I vaguely remember raising it and being told it was intentional. I agree I don't like the result though - it's too much of a break with the original game. If it was an even fight such that sometimes Cernd wins and sometimes he loses (similar to Melicamp) that would seem more acceptable to me.
The way I see it: In the unmodded game the fight depends on Cernds level.
If Cernds is at a low level (below 13) he will shapeshift into a regular werewolf, and NOT deal sufficient damage to Faldorn and loose the match. This only happens if charname is at very low level - which is hard to achieve in it self.
But if Cernd is at higher level (13) he shapeshifts into a greater werewolf and easily beats Faldorn.
Charname doesnt have to be level 13 or have the XP needed to become a level 13 druid (I dont know the exact amount of XP but its not much..)
Dimension door was said to be mostly removed because you could skip plot specific cutscenes which would unrepairably prevent the chapters and plot from being updated. I never figured out which cutscenes those were though....
I always let jaheira fight faldorn. It is an even battle in that case and either can win.
After joining up with Tenya, we went ankheg hunting which boosted our experience tremendously and selling the shells, it also boosted our finances. Due to possession of a ring, my charisma is now 18 and we are also officially heroes, so we decided to do some Christmas shopping. We boosted Tenya's belt at the FAI so that she now has a decent strength. We also improved my ring of fire protection and bought some boots to improve our speed.
We then deemed it an opportune time to visit Bassilus. He wasn't pleased to see us and attacked. Command spells enabled us to defeat him though he managed to "hold" Tenya, it wasn't sufficient to save him as I and a summoned skeleton managed to kill him. The skeleton was also killed, but not before landing a devastating blow on Bassilus who died at the hand of the skeleton.
Eventually Tenya recovered her mobility and healed us all, so off we went to claim our reward.
We then bought oil of speed, a necklace of missiles and a scroll of protection from petrification with some of the reward money. We were rich for a short time but not any longer.
I have improved basilisks installed, so I am thinking that Tenya might also need some protection from basilisks. I haven't had that option installed before and have no idea what effect it might have.
We then went to stop Mutamin's rock garden growing.
In the temple area we wiped out many wolves including two vampyric wolves. On arrival in the basilisk area we killed Kirian and his party first.
I used the scroll of protection from petrification which allowed me to kill most of the medusae and basilisks, but through lack of care Mutamin saw me before I had killed them all. He cast remove magic whereupon I fled, however my protections remained and I was able to kill most of them before turning my attention to Mutamin.
There were still two basilisks and a medusa left, but I killed them all before going to Gullykin. I did this to meet up with Alora, but couldn't find her.
I usually use a mod that moves her to Gullykin but BWS reccomends using a different mod which is SCS.
This I did, but now I have no idea where she is. Can anyone tell me her location please.
@semiticgod Another thing you might not like in the next update... Critical hit effects won't bypass weapon immunity. The Martyr's morningstar/Critical Hit combo will be greatly nerfed.
@Arctodus: Jesus Christ. That was the whole big plan behind my run! It's distressing to see something cool and useful being removed like this.
The Martyr's Morningstar will still be an excellent option in many cases, I suppose. It's certainly going to be great for enemy fighter types in LoB mode. But not being able to land dispels through PFMW is very unfortunate. I was very proud of discovering that trick, and it's being removed just as I'm beginning to enjoy using it.
After joining up with Tenya, we went ankheg hunting which boosted our experience tremendously and selling the shells, it also boosted our finances. Due to possession of a ring, my charisma is now 18 and we are also officially heroes, so we decided to do some Christmas shopping. We boosted Tenya's belt at the FAI so that she now has a decent strength. We also improved my ring of fire protection and bought some boots to improve our speed.
We then deemed it an opportune time to visit Bassilus. He wasn't pleased to see us and attacked. Command spells enabled us to defeat him though he managed to "hold" Tenya, it wasn't sufficient to save him as I and a summoned skeleton managed to kill him. The skeleton was also killed, but not before landing a devastating blow on Bassilus who died at the hand of the skeleton.
Eventually Tenya recovered her mobility and healed us all, so off we went to claim our reward.
We then bought oil of speed, a necklace of missiles and a scroll of protection from petrification with some of the reward money. We were rich for a short time but not any longer.
I have improved basilisks installed, so I am thinking that Tenya might also need some protection from basilisks. I haven't had that option installed before and have no idea what effect it might have.
We then went to stop Mutamin's rock garden growing.
In the temple area we wiped out many wolves including two vampyric wolves. On arrival in the basilisk area we killed Kirian and his party first.
I used the scroll of protection from petrification which allowed me to kill most of the medusae and basilisks, but through lack of care Mutamin saw me before I had killed them all. He cast remove magic whereupon I fled, however my protections remained and I was able to kill most of them before turning my attention to Mutamin.
There were still two basilisks and a medusa left, but I killed them all before going to Gullykin. I did this to meet up with Alora, but couldn't find her.
I usually use a mod that moves her to Gullykin but BWS reccomends using a different mod which is SCS.
This I did, but now I have no idea where she is. Can anyone tell me her location please.
Here is what the SCS component does according to the readme:
Move NPCs to more convenient locations.
The NPCs who are moved are: •Eldoth - moves from the Cloakwood to the woods south of the Friendly Arm. •Quayle - moves from Baldur's Gate to the Nashkel Carnival •Shar-Teel - moves from a fairly inaccessible bit of wilderness to the Nashkel-Beregost road •Tiax - moves from Baldur's Gate to Beregost •Viconia - moves from the eastern forest to the woods south of Beregost.
CD Tweaks also has this option, but uses a different approach:
Move NPCs from Baldur's Gate BGEE, EET, BG, BGT, Tutu
Adapted from the BG1 NPC Project mod, this component moves Alora, Quayle and Tiax so they can be found earlier in the game, and is compatible with Send BioWare NPC's to an Inn. You must start a new game for these changes to take effect on non-BGT games.
Alora will be found in Gullykin, near the winery door. Her initial dialog has been changed to reflect her new location. (Note: Dialog may not change in games without Tales of the Sword Coast installed.)
Quayle will be available at the Nashkel Carnival near the Great Gazib. No change to his initial dialog was required or made.
Tiax will start on the first floor of Feldpost's Inn. There is no change to his initial dialog.
As I understand, CD Tweaks should be installed prior to SCS, but I have both of these installed. That being said, I do not remember Alora ever appearing in Gullykin after I began using the SCS verison. Not sure why.
@semiticgod: The sick Greater Basilisk in Bloodbark Grove - even though its flagged as 0 APR - can actually still kill you. It petrified me once in a no-reload-run so - like you - i am always buffing up against it. Learning by dying!
@semiticgod Another thing you might not like in the next update... Critical hit effects won't bypass weapon immunity. The Martyr's morningstar/Critical Hit combo will be greatly nerfed.
NANI!?!
But... But I LOVE how @semiticgod's War Hulk kit could obliterate a mage buffed with PfMW by smashing through it with a Deathblow Critical!
Dammit. I specifically didn't say anything about it because I didn't want it to get "fixed." Too late now...
@Aerakar I think that I now understand what has happened. SCS doesn't move Alora.
It is the BWS instructions that really need changing.
They say that SCS is preferred to CD Tweaks, but CD Tweaks are actually better than SCS, at least in my opinion.
Perhaps there needs to be some clarification in BWS saying what the differences are between different mods as quite often I find that the recommended mod is actually poorer than the alternative.
@semiticgod Another thing you might not like in the next update... Critical hit effects won't bypass weapon immunity. The Martyr's morningstar/Critical Hit combo will be greatly nerfed.
NANI!?!
But... But I LOVE how @semiticgod's War Hulk kit could obliterate a mage buffed with PfMW by smashing through it with a Deathblow Critical!
Dammit. I specifically didn't say anything about it because I didn't want it to get "fixed." Too late now...
Holy crap! I didn't even think of that, and I designed the kit!
It should still be possible to do it with a nonmagical weapon on a normal mage, but unfortunately liches will be immune. Then again, since a Protection from Undead scroll has proven capable of completely breaking any lich's ability to function, liches are practically harmless now.
@semiticgod Another thing you might not like in the next update... Critical hit effects won't bypass weapon immunity. The Martyr's morningstar/Critical Hit combo will be greatly nerfed.
NANI!?!
But... But I LOVE how @semiticgod's War Hulk kit could obliterate a mage buffed with PfMW by smashing through it with a Deathblow Critical!
Dammit. I specifically didn't say anything about it because I didn't want it to get "fixed." Too late now...
Holy crap! I didn't even think of that, and I designed the kit!
I thought it was the coolest thing ever because the Shade Lich got styled upon by my War Hulk, Krieg, and was turned into a pile of chunky burrito meat. The lich's assault just stopped, and there was this stunning silence as I wondered, "Wait... I just killed him? THROUGH PfMW???"
Ælfweald fell to the assassins at the gnoll stronghold. It was a backstab that was the critical blow. Tonya had cast her remove invisibility too soon. Probably should have had a larger party.
Mollyboo's Solo Legacy of Bhaal Run: Just Screwing Around
Before we fight Jon-bon, I want the Staff of the Magi. Not because we need it, really, but because it's there. Mollyboo uses Dimension Door to set some traps in the east chamber, but the truly important factor here are Control Circlets. The WoL trick lets us charm half the enemy instantly. Shangalar loses his first spell to lingering poison damage from a level 11 trap, despite being immune to poison.
The charm doesn't last long; something disrupted it. Vaxall fires off an Anti-Magic Ray, but it only takes down Mollyboo's Spell Shield.
Layenne is still under our control and summons a planetar. After re-charming Vaxall, I send him southeast to escape our own planetar's Fire Storm spell and imprison the vampire.
(There was a crash somewhere along the way, but I don't remember when.)
A Protection from Undead scroll breaks Shangalar. He can't even trigger his PFMW contingencies, leaving him completely vulnerable.
Mollyboo's clone tries to slay Vaxall, but Stoneskin blocks the bonus damage from the Martyr's Morningstar even as it bypasses PFMW. A Remove Magic spell hits Mollyboo's clone...
...but instead of instantly killing the clone, like it's supposed to, it turns the clone hostile for some reason. And the clone is given an SCS script that lets it cast a sequencer it doesn't have and isn't high enough level to cast!
Mollyboo's clone doesn't cause too much trouble, and we empty Vaxall's spellbook by repeatedly canceling his spellcasting. Layenne can do the same thing if she casts Improved Alacrity, finishing up with an Imprisonment spell on Revanek (two castings with Freedom in between so we get a little bonus XP). Her spells wasted, we can take down Layenne with some nonmagical arrows powered by Smite.
I also go grab the Flail of Ages. On the way, I let Mollyboo fight some golems while i'm away from the computer, and when I come back, Mollyboo is in surprisingly bad shape.
Seeing that red pool reminds me that I've disabled auto-pause on allies wounded. With sufficiently bad luck, I might have come back to find Mollyboo dead!
The dungeon is not hard. TorGal's massive HP and regeneration mean precious little against the Martyr's Morningstar.
But somehow I miss one of the flail heads and end up with a crummy Flail of Ages +2 instead of +3.
Critical Strike also helps against Raamilat over at Suldannessellar. Too bad the dispel magic effect won't bypass PFMW in v2.5; it's quite fun to see it.
Fortunately, dragons don't generally use PFMW, so the Martyr's Morningstar will still be fabulous in 2.5 EET.
I let Rillifane kill Suneer, store some spare copies of the Rift Device in Beregost, and knock Jon-bon across the map with Smite at the Tree of Life.
I fail to kill his Fallen Planetar and am forced to flee, but Jon-bon chases me with Dimension Door.
I keep running and he keeps chasing me, but eventually his PFMW wears off, opening him up to an Arrow of Dispelling.
He doesn't last long after that.
All that's left is the Slayer. This is what Mollyboo looks like at the end of SoA.
That's the Robe of Vecna with a weird icon; not the Robe of Cold Resistance. Notice the duplicated Absolute Immunity scrolls.
I can stop Jon-bon from summoning a planetar by using a Protection from Magic scroll. But that would be, you know, way too cheesy, and it's not like I've got seven copies and can infinitely duplicate more. Instead, I just use Dimension Door scrolls to evade the planetar and the other enemies. But I flub up the targets and end up teleporting onto Mollyboo's original position, instead of the arrow I dropped across the map.
I run around in circles, chain-casting Absolute Immunity (which, due to Mollyboo's newfound immunity to normal weapons, is actually no different from PFMW) via scrolls to make sure Jon-bon doesn't kill me during Time Stop. When I fail to nail him with an arrow in between Jon-bon's PFMW and a PFMW Contingency, I keep running.
I have to time Mollyboo's movements very carefully, because scrolls have a slight delay before casting and that delay gives the Fallen Planetar a fraction of a second to attempt a vorpal strike (which is unlikely to work) or a dispel magic effect (which is very likely to work).
Jon-bon tries to take down Mollyboo's spell protections, but Spell Shield blocks his first attempt, and a spare Spell Shield scroll keeps Mollyboo's defenses safe from further attempts.
Jon-bon manages to cast Time Stop, but he can't actually see through invisibility, which means the Staff of the Magi is actually a perfect counter for it. All the while, Jon-bon's SI: Abjuration wears thin.
When it finally does, it means that Jon-bon is vulnerable to the dispel magic effect of Spell Breaker. In 2.5, this will only be possible with an Arrow of Dispelling, after PFMW has worn off.
Shorn of both PFMW and his Stoneskins, and with no helmet to block critical hits, Jon-bon is defenseless against the Martyr's Morningstar. He goes down in a single round.
Irenicus is dead! Shadows of Amn is over! Mollyboo proceeds to ToB.
Trio (Corethief XIV) - FINAL Update! (Corey_Russell, Grond0, Gate70)
After a long hiatus, the trio got to adventuring. It started off pretty well, as we cleared the Umar Hills and Temple area, even taking out Thaxxy.
However, we took a fateful turn in the Bridge District. We were dealing with the Rune Assassins (going after Reijek) - the dwarves went down 1st, with the idea that Corthief XIV would in a bit help with detect illusions. However, Corthief XIV's timing was terrible - an assassin locked onto him and in a single hit, Corethief was near death. Invisibility doesn't work so Corthief XIV tried running, but the assassin followed and found his mark - RIP Corethief XIV.
Maybe could have tried ilbratha image instead, but hindsight 20/20 as they say...
Grond0 is the next protagonist for our next try at the Trio.
We had a bit of time left over in the session yesterday so rolled up a new set of characters. Rather surprisingly they all had a common racial heritage of half-orc, even if Coresmash's good looks do seem to strongly favor his human side. A shaman, assassin and berserker though provides a pretty good range of options.
Just for a change we didn't go straight for Shoal - saving her for later as Grime's got his eye on the helm she makes available. Instead there was a quick journey via Beregost down to Nashkel where Coresmash equipped himself with some green armor. With PfP scroll in hand we then set off for the basilisk area - but had to make a detour when Coresmash failed to survive twin hits from a pair of ambushing dire wolves.
Not to worry though - temples are there for a reason and we still got to the intended destination with a couple of minutes of time left. That was just enough to clear out the southern group of basilisks - everyone picking up at least one level in the process.
The question for next time is will I remember not to rest immediately on starting (which would cancel the remainder of the PFP scroll)?
Myna and Eeny were making good progress, having disposed of Davaeorn and headed into the city. Ramazith didn't appear to be much trouble but he'd picked his minions well. The two mustard jellies scared us off once when Eeny was slowed, and had absorbed a lesson (from the Rune Assassins in our last trio session) by attacking Myna when she appeared several seconds after Eeny. This time though, Eeny stuck around while Myna went downstairs and managed to cast slow poison. She returned upstairs and sang some encouragement at Eeny.
The third level saw us try to block ghasts in invisibly with the use of an invisible pseudo-dragon familiar. That didn't quite work to plan so we went for a divide and conquer approach. One of the ghasts did the same though, landing quite the most spectacular ranged attack Myna would ever see (shared in screenshot below).
The psuedo-dragon and Eeny both raced downstairs, the dragon briefly blocking a ghast before also being held. Eeny downed one of the two ghasts with magic missiles before also being held.
Eeny died. The familiar died. Myna failed to survive the constitution shock.
We didn't have much time today, so the ghasts weren't really cutting the session short. However, we did quickly roll up a new pairing ready for next time. Gate70 wasn't too happy to roll a berserker, but comforted himself with his current favorite of half-orc for its race. I rolled a mage/thief as my class and decided to take the benefit of my recent experience of an illusionist by going for another gnome.
During our session we chatted for a while about the difficulties of no-reload and multi-player. As you can see from the screenshot in Gate70's post above the technical difficulties can be significant . However, much is also down to attitude and perhaps it's time we made a concerted effort to see if we can make a bit more progress than in recent runs .
I'm trying out a new poverty run. This one is a little different from the previous one:
1. I'm playing with Item Revisions and Spell Revisions installed. 2. I don't have any of those crazy optional mod enemies that have massive stats and give lots of XP (and overpowered loot, not that it matters for this run). 3. I can't cast Wish. 4. The summoning caps are in place.
The first part is for novelty; the second part is to (arguably) increase the difficulty by removing access to a high-risk, high-reward XP source; and the third and fourth parts are there to make ToB more interesting, since it means no WoL nonsense, Wish-resting, Hardiness stacking (which isn't possible in v2.5 anyway), or armies of celestials.
I don't think it's optimal, even with SR/IR, but I like having the extra sorcerers because they seem more solid in the late game. They're all Dragon Disciples because we don't really need all those spell slots, and I figured innate fire immunity might save our life if we get hit by multiple Remove Magic spells at once (which is all but guaranteed in the Nine Hells, to be honest) and then blasted by Dragon's Breath.
We're currently at level 3. We went straight to Beregost, killed the spiders with summoned gibberlings and Magic Stone, and then kicked out our least important sorcerer to make room for Tiax, whom we had to console into Beregost because he erroneously failed to show up (it's an installation issue; I also saw Shar-teel in the northwest corner of Mutamin's garden for some reason). Tiax's ghast managed to take down almost all the basilisks before Mutamin started chasing us down. Thankfully, Mutamin only cast Obscuring Cloud on us before we escaped. We then returned and Tiax's ghast paralyzed Mutamin alongside Korax. The twin ghouls hunted down the last of the basilisks on the map.
Then we hauled Tiax to the ankheg farm, dropped him off, collected our sorcerer, and then brought Tiax into our party just long enough for him to cast Summon Ghast before we replaced him again. This allowed us to continue using his ghast without letting him leech XP from the party. The ghast took down all the ankhegs while our gibberlings soaked up damage.
Expeditious Retreat probably saved us from an ankheg that flanked us. Expeditious Retreat replaces Protection from Petrification in SR; it grants triple movement rate to the whole party but sets APR to 0 and imposes 100% spell failure.
A few more thousand XP and we'll have Invisibility. Then we just need to play it safe until level 8, crush Sarevok and SoD with area-effect spells, and then we'll pretty much be in the clear until ToB. I'm looking forward to teleporting past the Warden in SoA, and maybe trying some other weird tricks involving the level 1 Dimension Jump spell.
Note that, without a Bounty Hunter this time, our only source of Detect Illusions is our Shaman, who will get a very unreliable 64% chance at level 11 for Belhifet. Our cleric can cast True Seeing, but it doesn't work the same way in SR; it's more for the benefit of the caster than the party as a whole. True Seeing won't let us take down Belhifet's Improved Invisibility; we actually need to cast the level 3 Detect Illusion mage spell to get rid of it.
@Grond0: I've been having trouble with the Shaman's dance. Some rounds, it does absolutely nothing; it doesn't even display the string that says no spirits answered the call. It also seems to have a habit of summoning the spirits to the northwest of the Shaman, which means I have to put other characters in that spot if I want to make sure the spirits appear on the right side of the Shaman instead. Finally, the spirit critters will often spend many precious seconds waffling around, walking back and forth between the Shaman and the enemy (and bringing the enemy into our line of sight!) before they finally make their first attack roll. Have you had problems managing the spirit critters' behavior?
then kicked out our least important sorcerer to make room for Tiax, whom we had to console into Beregost because he erroneously failed to show up (it's an installation issue; I also saw Shar-teel in the northwest corner of Mutamin's garden for some reason).
That's Shar-teel's standard position, so I guess the SCS component that shifts various NPCs is not active in your installation.
@Grond0: I've been having trouble with the Shaman's dance. Some rounds, it does absolutely nothing; it doesn't even display the string that says no spirits answered the call. It also seems to have a habit of summoning the spirits to the northwest of the Shaman, which means I have to put other characters in that spot if I want to make sure the spirits appear on the right side of the Shaman instead. Finally, the spirit critters will often spend many precious seconds waffling around, walking back and forth between the Shaman and the enemy (and bringing the enemy into our line of sight!) before they finally make their first attack roll. Have you had problems managing the spirit critters' behavior?
Sounds like you're having fun @semiticgod. The shamanic summons are indeed a far cry from having controllable ones and come with very considerable downsides - but they can still be extremely useful and having access to a never-ending supply of summons could help at several points in the game. In answer to your points: 1) I suspect the no string occurred because you already had summons active. Spirits are subject to their own specific summoning cap (2 initially, 3 at level 6, 4 at level 12 and 5 at level 18). I don't know if it's been fixed in v2.5, but up to then anyway if you have other summons operating you they count against the spirit cap - so you can't have 2 gibberlings and then add a spirit (you can though have 2 spirits and then add a gibberling). 2) Spirits always generate at the same place relative to the shaman unless that space is already occupied (by a person or an object). As you say the first appears north-west, the second northish, the third (when you get that), a bit north-east. In some cases that may result in you placing the shaman so that only their 2nd or 3rd spirit actually sight an enemy (you may also want to do that deliberately to generate more back-up). 3) Spirits are not supposed to go out of visual range of the shaman, though they occasionally do. The waffling you refer to is the spirit's AI trying to drag the enemy within visual range so that it can attack it. If the spirit does come across an enemy outside visual range (of the shaman, not the party) - that can very easily happen if you're placing the shaman around an obstacle - then it will never actually attack though it will move to do so. That makes playing a solo shaman an exercise in fine judgement of exactly where to start dancing, but shouldn't be too much of a concern to you once you get used to it.
In Candlekeep the secrets sleep until they are called by name. But tell me what’s in a name? Koveras. Sarevok. Were they the same? Brother, I will name you in death what you could not be in life, when you were the madman who let the facestealers cannibalise our past and dipped the future in blood. I will light a candle for you, because no other shall, and consume the bitter ashes of my new title. Bhaalspawn. Blood and spit.
Candlekeep. Candle. Light. Precious and fragile. The lights of our lives, knowledge… beauty. Truth is beauty? Keep. The light must be kept, must be fed, must be protected. The high walls, the watchers… they were not enough. Who was there to protect the protectors? Not I. I come too late, and drown it all in a river of blood. The Cloakwood. Candlekeep. Baldur’s Gate. Like one of those silly books that I used to read where Brother Eldred would solve a mystery, always chasing behind the crime, never in advance of it. We never know until it is too late. You too Sarevok. You found the words but you couldn`t read them. Why?
Those books, how I used to consume them. All those romances, love and death chiming in and out like parts in a play. The trumpets of the page rang out louder than these gloomy proclamations, these hard congratulations. They are weighing and measuring my worth, as a piece in the great game. Peace, do I, does the Sword Coast not deserve it? I shall take a ride soon, we must get away from the gawking crowds for awhile. Then, on our return, I shall take their measure as they take mine. I will not shirk this bitter duty, I will not fade away.
Imoen will relish a break from her training, she was as lax with the homework that Gorion would give her and I no longer have answers to share. Ajantis already departs to report his untainted deeds, perhaps they shall swell in the telling between here and Amn. Jaheira and Khalid can cease whispering with the local Harpers and drink in green spaces again, she has been complaining how difficult it is to find the correct herbs in the city. When will they finally raise that brood of half-breeds they are forever planning? (But I too….enough!) I wonder if Kivan will come. He is already gone in a sense, these strange near-men hardly exist in our world once their purpose is exhausted. He sees Deheriana everywhere he goes, but he is far more of a ghost than she. He swore his life to me, but that is a light measure now. He will pass.
Is it weakness ? I too, see the dead. Isra. Is. Ra. She was the light. But roses die in the dark. She was for love. She was for beauty. But smiling death claimed her, and her blade dipped in the dark. Those laughing skeletons, who came upon us in the dark. They would not have taken her in the light. Isra. I will write to your father soon. I am sorry. I will light a candle for you until the city approve my request for a statue. I have tried to write the epitaph, but nothing comes, only those words of sorrow that occurred as we finally climbed into the light.
No dirge we sang, no not a note, As we burnt our rose to shadow, Southern child, may your deathsmoke float Homeward now, rest your singing bow.
Peace. It was your legacy Isra. It is beautiful, like the last rays of this day. Peace, love, I would welcome these things, if I could find where they were hid.
The subject appears to have been degrading somewhat more quickly than expected. It is as well we claimed him before he degenerated as far as the one known as Sarevok. These fresh derangements may pose a risk. Could they affect my plans? It is clear that his evident disturbance was derived from attachments formed under conditions of high stress. It would therefore be inadvisable to utilise his companions as leverage, to do so might have a regressive effect. His resolution would not be broken even as his sanity flaked away. These bhaalspawn are so delicate. However should he believe himself to be liberated then such manipulations might be easier to accomplish. As his power increases, so will his instabilities. At the last resort this may make the operation easier to achieve, though at the cost of some risk. The other subject may prove to be less of a concern, Bodhi has been delighted with her initial progress. At any event as a consequence of my initial experiments this one`s curious mental powers have been stilled for the present, through inculcation of its latent magical energies, as yet untapped. This may have a stabilising effect in the short term, and should dampen its resistance. Gelding animals is rather effective for taming them. This nothing has been caged. It can be controlled. It will be shattered. And then the Seldarine will learn what one can make of a name.
[Success! At Candlekeep we traversed the underground tombs, but my play was a bit off. Isra was chunked by an unexpected horde of Skeleton Warriors, after first getting knocked down to 1hp by a critical… Jaheira was also killed by a lightning trap but fortunately not chunked. Once we escaped we recruited Kivan and gathered the evidence in the City without a hitch. The palace battle was made easier by multiple disablers, and both dukes survived. The Undercity party were a little tricky as one or two members fled after the initial barrage, and I ended up tangling with some undead unnecessarily. Then it was on to the final battle…. where things didn`t exactly go to plan early on. My tactics were off as my summons got caught in some of our area effects and harboured a grudge against us for the rest of the battle as a result, attacking whenever I stopped paying attention. Rather more terrifying, Angelo was forcespelling Power Word Kill and Flesh to Stone despite being under a Protection from Magic Scroll. This made it imperative to take him down early, but he was able to flee to the other side of the map before finally being cornered. However the enemy didn’t get too many effects off that our extensive potion quaffing couldn`t fend off, and we gradually cut them, and their skeleton alter-egos, down. Stirkus had the pleasure of squishing Sarevok`s mind with psionics at the end while he was being chopped down as well. On to Amn. Tarrantarantarantarantara! I have decided to explain Stirkus` dual classing as being partially inflicted upon him by Irenicus, goes nicely with the untapped power spiel. My main decision when installing may be whether to go with Ascension. I’m thinking not, as I shan’t be installing much tactical content this time round with SCS on board all the way. Time to enjoy the Big World installer minigame again.]
Sorry guys, no close call this time. I'm a bit surprised myself...
Since we're getting quite strong lately, I decided to go dragon hunting. First, Thaxll'ssillyia. We buffed up, but I somehow forgot to add Negative Plane Protection. But that didn't even mattered in the end, because I casted Pierce Magic on the dragon. In SR, it drops MR to zero for two rounds. Without MR, I unloaded two Spell Sequencers from Xan and Miluiel, one with 3x Lightning Bolt (it's single target in SR) and one with 3x Skull Traps. That managed to soften up the dragon quite a lot. One or two rounds later, the beast was dead.
Firkraag was next. I pretty much used the same strat : drop MR to zero, blast with Sequencers and finish in melee. Firkraag still managed to debuff us somewhat when he took down our Dispelling Sreen. Xan tried to cast it back on us, but he got interrupted by a breath attack. Xan was immune to fire, but the attack still managed to interrupt his casting. Firkraag then dispelled Jaheira's buff completely. That something to keep in mind : even with complete elemental immunity, you can still get interrupted while casting. That's the kind of situation that can spell the doom of a run. Firkaag also managed to go through Xan's Stoneskin and slashed him once or twice, but we slayed the red dragon moments later.
I decided to attack the lich in the Crooked Crane inn after. It... was a complicated fight. I think I didn't installed the SCS component that makes lich not immune to Breach, so we could not debuff it efficiently. We pretty much had to tank it's spells. We managed to keep Dispelling Screen on by countering it's Dispel, but it still did plenty of damage to us. A well placed ADHW mid-fight slayed Gavin and Alora. We still outlasted its defenses and destroy it. It got us Daystar, our third +4 weapon. The blade belongs to Tyris now.
Planar Prison. The first meaningful encounter was the three Yuan-ti mages. We opened with two Sunray (from Gavin and Tyris' Daystar) and one False Dawn (Jaheira). Pretty much every enemy got blinded because of that. After that, it was only about taking down their defenses and slay them.
The Master of Thralls fight was activated sooner than I wanted, because Alora muffed a stealth check in front of the enemy. The Master debuffed Jaheira and dealt solid damage to her, but we killed him soon enough.
The Warden fight now. It went pretty smoothly. Alora tried to lure him away from his goons while scouting, but he started to cast Time Stop. As soon as he did, I casted PfMW on Miluiel and Xan, but that was unnecessary, because he didn't even show up to us during his Time Stop. Alora then went back to lure him and he followed her. She started to kite him while everyone was away... and managed to slay him after a few arrows.
I thought that it was way too easy, since the Warden is suppose to be a nasty threat. It was, because Alora only managed to take down his Simulacrum : the Warden himself was well and alive. Sooo, we were not done yet.
I decided to approach with my whole team (our buffs were starting to diminish greatly) to engage the Warden. Alora finally managed to lure him to us. We then debuffed him ans slew him real quick.
The rest of his team was taken out moments after. We talked to Haer Dalis and got out of the Prison. Another sidequest done. Hooray !!
Since Miluiel's a bard, we went on to do the bard Stronghold quest. Not much to say about it, but it netted us some good xp for... not doing much. I chose the best options by using a walkthrough, because that was the first time I did that sidequest. It also got us the amazing Bard Hat, which was the main reason to do the stronghold. I can now keep a solid -3 bonus to our saves at all time while being able to cast more freely. Sweet. It also gained us the somewhat mediocre Azlaer's Harp, which let me cast Remove Fear on a single target 3x/day. I guess it can become useful in some situation, but that's nothing too impressive for a Stronghold specific item.
Bodhi's Lair. When we arrived in the Graveyard District, we were welcomed by Bodhi. I decided to sleep juuust before she started to talk simply to change the time from night to day. A bit cheesy, but I don't care. Bodhi had a specific conversation with Xan. Before answering anything, I read the Xan's mod readme to see what can happen. Well, since he's Miluiel's romantic interest and they are spiritually bonded because they're elves, Xan can actually die irreversibly if I act wrong. I can't lose Xan, who's a high level mage with 2,5 million xp. He simply can't be replaced easily. That lost would be seriously crippling. The readme states that Xan can be saved, but is evasive about which option actually saves him. I chose the one that seems to make the most sense and he managed to survive. Gosh I'm happy that everything went right. Onto Bodhi's lair for the final time.
The first level was largely unevenful, beause we have a team that can destroy vampires very efficiently. I then triggered the Hareishan (her again !!) and Tanova fight with an hidden Alora. It seems that Tanova can see through invisibility, because she's the one who decided to act. While Alora retreated, Arkanis Gath and Kachiko both decided to attack those two vampires. They actually did the job for us and killed them while we waited. Ok. The way to Bodhi was open.
Bodhi's lair is a fight I was afraid of, to be honest. I have the Tactics Bodhi installed, so to fight her and two high level vampire mages at the same time was a cause for concern. In the end, it went surprisingly well. Our first actions was to cast two Sunray (Gavin and Daystar) and also False Dawn (Jaheira). That first salve managed to blind both mages and severely damaged them. Blinded, they were no threat for the rest of the fight, to be honest. After a while, all Bodhi's goon were gone.
Bodhi all alone was no threat. She did managed to drain Jaheira a bit, but it didn't matter in the end. Just as soon as she was about to die, she started to cast Heal. She said her dying line, but Heal triggered at the exact same time. Even if I had a message in my journal that stated that the quest was done, I had to kill her again... To speed up the process, I casted Pierce Magic to reduce her MR to zero and launched a bunch of spells at her. It took her down to Badly Injured real fast. And, obviously, that s.o.b. Drizzt decided to steal the kill away from me. Bastard.
There ain't much left to do but to press on to Suldanessellar. Maybe I'll finish the Unseeying Eye, I don't know yet.
There's sometimes concerns about the xp inflation given by SoD. Well, since I haven't visited Watchers Keep at all, Miluiel is standind at 2,7 million xp and I did pretty much everything except finishing the Unseeying Eye quest - and I only have to fight the Eye himself to finish it. That's fair, to be honest, because the rest of my team is also slightly behind, at an average of 2,5 million xp. Tyris is also lagging far behind at 1,6 million xp, but that's because she arrived late. So far, I don't think SoD is intrusive xp wise. At least, not when you account an xp oozing place like Watcher's Keep.
On last thing happened to me. When I got out of the Graveyard District, I was waylaid... by the Chosen of Cyric. I completely forgot about them. I hadn't rested after the Bodhi's fight, so we were not only unbuffed, but also all out of our best spells. I sure as hell didn't want to fight them. So, I read the Rogue Rebalancing readme to know what to do. It seems there's a lot of ways to avoid the fight, but the only certain one is to transform into the Slayer. Trading two points of reputation to avoid a fight that would surely destroy us (at least in the state we were at the moment) ? Hell yeah, I'll do it. So, the Chosen of Cyric were avoided. Maybe I'll fight them one day, but this is not the day. That run is going way too well to squander it because of a highly difficult but optional mod fight.
The poverty run has just ended. Rather than rest a few extra times in the ankheg area just to gain a single level and learn Invisibility, I went to the Nashkel mines still at level 3. We did well and scraped by the first levels, but Mulahey killed us.
Somehow our first breath weapon failed to connect, and the second two breath weapons failed to disrupt Mulahey's Unholy Blight spell. Mulahey refused to surrender and kept fighting to his dying breath, but his allies blocked off our exit; even Expeditious Retreat couldn't get us out. Our last breath weapon, only earned during the battle when our last sorcerer gained a level, failed to clear the way, and when he died, and I didn't bother trying to save the rest.
Silence 10' Radius is not an option for taking down Mulahey in Spell Revisions. Silence does not affect neutral critters, so we couldn't silence him before combat.
Tackling Mulahey at level 3 was not a good idea. If all four sorcerers had a breath weapon at the time, we could have roasted him instantly, but that still leaves the problem of his minions, who appear to be too high-level for Sleep, at least at level 3.
I started over. We went straight to the basilisk area with Tiax, dumped him right after he summoned his ghast for us, paralyzed Mutamin and chomped all the basilisks, and then headed north to farm ankhegs until we hit level 4. Unfortunately, we only have 4 castings of Invisibility per day because I failed to consider that Dragon Disciples lose spell slots. It's enough to deal with ambushes, but only if I keep close track of Invisibility spell durations.
No idea how I'm going to kill Mulahey. I might nab Xan's Moonblade with Sanctuary, recruit him to charm the kobolds and lure them outside, and maybe use Melf's Acid Arrow, Fire Traps, and our breath weapons to kill Mulahey early and wipe out the kobolds and skeletons.
Well, I wasn't sure if it was safe to attempt to charm Mulahey, so I went for the kobolds instead (who have 25 HP!). I failed to move them outside, though, so I quickly ditched Xan and killed the kobolds with spell damage, using summons to hold them at arm's length.
We then used Know Opponent on Mulahey to make him easier to hit with Magic Stone (apparently Know Opponent is non-hostile and also has a casting time of 1 instead of one round, contrary to the spell description) and slowed him with Writhing Fog, with a Melf's Acid Arrow to try to disrupt his spells. A whole blob of enemies spawned right on top of the party, but I managed to wipe out the entire horde with a single breath weapon. Mulahey only got a single Hold Person off the ground, but even if my cleric failed her save, we could have bailed her out with Invisibility.
Speaking of Invisibility, it only lasts 8 hours in SR. It's a pretty lousy way of avoiding rest ambushes. Honestly, I'm not sure it's even worth taking on more than a single sorcerer. Expeditious Retreat and later on Invisibility Sphere are better options for dealing with ambushes. They both have casting times of 1, are party-wide, and while they only last 3 and 10 rounds, respectively, it should be enough to get us out of any ambush.
Invisibility wasn't enough to get us through the mines safely; we just couldn't cover everyone without another level up. But it was much easier at level 4 than level 3, because we had access to Writhing Fog and Fire Trap (though the latter has disappointingly small range), two area-effect options that consistently killed kobolds who otherwise would have survived Sleep. Writhing Fog and Melf's Acid Arrow even helped us take down the Kobold Shaman and Kobold Chieftain who gave us trouble in the previous attempt.
Note that sleeping critters wake up on damage in SR, so Sleep is definitely not a guaranteed kill, even on kobolds (except for when our half-orc Shaman one-shotted them with Shillelagh, since their minimum damage was well above their 7 HP). This does not apply to Grease, however, which earned us a kill against Tarnesh but unfortunately is not party-friendly and is very bad for our gibberlings. It would work very nicely in combination with Animal Summoning 1, though, since the bats are immune to Grease, but our Shaman picked Entangle instead. Entangle isn't as practical as I thought it would be, but that might change when we finally get Minute Meteors.
Comments
If Cernds is at a low level (below 13) he will shapeshift into a regular werewolf, and NOT deal sufficient damage to Faldorn and loose the match. This only happens if charname is at very low level - which is hard to achieve in it self.
But if Cernd is at higher level (13) he shapeshifts into a greater werewolf and easily beats Faldorn.
Charname doesnt have to be level 13 or have the XP needed to become a level 13 druid (I dont know the exact amount of XP but its not much..)
I always let jaheira fight faldorn. It is an even battle in that case and either can win.
Journal of Ælfweald
After joining up with Tenya, we went ankheg hunting which boosted our experience tremendously and selling the shells, it also boosted our finances. Due to possession of a ring, my charisma is now 18 and we are also officially heroes, so we decided to do some Christmas shopping. We boosted Tenya's belt at the FAI so that she now has a decent strength. We also improved my ring of fire protection and bought some boots to improve our speed.We then deemed it an opportune time to visit Bassilus. He wasn't pleased to see us and attacked. Command spells enabled us to defeat him though he managed to "hold" Tenya, it wasn't sufficient to save him as I and a summoned skeleton managed to kill him. The skeleton was also killed, but not before landing a devastating blow on Bassilus who died at the hand of the skeleton.
Eventually Tenya recovered her mobility and healed us all, so off we went to claim our reward.
We then bought oil of speed, a necklace of missiles and a scroll of protection from petrification with some of the reward money. We were rich for a short time but not any longer.
I have improved basilisks installed, so I am thinking that Tenya might also need some protection from basilisks. I haven't had that option installed before and have no idea what effect it might have.
We then went to stop Mutamin's rock garden growing.
In the temple area we wiped out many wolves including two vampyric wolves. On arrival in the basilisk area we killed Kirian and his party first.
I used the scroll of protection from petrification which allowed me to kill most of the medusae and basilisks, but through lack of care Mutamin saw me before I had killed them all. He cast remove magic whereupon I fled, however my protections remained and I was able to kill most of them before turning my attention to Mutamin.
There were still two basilisks and a medusa left, but I killed them all before going to Gullykin. I did this to meet up with Alora, but couldn't find her.
I usually use a mod that moves her to Gullykin but BWS reccomends using a different mod which is SCS.
This I did, but now I have no idea where she is. Can anyone tell me her location please.
The Martyr's Morningstar will still be an excellent option in many cases, I suppose. It's certainly going to be great for enemy fighter types in LoB mode. But not being able to land dispels through PFMW is very unfortunate. I was very proud of discovering that trick, and it's being removed just as I'm beginning to enjoy using it.
Move NPCs to more convenient locations.
The NPCs who are moved are:
•Eldoth - moves from the Cloakwood to the woods south of the Friendly Arm.
•Quayle - moves from Baldur's Gate to the Nashkel Carnival
•Shar-Teel - moves from a fairly inaccessible bit of wilderness to the Nashkel-Beregost road
•Tiax - moves from Baldur's Gate to Beregost
•Viconia - moves from the eastern forest to the woods south of Beregost.
CD Tweaks also has this option, but uses a different approach:
Move NPCs from Baldur's Gate
BGEE, EET, BG, BGT, Tutu
Adapted from the BG1 NPC Project mod, this component moves Alora, Quayle and Tiax so they can be found earlier in the game, and is compatible with Send BioWare NPC's to an Inn. You must start a new game for these changes to take effect on non-BGT games.
Alora will be found in Gullykin, near the winery door. Her initial dialog has been changed to reflect her new location. (Note: Dialog may not change in games without Tales of the Sword Coast installed.)
Quayle will be available at the Nashkel Carnival near the Great Gazib. No change to his initial dialog was required or made.
Tiax will start on the first floor of Feldpost's Inn. There is no change to his initial dialog.
As I understand, CD Tweaks should be installed prior to SCS, but I have both of these installed. That being said, I do not remember Alora ever appearing in Gullykin after I began using the SCS verison. Not sure why.
But... But I LOVE how @semiticgod's War Hulk kit could obliterate a mage buffed with PfMW by smashing through it with a Deathblow Critical!
Dammit. I specifically didn't say anything about it because I didn't want it to get "fixed." Too late now...
@Aerakar I think that I now understand what has happened. SCS doesn't move Alora.
It is the BWS instructions that really need changing.
They say that SCS is preferred to CD Tweaks, but CD Tweaks are actually better than SCS, at least in my opinion.
Perhaps there needs to be some clarification in BWS saying what the differences are between different mods as quite often I find that the recommended mod is actually poorer than the alternative.
https://support.baldursgate.com/issues/31343
The bug is classified as fixed.
It should still be possible to do it with a nonmagical weapon on a normal mage, but unfortunately liches will be immune. Then again, since a Protection from Undead scroll has proven capable of completely breaking any lich's ability to function, liches are practically harmless now.
Journal of Ælfweald
Ælfweald fell to the assassins at the gnoll stronghold. It was a backstab that was the critical blow. Tonya had cast her remove invisibility too soon.Before we fight Jon-bon, I want the Staff of the Magi. Not because we need it, really, but because it's there. Mollyboo uses Dimension Door to set some traps in the east chamber, but the truly important factor here are Control Circlets. The WoL trick lets us charm half the enemy instantly. Shangalar loses his first spell to lingering poison damage from a level 11 trap, despite being immune to poison.
The charm doesn't last long; something disrupted it. Vaxall fires off an Anti-Magic Ray, but it only takes down Mollyboo's Spell Shield.
Layenne is still under our control and summons a planetar. After re-charming Vaxall, I send him southeast to escape our own planetar's Fire Storm spell and imprison the vampire.
(There was a crash somewhere along the way, but I don't remember when.)
A Protection from Undead scroll breaks Shangalar. He can't even trigger his PFMW contingencies, leaving him completely vulnerable.
Mollyboo's clone tries to slay Vaxall, but Stoneskin blocks the bonus damage from the Martyr's Morningstar even as it bypasses PFMW. A Remove Magic spell hits Mollyboo's clone...
...but instead of instantly killing the clone, like it's supposed to, it turns the clone hostile for some reason. And the clone is given an SCS script that lets it cast a sequencer it doesn't have and isn't high enough level to cast!
Mollyboo's clone doesn't cause too much trouble, and we empty Vaxall's spellbook by repeatedly canceling his spellcasting. Layenne can do the same thing if she casts Improved Alacrity, finishing up with an Imprisonment spell on Revanek (two castings with Freedom in between so we get a little bonus XP). Her spells wasted, we can take down Layenne with some nonmagical arrows powered by Smite.
I also go grab the Flail of Ages. On the way, I let Mollyboo fight some golems while i'm away from the computer, and when I come back, Mollyboo is in surprisingly bad shape.
Seeing that red pool reminds me that I've disabled auto-pause on allies wounded. With sufficiently bad luck, I might have come back to find Mollyboo dead!
The dungeon is not hard. TorGal's massive HP and regeneration mean precious little against the Martyr's Morningstar.
But somehow I miss one of the flail heads and end up with a crummy Flail of Ages +2 instead of +3.
Critical Strike also helps against Raamilat over at Suldannessellar. Too bad the dispel magic effect won't bypass PFMW in v2.5; it's quite fun to see it.
Fortunately, dragons don't generally use PFMW, so the Martyr's Morningstar will still be fabulous in 2.5 EET.
I let Rillifane kill Suneer, store some spare copies of the Rift Device in Beregost, and knock Jon-bon across the map with Smite at the Tree of Life.
I fail to kill his Fallen Planetar and am forced to flee, but Jon-bon chases me with Dimension Door.
I keep running and he keeps chasing me, but eventually his PFMW wears off, opening him up to an Arrow of Dispelling.
He doesn't last long after that.
All that's left is the Slayer. This is what Mollyboo looks like at the end of SoA.
That's the Robe of Vecna with a weird icon; not the Robe of Cold Resistance. Notice the duplicated Absolute Immunity scrolls.
I can stop Jon-bon from summoning a planetar by using a Protection from Magic scroll. But that would be, you know, way too cheesy, and it's not like I've got seven copies and can infinitely duplicate more. Instead, I just use Dimension Door scrolls to evade the planetar and the other enemies. But I flub up the targets and end up teleporting onto Mollyboo's original position, instead of the arrow I dropped across the map.
I run around in circles, chain-casting Absolute Immunity (which, due to Mollyboo's newfound immunity to normal weapons, is actually no different from PFMW) via scrolls to make sure Jon-bon doesn't kill me during Time Stop. When I fail to nail him with an arrow in between Jon-bon's PFMW and a PFMW Contingency, I keep running.
I have to time Mollyboo's movements very carefully, because scrolls have a slight delay before casting and that delay gives the Fallen Planetar a fraction of a second to attempt a vorpal strike (which is unlikely to work) or a dispel magic effect (which is very likely to work).
Jon-bon tries to take down Mollyboo's spell protections, but Spell Shield blocks his first attempt, and a spare Spell Shield scroll keeps Mollyboo's defenses safe from further attempts.
Jon-bon manages to cast Time Stop, but he can't actually see through invisibility, which means the Staff of the Magi is actually a perfect counter for it. All the while, Jon-bon's SI: Abjuration wears thin.
When it finally does, it means that Jon-bon is vulnerable to the dispel magic effect of Spell Breaker. In 2.5, this will only be possible with an Arrow of Dispelling, after PFMW has worn off.
Shorn of both PFMW and his Stoneskins, and with no helmet to block critical hits, Jon-bon is defenseless against the Martyr's Morningstar. He goes down in a single round.
Irenicus is dead! Shadows of Amn is over! Mollyboo proceeds to ToB.
(Corey_Russell, Grond0, Gate70)
After a long hiatus, the trio got to adventuring. It started off pretty well, as we cleared the Umar Hills and Temple area, even taking out Thaxxy.
However, we took a fateful turn in the Bridge District. We were dealing with the Rune Assassins (going after Reijek) - the dwarves went down 1st, with the idea that Corthief XIV would in a bit help with detect illusions. However, Corthief XIV's timing was terrible - an assassin locked onto him and in a single hit, Corethief was near death. Invisibility doesn't work so Corthief XIV tried running, but the assassin followed and found his mark - RIP Corethief XIV.
Maybe could have tried ilbratha image instead, but hindsight 20/20 as they say...
Grond0 is the next protagonist for our next try at the Trio.
(Corey_Russell, Grond0, Gate70)
We had a bit of time left over in the session yesterday so rolled up a new set of characters. Rather surprisingly they all had a common racial heritage of half-orc, even if Coresmash's good looks do seem to strongly favor his human side. A shaman, assassin and berserker though provides a pretty good range of options.
Just for a change we didn't go straight for Shoal - saving her for later as Grime's got his eye on the helm she makes available. Instead there was a quick journey via Beregost down to Nashkel where Coresmash equipped himself with some green armor. With PfP scroll in hand we then set off for the basilisk area - but had to make a detour when Coresmash failed to survive twin hits from a pair of ambushing dire wolves.
Not to worry though - temples are there for a reason and we still got to the intended destination with a couple of minutes of time left. That was just enough to clear out the southern group of basilisks - everyone picking up at least one level in the process.
Here are the current character records:
Myna (Bard, Gate70); Eeny (Illusionist, Grond0)
Myna and Eeny were making good progress, having disposed of Davaeorn and headed into the city. Ramazith didn't appear to be much trouble but he'd picked his minions well. The two mustard jellies scared us off once when Eeny was slowed, and had absorbed a lesson (from the Rune Assassins in our last trio session) by attacking Myna when she appeared several seconds after Eeny. This time though, Eeny stuck around while Myna went downstairs and managed to cast slow poison. She returned upstairs and sang some encouragement at Eeny.
The third level saw us try to block ghasts in invisibly with the use of an invisible pseudo-dragon familiar. That didn't quite work to plan so we went for a divide and conquer approach. One of the ghasts did the same though, landing quite the most spectacular ranged attack Myna would ever see (shared in screenshot below).
The psuedo-dragon and Eeny both raced downstairs, the dragon briefly blocking a ghast before also being held. Eeny downed one of the two ghasts with magic missiles before also being held.
Eeny died.
The familiar died.
Myna failed to survive the constitution shock.
Sparkle (Gnome illusionist / thief, Grond0); Gruu (Half-orc berserker, Gate70)
We didn't have much time today, so the ghasts weren't really cutting the session short. However, we did quickly roll up a new pairing ready for next time. Gate70 wasn't too happy to roll a berserker, but comforted himself with his current favorite of half-orc for its race. I rolled a mage/thief as my class and decided to take the benefit of my recent experience of an illusionist by going for another gnome.
During our session we chatted for a while about the difficulties of no-reload and multi-player. As you can see from the screenshot in Gate70's post above the technical difficulties can be significant
Sparkle, mage 1 / thief 1, 7 HPs, 0 kills
Gruu, Berserker 1, 15 HPs, 0 kills, 0 deaths
1. I'm playing with Item Revisions and Spell Revisions installed.
2. I don't have any of those crazy optional mod enemies that have massive stats and give lots of XP (and overpowered loot, not that it matters for this run).
3. I can't cast Wish.
4. The summoning caps are in place.
The first part is for novelty; the second part is to (arguably) increase the difficulty by removing access to a high-risk, high-reward XP source; and the third and fourth parts are there to make ToB more interesting, since it means no WoL nonsense, Wish-resting, Hardiness stacking (which isn't possible in v2.5 anyway), or armies of celestials.
The party is:
Dragon Disciple (Charname)
Dragon Disciple
Dragon Disciple
Dragon Disciple
Cleric of Lathander
Shaman
I don't think it's optimal, even with SR/IR, but I like having the extra sorcerers because they seem more solid in the late game. They're all Dragon Disciples because we don't really need all those spell slots, and I figured innate fire immunity might save our life if we get hit by multiple Remove Magic spells at once (which is all but guaranteed in the Nine Hells, to be honest) and then blasted by Dragon's Breath.
We're currently at level 3. We went straight to Beregost, killed the spiders with summoned gibberlings and Magic Stone, and then kicked out our least important sorcerer to make room for Tiax, whom we had to console into Beregost because he erroneously failed to show up (it's an installation issue; I also saw Shar-teel in the northwest corner of Mutamin's garden for some reason). Tiax's ghast managed to take down almost all the basilisks before Mutamin started chasing us down. Thankfully, Mutamin only cast Obscuring Cloud on us before we escaped. We then returned and Tiax's ghast paralyzed Mutamin alongside Korax. The twin ghouls hunted down the last of the basilisks on the map.
Then we hauled Tiax to the ankheg farm, dropped him off, collected our sorcerer, and then brought Tiax into our party just long enough for him to cast Summon Ghast before we replaced him again. This allowed us to continue using his ghast without letting him leech XP from the party. The ghast took down all the ankhegs while our gibberlings soaked up damage.
Expeditious Retreat probably saved us from an ankheg that flanked us. Expeditious Retreat replaces Protection from Petrification in SR; it grants triple movement rate to the whole party but sets APR to 0 and imposes 100% spell failure.
A few more thousand XP and we'll have Invisibility. Then we just need to play it safe until level 8, crush Sarevok and SoD with area-effect spells, and then we'll pretty much be in the clear until ToB. I'm looking forward to teleporting past the Warden in SoA, and maybe trying some other weird tricks involving the level 1 Dimension Jump spell.
Note that, without a Bounty Hunter this time, our only source of Detect Illusions is our Shaman, who will get a very unreliable 64% chance at level 11 for Belhifet. Our cleric can cast True Seeing, but it doesn't work the same way in SR; it's more for the benefit of the caster than the party as a whole. True Seeing won't let us take down Belhifet's Improved Invisibility; we actually need to cast the level 3 Detect Illusion mage spell to get rid of it.
@Grond0: I've been having trouble with the Shaman's dance. Some rounds, it does absolutely nothing; it doesn't even display the string that says no spirits answered the call. It also seems to have a habit of summoning the spirits to the northwest of the Shaman, which means I have to put other characters in that spot if I want to make sure the spirits appear on the right side of the Shaman instead. Finally, the spirit critters will often spend many precious seconds waffling around, walking back and forth between the Shaman and the enemy (and bringing the enemy into our line of sight!) before they finally make their first attack roll. Have you had problems managing the spirit critters' behavior?
Sounds like you're having fun @semiticgod
1) I suspect the no string occurred because you already had summons active. Spirits are subject to their own specific summoning cap (2 initially, 3 at level 6, 4 at level 12 and 5 at level 18). I don't know if it's been fixed in v2.5, but up to then anyway if you have other summons operating you they count against the spirit cap - so you can't have 2 gibberlings and then add a spirit (you can though have 2 spirits and then add a gibberling).
2) Spirits always generate at the same place relative to the shaman unless that space is already occupied (by a person or an object). As you say the first appears north-west, the second northish, the third (when you get that), a bit north-east. In some cases that may result in you placing the shaman so that only their 2nd or 3rd spirit actually sight an enemy (you may also want to do that deliberately to generate more back-up).
3) Spirits are not supposed to go out of visual range of the shaman, though they occasionally do. The waffling you refer to is the spirit's AI trying to drag the enemy within visual range so that it can attack it. If the spirit does come across an enemy outside visual range (of the shaman, not the party) - that can very easily happen if you're placing the shaman around an obstacle - then it will never actually attack though it will move to do so. That makes playing a solo shaman an exercise in fine judgement of exactly where to start dancing, but shouldn't be too much of a concern to you once you get used to it.
Candlekeep. Candle. Light. Precious and fragile. The lights of our lives, knowledge… beauty. Truth is beauty? Keep. The light must be kept, must be fed, must be protected. The high walls, the watchers… they were not enough. Who was there to protect the protectors? Not I. I come too late, and drown it all in a river of blood. The Cloakwood. Candlekeep. Baldur’s Gate. Like one of those silly books that I used to read where Brother Eldred would solve a mystery, always chasing behind the crime, never in advance of it. We never know until it is too late. You too Sarevok. You found the words but you couldn`t read them. Why?
Those books, how I used to consume them. All those romances, love and death chiming in and out like parts in a play. The trumpets of the page rang out louder than these gloomy proclamations, these hard congratulations. They are weighing and measuring my worth, as a piece in the great game. Peace, do I, does the Sword Coast not deserve it? I shall take a ride soon, we must get away from the gawking crowds for awhile. Then, on our return, I shall take their measure as they take mine. I will not shirk this bitter duty, I will not fade away.
Imoen will relish a break from her training, she was as lax with the homework that Gorion would give her and I no longer have answers to share. Ajantis already departs to report his untainted deeds, perhaps they shall swell in the telling between here and Amn. Jaheira and Khalid can cease whispering with the local Harpers and drink in green spaces again, she has been complaining how difficult it is to find the correct herbs in the city. When will they finally raise that brood of half-breeds they are forever planning? (But I too….enough!) I wonder if Kivan will come. He is already gone in a sense, these strange near-men hardly exist in our world once their purpose is exhausted. He sees Deheriana everywhere he goes, but he is far more of a ghost than she. He swore his life to me, but that is a light measure now. He will pass.
Is it weakness ? I too, see the dead. Isra. Is. Ra. She was the light. But roses die in the dark. She was for love. She was for beauty. But smiling death claimed her, and her blade dipped in the dark. Those laughing skeletons, who came upon us in the dark. They would not have taken her in the light. Isra. I will write to your father soon. I am sorry. I will light a candle for you until the city approve my request for a statue. I have tried to write the epitaph, but nothing comes, only those words of sorrow that occurred as we finally climbed into the light.
No dirge we sang, no not a note,
As we burnt our rose to shadow,
Southern child, may your deathsmoke float
Homeward now, rest your singing bow.
Peace. It was your legacy Isra. It is beautiful, like the last rays of this day. Peace, love, I would welcome these things, if I could find where they were hid.
The subject appears to have been degrading somewhat more quickly than expected. It is as well we claimed him before he degenerated as far as the one known as Sarevok. These fresh derangements may pose a risk. Could they affect my plans? It is clear that his evident disturbance was derived from attachments formed under conditions of high stress. It would therefore be inadvisable to utilise his companions as leverage, to do so might have a regressive effect. His resolution would not be broken even as his sanity flaked away. These bhaalspawn are so delicate. However should he believe himself to be liberated then such manipulations might be easier to accomplish. As his power increases, so will his instabilities. At the last resort this may make the operation easier to achieve, though at the cost of some risk. The other subject may prove to be less of a concern, Bodhi has been delighted with her initial progress. At any event as a consequence of my initial experiments this one`s curious mental powers have been stilled for the present, through inculcation of its latent magical energies, as yet untapped. This may have a stabilising effect in the short term, and should dampen its resistance. Gelding animals is rather effective for taming them. This nothing has been caged. It can be controlled. It will be shattered. And then the Seldarine will learn what one can make of a name.
[Success! At Candlekeep we traversed the underground tombs, but my play was a bit off. Isra was chunked by an unexpected horde of Skeleton Warriors, after first getting knocked down to 1hp by a critical… Jaheira was also killed by a lightning trap but fortunately not chunked. Once we escaped we recruited Kivan and gathered the evidence in the City without a hitch. The palace battle was made easier by multiple disablers, and both dukes survived. The Undercity party were a little tricky as one or two members fled after the initial barrage, and I ended up tangling with some undead unnecessarily. Then it was on to the final battle…. where things didn`t exactly go to plan early on. My tactics were off as my summons got caught in some of our area effects and harboured a grudge against us for the rest of the battle as a result, attacking whenever I stopped paying attention. Rather more terrifying, Angelo was forcespelling Power Word Kill and Flesh to Stone despite being under a Protection from Magic Scroll. This made it imperative to take him down early, but he was able to flee to the other side of the map before finally being cornered. However the enemy didn’t get too many effects off that our extensive potion quaffing couldn`t fend off, and we gradually cut them, and their skeleton alter-egos, down. Stirkus had the pleasure of squishing Sarevok`s mind with psionics at the end while he was being chopped down as well. On to Amn. Tarrantarantarantarantara! I have decided to explain Stirkus` dual classing as being partially inflicted upon him by Irenicus, goes nicely with the untapped power spiel. My main decision when installing may be whether to go with Ascension. I’m thinking not, as I shan’t be installing much tactical content this time round with SCS on board all the way. Time to enjoy the Big World installer minigame again.]
Miluiel, the elven bard
BG1 posts : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6SoD posts : 1, 2, 3, 4
SoA posts : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Notable mods
- SCS (full prebuffs, full Tactical Challenges)
- IR/SR
- Rogue Rebalancing
- plenty of NPC mods
- Tweak Anthology
- Refinements
Sorry guys, no close call this time. I'm a bit surprised myself...
Since we're getting quite strong lately, I decided to go dragon hunting. First, Thaxll'ssillyia. We buffed up, but I somehow forgot to add Negative Plane Protection. But that didn't even mattered in the end, because I casted Pierce Magic on the dragon. In SR, it drops MR to zero for two rounds. Without MR, I unloaded two Spell Sequencers from Xan and Miluiel, one with 3x Lightning Bolt (it's single target in SR) and one with 3x Skull Traps. That managed to soften up the dragon quite a lot. One or two rounds later, the beast was dead.
Firkraag was next. I pretty much used the same strat : drop MR to zero, blast with Sequencers and finish in melee. Firkraag still managed to debuff us somewhat when he took down our Dispelling Sreen. Xan tried to cast it back on us, but he got interrupted by a breath attack. Xan was immune to fire, but the attack still managed to interrupt his casting. Firkraag then dispelled Jaheira's buff completely. That something to keep in mind : even with complete elemental immunity, you can still get interrupted while casting. That's the kind of situation that can spell the doom of a run. Firkaag also managed to go through Xan's Stoneskin and slashed him once or twice, but we slayed the red dragon moments later.
I decided to attack the lich in the Crooked Crane inn after. It... was a complicated fight. I think I didn't installed the SCS component that makes lich not immune to Breach, so we could not debuff it efficiently. We pretty much had to tank it's spells. We managed to keep Dispelling Screen on by countering it's Dispel, but it still did plenty of damage to us. A well placed ADHW mid-fight slayed Gavin and Alora. We still outlasted its defenses and destroy it. It got us Daystar, our third +4 weapon. The blade belongs to Tyris now.
Planar Prison. The first meaningful encounter was the three Yuan-ti mages. We opened with two Sunray (from Gavin and Tyris' Daystar) and one False Dawn (Jaheira). Pretty much every enemy got blinded because of that. After that, it was only about taking down their defenses and slay them.
The Master of Thralls fight was activated sooner than I wanted, because Alora muffed a stealth check in front of the enemy. The Master debuffed Jaheira and dealt solid damage to her, but we killed him soon enough.
The Warden fight now. It went pretty smoothly. Alora tried to lure him away from his goons while scouting, but he started to cast Time Stop. As soon as he did, I casted PfMW on Miluiel and Xan, but that was unnecessary, because he didn't even show up to us during his Time Stop. Alora then went back to lure him and he followed her. She started to kite him while everyone was away... and managed to slay him after a few arrows.
I thought that it was way too easy, since the Warden is suppose to be a nasty threat. It was, because Alora only managed to take down his Simulacrum : the Warden himself was well and alive. Sooo, we were not done yet.
I decided to approach with my whole team (our buffs were starting to diminish greatly) to engage the Warden. Alora finally managed to lure him to us. We then debuffed him ans slew him real quick.
The rest of his team was taken out moments after. We talked to Haer Dalis and got out of the Prison. Another sidequest done. Hooray !!
Since Miluiel's a bard, we went on to do the bard Stronghold quest. Not much to say about it, but it netted us some good xp for... not doing much. I chose the best options by using a walkthrough, because that was the first time I did that sidequest. It also got us the amazing Bard Hat, which was the main reason to do the stronghold. I can now keep a solid -3 bonus to our saves at all time while being able to cast more freely. Sweet. It also gained us the somewhat mediocre Azlaer's Harp, which let me cast Remove Fear on a single target 3x/day. I guess it can become useful in some situation, but that's nothing too impressive for a Stronghold specific item.
Bodhi's Lair. When we arrived in the Graveyard District, we were welcomed by Bodhi. I decided to sleep juuust before she started to talk simply to change the time from night to day. A bit cheesy, but I don't care. Bodhi had a specific conversation with Xan. Before answering anything, I read the Xan's mod readme to see what can happen. Well, since he's Miluiel's romantic interest and they are spiritually bonded because they're elves, Xan can actually die irreversibly if I act wrong. I can't lose Xan, who's a high level mage with 2,5 million xp. He simply can't be replaced easily. That lost would be seriously crippling. The readme states that Xan can be saved, but is evasive about which option actually saves him. I chose the one that seems to make the most sense and he managed to survive. Gosh I'm happy that everything went right. Onto Bodhi's lair for the final time.
The first level was largely unevenful, beause we have a team that can destroy vampires very efficiently. I then triggered the Hareishan (her again !!) and Tanova fight with an hidden Alora. It seems that Tanova can see through invisibility, because she's the one who decided to act. While Alora retreated, Arkanis Gath and Kachiko both decided to attack those two vampires. They actually did the job for us and killed them while we waited. Ok. The way to Bodhi was open.
Bodhi's lair is a fight I was afraid of, to be honest. I have the Tactics Bodhi installed, so to fight her and two high level vampire mages at the same time was a cause for concern. In the end, it went surprisingly well. Our first actions was to cast two Sunray (Gavin and Daystar) and also False Dawn (Jaheira). That first salve managed to blind both mages and severely damaged them. Blinded, they were no threat for the rest of the fight, to be honest. After a while, all Bodhi's goon were gone.
Bodhi all alone was no threat. She did managed to drain Jaheira a bit, but it didn't matter in the end. Just as soon as she was about to die, she started to cast Heal. She said her dying line, but Heal triggered at the exact same time. Even if I had a message in my journal that stated that the quest was done, I had to kill her again... To speed up the process, I casted Pierce Magic to reduce her MR to zero and launched a bunch of spells at her. It took her down to Badly Injured real fast. And, obviously, that s.o.b. Drizzt decided to steal the kill away from me. Bastard.
There ain't much left to do but to press on to Suldanessellar. Maybe I'll finish the Unseeying Eye, I don't know yet.
There's sometimes concerns about the xp inflation given by SoD. Well, since I haven't visited Watchers Keep at all, Miluiel is standind at 2,7 million xp and I did pretty much everything except finishing the Unseeying Eye quest - and I only have to fight the Eye himself to finish it. That's fair, to be honest, because the rest of my team is also slightly behind, at an average of 2,5 million xp. Tyris is also lagging far behind at 1,6 million xp, but that's because she arrived late. So far, I don't think SoD is intrusive xp wise. At least, not when you account an xp oozing place like Watcher's Keep.
On last thing happened to me. When I got out of the Graveyard District, I was waylaid... by the Chosen of Cyric. I completely forgot about them. I hadn't rested after the Bodhi's fight, so we were not only unbuffed, but also all out of our best spells. I sure as hell didn't want to fight them. So, I read the Rogue Rebalancing readme to know what to do. It seems there's a lot of ways to avoid the fight, but the only certain one is to transform into the Slayer. Trading two points of reputation to avoid a fight that would surely destroy us (at least in the state we were at the moment) ? Hell yeah, I'll do it. So, the Chosen of Cyric were avoided. Maybe I'll fight them one day, but this is not the day. That run is going way too well to squander it because of a highly difficult but optional mod fight.
Somehow our first breath weapon failed to connect, and the second two breath weapons failed to disrupt Mulahey's Unholy Blight spell. Mulahey refused to surrender and kept fighting to his dying breath, but his allies blocked off our exit; even Expeditious Retreat couldn't get us out. Our last breath weapon, only earned during the battle when our last sorcerer gained a level, failed to clear the way, and when he died, and I didn't bother trying to save the rest.
Silence 10' Radius is not an option for taking down Mulahey in Spell Revisions. Silence does not affect neutral critters, so we couldn't silence him before combat.
Tackling Mulahey at level 3 was not a good idea. If all four sorcerers had a breath weapon at the time, we could have roasted him instantly, but that still leaves the problem of his minions, who appear to be too high-level for Sleep, at least at level 3.
No idea how I'm going to kill Mulahey. I might nab Xan's Moonblade with Sanctuary, recruit him to charm the kobolds and lure them outside, and maybe use Melf's Acid Arrow, Fire Traps, and our breath weapons to kill Mulahey early and wipe out the kobolds and skeletons.
We then used Know Opponent on Mulahey to make him easier to hit with Magic Stone (apparently Know Opponent is non-hostile and also has a casting time of 1 instead of one round, contrary to the spell description) and slowed him with Writhing Fog, with a Melf's Acid Arrow to try to disrupt his spells. A whole blob of enemies spawned right on top of the party, but I managed to wipe out the entire horde with a single breath weapon. Mulahey only got a single Hold Person off the ground, but even if my cleric failed her save, we could have bailed her out with Invisibility.
Speaking of Invisibility, it only lasts 8 hours in SR. It's a pretty lousy way of avoiding rest ambushes. Honestly, I'm not sure it's even worth taking on more than a single sorcerer. Expeditious Retreat and later on Invisibility Sphere are better options for dealing with ambushes. They both have casting times of 1, are party-wide, and while they only last 3 and 10 rounds, respectively, it should be enough to get us out of any ambush.
Invisibility wasn't enough to get us through the mines safely; we just couldn't cover everyone without another level up. But it was much easier at level 4 than level 3, because we had access to Writhing Fog and Fire Trap (though the latter has disappointingly small range), two area-effect options that consistently killed kobolds who otherwise would have survived Sleep. Writhing Fog and Melf's Acid Arrow even helped us take down the Kobold Shaman and Kobold Chieftain who gave us trouble in the previous attempt.
Note that sleeping critters wake up on damage in SR, so Sleep is definitely not a guaranteed kill, even on kobolds (except for when our half-orc Shaman one-shotted them with Shillelagh, since their minimum damage was well above their 7 HP). This does not apply to Grease, however, which earned us a kill against Tarnesh but unfortunately is not party-friendly and is very bad for our gibberlings. It would work very nicely in combination with Animal Summoning 1, though, since the bats are immune to Grease, but our Shaman picked Entangle instead. Entangle isn't as practical as I thought it would be, but that might change when we finally get Minute Meteors.