Teaches me to not properly test what I'm doing. v0.82 makes the enemy stats significantly lower. A bunch of mooks should not make for a more difficult fight than their boss. I apologize.
And now for something (not quite) completely different.
Kung Fu Halfling IV - The Rise of Sarevok
Gnomes, the consummate Illusionist/X race, cannot be Illusionist/Dark Moon Monk, but elves and half-elves can.
Since Halflings and Half-Elves sound similar, I figure that makes this combination legitimate (full disclosure, I wanted a halfling because "Kung Fu Elf" isn't as funny sounding).
As a Dark Moon Monk Atlas lacks most of the usual thief-ly traits (side note: If someone gets on with making a Shadow Adept / Shadow Monk multiclass - or Shadow Monk / Regular Mage - that'd be pretty much #1 on my to play list), getting only Detect Illusion and Stealth skills and getting only 25 / 15-level skill points to boost them (at least theoretically, I'll be fixing that manually with EEKeeper now and then when I be bothered).
It's also, unlike the regular monk, sort of front loaded. The fist doesn't scale anymore, but always counts as a +5 weapon, deals 1D6, and gives 2 APR, and they can have one defensive style and one offensive style active at any particular time, which for me is a general utility +1 APR "Flurry of Blows", and permanent Reflect Image that refreshes each round, giving Atlas a 50% chance to ignore an incoming hit, and 2 APR with his crossbow.
If I were willing to Keeper together a custom monk combatant, it would be pretty easy to do by switching between "Select Fighting Style" innates in EE Keeper, with each monk kit's selection being keyed to a particular ability, though you can't customise what thief skills the monk can advance.
Anyways, enough reviewing, let's punch some faces.
First order of business: Recruit ablative partymates. Second order of business: Change paperdoll. The "monk" paperdoll can't handle crossbows, and the thief doll misses out on kung fu kicks, and, more importantly, shoes. Not wearing shoes is ridiculous, especially in sewers.
Blind mage / Dead mage. I'll be back for you later statuecat.
Thanks for the scrolls! Might be back for those emeralds, but a few overpowered assassin squads and gold won't matter ever again.
Dark Mirror, with its endless images, is a great generalist defence option. Crit happens, and monks can't do anything about that, but they can at least halve the chance of taking the damage.
A fine start. Korax dies nobly after getting Atlas some magic arrows and a dead archer. Failed scribing Mutamin's stinking cloud scroll though. Meh.
@Pantalion Did you give oublek the emeralds before getting him killed?
Pantalion said: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.
Since I normally play good guys, Blowing NPCs up without first checking what they are up to is a no-no for me. I therefore speak to them and kill them when they attack.
In Baldur's Gate we did several minor quests which are undocumented. In this house we killed a lot of nasty creatures.
An important quest was that of dealing with Marek and Lothander.
Beating Ramazith wasn't too hard.
Shortly afterwards the Moonblade honoured Xan!
We were then given a fresh quest at the FAI.
On the way to complete it, we killed Zargal et al.
We finished the quest without too much difficulty upon this occasion.
We fought more enemies upon a boat at the Gate.
At the Firewine Bridge we defeated Kahrk and others.
The latter gave Tenya considerably more power. We returned to the Gate, trashed the Iron Throne there and returned to Candlekeep.
We then did most of the Stone of Askavar Quest.
Both Xan and Dynaheir got killed in the process but were not chunked. I was sad that Dynaheir missed out on much needed experience. We then did the Aaron quest killing ogre mages and winter wolves in the process.
We then did the very last part of the Stone of Askavar quest.
DB90 is doing rather well, and I have enjoyed playing so much that I have forgotten to post his progress - a good sign.
DB90 had to face Drasus. BD90 divided the gang, killed Drasus and Genthore in a slugfest and the mages where bathed in a sea of fire...
In the mines sleeping was not an option. So diversion was needed. I was pleased to see how well horror works compared to slow poison
At the bottom BD90 buffed to the extreme and killed all. So far so good.
Playing a NE character has its perk, dropping reputation for the right Bhall powers also has its perks - but your economy is down the drain... especially when you depend on potions to save your ass.
In BG there is amble opportunity for profit - at a risk off course. Somebody has to pay for BDs spending:
Sunin, Ragefast, Jalantha Mistmyr, Quenash, the ogre in the sewers and Marek where amongst the victims - sorry guys, I needed the cash.
Did the final pre CK shopping and headed south. The tomes where picked up in the crypts, and a nice axe was picked up.
Back at the iron throne a critical hit from my throwing axe settled that fight - a one hit wonder...
Slythe was the only victim in the undercellar. BD90 was immune to his backstabs, but not to his sword. A painfull reminder of the high AC of the barbarian
The palace fight was a surprise. I charmed the priest of Helm, Ramizath, Ichtyl and anybody with a sword for the fight. I thought that I could stand in the middle, tank the dopplegangers and let the others control the crowd... great plan, but It didnt work:
The dopplegangers turned on my posse and killed them.. but it gave BD plenty of time to kill the dopplegangers and Injure Sarevok. So both Belt and whats her name was saved. And I finally got my RoP +2
Ran through the Maze trying to save up on the buffing from the palace fight for the temple fight. Reached over 300 hp and was fully protected when my potions of heroism ran out. In my version this brings your hp down below your max. Was suddenly down to a 100 HP out of 200 hp - a huge let down... EDIT: apparantly a well known bug...
But after a bit more buffing, Sarevok was lured out of hiding and killed
Horror of horrors. None of the characters that I am supposed to meet after my return are there.
No smuggler near the bridge. No harper to give hints as to what to do next etc.
Will I be able to finish the game?
I went to Duke Eltan and he asks: "What are you doing here? There is much to do."
It is as if the game hasn't registered the fact that I have finished Candlekeep.
EDIT:
At least I have plenty to do at present: ; Werewolf Island; Durlag's Tower; The Drizzt Saga. Having thought about it, it looks as if I need to change a Global Variable. Which it is, I have no idea.
@Pantalion Did you give oublek the emeralds before getting him killed?
Generally I don't bother, since it's a few hundred gold that you get from his corpse anyway, and a pittance of Exp. Anyways...
Standard fare wanderin'. With Purity of Body defensive style, Atlas renders himself immune to the hobgoblin's poison arrows that penetrated Dark Mirror.
And then died to a random encounter en route to kill Shoal. Sigh. I hate early BG. Clearly the RNG is punishing me for not making a new portrait in awhile.
Let's fix that.
I could have had a 99 roll, but honour would have required that I leave the roll untouched at 17/17/14/17/16/18, and ain't nobody got time for that.
And this is part of why regular Mage is astronomically superior to Shadow Adept. Of the five spells Gabriel knows at level 2, one is Sleep, two casts of which let him take down these ogres easy.
The other six, less so, but still, that's more me not wanting to rest again than anything else.
Random encounters are jerks. At least it wasn't a basilisk or ten bandits with bows.
After killing a bunch of basilisks with surprising and recurrent difficulty, Gabriel goes on the search for newfriends to get him flamethrowers. This particular install, Aura is an Artificer / Priestess, so she will hopefully be a tad less squishy.
I've never seen a wyvern in that sort of area though plenty travelling around in Cloakwood. Is that the result of a mod?
No idea, it was travelling the Larkwood area of the map I think. I didn't stick around to see if it was a special encounter (at least not after it saved twice against Blind). I vaguely recall meeting one once before, but it's safe to say if it's vanilla content then it's pretty rare.
Waking up in chateau Irenicus, BD90 quickly found some gear and a stout axe. Picked up Balas Axe as well - a great axe for a barb. Rage doesnt last forever, and miscast magic is such a great follow up against mages.. and clerics.
Out of the dungeon BD picked up the reflection shield - and headed for the slavers.
Managed not to disturb the captain and the cleric didnt manage to get a spell off. The captain fell in 1 vs 1 contest. Bought the Stonefire axe for the trolls - and many many others..
WK is such a wonderfull place. Loads of XP and money. The welcoming party where the least preffered.
Have to come back when I have more than 5 hlas
Did some minor quests. Tried to free viccy, but she turned on me once free, and the fanatics was pleased to see me kill the drow. Sorry viccy but I cant reload...
Did some more minor quests, hit level 11 and bought the DoE. Time to pick up a stronghold.
The fights in vanilla d’Arnise are straight forward. Yuanti mages are a pest - but alone they are no problem. Actually the oytygh gave me the biggest scare - it crept up on whilst killing the dogs. And I wasnt watching the screen...
Tanked the golems - dualwielding FoA and FoE. Flails are nice...
For money BD90 did the Maevar questline, killed and evil party at the bridge & promenade and robbed the merchant erstate at the bridge
Did the fallen paladins, killed Neb, went to trademeet and solved the skinner case for money and fame
Adding Cernd to my party was a mistake - dont like NPCs, dont like Druids and dont like Cernd. But he did kill Faldorn
Getting a second pair of pants set back my rep. But they do look fancy...
Sided with the thieves. Wasnt sure about killing the thieves, and PfU is so nice. Picked up a nice mace, that came to good use
I still have to do the unseeing eye, the planar prison and the planer sphere - then a couple og levels before going back to WK. But perhaps these should wait for my return from underdark... still to decide. The remaining quests in the city see high risk, whilst the other route will give some HLAs.
While I wonder, take a look at the dwarf: ring of gaxx, the claw, belt of interior barrier and cloak of displacement -> unbuffed save against spell -4
The adventure continues, with nauseatingly familiar faces.
The inbuilt magical punches are pretty handy. Especially since there's no Drake in this install to hit things with the Stupefier and tank.
Sigh. Sleep random encounters are ridiculous too. Either enemies spontaneously appear right on top of you with no time passed, killing your paladin who you rested for to skip a ghoul's hold duration, or you spend eight hours with zero trouble. It's pure luck which happens and what appears, and a very gamey implementation. An hourly check with chances weighted by previous encounters in the area would have been better in my opinion.
15 arrows, two Flesh Golems, and risking death when one rounded a corner unexpectedly, but made it, thankfully, my next option was melee or Ishlilka's throwing spear, which is about the same thing it's so close range.
Sleep is probably the #1 spell I'll be missing, it's just so handy against the armies of critters that are collectively more likely to kill you purely by ten getting a crit in a single round or something.
Stillness of Mind: Charm Immunity. Since Sirine generally cast first, Gabriel can safely purge their invisibility close up while attacking, then (theoretically) move back (or switch to poison immunity) when they start with the arrows.
It never actually happened that way since they switched to melee instead. I'm not sure if Still Mind works against their feeblemind on hit, but Gabriel kept his wits either way.
And then Aura "helped" him while the kiting Flesh Golems by running up to him to start casting Cure Light Wounds when one punched through five mirror images to hit him... and then did it again while he was stuck by Aura. My fault for not fixing her AI I guess.
Ah well. Fragility aside, I must say the Monastic Orders monk is certainly novel. I already have a plan for Gabriel Mk II, who will start life as a pure Shining Hand Monk, then dual into Mage at level 7 to check out the new Shadow Adept quest update, becoming, I can only assume, a Shadow Sun Ninja from the Book of Nine Swords.
Ucurian and his band of rejects - Part VI: From the Troll Claw Woods to Avernus
After clearing the Troll Claw Woods, my party made their way to Morentherene, where I decided not to use the throwing dagger trick this time, because I felt strong enough to easily take down the dragon in a direct battle. I entered the lair and stated buffing, but this apparently woke up my foe, and I was attacked without having my summons and most of my buffs ready - making this a rather difficult fight.
I started the battle without remove fear, because Ucurian's aura was still clouded from summoning skeletons - however, only Tarnele got affected by dragon fear. A hit from the breath weapon meant that she was in serious trouble:
While my ranged weapons users took down Morentherene's adds, a hasted Ucurian made his way to Tarnele to cast remove fear, allowing her to get rid of the poison effect. Camalan activated his defensive stance and started drinking healing potions - luckily, he was quite capable of standing up to the dragon in melee combat:
From this point on, victory was easily achieved:
I entered the Temple of Bhaal and cleared the first part. The Neothelid died before even disappearing once, and the Shadow Aspect fell to Ucurian's true sight. Finally, Darkshelin & friends were bombed by six fireballs:
At Bridgefort, I quickly completed most quests (but forgot to do one of them, sadly) and surrendered the camp. This is the first time I'm doing this, but since I'm a relatively experienced SoD player by now, I don't mind experimenting with different options a bit, even in a no-reload context.
Next chapter: After doing some Coalition Camp questing, I went to get the Sundermaul +3. This weapon almost provided me with my first party death in SoD when an already injured Camalan got knocked down by earthquake:
Somehow, the earthquake effect never really triggered for me in any previous runs, but this time, it's been getting quite annoying. I made my way to the Underground River, cleared the area (Kanaglym was quite easy because I slew Kherriun before her prebuffs fired). As for Hephernaan, I was able to quickly take down his allies with true sight and breach, allowing me to isolate him early on. His unholy blight spells only affected my undead hunter, so he was basically wasting his time casting them, and this forced him into a quick retreat:
Finally, the crusader waves were solved via more fireballs, and for the boss group, full buffs, true sight and my allies provided me with a quick victory:
For the Siege of Dragonspear, I made my way to Ashatiel and declined her duel, as dueling isn't exactly what Ucurian is good at. Instead, I fought her party with the help of my army - she didn't retreat to the northwestern part of the castle, so I dispelled her defensive buffs and took her down with ranged weapons, ending the siege rather quickly:
As for Avernus: I was really overprepared for this part, having more potions than ever, and even tons of additional scrolls. Basically, I made my entire party immune to everything these devils can throw at you, excluding physical damage, turning the final few encounters into straightforward battles with my party at a huge advantage. True sight, of course, is also incredibly helpful against Belhifet, and the devil really stood no chance. Caelar survived the whole ordeal and actually stole the last hit:
This time, SoD taught me these three things: a) Don't buff inside Morentherene's Lair. b) Use the Sundermaul with utmost care. c) I should propably play SoD on insane with turned off extra damage, not on core rules.
Now, the achievable part of this run has concluded. BG2 will be an entirely different thing, because I have never really played BG2 with SCS except once, where I had to reload many, many times and only made it to early chapter 4. There's basically no chance of me completing BG2 (and especially ToB) with my full SCS + Ascension installation (I also have never played with Ascension before, at all), so what follows is mostly going to be a learning experience (and I play to finish the run with reloads after I inevitably die, so I will actually have the required experience to deal with SCSII and Ascension in future runs).
Gabriel Mk II (not counting a few other Gabriels that died horribly), sporting just enough wisdom to dual class, and being just about unwise enough to think he's a human (don't worry, he'll figure it out in 6 levels).
I'm so mean to this bard lass.
Managed to scrape together five scrolls of Stone to Flesh, enough to hit dual level, hopefully the rest of the lisk map will be enough to hit a decent mage level to boot.
Dualling into Mage means Gabriel gets a familiar. If I were a(n even more) powergamey sort he'd be Lawful Neutral to get a Ferret for the pick pocket, but a badboy CN gets a kitty, and that kitty stone cold kills people without even flinching.
One of the quirks of being a dual monk is that Gabriel's fighting style can't be changed, but the fighting style he had when he dualled still applies. In this case, this means permanent fear and charm immunity, +1 APR from Flurry of Blows, and his fist is still there, occupying a weapon slot. He's a strangely martial mage.
Pew pew.
I should probably get those two raised, maybe find the rest of my party at some point, but soloing another 36,000 Exp first is also tempting. Also...
Unfamiliar NPC.
Killstealing Brage then stealing his crap. Mm yes. 25k to go.
Way too close.
I'm so used to this guy both surviving and retaliating with lightning I was almost two maps out by the time it registered that he died. Whoops.
Finally. Greywolf lends Gabriel a sword and his lifeblood, giving him the final experience he needed to complete his dual. Time to raise some probably fairly ripe corpses and get the rest of the party, it's time to get dark up in here.
Her only spells above level 5 are limited, though she can definitely end a solo run with a -2 save or maze.
Having completed at least one stage of the quest, Gabriel can now make the change, with one important piece of prep:
And then Gabriel spent all his money on shadow equipment in their special store, including...
A wand of 3x shade arrows.
Some save editing was needed to repair the Monk's THAC0 (since it reverted to Mage/Thief after the dual repaired), and to remove Set Snare and replace it with the Monk's combat styles, otherwise Gabriel would have been stuck with +1 APR / Mind Shield forever.
I'm pretty sure his wisdom to AC bonus is broken, but I dunno how to fix that one, so... yeah, guess I'll be missing out on an extra 5 AC or so by the end of BG1.
Not that I'd mind much. Gabriel has 100 Detect Illusions, the only thing a Shining Hand monk can boost except Detect Traps (which is what we have gnomes and potions for), and hits like a truck thanks to an x3'd Strength Tome from Durlag's.
He's a sirine shredding nightmare in black right now.
There are zero hints where these shadow mages are hanging out, which is a kick in the reproductive organs with the sheer scale of BG1's area. Xarius is #2, and I was not prepped in the slightest for him.
Fortunately, I do have shades and, shortly after this, skeletons to take him on. Shadow Adepts, from personal experience, are pretty terrible against undead, since they focus a lot on cold damage, hold, sleep, and various other things undead don't care about.
I have a sinking feeling that I'm going to have to explore the Firewine Ruins and Cloakwood, which will be terrible.
Also, shadow fiends at 9th level (Gabriel gets +1 CL from his 18 Int) are just brutal, for both Gabriel and Xarius, they don't have the right undead immunities but they do have Hold strikes,
Assassin team killed on the way to plot.
Exploring entire mines looking for Shadow Mages: Tedious. Chapter 3 get at least, so time to grab that shadow dagger and upgrade from the current dart.
A second go with a shapeshifter in this challenge is currently sitting at the start of SoD. However, after reading a thread about the merits or otherwise of blades I was motivated to give one of those a go.
As normal I went straight to Shoal where offensive spin helped shoot her down quickly - offering a jump start up to level 4.
A few scrolls were bought at High Hedge, but unfortunately I fluffed both protection from petrification ones - meaning the intended early trip to the basilisks was abandoned. Instead various tasks around Beregost were done - sleep made helping Zhurlong & Mirianne trivial, while blind sorted out Karlat and Silke. More sleep on some spiders then got me to level 5.
Sleeping sickness struck an ogre on the way to the FAI, where Tarnesh was blinded (without SCS he has to get close to you to talk and won't go hostile from a failed attempt to blind him).
Heading north I stopped off at the ankheg nest. Casting invisibility when ankhegs first surface strands them on top - allowing sleep to be safely cast from out of sight (if you rest in the nest they stay surfaced). Clearing the nest like that took a bit of time, but was totally safe and enough to get me to level 6.
A few more ankhegs died and Tenya got her bowl back before I headed for Durlag's Tower. The battle horrors there were magic missiled (if you rest in the area they don't recover their HPs). The quick XP there meant it didn't take long to get up to level 7 courtesy of a doom guard.
Before going into the Tower I decided to do a bit of travelling. High Hedge provided some more spells, including skull trap. Then I took a trip through Nashkel (learning Bhaal CLW there) and then on through the Cloud Peaks to the Gnoll Stronghold to get the charisma tome.
The Nashkel Mine was mainly travelled invisibly and skull traps soon dealt with Mulahey and his support crew.
The main purpose of visiting there was to get the web scroll and I successfully learnt that.
Back at Durlag's Tower I used invisibility to get into position for the basilisks, web to disable them temporarily and then blind to allow them to be finished off at leisure - I hadn't brought much ammunition, but offensive spin meant not much was needed . The final basilisk got me up to level 8.
The same sort of treatment was given to more basilisks to the north. Mutamin was webbed and skull trapped. At that point I went back to Nashkel to clear out inventory and took the opportunity to web Nimbul and successfully learn his find familiar scroll to give a little HP boost. Back at the basilisk area Baerin and Peter were blinded before Kirian's mob as a whole were webbed and finished off with offensive spin.
With another level looming I went to the Valley of the Tombs. Magic missiles and spin aided by ghost armor and mirror images made short work of the Revenant.
Narcillicus' mustard jellies were pulled away separately and the same buffs (plus equipping the crushing girdle) disposed of them without fuss - the first one getting me to level 9.
That meant 2 skull traps were available for Narcillicus, but one proved to be enough.
Another good source of XP waited at the Lighthouse, but I got careless there. Two of the first group of sirines died in skulltraps, but in searching out the last I was distracted by a hobgoblin that appeared nearby and didn't retreat quickly enough when the sirine started casting charm - luckily I saved. There were no further alarms with the sirines or while shooting the golems up to get the constitution tome. After using that I returned to the FAI to buy Buckley's Buckler in order to activate constitution regeneration.
The ogres and sirines in Shoal's area provided some more quick XP and the Doomsayer added to the tally.
Greywolf and Meilum were topped up by a few odds and sods and I belatedly realised I'd got my last level by skull trapping Bjornin's half-ogres.
Up to this point I've deliberately avoided doing any reputation quests. That's partly because I'm using scimitars as a main weapon and I suspect Drizzt is due for a nasty accident shortly ...
Blade L10, 69 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 203 kills
Ucurian and his band of rejects - Part VII: Athkatla sidequests and the Druid Grove
After getting out of the starting dungeon, my party gathered some early experience at the circus tent and the copper coronet. No trouble here, and I bought a magic license with the gold I obtained (its more expensive in my installation, but I need it because I don't know which buildings are actually protected against the improved cowled wizards, and I plan on using a lot of magic outisde).
Because I remember SCS ambushes being relatively tough, I travelled under invisibility 10' radius - this payed off against Suna Seni, as it allowed me to build some distance and throw an arsenal of powerful arcane magic at my would-be ambushers:
I completed many minor quests (basically everything that didn't involve fighting any arcane spellcasters), though soon enough, I decided that everyone who was only capable of using level 5 spells or lower was fair game, which allowed me to get the item randomiser going to get some decent equipment (nothing super special, but at least +1 weapons for everyone and some okay armor). Lilarcor was an important pickup for Ayla. After being done with the easier quests, I started hunting some adventuring parties, like Mencar and friends - here, Tarnele showed her power with traps and a backstab, basically taking down almost the entire hostile party by herself:
At the sewers, I got into a fight against the rakshasa, but he failed to deal with the level 11 version of my skeleton warriors. Tarnor's party was more interesting, as I accidentally opened their dialoge and started combat without being fully prepared. I quickly retreated and threw out some buffs, including invisibility 10' radius. This allowed me to get in a first strike with Tarnele (though arguably on the wrong target, but the mage was protected with stoneskins):
I retreated once again, leaving my skeletons to distract the opposing group. Gaius, however, made the mistake of following my retreating forces, propably in order to dispel their buffs. I didn't give him the opportunity, as true sight + breach allowed me to quickly take him down with physical attacks - he didn't get to use any offensive spells:
To be fair, going for this fight was actually quite risky, because Ucurian wasn't protected at all against some of the things Gaius could've thrown at him, but I noticed some weaknesses in the opposing mage's prebuffing script, so I just had to go for it. I was happy to deal with medium level mages at this point, but some foes yet unchallenged were backstabbing SCS thieves in greater numbers. Of course, true sight helps quite a bit here. I also learned that they seem to always go for the target with the lowest hp total not protected by stoneskins - so in my case, usually Tarnele:
Too bad priests of helm don't stand for this kind of behaviour.
Basically, I managed to complete all smaller quests in chapter 2/3 (everything that isn't stronghold related or a high level encounter), including WK level 1 without the statues. No major issues at all, the most dangerous encounter was propably one of the ambushes that I wasn't exactly prepared for, but greater malison + chaos solved the situation:
Following @semiticgod 's advise, I went to the druid grove next and killed all the trolls, spiders, spore colonies, shambling mounds, earth elementals and druids outside. The troll mound provided me with my first really good item randomiser drop: The boots of speed! Nice! Kylan Lind was backstabbed via staff, though Ihtafeer was a bit more difficult: My initial traps only killed one of her servants, so I decided - because some other attempts at dealing serious damage to these foes failed, forcing me to retreat - to buff up Ayla with some potions and have her solo this encounter:
Not only did this work very well, I also found blackblood +3 here.
I made my way to Faldorn and took Cernd into my party. My first two attempts fo fight Faldorn failed (tried it a) with insect plague and b) with dolorous decay, resurrecting him via the level 5 cleric spell after each failed attempt), but on the third try, I just activated the greater werewolf form (Cernd spawned at level 13) and attacked, and this turned out to do the trick, because magic resistance worked wonders against most of Faldorn's spells, and she eventually had to fight me with her bare fists:
Oh, and I took the opportunity (after buying the dwarven thrower) for a little bit of extra XP by completing Cernd's personal quest, which was easy, because I previously had trapped Deril's estate. However, the game once again (this happens a lot) failed at recognizing whose traps were actually dealing the damage, making it seem like Cernd is actually a bounty hunter:
Things are going quite well so far, much better than expected. I'm pleased. This propably means Ucurian is going to die soon
Or revenge for Oublek, though he actually managed to hurt Nimbul this time. One of these days he's going to actually win the fight, keep trying Oublek!
No dagger though. Fooo. Must be on one of the Shadow Mages I haven't found yet.
Showing Drizzt how it's supposed to be done.
They wouldn't be hiding in Durlag's, right? Game design principle suggests that a target can't be in somewhere that can only be accessed once during the plot, which means one-off areas like Werewolf Island or the Ice Maze probably can't be valid locations, while the BG sewers and other random caves can be. Searching all of Firewine was awful enough, I'm sincerely hoping I don't have to search individual Gullykin houses or something.
The tiny duration aside, Decoy is a great little spell with a lot of potential for leading enemies into trouble, or in this case their own Cloudkill. That's what you get for Gabriel not getting cloudkill spells, or something. In the end I think the only kill I got was Fear, from the pre-trapping.
Random mod note aside:
Aura has a retort for the girdle of genderbending, which many mods don't think to add and is a nice touch.
That said, I slapped the Belt of Mighty Fists on her from Pride and she had nothing to say about being transformed from super genius gnome to an illiterate halfwit. Ah well.
Bru. Tal.
Even the Ashirikiririri can't hurt the fiends, while the ghouls can't hold 'em. They're completely immune to fire, ice and acid, making them pretty much perfect grunts to front line in Gabriel's fire wand killzone.
Overall, the biggest "event" in Durlag's so far was when Gabriel's shadeskins were pierced by a Greater Doppelganger and he was one crit away from death the round it died. Oh, and Nyx got killed, but that's hardly an event considering I had her on the frontlines directing shadow fiends around the map.
Still only two Shadow Mages found though. If one is in the acid area on the bottom floor, they can stay missing as far as I'm concerned.
I tried attacking Drizzt at the start of the session, but he dispelled one potion of speed and the remaining one wasn't sufficient to shoot him up (in fact I suspect both together wouldn't have been anyway).
Instead I went to skull trap Tranzig before moving on to the Bandit Camp. Sleep for the bandits and web and skull traps for Taurgosz quickly led to Tazok's tent where webbed slaughter commenced.
I tried pickpocketing Algernon, but failed 3 times in a row before he went hostile - so just killed him. The cloak was used to charm Dushai and move her away from others before killing her as well.
Back on the main quest I zipped through the Cloakwood before webbing Drasus & co.
Now equipped with boots of speed I went back to find Drizzt. Needing criticals to hit it took about 400 arrows to take him down and I got hit a couple of times in the process before finding a fatal shot.
Back at the Cloakwood Mine I sneaked down to Davaeorn and bombed him with skull traps.
Davaeorn had another protection from petrification scroll - and I fluffed that one as well. Wearing Drizzt's armor the mustard jelly there had even less chance than the earlier ones, but I also failed to learn the knock spell, so had to leave most of the treasure there. After learning Bhaal horror I flooded the mine and left.
A quick tour of the realms picking up on reputation quests previously left soon pushed that up to 20 and a bit of shopping followed before moving on to Baldur's Gate. The first task there was to pick up the tomes. Jalantha was shot down before she could cast, while Marek could do nothing against my new improved invisibility spell. Ramazith was cut down before he could finish a spell.
The next major target was the Cloak of Balduran. Degrodel's guards were pulled outside there and killed with spell damage and in webs. I also experimented there with using melee and defensive spin for the first time.
That appears to be incompatible with free action, but I did confirm that it was still possible if necessary to do an area transition by sitting on the exit point (even though movement is disabled). Even though I was in no need of XP, I still couldn't resist shooting down Vail and the other statues .
At the Iron Throne 3 webs were used before a pair of skull traps. A malison was intended to help hold the remaining enemies while being shot up, but Alai managed to break free and cast shadow door just as the malison was on the way. I responded to that by going invisible myself and resting on the roof before coming back down to finish things off.
After buying up desired scrolls at Sorcerous Sundries I used a newly learnt minor spell deflection to quickly return to Durlag's Tower and get the tome there. Then I reported to Duke Eltan for duty in Candlekeep. Minor globe protected against most traps there and the tombs were soon knocked open. After bypassing the dopplegangers, Prat & co got the web treatment
- I was pleased to learn a haste scroll there after fluffing both the ones at Sorcerous Sundries. I'd also finally learned protection from petrification at the Iron Throne to avoid the need for any messing about against the basilisks (I did have 2 green scrolls as well, but probably wouldn't have used something so expensive ).
Back in Baldur's Gate I let Slythe talk in order to generate Krystin and then used MM and a first use of MMM on him.
Krystin cloudkilled a summoned monster and caught herself in the radius - meaning a single MMM finished her off.
Before going on to the Palace I decided to take a detour to Ice Island. Web did a good job disabling the mages for skull traps and MMMs to finish off while MGoI protected against traps. I found a remove magic scroll there, but failed to learn that. However, the main objective was the stoneskin scroll and I made no mistake with that one.
At the Palace I summoned some monsters from scrolls and hasted those. Malison and confusion affected 3 dopplegangers, but the others soon had Belt badly wounded and in trouble and I put invisibility on him to break up the attack. That resulted in the 3 remaining dopplegangers chasing me and a Bhaal horror affected one of those. The other 2 were killed partly with the help of a first use of minor sequencer (2x magic missile). That eventually left Belt with 35 HPs at the end. He was pulled away into the back room to avoid any chance of Sarevok killing him.
After a final bit of shopping I dived into the maze and soon cleared that - doing an unusual amount of buffing up to shoot down the skeleton warriors there.
The Undercity party then got the standard web treatment.
Inside the temple a dispelling arrow shot at Sarevok missed, but I then went invisible to draw him away from the others and trigger his conversation (ensuring that only Semaj would come out to fight). When Semaj teleported out I was out of sight and tried dispel magic on him. That failed, but malisoned webs allowed me to shoot a dispelling arrow at him and when he got stuck again he was soon finished off with spin - despite his contingency firing several times and causing lots of magic missile damage.
Sarevok was then drawn into the webs and when he got stuck that allowed his haste to be dispelled. After that it was just a question of time and making sure I made no mistakes.
Incidentally, in the unlikely event anyone has been scrutinising these updates closely, you might have noticed I've not used any wands to date. I've been doing that for a bit of extra amusement, but wands will be featuring in SoD .
Here's my record on transfer to SoD - as usual reflecting I got carried away with a bit of overkill in BG1.
@JuliusBorisov proficiencies taken to date are scimitar, shortbow, sling and single weapon style. I didn't have any particular plans about what to take next, though thinking about it I probably will start building up dual wielding.
Blade L10, 69 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 339 kills
Ucurian and his band of rejects - Part VIII: Temple Ruins, Mae'Var, parts of the Unseeing Eye and De'Arnise Keep
This is the first BG2 session where I really felt the power of SCS, though only at the very end.
First, the temple ruins: As I'm not high level enough yet to get lich spawns, this was fairly easy - especially with a single-class cleric being able to turn most foes. Against the shade lord, I took @Neverused 's advice and went in under invisibility 10' radius, moved out of sight of the shade lord and took down Shadow Patrick with magical ammo + the shadow altar with a sunstone bullet. After that, I engaged the shade lord (protected with death wards and SI:N for Saldor) and dispelled his defensive buffs with true sight, secret word and breach - he only managed to drain 1-2 levels before falling to my ranged weapons:
Shadow Patrick dropped the belt of hill giant strength!
Next: Mae'Var - for Rayic Gethras, I quickly discovered an easy way to take him down with my bounty hunter by telling him I was going to leave, moving far to the south and throwing some traps his way before talking to him again so he'd turn hostile:
True sight did work against the thieves, and Mae'Var himself suffered a fatal case of getting webbed:
(note how I accidentally moved into my own webs, like a complete fool - though it didn't end up causing any harm)
I started the unseeing eye to get some more random loot - with the plan, as per @semiticgod 's advice, not to face off against any beholders yet. Since I wanted to clear the ghoul city, though, I was forced to kill at least the one group of beholders and gauths in front of the lost city with the Amaunator temple - I used a couple of cloudkill spells, fireballs and skeleton warriors to achieve this (Ucurian isn't level 15 yet, but Ismene Santal, my bard, is):
For the ghoul city, I used a combination of turn undead and false dawn, and I actually found the gauntlets of dexterity, apparently not moved by item randomiser - which is great for Ayla! After that, I snuck through the beholder hive and back home under invisibility 10' radius.
De'Arnise keep started out easy enough - regular troll groups, no matter how big, don't scare my party at all. I almost killed the Yuan-Ti mage with a backstab, but he barely survived, so I had to breach him to achieve victory. The golems fell to my fighters and summons. However, the improved Tor'Gal turned out to be the toughest opponent in the entire run so far. Damn, that's some difficulty spike. To be fair, I kind of underestimated him and didn't rest before starting, so my spellbook wasn't completely full - still, I had a couple of summons and buffs at the ready. My plan was to get rid of some foes via Tarnele's Otiluke's traps, allowing for a quick victory. However, my summons were quickly overwhelmed and only one opponent was trapped. This ended up blocking the way into Tor'Gals room, because the Otiluke'd foe was standing right in the middle of the doorway (luckily, none of my characters was inside). At this point, I should have retreated, but I decided to try and use this to my advantage and take down some trolls with ranged weapons. However, this only resulted in the Yuan-Ti mages successfully using remove magic on me.
This is where my lack of resting came back to bite me, because I didn't have enough spells to rebuff (in particular, no more haste spells). As the special trap duration ended, I threw my first level 7 cleric spell, a firestorm, at my foes, but only some trolls were minorly affected. I had to retreat, and to be fast enough, I had to use some oils of speed. On my way out, as the trolls followed me, I found two good opportunities to thin their numbers with some well placed fireballs and ranged attacks, though Camalan was badly hurt at this point:
Another fireball and more quick attacks (the Yuan-Ti mages were slow to follow, so I felt relatively save for a very short while), and all trolls except for Tor'Gal were destroyed. However, he and his mages remained at basically full power. I ran upstairs, but my foes followed me. Some more running (with Ayla almost dying, forcing me to swap around my boots of speed quite a bit) resulted in the Yuan-Ti mages getting distracted by some aerial servants I had completely forgotten about - I had used these against the golems, and since I hadn't rested, they were still around. Great! This allowed me to separate Tor'Gal from his minions:
I tried to reinforce my summons (note the wyvern summoned by the book of infinite spells, previously provided by item randomiser). I had to drink a couple of healing potions and use quite a lot of nukes (including some very crucial wand of the heavens charges), but eventually, Tor'Gal was done for:
Somehow, the Yuan-Ti mages were unable to deal with the aerial servants (they just stopped using spells against them - though they did use some when I tried to have Camalan help out, so I retreated once again and let my summons deal with this), and this long battle was over. Exhausting.
The chess board was the most "exciting" part of floor 3, since the king charged with his knights and pawns, so Gabriel had to drop some quick fireballs to kill the rest of the board that hung back before the king was killed.
Spiders are no match for the shambling hordes.
And, while it's not quite the level of slime tanking, 85% magic resistance is no match for three memorised impose spells and a Black Ooze. Impose cast just about quick enough that the only spell the knight managed was a fireball.
My CHARNAME's have the gift of prophecy. It saves a lot of time.
Hobgoblin boots and shadow mage #3, life is good. For me, it's about to get pretty bad for them.
I'm not sure why he's standing outside the cave drinking potions, but since according to the log he's currently surrounded by shadow fiends and a globe of invulnerability, he can go ahead and chug potions for a bit.
This got pretty close, since Gabriel got confused and wandered over to where some hobgoblin elites started stacking poison on him, while the Shadow Fiends all followed him. Fortunately Aura managed to turn the fiends, shoot down the elites, then shoot Gabriel with healing arrows to keep him safely healthy until he sobered up and could Purity of Body some poison immunity while the rest of the party killed the mage.
The mage had the throwing dagger, so Gabriel's ranged damage has pretty much doubled even dropping to 3 APR. Time to hit the bandit camp.
Not even close. Wand of fire handshake before sending in the fighter types to kill the survivors that were smart enough not to follow Gabriel outside.
Huh. Forgot about these chuckles. Good thing I wasn't in too bad shape.
Gabriel ate three flame strikes in this fight, but everyone survived and it all went pretty well. Time to-
Damnit.
Oh lookit that, came into the map from another direction. Seer powers activate etc.
I'm just glad I scouted with this one, these guys are nasty, but I thought they only showed up in Chapter 5. Apparently they have nothing better to do?
According to Nyx I'm one of her better masters, overall.
That's is a little sad.
Zero risk free stuff is the best type of free stuff.
That's twice I've failed pick pocketing against Shandalar with pick pocket skills way above one hundred. What's the safe number here?
Arriving in the SoD prologue I immediately levelled up. A skull trap opened the way to reach Porios who duly surrendered to give access to the next level. I didn't bother with anything there - just going invisibly through all the undead (playing on core, so there's no bone bats to see through invisibility). Korlasz was dispelled, but instantly rebuffed and her mirrors initially protected against a wand scorcher. However, with stoneskin, blur and mirror image active I was in no immediate danger and a second dispelling arrow ensured that the second round of the scorcher would hit - prompting a surrender.
Getting a reward from Fanegonorom then meant I got my final SoD level before even leaving the prologue.
I haven't yet beaten SoD with any of my 'long-life' characters, but I now know enough about all the required challenges to make progress relatively straight-forward - if I can avoid mistakes .
In Baldur's Gate I didn't do any quests as such, but did kill various NPCs for their equipment - Minsc, Dynaheir, Safana and Rasaad all have valuable gear. I also picked up the Spectacles of Spectacle from Zaviak.
On arrival at the Coast Way Crossing I bought a bag of holding before leaving for the Coast Way Forest. Some summoned monsters and a potion of clarity were used there to help the vampire in order to get a ioun stone of regeneration (particularly helpful for me as I don't allow the use of any healing potions or other items).
On the return journey a couple of skull traps killed some orcs and trolls.
Inside the cave I just went through invisibly to grab the Firefly sling.
Back at the Coast Way Crossing free action ensured no nasty spider surprises while activating the menhirs. Teleria was also killed from range to get the Stone Ally. I wasn't bothered about getting help for the Crusader battles, so just cleared the few enemies in the way of Crommus' stash in the Dwarven Dig Site. Prin also gave me the Reed of Echoes to boost spells that can be memorized each day. That sits in the off-hand and has the disadvantage of preventing single weapon proficiency bonuses, but doesn't inflict dual weapon penalties. I was already at the XP cap, so didn't fight at the bridge, but just waited invisibly behind the tent until Caelar was ready to parlay.
I passed through Troll Claw Woods without doing anything and moved on to the Forest of Wyrms. I made my way past all the initial enemies and Morentherene and moved on into the temple. The guards there were killed to prevent them coming to Ziatar's aid, though I noticed that pulling one of them back near the cages turned Keherrem hostile. Once all the guards were dead Ziatar was just fireballed from outside his room.
As Keherrem was clearly in no mood to talk he got the spike treatment .
For the Neothelid I used a stone form potion to help get negative saves and summoned some monsters to act as fodder. A couple of scorchers were mainly resisted, but MMMs hit regularly to do the damage needed.
While saves were still good I tripped the corridor traps (I can't remember all of them, but I was worried one of those was a charm trap). Summons to occupy it and MMMs to hit it then took care of the Shadow Aspect.
Webs got rid of Darskhelin's dangerous companions and a potion of clarity and MMMs sorted out the Flayer.
For Akanna a summoned monster was used to locate the aerial servants for webs and area damage before the same was done to the cleric.
I then quickly ran out - the bugbear shaman trying to hit me with invisibility purge, but finding that cast too slowly.
After spin and MMMs sorted out a couple of hill giants attacking a baby dragon, I've just arrived at Boareskyr Bridge.
Blade L12, 73 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 430 kills
On arrival at Boareskyr Bridge I spun a tale of Keherrem's valiant last stand to get access to the crusader camp. Vichand was left in no condition to object to me pinching his scroll and moving on to the fort. Inside there I killed a wraith and got Hillcarver to make some void arrows for me. I surrendered the fort before tackling the mage on the bridge. A single dispelling arrow hit him, but I couldn't finish him off before he disappeared and rebuffed. I then missed with 8 further dispelling arrows while doing some running round and eventually resorted to a wand scorcher to kill him. Large numbers of hobgoblins then arrived from somewhere before the bridge could be opened and I had to take a potion of invisibility there to recover HPs before dealing with them.
I didn't bother with the goblins and myconids in a travel encounter area on the way to the Coalition Camp. I only stayed long enough there to pick up the quest for Hephernaan along with some Bwoosh and poison before heading out. A dead magic zone on the way to Dead Man's Pass was skipped (though if I'd had stoneskin active I would probably have tried using the wand of fire there). On arrival at Dead Man's Pass there was a momentary concern when I tried to go invisible only to find I was being attacked by some displacer beasts - apparently the magic blocking from the dead magic zone persists for a few seconds after travel. A second attempt was successful and I quickly moved through the area, only stopping off to collect some +3 arrows from a killer mimic.
A quick stop-off at Dragonspear Castle persuaded some mercenaries to leave Skie alone. Then, ignoring Bloodbark Grove, I moved on to the Underground River. A potion of stone form was used there to lower saves while killing some myconids. I patiently used resting and webs to deal with the mages guarding the underground entrance and, after finishing off the outside guards, just went invisibly through the compound and into the entrance.
Underground, telling a story to some sahuagin netted me a wand of water elemental summoning. Turin Brassbreaker was annoyed to get him to move and open the way for me to sneak past him invisibly. Upstairs I poisoned the food and water, but then had to run around with the help of an oil of speed for an uncomfortably long time (true sight preventing invisibility) before Hephernaan finally appeared - his conversation unlocked the elevator and a potion of invisibility provided enough of a break to get on it.
Back at the Coalition Camp a crusader invasion was imminent. Some myconids delayed the ogres and trolls while the wand of fire cut them down. Some exploding arrows made short work of the mages before scorchers ruled the fighting mob. However, the final opponents proved much more problematic. Before going into sight of those I decided to be 'cautious' and make a first use in the run of a potion of magic shielding to protect against stray spells. I then moved forward and tried to use a scorcher on Grimgor - but it didn't fire. I'm not quite sure why as I thought the time spent moving forward would have been more than sufficient to clear my aura, but I foolishly stayed in place for a couple of seconds thinking that any instant it must cast. It didn't though and in the meantime attackers moved in on me and I took a critical melee hit that instantly brought my HPs down to 9 (I had had stoneskin operating, but I think I must have been hit by a dispelling arrow as well). I tried to run and then take a potion of invisibility and, checking on the screenshot, was successful in doing that - but another arrow was already in the air ...
Okay, summon shades is pretty overpowered, since each of the shades summoned has a number of spells of its own, including, importantly in this case, Impose, which gives zero craps about Shandalar's MR.
I don't remember who Dushai is, but hopefully he's not plot critical to anything?
Phew! Didn't want or need to kill him, so I'm happy with zero casualties here. Shame about the infinite use ice wand from Aura I missed out on though.
Since Gabriel actually has some defensive potions and a dispel magic memorised, his body is as ready as ready gets for the whole demon lord, with one minor issue being that he has nobody capable of casting invisibility to get position first. Darnit.
Sorry Cult guy, Gabriel is loaded for ninja, your puny, non-toxic, attacks aren't going to do much.
Having to reload due to a bug, I took a penalty for it, because first time round I forgot one of the cultists and had to kill Aec twice, this time round I went for three times.
It would have been four but AI killed a cultist while I was trying to save Verr'Sza. Either way, Gabriel remained perfectly safe throughout, despite tanking the demon an excessively long amount of time, and Ishlilka and Verr'Sza died versus Sirene and Ishlilka.
Dispel does nothing!
Best. Guard. Ever.
The party is joined by a dwarf who wants to go to Durlag's Tower and discover its secrets.
I hope this isn't on a timer, because that would be awkward.
Uhhh.... Sure thing, little miss "fails her first save and dies".
I didn't forget about you guys.
Well, I did. But not permanently. Gimme that belt that I already have one of!
I generally prefer to leave AI intact and deal with the stupidity of my virtual comrades as it comes up. This is one of many such times, and why the ring of free action is mandatory adventuring equipment. Thankfully Ishlilka makes a few dozen saves vs poison, and Gabriel slow poisons Verr'Sza in time. Especially for Verr'Sza, whenever he dies and revives I lose reputation.
Brute forcing things is sometimes more satisfying than killing everything with a wand of fire.
That feeling when you're exploring for Shadow Mages with a lone boots o' haste scout and stumble across something ridiculous.
Yes, the "dragon" dropped a wyvern head. I don't even. Checking spoilers, apparently the druid I murder on sight every game gives a quest to kill it.
...Whoops? I hope the reward isn't more than the two rings of protection +2, magic armour, druid bracers of +1 APR, magic druid armour and necklace of +1 Wisdom looted from her corpse. Maybe I should stop-
Unfamiliar NPC!
Karate chopping a panther to death: Pretty Metal.
Let's hear it for lax equipment restrictions. Not that she's allowed to keep all that stuff, she still has -8 AC without.
This is probably the second most ridiculous item I've seen after the katana of petrification. 50% chance of no save stun, which when it lands will make all future hits auto hitting, locking the target down forever?
Apparently the NPC with a wyvern fetishist turns into a store when you pay him his 300 GP toll instead of attacking you with two ultra wyverns.
Honestly, considering that wyverns are intelligent neutral evil monsters that love to torture the idea of a ranger hanging out with them is offensive to muh lore, and unfamiliar NPC policy saves lives, but my bag of holding was full of overpowered crap, so... yeah.
Verr'Sza eats critical existence failure against Blacktalon Elites. Those guys are nasty. Also possible that the ranger with a racial enemy of "Gibberling" just isn't up to snuff, considering he has the worst AC and HP except Aura, who's exclusively on the backlines. I need to find him some better gear I guess.
I should probably help them, right?
Nehhhh.
Honestly I spare these guards whenever the opportunity presents itself. They're generally neutral schlubs doing a job, have zero hope against the party, and probably have family's of their own.
Bye, placeholder!
No shadow adepts, thankfully. Lost forever quest content would be lame. Searching everywhere is still tedious though. Time for Dave the Orn.
Well apparently spell deflecting does nothing at all against Lightning Bolt. Good to know.
Gabriel still solo'd him with Shadow Missile spam, of course. Shield is a level 1 spell, Dave, probably should invest in a scroll sometime.
I don't even know what these guys' deal is, it might be some druid reward committee, but we'll never know, because druids still die on sight.
Shadow Mage! One I... Thought I killed, actually?
I did! I did killed that puddy tat!
Ah well. I don't exactly need an extra throwing dagger. That did remind me to head south though...
Chapter 5, time to start fighting ridiculous stone golems!
Step 1: Find note on stone golems. Step 2: Fast travel to Carnival. New Quest: Travel to Beregost and back again. Reward 350 GP, 1000 Exp, magic mirror of infinite 4 round blur (+3 AC, methinks Verr'Sza might benefit most, since he doesn't have an aura to manage or a -5 base AC). I wish all super easy transport quests were that lucrative.
Anyways, Area 1: Bluebell Forest. Like High Hedge and the spider map in Cloakwood forest had a baby. Skeletons, spiders (including spawns of multiple sword spiders), while being almost completely devoid of anything except trees.
Also like High Hedge, needlessly grumpy mage. This one hostile.
Note to self: Breaching Dark does not include Globe of Invulnerability. Use Shadow Spear.
Unfortunately I had nothing sufficiently non-lethal to disable all the confused partymates, so Gabriel and Ishlilka took down Aura then wandered around being menacing, fortunately far enough away that Gabriel didn't follow suit.
Area 2 and 3: Beregost and temple. More scavenger hunting and a fetch quest you have to drop 5k on and a rousing game of "search every damn house in town" for the right NPC.
Seer'd.
Area 4: The Watchtower.
I have no idea why there are little stone towers that shoot lightning bolts, but I hate this place.
Fortunately Gabriel's party consists of two melee fiends and four ranged attackers, so now I know to focus fire the golems and ignore everything else as a non-threat life is a lot simpler.
Area 5: The Island Cave This is my favourite of the SoA areas, full of spiders, (largely worthless) containers to loot, and a talking miniboss character.
Sort of glitchy talking miniboss character which, on encountering my shades, decided to wander across the map to find and talk to the closest party member. Not a smart move, since things in melee with the catboy in question don't tend to persist long.
Three mages, a stone golem, some high level fighters,
Otiluke'd!
Literally the round after the last guy fell, Otiluke's ran out. Mehhh.
On their way south to get paid, Gabriel encountered yet another assassin.
With the usual fate that happens to unknown NPCs.
... Sort of busy right now?
Apparently their base is in my favourite house in Beregost. Convenient![/spoiler]
Ookay, section base, running completely blind. How bad can it be?
The Cloak found on Gorion's body at the beginning of the game made The Ice island quest trivial.
We then proceeded with the Werewolf Island quest.
We then returned to Durlag's Tower and though there were some dicey moments, it all turned out well in the end.
We took the Soultaker dagger to Ulgoth's Beard and took on the cult there.
Drizzt then invited us on a quest with him in which we were successful.
We decided not to go with him to Icewind Dale. We then proceeded on to the end of BG1 after doing a minor diversion for Wostok. The end battle was completed by only taking on one of Sarevok's minions at a time. Improved invisibility was used to facilitate this.
The prologue to SoD caused no problems. Upon completion however Gavin, Xan and Montaron had disappeared along with their equipment. I hope that I will be able to find them again or at least their equipment. Xan had said that he wouldn't be going dungeon crawling with me again, so perhaps I should have retrieved his equipment at that stage.
Am I correct in thinking that Gavin, Xan and Montaron are not available in SoD?
Comments
Teaches me to not properly test what I'm doing. v0.82 makes the enemy stats significantly lower. A bunch of mooks should not make for a more difficult fight than their boss. I apologize.
Kung Fu Halfling IV - The Rise of Sarevok
Since Halflings and Half-Elves sound similar, I figure that makes this combination legitimate (full disclosure, I wanted a halfling because "Kung Fu Elf" isn't as funny sounding).
As a Dark Moon Monk Atlas lacks most of the usual thief-ly traits (side note: If someone gets on with making a Shadow Adept / Shadow Monk multiclass - or Shadow Monk / Regular Mage - that'd be pretty much #1 on my to play list), getting only Detect Illusion and Stealth skills and getting only 25 / 15-level skill points to boost them (at least theoretically, I'll be fixing that manually with EEKeeper now and then when I be bothered).
It's also, unlike the regular monk, sort of front loaded. The fist doesn't scale anymore, but always counts as a +5 weapon, deals 1D6, and gives 2 APR, and they can have one defensive style and one offensive style active at any particular time, which for me is a general utility +1 APR "Flurry of Blows", and permanent Reflect Image that refreshes each round, giving Atlas a 50% chance to ignore an incoming hit, and 2 APR with his crossbow.
If I were willing to Keeper together a custom monk combatant, it would be pretty easy to do by switching between "Select Fighting Style" innates in EE Keeper, with each monk kit's selection being keyed to a particular ability, though you can't customise what thief skills the monk can advance.
Anyways, enough reviewing, let's punch some faces.
First order of business: Recruit ablative partymates.
Second order of business: Change paperdoll. The "monk" paperdoll can't handle crossbows, and the thief doll misses out on kung fu kicks, and, more importantly, shoes. Not wearing shoes is ridiculous, especially in sewers.
Blind mage / Dead mage. I'll be back for you later statuecat.
Thanks for the scrolls! Might be back for those emeralds, but a few overpowered assassin squads and gold won't matter ever again.
Dark Mirror, with its endless images, is a great generalist defence option. Crit happens, and monks can't do anything about that, but they can at least halve the chance of taking the damage.
A fine start. Korax dies nobly after getting Atlas some magic arrows and a dead archer. Failed scribing Mutamin's stinking cloud scroll though. Meh.
Pantalion said: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.
Since I normally play good guys, Blowing NPCs up without first checking what they are up to is a no-no for me. I therefore speak to them and kill them when they attack.
The one mod that I wish that I had is DSoSC.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
In Baldur's Gate we did several minor quests which are undocumented.In this house we killed a lot of nasty creatures.
An important quest was that of dealing with Marek and Lothander.
We then did the Aaron quest killing ogre mages and winter wolves in the process.
We then did the very last part of the Stone of Askavar quest.
Dwarf Barb90 - the power of a beard
First posthttps://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/942608/#Comment_942608
DB90 is doing rather well, and I have enjoyed playing so much that I have forgotten to post his progress - a good sign.
DB90 had to face Drasus. BD90 divided the gang, killed Drasus and Genthore in a slugfest and the mages where bathed in a sea of fire...
In the mines sleeping was not an option. So diversion was needed. I was pleased to see how well horror works compared to slow poison
At the bottom BD90 buffed to the extreme and killed all. So far so good.
Playing a NE character has its perk, dropping reputation for the right Bhall powers also has its perks - but your economy is down the drain... especially when you depend on potions to save your ass.
In BG there is amble opportunity for profit - at a risk off course. Somebody has to pay for BDs spending:
Sunin, Ragefast, Jalantha Mistmyr, Quenash, the ogre in the sewers and Marek where amongst the victims - sorry guys, I needed the cash.
Did the final pre CK shopping and headed south. The tomes where picked up in the crypts, and a nice axe was picked up.
Back at the iron throne a critical hit from my throwing axe settled that fight - a one hit wonder...
Slythe was the only victim in the undercellar. BD90 was immune to his backstabs, but not to his sword. A painfull reminder of the high AC of the barbarian
The palace fight was a surprise. I charmed the priest of Helm, Ramizath, Ichtyl and anybody with a sword for the fight. I thought that I could stand in the middle, tank the dopplegangers and let the others control the crowd... great plan, but It didnt work:
The dopplegangers turned on my posse and killed them.. but it gave BD plenty of time to kill the dopplegangers and Injure Sarevok. So both Belt and whats her name was saved. And I finally got my RoP +2
Ran through the Maze trying to save up on the buffing from the palace fight for the temple fight. Reached over 300 hp and was fully protected when my potions of heroism ran out. In my version this brings your hp down below your max. Was suddenly down to a 100 HP out of 200 hp - a huge let down...
EDIT: apparantly a well known bug...
But after a bit more buffing, Sarevok was lured out of hiding and killed
Next stop Amn
Horror of horrors. None of the characters that I am supposed to meet after my return are there.
No smuggler near the bridge.
No harper to give hints as to what to do next etc.
Will I be able to finish the game?
I went to Duke Eltan and he asks: "What are you doing here? There is much to do."
It is as if the game hasn't registered the fact that I have finished Candlekeep.
EDIT:
At least I have plenty to do at present: ; Werewolf Island; Durlag's Tower; The Drizzt Saga. Having thought about it, it looks as if I need to change a Global Variable. Which it is, I have no idea.
I have had a reply to this in the BWS THREAD.
Standard fare wanderin'. With Purity of Body defensive style, Atlas renders himself immune to the hobgoblin's poison arrows that penetrated Dark Mirror.
And then died to a random encounter en route to kill Shoal. Sigh. I hate early BG. Clearly the RNG is punishing me for not making a new portrait in awhile.
Let's fix that.
I could have had a 99 roll, but honour would have required that I leave the roll untouched at 17/17/14/17/16/18, and ain't nobody got time for that.
And this is part of why regular Mage is astronomically superior to Shadow Adept. Of the five spells Gabriel knows at level 2, one is Sleep, two casts of which let him take down these ogres easy.
The other six, less so, but still, that's more me not wanting to rest again than anything else.
Random encounters are jerks. At least it wasn't a basilisk or ten bandits with bows.
After killing a bunch of basilisks with surprising and recurrent difficulty, Gabriel goes on the search for newfriends to get him flamethrowers. This particular install, Aura is an Artificer / Priestess, so she will hopefully be a tad less squishy.
Is that the result of a mod?
Dwarf Barb90 - a beard in Amn
In Bg1https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/943765/#Comment_943765
Waking up in chateau Irenicus, BD90 quickly found some gear and a stout axe. Picked up Balas Axe as well - a great axe for a barb. Rage doesnt last forever, and miscast magic is such a great follow up against mages.. and clerics.
Out of the dungeon BD picked up the reflection shield - and headed for the slavers.
Managed not to disturb the captain and the cleric didnt manage to get a spell off. The captain fell in 1 vs 1 contest. Bought the Stonefire axe for the trolls - and many many others..
WK is such a wonderfull place. Loads of XP and money. The welcoming party where the least preffered.
Have to come back when I have more than 5 hlas
Did some minor quests. Tried to free viccy, but she turned on me once free, and the fanatics was pleased to see me kill the drow. Sorry viccy but I cant reload...
Did some more minor quests, hit level 11 and bought the DoE. Time to pick up a stronghold.
The fights in vanilla d’Arnise are straight forward. Yuanti mages are a pest - but alone they are no problem. Actually the oytygh gave me the biggest scare - it crept up on whilst killing the dogs. And I wasnt watching the screen...
Tanked the golems - dualwielding FoA and FoE. Flails are nice...
For money BD90 did the Maevar questline, killed and evil party at the bridge & promenade and robbed the merchant erstate at the bridge
Did the fallen paladins, killed Neb, went to trademeet and solved the skinner case for money and fame
Adding Cernd to my party was a mistake - dont like NPCs, dont like Druids and dont like Cernd. But he did kill Faldorn
Getting a second pair of pants set back my rep. But they do look fancy...
Sided with the thieves. Wasnt sure about killing the thieves, and PfU is so nice. Picked up a nice mace, that came to good use
I still have to do the unseeing eye, the planar prison and the planer sphere - then a couple og levels before going back to WK. But perhaps these should wait for my return from underdark... still to decide. The remaining quests in the city see high risk, whilst the other route will give some HLAs.
While I wonder, take a look at the dwarf: ring of gaxx, the claw, belt of interior barrier and cloak of displacement -> unbuffed save against spell -4
The inbuilt magical punches are pretty handy. Especially since there's no Drake in this install to hit things with the Stupefier and tank.
Sigh. Sleep random encounters are ridiculous too. Either enemies spontaneously appear right on top of you with no time passed, killing your paladin who you rested for to skip a ghoul's hold duration, or you spend eight hours with zero trouble. It's pure luck which happens and what appears, and a very gamey implementation. An hourly check with chances weighted by previous encounters in the area would have been better in my opinion.
15 arrows, two Flesh Golems, and risking death when one rounded a corner unexpectedly, but made it, thankfully, my next option was melee or Ishlilka's throwing spear, which is about the same thing it's so close range.
Sleep is probably the #1 spell I'll be missing, it's just so handy against the armies of critters that are collectively more likely to kill you purely by ten getting a crit in a single round or something.
Stillness of Mind: Charm Immunity. Since Sirine generally cast first, Gabriel can safely purge their invisibility close up while attacking, then (theoretically) move back (or switch to poison immunity) when they start with the arrows.
It never actually happened that way since they switched to melee instead. I'm not sure if Still Mind works against their feeblemind on hit, but Gabriel kept his wits either way.
And then Aura "helped" him while the kiting Flesh Golems by running up to him to start casting Cure Light Wounds when one punched through five mirror images to hit him... and then did it again while he was stuck by Aura. My fault for not fixing her AI I guess.
Ah well. Fragility aside, I must say the Monastic Orders monk is certainly novel. I already have a plan for Gabriel Mk II, who will start life as a pure Shining Hand Monk, then dual into Mage at level 7 to check out the new Shadow Adept quest update, becoming, I can only assume, a Shadow Sun Ninja from the Book of Nine Swords.
After clearing the Troll Claw Woods, my party made their way to Morentherene, where I decided not to use the throwing dagger trick this time, because I felt strong enough to easily take down the dragon in a direct battle. I entered the lair and stated buffing, but this apparently woke up my foe, and I was attacked without having my summons and most of my buffs ready - making this a rather difficult fight.
I started the battle without remove fear, because Ucurian's aura was still clouded from summoning skeletons - however, only Tarnele got affected by dragon fear. A hit from the breath weapon meant that she was in serious trouble:
While my ranged weapons users took down Morentherene's adds, a hasted Ucurian made his way to Tarnele to cast remove fear, allowing her to get rid of the poison effect. Camalan activated his defensive stance and started drinking healing potions - luckily, he was quite capable of standing up to the dragon in melee combat:
From this point on, victory was easily achieved:
I entered the Temple of Bhaal and cleared the first part. The Neothelid died before even disappearing once, and the Shadow Aspect fell to Ucurian's true sight. Finally, Darkshelin & friends were bombed by six fireballs:
At Bridgefort, I quickly completed most quests (but forgot to do one of them, sadly) and surrendered the camp. This is the first time I'm doing this, but since I'm a relatively experienced SoD player by now, I don't mind experimenting with different options a bit, even in a no-reload context.
Next chapter: After doing some Coalition Camp questing, I went to get the Sundermaul +3. This weapon almost provided me with my first party death in SoD when an already injured Camalan got knocked down by earthquake:
Somehow, the earthquake effect never really triggered for me in any previous runs, but this time, it's been getting quite annoying. I made my way to the Underground River, cleared the area (Kanaglym was quite easy because I slew Kherriun before her prebuffs fired). As for Hephernaan, I was able to quickly take down his allies with true sight and breach, allowing me to isolate him early on. His unholy blight spells only affected my undead hunter, so he was basically wasting his time casting them, and this forced him into a quick retreat:
Finally, the crusader waves were solved via more fireballs, and for the boss group, full buffs, true sight and my allies provided me with a quick victory:
For the Siege of Dragonspear, I made my way to Ashatiel and declined her duel, as dueling isn't exactly what Ucurian is good at. Instead, I fought her party with the help of my army - she didn't retreat to the northwestern part of the castle, so I dispelled her defensive buffs and took her down with ranged weapons, ending the siege rather quickly:
As for Avernus: I was really overprepared for this part, having more potions than ever, and even tons of additional scrolls. Basically, I made my entire party immune to everything these devils can throw at you, excluding physical damage, turning the final few encounters into straightforward battles with my party at a huge advantage. True sight, of course, is also incredibly helpful against Belhifet, and the devil really stood no chance. Caelar survived the whole ordeal and actually stole the last hit:
This time, SoD taught me these three things: a) Don't buff inside Morentherene's Lair. b) Use the Sundermaul with utmost care. c) I should propably play SoD on insane with turned off extra damage, not on core rules.
Now, the achievable part of this run has concluded. BG2 will be an entirely different thing, because I have never really played BG2 with SCS except once, where I had to reload many, many times and only made it to early chapter 4. There's basically no chance of me completing BG2 (and especially ToB) with my full SCS + Ascension installation (I also have never played with Ascension before, at all), so what follows is mostly going to be a learning experience (and I play to finish the run with reloads after I inevitably die, so I will actually have the required experience to deal with SCSII and Ascension in future runs).
Enuhal
Gabriel Mk II (not counting a few other Gabriels that died horribly), sporting just enough wisdom to dual class, and being just about unwise enough to think he's a human (don't worry, he'll figure it out in 6 levels).
I'm so mean to this bard lass.
Managed to scrape together five scrolls of Stone to Flesh, enough to hit dual level, hopefully the rest of the lisk map will be enough to hit a decent mage level to boot.
Dualling into Mage means Gabriel gets a familiar. If I were a(n even more) powergamey sort he'd be Lawful Neutral to get a Ferret for the pick pocket, but a badboy CN gets a kitty, and that kitty stone cold kills people without even flinching.
One of the quirks of being a dual monk is that Gabriel's fighting style can't be changed, but the fighting style he had when he dualled still applies. In this case, this means permanent fear and charm immunity, +1 APR from Flurry of Blows, and his fist is still there, occupying a weapon slot. He's a strangely martial mage.
Pew pew.
I should probably get those two raised, maybe find the rest of my party at some point, but soloing another 36,000 Exp first is also tempting. Also...
Unfamiliar NPC.
Killstealing Brage then stealing his crap. Mm yes. 25k to go.
Way too close.
I'm so used to this guy both surviving and retaliating with lightning I was almost two maps out by the time it registered that he died. Whoops.
Finally. Greywolf lends Gabriel a sword and his lifeblood, giving him the final experience he needed to complete his dual. Time to raise some probably fairly ripe corpses and get the rest of the party, it's time to get dark up in here.
Her only spells above level 5 are limited, though she can definitely end a solo run with a -2 save or maze.
Having completed at least one stage of the quest, Gabriel can now make the change, with one important piece of prep:
And then Gabriel spent all his money on shadow equipment in their special store, including...
A wand of 3x shade arrows.
Some save editing was needed to repair the Monk's THAC0 (since it reverted to Mage/Thief after the dual repaired), and to remove Set Snare and replace it with the Monk's combat styles, otherwise Gabriel would have been stuck with +1 APR / Mind Shield forever.
I'm pretty sure his wisdom to AC bonus is broken, but I dunno how to fix that one, so... yeah, guess I'll be missing out on an extra 5 AC or so by the end of BG1.
Not that I'd mind much. Gabriel has 100 Detect Illusions, the only thing a Shining Hand monk can boost except Detect Traps (which is what we have gnomes and potions for), and hits like a truck thanks to an x3'd Strength Tome from Durlag's.
He's a sirine shredding nightmare in black right now.
There are zero hints where these shadow mages are hanging out, which is a kick in the reproductive organs with the sheer scale of BG1's area. Xarius is #2, and I was not prepped in the slightest for him.
Fortunately, I do have shades and, shortly after this, skeletons to take him on. Shadow Adepts, from personal experience, are pretty terrible against undead, since they focus a lot on cold damage, hold, sleep, and various other things undead don't care about.
I have a sinking feeling that I'm going to have to explore the Firewine Ruins and Cloakwood, which will be terrible.
Also, shadow fiends at 9th level (Gabriel gets +1 CL from his 18 Int) are just brutal, for both Gabriel and Xarius, they don't have the right undead immunities but they do have Hold strikes,
Assassin team killed on the way to plot.
Exploring entire mines looking for Shadow Mages: Tedious. Chapter 3 get at least, so time to grab that shadow dagger and upgrade from the current dart.
A second go with a shapeshifter in this challenge is currently sitting at the start of SoD. However, after reading a thread about the merits or otherwise of blades I was motivated to give one of those a go.
As normal I went straight to Shoal where offensive spin helped shoot her down quickly - offering a jump start up to level 4.
A few scrolls were bought at High Hedge, but unfortunately I fluffed both protection from petrification ones - meaning the intended early trip to the basilisks was abandoned. Instead various tasks around Beregost were done - sleep made helping Zhurlong & Mirianne trivial, while blind sorted out Karlat and Silke. More sleep on some spiders then got me to level 5.
Sleeping sickness struck an ogre on the way to the FAI, where Tarnesh was blinded (without SCS he has to get close to you to talk and won't go hostile from a failed attempt to blind him).
Heading north I stopped off at the ankheg nest. Casting invisibility when ankhegs first surface strands them on top - allowing sleep to be safely cast from out of sight (if you rest in the nest they stay surfaced). Clearing the nest like that took a bit of time, but was totally safe and enough to get me to level 6.
A few more ankhegs died and Tenya got her bowl back before I headed for Durlag's Tower. The battle horrors there were magic missiled (if you rest in the area they don't recover their HPs). The quick XP there meant it didn't take long to get up to level 7 courtesy of a doom guard.
Before going into the Tower I decided to do a bit of travelling. High Hedge provided some more spells, including skull trap. Then I took a trip through Nashkel (learning Bhaal CLW there) and then on through the Cloud Peaks to the Gnoll Stronghold to get the charisma tome.
The Nashkel Mine was mainly travelled invisibly and skull traps soon dealt with Mulahey and his support crew.
Back at Durlag's Tower I used invisibility to get into position for the basilisks, web to disable them temporarily and then blind to allow them to be finished off at leisure - I hadn't brought much ammunition, but offensive spin meant not much was needed
The same sort of treatment was given to more basilisks to the north. Mutamin was webbed and skull trapped. At that point I went back to Nashkel to clear out inventory and took the opportunity to web Nimbul and successfully learn his find familiar scroll to give a little HP boost. Back at the basilisk area Baerin and Peter were blinded before Kirian's mob as a whole were webbed and finished off with offensive spin.
With another level looming I went to the Valley of the Tombs. Magic missiles and spin aided by ghost armor and mirror images made short work of the Revenant.
Another good source of XP waited at the Lighthouse, but I got careless there. Two of the first group of sirines died in skulltraps, but in searching out the last I was distracted by a hobgoblin that appeared nearby and didn't retreat quickly enough when the sirine started casting charm - luckily I saved. There were no further alarms with the sirines or while shooting the golems up to get the constitution tome. After using that I returned to the FAI to buy Buckley's Buckler in order to activate constitution regeneration.
The ogres and sirines in Shoal's area provided some more quick XP and the Doomsayer added to the tally.
Up to this point I've deliberately avoided doing any reputation quests. That's partly because I'm using scimitars as a main weapon and I suspect Drizzt is due for a nasty accident shortly ...
Blade L10, 69 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 203 kills
After getting out of the starting dungeon, my party gathered some early experience at the circus tent and the copper coronet. No trouble here, and I bought a magic license with the gold I obtained (its more expensive in my installation, but I need it because I don't know which buildings are actually protected against the improved cowled wizards, and I plan on using a lot of magic outisde).
Because I remember SCS ambushes being relatively tough, I travelled under invisibility 10' radius - this payed off against Suna Seni, as it allowed me to build some distance and throw an arsenal of powerful arcane magic at my would-be ambushers:
I completed many minor quests (basically everything that didn't involve fighting any arcane spellcasters), though soon enough, I decided that everyone who was only capable of using level 5 spells or lower was fair game, which allowed me to get the item randomiser going to get some decent equipment (nothing super special, but at least +1 weapons for everyone and some okay armor). Lilarcor was an important pickup for Ayla. After being done with the easier quests, I started hunting some adventuring parties, like Mencar and friends - here, Tarnele showed her power with traps and a backstab, basically taking down almost the entire hostile party by herself:
At the sewers, I got into a fight against the rakshasa, but he failed to deal with the level 11 version of my skeleton warriors. Tarnor's party was more interesting, as I accidentally opened their dialoge and started combat without being fully prepared. I quickly retreated and threw out some buffs, including invisibility 10' radius. This allowed me to get in a first strike with Tarnele (though arguably on the wrong target, but the mage was protected with stoneskins):
I retreated once again, leaving my skeletons to distract the opposing group. Gaius, however, made the mistake of following my retreating forces, propably in order to dispel their buffs. I didn't give him the opportunity, as true sight + breach allowed me to quickly take him down with physical attacks - he didn't get to use any offensive spells:
To be fair, going for this fight was actually quite risky, because Ucurian wasn't protected at all against some of the things Gaius could've thrown at him, but I noticed some weaknesses in the opposing mage's prebuffing script, so I just had to go for it. I was happy to deal with medium level mages at this point, but some foes yet unchallenged were backstabbing SCS thieves in greater numbers. Of course, true sight helps quite a bit here. I also learned that they seem to always go for the target with the lowest hp total not protected by stoneskins - so in my case, usually Tarnele:
Too bad priests of helm don't stand for this kind of behaviour.
Basically, I managed to complete all smaller quests in chapter 2/3 (everything that isn't stronghold related or a high level encounter), including WK level 1 without the statues. No major issues at all, the most dangerous encounter was propably one of the ambushes that I wasn't exactly prepared for, but greater malison + chaos solved the situation:
Following @semiticgod 's advise, I went to the druid grove next and killed all the trolls, spiders, spore colonies, shambling mounds, earth elementals and druids outside. The troll mound provided me with my first really good item randomiser drop: The boots of speed! Nice!
Kylan Lind was backstabbed via staff, though Ihtafeer was a bit more difficult: My initial traps only killed one of her servants, so I decided - because some other attempts at dealing serious damage to these foes failed, forcing me to retreat - to buff up Ayla with some potions and have her solo this encounter:
Not only did this work very well, I also found blackblood +3 here.
I made my way to Faldorn and took Cernd into my party. My first two attempts fo fight Faldorn failed (tried it a) with insect plague and b) with dolorous decay, resurrecting him via the level 5 cleric spell after each failed attempt), but on the third try, I just activated the greater werewolf form (Cernd spawned at level 13) and attacked, and this turned out to do the trick, because magic resistance worked wonders against most of Faldorn's spells, and she eventually had to fight me with her bare fists:
Oh, and I took the opportunity (after buying the dwarven thrower) for a little bit of extra XP by completing Cernd's personal quest, which was easy, because I previously had trapped Deril's estate. However, the game once again (this happens a lot) failed at recognizing whose traps were actually dealing the damage, making it seem like Cernd is actually a bounty hunter:
Things are going quite well so far, much better than expected. I'm pleased. This propably means Ucurian is going to die soon
Or revenge for Oublek, though he actually managed to hurt Nimbul this time. One of these days he's going to actually win the fight, keep trying Oublek!
No dagger though. Fooo. Must be on one of the Shadow Mages I haven't found yet.
Showing Drizzt how it's supposed to be done.
They wouldn't be hiding in Durlag's, right? Game design principle suggests that a target can't be in somewhere that can only be accessed once during the plot, which means one-off areas like Werewolf Island or the Ice Maze probably can't be valid locations, while the BG sewers and other random caves can be. Searching all of Firewine was awful enough, I'm sincerely hoping I don't have to search individual Gullykin houses or something.
The tiny duration aside, Decoy is a great little spell with a lot of potential for leading enemies into trouble, or in this case their own Cloudkill. That's what you get for Gabriel not getting cloudkill spells, or something. In the end I think the only kill I got was Fear, from the pre-trapping.
Random mod note aside:
Aura has a retort for the girdle of genderbending, which many mods don't think to add and is a nice touch.
That said, I slapped the Belt of Mighty Fists on her from Pride and she had nothing to say about being transformed from super genius gnome to an illiterate halfwit. Ah well.
Bru. Tal.
Even the Ashirikiririri can't hurt the fiends, while the ghouls can't hold 'em. They're completely immune to fire, ice and acid, making them pretty much perfect grunts to front line in Gabriel's fire wand killzone.
Overall, the biggest "event" in Durlag's so far was when Gabriel's shadeskins were pierced by a Greater Doppelganger and he was one crit away from death the round it died. Oh, and Nyx got killed, but that's hardly an event considering I had her on the frontlines directing shadow fiends around the map.
Still only two Shadow Mages found though. If one is in the acid area on the bottom floor, they can stay missing as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not that cruel.
Previous updates:
I tried attacking Drizzt at the start of the session, but he dispelled one potion of speed and the remaining one wasn't sufficient to shoot him up (in fact I suspect both together wouldn't have been anyway).
Instead I went to skull trap Tranzig before moving on to the Bandit Camp. Sleep for the bandits and web and skull traps for Taurgosz quickly led to Tazok's tent where webbed slaughter commenced.
I tried pickpocketing Algernon, but failed 3 times in a row before he went hostile - so just killed him. The cloak was used to charm Dushai and move her away from others before killing her as well.
Back on the main quest I zipped through the Cloakwood before webbing Drasus & co.
Back at the Cloakwood Mine I sneaked down to Davaeorn and bombed him with skull traps.
A quick tour of the realms picking up on reputation quests previously left soon pushed that up to 20 and a bit of shopping followed before moving on to Baldur's Gate. The first task there was to pick up the tomes. Jalantha was shot down before she could cast, while Marek could do nothing against my new improved invisibility spell. Ramazith was cut down before he could finish a spell.
The next major target was the Cloak of Balduran. Degrodel's guards were pulled outside there and killed with spell damage and in webs. I also experimented there with using melee and defensive spin for the first time.
At the Iron Throne 3 webs were used before a pair of skull traps. A malison was intended to help hold the remaining enemies while being shot up, but Alai managed to break free and cast shadow door just as the malison was on the way. I responded to that by going invisible myself and resting on the roof before coming back down to finish things off.
After buying up desired scrolls at Sorcerous Sundries I used a newly learnt minor spell deflection to quickly return to Durlag's Tower and get the tome there. Then I reported to Duke Eltan for duty in Candlekeep. Minor globe protected against most traps there and the tombs were soon knocked open. After bypassing the dopplegangers, Prat & co got the web treatment
Back in Baldur's Gate I let Slythe talk in order to generate Krystin and then used MM and a first use of MMM on him.
Before going on to the Palace I decided to take a detour to Ice Island. Web did a good job disabling the mages for skull traps and MMMs to finish off while MGoI protected against traps. I found a remove magic scroll there, but failed to learn that. However, the main objective was the stoneskin scroll and I made no mistake with that one.
At the Palace I summoned some monsters from scrolls and hasted those. Malison and confusion affected 3 dopplegangers, but the others soon had Belt badly wounded and in trouble and I put invisibility on him to break up the attack. That resulted in the 3 remaining dopplegangers chasing me and a Bhaal horror affected one of those. The other 2 were killed partly with the help of a first use of minor sequencer (2x magic missile). That eventually left Belt with 35 HPs at the end. He was pulled away into the back room to avoid any chance of Sarevok killing him.
After a final bit of shopping I dived into the maze and soon cleared that - doing an unusual amount of buffing up to shoot down the skeleton warriors there.
Inside the temple a dispelling arrow shot at Sarevok missed, but I then went invisible to draw him away from the others and trigger his conversation (ensuring that only Semaj would come out to fight). When Semaj teleported out I was out of sight and tried dispel magic on him. That failed, but malisoned webs allowed me to shoot a dispelling arrow at him and when he got stuck again he was soon finished off with spin - despite his contingency firing several times and causing lots of magic missile damage.
Incidentally, in the unlikely event anyone has been scrutinising these updates closely, you might have noticed I've not used any wands to date. I've been doing that for a bit of extra amusement, but wands will be featuring in SoD
Here's my record on transfer to SoD - as usual reflecting I got carried away with a bit of overkill in BG1.
Blade L10, 69 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 339 kills
This is the first BG2 session where I really felt the power of SCS, though only at the very end.
First, the temple ruins: As I'm not high level enough yet to get lich spawns, this was fairly easy - especially with a single-class cleric being able to turn most foes. Against the shade lord, I took @Neverused 's advice and went in under invisibility 10' radius, moved out of sight of the shade lord and took down Shadow Patrick with magical ammo + the shadow altar with a sunstone bullet. After that, I engaged the shade lord (protected with death wards and SI:N for Saldor) and dispelled his defensive buffs with true sight, secret word and breach - he only managed to drain 1-2 levels before falling to my ranged weapons:
Shadow Patrick dropped the belt of hill giant strength!
Next: Mae'Var - for Rayic Gethras, I quickly discovered an easy way to take him down with my bounty hunter by telling him I was going to leave, moving far to the south and throwing some traps his way before talking to him again so he'd turn hostile:
True sight did work against the thieves, and Mae'Var himself suffered a fatal case of getting webbed:
(note how I accidentally moved into my own webs, like a complete fool - though it didn't end up causing any harm)
I started the unseeing eye to get some more random loot - with the plan, as per @semiticgod 's advice, not to face off against any beholders yet. Since I wanted to clear the ghoul city, though, I was forced to kill at least the one group of beholders and gauths in front of the lost city with the Amaunator temple - I used a couple of cloudkill spells, fireballs and skeleton warriors to achieve this (Ucurian isn't level 15 yet, but Ismene Santal, my bard, is):
For the ghoul city, I used a combination of turn undead and false dawn, and I actually found the gauntlets of dexterity, apparently not moved by item randomiser - which is great for Ayla! After that, I snuck through the beholder hive and back home under invisibility 10' radius.
De'Arnise keep started out easy enough - regular troll groups, no matter how big, don't scare my party at all. I almost killed the Yuan-Ti mage with a backstab, but he barely survived, so I had to breach him to achieve victory. The golems fell to my fighters and summons.
However, the improved Tor'Gal turned out to be the toughest opponent in the entire run so far. Damn, that's some difficulty spike. To be fair, I kind of underestimated him and didn't rest before starting, so my spellbook wasn't completely full - still, I had a couple of summons and buffs at the ready. My plan was to get rid of some foes via Tarnele's Otiluke's traps, allowing for a quick victory. However, my summons were quickly overwhelmed and only one opponent was trapped. This ended up blocking the way into Tor'Gals room, because the Otiluke'd foe was standing right in the middle of the doorway (luckily, none of my characters was inside). At this point, I should have retreated, but I decided to try and use this to my advantage and take down some trolls with ranged weapons. However, this only resulted in the Yuan-Ti mages successfully using remove magic on me.
This is where my lack of resting came back to bite me, because I didn't have enough spells to rebuff (in particular, no more haste spells). As the special trap duration ended, I threw my first level 7 cleric spell, a firestorm, at my foes, but only some trolls were minorly affected. I had to retreat, and to be fast enough, I had to use some oils of speed. On my way out, as the trolls followed me, I found two good opportunities to thin their numbers with some well placed fireballs and ranged attacks, though Camalan was badly hurt at this point:
Another fireball and more quick attacks (the Yuan-Ti mages were slow to follow, so I felt relatively save for a very short while), and all trolls except for Tor'Gal were destroyed. However, he and his mages remained at basically full power. I ran upstairs, but my foes followed me. Some more running (with Ayla almost dying, forcing me to swap around my boots of speed quite a bit) resulted in the Yuan-Ti mages getting distracted by some aerial servants I had completely forgotten about - I had used these against the golems, and since I hadn't rested, they were still around. Great! This allowed me to separate Tor'Gal from his minions:
I tried to reinforce my summons (note the wyvern summoned by the book of infinite spells, previously provided by item randomiser). I had to drink a couple of healing potions and use quite a lot of nukes (including some very crucial wand of the heavens charges), but eventually, Tor'Gal was done for:
Somehow, the Yuan-Ti mages were unable to deal with the aerial servants (they just stopped using spells against them - though they did use some when I tried to have Camalan help out, so I retreated once again and let my summons deal with this), and this long battle was over. Exhausting.
Well, that's it for now
Enuhal
The chess board was the most "exciting" part of floor 3, since the king charged with his knights and pawns, so Gabriel had to drop some quick fireballs to kill the rest of the board that hung back before the king was killed.
Spiders are no match for the shambling hordes.
And, while it's not quite the level of slime tanking, 85% magic resistance is no match for three memorised impose spells and a Black Ooze. Impose cast just about quick enough that the only spell the knight managed was a fireball.
My CHARNAME's have the gift of prophecy. It saves a lot of time.
Hobgoblin boots and shadow mage #3, life is good. For me, it's about to get pretty bad for them.
I'm not sure why he's standing outside the cave drinking potions, but since according to the log he's currently surrounded by shadow fiends and a globe of invulnerability, he can go ahead and chug potions for a bit.
This got pretty close, since Gabriel got confused and wandered over to where some hobgoblin elites started stacking poison on him, while the Shadow Fiends all followed him. Fortunately Aura managed to turn the fiends, shoot down the elites, then shoot Gabriel with healing arrows to keep him safely healthy until he sobered up and could Purity of Body some poison immunity while the rest of the party killed the mage.
The mage had the throwing dagger, so Gabriel's ranged damage has pretty much doubled even dropping to 3 APR. Time to hit the bandit camp.
Not even close. Wand of fire handshake before sending in the fighter types to kill the survivors that were smart enough not to follow Gabriel outside.
Huh. Forgot about these chuckles. Good thing I wasn't in too bad shape.
Gabriel ate three flame strikes in this fight, but everyone survived and it all went pretty well. Time to-
Damnit.
Oh lookit that, came into the map from another direction. Seer powers activate etc.
I'm just glad I scouted with this one, these guys are nasty, but I thought they only showed up in Chapter 5. Apparently they have nothing better to do?
According to Nyx I'm one of her better masters, overall.
That's is a little sad.
Zero risk free stuff is the best type of free stuff.
That's twice I've failed pick pocketing against Shandalar with pick pocket skills way above one hundred. What's the safe number here?
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/945200/#Comment_945200
Arriving in the SoD prologue I immediately levelled up. A skull trap opened the way to reach Porios who duly surrendered to give access to the next level. I didn't bother with anything there - just going invisibly through all the undead (playing on core, so there's no bone bats to see through invisibility). Korlasz was dispelled, but instantly rebuffed and her mirrors initially protected against a wand scorcher. However, with stoneskin, blur and mirror image active I was in no immediate danger and a second dispelling arrow ensured that the second round of the scorcher would hit - prompting a surrender.
In Baldur's Gate I didn't do any quests as such, but did kill various NPCs for their equipment - Minsc, Dynaheir, Safana and Rasaad all have valuable gear. I also picked up the Spectacles of Spectacle from Zaviak.
On arrival at the Coast Way Crossing I bought a bag of holding before leaving for the Coast Way Forest. Some summoned monsters and a potion of clarity were used there to help the vampire in order to get a ioun stone of regeneration (particularly helpful for me as I don't allow the use of any healing potions or other items).
On the return journey a couple of skull traps killed some orcs and trolls.
Back at the Coast Way Crossing free action ensured no nasty spider surprises while activating the menhirs. Teleria was also killed from range to get the Stone Ally. I wasn't bothered about getting help for the Crusader battles, so just cleared the few enemies in the way of Crommus' stash in the Dwarven Dig Site. Prin also gave me the Reed of Echoes to boost spells that can be memorized each day. That sits in the off-hand and has the disadvantage of preventing single weapon proficiency bonuses, but doesn't inflict dual weapon penalties. I was already at the XP cap, so didn't fight at the bridge, but just waited invisibly behind the tent until Caelar was ready to parlay.
I passed through Troll Claw Woods without doing anything and moved on to the Forest of Wyrms. I made my way past all the initial enemies and Morentherene and moved on into the temple. The guards there were killed to prevent them coming to Ziatar's aid, though I noticed that pulling one of them back near the cages turned Keherrem hostile. Once all the guards were dead Ziatar was just fireballed from outside his room.
For the Neothelid I used a stone form potion to help get negative saves and summoned some monsters to act as fodder. A couple of scorchers were mainly resisted, but MMMs hit regularly to do the damage needed.
After spin and MMMs sorted out a couple of hill giants attacking a baby dragon, I've just arrived at Boareskyr Bridge.
Blade L12, 73 HPs (incl. 6 from familiar), 430 kills
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/945200/#Comment_945200
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/945496/#Comment_945496
On arrival at Boareskyr Bridge I spun a tale of Keherrem's valiant last stand to get access to the crusader camp. Vichand was left in no condition to object to me pinching his scroll and moving on to the fort. Inside there I killed a wraith and got Hillcarver to make some void arrows for me. I surrendered the fort before tackling the mage on the bridge. A single dispelling arrow hit him, but I couldn't finish him off before he disappeared and rebuffed. I then missed with 8 further dispelling arrows while doing some running round and eventually resorted to a wand scorcher to kill him. Large numbers of hobgoblins then arrived from somewhere before the bridge could be opened and I had to take a potion of invisibility there to recover HPs before dealing with them.
I didn't bother with the goblins and myconids in a travel encounter area on the way to the Coalition Camp. I only stayed long enough there to pick up the quest for Hephernaan along with some Bwoosh and poison before heading out. A dead magic zone on the way to Dead Man's Pass was skipped (though if I'd had stoneskin active I would probably have tried using the wand of fire there). On arrival at Dead Man's Pass there was a momentary concern when I tried to go invisible only to find I was being attacked by some displacer beasts - apparently the magic blocking from the dead magic zone persists for a few seconds after travel. A second attempt was successful and I quickly moved through the area, only stopping off to collect some +3 arrows from a killer mimic.
A quick stop-off at Dragonspear Castle persuaded some mercenaries to leave Skie alone. Then, ignoring Bloodbark Grove, I moved on to the Underground River. A potion of stone form was used there to lower saves while killing some myconids. I patiently used resting and webs to deal with the mages guarding the underground entrance and, after finishing off the outside guards, just went invisibly through the compound and into the entrance.
Underground, telling a story to some sahuagin netted me a wand of water elemental summoning. Turin Brassbreaker was annoyed to get him to move and open the way for me to sneak past him invisibly. Upstairs I poisoned the food and water, but then had to run around with the help of an oil of speed for an uncomfortably long time (true sight preventing invisibility) before Hephernaan finally appeared - his conversation unlocked the elevator and a potion of invisibility provided enough of a break to get on it.
Back at the Coalition Camp a crusader invasion was imminent. Some myconids delayed the ogres and trolls while the wand of fire cut them down. Some exploding arrows made short work of the mages before scorchers ruled the fighting mob. However, the final opponents proved much more problematic. Before going into sight of those I decided to be 'cautious' and make a first use in the run of a potion of magic shielding to protect against stray spells. I then moved forward and tried to use a scorcher on Grimgor - but it didn't fire. I'm not quite sure why as I thought the time spent moving forward would have been more than sufficient to clear my aura, but I foolishly stayed in place for a couple of seconds thinking that any instant it must cast. It didn't though and in the meantime attackers moved in on me and I took a critical melee hit that instantly brought my HPs down to 9 (I had had stoneskin operating, but I think I must have been hit by a dispelling arrow as well). I tried to run and then take a potion of invisibility and, checking on the screenshot, was successful in doing that - but another arrow was already in the air ...
Okay, summon shades is pretty overpowered, since each of the shades summoned has a number of spells of its own, including, importantly in this case, Impose, which gives zero craps about Shandalar's MR.
I don't remember who Dushai is, but hopefully he's not plot critical to anything?
Phew! Didn't want or need to kill him, so I'm happy with zero casualties here. Shame about the infinite use ice wand from Aura I missed out on though.
Since Gabriel actually has some defensive potions and a dispel magic memorised, his body is as ready as ready gets for the whole demon lord, with one minor issue being that he has nobody capable of casting invisibility to get position first. Darnit.
Sorry Cult guy, Gabriel is loaded for ninja, your puny, non-toxic, attacks aren't going to do much.
Having to reload due to a bug, I took a penalty for it, because first time round I forgot one of the cultists and had to kill Aec twice, this time round I went for three times.
It would have been four but AI killed a cultist while I was trying to save Verr'Sza. Either way, Gabriel remained perfectly safe throughout, despite tanking the demon an excessively long amount of time, and Ishlilka and Verr'Sza died versus Sirene and Ishlilka.
Dispel does nothing!
Best. Guard. Ever.
The party is joined by a dwarf who wants to go to Durlag's Tower and discover its secrets.
I hope this isn't on a timer, because that would be awkward.
Uhhh.... Sure thing, little miss "fails her first save and dies".
I didn't forget about you guys.
Well, I did. But not permanently. Gimme that belt that I already have one of!
I generally prefer to leave AI intact and deal with the stupidity of my virtual comrades as it comes up. This is one of many such times, and why the ring of free action is mandatory adventuring equipment. Thankfully Ishlilka makes a few dozen saves vs poison, and Gabriel slow poisons Verr'Sza in time. Especially for Verr'Sza, whenever he dies and revives I lose reputation.
Brute forcing things is sometimes more satisfying than killing everything with a wand of fire.
That feeling when you're exploring for Shadow Mages with a lone boots o' haste scout and stumble across something ridiculous.
Yes, the "dragon" dropped a wyvern head. I don't even. Checking spoilers, apparently the druid I murder on sight every game gives a quest to kill it.
...Whoops? I hope the reward isn't more than the two rings of protection +2, magic armour, druid bracers of +1 APR, magic druid armour and necklace of +1 Wisdom looted from her corpse. Maybe I should stop-
Unfamiliar NPC!
Karate chopping a panther to death: Pretty Metal.
Let's hear it for lax equipment restrictions. Not that she's allowed to keep all that stuff, she still has -8 AC without.
This is probably the second most ridiculous item I've seen after the katana of petrification. 50% chance of no save stun, which when it lands will make all future hits auto hitting, locking the target down forever?
Apparently the NPC with a wyvern fetishist turns into a store when you pay him his 300 GP toll instead of attacking you with two ultra wyverns.
Honestly, considering that wyverns are intelligent neutral evil monsters that love to torture the idea of a ranger hanging out with them is offensive to muh lore, and unfamiliar NPC policy saves lives, but my bag of holding was full of overpowered crap, so... yeah.
Verr'Sza eats critical existence failure against Blacktalon Elites. Those guys are nasty. Also possible that the ranger with a racial enemy of "Gibberling" just isn't up to snuff, considering he has the worst AC and HP except Aura, who's exclusively on the backlines. I need to find him some better gear I guess.
I should probably help them, right?
Nehhhh.
Honestly I spare these guards whenever the opportunity presents itself. They're generally neutral schlubs doing a job, have zero hope against the party, and probably have family's of their own.
Bye, placeholder!
No shadow adepts, thankfully. Lost forever quest content would be lame. Searching everywhere is still tedious though. Time for Dave the Orn.
Well apparently spell deflecting does nothing at all against Lightning Bolt. Good to know.
Gabriel still solo'd him with Shadow Missile spam, of course. Shield is a level 1 spell, Dave, probably should invest in a scroll sometime.
I don't even know what these guys' deal is, it might be some druid reward committee, but we'll never know, because druids still die on sight.
Shadow Mage! One I... Thought I killed, actually?
I did! I did killed that puddy tat!
Ah well. I don't exactly need an extra throwing dagger. That did remind me to head south though...
Chapter 5, time to start fighting ridiculous stone golems!
Step 2: Fast travel to Carnival.
New Quest: Travel to Beregost and back again. Reward 350 GP, 1000 Exp, magic mirror of infinite 4 round blur (+3 AC, methinks Verr'Sza might benefit most, since he doesn't have an aura to manage or a -5 base AC).
I wish all super easy transport quests were that lucrative.
Anyways, Area 1: Bluebell Forest.
Like High Hedge and the spider map in Cloakwood forest had a baby. Skeletons, spiders (including spawns of multiple sword spiders), while being almost completely devoid of anything except trees.
Also like High Hedge, needlessly grumpy mage. This one hostile.
Note to self: Breaching Dark does not include Globe of Invulnerability. Use Shadow Spear.
Unfortunately I had nothing sufficiently non-lethal to disable all the confused partymates, so Gabriel and Ishlilka took down Aura then wandered around being menacing, fortunately far enough away that Gabriel didn't follow suit.
Area 2 and 3: Beregost and temple. More scavenger hunting and a fetch quest you have to drop 5k on and a rousing game of "search every damn house in town" for the right NPC.
Seer'd.
Area 4: The Watchtower.
I have no idea why there are little stone towers that shoot lightning bolts, but I hate this place.
Fortunately Gabriel's party consists of two melee fiends and four ranged attackers, so now I know to focus fire the golems and ignore everything else as a non-threat life is a lot simpler.
Area 5: The Island Cave
This is my favourite of the SoA areas, full of spiders, (largely worthless) containers to loot, and a talking miniboss character.
Sort of glitchy talking miniboss character which, on encountering my shades, decided to wander across the map to find and talk to the closest party member. Not a smart move, since things in melee with the catboy in question don't tend to persist long.
Three mages, a stone golem, some high level fighters,
Otiluke'd!
Literally the round after the last guy fell, Otiluke's ran out. Mehhh.
On their way south to get paid, Gabriel encountered yet another assassin.
With the usual fate that happens to unknown NPCs.
... Sort of busy right now?
Apparently their base is in my favourite house in Beregost. Convenient![/spoiler]
Ookay, section base, running completely blind. How bad can it be?
Let's rock.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
The Cloak found on Gorion's body at the beginning of the game made The Ice island quest trivial.We then returned to Durlag's Tower and though there were some dicey moments, it all turned out well in the end.
We took the Soultaker dagger to Ulgoth's Beard and took on the cult there.
Drizzt then invited us on a quest with him in which we were successful.
We decided not to go with him to Icewind Dale. We then proceeded on to the end of BG1 after doing a minor diversion for Wostok. The end battle was completed by only taking on one of Sarevok's minions at a time. Improved invisibility was used to facilitate this.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
The prologue to SoD caused no problems. Upon completion however Gavin, Xan and Montaron had disappeared along with their equipment. I hope that I will be able to find them again or at least their equipment. Xan had said that he wouldn't be going dungeon crawling with me again, so perhaps I should have retrieved his equipment at that stage.Am I correct in thinking that Gavin, Xan and Montaron are not available in SoD?