@Pantalion Just wondering which mod introduces the Sahguagin Chieftain etc.
BG1NPC. Special quest requires Kivan in your party at night just south of Shoal.
Also adds a quest for Xan which features six decently high level mercenaries with bows, three slavers, some friendly targets you need to keep alive that keep you from using AOEs against them, and scripting that means they will continue to attack you normally despite being the target of two horror spells (not that I'm bitter).
Also in both quests if the NPC in question dies then the quest either breaks or fails, which is nightmarish for the aforementioned Xan quest. I'm sure there's a few other NPC specific quests in there too.
Also conversation content, plot, characterisation, and all that jazz.
Since I have that mod installed, I could try it. It would mean dumping an NPC which would probably have to be Gavin since he thinks that the sun shines out of the backside of my PC. I might finish the quest that I am dealing with first though. I have just started on the Section HQ in Beregost which if successful will furnish me with both gold and equipment.
After reuniting a mother and her son who had been imprisoned in the mine, I headed south of the FAI where I defeated Davenport and then his Section allies. Now to take on those that sent him. They are tough but I have defeated them on occasion.
Hi all, here is something that I wrote a few weeks back when Stirkus had just come to Amn.... I've been rather busy with family stuff over the holiday period so not too much progress has been made since then, but something rather pivotal has just occured so I shall get that posted soon.
Imoen,
We never wanted to visit Amn did we? Athkatla is even worse than Pugg’s Almanac painted it to be. The vendors smell worse than their produce, and their mistreated horses reek all the more. Gods, who knew that so much life could be crammed so uselessly together? No wonder any lord with sense has walled off his ration of green. A hundred damn pearls to purify this clouded water, this thick air! Encaged I longed for the sky, yet by day the sun leans in too close, and by night the stars hide themselves away. Can you see them Imoen? Is the gryphon you claimed was there still peeking down? Can you look out of stone and smile?
The world is cold to me too. Irenicus stole all its textures when he cut my mind. These ants milling the streets, these smiling imbecilities…Do they have no thoughts to share? Now I must learn to celebrate Irenicus`s foul gift. Forcing the weave down my throat until it choked me....as if that would blunt me forever. Does he even know what he has done? The weave colours everything now. And in more than pink. You told me of the nature of it, but not the intensity. Sewage rainbows seep out of everything, stinking of power like oil on the water waiting to burn. No wonder there are so many spells of blasting and so few of helping. The taste of it. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Worse than one of your special breakfasts. Not even the black seeds these Amnians so love can burn that tickling aftertaste out. Hm, perhaps I can make a spell of them… Worse things have come to better….worse things must come to better…
Khalid. All the love and purpose trickles out of Jaheira in talk, talk, griefing talk. What would you say to her? How long would you wait before daring to jest again? Will her wounds never close, or will they linger on like dragonfire? Another soul lost under my command. Another bitter fruit of Skie`s assassination. Was I a fool to believe those murdering elves were only after me? Perhaps Irenicus had a hand even in that, how many ambushes were masterminded by Sarevok alone, how many would have sold me like cattle to this wizard? Even Entar`s men may hunt us now. First we brought word of the son, now we are implicated in the death of the daughter. Who knew that shadowed face was Entar`s spit, spread the word the moment we left the city? Irenicus, or still another foe? Duty demands that we make some reparation, but perhaps my absence is all the Dukes and their public might desire. Those who scorned my blood could ask no more, and those that feared it could ask no less. I might even admit this abduction to be a sort of justice, were this Irenicus more than an avatar of grasping power. Can you see him Imoen? Can you hear him? I know you are alive Imoen, just as he is.
Just as so many are not. Khalid. Kagain. Xan. The ladies: Isra, Skie. Are they not enough? I do not wish to add the lady DeArnise to the roll. They would speak in horror of Stirkus Stonehearted of Candlekeep. An extinguisher of noble lines, a ruiner of reputations. The people would be moved from sullen indifference to cursing by the magic of my name. No-one could hold a candle to him. No-one could keep their daughters safe. A fine coat of arms they would bestow on me, a straitjacket to my glory. Yellow they would have me, as a two faced beast rampaging over the shields of the dead. It is not the name we are promised Imoen, They will not remember us so. Already I have set to work on fresh titles. Liberators of ciruses to the Promenade goers, and toasted as detectives extraordinaire in the Bridge District. Perhaps these commons shall lift us up high enough that even the stench of Amn will fade awhile.
I will come into my power. I will break his spells. I will call who and what I must to humble him, and cast him down. I will crush his will as I stared down Sarevok. But I am not my half-brother. Retribution shall yet walk with justice for awhile. Vengeance supplies Jaheira and Kivan, the elf has not passed or grown fickle for now. These faerie folk keep the promises that we do not expect. The knights of this city have provided the Lords Delryn and Firecam, though they are not the shining cavaliers we used to read of in Candlekeep. Delryn struggles to stay away from the bottle, a family weakness, and Firecam is recently divorced. Men like these suffer through the night that dawn may come. And for a little pace we shall indulge this jesting Jan, until he falls behind. I should have left him to rot in prison for his many felonies, but we will see how long this capering fools` pledge holds. I have some need of laughter in your absence, some examples of folly. Can you laugh Imoen? Can you stare out of blank stone and think slow thoughts?
I wish it, yet I dread it. You need no new nightmares. Better that you remain impervious to his sight, your thoughts beyond the ken of the Cowls. Irenicus is a fool Imoen. He is a cold fool who petrifies all he touches, and is senseless to what he has done. Blind to whom he has contended with, deaf to danger, he has not comprehended our gifts. I see you Imoen, I see you running, laughing, free again. I see him Imoen, I see his body stiff and cold. You know this to be true. The dawn will come.
I know this reaches you, Stirkus
[Stirkus made it to Amn, and will soon venture out of the city. To my surprise he retained his psyker powers despite dual classing, apparently this is a feature of might & guile. Had I known that (and that Angelo would be spamming high level spells!) then I would have played on through BG1 awhile longer. However, since Skie also got chunked there was no real way to do SoD this time, Entar’s mad enough already without getting her killed a second time! Have been sticking to alignment and roleplaying as usual. Wasn’t intending to pick up Jan, but the vague theme of a royal court popped into my mind so I let Jan be the jester of the party for awhile J.]
Charles Atlas rides again, and he's MADder than ever.
Shadow Adepts are comparatively worse than a regular Mage, and the F/M/C doesn't get mage HLAs anyway, but I'm still aiming for the Charles Atlas trick (albeit a more immediate, slightly weaker, version of what I was going for with Charlie, which would have taken until the Siege of Dragonspear cap to pull off).
Also it lets me use the gnome portrait again, since my marvelously talented spouse and I worked together on making it.
Anyway, since I've had to purge SoD again (I really should remember to close programs while modding, and maybe keep backups) this run will have: Shadow Adept, EE NPC remover, tweaks, and no vanilla NPCs used in favour of:
Aura (though none of her special arrows. Those things are just way too powerful. Also I will be cheesing the heck out of her questline now I know it has instant ninja death everywhere). Verr'Sza Drake Ishlilka (I will eventually see and review your SoD content, which is the only reason you're still around since you're the only one with no crossmod content and you kind of suck) Sirene
Also Dark Horizons again, because I'm a total masochist, as if the lack of a real mage didn't make that obvious.
Yes, smack me harder DH.
Cutting a path through the rat hordes, Charles uses three spells to dispatch the level 1 assassin with a short sword, only to later notice that his sword had broken on his first 8 damage stab, and he could have just slowly whittled him to death thereafter.
Charles is almost finished off by Sarevok's ambush, but survives with a single HP. Yay for bugs! Yay for surviving them!
Worth every penny.
Rolled lucky here. I thought I'd be darting in and out of doors like nobody's business trying to heal, but Charles landed a melee range dagger to his newbie griefing face.
A well placed blind spell and some lucky rolls with Korax and the big fella gets to enjoy a well earned retirement in the corner of the map somewhere, eating adventurer.
I thought this was an image of a bard killing Algernon for me, but apparently it's Charles after getting his teeth pushed in by an ogre. Ah, the circle of life.
With a Fighter non-proficiency penalty and a Longbow, that's still a net +2 bonus to THAC0 with his 18 Dexterity, more than enough to kill the exp pinata.
In the absence of a cat, a blind is fine too.
Hi, Oublek! Let's go drinking, ol' buddy!
Oubleeeek!
Blind swordsmen are even better, right?
Silke is pretty easy when you blind her before the conversation too.
Anyway, 32k, so...
Team get.
Did you know there's no "cancel this stupid idea" button on dual classing? You'd really think there would be. Oh well. Time to honour your family by learning to pick pockets and set snares I guess.
Loot and grind, grind and loot.
If you ever need a roleplaying reason to shank a dude, just bring a paladin. Everything is evil. Even the trees.
Sigh. I decided to advance the plot before my usual tome gathering this game, so obviously:
Some rando attacks me! Rude.
What's that, rando #2? A returning throwing dagger? Oh, nevermind, it sets APR to 5 for no reason.
So FD99 had started SoA in Irenicus Dungeon. He quickly geared up, and headed out. The multi combo and the exotic weapon choice soon back fired. Yes scimitars and darts are cool, but when the level 7/8 fighter/druid had to pass the ogre mage, he soon found himself at the receiving end of the stick. Thank God for shapeshift:
Yes the bear killed the goblins as well.
The duergars where charmed and fought them selves - and the cambion
On the way out the memphits damn near killed FD99. Two nymphs saved his butt - no thanks to me, butt to AI. They charmed, held, healed and caused wounds to perfection...
After chapter two had opened, FD99 bought the reflection shield, ring og air controller and a protection from petrification scroll. The genies in Trademeet where going to give FD99 some quick cash (for a nice club), and the shield of harmony ( an essential item ind all of my runs....).
Khan Zharas demise was bugged... FD99 chipped in a bit. In the tent and in the grove FD99 found 2 nice scimitars to boot.
4 apr when dual wielding - things where looking up
From there it was mainly low risk quests with a good XP and a good loot yield.
And then some high risk quests with loads of XP and quality loot
FD99 was at almost 900.000 xp but I didnt feel the power of the Fighter/Druid yet. Yes HLAs will change that - but isnt that true for all classes and builds?
Never the less I decided that Mekrath was next. The mirror was fetched and Mekrath was eaten by some insects . Easy
In the next room a lonely yuanti mage and only two salamanders where waiting....The temptation was too big and FD99 summoned an efretti and a level 7 beserker and equipped the shield of Harmony - to negate the domination and chaos spells. FD99 Disney even have cc at the moment so I whould have to wait any Way..
The two salamanders where easily dispatched, but looking at the sprite, it struck me that the FD99 was Dual wielding??? A chaos spell was next, and a confused FD99 did nothing against the summoned skeleton warrior.
So FD99 ended up as a the only good druid: aka a dead druid. A dwarven Barbarian will be next...
We took on the top two floors of the Section using brute force and ignorance. It worked well.
We then bipassed Andrea et al using invisibility.
We then gradually made our way down to the bottom. It was hairy at times, but we succeeded largely by avoiding taking on too many of them at a time. They had so many healing potions on their corpses that we didn't actually need them all and exited with more than we had when we entered. Taking on the first mage turned out to be dangerous and Tenya fled just in time. She spent the rest of the battle healing herself, however we were strong enough without her.
Lilian Darkwater was less of a problem as we were able to web her. The next to the bootom level was intered whilst invisible. This meant that we were able to use web combined with area affect spells much of the time. However their AI was good and thay often avoided the web. The rest of the party moved in when that happened. Once again it was a case of avoiding too many of them simultaneously. At the end of the battle too many of them attacked for comfort but we still defeated them with out loss. We used the same tactics at the bottom. At last there were only three of them left and we were able to draw Wolfe away from the others which made the battle easier. kj1wl.jpg" alt="" /> Michael Samuel used stealth but I used true sight. I'm not sure whether it was true sight that located him or whether he chose that moment to attack. Whichever it was, I and Thorin were able to kill him whilst Montaron and Xan used their haste previously cast to escape injury. That left Madeline on her own. By herself she wasn't a threat. As we left Xan was surprisingly upbeat. On the way out we killed Andrea and her cohorts. We may have missed some of them, but not many. We did not spend a lot of time looking. As we were invisible, Nikita didn't talk to us when we left. We then did some serious shopping.
Upon arrival at the Gate we were attacked by assassins once more. We killed this one whilst he had no back-up and then used web to disable the others whilst we killed them. We then entered the city where Montaron as you would expect, visited the thieves guild. He found a tome that boosted my dexterity and we then went shopping at sorcerous sundries where I bought a spare wand of monster summoning and a few scrolls for Xan which he immediately memorised. If there had been a little more gold, I would have bought more scrolls, but I was down to my last 12gp.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 149 part 12 3 Zepp (Dwarven cleric of Talos, Gate70); Fiery (Dwarven Kensai, Grond0)
This little pair of dwarves are going to be hard to stop, although we tried our best.
BG:EE The Iron Throne mercenaries were too busy dealing with a buffed kensai to see the cleric, with Silence shutting down two casters (a third was already dead and Fiery dealt with the fourth as soon as the Silence failed to do so). The fighter mercenaries thought they would take advantage of their armour against Fiery but instead were herded together and Held.
On to Candlekeep, with a new multiplayer shortcut found. The Gatewarden spoke to Fiery but before he could play out a cutscene, Tethtoril spoke to Zepp and we jumped straight from the Gatewarden to the secret library.
Fiery did sterling work in the crypts despite Zepp forgetting to have memorised protection from fire or lightning. Zepp decided to sneak back and tripped a snare. (while writing this up, I remembered she could have used her innate ability before risking it)
This time though, luck was on our side and the bouncing lightning didn't hurt too much. Pratt and his supporting cast failed to make any real impression on us either.
We made our way back to the city and after cutting down Slythe we used a skeleton to have Krystin cloudkill Quenash and then herself. Krystin fell for this ruse but did manage to cast a lightning bolt and once more we marvelled at cowered from the bouncing projectile.
Slythe had invitations to the Coronation so we headed there. Things looked a bit grim as most of the doppelgangers focused on the grand dukes and even kensai prowess may not prevail. Zepp was into her stride though and at least three Commands turned the tide.
Down into the undercity and valour proved the better part of discretion. Just. Only just. (no doubt Grond0 was thinking 1hp is fine... but he did back off slightly)
Semaj teleported into a Glyph of Warding but still de-buffed Zepp before succumbing to his wounds and the massed weapons prodding into his robes.
Fiery took this as an invitation to out-melee Sarevok but a mighty hit for 48 damage almost caught him out. Sarevok had landed his last punch though.
SoA, chateau escape Once we'd ascertained the Golden Pantaloons had been transferred (oh crud, I hope Grond0 picked them up rather than just peeked at them in a container - checked, and yes safely with Fiery) we set about the other inhabitants. A couple of Commands helped.
There was a slight problem in the wand-key room where Fiery had some sort of multiplayer effect preventing him from de-activating the traps while Zepp moved her skeletons instead of herself. Lots of frosty wand action later we stopped and assessed the damage.
Zepp can sometimes be a little impatient, getting her retaliation in before the enemy is even aware of us. Always good to down a mage safely.
We even managed to get the vampire before she could vamoosh.
Once outside we sold some loot and picked up a few containers.
Well… things were proceeding quite nicely. Stirkus had done most of the city stuff, and moved on to doing Windspear, Trademeet, DeArnise, and the Umar Hills. All well and good. The party was Nalia, Kivan, Keldorn, Anomen, and Jaheira, Jan having got the boot after one too many rude remarks about Keldorn. Kivan then made way for the returning Ajantis, as I went premium noble. We were lording it up just fine…Using the Alternatives mod we had agreed to deal with the thieves for the knights and were just suiting up for that assault. Then… stuff happened. Keldorn got to do the paladin stronghold quests as a result of another mod. The third one was to protect a lady, but that didn`t mix well with SCS`s buffing of the thieves` AI as one got upstairs without us ever seeing them. I wasn`t very familiar with this quest and so was unaware. When we popped up to have a look *chunk* went the lady. Keldorn flipped his lid at this, blaming Stirkus: “No, what are you doing!”, and Anomen and Ajantis took the old maniac`s side.
Clearly dragon magic at work again- Firkraag knows what would have come next for Keldorn doing the paladin stronghold! Fortunately Valygar (Wizard Slayer) was nearby so we could enlist his assistance in dealing with this foul magic and the fabulous foursome took care of the three erstwhile knights and the remaining assassin. And so ended my original plan for the party… I’m not sure where things will go from here. If I want to keep Kivan then I`ll need Cernd, so perhaps that`s the team that we`ll go with in the end, though Branwen is standing in for now. A real gut punch for sure and a character changer, I may have to tweak Stirkus`s alignment… I`ve already deliberately messed up a few other quests like the return of the Tanner as some less than successful outcomes seemed more appropriate! Now the Unseeing Eye is also pretty much off-limits as it was Anomen's quest.
Here is the resulting letter to the dragon....with more than a few nods to literary sources on this occasion .
To Lord Jierdan Firkraag,
Hollo, hollo, hollo. The dragon hath borne the knights away. The widower. The drunken sot. The toy knight. You confounded them, and now their thin blood stains my shoes. The names Keldorn Firecam, Anomen Delryn, and Ajantis Ilvastarr will be spoken little more, but descend to old tombs to be picked out in gold leaf as their meat is pickled. Do not be unduly concerned my lord, that which remains of them will have little to tell. Tazok afforded my bondself Kivan some practice in the arts of ensuring that mortal flesh remains beyond the call of the clergy. At the last these Knights of the Radiant Heart shall lie heartless in the dark while the chapel bell tolls. Like you, milord.
A great reckoning in a little room it was. Your methods strike me as being somewhat over-elaborate, but one can hardly dispute the result of all those plots within plots. That business with Ajantis and the golden bauble, a dress rehearsal for this bravura performance. The assassins who struck that insolent bitch Tyriannna down. The enchantments that made betrayers of true knights, time and again. Even the vaunted Inquisitor Keldorn was helpless. Perhaps you are surprised that I did not let them live, that I did not leave them to spread your lies, to poison the state in the coat of justice. But knights are too weak to uphold anything now. I am the justice that this city needs: Lord De`Arnise, hero of Trademeet, of the Umar Hills, and of Baldur`s Gate. I am hero of this city now, and I shall come and go on my terms, in my time. I will not be chased into the night like some common criminal. I will have justice. And justice is death to those who stand in its way, be they noble paladins or the blackest villain.
This battleground is not the green sward of song. It is the City, and the City is of night. The knights who would pretend to fight with you have claimed the day, but I am their vassal in the night. These heroes of the light would have me murder rogues in the name of justice, and give the true death in the name of mercy. They would have me bring the dawn. Let us applaud their bravery together. Why, they would set us against one another in the next act, such heroes they are. They disappoint me, these polished tinpots. There was a time when I held some illusions as to the worth of noble lineages a few generations old. A summer gone when I conceived an interest in heraldry, and dreamed to discover a lost descendant who had been immortalised in shield and song. You are acquainted with such songs I am sure, usually a dragon features somewhere though it is rarely alive by the end.
There is no dreaming now. The City is of night, but not of sleep. You have taken that much from me tonight. I mourn for the dishonoured dead, though it is I who dishonoured them. Who can mourn in truth, but we? Only we know how their justice fell, though about this precious truth we must set a guard of lies. Hollo, hollo, hollo. The dragon hath borne the knights away. It bore them up, it bore them down. It bore them the length of the town. And on their funeral pall it is at play. Hollo, hollo, hollo. The dragon hath had its day. I leave you the day my lord, for now. But I shall take the night. And there is no end between those such as we. Do not be confused my lord. I am not weak. I know that I am no noble knight now. For this lesson at least you have my gratitude. I am a Bhaalspawn, and one with whom you have unfinished business. Listen well for the sound of the funeral bell. Do not ask for whom it tolls. It tolls for thee.
@Gate70@Grond0 Well done. Congrats in reaching Amn OK. You have got way ahead of me as I not only have Candlekeep to do, I am planning on doing Stone of Askavaar, the Drizzt Saga, Werewolf Island, Ice Island and Durlags, not necessarily in that order. All the best in Amn. By the time that I have done that lot you will probably have another party at my heels.
EDIT Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
After doing most of the quests at the gate, we headed off to deal with Shoal and some sirines. Upon completion Xan reached 135222 experience, which means that only Montaron will be able to level up again before reaching 161000 exp. After reaching 161000 I do not intend to level up any more until I start the DSoSC and The Drizzt Saga mods. That means no Raise Dead, a reason to include Jaheira in the team in future games perhaps.
Whilst trying to find my way to Firewine Bridge to get instruction for Tenya we ended up finishing Xan's quest by accident.
Ucurian and his band of rejects - Part V: The Coast Way Crossing
I'm not finding a lot of time to play currently, but here's a small update: I cleared the Coast Way Crossing map with relative ease. The battle at the bridge was quickly solved via a ton of fireballs:
After completing the various sidequests, I travelled to the Coast Way Forest, taking down the vampire before returning back in order to trigger the not-so-random encounter with the troll cave (which provided me with a great new sling for Ucurian, who is a halfling - so he gets +2 to all of his saving throws! awesome!).
I also entered the dwarven dig site, and with my various necklaces of missles and wands of fire, I made my way further along. At some point in the Repository of the Undead, Camalan got level drained, so I had to return to camp for a lesser restoration spell, but otherwise, nothing was able to halt my progress. After having done this on LoB, even these previously tough areas of SoD just feel quite relaxing.
Anyway, this time (unlike my previous run with my solo cleric/ranger) I rememberd to get "The Secret Revealed" before talking to the Coldhearth Lich, so I just had to use one charge and attack with magical ammo:
Having an undead hunter and a dwarven defender trained with war hammers does make killing skeletons rather less annoying.
Wellp, after losing a post full of stuff (tl;dr: Died in Durlag's, got mad and started to solo Durlag's with new character Atlas), guess I'd better catch up here:
Meet Atlas, two tomes retrieved, about to advance the plot to get the Shadow Adept's throwing dagger.
After that, it's down the Ankheg nest to grab the wand of fire, grab the other two tomes I know of, and maybe grab the ioun stone of infravision on the off-chance it prevents crits.
Single wand charge to kill the lot, and they're toting around +4 plate, full plate, hundreds of gold, multiple magic weapons... Atlas has levelled, but Shadow Adepts only check Charisma at level up, so he has to get somewhere safe to use his charisma tome "properly".
Shadow Adepts can cast silence, Mulahey literally didn't have a chance.
Strrrrrike!
Killing Oublek with Nimbul more out of habit at this point.
Since I am extremely cheap frugal, the best way to do tomes Atlas style is en masse, so a quick trip to Durlag's for the two tomes I know of is in order.
One fireball, a few traps, and some sneaking, and Atlas is out smooth as butter.
Step 1: 23 Intelligence gives an Adept +4 Caster Level. For a maxed out gnome like Atlas, that's one potion of genius.
Step 2: Blackfire Arrow is like a miniature wand of lightning. One extra arrow, one extra target every five levels.
While Atlas could be waiting until SoD for a level 10 cap +1 (cloak) +4 (Int) to triple the power of every tome he uses (making his lowest stat a 17), that's a bit excessive, and he'll probably die beforehand, so x2 is plenty and lets him get some bonus spells for Durlag's (since, this particular trick aside, Shadow Adepts have a far weaker overall spell list than a standard Mage does he'll need it).
Charles Atlas superpower.
Level 4 spells gives Shadeskins, which offset Atlas' lack of invisibility with significant stealth bonuses as long as the skins last, and a 25% energy resistance as well, making him slightly less likely to be instagibbed by an Islanne'd doppelganger. Slightly.
Since Atlas may actually somehow beat Durlag's, he's going to need some Exp bags for his friends once he stops soloing.
Nyx is surprisingly useful considering she's largely redundant in terms of thief skills. Atlas can't handle the jellies or the skeleton warriors with his daggers (and the katana on the level cannot be used by non-fighters for no reason whatsoever), but Nyx can lead them away, hide in plain sight, and then sneak on back none the worse for wear.
Level 2. Note to self: Don't forget the skeleton warrior hanging around the exit. Stupid cheating invisible character stalking AI.
For once, Islanne didn't lightning bolt me to death. Doubtless saving that one for when I am momentarily distracted by a small child leaping on me or somesuch.
Mm. Larcenelicious.
Level 3.
Shadeskins + Icingdeath + Bastila's Passport from the cache to the east of the mines: 115% fire resistance.
Ghouls do not enjoy this advantage.
Nor do these infinite invisibility spamming things.
Fire hurts so good.
Leaving the area each time and hiding for good measure prevents comeuppance.
After that, luring out the lone invisible stalker that survived and murdering it was comparatively simple.
Free Action plus the Belt of Antipode:
And then my game crashed and I had to do it all over again. Mehhh.
But still made it. Still sitting on all of the healing potions ever as well. Durlag's throws them at you, but if you're in a position to take damage it's generally lethal amounts of damage, so... Anyway, Nyx got eaten by a bear, so Atlas had to take on the chess board without his squishy meatshield, but on the other hand, no Nyx meant he didn't trigger the pawns advance and killed them all with fire. Sort of okay with this, and a few more wands of fire charges too, since he bypassed the maze with his last invisibility potion this time.
One wand of fire gone, made it to the bottom.
All going fine, and then, rather than "disarm the trap" I "opened the chest" because I double clicked instead of single clicked, dying in an endless and infinite hail of damage.
Sigh. I think that's me done for the whole "no reload" for awhile, that was supremely annoying.
Sorry @Harpagornis I know that a druid is a great class, and especially the totemic. I just dont get the vibe, and with the BG1 level cap, multiclasses dont really get to shine before Tob - at least when I play them.... My multi class characters are usually dead (by dying or restartis) before Tob....
I know many great players have done great things with a druid - but I dont have the skill nor the patience to do so (further discussion will propably have to be relocated to unpopular opinions..). Ps: bark skins saving throw bonus may stack, but its missing the important save vs. spell.
As promised a dwarwen barbarian is next in line. I chose dwarven for the shorty saving throw bonus and great con (for easy regen). The lackluster AC will have to be mitigated be potions and belts. If I land in Amn both Adratha and Mrs. Cragmoon will have 10 potions of stone form each for a buff that beats bark skin...
I only managed a 90 roll this time, giving up a 92 for better str percentage
Specialized in flails and axes - giving Dwarf Barb90 (DB90) a decent chrushing and missile attack. DB90 is NE, so looting and B&E is allowed
After CK, Sonner and a nice flail +1 was in sight.
Minor quests and Shoal gave some further levels at minimum risk
.
The faster levelling is crucial in my playbook. And a substantial HP pool... Meilum was next - and fell in the end (almost ending my game - only saved by a massive HP pool ).
Potions and amulets are mvps in BG1. Most fights are trivilalized by having the right bling and drink... The amazones proved that point, when DB90 stumbled into the girl squad
DB90 wasnt supposed to be there at all - I was aiming for the Samuel map, so I was rather surprised to see the girls instead of Hafiz and his scroll - the necklace of missiles saved the day...
The Kirian gang ended there lives in the same manner
Although I didnt accidently stumbled into them...
The con tome was hard won by raging and tanking. saving potions for later meant that DB90 had to flee the hard hitting golems - with his pride wounded most serverely...
In the mines Mulahey was torched and chrushed into submission
... and with an effective AC of -17 against chrushing and missile attacks, + 100% resistance to electric damage the bandit camp could do nothing to halt the progress of BD99.
Did the "It's a long way to Kara Tur" quest. The store is now working correctly but nothing in it that I want. It's only good for monks. Killed Zargal and found a Moonblade on his body. That WAS a surprise. Montaron gained his last level up before reaching 161,000. Dropped Montaron for Kivan to do Kivan's quests. Dropped Kivan for Coran to do his quests Dropped Coran for Montaron. Dropped Gavin for Dynaheir, helped Drizzt after which he helped us to get her journal.
It would make it even stronger if it weren't finger trouble that killed me so often, but ho hum, I started one last time. This time a halfling Cleric/Adept. And if he makes it to BG2 he's asking Mazzy to marry him so they can make some ginger midget babies together.
After taking the long loop to Beregost, Charlie meets a fine young bard lass, invites her to party, then relieves her of her clothing and her valuables.
Yes, Charlie's a monster, he ganked an early set of what is basically glorified elven chainmail and some emeralds, then made her grope some fat guy for his clothes too, had her murder him when it all went south, and then left her to take the fall. #hertoo
And then the halfling made some real friends. One of whom gave him some real elven chainmail with a death save attached for about as much effort.
Apparently Jini mod gives you a hyperactive will-o-wisp familiar that flies around at mach 3. It can't explore, can't fight, runs at the first sign of danger (potentially aggroing more enemies) and does approximately nothing except let you talk to it and compliment it.
I still like her better than Hexxat.
Gnolls gnashed my gnome! So Atlas moidered mages to accumulate the necessary funds.
The eternal sleep: Tiring stuff.
On my way to get arrows to keep her out of trouble, Aura decides to box with a ghoul. Sigh.
Keeping up his gnome habit.
Ishlilka gets chunked by Tristan the section assassin's sword of cheese. She doesn't do well in this high risk modded environment apparently. At least the gnome's corpse was still more or less intact, and chapter 3 got easy enough.
Imoen, having started at level 1 post Mulahey as a (useless) replacement for Ishlilka, is still well short of dualling and becoming actually useful.
With no conversation, Kirinhale's obscenely annoying script doesn't fire, so she stands and fights hand to skeletal hand with three sword wielding skeletons, one of which has a magic sword capable of hurting her.
Having a party is a mixed bag. You have more meat between CHARNAME and the enemies, but you're going to need to fight a lot with most parties since they probably don't have the means of stealthing through like one or two people can.
Nyx was there to give Pride an adjacent target to cloudkill. They killed her after I failed at using a mouse, but no big loss. Fear waddles out of nowhere and kills Imoen, for only mildly more inconvenience.
Level 2, and those Doom Guards doom Verr'Sza, so a quick trip to town and to sell the loot before pushing deeper.
A potion to ignore a trial room ain't bad.
And then I got the bug where your entire party spontaneously disappears, giving you a game over for no reason. I reloaded and got to do it all over again, this time not losing Nyx to a ashekurururu.
Instead I lost Aura to it. =D While trying to clear the way through one last trap that almost killed Drake first time through it shanked her out of nowhere.
For some reason I always have a lot of trouble with the Air Aspect. Maybe it's my playstyle?
Charlie's dagger teleported him into melee with the murderbear, which was a bit touch and go, but he luckily reverted to cold blasts against Sirene after a bit of micromanaged retreat.
Two mages with fireball wands killed the king early without seeing more than a few pawns. If there's a puzzle here, it's in the same place as the screenshot for this particular event.
It's impossible for Nyx to open the chest that killed Atlas, so no chance of accidentally triggering it this time.
Nyx couldn't find this trap, but I guessed, correctly, lightning and prebuffed Sirene ahead of time.
So glad I sent the skeletons ahead here (note that I made a supply run here, Aura isn't the messiah), but after they died Inquisitor!Sirene took up the slack with her shiny new +3 sword and inherent hold immunity. I was actually prepared for a change, since the tomb just past the rune carpet can be activated anywhere on the map to whip you to the quiz map (which I was trying to reach last time but died too quick when soloing before), but didn't actually need it.
Wading through this was where I used the absolute majority of healing potions through the entire run. All Durlag needed to do to perpetually protect his tower would be to make every floor out of this stuff.
Time to boss fight all up in here.
That's complete immunity to what, 90% of the game? Sheesh. Vendor trash.
Immortal djinni genie Jinn does. not. shut. up. Constantly appearing throughout dungeons (cancelling commands on all characters when she does), constantly forcing you to navigate her laggy mini-dungeon to talk to her when you try to rest, and generally having CHARNAME behave in some weirdly submissive manner in the interests of all the immortal tail they are getting.
Power Word: Stun dropped Sirene. Charlie cast Black Ooze, which ignores MR and holds for a round on hit, which would also have killed Sirene (better than the chunk that ultimately happened), but the resulting stun let the party whale on the knight enough for the kill.
At which point this happened:
Despite being mildly surprised, two fireballs after accidentally moving back into the Demon Knight chamber creased all but one, which died moments later, and then the mage that failed to follow took a beating for their temerity, giving the party a suit of mithril chainmail +4 which apparently doesn't restrict casting. So... Yeah, it's going on Charlie along with the weird dragonhat of +2 Strength, I'm not too proud to enjoy -21 AC against missiles.
Durlag's complete, death toll so far: 2. I daresay I'll pick up Coran to replace Sirene when the opportunity presents itself. Now watch me lose to a Giant Spider in Larkwood en route to those bandits.
That ambush after meeting the demon knight took me by surprise too. Fortunately they aren't too powerful. A potion of freedom makes Tristan unt Isolde quite easy to deal with.
She's more "mage" than "thief". Rune making is still silly though, since she can still make [Level] Magic Missile runes every rest period giving more boom than could ever be needed, and a few potions of genius can give your entire party 19 int to use them for 66 Magic Damage/round. Which, who knows, may be my exact strategy for killing the Greater Wolfwere, Macross style.
Also her quest features copious amounts of backstabbing invisible ninja last I checked.
Jinn is an "out of party" NPC. She's a genie in a lamp randomly given to you by some weirdo in Candlekeep that features some extremely cheaty options (god gear, infinite stats/HP/Exp that you can turn off, but turning off completely seems to break the entire mod), a completely railroaded and glitchy "romance", a cursed lamp locking a quickslot, an unskippable "dream sequence" where you have to walk through a massive area on a treasure hunt for the NPC/Item you need for the area (also glitchy), and some stalker who steals 10 GP every time you visit a new inn. The will'o'wisp follower is the best/least irritating feature, but since she's apparently immortal, she probably should have been handled as a familiar item that periodically spoke to you as well, though I suppose you could send her ahead to trigger traps.
I don't think Rjali/Jinn are on the forums, but Blackwyrm lair or somewhere if you want to check it out (though from a mod review perspective, I give it an F at this point, unless I find some pretty amazing quest content in my playthrough).
Biggest problem with Tristan and Isolde for me was that I was heading north from Nashkel. They start in melee range and mixed in together with your party (at which point I'm scurrying around trying to save Charlie's squishy ass from Isolde's gatling dagger). If I had been going the other direction then my usual policy of blowing up unfamiliar NPCs on sight would have saved me the trouble.
After stashing the Soultaker in a perfectly safe location (random 12 year old Umberlant's house), the party vacations oop north.
Do you ever get the impression the people responsible for this sort of thing just had a lot of trouble with the game? Infinite Animate Dead, healing, magic damage, and again, immunity to Normal weapons? All for the super difficult "Get 3000 gold and buy it" and "use Xzar"?
Honestly wanted to get to this quest later, but despite a 135 in pick pockets, Aura failed against Shandy, so it was either lose the quest and have to fight him or take the quest and the chance he didn't go hostile.
Silenced Andris, followed by a blind. No conversation for me. By the time silence wears off....
Meh. Confusion. Charlie's save vs Spell is "2" at this point.
Attacking blue circles is good roleplay, because my character cannot see circles showing whether something is an enemy or not and assumes they must all die for safety purposes.
Stumbled onto a lightning trap with Aura trying to avoid a Polar Bear. Ho hum. Nyx! I choose you! After Charlie tramps across half the map to recover her stuff.
Disarming traps her way.
Not sure why Tellan spent his time casting "Globe of Invulnerability" to fight two skeletons, but rest assured it did not perform as advertised.
Yeah, mildly magic resistant melee wombats don't care about your fancy schmancy spells,
When the heck does she get time to work on these?
I took a day preparing.
Since this is by far the best guard ever, invisibility isn't necessary, but it helps later.
Okay, maybe several days preparing. I don't actually have any potions of invulnerability, magic shielding, automatic saving throw success, or anything of the sort, so this has the potential to be pretty harsh.
I did have a dozen potions of Heroism though, and only Verr'Sza can use 'em, so...
Okay, maybe a week preparing.
Black Ooze'd it to death. Kicked Imoen from the party and left her there, because I am the best of friends.
Darn, was sort of hoping to wait out the dying timer, but no such luck. Sigh. She had SO many spells known. I guess we'll never see her again.
Idol get.
Idol buff.
Elemental snares: Not friendly safe. This includes uppity druids walking up in cutscenes. Unfortunately(?) this glitches the quest because they weren't killed right, so Aldeth dies for short changing me.
Alright! Time to go to the Cloakwood mine.
Whoops. Forgot to get the documents before.
Unfamiliar NPC!
Verr'Sza wanders into a web trab and dies because there's no "stick next to CHARNAME and kill anything within a strict radius" AI setting that I'm aware of. Fortunately not chunked this time, so his furry gay romance can continue.
Unfamiliar NPC!
Thought I'd take advantage of the druid ambush to try and make use of the druid only gear I picked up, only to find that the club wasn't even a real weapon. Whatever, she can hang out throwing darts at 4 APR until I get Yeslick, I guess.
Unfamiliar NPC! Oh no! I was distracted, he's already in conversation range!
This policy exists for a reason. Two greater wyverns spawning on top of the party was not fun. The worst part, of course, being inventory management to pack up six peoples' worth of loot into two peoples' worth of bag.
Being decimated is no excuse for not being prompt turning in quests. Fortunately they made life simpler by targeting Fay rather than Charlie - more for the fact that he could kill them quicker with missiles than any real risk to his shadeskin'd, -14 AC vs piercing, 1 Death Save self.
Amazing time management skills are amazing.
Immunity to Lightning Bolt is pretty durn great considering its propensity to glitch. It also gives 3/day call lightning and 1/day storm shield, but doesn't involve increasing Charlie's firepower, so meh, someone else can have it.
Also apparently the temple was fresh out of raise dead spells, so Faldorn was left to rot in a ditch. Sure we won't see her again either.
At which point I realised my bag of holding had spontaneously disappeared, so.... Yeah, back to friendly arms, where my largely naked party was accosted by more assassins.
They were not fireproof.
Also I bought a new black BoH to get all my stuff back. Hooray for shared storage.
Even skipping the most cheaty gear (and moving back to the Chainmail of Transgression over the mithril chain of ridiculousness for the Death save), the crew is sitting at -5 AC or below (except for Aura). If I were so inclined I could be using infinite Cure Critical Wounds, Animate Dead, Skull Trap and Flame Strike at this point, which is a bit ridiculous.
Adding to my collection of Varscona +2s. I think I have three at this point.
Losing Aura to a rush of enemies as she went to clear the way of traps was annoying. Dropping a Black Mist in the opening so that the enemies rushed in, got blinded, and then stumbled forward to the kill zone on the other hand, made me feel a bit better.
"You decide to spend the night with Jini", forcing you to walk through two maps to talk to boring NPC while Yeslick is dying of poison. Where's the "break up" option already?
Dragging my feet brings one of my trapfinders back at least.
So, uh, am I supposed to conclude that Dave keeps a small harem down here at all times?
After the Blacktalon Elite starts firing Arrows of Detonation, the party leaves. Yep. Not getting into that particular trainwreck.
Only person allowed to fireball others to death is Charlie.
Verr'Sza's Bolts of Biting killed Dave through his Mirror Images, after he teleported away, offscreen, while I was still summoning skeletons to take him down. Convenient!
This is a good example of how bad the Jini romance is. This conversation is automatic, with no dialogue options whatsoever. The player's actions are spelled out in a nonsensical way (he paid 100 GP to ensure all the slaves did escape, and he killed pretty much every single living thing in the mine that didn't carry a reputation penalty, and he's neutral (apparently True Neutral, I have no idea how that happened - possibly when I was fixing one of the variables to stop this thing clunking out again). But apparently the character envisioned for this mod was very specifically an emotionally frail sissy boy virgin with... Let's say a love of Social Justice.
I think we all know the drill here.
Fire! And lots of it. Also blind for the two schlubs.
Unfamiliar NPC/Yada yada. I have 27 HP, I can't afford to be picky and these guys turned out to have ridiculous arrows of hold person on their, well, persons.
Familiar NPC!
I'm starting to think I may just be antisocial.
Sewers remain disappointingly Beholder free.
Seriously though. Eye of the Beholder mod would be awesomesauce.
Aura's weeaboo quest begins, and my body is ready...
The game starts, and keeps, crashing during the fight. Dunno what's going on with my install, but repeated attempts finally...
Yep, keep alert deadgirl, you don't want to get killed or something.
Damn you, weeaboo quest! Two rounds: Dead.
So yeah, if you're going to be getting involved in this particular quest:
The regular Ninja are level 9 Fighter -> 12 Shadowdancer duals which are True Neutral, have Grand Mastery in Scimitar, three potions of invisibility, spawn right next to the party, and have two Poison Weapon uses. They use +1 Darts and +1 Ninjato.
The Elite Ninja are exactly the same, except they also drop a fireball on themselves when they die. They spawn in threes, start invisible, and become invisible once more every round with their potions. They use Poison Weapon to deal poison damage to bypass Stoneskins and Mirror Image. They spawn on party members, so positioning is worthless.
My personal recommendation is to abandon any sense of fair play (the mod certainly doesn't have any) pre-trap the heck out of some pre-selected resting areas in Baldur's Gate. Aura also sells endless potions of backstab immunity which the whole party can and should chug immediately at the beginning of each encounter. Charname should be wearing fire resistant gear to handle inconvenient exploding ninja.
Finally, resting outdoors with 10' Invisibility on the party can help, since you'll be able to reposition, pierce their invisibility with Detect Illusion, then swoop in for the kill.
The regular Ninja are level 9 Fighter -> 12 Shadowdancer duals which are True Neutral, have Grand Mastery in Scimitar, three potions of invisibility, spawn right next to the party, and have two Poison Weapon uses. They use +1 Darts and +1 Ninjato.
The Elite Ninja are exactly the same, except they also drop a fireball on themselves when they die. They spawn in threes, start invisible, and become invisible once more every round with their potions. They use Poison Weapon to deal poison damage to bypass Stoneskins and Mirror Image. They spawn on party members, so positioning is worthless.
WTF. I can tell you for certain that I do not recall adding fighter levels or Poison Weapon in the ninjas’ arsenal (the potion of explosion is intentional though). I tested the fight multiple times with the right enemy stats and I’ve never had trouble when familiar with the gimmicks. So that means another mod must’ve changed their abilities somehow.
Edit: Okay. I can see the same stats, though I can tell you the overtuned numbers are a mistake. I think I probably copied over some old files from when the fight wasn't supposed to be a gimmick (as in, the enemies attack you in the open). I apologize, this needs to be fixed.
The regular Ninja are level 9 Fighter -> 12 Shadowdancer duals which are True Neutral, have Grand Mastery in Scimitar, three potions of invisibility, spawn right next to the party, and have two Poison Weapon uses. They use +1 Darts and +1 Ninjato.
The Elite Ninja are exactly the same, except they also drop a fireball on themselves when they die. They spawn in threes, start invisible, and become invisible once more every round with their potions. They use Poison Weapon to deal poison damage to bypass Stoneskins and Mirror Image. They spawn on party members, so positioning is worthless.
WTF. I can tell you for certain that I do not recall adding fighter levels or Poison Weapon in the ninjas’ arsenal (the potion of explosion is intentional though). I tested the fight multiple times with the right enemy stats and I’ve never had trouble when familiar with the gimmicks. So that means another mod must’ve changed their abilities somehow.
Sigh. I have no idea what would cause that. Here's what I got in my game:
The only mods installing AFTER Aura were Dark Horizons and Tweaks, so I'll try swapping Dark Horizon and Aura's order around and see if it fixes anything. I don't think it could be Tweaks that would be doing it.
More importantly, does that mean my last run is still valid?
It is possible, likely even, that the fault is mine and my memory is just failing me. I go through a lot of back-and-forth changes on numbers and stats and it’s hard to remember what exactly I settled on. Maybe I just felt sadistic one day and bumped up the levels for s**ts and giggles and forgot about it. Strange though... I know I toned down the actual numbers at least once.
It is possible, likely even, that the fault is mine and my memory is just failing me. I go through a lot of back-and-forth changes on numbers and stats and it’s hard to remember what exactly I settled on. Maybe I just felt sadistic one day and bumped up the levels for s**ts and giggles and forgot about it. Strange though... I know I toned down the actual numbers at least once.
Yeah, I just wiped my install and a clean install of just Aura version 0.8.1 gives the things above.
At least I don't have Jini installed anymore for my next games.
Comments
Also adds a quest for Xan which features six decently high level mercenaries with bows, three slavers, some friendly targets you need to keep alive that keep you from using AOEs against them, and scripting that means they will continue to attack you normally despite being the target of two horror spells (not that I'm bitter).
Also in both quests if the NPC in question dies then the quest either breaks or fails, which is nightmarish for the aforementioned Xan quest. I'm sure there's a few other NPC specific quests in there too.
Also conversation content, plot, characterisation, and all that jazz.
Since I have that mod installed, I could try it. It would mean dumping an NPC which would probably have to be Gavin since he thinks that the sun shines out of the backside of my PC. I might finish the quest that I am dealing with first though. I have just started on the Section HQ in Beregost which if successful will furnish me with both gold and equipment.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
After reuniting a mother and her son who had been imprisoned in the mine, I headed south of the FAI where I defeated Davenport and then his Section allies.Now to take on those that sent him.
We never wanted to visit Amn did we? Athkatla is even worse than Pugg’s Almanac painted it to be. The vendors smell worse than their produce, and their mistreated horses reek all the more. Gods, who knew that so much life could be crammed so uselessly together? No wonder any lord with sense has walled off his ration of green. A hundred damn pearls to purify this clouded water, this thick air! Encaged I longed for the sky, yet by day the sun leans in too close, and by night the stars hide themselves away. Can you see them Imoen? Is the gryphon you claimed was there still peeking down? Can you look out of stone and smile?
The world is cold to me too. Irenicus stole all its textures when he cut my mind. These ants milling the streets, these smiling imbecilities…Do they have no thoughts to share? Now I must learn to celebrate Irenicus`s foul gift. Forcing the weave down my throat until it choked me....as if that would blunt me forever. Does he even know what he has done? The weave colours everything now. And in more than pink. You told me of the nature of it, but not the intensity. Sewage rainbows seep out of everything, stinking of power like oil on the water waiting to burn. No wonder there are so many spells of blasting and so few of helping. The taste of it. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Worse than one of your special breakfasts. Not even the black seeds these Amnians so love can burn that tickling aftertaste out. Hm, perhaps I can make a spell of them… Worse things have come to better….worse things must come to better…
Khalid. All the love and purpose trickles out of Jaheira in talk, talk, griefing talk. What would you say to her? How long would you wait before daring to jest again? Will her wounds never close, or will they linger on like dragonfire? Another soul lost under my command. Another bitter fruit of Skie`s assassination. Was I a fool to believe those murdering elves were only after me? Perhaps Irenicus had a hand even in that, how many ambushes were masterminded by Sarevok alone, how many would have sold me like cattle to this wizard? Even Entar`s men may hunt us now. First we brought word of the son, now we are implicated in the death of the daughter. Who knew that shadowed face was Entar`s spit, spread the word the moment we left the city? Irenicus, or still another foe? Duty demands that we make some reparation, but perhaps my absence is all the Dukes and their public might desire. Those who scorned my blood could ask no more, and those that feared it could ask no less. I might even admit this abduction to be a sort of justice, were this Irenicus more than an avatar of grasping power. Can you see him Imoen? Can you hear him? I know you are alive Imoen, just as he is.
Just as so many are not. Khalid. Kagain. Xan. The ladies: Isra, Skie. Are they not enough? I do not wish to add the lady DeArnise to the roll. They would speak in horror of Stirkus Stonehearted of Candlekeep. An extinguisher of noble lines, a ruiner of reputations. The people would be moved from sullen indifference to cursing by the magic of my name. No-one could hold a candle to him. No-one could keep their daughters safe. A fine coat of arms they would bestow on me, a straitjacket to my glory. Yellow they would have me, as a two faced beast rampaging over the shields of the dead. It is not the name we are promised Imoen, They will not remember us so. Already I have set to work on fresh titles. Liberators of ciruses to the Promenade goers, and toasted as detectives extraordinaire in the Bridge District. Perhaps these commons shall lift us up high enough that even the stench of Amn will fade awhile.
I will come into my power. I will break his spells. I will call who and what I must to humble him, and cast him down. I will crush his will as I stared down Sarevok. But I am not my half-brother. Retribution shall yet walk with justice for awhile. Vengeance supplies Jaheira and Kivan, the elf has not passed or grown fickle for now. These faerie folk keep the promises that we do not expect. The knights of this city have provided the Lords Delryn and Firecam, though they are not the shining cavaliers we used to read of in Candlekeep. Delryn struggles to stay away from the bottle, a family weakness, and Firecam is recently divorced. Men like these suffer through the night that dawn may come. And for a little pace we shall indulge this jesting Jan, until he falls behind. I should have left him to rot in prison for his many felonies, but we will see how long this capering fools` pledge holds. I have some need of laughter in your absence, some examples of folly. Can you laugh Imoen? Can you stare out of blank stone and think slow thoughts?
I wish it, yet I dread it. You need no new nightmares. Better that you remain impervious to his sight, your thoughts beyond the ken of the Cowls. Irenicus is a fool Imoen. He is a cold fool who petrifies all he touches, and is senseless to what he has done. Blind to whom he has contended with, deaf to danger, he has not comprehended our gifts. I see you Imoen, I see you running, laughing, free again. I see him Imoen, I see his body stiff and cold. You know this to be true. The dawn will come.
I know this reaches you,
Stirkus
[Stirkus made it to Amn, and will soon venture out of the city. To my surprise he retained his psyker powers despite dual classing, apparently this is a feature of might & guile. Had I known that (and that Angelo would be spamming high level spells!) then I would have played on through BG1 awhile longer. However, since Skie also got chunked there was no real way to do SoD this time, Entar’s mad enough already without getting her killed a second time! Have been sticking to alignment and roleplaying as usual. Wasn’t intending to pick up Jan, but the vague theme of a royal court popped into my mind so I let Jan be the jester of the party for awhile J.]
Shadow Adepts are comparatively worse than a regular Mage, and the F/M/C doesn't get mage HLAs anyway, but I'm still aiming for the Charles Atlas trick (albeit a more immediate, slightly weaker, version of what I was going for with Charlie, which would have taken until the Siege of Dragonspear cap to pull off).
Also it lets me use the gnome portrait again, since my marvelously talented spouse and I worked together on making it.
Anyway, since I've had to purge SoD again (I really should remember to close programs while modding, and maybe keep backups) this run will have: Shadow Adept, EE NPC remover, tweaks, and no vanilla NPCs used in favour of:
Aura (though none of her special arrows. Those things are just way too powerful. Also I will be cheesing the heck out of her questline now I know it has instant ninja death everywhere).
Verr'Sza
Drake
Ishlilka (I will eventually see and review your SoD content, which is the only reason you're still around since you're the only one with no crossmod content and you kind of suck)
Sirene
Also Dark Horizons again, because I'm a total masochist, as if the lack of a real mage didn't make that obvious.
Yes, smack me harder DH.
Cutting a path through the rat hordes, Charles uses three spells to dispatch the level 1 assassin with a short sword, only to later notice that his sword had broken on his first 8 damage stab, and he could have just slowly whittled him to death thereafter.
Charles is almost finished off by Sarevok's ambush, but survives with a single HP. Yay for bugs! Yay for surviving them!
Worth every penny.
Rolled lucky here. I thought I'd be darting in and out of doors like nobody's business trying to heal, but Charles landed a melee range dagger to his newbie griefing face.
A well placed blind spell and some lucky rolls with Korax and the big fella gets to enjoy a well earned retirement in the corner of the map somewhere, eating adventurer.
I thought this was an image of a bard killing Algernon for me, but apparently it's Charles after getting his teeth pushed in by an ogre. Ah, the circle of life.
With a Fighter non-proficiency penalty and a Longbow, that's still a net +2 bonus to THAC0 with his 18 Dexterity, more than enough to kill the exp pinata.
In the absence of a cat, a blind is fine too.
Hi, Oublek! Let's go drinking, ol' buddy!
Oubleeeek!
Blind swordsmen are even better, right?
Silke is pretty easy when you blind her before the conversation too.
Anyway, 32k, so...
Team get.
Did you know there's no "cancel this stupid idea" button on dual classing? You'd really think there would be. Oh well. Time to honour your family by learning to pick pockets and set snares I guess.
Loot and grind, grind and loot.
If you ever need a roleplaying reason to shank a dude, just bring a paladin. Everything is evil. Even the trees.
Sigh. I decided to advance the plot before my usual tome gathering this game, so obviously:
Some rando attacks me! Rude.
What's that, rando #2? A returning throwing dagger? Oh, nevermind, it sets APR to 5 for no reason.
I'm starting to remember why I uninstalled this.
Fighter Druid99 - the only good druid
So FD99 had started SoA in Irenicus Dungeon. He quickly geared up, and headed out. The multi combo and the exotic weapon choice soon back fired. Yes scimitars and darts are cool, but when the level 7/8 fighter/druid had to pass the ogre mage, he soon found himself at the receiving end of the stick. Thank God for shapeshift:Yes the bear killed the goblins as well.
The duergars where charmed and fought them selves - and the cambion
On the way out the memphits damn near killed FD99. Two nymphs saved his butt - no thanks to me, butt to AI. They charmed, held, healed and caused wounds to perfection...
After chapter two had opened, FD99 bought the reflection shield, ring og air controller and a protection from petrification scroll. The genies in Trademeet where going to give FD99 some quick cash (for a nice club), and the shield of harmony ( an essential item ind all of my runs....).
Khan Zharas demise was bugged... FD99 chipped in a bit. In the tent and in the grove FD99 found 2 nice scimitars to boot.
4 apr when dual wielding - things where looking up
From there it was mainly low risk quests with a good XP and a good loot yield.
And then some high risk quests with loads of XP and quality loot
FD99 was at almost 900.000 xp but I didnt feel the power of the Fighter/Druid yet. Yes HLAs will change that - but isnt that true for all classes and builds?
Never the less I decided that Mekrath was next. The mirror was fetched and Mekrath was eaten by some insects
In the next room a lonely yuanti mage and only two salamanders where waiting....The temptation was too big and FD99 summoned an efretti and a level 7 beserker and equipped the shield of Harmony - to negate the domination and chaos spells. FD99 Disney even have cc at the moment so I whould have to wait any Way..
The two salamanders where easily dispatched, but looking at the sprite, it struck me that the FD99 was Dual wielding??? A chaos spell was next, and a confused FD99 did nothing against the summoned skeleton warrior.
So FD99 ended up as a the only good druid: aka a dead druid.
A dwarven Barbarian will be next...
Maybe you should try Totemic Druid next time. I have heard that they can get very, very strong. But maybe thats just a fairy tale...
EDIT
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
We took on the top two floors of the Section using brute force and ignorance. It worked well.We then bipassed Andrea et al using invisibility.
We then gradually made our way down to the bottom. It was hairy at times, but we succeeded largely by avoiding taking on too many of them at a time. They had so many healing potions on their corpses that we didn't actually need them all and exited with more than we had when we entered.
Taking on the first mage turned out to be dangerous and Tenya fled just in time. She spent the rest of the battle healing herself, however we were strong enough without her.
Lilian Darkwater was less of a problem as we were able to web her.
The next to the bootom level was intered whilst invisible. This meant that we were able to use web combined with area affect spells much of the time. However their AI was good and thay often avoided the web. The rest of the party moved in when that happened. Once again it was a case of avoiding too many of them simultaneously. At the end of the battle too many of them attacked for comfort but we still defeated them with out loss.
We used the same tactics at the bottom.
At last there were only three of them left and we were able to draw Wolfe away from the others which made the battle easier.
Michael Samuel used stealth but I used true sight. I'm not sure whether it was true sight that located him or whether he chose that moment to attack. Whichever it was, I and Thorin were able to kill him whilst Montaron and Xan used their haste previously cast to escape injury.
That left Madeline on her own. By herself she wasn't a threat.
As we left Xan was surprisingly upbeat.
On the way out we killed Andrea and her cohorts. We may have missed some of them, but not many. We did not spend a lot of time looking.
As we were invisible, Nikita didn't talk to us when we left.
We then did some serious shopping.
We then entered the city where Montaron as you would expect, visited the thieves guild. He found a tome that boosted my dexterity and we then went shopping at sorcerous sundries where I bought a spare wand of monster summoning and a few scrolls for Xan which he immediately memorised. If there had been a little more gold, I would have bought more scrolls, but I was down to my last 12gp.
Finished the Seven Suns quest.
Zepp (Dwarven cleric of Talos, Gate70); Fiery (Dwarven Kensai, Grond0)
This little pair of dwarves are going to be hard to stop, although we tried our best.
BG:EE
The Iron Throne mercenaries were too busy dealing with a buffed kensai to see the cleric, with Silence shutting down two casters (a third was already dead and Fiery dealt with the fourth as soon as the Silence failed to do so). The fighter mercenaries thought they would take advantage of their armour against Fiery but instead were herded together and Held.
Fiery did sterling work in the crypts despite Zepp forgetting to have memorised protection from fire or lightning. Zepp decided to sneak back and tripped a snare.
(while writing this up, I remembered she could have used her innate ability before risking it)
marvelled atcowered from the bouncing projectile.(no doubt Grond0 was thinking 1hp is fine... but he did back off slightly)
SoA, chateau escape
Once we'd ascertained the Golden Pantaloons had been transferred (oh crud, I hope Grond0 picked them up rather than just peeked at them in a container - checked, and yes safely with Fiery) we set about the other inhabitants. A couple of Commands helped.
Well… things were proceeding quite nicely. Stirkus had done most of the city stuff, and moved on to doing Windspear, Trademeet, DeArnise, and the Umar Hills. All well and good. The party was Nalia, Kivan, Keldorn, Anomen, and Jaheira, Jan having got the boot after one too many rude remarks about Keldorn. Kivan then made way for the returning Ajantis, as I went premium noble. We were lording it up just fine…Using the Alternatives mod we had agreed to deal with the thieves for the knights and were just suiting up for that assault. Then… stuff happened. Keldorn got to do the paladin stronghold quests as a result of another mod. The third one was to protect a lady, but that didn`t mix well with SCS`s buffing of the thieves` AI as one got upstairs without us ever seeing them. I wasn`t very familiar with this quest and so was unaware. When we popped up to have a look *chunk* went the lady. Keldorn flipped his lid at this, blaming Stirkus: “No, what are you doing!”, and Anomen and Ajantis took the old maniac`s side.
Clearly dragon magic at work again- Firkraag knows what would have come next for Keldorn doing the paladin stronghold! Fortunately Valygar (Wizard Slayer) was nearby so we could enlist his assistance in dealing with this foul magic and the fabulous foursome took care of the three erstwhile knights and the remaining assassin. And so ended my original plan for the party… I’m not sure where things will go from here. If I want to keep Kivan then I`ll need Cernd, so perhaps that`s the team that we`ll go with in the end, though Branwen is standing in for now. A real gut punch for sure and a character changer, I may have to tweak Stirkus`s alignment… I`ve already deliberately messed up a few other quests like the return of the Tanner as some less than successful outcomes seemed more appropriate! Now the Unseeing Eye is also pretty much off-limits as it was Anomen's quest.
Here is the resulting letter to the dragon....with more than a few nods to literary sources on this occasion
To Lord Jierdan Firkraag,
Hollo, hollo, hollo. The dragon hath borne the knights away. The widower. The drunken sot. The toy knight. You confounded them, and now their thin blood stains my shoes. The names Keldorn Firecam, Anomen Delryn, and Ajantis Ilvastarr will be spoken little more, but descend to old tombs to be picked out in gold leaf as their meat is pickled. Do not be unduly concerned my lord, that which remains of them will have little to tell. Tazok afforded my bondself Kivan some practice in the arts of ensuring that mortal flesh remains beyond the call of the clergy. At the last these Knights of the Radiant Heart shall lie heartless in the dark while the chapel bell tolls. Like you, milord.
A great reckoning in a little room it was. Your methods strike me as being somewhat over-elaborate, but one can hardly dispute the result of all those plots within plots. That business with Ajantis and the golden bauble, a dress rehearsal for this bravura performance. The assassins who struck that insolent bitch Tyriannna down. The enchantments that made betrayers of true knights, time and again. Even the vaunted Inquisitor Keldorn was helpless. Perhaps you are surprised that I did not let them live, that I did not leave them to spread your lies, to poison the state in the coat of justice. But knights are too weak to uphold anything now. I am the justice that this city needs: Lord De`Arnise, hero of Trademeet, of the Umar Hills, and of Baldur`s Gate. I am hero of this city now, and I shall come and go on my terms, in my time. I will not be chased into the night like some common criminal. I will have justice. And justice is death to those who stand in its way, be they noble paladins or the blackest villain.
This battleground is not the green sward of song. It is the City, and the City is of night. The knights who would pretend to fight with you have claimed the day, but I am their vassal in the night. These heroes of the light would have me murder rogues in the name of justice, and give the true death in the name of mercy. They would have me bring the dawn. Let us applaud their bravery together. Why, they would set us against one another in the next act, such heroes they are. They disappoint me, these polished tinpots. There was a time when I held some illusions as to the worth of noble lineages a few generations old. A summer gone when I conceived an interest in heraldry, and dreamed to discover a lost descendant who had been immortalised in shield and song. You are acquainted with such songs I am sure, usually a dragon features somewhere though it is rarely alive by the end.
There is no dreaming now. The City is of night, but not of sleep. You have taken that much from me tonight. I mourn for the dishonoured dead, though it is I who dishonoured them. Who can mourn in truth, but we? Only we know how their justice fell, though about this precious truth we must set a guard of lies. Hollo, hollo, hollo. The dragon hath borne the knights away. It bore them up, it bore them down. It bore them the length of the town. And on their funeral pall it is at play. Hollo, hollo, hollo. The dragon hath had its day. I leave you the day my lord, for now. But I shall take the night. And there is no end between those such as we. Do not be confused my lord. I am not weak. I know that I am no noble knight now. For this lesson at least you have my gratitude. I am a Bhaalspawn, and one with whom you have unfinished business. Listen well for the sound of the funeral bell. Do not ask for whom it tolls. It tolls for thee.
Stirkus, Lord De`Arnise
EDIT
After doing most of the quests at the gate, we headed off to deal with Shoal and some sirines. Upon completion Xan reached 135222 experience, which means that only Montaron will be able to level up again before reaching 161000 exp. After reaching 161000 I do not intend to level up any more until I start the DSoSC and The Drizzt Saga mods. That means no Raise Dead, a reason to include Jaheira in the team in future games perhaps.Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
Whilst trying to find my way to Firewine Bridge to get instruction for Tenya we ended up finishing Xan's quest by accident.
I'm not finding a lot of time to play currently, but here's a small update: I cleared the Coast Way Crossing map with relative ease. The battle at the bridge was quickly solved via a ton of fireballs:
After completing the various sidequests, I travelled to the Coast Way Forest, taking down the vampire before returning back in order to trigger the not-so-random encounter with the troll cave (which provided me with a great new sling for Ucurian, who is a halfling - so he gets +2 to all of his saving throws! awesome!).
I also entered the dwarven dig site, and with my various necklaces of missles and wands of fire, I made my way further along. At some point in the Repository of the Undead, Camalan got level drained, so I had to return to camp for a lesser restoration spell, but otherwise, nothing was able to halt my progress. After having done this on LoB, even these previously tough areas of SoD just feel quite relaxing.
Anyway, this time (unlike my previous run with my solo cleric/ranger) I rememberd to get "The Secret Revealed" before talking to the Coldhearth Lich, so I just had to use one charge and attack with magical ammo:
Having an undead hunter and a dwarven defender trained with war hammers does make killing skeletons rather less annoying.
Next time, we shall explore the Troll Claw Woods.
Meet Atlas, two tomes retrieved, about to advance the plot to get the Shadow Adept's throwing dagger.
After that, it's down the Ankheg nest to grab the wand of fire, grab the other two tomes I know of, and maybe grab the ioun stone of infravision on the off-chance it prevents crits.
Single wand charge to kill the lot, and they're toting around +4 plate, full plate, hundreds of gold, multiple magic weapons... Atlas has levelled, but Shadow Adepts only check Charisma at level up, so he has to get somewhere safe to use his charisma tome "properly".
Shadow Adepts can cast silence, Mulahey literally didn't have a chance.
Strrrrrike!
Killing Oublek with Nimbul more out of habit at this point.
Since I am extremely
cheapfrugal, the best way to do tomes Atlas style is en masse, so a quick trip to Durlag's for the two tomes I know of is in order.One fireball, a few traps, and some sneaking, and Atlas is out smooth as butter.
Step 1: 23 Intelligence gives an Adept +4 Caster Level. For a maxed out gnome like Atlas, that's one potion of genius.
Step 2: Blackfire Arrow is like a miniature wand of lightning. One extra arrow, one extra target every five levels.
While Atlas could be waiting until SoD for a level 10 cap +1 (cloak) +4 (Int) to triple the power of every tome he uses (making his lowest stat a 17), that's a bit excessive, and he'll probably die beforehand, so x2 is plenty and lets him get some bonus spells for Durlag's (since, this particular trick aside, Shadow Adepts have a far weaker overall spell list than a standard Mage does he'll need it).
Charles Atlas superpower.
Level 4 spells gives Shadeskins, which offset Atlas' lack of invisibility with significant stealth bonuses as long as the skins last, and a 25% energy resistance as well, making him slightly less likely to be instagibbed by an Islanne'd doppelganger. Slightly.
Since Atlas may actually somehow beat Durlag's, he's going to need some Exp bags for his friends once he stops soloing.
Nyx is surprisingly useful considering she's largely redundant in terms of thief skills. Atlas can't handle the jellies or the skeleton warriors with his daggers (and the katana on the level cannot be used by non-fighters for no reason whatsoever), but Nyx can lead them away, hide in plain sight, and then sneak on back none the worse for wear.
Level 2. Note to self: Don't forget the skeleton warrior hanging around the exit. Stupid cheating invisible character stalking AI.
For once, Islanne didn't lightning bolt me to death. Doubtless saving that one for when I am momentarily distracted by a small child leaping on me or somesuch.
Mm. Larcenelicious.
Level 3.
Shadeskins + Icingdeath + Bastila's Passport from the cache to the east of the mines: 115% fire resistance.
Ghouls do not enjoy this advantage.
Nor do these infinite invisibility spamming things.
Fire hurts so good.
Leaving the area each time and hiding for good measure prevents comeuppance.
After that, luring out the lone invisible stalker that survived and murdering it was comparatively simple.
Free Action plus the Belt of Antipode:
And then my game crashed and I had to do it all over again. Mehhh.
But still made it. Still sitting on all of the healing potions ever as well. Durlag's throws them at you, but if you're in a position to take damage it's generally lethal amounts of damage, so... Anyway, Nyx got eaten by a bear, so Atlas had to take on the chess board without his squishy meatshield, but on the other hand, no Nyx meant he didn't trigger the pawns advance and killed them all with fire. Sort of okay with this, and a few more wands of fire charges too, since he bypassed the maze with his last invisibility potion this time.
One wand of fire gone, made it to the bottom.
All going fine, and then, rather than "disarm the trap" I "opened the chest" because I double clicked instead of single clicked, dying in an endless and infinite hail of damage.
Sigh. I think that's me done for the whole "no reload" for awhile, that was supremely annoying.
Dwarf Barb90 - a dwarwen barbarian
Sorry @Harpagornis I know that a druid is a great class, and especially the totemic. I just dont get the vibe, and with the BG1 level cap, multiclasses dont really get to shine before Tob - at least when I play them.... My multi class characters are usually dead (by dying or restartis) before Tob....I know many great players have done great things with a druid - but I dont have the skill nor the patience to do so (further discussion will propably have to be relocated to unpopular opinions..).
Ps: bark skins saving throw bonus may stack, but its missing the important save vs. spell.
As promised a dwarwen barbarian is next in line. I chose dwarven for the shorty saving throw bonus and great con (for easy regen). The lackluster AC will have to be mitigated be potions and belts. If I land in Amn both Adratha and Mrs. Cragmoon will have 10 potions of stone form each for a buff that beats bark skin...
I only managed a 90 roll this time, giving up a 92 for better str percentage
Specialized in flails and axes - giving Dwarf Barb90 (DB90) a decent chrushing and missile attack. DB90 is NE, so looting and B&E is allowed
After CK, Sonner and a nice flail +1 was in sight.
Minor quests and Shoal gave some further levels at minimum risk
The faster levelling is crucial in my playbook. And a substantial HP pool... Meilum was next - and fell in the end (almost ending my game - only saved by a massive HP pool
Potions and amulets are mvps in BG1. Most fights are trivilalized by having the right bling and drink... The amazones proved that point, when DB90 stumbled into the girl squad
DB90 wasnt supposed to be there at all - I was aiming for the Samuel map, so I was rather surprised to see the girls instead of Hafiz and his scroll - the necklace of missiles saved the day...
The Kirian gang ended there lives in the same manner
Although I didnt accidently stumbled into them...
The con tome was hard won by raging and tanking. saving potions for later meant that DB90 had to flee the hard hitting golems - with his pride wounded most serverely...
In the mines Mulahey was torched and chrushed into submission
... and with an effective AC of -17 against chrushing and missile attacks, + 100% resistance to electric damage the bandit camp could do nothing to halt the progress of BD99.
BD99 will have to face Drasus party next..
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
Did the "It's a long way to Kara Tur" quest. The store is now working correctly but nothing in it that I want. It's only good for monks.Killed Zargal and found a Moonblade on his body. That WAS a surprise.
Montaron gained his last level up before reaching 161,000.
Dropped Montaron for Kivan to do Kivan's quests.
Dropped Kivan for Coran to do his quests
Dropped Coran for Montaron.
Dropped Gavin for Dynaheir, helped Drizzt after which he helped us to get her journal.
Zepp (Dwarven cleric of Talos, Gate70); Fiery (Dwarven Kensai, Grond0)
Things to do in Amn. Obviously, lure out an ambush.
After taking the long loop to Beregost, Charlie meets a fine young bard lass, invites her to party, then relieves her of her clothing and her valuables.
Yes, Charlie's a monster, he ganked an early set of what is basically glorified elven chainmail and some emeralds, then made her grope some fat guy for his clothes too, had her murder him when it all went south, and then left her to take the fall. #hertoo
And then the halfling made some real friends. One of whom gave him some real elven chainmail with a death save attached for about as much effort.
Apparently Jini mod gives you a hyperactive will-o-wisp familiar that flies around at mach 3. It can't explore, can't fight, runs at the first sign of danger (potentially aggroing more enemies) and does approximately nothing except let you talk to it and compliment it.
I still like her better than Hexxat.
Gnolls gnashed my gnome! So Atlas moidered mages to accumulate the necessary funds.
The eternal sleep: Tiring stuff.
On my way to get arrows to keep her out of trouble, Aura decides to box with a ghoul. Sigh.
Keeping up his gnome habit.
Ishlilka gets chunked by Tristan the section assassin's sword of cheese. She doesn't do well in this high risk modded environment apparently. At least the gnome's corpse was still more or less intact, and chapter 3 got easy enough.
Imoen, having started at level 1 post Mulahey as a (useless) replacement for Ishlilka, is still well short of dualling and becoming actually useful.
With no conversation, Kirinhale's obscenely annoying script doesn't fire, so she stands and fights hand to skeletal hand with three sword wielding skeletons, one of which has a magic sword capable of hurting her.
Having a party is a mixed bag. You have more meat between CHARNAME and the enemies, but you're going to need to fight a lot with most parties since they probably don't have the means of stealthing through like one or two people can.
Nyx was there to give Pride an adjacent target to cloudkill. They killed her after I failed at using a mouse, but no big loss. Fear waddles out of nowhere and kills Imoen, for only mildly more inconvenience.
Level 2, and those Doom Guards doom Verr'Sza, so a quick trip to town and to sell the loot before pushing deeper.
A potion to ignore a trial room ain't bad.
And then I got the bug where your entire party spontaneously disappears, giving you a game over for no reason. I reloaded and got to do it all over again, this time not losing Nyx to a ashekurururu.
Instead I lost Aura to it. =D While trying to clear the way through one last trap that almost killed Drake first time through it shanked her out of nowhere.
For some reason I always have a lot of trouble with the Air Aspect. Maybe it's my playstyle?
Charlie's dagger teleported him into melee with the murderbear, which was a bit touch and go, but he luckily reverted to cold blasts against Sirene after a bit of micromanaged retreat.
Two mages with fireball wands killed the king early without seeing more than a few pawns. If there's a puzzle here, it's in the same place as the screenshot for this particular event.
It's impossible for Nyx to open the chest that killed Atlas, so no chance of accidentally triggering it this time.
Nyx couldn't find this trap, but I guessed, correctly, lightning and prebuffed Sirene ahead of time.
So glad I sent the skeletons ahead here (note that I made a supply run here, Aura isn't the messiah), but after they died Inquisitor!Sirene took up the slack with her shiny new +3 sword and inherent hold immunity. I was actually prepared for a change, since the tomb just past the rune carpet can be activated anywhere on the map to whip you to the quiz map (which I was trying to reach last time but died too quick when soloing before), but didn't actually need it.
Wading through this was where I used the absolute majority of healing potions through the entire run. All Durlag needed to do to perpetually protect his tower would be to make every floor out of this stuff.
Time to boss fight all up in here.
That's complete immunity to what, 90% of the game? Sheesh. Vendor trash.
Immortal djinni genie Jinn does. not. shut. up. Constantly appearing throughout dungeons (cancelling commands on all characters when she does), constantly forcing you to navigate her laggy mini-dungeon to talk to her when you try to rest, and generally having CHARNAME behave in some weirdly submissive manner in the interests of all the immortal tail they are getting.
Power Word: Stun dropped Sirene. Charlie cast Black Ooze, which ignores MR and holds for a round on hit, which would also have killed Sirene (better than the chunk that ultimately happened), but the resulting stun let the party whale on the knight enough for the kill.
At which point this happened:
Despite being mildly surprised, two fireballs after accidentally moving back into the Demon Knight chamber creased all but one, which died moments later, and then the mage that failed to follow took a beating for their temerity, giving the party a suit of mithril chainmail +4 which apparently doesn't restrict casting. So... Yeah, it's going on Charlie along with the weird dragonhat of +2 Strength, I'm not too proud to enjoy -21 AC against missiles.
Durlag's complete, death toll so far: 2. I daresay I'll pick up Coran to replace Sirene when the opportunity presents itself. Now watch me lose to a Giant Spider in Larkwood en route to those bandits.
EDIT
I've already found Aura. She's here:https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/65891/npc-mod-aura-a-gnome-artificer-npc-for-bg-ee-sod-v0-8-1/p1
Google didn't find Jinn though.
I'm also wondering where Fay came from.
That ambush after meeting the demon knight took me by surprise too. Fortunately they aren't too powerful.
A potion of freedom makes Tristan unt Isolde quite easy to deal with.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/65891/npc-mod-aura-a-gnome-artificer-npc-for-bg-ee-sod-v0-8-1
She's more "mage" than "thief". Rune making is still silly though, since she can still make [Level] Magic Missile runes every rest period giving more boom than could ever be needed, and a few potions of genius can give your entire party 19 int to use them for 66 Magic Damage/round. Which, who knows, may be my exact strategy for killing the Greater Wolfwere, Macross style.
Also her quest features copious amounts of backstabbing invisible ninja last I checked.
Jinn is an "out of party" NPC. She's a genie in a lamp randomly given to you by some weirdo in Candlekeep that features some extremely cheaty options (god gear, infinite stats/HP/Exp that you can turn off, but turning off completely seems to break the entire mod), a completely railroaded and glitchy "romance", a cursed lamp locking a quickslot, an unskippable "dream sequence" where you have to walk through a massive area on a treasure hunt for the NPC/Item you need for the area (also glitchy), and some stalker who steals 10 GP every time you visit a new inn. The will'o'wisp follower is the best/least irritating feature, but since she's apparently immortal, she probably should have been handled as a familiar item that periodically spoke to you as well, though I suppose you could send her ahead to trigger traps.
I don't think Rjali/Jinn are on the forums, but Blackwyrm lair or somewhere if you want to check it out (though from a mod review perspective, I give it an F at this point, unless I find some pretty amazing quest content in my playthrough).
Biggest problem with Tristan and Isolde for me was that I was heading north from Nashkel. They start in melee range and mixed in together with your party (at which point I'm scurrying around trying to save Charlie's squishy ass from Isolde's gatling dagger). If I had been going the other direction then my usual policy of blowing up unfamiliar NPCs on sight would have saved me the trouble.
After stashing the Soultaker in a perfectly safe location (random 12 year old Umberlant's house), the party vacations oop north.
Do you ever get the impression the people responsible for this sort of thing just had a lot of trouble with the game? Infinite Animate Dead, healing, magic damage, and again, immunity to Normal weapons? All for the super difficult "Get 3000 gold and buy it" and "use Xzar"?
Honestly wanted to get to this quest later, but despite a 135 in pick pockets, Aura failed against Shandy, so it was either lose the quest and have to fight him or take the quest and the chance he didn't go hostile.
Silenced Andris, followed by a blind. No conversation for me. By the time silence wears off....
Meh. Confusion. Charlie's save vs Spell is "2" at this point.
Attacking blue circles is good roleplay, because my character cannot see circles showing whether something is an enemy or not and assumes they must all die for safety purposes.
Stumbled onto a lightning trap with Aura trying to avoid a Polar Bear. Ho hum. Nyx! I choose you! After Charlie tramps across half the map to recover her stuff.
Disarming traps her way.
Not sure why Tellan spent his time casting "Globe of Invulnerability" to fight two skeletons, but rest assured it did not perform as advertised.
Yeah, mildly magic resistant melee wombats don't care about your fancy schmancy spells,
When the heck does she get time to work on these?
I took a day preparing.
Since this is by far the best guard ever, invisibility isn't necessary, but it helps later.
Okay, maybe several days preparing. I don't actually have any potions of invulnerability, magic shielding, automatic saving throw success, or anything of the sort, so this has the potential to be pretty harsh.
I did have a dozen potions of Heroism though, and only Verr'Sza can use 'em, so...
Okay, maybe a week preparing.
Black Ooze'd it to death. Kicked Imoen from the party and left her there, because I am the best of friends.
Darn, was sort of hoping to wait out the dying timer, but no such luck. Sigh. She had SO many spells known. I guess we'll never see her again.
Idol get.
Idol buff.
Elemental snares: Not friendly safe. This includes uppity druids walking up in cutscenes. Unfortunately(?) this glitches the quest because they weren't killed right, so Aldeth dies for short changing me.
Alright! Time to go to the Cloakwood mine.
Whoops. Forgot to get the documents before.
Unfamiliar NPC!
Verr'Sza wanders into a web trab and dies because there's no "stick next to CHARNAME and kill anything within a strict radius" AI setting that I'm aware of. Fortunately not chunked this time, so his furry gay romance can continue.
Unfamiliar NPC!
Thought I'd take advantage of the druid ambush to try and make use of the druid only gear I picked up, only to find that the club wasn't even a real weapon. Whatever, she can hang out throwing darts at 4 APR until I get Yeslick, I guess.
Unfamiliar NPC! Oh no! I was distracted, he's already in conversation range!
This policy exists for a reason. Two greater wyverns spawning on top of the party was not fun. The worst part, of course, being inventory management to pack up six peoples' worth of loot into two peoples' worth of bag.
Being decimated is no excuse for not being prompt turning in quests. Fortunately they made life simpler by targeting Fay rather than Charlie - more for the fact that he could kill them quicker with missiles than any real risk to his shadeskin'd, -14 AC vs piercing, 1 Death Save self.
Amazing time management skills are amazing.
Immunity to Lightning Bolt is pretty durn great considering its propensity to glitch. It also gives 3/day call lightning and 1/day storm shield, but doesn't involve increasing Charlie's firepower, so meh, someone else can have it.
Also apparently the temple was fresh out of raise dead spells, so Faldorn was left to rot in a ditch. Sure we won't see her again either.
At which point I realised my bag of holding had spontaneously disappeared, so.... Yeah, back to friendly arms, where my largely naked party was accosted by more assassins.
They were not fireproof.
Also I bought a new black BoH to get all my stuff back. Hooray for shared storage.
Even skipping the most cheaty gear (and moving back to the Chainmail of Transgression over the mithril chain of ridiculousness for the Death save), the crew is sitting at -5 AC or below (except for Aura). If I were so inclined I could be using infinite Cure Critical Wounds, Animate Dead, Skull Trap and Flame Strike at this point, which is a bit ridiculous.
Adding to my collection of Varscona +2s. I think I have three at this point.
Losing Aura to a rush of enemies as she went to clear the way of traps was annoying. Dropping a Black Mist in the opening so that the enemies rushed in, got blinded, and then stumbled forward to the kill zone on the other hand, made me feel a bit better.
"You decide to spend the night with Jini", forcing you to walk through two maps to talk to boring NPC while Yeslick is dying of poison. Where's the "break up" option already?
Dragging my feet brings one of my trapfinders back at least.
So, uh, am I supposed to conclude that Dave keeps a small harem down here at all times?
Cliffhanger ending etc.
It would help you google it if I spelled it right, I guess?
After the Blacktalon Elite starts firing Arrows of Detonation, the party leaves. Yep. Not getting into that particular trainwreck.
Only person allowed to fireball others to death is Charlie.
Verr'Sza's Bolts of Biting killed Dave through his Mirror Images, after he teleported away, offscreen, while I was still summoning skeletons to take him down. Convenient!
This is a good example of how bad the Jini romance is. This conversation is automatic, with no dialogue options whatsoever. The player's actions are spelled out in a nonsensical way (he paid 100 GP to ensure all the slaves did escape, and he killed pretty much every single living thing in the mine that didn't carry a reputation penalty, and he's neutral (apparently True Neutral, I have no idea how that happened - possibly when I was fixing one of the variables to stop this thing clunking out again). But apparently the character envisioned for this mod was very specifically an emotionally frail sissy boy virgin with... Let's say a love of Social Justice.
I think we all know the drill here.
Fire! And lots of it. Also blind for the two schlubs.
Unfamiliar NPC/Yada yada. I have 27 HP, I can't afford to be picky and these guys turned out to have ridiculous arrows of hold person on their, well, persons.
Familiar NPC!
I'm starting to think I may just be antisocial.
Sewers remain disappointingly Beholder free.
Seriously though. Eye of the Beholder mod would be awesomesauce.
Aura's weeaboo quest begins, and my body is ready...
The game starts, and keeps, crashing during the fight. Dunno what's going on with my install, but repeated attempts finally...
Yep, keep alert deadgirl, you don't want to get killed or something.
Damn you, weeaboo quest! Two rounds: Dead.
So yeah, if you're going to be getting involved in this particular quest:
The regular Ninja are level 9 Fighter -> 12 Shadowdancer duals which are True Neutral, have Grand Mastery in Scimitar, three potions of invisibility, spawn right next to the party, and have two Poison Weapon uses. They use +1 Darts and +1 Ninjato.
The Elite Ninja are exactly the same, except they also drop a fireball on themselves when they die. They spawn in threes, start invisible, and become invisible once more every round with their potions.
They use Poison Weapon to deal poison damage to bypass Stoneskins and Mirror Image.
They spawn on party members, so positioning is worthless.
My personal recommendation is to abandon any sense of fair play (the mod certainly doesn't have any) pre-trap the heck out of some pre-selected resting areas in Baldur's Gate.
Aura also sells endless potions of backstab immunity which the whole party can and should chug immediately at the beginning of each encounter.
Charname should be wearing fire resistant gear to handle inconvenient exploding ninja.
Finally, resting outdoors with 10' Invisibility on the party can help, since you'll be able to reposition, pierce their invisibility with Detect Illusion, then swoop in for the kill.
The Elite Ninja are exactly the same, except they also drop a fireball on themselves when they die. They spawn in threes, start invisible, and become invisible once more every round with their potions.
They use Poison Weapon to deal poison damage to bypass Stoneskins and Mirror Image.
They spawn on party members, so positioning is worthless.
WTF. I can tell you for certain that I do not recall adding fighter levels or Poison Weapon in the ninjas’ arsenal (the potion of explosion is intentional though). I tested the fight multiple times with the right enemy stats and I’ve never had trouble when familiar with the gimmicks. So that means another mod must’ve changed their abilities somehow.
Edit: Okay. I can see the same stats, though I can tell you the overtuned numbers are a mistake. I think I probably copied over some old files from when the fight wasn't supposed to be a gimmick (as in, the enemies attack you in the open). I apologize, this needs to be fixed.
The only mods installing AFTER Aura were Dark Horizons and Tweaks, so I'll try swapping Dark Horizon and Aura's order around and see if it fixes anything. I don't think it could be Tweaks that would be doing it.
More importantly, does that mean my last run is still valid?
It is possible, likely even, that the fault is mine and my memory is just failing me. I go through a lot of back-and-forth changes on numbers and stats and it’s hard to remember what exactly I settled on. Maybe I just felt sadistic one day and bumped up the levels for s**ts and giggles and forgot about it. Strange though... I know I toned down the actual numbers at least once.
At least I don't have Jini installed anymore for my next games.