.
We use Farsight to monitor them, but eventually I stray too close, triggering a cutscene in which Frisky Bits northwest towards the dragons' original spawn point before engaging in dialogue with the dragons. In the process, Frisky Bits wanders close to the dragons, who nail them with Remove Magic apparently during that cutscene.
Frisky Bits had no SI: Abjuration active; I had no reason to think that it would be necessary (they were far from the dragons and I had no plans of approaching them). Now they're completely unbuffed. Fortunately, the dragons are busy with out other summons and fail to nuke Frisky Bits while they run back to Carl, the only one who knows Protection from Acid.
It was a gamble. I could have sent Frisky Bits northwest to avoid the dragons and had a properly-buffed Carl run out to cast Protection from Acid on Frisky Bits, but I was concerned that the dragons would target Frisky Bits before long, and the only way to ensure their survival was to get them to Carl as soon as possible.
Next time, I will need to either stay buffed with SI: Abjuration even when far away from the dragons, or make a point of triggering that cutscene earlier, lest it interfere with the battle itself.
One of the dragons goes down, and the other is severely wounded. I'm anxious about the next fight: after the second black dragon dies, a green dragon with a poisonous breath weapon will arrive, Ithy'nassendra, and I want more summons than I currently have. I could always use the WoL trick to speed up our summoning process and get us more celestials faster, but I don't want to use the Wand of Lightning to win this one. Instead, I check the current dragon's HP using CTLR-M and order my summons to leave it alone when I notice it's close to death.
I use Project Image to cast Wish until I land a Wish-rest, then kill the Project Image clones so I can cast Summon Planetar before re-casting Project Image to continue the process. Right before we deal the final blow to the second dragon, Onion-san casts Chant and we get one final Wish-rest from our clones before we kill them to restore functionality to Frisky Bits and Asriel.
Chant is actually a huge, huge deal here. Aside from Chara, who is immune to poison thanks to their druid levels, no one in the entire party has any defense against poison damage. Chant applies a luck effect that reduces incoming spell damage rolls, which means it could prove lifesaving if Frisky Bits gets hit by Ithy'nassendra's breath weapon.
We finish off the second dragon and Ithy'nassendra spawns within range.
I don't want my summons to do all the work, so I have Frisky Bits and my other sorcerers approach to cast Pierce Shield, just to pitch in with some Horrid Wilting spells in the coming rounds.
This was the single stupidest decision I made in this entire run.
Ithy'nassendra responds with her breath weapon. I led Frisky Bits right into it--even when I knew that poison was their one weakness.
Frisky Bits made their save vs. breath. But a quick glance at their Record screen shows that their save vs. breath is a woefully inadequate 5.
That's a 20% chance of failure, which means Frisky Bits would have taken both hits from the breath weapon, which deals 24d6+12 damage with a save for half. On average, that amounts to 48 damage and another 48 damage on a failed save. But with Chant altering the dice rolls, the average damage for a second hit of damage on Frisky Bits would have been 38, if they had failed their save.
Frisky Bits only had 39 HP left.
Almost to the dot, Frisky Bits' chances of surviving that attack was 90%--an absolutely unacceptable figure for a single fight in a no-reload run, when each fight should have at least a 99% chance of success.
Except, according to that screenshot, Frisky Bits did not have Chant active. It seems they were not in range when Onion-san cast the spell.
Which means Frisky Bits' chances of survival were actually barely any higher than 80%. Even if that first hit had dealt 48 damage, the average value, instead of 52, Frisky Bits would still need good luck on their rolls if they were to survive on a failed save; the average damage would have been 96 out of their total 91 HP.
An 80% chance of survival. Not for the whole run, but just for one single fight. Survival was probable, but 80% is far beneath the standards of no-reload play.
I have Mae throw out a Special Snare to Maze Ithy'nassendra. I want more planetars on the field.
But, in a stunning display of idiocy and lack of pattern recognition, I sent in my sorcerers AGAIN to lower Ithy'nassendra's MR, hoping to hit her with some Horrid Wilting spells. The dragon responds with her breath weapon once again.
The first time I did this, it was the stupidest decision I made during the entire run. But this, the second time, was BY FAR the stupidest decision of the run.
Another saving throw, and a low damage roll. But a failed save would have proven fatal with an average damage roll; Frisky Bits was left with 48 HP. Another 80% chance of survival.
I pull the sorcerers back and let the experts do the work.
The final dragon, Carnifex, appears. But he deals fire damage and Frisky Bits is immune by default; even getting debuffed would leave them safe. My sorcerers can safely approach the dragon to cast Horrid Wilting without worrying about a fatal breath attack.
We rest a few times to trigger a couple of Greater Earth Elemental ambushes, just to bump Carl up to level 18 and give him his first HLA, halfway through ToB. Onion-san should get her first HLA right before Abazigal (we're so horribly underleveled).
With two breath weapons hitting Frisky Bits for an 80% chance of survival each, our total chance of surviving this fight was a disgraceful 64%, give or take a few percentage points. This was entirely due to my own stupidity; I had every reason and all the knowledge I needed to make the right call and keep Frisky Bits far, FAR away from Ithy'nassendra, but I failed to use my own best judgment and sent them into harm's way for absolutely no reason; there were no signs that my summons needed any support from anyone in the party, much less Frisky Bits, the one and only character we need to keep alive.
We have won the quadruple dragon ambush. But this was easily the worst gameplay I've ever demonstrated on a no-reload run. Not just because of the high chance of death, but because I had access to critical information--the fact that (1) Frisky Bits' sole weakness was poison damage, and (2) that Ithy'nassendra's breath weapon dealt massive poison damage--and simply failed to consider it.
We have the tools to win fights in ToB. But the important thing in a no-reload run is not winning fights; the important thing is not dying.
I need to keep Frisky Bits on a very tight leash if I'm going to avoid making this mistake again.
@semiticgod If that's the worst gameplay you've ever demonstrated in a no-reload run - and you're in TOB - I take my hat off to you. I'm amazed you can make it that far. I can't get past level 6 in BG1 yet. Something crappy always happens or I do something really stupid, or I just run into an encounter I can't beat. How many tries did it take you to first get through a no-reload run?
Still trying...
My latest run - which just ended (I was at level 5) - went to hell when I went to Ulgoth's Beard to do some shopping. My rep was low and I made the mistake of getting in visual range of Shandalar. Apparently, with low rep there's no dialogue option to delay his quest, or if there is I missed it. I was whisked off to that frozen island where I was under-leveled. I got barbecued in the battle with those first three mages. I killed two of them, but one of them was a beast. Even though my party was hidden he teleported right to us and unleashed a lightning bolt that sizzled most of my party, including charname. I decided to keep the run going so I could learn, but even after several reloads I couldn't beat that one mage on SCS, even with cheese. Ah, well, maybe next time if I have spell thrust and a six pack of absorption potions...
@semiticgod If that's the worst gameplay you've ever demonstrated in a no-reload run - and you're in TOB - I take my hat off to you. I'm amazed you can make it that far. I can't get past level 6 in BG1 yet. Something crappy always happens or I do something really stupid, or I just run into an encounter I can't beat. How many tries did it take you to first get through a no-reload run?
I gave up on my first run, which was undocumented (I think it predated my time here on the forum), somewhere in the Underdark. I don't remember anything about my party composition. My second one was a success, though it was BG2 and ToB only. That was the Party of Spiders run, but I did notably use test runs for Melissan and I granted myself a reload when I realized I had received some dangerously wrong information about SCS Ust Natha. Plus, I was using the spider gnome trick with Jan, and the Party of Spiders run demonstrates just how stupidly overpowered that trick was before EE removed it from BG2. Besides, I had been playing the game for 15 years, and I was using the class I was most familiar with: the cleric/mage.
I got through SoD no-reload on my first try, but I think I died during a BG1 no-reload attempt before the Undergate run with Chara.
Quick question Grimwald... don't you get teleported to the bottom and have to fight your way up? I wasn't planning on tackling it for now because of that.
Quick question. Long answer!
That does happen if you don't enter when invisible.
However I prefer to wait until I can enter the entire party in an invisible state and also exit if necessary. In my current game Dynaheir can cast 2 improved invisibility and 4 invisibility spells.
Once you have got past the initial party who teleport you, everyone on that level is non-hostile.
I tend to attack a number of the section to the south, but that is up to you. I then take on the enemy a few at a time. When you get to the bottom level it means that you are the one who controls positioning and the like.
I lure the main guy away from his allies. He approaches you to talk. Then you can fight him when he has no allies. Then use webs, cloudkill and fireballs for the rest.
If you do allow yourself to be teleported down ensure that everyone is hasted and buffed so that they can flee far enough to cast web on the pursuing enemy and use much the same tactics. Of course if you allow yourself to be teleported I suppose that you could always make the party invisible and escape without fighting.
I will NEVER take on the Ashikuru nowadays. They aren't worth the danger that you face fighting them. Little equipment, not much experience, high danger of being badly hurt or killed. I will just use stealth to get past them. I took them on in my last game, but even with foresight and truesight they kept on killing Dynaheir. They seem to know where the weakest link is!!
Thanks Grimwald. Very useful. Speaking of the Ice island...
To Syvstar Greycloak,
This missive is being written in accordance with the wishes of your kinsman Xan, who had previously provided me with detailed instructions of the correct procedures to follow in every eventuality. It is with the deepest sympathy and regret that I, Stirkus of Candlekeep, must inform you of his demise. He was a fine comrade, and it was my privilege to accompany him in recent weeks as he strove to perform his mission. His passing will be felt deeply by all those who knew him, and who will strive to carry on his legacy.
As you will already know from Xan’s previous reports, we had pursued the authors of the iron crisis as far as the Cloakwood. Xan aided us greatly in traversing the forest; striking down a corrupted Archdruid who had imprisoned several druids from a different sect, and battling a host of wyverns. It would be impossible to enumerate all the ways in which he aided our cause; as a diplomat in his speech, as the guide of our footsteps in the dark, and as a sure and steady hand in battle. He was instrumental in our discovery that the Iron Throne has played a role in the troubles that have beset this region, as we defeated several mages controlling a mine deep within the forest.
We subsequently determined to proceed in the direction of Baldur`s Gate. However the City had not yet begun to readmit travellers and we therefore visited the coastal village Ulgoth`s Beard. Here we were approached by the archmage Shandalar to retrieve an item of power. I deemed the task to be of little danger, being unacquainted with the capriciousness of that wizard`s whims. The decision was wrong, and it haunts me. We were not bound by any tie to provide assistance, and though Xan did not speak against the decision he could not have approved of it.
We were teleported to an island of ice, and there the horror began. A number of unstable mages prowled that strange place, and we were immediately assaulted by several of them. The events of the battle were chaotic, fought in narrow tunnels infested by wild beasts. We struck down one of their number, chased another, but the mightiest of them teleported amongst us and unleashed killing spells indiscriminately. The corridors were worn smooth by a wild torrent of disintegrating rays that we fled from, but Xan dauntlessly slashed at the mage with his Moonblade shining. Our foe sprang back, alarmed, and then spoke a word of power. And Xan fell, never to rise again, slain by one of the mightiest magics of Toril. His sacrifice was not in vain however, we fell upon the mage with swords and arrows, and he fell pierced in a hundred ways. We returned to a paltry reward, and the empty clamour of the crowds as word of our deeds in the Cloakwood spread. None of the temples we visited could revive our fallen friend. We should have gone on to Baldur`s Gate, but something has driven us to delve away from the sun for a short time. I think it was the darkness of Xan’s eyes, so dark that I understand now why some peoples who I have read of lay coins across the eyes of the dead. Before the end Xan spoke of the elven afterlife, and of his doubts. I do not know if that wizard’s spell truly extinguished his spirit, if it has found sweet oblivion or if it may yet return after wandering for a time. Until that time, something of myself too shall wander here in the dark, borrowing his grave countenance and slow step, partaking something of his doom. Along with Xan`s earthly remains and a few treasured possessions his dulled moonblade has been placed in the keeping of the Song of the Morning temple in Beregost. Should this arrangements prove unsatisfactory then we shall endeavour to alter them, in accordance with any will that Xan may have left or to the satisfaction of your excellency.
With my deepest regrets and sympathies, I am your servant,
Stirkus of Candlekeep
[As mentioned in the other thread Xan was inexplicably hit by Power Word Kill on Ice Island by Andris, who also threw around a few Disintegrates. Spell Revisions seems to change this to doing 60 magic damage, which would be enough to chunk Xan, so I have decided to remove him for now. Since his demise was a little unfair, I have permitted myself to bring back the dualed Imoen at a little less than the lowest party member`s xp as she has finished her mage studies for now. Stirkus needs her cheerfulness! Currently exploring Durlag`s tower, just dealt with the Warders.]
but even after several reloads I couldn't beat that one mage on SCS, even with cheese.
If you wait until chapter 5 to do these guys, then dispelling arrows make a world of difference. These mages go down quick when all their protections are gone.
but Frisky Bits has a clear aura and can break their invisibility right after we slip outside, allowing Chara to target them with Neutralize Poison.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you break invisibility by simply initiating a dialogue with a character, an aura-less action? I know I've simply ordered a dialogue with myself to break invisibility in the past, though getting rid of Improved Invisibility for friendly spells is another matter entirely...
I'm dropping the 75-point no-reload no-resurrection for now, as I can't get an install that I'm happy with for it. Plus, I really just want to do a solo through BGEE right now, so...
Jelar, Halfling Priest of Helm, introduction.
Mods are more or less at a minimum, SCS being the only tactical mod, and no large tweaks otherwise. No Divine Remix, no Rogue Rebalancing, no Item Revisions.
The play's been fairly standard for low level so far: Kiting Shoal, failing to de-chickenator Melicamp, kiting spiders, Commanding Tarnesh, and more kiting of Karlat. Jelar's level 4, approaching level 5, with nothing interesting happening as of yet.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you break invisibility by simply initiating a dialogue with a character, an aura-less action?
This whole run I've been fussing over the best way to break invisibility due to my constant use of Invisibility 10' Radius and I have an aura-free answer right here. Thank you!
but even after several reloads I couldn't beat that one mage on SCS, even with cheese.
If you wait until chapter 5 to do these guys, then dispelling arrows make a world of difference. These mages go down quick when all their protections are gone.
That was what was so funny about getting teleported to the ice island with out any way of stopping it: I'd finally learned the lesson about avoiding mage encounters until I at least had the spell thrust scroll from the bandit camp, and preferably some of those arrows as well.
I've been messing around with couple of charnames lately (to a various degree of success) and the time has come for me to share some of the adventures. Entering the challenge will be Daevorn, a human stalker. Stalkers are versatile and fun class (not to mention the explicit reference to my all-time favorite motion picture), sort of a fighter/thief with a twist, whilst I also feel that rangers in general could use more love around here.
I don’t normally fancy maxed stats but here we go.
Racial enemy: Demonic/Fell Starting profs: ** short sword, ** short bow, ** two-weapon style Mods: SCSv30, Tweaks Anthology (for Remove Blur Effect from Equipped Items component)
Of course, I could have elected scimitars or long swords for more punch, but zero speed factor is something I cherish a lot with my backstabbers.
And yes, the name is certainly reminiscent of that villain Davaeorn. As far as I remember, it's how I incorrectly picked it up the first time I was playing BG more than 10 years ago and I've been using it for my core RP characters ever since.
Onto the game coverage then.
Candlekeep -> Crossroads (Ring of Protection +1, belt ogre) -> FAI (Ring of Wizardry, Joia's hobgoblins). Tarnesh was avoided via stealth and this allowed Daevorn to trigger Dorn's questline and liaise the PoI from Jaheira. After having purchased essential supplies at High Hedge (potion case, potions of Freedom, of Mirrored Eyes, of Magic Blocking, Wand of Sleep), he continued to Beregost via Shoal.
Here's Daevorn landing his first backstab ever! Yay!
Our visit to Beregost involved Marl, book delivery to Firebeard, clearing the spider-infested house with Wand of Sleep, a short detour south to collect the letter for Mirianne and stealth boots and concluding the gnoll business with Perdue. Karlat was taken down by consecutive backstabs while using the inn's upper floor to hide.
Time to get our hands on our weapon of choice in the Red Canyons - the Whistling Sword +2.
Wand of Sleep played a major role against Bromnir's half-ogres. After that, Daevorn hitchhikes a ride to Nashkel with Barge and exchanges the excess gear (including Ankegh Plate) for Necklace of Missiles and Shield Amulet at the carnival.
We team up with Korax to do some basilisk hunting. Unfortunately, the ghoul loses his shootout with Mutamin (it was a close call though and the gnome got away only thanks to its MAA) and we're on our own.
Potions of Mirrored Eyes and Magic Blocking at the ready, Daevorn then snipes the mage and his pets one by one from the shadows. Kirian, as well as the southern basilisk group, are completely avoided.
Meilum was our next target, falling to our quick melee weapon and arrows. Seriously, man, just get rid of those bracers and the no-reloaders will let you live (unless it's a completionist run of course, in which case you're still doomed).
After having helped farmer Brun in the ankeghs' lair, Daevorn travels to Ulgoth's Beard. Adding Cloak of Discplacement, Greenstone Amulet and Darts of Stunning to his collection, he then jogs all the way south to pay a visit to Zal and Sendai.
Backstabbing Alexander yields a free Oil of Speed…
…and from Sendai we get a new armor (with AC currently being more relevant than saving throws bonues granted by the Ring of Protection +1).
That left Daevorn with just a couple of final tasks to complete prior to Nashkel mines, i.e. collecting the Girdle of Bluntness from Krumm, visiting the Gnoll Fortress and tackling Greywolf.
You may also note that the Claw of Kazgaroth is already ours. Daevorn's currently sitting at level 6. His proficiencies are ** short sword, ** short bow, * darts, * single-weapon style, ** two-weapon style.
I'm a bit anxious about the Tyrant Golems in the next area. They're mod-introduced beholders with demilich-grade resistances, when the only weakness of a typical beholder is its poor defenses. They're no fun at all to play. Plus, we have some other random eyeballs skulking around, ready to throw out a stream of low-level damage spells that could easily disrupt our own.
The solution? I have our least important party member, Onion-san, break invisibility and distract the eyeballs so the rest of the party can summon monsters.
We take down the eyeballs and then send our summons north to wrestle with the Tyrant Golems. The golems take down summons fast, but the celestials are sturdy enough to win out.
Frisky Bits knows Stone to Flesh as a mage spell, so we can actually recruit Bondari the Reloader without a Stone to Flesh scroll (which we already found and can arguably use for this purpose since poverty runs make exceptions for quest items). However...
For some reason, Bondari and the other statues are just gone. One or two odd-looking rocks suggest that they were shattered during the fight, but I don't see how it could have happened. Neither our summons nor the beholders nor the eyeballs use area-effect spells.
It's a nonfatal bug, however, so I go along with it. We'll just have to kill the Elder Orbs ourselves. Just like we did before, we enter the area while invisible and have Onion-san break invisibility by casting Greater Command.
This means our sorcerers can cast their spells without worrying about immediately getting hit by an Anti-Magic Ray (and only Frisky Bits has Spell Shield to block a single such ray) when they break invisibility. I know Chara will be able to summon all four of their spirit critters safely, but I'm not sure we'll have enough time to cast Summon Planetar and also go invisible before the beholders turn their attention to our sorcerers.
The solution? We have Mae slap the Gauth to break invisibility, allowing Asriel to hit her with a fast-casting PW: Blind spell, at which point she can take a couple steps back and set a Special Snare to Maze all of the beholders at once.
I don't know exactly how much time the Maze traps buy us since I don't know the enemy's INT values, but since Mae can set multiple traps to instantly Maze any beholders who return early, we have plenty of time to bring out our summons and swarm the beholders as they appear. A lucky Wish Breach helps us take down the first Elder Orb early.
We also get lucky with a Project Image clone that begins to commit suicide just as the next Elder Orb appears, but unfortunately, the timing is wrong on Mae's next snare, as her blindness runs out just as the beholder returns.
Frisky Bits casts Invisibility to avoid an Anti-Magic Ray and our planetars use Holy Word to hamper the enemy's spellcasting. The Elder Orbs can still use their beholder rays, but their mage spells are affected by deafness.
Right before a planetar deals the final blow, the Elder Orb manages to land Imprisonment on a Fallen Planetar. Casting Freedom isn't really necessary, since it's just a summons, but I think it shows that picking Freedom as a level 9 spell slot was a good choice for Frisky Bits: if that Imprisonment spell hit a party member, we'd have been screwed without Freedom.
Besides, without Freedom, we'd never have been able to bring back Bodhi and stake her.
It turns out that we didn't really need to kill the Elder Orbs at all; we were looking for the Gauth's eye stalk. So it's probably best to just land a quick kill on the Gauth in that fight rather than go to the trouble of fighting the Elder Orbs. The XP finally brings Onion-san to epic levels and she chooses Summon Deva as her first HLA. Chara gets another level up on freeing the dragon guarding Abazigal's lair and chooses Summon Deva as well. We can now summon five celestials in a single round, though devas are vastly inferior to planetars.
In Abazigal's chamber, Mae throws out a Maze trap to catch the incoming drakes, and it proves more important than I realized: the drakes arrive extremely early, in less than a single round. Only because of that Maze trap were we able to summon our wall in time.
The drakes here have some very dangerous breath weapons that have a habit of bypassing most parties' defenses, and I didn't want to lose a Summon Planetar spell to a breath weapon. We use PW: Blind and another Maze trap to buy us more time.
We get a Wish-rest earlier than I expected (we're not using the WoL trick here) and slay Quenash when he reappears, but Rill survives longer, and uses his breath weapon on our sorcerers, disrupting our spells and even inflicting level drain.
Our celestials are scripted to cast Restoration on level-drained party members, but they don't understand that Spell Turning and Shield of the Archons prevent the spell from working. Only Mae can be cured.
We need a Wish Restoration in order to cure the level drain. We're in a low-pressure situation and can afford to spend a few rounds casting Wish, so the WoL trick isn't necessary, but I use it anyway to speed things up.
The drakes go down and Abazigal engages our wall of summons, but I'm not sure I want to trigger his transformation so early. For one thing, I want more summons, which requires more Wish-rests; for another, I want to clear out the fog of war and any remaining enemies to the west.
Unfortunately, it turns out that Tamah is already present, and joins the fight when Onion-san runs into her on a scouting mission.
I didn't mean to trigger her entrance so early. Abazigal also transforms earlier than I expected--he wasn't even very wounded, but the moment Tamah arrived, he switched to dragon form.
I didn't want my sorcerers in this position; they have nowhere to run. This means they can't stay out of range of Abazigal's area-effect spells, which disrupt spells even if they deal no damage.
I could disperse our wall of summons and smuggle our sorcerers along the northern wall so they have someplace to run, but I'm hesitant to bring them so close to Abazigal. I'd prefer to keep them back (though this was probably a sub-optimal decision). Meanwhile, to the west, Mae uses a Maze trap to vanish both Tamah and the extra Tamah clone that always shows up in my game (Abazigal is immune to Maze). Mae sets an additional trap after they disappear to make sure they vanish again the moment they come back.
Abazigal has mage defenses, but Asriel has recently chosen Spellstrike as his next spell pick. This means we can take down any mage's defenses in one round using Spell Thrust to remove Spell Shield, Spellstrike to take down all other spell protections, and then the Wand of Spell Striking to land Breach. Unfortunately, Abazigal has a Magical Sword on hand, and we need to kill it to make sure our magic attacks hit Abazigal instead of the sword. We tried killing it with Skull Trap earlier, but it didn't take, so Frisky Bits resorts to Horrid Wilting.
Then I realize that our planetars can just blow it to pieces with Magic Missile.
Our mages have been struggling to cast spells for the last several moments due to Abazigal's disruptive earthquakes and spell failure, but now they should be clear. Since Onion-san is not busy doing anything else, I decide to try my hand at landing Harm. This requires us to lower Abazigal's MR and use Holy Power to boost Onion-san's THAC0 as well as take down Abazigal's Stoneskins and PFMW (in my install, Harm can be blocked by Stoneskin, PFMW, MR, and spell protections).
We start breaking down Abazigal's defenses, but due to clouded auras we are unable to hit him with a Wand of Spell Striking.
Mae can actually use the Wand of Spell Striking due to having Use Any Item (UAI is still useful in a poverty run if you're Wishing for wands), but her blindness prevents her from actually targeting Abazigal with it. Instead, she focuses on Maze traps, but misplaces one, allowing one of the Tamah clones to reappear and use her breath weapon, which deals crushing damage, on the summons I've been keeping in the west to watch out for her.
The next round, we hit Abazigal with a Breach from the Wand of Spell Striking, but Abazigal responds by Breaching Onion-san, forcing her to fall back and re-cast Protection from Lightning before she gets close enough to hit Abazigal with Harm. We also re-blind Mae.
To my surprise, our spare summons finish off Tamah. Unfortunately, Onion-san gets her only Harm spell disrupted despite suffering no damage. I don't know what spell keeps doing this, but it seems impossible to prevent it from happening.
Abazigal uses Ruby Ray of Reversal on Asriel, and I start worrying about our defenses. If he ever manages to Breach Frisky Bits, he might be able to kill them in a few seconds.
Then I realize something--Abazigal's MR is still at zero from our Pierce Shield and Lower Resistance spells. We might have lost our chances to win the fight with Harm, but he's still vulnerable to spell damage.
And he's not immune to fire damage.
We have a whole horde of planetars with instant-casting Flame Strikes, and while they need to land attack rolls to hit Abazigal, their spells will hit automatically. I have all of our planetars cast Flame Strike at the same time.
He gives his death dialogue and Asriel finishes him off with Horrid Wilting.
On the way out, Tiamat appears to us as a single-headed green dragon.
I've never spoken with this Tiamat before, but since Tiamat is supposed to be evil, I'm guessing the outcome is a fight. I decide to talk-block the dragon and scurry away to safety.
Looks like the most recent version of EE does in fact prevent Project Image clones from bypassing the summoning cap. I wouldn't be able to replicate my army of celestials in an unmodded EE game; it could only be done with the summoning cap removed, in the pre-EE game, and maybe in an earlier version of EE.
That's too bad. I didn't want to rely on a modded change to make the poverty run possible, but it seems I have. It should still be possible to complete a no-reload poverty run of SCS and Ascension without bypassing the summoning cap, but it would be a lot slower if you had to rely on spell damage to get things done.
A quick pit-stop before the Planar Prison is the Alhoon's sewer hideout. Things go well but the Alhoon unleashes its Improved Haste + Tenser's Transformation + PfMW spell trigger, killing Rasaad because of his low AC.
The tables are going to quickly turn once Rasaad starts getting HLAs, as the Oversight HLAs will make him a true force of martial artistry to be reckoned with. The Planar Prison is finished and made significantly easier by Coran's precise useage of Arrows of Dispelling. Nalia and Anomen level up from there. Time for the Twisted Rune. I will take no chances. I'm not dying here, not after coming this far.
To begin, I protect everyone from Undead. With this, Shangalar won't react to anyone crossing the threshold of the doorway. I have Coran place all his traps right before this trigger. When Shangalar dies, all the rest of his goons will spawn, so I'm hoping the traps will kill Vaxall and Revenek, which should make killing Shyressa easy. This plan goes well until Shangalar summons a Mordy Sword, which he casts Remove Magic on, dispelling Coran's protection from undead so he can see him.
Shangalar initiates dialogue and teleports into our room, but Coran's traps kill him instantly.
I had prepared for this too. Nalia uses a second Protection from Undead scroll to hide Coran from Shyressa. Korgan is up front with the Shield of Balduran, reflecting Vaxall's rays. This plan works until Vaxall charms himself, whereupon he switches targets to me! I had Spell Shield cast on myself already in case this happened, but SI: Abjuration didn't seem to help at all. Spell Shield absorbs the first anti-magic ray, but the second one is successful.
Still, it didn't take down my Spell Immunity, Deflection OR Turning, just my Stoneskin, and protections from fire and magic energy. Korgan kills Vaxall with Hangard's Axe +2. Anomen, Coran, and Korgan then take out Revenek from range. Now, how am I going to deal with Layene?
I summon the Improved Kitthix swarm, haste them, and put them under Mass Invisibility. Guided by Coran who is under Non-Detection, the spiders immediately overwhelm Layene, as she is poisoned and webbed. She only manages to get a Spell Sequencer off before dying, though it did her absolutely no good.
Shyressa was a cloud of mist at the time, which was actually a great stroke of luck for me, as she cannot attack in that form. After she transformed back, the spiders were all over her. She went invisible, but Coran dispelled her illusion and the spiders ate Shyressa for brunch.
The Staff of the Magi is mine! The More Style for Mages mod removes the cheesy at-will invisibility and exchanges it for immunity to Time Stop! In addition to its normal powers, the Staff can also perform ranged attacks, which include the Dispel Magic on hit. With the spoils from the Planar Prison, we have Cromwell forge the Improved Mace of Disruption as well as an Enhanced White Robe of the Archmagi for Nalia.
Just outside Cromwell's, Sergent Natula tells us to return to the Planar Sphere. We get ambushed by a bunch of anti-magic fanatics. One of them is a cleric who calls upon the dreaded Bearweres!
Somehow I am suffering casting failure so I cannot contribute for the whole fight, choosing to stay invisible via potion instead. The Bearweres are fast and strong, and worth 20k XP each, apparently. One of them kills Fleshy MK IV.
Rasaad levels up after the fight's over, gaining immunity to normal weapons. The anti-magic fanatics are disposed of. Now for the final fight before we leave Athkatla: Kangaxx. Coran sets up a bunch of traps where Kangaxx spawns as I protect us from undead. Rasaad volunteers to fight Kangaxx as he has the most magic resistance out of all of us.
The traps go off but its not enough to destroy his first form. Kangaxx summons a Mordy Sword. After the Twisted Rune fight, I'm extremely cautious about Kangaxx casting a Remove Magic on the sword, so I keep Rasaad away from it as Nalia uses Magic Missile to kill it. Next, Coran finishes off his first form. Now in Demilich mode, Kangaxx goes improved invisible and summons a Fallen Planetar.
Luckily, the Planetar is stuck because Demi-Kangaxx is blocking the way over to us. All of us are still protected from undead, which means all we have to do is keep our distance. After getting injured about halfway, the planetar gets frustrated and casts an Insect Plague at Nalia. I Haste all of us and have Nalia do laps around the tomb to kite the swarm.
After about another minute of kiting, the planetar casts another Insect Plague at Nalia.
I kite the swarms far enough away so that Nalia can cast SI: Conjuration. The planetar casts a third Insect Plague at Anomen. Now they're both doing laps around the tomb. Suddenly, I remember that Fire Shields can block the insect spells, because I didn't trust SI: Conjuration to work, so I have Nalia cast Fire Shield Red from a scroll. The planetar is still stuck and fires a couple of Magic Missiles at Nalia and some Flame Strikes on Coran. But it is eventually killed after Healing itself like 3 times.
After killing the fallen planetar, I decide to simply let Anomen tank the insect swarm chasing him. But after the swarm hits him, he is completely unaffected by it for some reason. I shrug and have Coran shoot Demi-Kangaxx (whose SI: Divination and Shadow Door sequencer has worn off). I equip Anomen with the Improved Mace of Disruption and, on his first hit...
Well. That was anti-climactic. But dirty tricks or not, I'm still alive and Kangaxx isn't. Only Watcher's Keep remains, but I'm saving it for Sarevok in ToB to replace Coran. Before I set out for Spellhold, I'll have to build another golem as the two normal Fleshies from Fleshy MK IV's death are not going to get very far. And there's no golem workshops around until we get out of the Underdark.
@Flashburn: It looks like your spider figurine is summoning multiple spiders--I thought the Improved Kitty from Item Upgrade just had a mirror image effect and that was it. Are you summoning multiple copies of Kitty using the WoL trick?
Now that Asriel has Spellstrike, we have a guaranteed kill for basically any mage that doesn't have too many critters getting the way of our magic attacks. Whenever we can't kill a mage with blind traps (normal snares deal 20 damage at level 20 or 21+ and instantly kill the target on a failed save vs. death at +4)...
...we can have Carl cast Spell Thrust, Asriel cast Spellstrike, and either Frisky Bits or Mae use a Wand of Spell Striking to cast Breach. Those three spells will take down ALL defenses in SCS.
Many SCS mages have PFMW Contingencies which will trigger right after this, but another charge of the Wand of Spell Striking will take it down. It requires all three sorcerers and our Bounty Hunter to act in concert, so it's extremely aura-intensive, but the process will kill basically anything. The only thing that can save such a mage is a Spell Trigger, but that takes up the mage's aura and therefore gives us another round to take it down.
Since my army of celestials apparently is only possible because of mods, I decide to see what happens if I tackle some of the fights in Sendai's enclave without bypassing the summoning cap. Turns out that a Fallen Planetar's Fire Storm, Mae's blind traps, and Frisky Bits' Energy Blades are pretty effective on their own.
Chara gains another level and chooses Fire Elemental form as their next HLA. I give the Earth Elemental Token (which I've nerfed to grant 50% resistance to physical damage instead of 100%) to Mae, which she can equip thanks to UAI, but unfortunately it can't be used to backstab.
I'm still going to keep the Earth Elemental Token on Mae. Mae's AC is 4 points worse when she's blind, so I figure the 50% resistance is more useful than the Fire Elemental Token's superior AC, and while the DEX penalty will reduce her Set Traps skill to 80%, the Earth Elemental Token is still more useful for setting blind traps: equipping and unequipping it will switch her circle from large to small and back again, which can teleport her to a gap on the battlefield in case she gets boxed (blind thieves still need to be a step or two away from enemies to set traps in plain sight).
Switching back and forth between natural form and Earth Elemental form can leave Mae vulnerable if I'm not careful, but she and Chara are surprisingly effective in combat when shapeshifted.
Onion-san has excellent damage output when fully buffed, but her defenses kept her from participating in this fight; she's not tough enough unless Wish Hardiness is supporting her Armor of Faith and Spirit Armor spells, which only give her -7 AC and 25% damage resistance--definitely not enough to tank in ToB.
We've got a nasty drow ambush before Odamaron, but Mae can Maze them from afar, and Frisky Bits can cast Freedom to make sure all the enemies reappear simultaneously--and find themselves facing two Firestorm spells, a planetar, and a Horrid Wilting spell.
It's functionally not very different from bombing them from outside the fog of war and sending in the planetar really quick, actually. But using Maze traps and Freedom has more potential: you could throw out multiple Firestorm spells and so forth before casting Freedom, so they get hit by more spells than you could throw out in a single round normally.
The mage survives due to Protection from Fire, but that's what Spell Thrust and Spellstrike and Breach are for.
I consider deploying the army of celestial for Odamaron, but I want to give a shot at tackling them without it. Mae throws out a Maze trap, removing Odamaron himself, but unfortunately, it's not possible for me to Maze the Apprentices without blindness active.
Notice we have a Fallen Planetar on hand instead of a normal planetar. Carl is Chaotic Neutral and chose the fallen version for RP reasons (Carl is the genocidal llama from Llamas with Hats), but it turns out this was a foolish decision from a powergaming perspective: our Fallen Planetar has no Holy Word; only Unholy Word. We cannot inflict spell failure on the first Apprentice.
The Apprentice gets Wish off the ground, but before the genie can grant it a Time Stop effect, Asriel blinds Mae, allowing her to Maze the Apprentice and completely foil his Wish.
Odamaron reappears, but it seems I've forgotten to have Onion-san memorize Holy Word, so we still don't have a source of spell failure. Worse yet, we're not fast enough to take down his defenses before he casts Time Stop.
Frisky Bits cast PFMW before Time Stop, which means Odamaron cannot kill them with Energy Blades during Time Stop (I don't think SCS enemies are normally that aggressive anyway, but I want to be sure), but this means they still need to cast PFMW again to stay safe from Odamaron's Fallen Planetar. We hit Odamaron with Spellstrike, removing the rest of his spell protections, but unfortunately Mae loses all of her buffs to Remove Magic and Comet and Dragon's Breath kill her.
But Mae managed to land a Breach using the Wand of Spell Striking. Odamaron's defenses go down! He loses a spell to Energy Blades and Minute Meteors, but unfortunately, our failure to hit his Apprentice with Holy Word means that the Apprentice can still cast Time Stop.
Remove Magic and mage HLAs kill Onion-san and force our mages to once again cast PFMW. A convenient side effect is that Comet hits the other Apprentice, since it's not party-friendly in my install.
Odamaron casts PFMW, but another charge from the Wand of Spell Striking is enough to make him vulnerable; he doesn't have any spell protections to block it.
Notice Frisky Bits using Dimension Door, the only mod-introduced spell I've allowed myself in this run, to squeeze closer to the exit. Odamaron is on the way out, so once he's down, we leave--Chara dies, and I'm not going to face the remaining Apprentices with half a party.
We return (and foolishly fail to memorize Holy Word on Onion-san), but the vampire Apprentice suffers to Energy Blades and the lich Apprentice fails to do anything dangerous before we hit it with a planetar's Holy Word and use Spell Thrust+Spellstrike+Breach to obliterate its defenses and crush it with Minute Meteors and Energy Blades.
The vampire Apprentice doesn't appear to have very good buffs and dies shortly afterwards.
We get surprised by a new batch of drow and some beholders on the way out, but manage to escape their attacks by fleeing to Odamaron's room, rest (I don't know if you can safely rest anywhere in Sendai's enclave, but the Pocket Plane is always safe, so I just use a custom resting spell), and return while invisible to put some space between us and the enemy. Then we approach from the southeast and spam blind traps to bring them down.
Playing without the army of celestials is much more interesting. But I still don't think I'm going to hold back against Sendai. I won't jeopardize the run by forgoing our strongest options.
Until we fight Sendai herself, we're sticking to the summoning and level caps. Ogremoch proves to be too much for even our celestials to handle, and Ogremoch's Earthquake apparently has an instant death effect like the Earthquake in Spell Revisions...
...but Lower Resistance opens him up for a spell damage kill. Energy Blades help, too, despite his numerous Stoneskins.
Mae manages to Maze the Ancient Vampire, Death Knight, and Hive Mother in the other chamber, but Diaytha has Physical Mirror active and bounces the Maze right back at Mae, costing us our Bounty Hunter. Our planetar keeps going, and imposes spell failure on Sendai using Holy Word.
All the Mazed critters come back almost instantly, before Frisky Bits even casts Freedom to bring back Mae. But our planetar makes short work of the lesser enemies.
The planetar stays focused on the Hive Mother (again, with Holy Word to thwart its spells) while the rest of the party struggles to deal with Diaytha. Turns out Physical Mirror also bounces Spike Traps, despite using a different projectile from normal traps.
The Hive Mother apparently never got PFMW off the ground, and the planetar lands a vorpal strike. Diaytha herself succumbs to Breach.
The duel with Captain Egeissag is no challenge at all. PFMW, Improved Alacrity, Lower Resistance, and spell damage destroy him.
I'm terrified of mind flayers, so I use the WoL trick to get some extra INT out of our Potions of Genius (courtesy of Wish) and summon a bunch of celestials, just in case something somehow goes wrong. I also make sure Frisky is covered by PFMW every single second of the fight.
The celestials mop the floor with the mind flayers, leaving only the thralls. Mae kills both the Thrall Mage and its clone with blind traps on nonconsecutive occasions.
It's actually surprising how often that instant death effect works, even in ToB.
Against Sendai, I'm pulling no punches. I even talk-block her for two or three rounds when I notice she starts out neutral. A Maze trap sends away the northwest mage statue, while a blind normal snare disrupts the southeast mage statue when it awakens shortly after. Naturally, I apply Holy Word as well.
We use Wish to cast Improved Haste on everyone on the map, including our enemies. There are two Improved Haste Wish options: one that affects everyone, and one that affects the party. The former can be dangerous, but it's actually really excellent in this case because it hastes our celestials, and there are few enemies on the map to benefit from the haste effect.
Notice the new drow arriving from the west. I caught them in time and fired off Insect Plague from a planetar (it's so convenient how celestial spells are instant-casting in SCS) when I realized the mage had no Fire Shield to block it. Frisky Bits roasts the other drow with Dragon's Breath.
The northern mage statue has awakened even as the northwestern mage statue remains lost in a Maze. Mae once again manages to disrupt a spell with a snare. That poison damage bypasses everything except for Physical Mirror.
The statues crumple; the planetars are applying far too much pressure. By the time the northwest statue finally awakens, the rest are in shambles.
Notice Frisky Bits casting Freedom. I wanted to free that statue from Maze so we could tackle it while the tide was in our favor. The statue got free on its own, but I let Frisky Bits finish casting the spell.
Apparently, there are two Balors imprisoned on this map.
I've never seen these guys before, and I don't know what they're doing here, but they appeared right after Frisky Bits cast Freedom, so I assume Sendai cast Imprisonment on them and has been keeping them locked up here. Whatever the case, they vanish a second or two later.
No idea what that was about.
I neglect the northwest statue and accidentally allow it to cast Storm of Vengeance. Fortunately, none of our mages are buffed with Spell Turning, so when Asriel fails a save against the storm's poison effect, our celestials can heal him right up. As the last statue falls and the real Sendai appears, I scoot the party eastward to avoid the storm.
The real Sendai is a high-level cleric/mage with the same defenses as any epic-level mage. She even has some Imprisonment spells for our celestials. But she has no summons or allies to mess with our magic attacks, which means a Spell Thrust+Spellstrike+Wand of Spell Striking Breach charge is enough to take down every defense she has.
Sendai goes down and we're treated to a cutscene of Balthazar talking with Melissan in Balthazar's throne room. Then we see the exact same cutscene in Sendai's enclave due to a bug, but this time, Melissan is here to fight us.
Then Sendai's death triggers the Pocket Plane cutscene, and for a moment, I'm worried that I've run into a sequence-breaking bug when one of our Wish genies talks to us in the middle of the cutscene with Yaga-Shura.
But the game dutifully teleports us back to Sendai's lair to fight Melissan with Balthazar. Conveniently enough, the weird cutscene shenanigans lasted long enough to rob her of her PFMW.
I don't think this fight is even necessary, because the last time I saw it, it was unwinnable and I had to just walk away. But I use magic attacks to break down Melissan's defenses and bring her to Near Death, surviving her Horrid Wilting spells (which she appears to cast with no chance of disruption; this isn't an SCS fight) with some spare potions (Mae chose Alchemy as one of her HLAs so I would have more reliable access to healing potions).
CTRL-M confirms that Melissan is at 1 HP, but no cutscene triggers end the fight. I kill her allies and let Balthazar deal with her while we escape through the portal outside.
I think all of these extra cutscenes are from Wheels of Prophecy, and if we're able to convince Balthazar to join us (20 reputation and 15 CHA for Frisky Bits, who is Chaotic Good), I think we need to fight Melissan a second time in Balthazar's throne room, though the second time around should result in a new dialogue that ends the fight.
Then, aside from the Pocket Plane trials, we have a fight in the grove, featuring that Cambion who attacks during Time Stop. I think I'm going to swarm him with celestials, and just in case he gets Time Stop off the ground, the party will be far away when the fight starts and will also be buffed with 100% damage resistance by stacking Wish Hardiness.
After that, all we have is Melissan. I went to the trouble of giving Asriel a Spell Trap just to make sure we'll always have spell slots to Wish-rest for more celestials and more traps.
I've died so many times I've lost track of my runs, but I keep trying. Part of my problem is I've still got one foot in my old style of playing: where I roleplay badass characters and parties who kick down doors and brazenly barge into rooms, with the objective of utterly routing the enemy. It doesn't really mesh with no-reload style, where survival, rather than dominance, is the objective. I still need to work on things, like watching the game clock when traveling, and reading the game log so I know exactly what I'm facing. I've played for nearly 20 years without ever looking at that log so it's a hard habit to get into.
Nevertheless, the oft cruel dice gods were on my side tonight. I rolled a 94 with 18/00 strength. I admittedly play munchkin stats but I roll 'em legit. If I can't finish a run with this Blackguard, I'm going to try an Inquisitor. I've never played an Inquisitor ever, and it might be fun (not to mention helpful against the SCS spell casters who keep barbecuing my parties. Anyway, here's what I rolled. I'll drop by with reports if I manage to avoid getting killed by kobolds and gibberlings in the early game.
After toying briefly with LoB I thought I'd try once more with this party to get at least into SoD. Both 12th and 13th attempts didn't last long - in each case I tried resting in the ankheg area when away from the map edge. I started a 14th attempt before going away for a week and have made some more progress with that today. I've just had one close call, but have generally been more patient so should have some sort of possibility of success.
I did consider the make-up of the party prior to re-starting, but think the balance is already good - so didn't see any need to adjust the starting position (and doing a quick scan of the thread before posting it's good to see that @semiticgod thinks this will still be a good party in later stages of the game). However, I did decide this time to leave Shoal alone to start with, just in case I felt later on like taking advantage of her free raise dead. I still set traps for Mad Arcand in that area though, since the 2k XP for him is worthwhile in itself and, after a few tasks in Beregost, a first level for everyone was taken after successfully killing some ankhegs. After returning Tenya's bowl the remainder of the ankheg area was cleared to almost get another level. The last few XP was provided by returning Joia's ring.
A further level was obtained by clearing the basilisk area before heading for Durlag's Tower. The external and upper portion of that was almost enough for another level and saving Arabelle did the job.
Clearing the southern areas gave another level, though not before a last minute near-death. Attacking Kahrk I got distracted by a RL conversation and thought he was out of spells before he was - Aspire was lucky in consequence to survive a flame arrow before taking his revenge.
With Washout having pushed find traps up to 100 with that level, the party will try their luck with a bit of work under Durlag's Tower next.
I am really cross with myself. Tried to take a bite too many at the cherry before resting. We were almost at the bottom of the Section and took on the room full of mages. We killed some of them and if we had left them there and gone away to rest, I think that we would have beaten them. We didn't, with the result that chaos affected nearly all of the party and surely but surely the party was annihilated. So near but yet so far.
Daevorn crossed the mines under stealth and buffed with ProUndead scroll, Potion of Stone Giant Strength and Greenstone Amulet before facing Mulahey. He opened the battle with a backstab, followed by Wand of Sleep charge on the kobolds. Mulahey was finished in melee without much trouble.
Back at the surface, killing the Revenant was an easy task (thanks to ProUndead scroll used earlier) that allowed us to loot the tombs. Before reporting back to the major in Nashkel, Daevorn collected the Ring of Fire Resistance as well as a free ProMagic scroll from Hafiz. Since there was little profit in wasting our resources against mirror imaged, stoneskined and shielded Nimbul, I decided to skip the encounter altogether. Instead, we went to check out Silke with the aim of collecting as much defensive potions (Invulnerability, Defense) as possible prior to the bandit camp.
It was not the cheapest fight. Silke saved against Daevorn's Dart of Stunning and managed to haste herself.
Silke: enchantment incantation -> Daevorn: Potion of Clarity.
Time to hide inside a house, activate Shield Amulet, wait out her haste / Mirror Images and re-engage with Darts of Stunning. Btw it seems that Beregost's got some fearless folk.
Not wanting to miss that three extra Potions of Defense carried by Faltis and his mates, I hired Garrick to do the pickpocketing. Not very noble, I agree, but Daevorn needs those (being limited to studded leather) and after all - we've just saved their lives.
We were ready for the camp. Being a skilled infiltrator, Daevorn gets a ride into the heart of the bandit operation from Peldvale. The buffs were ProCold scroll, Potion of Cold Resistance, Potion of Defense, Potion of Frost Giant Strength, Potion of Mind Focusing, Oil of Speed, Shield Amulet and Greenstone Amulet. So much for the subtlety.
Opening backstab on Venkt, followed by Oil of Fiery Burning and Dart of Wounding on Venkt.
Reposition to take down the archers while Venkt gets eaten by the poison.
Finish the remaning grunts and release Ender Sai. Thus ends Chapter 3.
@Grond0: I'm still convinced your party is the superior choice for all of BG1, SoD, and the vast majority of SoA, but I'm having second thoughts about ToB. Without the summoning cap removed, ToB is extremely challenging, and my party suffers from low damage output when I'm not using multiple celestials. How strong is a Shaman in ToB?
(I've moved your last post to this thread; it used to be in the Lounge)
@Grond0: I'm still convinced your party is the superior choice for all of BG1, SoD, and the vast majority of SoA, but I'm having second thoughts about ToB. Without the summoning cap removed, ToB is extremely challenging, and my party suffers from low damage output when I'm not using multiple celestials. How strong is a Shaman in ToB?
Who knows - I don't suppose there's much chance I'll find out, but we'll see .
I've never had a shaman even get the upgraded summons at level 12, let alone the further upgrade at level 18. However, my expectation is that those summons won't get a great deal of use as better summoning options will be available. Despite that though I would expect the shaman to still prove pretty useful. Large numbers of insect spells and Nature's Beauty can't be bad and spell defences and iron skins should allow him to stay in combat long enough to land Harm quite a bit. The Ether Gate maze spell may also come in handy for crowd control in more complicated battles.
I entered the elven city, where summons and Crom Faeyr took care of most opponents. For the dragon battle, I used a simulacrum and GWWs plus ranged attacks with my sling:
After summoning the avatar in the temple and taking care of the parasites, a deva and some skeletons were enough to defeat Jon while Iloïnen stayed away at a safe distance:
I chose all of the good paths in hell and engaged the slayer, first killing the summoned demons with GWWs:
With the slayer unable to deal with either the deva or Iloïnen herself, it was only a matter of time until all relevant protection spells were gone and I was able to take down my foe:
Entering ToB, Ilasera and the first pocket plane challenge were dealt with, and I skipped most sidequests in Saradush (except for the stolen spellbook) - sanctuary helped me to get to Gromnir without any further battles:
Iloïnen started taking out the various fighters, while a deva distracted both mages during our opponents timestops:
To my surprise, we actually seemed to be out of sight of Gromnir and his two mages after killing his remaining allies, which allowed me to add some summons and more buffs. A new deva used chaos, which actually managed to affect one mage:
Gromnir was taken down with sling damage, and the remaining mage eventually ran out of protection spells.
Finally, I spoke to Nyalee and made my way to the Marching Mountains.
At Durlag's Tower Washout cleared the traps from the first underground level before attacking anything. With Hardup having got improved shamanic summons at level 6, they did much of the work with the party setting up invisible barriers to protect the shaman - you still need to pay attention though due to the possibility of your barrier being buffeted aside by the summons and allowing the enemies through.
Traps were set to have a go at Avarice and Pride. Neither died of those initially, but Avarice was finished off by a new trap set as it moved towards the party at the exit. After resting and setting a new lot of traps, Fear was drawn into those. Pride had also not healed from the original trap damage, so he was occupied with summons while being finished off by magic missiles. I then made sure remaining traps were tripped before going after Love - he was drawn back to the entrance where a bit of stair-hopping avoided his spells while he was being beaten up.
After killing a few greater dopplegangers on the next level I had a problem when one of them proved adept at disappearing with invisibility. To respond to that I aimed to produce some summons and send them in individually, but found to my horror that the doppleganger was in position to see them being produced - and respond with an instant fireball. I was very lucky not to take any casualties there.
After resting, the Opera went back down and successfully cleared the second level - one interesting point was that the ghasts there didn't recognise the shamanic summons as targets, so that took less time than I was expecting.
This time I just left the big trap on that level alone as I have a vague memory it can't be disarmed anyway (which may well be intentional as technically the thief disarm traps ability in 2nd edition applied only to small traps, not large mechanical ones).
On the next level down invisibility and summons flushed out all the Ashirukuru without giving them any chance for backstabs. Annoyingly I had to do all that again when the game treated me to the disappearing portrait bug. This time one of the Ashirikuru survived an attack by 3 skeletons and 2 spirit lions - so Washout used a round the corner trap to finish it off.
I took no risks while disarming traps and finishing the other Ashirikuru, but the need to do that again took a toll on my patience as I was soon to find out!
In the process of killing the skeleton archers I'd used too many 2nd level spells to be able to make everyone invisible again. I'd chosen to do that for style reasons (wanting to finish the skeletons before resting) and hadn't thought it was a particular danger as resting is pretty safe when running between the multiple layers of upper Durlag's Tower. However, in the event I couldn't be bothered to go all the way up there again so tried just resting on the exit point from that level so that I could run immediately if ambushed (I could also have laid a full days traps before trying to rest, but didn't do that either). I was indeed ambushed and though I wasn't particularly slow in reacting to that the greater ghouls that appeared were particularly fast to attack - and in the instant of time represented by a double-tap of the space bar they managed to paralyse Aspire before travel took effect.
To say things didn't look good at that point would be a vast understatement. With room to move it would probably have been possible to make Aspire invisible while running the ghouls round. However, that would have been a big ask on those stairs at any time and in fact, although the map appeared to show more room higher up on the stairs, it was in fact impossible for Skint to move an inch - so she couldn't either save herself or make Aspire invisible.
I tried attacking with fists to attract the ghouls' attention with the aim of then running them away. While they were happy to switch attacks to someone next to them, however, they refused to chase them and would just switch back to their paralysed victims.
As a last throw of the dice Hardup tried dancing and got lucky by pretty much instantly producing a summons.
That offered just a tiny chink of light - but a ghoul immediately shut that down by reaching right over the top of a spirit boar to paralyse Hardup.
One thing I didn't actually try and should have done was turn undead, though I wouldn't have had high hopes of that either ...
All of my installs seem to crash when I try to get into Balthazar's chamber with Saemon's help, so I have to fight my way through the main door. I don't think this fight is very interesting, so I just let our planetars handle it largely off-screen. One notable threat is Sphere of Chaos, which has an instant death effect that manages to slay Asriel.
Another good reason to always keep Charname buffed with Death Ward.
Luckily, we have the stats to convince Balthazar to side with us. Melissan appears and we take her down with Spell Thrust, Spellstrike, a Wand of Spell Striking, and Energy Blades.
The trials in the Pocket Plane aren't too challenging.
We arrive in the grove without buffs and throw out a Maze traps and some summons on the off chance that the Cambion decides to teleport all the way across the map, because sometimes no-reload runs are about protecting yourself from threats that don't exist.
I want to rely on the celestials to soak up the Cambion's Time Stop, using Farsight to monitor them, but buff everyone with Wish Hardiness and PFMW in case he ignores them. Then I realize that with enough planetars, we can knock out the Cambion with Earthquake and even take down its Stoneskins without messing with its PFMW.
The Fallen Solar, whom I forgot all about, appears, but Frisky Bits is at a safe distance. Chara is not, and loses their buffs to a dispelling arrow. Meanwhile, the Cambion's pre-buffs finally fire, saving it from being slashed apart while it's unconscious, though it doesn't keep it from losing its spells.
I shoo the rest of the party away and have Frisky Bits re-cast PFMW out of paranoia. To the east, the Cambion finally succumbs to the lingering damage from several different Earthquakes (including extra castings on the second round).
The Fallen Solar is immune to +3 weapons and below, so our celestials can't even touch it. It doesn't help that the Fallen Solar has instant-casting Heal spells. But our summons keep it busy long enough for us to kill it with Energy Blades and Horrid Wilting, once we lower its MR with Pierce Shield.
I'm glad that fight went so smoothly; I was terrified of what that Cambion and Fallen Solar could do.
The Ravager also has high MR and immunity to +3 weapons and below. Fittingly enough, the solution is the same. It actually goes down much faster than I expected.
Onion-san finally hits level 25 and gains access to her Holy Symbol of Helm. Since it's created via a spell, I count it as a player-created item, which means she can use it.
There is only one fight left. I have plans for Melissan, but I honestly don't know how things are going to play out. I've been worried about this fight since the start of the run, since it's so much bigger of a challenge than anything preceding it. And even if I pull no punches, I'm not sure if I'll actually make it. We are missing so, so many precious resources, and letting SI: Abjuration or PFMW fall in just the right place could end the run in seconds, with no hope of recovery.
I've faced Melissan before, but I've never felt so little faith in our ability to survive.
We have access to a handful of the following items thanks to our spells and HLAs:
Potions of Extra Healing Potions of Superior Healing Wands of Spell Striking Wands of Paralyzation Wands of Lightning Fire Seeds Holy Symbol of Helm
Plus a few lesser potions I've never found a use for. Everything else in our inventory is blank. No rings, no cloaks, no weapons or armor or robes or scrolls or anything like that. All we have are our spells.
We enter the Throne soaked with pre-buffs. We have a split second of freedom to act, which Mae uses to toss a Maze trap in the hopes of removing Jon-bon and Bodhi when the fight begins.
Unfortunately, Imoen in Slayer form turns hostile early, and she is the only enemy to get Mazed. We have two Fallen Solars to worry about thanks to Core Rules, but I'm quick to react and all three of our sorcerers get PFMW off the ground.
But I completely forgot about these Fallen Solars, which means neither Onion-san nor Chara are buffed with Physical Mirror, which I memorized specifically to try to reflect the Fallen Solars' arrows. Those arrows are very nasty: they deal nonmagical magic damage, dispel at level 22 (only level 27+ buffs will be sure to stay intact), and remove spell protections and specific protections up to level 6 and illusionary protections up to level 8. Mae loses all of her buffs to a single hit, but she has 100% resistance to physical damage thanks to Earth Elemental form and Wish Hardiness stacking.
Notice Carl's Horrid Wilting Chain Contingency disrupting a Fallen Solar's introductory spell. That's extremely rare: I'm pretty sure the Fallen Solars cast spells instantly like any other SCS celestial, which means the damage would have to be frame-perfect as well as bypass the Fallen Solar's massive MR.
I buffed both Frisky Bits and Carl with SI: Conjuration, so both are immune to Bodhi's Cloud of Bats, but I seem to have forgotten Asriel, who suffers spell failure on the first round. Also, I notice Haiass, our mod-introduced wolf companion, has joined the fight despite us dismissing him in both BG1 and SoA. I CTRL-Y him so he doesn't help us.
Things are looking ugly. Chara and Onion-san lose all of their buffs, leaving Onion-san without Energy Blades to fight with (Chara still has their Fire Elemental Token); Asriel cannot cast spells and can do nothing but throw Energy Blades; and Balthazar's script is so screwed up that he can't even move. And the Fallen Solars aren't going to be easy to take down; they have Heal spells.
Carl manages to land a Wish Time Stop, but for some reason he can't actually target anyone with any spells, and he accidentally boxes himself in during Time Stop by summoning another 6 genies. Only when Time Stop ends does he break free of the genies, but when he lands another Wish Time Stop, he still can't seem to target anyone. All he manages to do in 12 rounds of Time Stop is summon a planetar and blind Mae. Worse yet, Balthazar's script sabotages his every move; all he can do, despite 12 rounds of free action and automatic hits, is kill Bodhi.
The other Wish options are much more productive. Wish Breach has been unreliable in my install, but this time, it actually works!
Cloud of Bats has worn off after so much time has passed, so now Asriel can cast spells. But PFMW has also worn off on everybody. Thankfully, Frisky Bits has a clear aura and can re-cast PFMW before the Fallen Solar targeting them can land a hit.
This is exactly why I prefer to keep Charname's aura clear unless expending it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise I'd be relying on a Chain Contingency on 50% HP to save them.
With Mae blinded, we can use a Maze trap right next to the nearest Fallen Solar. But it seems they're immune to Maze.
Carl lands yet another Wish Time Stop, but Balthazar is no longer immune to Time Stop and cannot help, and Carl himself still can't target anyone.
Then I see the blindness icon on his portrait. Apparently he's been blind since the first couple rounds of combat. That's why he couldn't seem to target anyone during Time Stop; the genies were preventing him from getting close enough.
Now that I know what the problem is, I can work around it. Carl happens to have Black Blade of Disaster. I only picked it so I could fill Asriel's Spell Trap and get more Wish-rests before the Five, but BBoD is also Carl's only means of dealing damage to the Fallen Solars during Time Stop, since they're immune to +3 weapons and below like his Minute Meteors (and he has no Energy Blades on hand). Despite his pitiful 1 base APR and flat 18 STR from Wish, he manages to finish off the nearest Fallen Solar.
After spending a total of 18 rounds in Time Stop, all sorts of low-duration spells have worn off, including Jon-bon's clones. Jon-bon himself is still safely hidden behind his illusions and gets Absolute Immunity off the ground, but we've got bigger fish to fry; that Fallen Solar is a much larger threat.
Carl survives a Finger of Death thanks to stacking the save bonuses from Spirit Armor...
...but Frisky Bits has no PFMW, and casting it is not instantaneous in a poverty run. My heart stops--the Fallen Solar has just landed a hit on Frisky Bits, robbing them of almost every buff they have.
But unlike Illasera's dispelling arrows, the Fallen Solar's apparently inflict no spell failure. Better still, in the list of effects that the Fallen Solar's arrows apply on hit, the magic damage is applied first, which means Frisky Bits is immune to the damage when it hits; they only lose Protection from Magical Energy after suffering the magic damage. And the damage-less hit failed to disrupt Frisky Bits' casting of PFMW.
But we are by no means safe. Frisky Bits has no immunities left, and another arrow is in midair. The Fallen Solar hits Frisky Bits again, and against the odds, it lands a vorpal strike, a 15% chance. Frisky Bits manages to make their save vs. death, saving the run on a 65% chance, but Chara is not so lucky.
The second Wish Time Stop was a mistake; I jeopardized the run by wearing out Frisky Bits' PFMW when the second Fallen Solar was still targeting them.
For anyone Charname who relies on PFMW to win this fight, Time Stop is NOT safe unless cast by Charname him or herself. Even a single second of vulnerability is enough for a Fallen Solar to land two hits: one to remove Death Ward and other defenses, and a second to land a vorpal strike.
Frisky Bits has still lost an SI: Abjuration spell to the Fallen Solar's magic damage, but can re-cast SI in the same round, since SI ignores aura. We really need to take down that Fallen Solar before it does any more damage, so Mae uses a WoL Greater Evasion to boost her AC and saving throws to -22 and -20 and grant +12 to movement rate. She practically teleports over to the Fallen Solar, but her defenses are still too weak to do well against the enemy.
Still, we manage to take down the Fallen Solar with Balthazar's help, leaving Jon-bon all alone. Painfully aware of Frisky Bits' lack of immunities, I buff their saves with Improved Invisibility. Meanwhile, our other sorcerers, far from the Fallen Solar's arrows, have been using their free auras to cast Wish and so forth.
Notice our planetars have been off-screen up until now. Since they couldn't do much of anything to the Fallen Solars, I left them to the west to distract Jon-bon. But Irenicus has snuck over to the southeastern platform. Improved Mantle keeps our celestials at bay, but Energy Blades goes right through it.
His aura is clouded and his Stoneskins are gone. Jon-bon is done for.
That was very poorly done. Most of it was fine, but those Time Stops robbed Frisky Bits of their PFMW without clearing their aura, giving them roughly a 10% chance of death from that Fallen Solar's arrows, another unacceptably high figure for a no-reload run.
The pools are next. Knowing that we have an unlimited amount of time at our disposal, I summon a massive horde to overwhelm the enemies at each pool. Our party's only role is to summon critters and pitch in a Breach against the Mariliths.
Soon, all we have left is to activate each pool and summon the Five.
I have taken too many risks already. I'm not going to endanger the success of this run anymore. I'm not going to pull any punches or suffer any hole in our defenses. I buff every single party member with every single long-lasting buff at my disposal, summon the largest horde I've ever gathered, and use Wish to haste and heal our entire army and boost everyone's ability scores to 25 and physical damage resistances to 100% using Wish. Finally, I seed the battlefield with traps, both Spike Traps and normal snares.
We have about 5 Fire Elementals, 30 Skeleton Warriors, and 30 celestials, though many of them are devas instead of the planetars.
We're severely underleveled and underequipped to say the least, but we have strong defenses and our traps should give us a powerful edge in the first round of combat. As long as we can hold onto that edge, and as long as I make sure that Frisky Bits' aura is clear to cast Focus or preferably PFMW if Melissan begins casting Time Stop, we should be able to win.
But I'm banking on the assumption that those traps will trigger evenly. And if that assumption doesn't hold, I might see a whole bunch of traps getting wasted on lightweights like Gromnir or Sarevok, instead of more important targets like Sendai, Illasera, and perhaps most of all, Abazigal.
Comments
I decide to deal with Abazigal's lair first, more out of habit than any other reason. We throw a bunch of summons at Draconis to neutralize his mage form, but our summons instantly die on his transformation.
Turns out Farsight and summons are enough to deal with his second form, too. We never take a point of damage.
The funny thing is that my mods make armies of celestials harder to create, not easier: although my install has no cap on celestials, SCS also makes mage and priest HLAs into innate abilities, which means clones can't cast them. In the unmodded game, a Project Image clone could summon 6 planetars with no need for Wish-resting.
We get a minor scare when the Greater Werewyvern proves able to attack through invisibility and poisons Frisky Bits, but Frisky Bits has a clear aura and can break their invisibility right after we slip outside, allowing Chara to target them with Neutralize Poison.
Another sobering reminder of Frisky Bits' vulnerability to poison damage.
Or at least, it should have been a reminder.
Anadramatis, whom I believe is a mod-introduced dragon, apparently has two breath weapons, dealing piercing damage or fire damage depending on which it uses. I thought she was in a separate area, so I arrive unbuffed as well as without summons. I try to hit her with a Maze trap after nailing Mae with PW: Blind, but Anadramatis has a MINHP1 item to ensure she doesn't die during the duel, and that item also grants her immunity to Maze effects. We have to fight Anadramatis as-is.
Feeling desperate, I resort to the WoL trick (I just hate that Carl and Onion-san still haven't gotten their first HLAs) and land a Time Stop. We inadvertently slay Anadramatis instead of winning the duel.
Demons spawn on the way back, but I saw them coming and set Maze traps to give us time to summon celestials before engaging the enemy.
The Kuo-toa and Water Elemental area is uneventful aside from a curious surprise: Spirit Wolves are vulnerable to stun! I thought all spirit critters were immune to all disablers by level 10.
The monk in this area has no rope to give us in my install, so we have to go back to Amkethran to get some from the inn. This is just a device to ensure we have to fight the quadruple dragon ambush outside Abazigal's lair. But since I know two dragons with acid breath are waiting for us to the far northwest and won't attack us until we enter their line of sight...
...we have more than enough time to summon an army. I don't bother with the WoL trick this time. But summons are not so strong against the dragons; no summons except for Magical Swords are immune to acid, and the dragons' acid breath bypasses MR and spell protections. That means our army suffers horribly to an attack that would be largely harmless to our well-buffed party itself.
We use Farsight to monitor them, but eventually I stray too close, triggering a cutscene in which Frisky Bits northwest towards the dragons' original spawn point before engaging in dialogue with the dragons. In the process, Frisky Bits wanders close to the dragons, who nail them with Remove Magic apparently during that cutscene.
Frisky Bits had no SI: Abjuration active; I had no reason to think that it would be necessary (they were far from the dragons and I had no plans of approaching them). Now they're completely unbuffed. Fortunately, the dragons are busy with out other summons and fail to nuke Frisky Bits while they run back to Carl, the only one who knows Protection from Acid.
It was a gamble. I could have sent Frisky Bits northwest to avoid the dragons and had a properly-buffed Carl run out to cast Protection from Acid on Frisky Bits, but I was concerned that the dragons would target Frisky Bits before long, and the only way to ensure their survival was to get them to Carl as soon as possible.
Next time, I will need to either stay buffed with SI: Abjuration even when far away from the dragons, or make a point of triggering that cutscene earlier, lest it interfere with the battle itself.
One of the dragons goes down, and the other is severely wounded. I'm anxious about the next fight: after the second black dragon dies, a green dragon with a poisonous breath weapon will arrive, Ithy'nassendra, and I want more summons than I currently have. I could always use the WoL trick to speed up our summoning process and get us more celestials faster, but I don't want to use the Wand of Lightning to win this one. Instead, I check the current dragon's HP using CTLR-M and order my summons to leave it alone when I notice it's close to death.
I use Project Image to cast Wish until I land a Wish-rest, then kill the Project Image clones so I can cast Summon Planetar before re-casting Project Image to continue the process. Right before we deal the final blow to the second dragon, Onion-san casts Chant and we get one final Wish-rest from our clones before we kill them to restore functionality to Frisky Bits and Asriel.
Chant is actually a huge, huge deal here. Aside from Chara, who is immune to poison thanks to their druid levels, no one in the entire party has any defense against poison damage. Chant applies a luck effect that reduces incoming spell damage rolls, which means it could prove lifesaving if Frisky Bits gets hit by Ithy'nassendra's breath weapon.
We finish off the second dragon and Ithy'nassendra spawns within range.
I don't want my summons to do all the work, so I have Frisky Bits and my other sorcerers approach to cast Pierce Shield, just to pitch in with some Horrid Wilting spells in the coming rounds.
This was the single stupidest decision I made in this entire run.
Ithy'nassendra responds with her breath weapon. I led Frisky Bits right into it--even when I knew that poison was their one weakness.
Frisky Bits made their save vs. breath. But a quick glance at their Record screen shows that their save vs. breath is a woefully inadequate 5.
That's a 20% chance of failure, which means Frisky Bits would have taken both hits from the breath weapon, which deals 24d6+12 damage with a save for half. On average, that amounts to 48 damage and another 48 damage on a failed save. But with Chant altering the dice rolls, the average damage for a second hit of damage on Frisky Bits would have been 38, if they had failed their save.
Frisky Bits only had 39 HP left.
Almost to the dot, Frisky Bits' chances of surviving that attack was 90%--an absolutely unacceptable figure for a single fight in a no-reload run, when each fight should have at least a 99% chance of success.
Except, according to that screenshot, Frisky Bits did not have Chant active. It seems they were not in range when Onion-san cast the spell.
Which means Frisky Bits' chances of survival were actually barely any higher than 80%. Even if that first hit had dealt 48 damage, the average value, instead of 52, Frisky Bits would still need good luck on their rolls if they were to survive on a failed save; the average damage would have been 96 out of their total 91 HP.
An 80% chance of survival. Not for the whole run, but just for one single fight. Survival was probable, but 80% is far beneath the standards of no-reload play.
I have Mae throw out a Special Snare to Maze Ithy'nassendra. I want more planetars on the field.
But, in a stunning display of idiocy and lack of pattern recognition, I sent in my sorcerers AGAIN to lower Ithy'nassendra's MR, hoping to hit her with some Horrid Wilting spells. The dragon responds with her breath weapon once again.
The first time I did this, it was the stupidest decision I made during the entire run. But this, the second time, was BY FAR the stupidest decision of the run.
Another saving throw, and a low damage roll. But a failed save would have proven fatal with an average damage roll; Frisky Bits was left with 48 HP. Another 80% chance of survival.
I pull the sorcerers back and let the experts do the work.
The final dragon, Carnifex, appears. But he deals fire damage and Frisky Bits is immune by default; even getting debuffed would leave them safe. My sorcerers can safely approach the dragon to cast Horrid Wilting without worrying about a fatal breath attack.
We rest a few times to trigger a couple of Greater Earth Elemental ambushes, just to bump Carl up to level 18 and give him his first HLA, halfway through ToB. Onion-san should get her first HLA right before Abazigal (we're so horribly underleveled).
With two breath weapons hitting Frisky Bits for an 80% chance of survival each, our total chance of surviving this fight was a disgraceful 64%, give or take a few percentage points. This was entirely due to my own stupidity; I had every reason and all the knowledge I needed to make the right call and keep Frisky Bits far, FAR away from Ithy'nassendra, but I failed to use my own best judgment and sent them into harm's way for absolutely no reason; there were no signs that my summons needed any support from anyone in the party, much less Frisky Bits, the one and only character we need to keep alive.
We have won the quadruple dragon ambush. But this was easily the worst gameplay I've ever demonstrated on a no-reload run. Not just because of the high chance of death, but because I had access to critical information--the fact that (1) Frisky Bits' sole weakness was poison damage, and (2) that Ithy'nassendra's breath weapon dealt massive poison damage--and simply failed to consider it.
We have the tools to win fights in ToB. But the important thing in a no-reload run is not winning fights; the important thing is not dying.
I need to keep Frisky Bits on a very tight leash if I'm going to avoid making this mistake again.
Still trying...
My latest run - which just ended (I was at level 5) - went to hell when I went to Ulgoth's Beard to do some shopping. My rep was low and I made the mistake of getting in visual range of Shandalar. Apparently, with low rep there's no dialogue option to delay his quest, or if there is I missed it. I was whisked off to that frozen island where I was under-leveled. I got barbecued in the battle with those first three mages. I killed two of them, but one of them was a beast. Even though my party was hidden he teleported right to us and unleashed a lightning bolt that sizzled most of my party, including charname. I decided to keep the run going so I could learn, but even after several reloads I couldn't beat that one mage on SCS, even with cheese. Ah, well, maybe next time if I have spell thrust and a six pack of absorption potions...I got through SoD no-reload on my first try, but I think I died during a BG1 no-reload attempt before the Undergate run with Chara.
That does happen if you don't enter when invisible.
However I prefer to wait until I can enter the entire party in an invisible state and also exit if necessary.
In my current game Dynaheir can cast 2 improved invisibility and 4 invisibility spells.
Once you have got past the initial party who teleport you, everyone on that level is non-hostile.
I tend to attack a number of the section to the south, but that is up to you. I then take on the enemy a few at a time. When you get to the bottom level it means that you are the one who controls positioning and the like.
I lure the main guy away from his allies. He approaches you to talk. Then you can fight him when he has no allies. Then use webs, cloudkill and fireballs for the rest.
If you do allow yourself to be teleported down ensure that everyone is hasted and buffed so that they can flee far enough to cast web on the pursuing enemy and use much the same tactics. Of course if you allow yourself to be teleported I suppose that you could always make the party invisible and escape without fighting.
I will NEVER take on the Ashikuru nowadays. They aren't worth the danger that you face fighting them. Little equipment, not much experience, high danger of being badly hurt or killed. I will just use stealth to get past them. I took them on in my last game, but even with foresight and truesight they kept on killing Dynaheir. They seem to know where the weakest link is!!
To Syvstar Greycloak,
This missive is being written in accordance with the wishes of your kinsman Xan, who had previously provided me with detailed instructions of the correct procedures to follow in every eventuality. It is with the deepest sympathy and regret that I, Stirkus of Candlekeep, must inform you of his demise. He was a fine comrade, and it was my privilege to accompany him in recent weeks as he strove to perform his mission. His passing will be felt deeply by all those who knew him, and who will strive to carry on his legacy.
As you will already know from Xan’s previous reports, we had pursued the authors of the iron crisis as far as the Cloakwood. Xan aided us greatly in traversing the forest; striking down a corrupted Archdruid who had imprisoned several druids from a different sect, and battling a host of wyverns. It would be impossible to enumerate all the ways in which he aided our cause; as a diplomat in his speech, as the guide of our footsteps in the dark, and as a sure and steady hand in battle. He was instrumental in our discovery that the Iron Throne has played a role in the troubles that have beset this region, as we defeated several mages controlling a mine deep within the forest.
We subsequently determined to proceed in the direction of Baldur`s Gate. However the City had not yet begun to readmit travellers and we therefore visited the coastal village Ulgoth`s Beard. Here we were approached by the archmage Shandalar to retrieve an item of power. I deemed the task to be of little danger, being unacquainted with the capriciousness of that wizard`s whims. The decision was wrong, and it haunts me. We were not bound by any tie to provide assistance, and though Xan did not speak against the decision he could not have approved of it.
We were teleported to an island of ice, and there the horror began. A number of unstable mages prowled that strange place, and we were immediately assaulted by several of them. The events of the battle were chaotic, fought in narrow tunnels infested by wild beasts. We struck down one of their number, chased another, but the mightiest of them teleported amongst us and unleashed killing spells indiscriminately. The corridors were worn smooth by a wild torrent of disintegrating rays that we fled from, but Xan dauntlessly slashed at the mage with his Moonblade shining. Our foe sprang back, alarmed, and then spoke a word of power. And Xan fell, never to rise again, slain by one of the mightiest magics of Toril. His sacrifice was not in vain however, we fell upon the mage with swords and arrows, and he fell pierced in a hundred ways.
We returned to a paltry reward, and the empty clamour of the crowds as word of our deeds in the Cloakwood spread. None of the temples we visited could revive our fallen friend. We should have gone on to Baldur`s Gate, but something has driven us to delve away from the sun for a short time. I think it was the darkness of Xan’s eyes, so dark that I understand now why some peoples who I have read of lay coins across the eyes of the dead. Before the end Xan spoke of the elven afterlife, and of his doubts. I do not know if that wizard’s spell truly extinguished his spirit, if it has found sweet oblivion or if it may yet return after wandering for a time. Until that time, something of myself too shall wander here in the dark, borrowing his grave countenance and slow step, partaking something of his doom.
Along with Xan`s earthly remains and a few treasured possessions his dulled moonblade has been placed in the keeping of the Song of the Morning temple in Beregost. Should this arrangements prove unsatisfactory then we shall endeavour to alter them, in accordance with any will that Xan may have left or to the satisfaction of your excellency.
With my deepest regrets and sympathies, I am your servant,
Stirkus of Candlekeep
[As mentioned in the other thread Xan was inexplicably hit by Power Word Kill on Ice Island by Andris, who also threw around a few Disintegrates. Spell Revisions seems to change this to doing 60 magic damage, which would be enough to chunk Xan, so I have decided to remove him for now. Since his demise was a little unfair, I have permitted myself to bring back the dualed Imoen at a little less than the lowest party member`s xp as she has finished her mage studies for now. Stirkus needs her cheerfulness! Currently exploring Durlag`s tower, just dealt with the Warders.]
but even after several reloads I couldn't beat that one mage on SCS, even with cheese.
If you wait until chapter 5 to do these guys, then dispelling arrows make a world of difference. These mages go down quick when all their protections are gone.
I'm dropping the 75-point no-reload no-resurrection for now, as I can't get an install that I'm happy with for it. Plus, I really just want to do a solo through BGEE right now, so...
Jelar, Halfling Priest of Helm, introduction.
Mods are more or less at a minimum, SCS being the only tactical mod, and no large tweaks otherwise. No Divine Remix, no Rogue Rebalancing, no Item Revisions.
The play's been fairly standard for low level so far: Kiting Shoal, failing to de-chickenator Melicamp, kiting spiders, Commanding Tarnesh, and more kiting of Karlat. Jelar's level 4, approaching level 5, with nothing interesting happening as of yet.
Hey everyone!
I've been messing around with couple of charnames lately (to a various degree of success) and the time has come for me to share some of the adventures. Entering the challenge will be Daevorn, a human stalker. Stalkers are versatile and fun class (not to mention the explicit reference to my all-time favorite motion picture), sort of a fighter/thief with a twist, whilst I also feel that rangers in general could use more love around here.
I don’t normally fancy maxed stats but here we go.
Racial enemy: Demonic/Fell
Starting profs: ** short sword, ** short bow, ** two-weapon style
Mods: SCSv30, Tweaks Anthology (for Remove Blur Effect from Equipped Items component)
Of course, I could have elected scimitars or long swords for more punch, but zero speed factor is something I cherish a lot with my backstabbers.
And yes, the name is certainly reminiscent of that villain Davaeorn. As far as I remember, it's how I incorrectly picked it up the first time I was playing BG more than 10 years ago and I've been using it for my core RP characters ever since.
Onto the game coverage then.
Candlekeep -> Crossroads (Ring of Protection +1, belt ogre) -> FAI (Ring of Wizardry, Joia's hobgoblins). Tarnesh was avoided via stealth and this allowed Daevorn to trigger Dorn's questline and liaise the PoI from Jaheira. After having purchased essential supplies at High Hedge (potion case, potions of Freedom, of Mirrored Eyes, of Magic Blocking, Wand of Sleep), he continued to Beregost via Shoal.
Here's Daevorn landing his first backstab ever! Yay!
Our visit to Beregost involved Marl, book delivery to Firebeard, clearing the spider-infested house with Wand of Sleep, a short detour south to collect the letter for Mirianne and stealth boots and concluding the gnoll business with Perdue. Karlat was taken down by consecutive backstabs while using the inn's upper floor to hide.
Time to get our hands on our weapon of choice in the Red Canyons - the Whistling Sword +2.
Wand of Sleep played a major role against Bromnir's half-ogres. After that, Daevorn hitchhikes a ride to Nashkel with Barge and exchanges the excess gear (including Ankegh Plate) for Necklace of Missiles and Shield Amulet at the carnival.
We team up with Korax to do some basilisk hunting. Unfortunately, the ghoul loses his shootout with Mutamin (it was a close call though and the gnome got away only thanks to its MAA) and we're on our own.
Potions of Mirrored Eyes and Magic Blocking at the ready, Daevorn then snipes the mage and his pets one by one from the shadows. Kirian, as well as the southern basilisk group, are completely avoided.
Meilum was our next target, falling to our quick melee weapon and arrows. Seriously, man, just get rid of those bracers and the no-reloaders will let you live (unless it's a completionist run of course, in which case you're still doomed).
After having helped farmer Brun in the ankeghs' lair, Daevorn travels to Ulgoth's Beard. Adding Cloak of Discplacement, Greenstone Amulet and Darts of Stunning to his collection, he then jogs all the way south to pay a visit to Zal and Sendai.
Backstabbing Alexander yields a free Oil of Speed…
…and from Sendai we get a new armor (with AC currently being more relevant than saving throws bonues granted by the Ring of Protection +1).
That left Daevorn with just a couple of final tasks to complete prior to Nashkel mines, i.e. collecting the Girdle of Bluntness from Krumm, visiting the Gnoll Fortress and tackling Greywolf.
You may also note that the Claw of Kazgaroth is already ours. Daevorn's currently sitting at level 6. His proficiencies are ** short sword, ** short bow, * darts, * single-weapon style, ** two-weapon style.
Regards,
B.
I'm a bit anxious about the Tyrant Golems in the next area. They're mod-introduced beholders with demilich-grade resistances, when the only weakness of a typical beholder is its poor defenses. They're no fun at all to play. Plus, we have some other random eyeballs skulking around, ready to throw out a stream of low-level damage spells that could easily disrupt our own.
The solution? I have our least important party member, Onion-san, break invisibility and distract the eyeballs so the rest of the party can summon monsters.
We take down the eyeballs and then send our summons north to wrestle with the Tyrant Golems. The golems take down summons fast, but the celestials are sturdy enough to win out.
Frisky Bits knows Stone to Flesh as a mage spell, so we can actually recruit Bondari the Reloader without a Stone to Flesh scroll (which we already found and can arguably use for this purpose since poverty runs make exceptions for quest items). However...
For some reason, Bondari and the other statues are just gone. One or two odd-looking rocks suggest that they were shattered during the fight, but I don't see how it could have happened. Neither our summons nor the beholders nor the eyeballs use area-effect spells.
It's a nonfatal bug, however, so I go along with it. We'll just have to kill the Elder Orbs ourselves. Just like we did before, we enter the area while invisible and have Onion-san break invisibility by casting Greater Command.
This means our sorcerers can cast their spells without worrying about immediately getting hit by an Anti-Magic Ray (and only Frisky Bits has Spell Shield to block a single such ray) when they break invisibility. I know Chara will be able to summon all four of their spirit critters safely, but I'm not sure we'll have enough time to cast Summon Planetar and also go invisible before the beholders turn their attention to our sorcerers.
The solution? We have Mae slap the Gauth to break invisibility, allowing Asriel to hit her with a fast-casting PW: Blind spell, at which point she can take a couple steps back and set a Special Snare to Maze all of the beholders at once.
I don't know exactly how much time the Maze traps buy us since I don't know the enemy's INT values, but since Mae can set multiple traps to instantly Maze any beholders who return early, we have plenty of time to bring out our summons and swarm the beholders as they appear. A lucky Wish Breach helps us take down the first Elder Orb early.
We also get lucky with a Project Image clone that begins to commit suicide just as the next Elder Orb appears, but unfortunately, the timing is wrong on Mae's next snare, as her blindness runs out just as the beholder returns.
Frisky Bits casts Invisibility to avoid an Anti-Magic Ray and our planetars use Holy Word to hamper the enemy's spellcasting. The Elder Orbs can still use their beholder rays, but their mage spells are affected by deafness.
Right before a planetar deals the final blow, the Elder Orb manages to land Imprisonment on a Fallen Planetar. Casting Freedom isn't really necessary, since it's just a summons, but I think it shows that picking Freedom as a level 9 spell slot was a good choice for Frisky Bits: if that Imprisonment spell hit a party member, we'd have been screwed without Freedom.
Besides, without Freedom, we'd never have been able to bring back Bodhi and stake her.
It turns out that we didn't really need to kill the Elder Orbs at all; we were looking for the Gauth's eye stalk. So it's probably best to just land a quick kill on the Gauth in that fight rather than go to the trouble of fighting the Elder Orbs. The XP finally brings Onion-san to epic levels and she chooses Summon Deva as her first HLA. Chara gets another level up on freeing the dragon guarding Abazigal's lair and chooses Summon Deva as well. We can now summon five celestials in a single round, though devas are vastly inferior to planetars.
In Abazigal's chamber, Mae throws out a Maze trap to catch the incoming drakes, and it proves more important than I realized: the drakes arrive extremely early, in less than a single round. Only because of that Maze trap were we able to summon our wall in time.
The drakes here have some very dangerous breath weapons that have a habit of bypassing most parties' defenses, and I didn't want to lose a Summon Planetar spell to a breath weapon. We use PW: Blind and another Maze trap to buy us more time.
We get a Wish-rest earlier than I expected (we're not using the WoL trick here) and slay Quenash when he reappears, but Rill survives longer, and uses his breath weapon on our sorcerers, disrupting our spells and even inflicting level drain.
Our celestials are scripted to cast Restoration on level-drained party members, but they don't understand that Spell Turning and Shield of the Archons prevent the spell from working. Only Mae can be cured.
We need a Wish Restoration in order to cure the level drain. We're in a low-pressure situation and can afford to spend a few rounds casting Wish, so the WoL trick isn't necessary, but I use it anyway to speed things up.
The drakes go down and Abazigal engages our wall of summons, but I'm not sure I want to trigger his transformation so early. For one thing, I want more summons, which requires more Wish-rests; for another, I want to clear out the fog of war and any remaining enemies to the west.
Unfortunately, it turns out that Tamah is already present, and joins the fight when Onion-san runs into her on a scouting mission.
I didn't mean to trigger her entrance so early. Abazigal also transforms earlier than I expected--he wasn't even very wounded, but the moment Tamah arrived, he switched to dragon form.
I didn't want my sorcerers in this position; they have nowhere to run. This means they can't stay out of range of Abazigal's area-effect spells, which disrupt spells even if they deal no damage.
I could disperse our wall of summons and smuggle our sorcerers along the northern wall so they have someplace to run, but I'm hesitant to bring them so close to Abazigal. I'd prefer to keep them back (though this was probably a sub-optimal decision). Meanwhile, to the west, Mae uses a Maze trap to vanish both Tamah and the extra Tamah clone that always shows up in my game (Abazigal is immune to Maze). Mae sets an additional trap after they disappear to make sure they vanish again the moment they come back.
Abazigal has mage defenses, but Asriel has recently chosen Spellstrike as his next spell pick. This means we can take down any mage's defenses in one round using Spell Thrust to remove Spell Shield, Spellstrike to take down all other spell protections, and then the Wand of Spell Striking to land Breach. Unfortunately, Abazigal has a Magical Sword on hand, and we need to kill it to make sure our magic attacks hit Abazigal instead of the sword. We tried killing it with Skull Trap earlier, but it didn't take, so Frisky Bits resorts to Horrid Wilting.
Then I realize that our planetars can just blow it to pieces with Magic Missile.
Our mages have been struggling to cast spells for the last several moments due to Abazigal's disruptive earthquakes and spell failure, but now they should be clear. Since Onion-san is not busy doing anything else, I decide to try my hand at landing Harm. This requires us to lower Abazigal's MR and use Holy Power to boost Onion-san's THAC0 as well as take down Abazigal's Stoneskins and PFMW (in my install, Harm can be blocked by Stoneskin, PFMW, MR, and spell protections).
We start breaking down Abazigal's defenses, but due to clouded auras we are unable to hit him with a Wand of Spell Striking.
Mae can actually use the Wand of Spell Striking due to having Use Any Item (UAI is still useful in a poverty run if you're Wishing for wands), but her blindness prevents her from actually targeting Abazigal with it. Instead, she focuses on Maze traps, but misplaces one, allowing one of the Tamah clones to reappear and use her breath weapon, which deals crushing damage, on the summons I've been keeping in the west to watch out for her.
The next round, we hit Abazigal with a Breach from the Wand of Spell Striking, but Abazigal responds by Breaching Onion-san, forcing her to fall back and re-cast Protection from Lightning before she gets close enough to hit Abazigal with Harm. We also re-blind Mae.
To my surprise, our spare summons finish off Tamah. Unfortunately, Onion-san gets her only Harm spell disrupted despite suffering no damage. I don't know what spell keeps doing this, but it seems impossible to prevent it from happening.
Abazigal uses Ruby Ray of Reversal on Asriel, and I start worrying about our defenses. If he ever manages to Breach Frisky Bits, he might be able to kill them in a few seconds.
Then I realize something--Abazigal's MR is still at zero from our Pierce Shield and Lower Resistance spells. We might have lost our chances to win the fight with Harm, but he's still vulnerable to spell damage.
And he's not immune to fire damage.
We have a whole horde of planetars with instant-casting Flame Strikes, and while they need to land attack rolls to hit Abazigal, their spells will hit automatically. I have all of our planetars cast Flame Strike at the same time.
He gives his death dialogue and Asriel finishes him off with Horrid Wilting.
On the way out, Tiamat appears to us as a single-headed green dragon.
I've never spoken with this Tiamat before, but since Tiamat is supposed to be evil, I'm guessing the outcome is a fight. I decide to talk-block the dragon and scurry away to safety.
That's too bad. I didn't want to rely on a modded change to make the poverty run possible, but it seems I have. It should still be possible to complete a no-reload poverty run of SCS and Ascension without bypassing the summoning cap, but it would be a lot slower if you had to rely on spell damage to get things done.
Brunash the Supermassive Halfling Enchanter!
BG1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9SoD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
SoA: 1, 2, 3, 4
A quick pit-stop before the Planar Prison is the Alhoon's sewer hideout. Things go well but the Alhoon unleashes its Improved Haste + Tenser's Transformation + PfMW spell trigger, killing Rasaad because of his low AC.
The tables are going to quickly turn once Rasaad starts getting HLAs, as the Oversight HLAs will make him a true force of martial artistry to be reckoned with. The Planar Prison is finished and made significantly easier by Coran's precise useage of Arrows of Dispelling. Nalia and Anomen level up from there. Time for the Twisted Rune. I will take no chances. I'm not dying here, not after coming this far.
To begin, I protect everyone from Undead. With this, Shangalar won't react to anyone crossing the threshold of the doorway. I have Coran place all his traps right before this trigger. When Shangalar dies, all the rest of his goons will spawn, so I'm hoping the traps will kill Vaxall and Revenek, which should make killing Shyressa easy. This plan goes well until Shangalar summons a Mordy Sword, which he casts Remove Magic on, dispelling Coran's protection from undead so he can see him.
Shangalar initiates dialogue and teleports into our room, but Coran's traps kill him instantly.
I had prepared for this too. Nalia uses a second Protection from Undead scroll to hide Coran from Shyressa. Korgan is up front with the Shield of Balduran, reflecting Vaxall's rays. This plan works until Vaxall charms himself, whereupon he switches targets to me! I had Spell Shield cast on myself already in case this happened, but SI: Abjuration didn't seem to help at all. Spell Shield absorbs the first anti-magic ray, but the second one is successful.
Still, it didn't take down my Spell Immunity, Deflection OR Turning, just my Stoneskin, and protections from fire and magic energy. Korgan kills Vaxall with Hangard's Axe +2. Anomen, Coran, and Korgan then take out Revenek from range. Now, how am I going to deal with Layene?
I summon the Improved Kitthix swarm, haste them, and put them under Mass Invisibility. Guided by Coran who is under Non-Detection, the spiders immediately overwhelm Layene, as she is poisoned and webbed. She only manages to get a Spell Sequencer off before dying, though it did her absolutely no good.
Shyressa was a cloud of mist at the time, which was actually a great stroke of luck for me, as she cannot attack in that form. After she transformed back, the spiders were all over her. She went invisible, but Coran dispelled her illusion and the spiders ate Shyressa for brunch.
The Staff of the Magi is mine! The More Style for Mages mod removes the cheesy at-will invisibility and exchanges it for immunity to Time Stop! In addition to its normal powers, the Staff can also perform ranged attacks, which include the Dispel Magic on hit. With the spoils from the Planar Prison, we have Cromwell forge the Improved Mace of Disruption as well as an Enhanced White Robe of the Archmagi for Nalia.
Just outside Cromwell's, Sergent Natula tells us to return to the Planar Sphere. We get ambushed by a bunch of anti-magic fanatics. One of them is a cleric who calls upon the dreaded Bearweres!
Somehow I am suffering casting failure so I cannot contribute for the whole fight, choosing to stay invisible via potion instead. The Bearweres are fast and strong, and worth 20k XP each, apparently. One of them kills Fleshy MK IV.
Rasaad levels up after the fight's over, gaining immunity to normal weapons. The anti-magic fanatics are disposed of. Now for the final fight before we leave Athkatla: Kangaxx. Coran sets up a bunch of traps where Kangaxx spawns as I protect us from undead. Rasaad volunteers to fight Kangaxx as he has the most magic resistance out of all of us.
The traps go off but its not enough to destroy his first form. Kangaxx summons a Mordy Sword. After the Twisted Rune fight, I'm extremely cautious about Kangaxx casting a Remove Magic on the sword, so I keep Rasaad away from it as Nalia uses Magic Missile to kill it. Next, Coran finishes off his first form. Now in Demilich mode, Kangaxx goes improved invisible and summons a Fallen Planetar.
Luckily, the Planetar is stuck because Demi-Kangaxx is blocking the way over to us. All of us are still protected from undead, which means all we have to do is keep our distance. After getting injured about halfway, the planetar gets frustrated and casts an Insect Plague at Nalia. I Haste all of us and have Nalia do laps around the tomb to kite the swarm.
After about another minute of kiting, the planetar casts another Insect Plague at Nalia.
I kite the swarms far enough away so that Nalia can cast SI: Conjuration. The planetar casts a third Insect Plague at Anomen. Now they're both doing laps around the tomb. Suddenly, I remember that Fire Shields can block the insect spells, because I didn't trust SI: Conjuration to work, so I have Nalia cast Fire Shield Red from a scroll. The planetar is still stuck and fires a couple of Magic Missiles at Nalia and some Flame Strikes on Coran. But it is eventually killed after Healing itself like 3 times.
After killing the fallen planetar, I decide to simply let Anomen tank the insect swarm chasing him. But after the swarm hits him, he is completely unaffected by it for some reason. I shrug and have Coran shoot Demi-Kangaxx (whose SI: Divination and Shadow Door sequencer has worn off). I equip Anomen with the Improved Mace of Disruption and, on his first hit...
Well. That was anti-climactic. But dirty tricks or not, I'm still alive and Kangaxx isn't. Only Watcher's Keep remains, but I'm saving it for Sarevok in ToB to replace Coran. Before I set out for Spellhold, I'll have to build another golem as the two normal Fleshies from Fleshy MK IV's death are not going to get very far. And there's no golem workshops around until we get out of the Underdark.
Brunash - Enchanter 17
Sir Anomen - Fighter 7 -> Priest of Helm 20
Korgan - Berserker 18
Rasaad - Sun Soul Monk 20
Coran - Fighter 13/Bounty Hunter 16
Nalia - Sorcerer 17
I like the in-depth, tactical-oriented posts.
Now that Asriel has Spellstrike, we have a guaranteed kill for basically any mage that doesn't have too many critters getting the way of our magic attacks. Whenever we can't kill a mage with blind traps (normal snares deal 20 damage at level 20 or 21+ and instantly kill the target on a failed save vs. death at +4)...
...we can have Carl cast Spell Thrust, Asriel cast Spellstrike, and either Frisky Bits or Mae use a Wand of Spell Striking to cast Breach. Those three spells will take down ALL defenses in SCS.
Many SCS mages have PFMW Contingencies which will trigger right after this, but another charge of the Wand of Spell Striking will take it down. It requires all three sorcerers and our Bounty Hunter to act in concert, so it's extremely aura-intensive, but the process will kill basically anything. The only thing that can save such a mage is a Spell Trigger, but that takes up the mage's aura and therefore gives us another round to take it down.
Since my army of celestials apparently is only possible because of mods, I decide to see what happens if I tackle some of the fights in Sendai's enclave without bypassing the summoning cap. Turns out that a Fallen Planetar's Fire Storm, Mae's blind traps, and Frisky Bits' Energy Blades are pretty effective on their own.
Chara gains another level and chooses Fire Elemental form as their next HLA. I give the Earth Elemental Token (which I've nerfed to grant 50% resistance to physical damage instead of 100%) to Mae, which she can equip thanks to UAI, but unfortunately it can't be used to backstab.
I'm still going to keep the Earth Elemental Token on Mae. Mae's AC is 4 points worse when she's blind, so I figure the 50% resistance is more useful than the Fire Elemental Token's superior AC, and while the DEX penalty will reduce her Set Traps skill to 80%, the Earth Elemental Token is still more useful for setting blind traps: equipping and unequipping it will switch her circle from large to small and back again, which can teleport her to a gap on the battlefield in case she gets boxed (blind thieves still need to be a step or two away from enemies to set traps in plain sight).
Switching back and forth between natural form and Earth Elemental form can leave Mae vulnerable if I'm not careful, but she and Chara are surprisingly effective in combat when shapeshifted.
Onion-san has excellent damage output when fully buffed, but her defenses kept her from participating in this fight; she's not tough enough unless Wish Hardiness is supporting her Armor of Faith and Spirit Armor spells, which only give her -7 AC and 25% damage resistance--definitely not enough to tank in ToB.
We've got a nasty drow ambush before Odamaron, but Mae can Maze them from afar, and Frisky Bits can cast Freedom to make sure all the enemies reappear simultaneously--and find themselves facing two Firestorm spells, a planetar, and a Horrid Wilting spell.
It's functionally not very different from bombing them from outside the fog of war and sending in the planetar really quick, actually. But using Maze traps and Freedom has more potential: you could throw out multiple Firestorm spells and so forth before casting Freedom, so they get hit by more spells than you could throw out in a single round normally.
The mage survives due to Protection from Fire, but that's what Spell Thrust and Spellstrike and Breach are for.
I consider deploying the army of celestial for Odamaron, but I want to give a shot at tackling them without it. Mae throws out a Maze trap, removing Odamaron himself, but unfortunately, it's not possible for me to Maze the Apprentices without blindness active.
Notice we have a Fallen Planetar on hand instead of a normal planetar. Carl is Chaotic Neutral and chose the fallen version for RP reasons (Carl is the genocidal llama from Llamas with Hats), but it turns out this was a foolish decision from a powergaming perspective: our Fallen Planetar has no Holy Word; only Unholy Word. We cannot inflict spell failure on the first Apprentice.
The Apprentice gets Wish off the ground, but before the genie can grant it a Time Stop effect, Asriel blinds Mae, allowing her to Maze the Apprentice and completely foil his Wish.
Odamaron reappears, but it seems I've forgotten to have Onion-san memorize Holy Word, so we still don't have a source of spell failure. Worse yet, we're not fast enough to take down his defenses before he casts Time Stop.
Frisky Bits cast PFMW before Time Stop, which means Odamaron cannot kill them with Energy Blades during Time Stop (I don't think SCS enemies are normally that aggressive anyway, but I want to be sure), but this means they still need to cast PFMW again to stay safe from Odamaron's Fallen Planetar. We hit Odamaron with Spellstrike, removing the rest of his spell protections, but unfortunately Mae loses all of her buffs to Remove Magic and Comet and Dragon's Breath kill her.
But Mae managed to land a Breach using the Wand of Spell Striking. Odamaron's defenses go down! He loses a spell to Energy Blades and Minute Meteors, but unfortunately, our failure to hit his Apprentice with Holy Word means that the Apprentice can still cast Time Stop.
Remove Magic and mage HLAs kill Onion-san and force our mages to once again cast PFMW. A convenient side effect is that Comet hits the other Apprentice, since it's not party-friendly in my install.
Odamaron casts PFMW, but another charge from the Wand of Spell Striking is enough to make him vulnerable; he doesn't have any spell protections to block it.
Notice Frisky Bits using Dimension Door, the only mod-introduced spell I've allowed myself in this run, to squeeze closer to the exit. Odamaron is on the way out, so once he's down, we leave--Chara dies, and I'm not going to face the remaining Apprentices with half a party.
We return (and foolishly fail to memorize Holy Word on Onion-san), but the vampire Apprentice suffers to Energy Blades and the lich Apprentice fails to do anything dangerous before we hit it with a planetar's Holy Word and use Spell Thrust+Spellstrike+Breach to obliterate its defenses and crush it with Minute Meteors and Energy Blades.
The vampire Apprentice doesn't appear to have very good buffs and dies shortly afterwards.
We get surprised by a new batch of drow and some beholders on the way out, but manage to escape their attacks by fleeing to Odamaron's room, rest (I don't know if you can safely rest anywhere in Sendai's enclave, but the Pocket Plane is always safe, so I just use a custom resting spell), and return while invisible to put some space between us and the enemy. Then we approach from the southeast and spam blind traps to bring them down.
Playing without the army of celestials is much more interesting. But I still don't think I'm going to hold back against Sendai. I won't jeopardize the run by forgoing our strongest options.
Until we fight Sendai herself, we're sticking to the summoning and level caps. Ogremoch proves to be too much for even our celestials to handle, and Ogremoch's Earthquake apparently has an instant death effect like the Earthquake in Spell Revisions...
...but Lower Resistance opens him up for a spell damage kill. Energy Blades help, too, despite his numerous Stoneskins.
Mae manages to Maze the Ancient Vampire, Death Knight, and Hive Mother in the other chamber, but Diaytha has Physical Mirror active and bounces the Maze right back at Mae, costing us our Bounty Hunter. Our planetar keeps going, and imposes spell failure on Sendai using Holy Word.
All the Mazed critters come back almost instantly, before Frisky Bits even casts Freedom to bring back Mae. But our planetar makes short work of the lesser enemies.
The planetar stays focused on the Hive Mother (again, with Holy Word to thwart its spells) while the rest of the party struggles to deal with Diaytha. Turns out Physical Mirror also bounces Spike Traps, despite using a different projectile from normal traps.
The Hive Mother apparently never got PFMW off the ground, and the planetar lands a vorpal strike. Diaytha herself succumbs to Breach.
The duel with Captain Egeissag is no challenge at all. PFMW, Improved Alacrity, Lower Resistance, and spell damage destroy him.
I'm terrified of mind flayers, so I use the WoL trick to get some extra INT out of our Potions of Genius (courtesy of Wish) and summon a bunch of celestials, just in case something somehow goes wrong. I also make sure Frisky is covered by PFMW every single second of the fight.
The celestials mop the floor with the mind flayers, leaving only the thralls. Mae kills both the Thrall Mage and its clone with blind traps on nonconsecutive occasions.
It's actually surprising how often that instant death effect works, even in ToB.
Against Sendai, I'm pulling no punches. I even talk-block her for two or three rounds when I notice she starts out neutral. A Maze trap sends away the northwest mage statue, while a blind normal snare disrupts the southeast mage statue when it awakens shortly after. Naturally, I apply Holy Word as well.
We use Wish to cast Improved Haste on everyone on the map, including our enemies. There are two Improved Haste Wish options: one that affects everyone, and one that affects the party. The former can be dangerous, but it's actually really excellent in this case because it hastes our celestials, and there are few enemies on the map to benefit from the haste effect.
Notice the new drow arriving from the west. I caught them in time and fired off Insect Plague from a planetar (it's so convenient how celestial spells are instant-casting in SCS) when I realized the mage had no Fire Shield to block it. Frisky Bits roasts the other drow with Dragon's Breath.
The northern mage statue has awakened even as the northwestern mage statue remains lost in a Maze. Mae once again manages to disrupt a spell with a snare. That poison damage bypasses everything except for Physical Mirror.
The statues crumple; the planetars are applying far too much pressure. By the time the northwest statue finally awakens, the rest are in shambles.
Notice Frisky Bits casting Freedom. I wanted to free that statue from Maze so we could tackle it while the tide was in our favor. The statue got free on its own, but I let Frisky Bits finish casting the spell.
Apparently, there are two Balors imprisoned on this map.
I've never seen these guys before, and I don't know what they're doing here, but they appeared right after Frisky Bits cast Freedom, so I assume Sendai cast Imprisonment on them and has been keeping them locked up here. Whatever the case, they vanish a second or two later.
No idea what that was about.
I neglect the northwest statue and accidentally allow it to cast Storm of Vengeance. Fortunately, none of our mages are buffed with Spell Turning, so when Asriel fails a save against the storm's poison effect, our celestials can heal him right up. As the last statue falls and the real Sendai appears, I scoot the party eastward to avoid the storm.
The real Sendai is a high-level cleric/mage with the same defenses as any epic-level mage. She even has some Imprisonment spells for our celestials. But she has no summons or allies to mess with our magic attacks, which means a Spell Thrust+Spellstrike+Wand of Spell Striking Breach charge is enough to take down every defense she has.
Sendai goes down and we're treated to a cutscene of Balthazar talking with Melissan in Balthazar's throne room. Then we see the exact same cutscene in Sendai's enclave due to a bug, but this time, Melissan is here to fight us.
Then Sendai's death triggers the Pocket Plane cutscene, and for a moment, I'm worried that I've run into a sequence-breaking bug when one of our Wish genies talks to us in the middle of the cutscene with Yaga-Shura.
But the game dutifully teleports us back to Sendai's lair to fight Melissan with Balthazar. Conveniently enough, the weird cutscene shenanigans lasted long enough to rob her of her PFMW.
I don't think this fight is even necessary, because the last time I saw it, it was unwinnable and I had to just walk away. But I use magic attacks to break down Melissan's defenses and bring her to Near Death, surviving her Horrid Wilting spells (which she appears to cast with no chance of disruption; this isn't an SCS fight) with some spare potions (Mae chose Alchemy as one of her HLAs so I would have more reliable access to healing potions).
CTRL-M confirms that Melissan is at 1 HP, but no cutscene triggers end the fight. I kill her allies and let Balthazar deal with her while we escape through the portal outside.
I think all of these extra cutscenes are from Wheels of Prophecy, and if we're able to convince Balthazar to join us (20 reputation and 15 CHA for Frisky Bits, who is Chaotic Good), I think we need to fight Melissan a second time in Balthazar's throne room, though the second time around should result in a new dialogue that ends the fight.
Then, aside from the Pocket Plane trials, we have a fight in the grove, featuring that Cambion who attacks during Time Stop. I think I'm going to swarm him with celestials, and just in case he gets Time Stop off the ground, the party will be far away when the fight starts and will also be buffed with 100% damage resistance by stacking Wish Hardiness.
After that, all we have is Melissan. I went to the trouble of giving Asriel a Spell Trap just to make sure we'll always have spell slots to Wish-rest for more celestials and more traps.
Blackguard SCS Run Number ?
I've died so many times I've lost track of my runs, but I keep trying. Part of my problem is I've still got one foot in my old style of playing: where I roleplay badass characters and parties who kick down doors and brazenly barge into rooms, with the objective of utterly routing the enemy. It doesn't really mesh with no-reload style, where survival, rather than dominance, is the objective. I still need to work on things, like watching the game clock when traveling, and reading the game log so I know exactly what I'm facing. I've played for nearly 20 years without ever looking at that log so it's a hard habit to get into.Nevertheless, the oft cruel dice gods were on my side tonight. I rolled a 94 with 18/00 strength. I admittedly play munchkin stats but I roll 'em legit. If I can't finish a run with this Blackguard, I'm going to try an Inquisitor. I've never played an Inquisitor ever, and it might be fun (not to mention helpful against the SCS spell casters who keep barbecuing my parties. Anyway, here's what I rolled. I'll drop by with reports if I manage to avoid getting killed by kobolds and gibberlings in the early game.
Previous run
After toying briefly with LoB I thought I'd try once more with this party to get at least into SoD. Both 12th and 13th attempts didn't last long - in each case I tried resting in the ankheg area when away from the map edge. I started a 14th attempt before going away for a week and have made some more progress with that today. I've just had one close call, but have generally been more patient so should have some sort of possibility of success.
I did consider the make-up of the party prior to re-starting, but think the balance is already good - so didn't see any need to adjust the starting position (and doing a quick scan of the thread before posting it's good to see that @semiticgod thinks this will still be a good party in later stages of the game). However, I did decide this time to leave Shoal alone to start with, just in case I felt later on like taking advantage of her free raise dead. I still set traps for Mad Arcand in that area though, since the 2k XP for him is worthwhile in itself and, after a few tasks in Beregost, a first level for everyone was taken after successfully killing some ankhegs. After returning Tenya's bowl the remainder of the ankheg area was cleared to almost get another level. The last few XP was provided by returning Joia's ring.
A further level was obtained by clearing the basilisk area before heading for Durlag's Tower. The external and upper portion of that was almost enough for another level and saving Arabelle did the job.
Clearing the southern areas gave another level, though not before a last minute near-death. Attacking Kahrk I got distracted by a RL conversation and thought he was out of spells before he was - Aspire was lucky in consequence to survive a flame arrow before taking his revenge.
With Washout having pushed find traps up to 100 with that level, the party will try their luck with a bit of work under Durlag's Tower next.
Beggar, Totemic Druid - L7, 56 HPs, 18 kills
Pauper, Priest of Helm - L6, 48 HPs, 76 kills, 0 deaths
Hardup, Shaman - L6, 53 HPs, 109 kills, 0 deaths
Washout, Bounty Hunter - L7, 52 HPs, 63 kills, 0 deaths
Aspire, Sorcerer - L6, 32 HPs, 84 kills, 0 deaths
Skint, Sorcerer - L6, 30 HPs, 63 kills, 0 deaths
Journal of Hrothgara Last Entry
I am really cross with myself. Tried to take a bite too many at the cherry before resting. We were almost at the bottom of the Section and took on the room full of mages. We killed some of them and if we had left them there and gone away to rest, I think that we would have beaten them. We didn't, with the result that chaos affected nearly all of the party and surely but surely the party was annihilated.So near but yet so far.
Previous posts: 1
Daevorn crossed the mines under stealth and buffed with ProUndead scroll, Potion of Stone Giant Strength and Greenstone Amulet before facing Mulahey. He opened the battle with a backstab, followed by Wand of Sleep charge on the kobolds. Mulahey was finished in melee without much trouble.
Back at the surface, killing the Revenant was an easy task (thanks to ProUndead scroll used earlier) that allowed us to loot the tombs. Before reporting back to the major in Nashkel, Daevorn collected the Ring of Fire Resistance as well as a free ProMagic scroll from Hafiz. Since there was little profit in wasting our resources against mirror imaged, stoneskined and shielded Nimbul, I decided to skip the encounter altogether. Instead, we went to check out Silke with the aim of collecting as much defensive potions (Invulnerability, Defense) as possible prior to the bandit camp.
It was not the cheapest fight. Silke saved against Daevorn's Dart of Stunning and managed to haste herself.
Silke: enchantment incantation -> Daevorn: Potion of Clarity.
Time to hide inside a house, activate Shield Amulet, wait out her haste / Mirror Images and re-engage with Darts of Stunning. Btw it seems that Beregost's got some fearless folk.
Not wanting to miss that three extra Potions of Defense carried by Faltis and his mates, I hired Garrick to do the pickpocketing. Not very noble, I agree, but Daevorn needs those (being limited to studded leather) and after all - we've just saved their lives.
We were ready for the camp. Being a skilled infiltrator, Daevorn gets a ride into the heart of the bandit operation from Peldvale. The buffs were ProCold scroll, Potion of Cold Resistance, Potion of Defense, Potion of Frost Giant Strength, Potion of Mind Focusing, Oil of Speed, Shield Amulet and Greenstone Amulet. So much for the subtlety.
Opening backstab on Venkt, followed by Oil of Fiery Burning and Dart of Wounding on Venkt.
Reposition to take down the archers while Venkt gets eaten by the poison.
Finish the remaning grunts and release Ender Sai. Thus ends Chapter 3.
Regards,
B.
(I've moved your last post to this thread; it used to be in the Lounge)
I've never had a shaman even get the upgraded summons at level 12, let alone the further upgrade at level 18. However, my expectation is that those summons won't get a great deal of use as better summoning options will be available. Despite that though I would expect the shaman to still prove pretty useful. Large numbers of insect spells and Nature's Beauty can't be bad and spell defences and iron skins should allow him to stay in combat long enough to land Harm quite a bit. The Ether Gate maze spell may also come in handy for crowd control in more complicated battles.
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
Part VII: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/918418/#Comment_918418
Part VIII: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/920872/#Comment_920872
I entered the elven city, where summons and Crom Faeyr took care of most opponents. For the dragon battle, I used a simulacrum and GWWs plus ranged attacks with my sling:
After summoning the avatar in the temple and taking care of the parasites, a deva and some skeletons were enough to defeat Jon while Iloïnen stayed away at a safe distance:
I chose all of the good paths in hell and engaged the slayer, first killing the summoned demons with GWWs:
With the slayer unable to deal with either the deva or Iloïnen herself, it was only a matter of time until all relevant protection spells were gone and I was able to take down my foe:
Entering ToB, Ilasera and the first pocket plane challenge were dealt with, and I skipped most sidequests in Saradush (except for the stolen spellbook) - sanctuary helped me to get to Gromnir without any further battles:
Iloïnen started taking out the various fighters, while a deva distracted both mages during our opponents timestops:
To my surprise, we actually seemed to be out of sight of Gromnir and his two mages after killing his remaining allies, which allowed me to add some summons and more buffs. A new deva used chaos, which actually managed to affect one mage:
Gromnir was taken down with sling damage, and the remaining mage eventually ran out of protection spells.
Finally, I spoke to Nyalee and made my way to the Marching Mountains.
Enuhal
Previous updates
At Durlag's Tower Washout cleared the traps from the first underground level before attacking anything. With Hardup having got improved shamanic summons at level 6, they did much of the work with the party setting up invisible barriers to protect the shaman - you still need to pay attention though due to the possibility of your barrier being buffeted aside by the summons and allowing the enemies through.
Traps were set to have a go at Avarice and Pride. Neither died of those initially, but Avarice was finished off by a new trap set as it moved towards the party at the exit. After resting and setting a new lot of traps, Fear was drawn into those. Pride had also not healed from the original trap damage, so he was occupied with summons while being finished off by magic missiles. I then made sure remaining traps were tripped before going after Love - he was drawn back to the entrance where a bit of stair-hopping avoided his spells while he was being beaten up.
After killing a few greater dopplegangers on the next level I had a problem when one of them proved adept at disappearing with invisibility. To respond to that I aimed to produce some summons and send them in individually, but found to my horror that the doppleganger was in position to see them being produced - and respond with an instant fireball. I was very lucky not to take any casualties there.
On the next level down invisibility and summons flushed out all the Ashirukuru without giving them any chance for backstabs. Annoyingly I had to do all that again when the game treated me to the disappearing portrait bug. This time one of the Ashirikuru survived an attack by 3 skeletons and 2 spirit lions - so Washout used a round the corner trap to finish it off.
In the process of killing the skeleton archers I'd used too many 2nd level spells to be able to make everyone invisible again. I'd chosen to do that for style reasons (wanting to finish the skeletons before resting) and hadn't thought it was a particular danger as resting is pretty safe when running between the multiple layers of upper Durlag's Tower. However, in the event I couldn't be bothered to go all the way up there again so tried just resting on the exit point from that level so that I could run immediately if ambushed (I could also have laid a full days traps before trying to rest, but didn't do that either). I was indeed ambushed and though I wasn't particularly slow in reacting to that the greater ghouls that appeared were particularly fast to attack - and in the instant of time represented by a double-tap of the space bar they managed to paralyse Aspire before travel took effect.
I tried attacking with fists to attract the ghouls' attention with the aim of then running them away. While they were happy to switch attacks to someone next to them, however, they refused to chase them and would just switch back to their paralysed victims.
All of my installs seem to crash when I try to get into Balthazar's chamber with Saemon's help, so I have to fight my way through the main door. I don't think this fight is very interesting, so I just let our planetars handle it largely off-screen. One notable threat is Sphere of Chaos, which has an instant death effect that manages to slay Asriel.
Another good reason to always keep Charname buffed with Death Ward.
Luckily, we have the stats to convince Balthazar to side with us. Melissan appears and we take her down with Spell Thrust, Spellstrike, a Wand of Spell Striking, and Energy Blades.
The trials in the Pocket Plane aren't too challenging.
We arrive in the grove without buffs and throw out a Maze traps and some summons on the off chance that the Cambion decides to teleport all the way across the map, because sometimes no-reload runs are about protecting yourself from threats that don't exist.
I want to rely on the celestials to soak up the Cambion's Time Stop, using Farsight to monitor them, but buff everyone with Wish Hardiness and PFMW in case he ignores them. Then I realize that with enough planetars, we can knock out the Cambion with Earthquake and even take down its Stoneskins without messing with its PFMW.
The Fallen Solar, whom I forgot all about, appears, but Frisky Bits is at a safe distance. Chara is not, and loses their buffs to a dispelling arrow. Meanwhile, the Cambion's pre-buffs finally fire, saving it from being slashed apart while it's unconscious, though it doesn't keep it from losing its spells.
I shoo the rest of the party away and have Frisky Bits re-cast PFMW out of paranoia. To the east, the Cambion finally succumbs to the lingering damage from several different Earthquakes (including extra castings on the second round).
The Fallen Solar is immune to +3 weapons and below, so our celestials can't even touch it. It doesn't help that the Fallen Solar has instant-casting Heal spells. But our summons keep it busy long enough for us to kill it with Energy Blades and Horrid Wilting, once we lower its MR with Pierce Shield.
I'm glad that fight went so smoothly; I was terrified of what that Cambion and Fallen Solar could do.
The Ravager also has high MR and immunity to +3 weapons and below. Fittingly enough, the solution is the same. It actually goes down much faster than I expected.
Onion-san finally hits level 25 and gains access to her Holy Symbol of Helm. Since it's created via a spell, I count it as a player-created item, which means she can use it.
There is only one fight left. I have plans for Melissan, but I honestly don't know how things are going to play out. I've been worried about this fight since the start of the run, since it's so much bigger of a challenge than anything preceding it. And even if I pull no punches, I'm not sure if I'll actually make it. We are missing so, so many precious resources, and letting SI: Abjuration or PFMW fall in just the right place could end the run in seconds, with no hope of recovery.
I've faced Melissan before, but I've never felt so little faith in our ability to survive.
This is our party at the Throne of Bhaal:
Chara, Totemic Druid 21
Onion-san, Cleric of Helm 25
Mae, Bounty Hunter 29
Frisky Bits, Dragon Disciple 25 (Charname)
Asriel, Sorcerer 21
Carl, Sorcerer 20
We have access to a handful of the following items thanks to our spells and HLAs:
Potions of Extra Healing
Potions of Superior Healing
Wands of Spell Striking
Wands of Paralyzation
Wands of Lightning
Fire Seeds
Holy Symbol of Helm
Plus a few lesser potions I've never found a use for. Everything else in our inventory is blank. No rings, no cloaks, no weapons or armor or robes or scrolls or anything like that. All we have are our spells.
We enter the Throne soaked with pre-buffs. We have a split second of freedom to act, which Mae uses to toss a Maze trap in the hopes of removing Jon-bon and Bodhi when the fight begins.
Unfortunately, Imoen in Slayer form turns hostile early, and she is the only enemy to get Mazed. We have two Fallen Solars to worry about thanks to Core Rules, but I'm quick to react and all three of our sorcerers get PFMW off the ground.
But I completely forgot about these Fallen Solars, which means neither Onion-san nor Chara are buffed with Physical Mirror, which I memorized specifically to try to reflect the Fallen Solars' arrows. Those arrows are very nasty: they deal nonmagical magic damage, dispel at level 22 (only level 27+ buffs will be sure to stay intact), and remove spell protections and specific protections up to level 6 and illusionary protections up to level 8. Mae loses all of her buffs to a single hit, but she has 100% resistance to physical damage thanks to Earth Elemental form and Wish Hardiness stacking.
Notice Carl's Horrid Wilting Chain Contingency disrupting a Fallen Solar's introductory spell. That's extremely rare: I'm pretty sure the Fallen Solars cast spells instantly like any other SCS celestial, which means the damage would have to be frame-perfect as well as bypass the Fallen Solar's massive MR.
I buffed both Frisky Bits and Carl with SI: Conjuration, so both are immune to Bodhi's Cloud of Bats, but I seem to have forgotten Asriel, who suffers spell failure on the first round. Also, I notice Haiass, our mod-introduced wolf companion, has joined the fight despite us dismissing him in both BG1 and SoA. I CTRL-Y him so he doesn't help us.
Things are looking ugly. Chara and Onion-san lose all of their buffs, leaving Onion-san without Energy Blades to fight with (Chara still has their Fire Elemental Token); Asriel cannot cast spells and can do nothing but throw Energy Blades; and Balthazar's script is so screwed up that he can't even move. And the Fallen Solars aren't going to be easy to take down; they have Heal spells.
Carl manages to land a Wish Time Stop, but for some reason he can't actually target anyone with any spells, and he accidentally boxes himself in during Time Stop by summoning another 6 genies. Only when Time Stop ends does he break free of the genies, but when he lands another Wish Time Stop, he still can't seem to target anyone. All he manages to do in 12 rounds of Time Stop is summon a planetar and blind Mae. Worse yet, Balthazar's script sabotages his every move; all he can do, despite 12 rounds of free action and automatic hits, is kill Bodhi.
The other Wish options are much more productive. Wish Breach has been unreliable in my install, but this time, it actually works!
Cloud of Bats has worn off after so much time has passed, so now Asriel can cast spells. But PFMW has also worn off on everybody. Thankfully, Frisky Bits has a clear aura and can re-cast PFMW before the Fallen Solar targeting them can land a hit.
This is exactly why I prefer to keep Charname's aura clear unless expending it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise I'd be relying on a Chain Contingency on 50% HP to save them.
With Mae blinded, we can use a Maze trap right next to the nearest Fallen Solar. But it seems they're immune to Maze.
Carl lands yet another Wish Time Stop, but Balthazar is no longer immune to Time Stop and cannot help, and Carl himself still can't target anyone.
Then I see the blindness icon on his portrait. Apparently he's been blind since the first couple rounds of combat. That's why he couldn't seem to target anyone during Time Stop; the genies were preventing him from getting close enough.
Now that I know what the problem is, I can work around it. Carl happens to have Black Blade of Disaster. I only picked it so I could fill Asriel's Spell Trap and get more Wish-rests before the Five, but BBoD is also Carl's only means of dealing damage to the Fallen Solars during Time Stop, since they're immune to +3 weapons and below like his Minute Meteors (and he has no Energy Blades on hand). Despite his pitiful 1 base APR and flat 18 STR from Wish, he manages to finish off the nearest Fallen Solar.
After spending a total of 18 rounds in Time Stop, all sorts of low-duration spells have worn off, including Jon-bon's clones. Jon-bon himself is still safely hidden behind his illusions and gets Absolute Immunity off the ground, but we've got bigger fish to fry; that Fallen Solar is a much larger threat.
Carl survives a Finger of Death thanks to stacking the save bonuses from Spirit Armor...
...but Frisky Bits has no PFMW, and casting it is not instantaneous in a poverty run. My heart stops--the Fallen Solar has just landed a hit on Frisky Bits, robbing them of almost every buff they have.
But unlike Illasera's dispelling arrows, the Fallen Solar's apparently inflict no spell failure. Better still, in the list of effects that the Fallen Solar's arrows apply on hit, the magic damage is applied first, which means Frisky Bits is immune to the damage when it hits; they only lose Protection from Magical Energy after suffering the magic damage. And the damage-less hit failed to disrupt Frisky Bits' casting of PFMW.
But we are by no means safe. Frisky Bits has no immunities left, and another arrow is in midair. The Fallen Solar hits Frisky Bits again, and against the odds, it lands a vorpal strike, a 15% chance. Frisky Bits manages to make their save vs. death, saving the run on a 65% chance, but Chara is not so lucky.
The second Wish Time Stop was a mistake; I jeopardized the run by wearing out Frisky Bits' PFMW when the second Fallen Solar was still targeting them.
For anyone Charname who relies on PFMW to win this fight, Time Stop is NOT safe unless cast by Charname him or herself. Even a single second of vulnerability is enough for a Fallen Solar to land two hits: one to remove Death Ward and other defenses, and a second to land a vorpal strike.
Frisky Bits has still lost an SI: Abjuration spell to the Fallen Solar's magic damage, but can re-cast SI in the same round, since SI ignores aura. We really need to take down that Fallen Solar before it does any more damage, so Mae uses a WoL Greater Evasion to boost her AC and saving throws to -22 and -20 and grant +12 to movement rate. She practically teleports over to the Fallen Solar, but her defenses are still too weak to do well against the enemy.
Still, we manage to take down the Fallen Solar with Balthazar's help, leaving Jon-bon all alone. Painfully aware of Frisky Bits' lack of immunities, I buff their saves with Improved Invisibility. Meanwhile, our other sorcerers, far from the Fallen Solar's arrows, have been using their free auras to cast Wish and so forth.
Notice our planetars have been off-screen up until now. Since they couldn't do much of anything to the Fallen Solars, I left them to the west to distract Jon-bon. But Irenicus has snuck over to the southeastern platform. Improved Mantle keeps our celestials at bay, but Energy Blades goes right through it.
His aura is clouded and his Stoneskins are gone. Jon-bon is done for.
That was very poorly done. Most of it was fine, but those Time Stops robbed Frisky Bits of their PFMW without clearing their aura, giving them roughly a 10% chance of death from that Fallen Solar's arrows, another unacceptably high figure for a no-reload run.
The pools are next. Knowing that we have an unlimited amount of time at our disposal, I summon a massive horde to overwhelm the enemies at each pool. Our party's only role is to summon critters and pitch in a Breach against the Mariliths.
Soon, all we have left is to activate each pool and summon the Five.
I have taken too many risks already. I'm not going to endanger the success of this run anymore. I'm not going to pull any punches or suffer any hole in our defenses. I buff every single party member with every single long-lasting buff at my disposal, summon the largest horde I've ever gathered, and use Wish to haste and heal our entire army and boost everyone's ability scores to 25 and physical damage resistances to 100% using Wish. Finally, I seed the battlefield with traps, both Spike Traps and normal snares.
We have about 5 Fire Elementals, 30 Skeleton Warriors, and 30 celestials, though many of them are devas instead of the planetars.
We're severely underleveled and underequipped to say the least, but we have strong defenses and our traps should give us a powerful edge in the first round of combat. As long as we can hold onto that edge, and as long as I make sure that Frisky Bits' aura is clear to cast Focus or preferably PFMW if Melissan begins casting Time Stop, we should be able to win.
But I'm banking on the assumption that those traps will trigger evenly. And if that assumption doesn't hold, I might see a whole bunch of traps getting wasted on lightweights like Gromnir or Sarevok, instead of more important targets like Sendai, Illasera, and perhaps most of all, Abazigal.