It's a little known factoid that Durlag helped cut costs on his own tower construction by using cutting edge modular construction methods. Each individual floor module can be found in various structures across the sword coast.
What's that? Blue circles? Let me just.... fireball you to death, thanks for your passivity.
Yeah, I assume that didn't break any railroading plot, and the game crashing the first time I did it wasn't a bad sign.
Well it's nice that the rest of the level is blue circle as well. Makes it easier for my kill squad.
Every single enemy is a loot pinata, endless potions of haste and health, full plates for everyone, endless magic swords, endless +1 and +2 arrows...
Oh now that's lazy. they didn't even remove Joseph's Greenstone Ring from the map.
Ashikirukuru "Shadow Warriors" instead of spiders. How vile. A few backstabs get Ishlilka pretty low, but she had around fifty potions in her pack to recover.
Entire room of backstabbing, invisibility spamming, shadow warriors. Yeslick got chunked but as I was picking up all their lost gear...
Sigh. I don't care about Yeslick enough to redo the entire level over even if it wasn't no reload.
Whatever, I've watched enough horror movies to know the right answer to these things.
Split up!
Non-magical weapons? Meet Shadow Fiends.
This guy died on top of the container, so all their loot ended up inside it. Neat.
B-Team took out their aggressors with no losses. Woo.
And found more. Neatoh. I suppose I could technically be bypassing the entire place since, y'know, it's the Cloakwood mine map, but storming an enemy base requires a certain level of professionalism when it comes to murdering everything that moves.
Was this supposed to be a boss character? Two fireballs say no, but she's carrying a wardstone for some reason.
Well this seems new at least. Not shown: Several hundred thousand gold's worth of magic gear simply left on the floor. Perhaps if the Section personnel actually used their five haste potions, five health potions, and five healing potions, things might be different, but I'm pretty sure at this point I've enough loot and potions to last all the way through SoD.
Wide open area with archers killed Verr'Sza, so... Go back upstairs to the chokepoint and fry them with a single scorcher charge before falling back on old faithful: More shadow fiends.
Whew. Wonder how deep this place is?
I actually had to Ctrl-J up the spiral staircase to get up here, which screams "boss fight" to me.
[crash alternity]
Bosses? Zat you?
Well I assume it was. [/alternity]
I hope this is the end of the content, I've had to repeat three floors now.
I let them talk, final bosses deserve a bit of a monologue.
Cartoonishly evil villains plus one mandatory token good person, check.
I... guess talking to them makes the fight easier? What weirdness is this?
Okay, maybe they spawn some new guards?
Nope.
Deja vu.
For the record, whoever made Sanctuary the number one go to defensive spell for a heavily wounded cleric needs to be slapped upside their head with a newspaper. It's a defensive choice that stops you getting healed, takes an age to cast (unlike invisibility), and leaves you ultimately vulnerable to any fireballs flying around.
Also for the record, considering all the lunatic gear being thrown around and the fact that the team was two people down, that was a surprisingly straight forward boss fight. Scorcher, some melee scrapping, some ranged support. Nothing particularly onerous all told, especially compared to the floor just before it, which was pretty brutal.
Whatever, now for the long trek back to the surface. Ho hum.
Oh goody. Apparently the boss fight has a boss fight. Faaaabulous.
Since I "lost" Yeslick, I supposed it only fair to downgrade to the assassin lass when she offered. I am going to be juggling so much inventory now.
Also I forgot where their hideout is, so probably going to have to search house to house again.
And Stone of Askovar is now completed. Been carrying that around for awhile now.
@Wise_Grimwald Indeed, none of these three are part of SoD.
Ucurian and his band of rejects - Part IX: Mekrath's Lair and all of the NPC quests
I decided that doing at least part 1 of the Haer'Dalis couldn't hurt, as I had managed to kill Yuan-Ti mages in De'Arnise keep already, so why not kill some more? Indeed, these ones turned out to be much easier, as they didn't have access to death spell. Thus, they utterly failed at dealing with my skeleton warriors:
I also helped Mekrath to get his mirror back before killing him via traps.
Next, I decided to do literally all of the NPC quests, swapping out different party members all the time to stay at about even experience (though Ucurian would clearly be ahead). I already had helped Cernd, so next was Anomen (easy, no battles), Edwin (I used traps against both the lich and the red wizards, so that one was very easy), Jan (traps against the githyanki), Keldorn (no fighting), Mazzy (an easy battle), Nalia (only one minor fight) and finally, Jaheira. This last one was the only one of significant interest, as it involved quite a few battles, and some with little to no preparation, with harper groups appearing after I had just rested (and I didn't think to lay down some traps this time). The final group, lead by Dermin, was the only one to cause any trouble - I was completely unbuffed when combat started, and while I managed to get off the greater malison + chaos combo right away, I, in turn, was hit with a confusion spell - and focusing on disabling my foes left my weaker characters without any defenses. This resulted in Saldor being attacked and heavily wounded thanks to a confused foe, while Jaheira and Tarnele were confused:
However, all relevant foes were affected by chaos, so I only had to survive physical attacks - which was easy with Saldor drinking an invisibility potion, Tarnele getting un-confused via Tangled Strings (my first time using this item in BG2) and the last non-confused foe, Lennah, getting poisoned by her own leader:
After that, victory was ours.
Now, with the old NPC quests done, the far more dangerous new ones had to be tackled. Now, I have never done any of these in a no-reload game - indeed, I have only ever done them once at all, right after I got the enhanced edition games. I can't claim to remember a whole lot about them, so this was a somewhat risky move, but there are some very useful items and more experience to obtain here. I started with Neera's quest, making my way through the Wild Forest and, because I distinctly remember getting a character killed by a trap here, searching for traps all the time everywhere. This made my progress very slow, and even then I ended up triggering a trap (though only one). After that, the minor quests at the Wild Mage Hideout were completed relatively quickly (though herding cats was annoying as hell). Because Zaviak wanted me to find Wilson, I didn't continue with Neera's main quest yet, though.
To get Wilson, I had to swap Neera for Rasaad. His quest turned out to be the easiest (by far, if I'm being honest). Basically no fighting during the first part (though I did up killing the adventuring party, because I remembered them having great loot ). During the second part, I completed the various trials and waged the final battle, once again with great help by greater malison and chaos:
At this point, I had gotten some great loot already: Basically an amulet of proteciton +2 from one of the wild mage quests and a ring with 3x mirror image charges/day for killing the adventurers during Rasaads quest plus the gem of true seeing at the temple. I felt great about my choice to do these quests, but things were about to get difficult.
With Wilson freed, I returned to Neera's questline. I decided to try and not take her along to rescue the wild mages, because I remembered this part being quite difficult, so I wanted to have Saldor instead. Still, I underestimated the order opposing me: Their mages were using very effective scrips, going for remove magic, greater malison and chaos while protected by a whole arsenal of defensive spells. The first battle left me with a wounded and exhausted party:
I decided not to let things get so close again - I went outside to rest and from now on, every room was taken with 5 skeleton warriors leading the charge and a fully buffed party. The remaining part of the quest was relatively easy with this approach, and I managed to save all the wild mages.
Next, I picked up Dorn. Doing his first two quests was kind of a catastrophe from a roleplaying perspective, considering one of my characters is an undead hunter and the bhaalspawn is literally a priest of helm. I made sure to keep my reputation up with temple donations after each part of the questline. The first quest was easy, the second one involved some powerful melee fighters on the opposing side, but nothing that a couple of skeleton warriors couldn't handle. I tried my hand at assassining my primary target with Tarnele - which didn't work out instantly, but another hit was enough to take down the priest:
The lack of ranged options and arcane spellcasters on my opponents part was their downfall, and I continued on to the third part, which was surprisingly simple. I decided to kill both potential patrons, and they failed to remove Ucurians chaotic command buffs, so they were killed in melee combat without offering any significant resistance (truth be told, none of their spells did anything and none of their attacks hit anything).
I was happy to get rid of Dorn and have Hexxat join instead. Nothing much to say about the first tomb. Of course, there are mind flayers in the second one, but I didn't get the feeling that these were affected by SCS (though I can't be sure, they died very fast, and my mind flayers, while they are smarter and can see through invisibility, don't get extra resistances):
The other significant encounter here were the three mages - sadly, they didn't have access to death spell, so skeleton warriors spelled their doom. Otherwise, this could've been a rough fight:
The final battle in the second tomb was unremarkable and quickly won. Same goes for most of the third tomb, including the final battle. However, this does definitely NOT include the group of spirits encountered at the entrance of the tomb. I decided to fight these (foolishly, I might add), because I was hoping for some easy extra experience. This turned out to be a horrible idea, and I'm lucky I survived this battle at all.
So both enemy mages started off with alteration spells, and I thought: "Oh, they're propably gonna haste the rest of the group, I should make sure to kill of the fighters quickly in that case". Little did I know:
So yes, we got our first timestops of this run. Yes, timestops plural - both of them stopped time, and both of them used that time to throw an AHW, cast spell turning and sunfire. I was very lucky that they decided to target Saldor with their AHWs. While the spells were flying at him, I had him (hasted and equipped with boots of speed) run far to the south to build some distance to the spell projectiles and go for SI:N - which he managed to cast just in time:
The sunfires put Hexxat down to exactly 1 hp, but she was able to heal up with potions. Meanwhile, while I tried to dispel some of my foes' buffs, but this turned out to be difficult. Still, I got rid of all the non-mages before deciding to retreat and leave the field to my skeleton warriors (once again, my foes had no access to death spell - very lucky for me). Still, I wasn't as save as I thought I was. Both mages summoned an efreet, and both of these went straight for my party, ignoring my summons. Everyone took quite a bit of damage, as this caught me very much off guard:
I had Ucurian drink a fire protection potion. My party killed the efreeti two times before they were actually done for, and at this point, the skeleton warriors managed to take down the mages. Still, I apparently had one foe remaining: One of the opposing spellcasters had summoned a pit fiend! Camalan had to take that one down:
Not sure what would've happened if both AHWs would've been aimed at Ucurian. Does drinking an invisibility potion stop the AHW projectiles from doing their damage? I wasn't sure about that, so I decided not to try and go for SI:N instead - but it might be helpful to know for the future. Anyway, this fight did provide me with a shortbow +3, which is somewhat useful for Tarnele, and some more experience. Still, not really worth it considering the power level of my foes (oh, and I should have used traps! Why did I forget about that?).
Anyway, I travelled to the Windspear Hills and took out the Rukh Transmuter with the help of skeleton warriors and aerial servants. He almost killed Camalan with a single 3x flame arrow spell sequencer. That's quite something, considering we're talking about a dwarven defender. After that, I went back to Garren's place, rested and stopped playing for now.
Apparently if you sleep in inns, the ninja kindly let you leave the inn first.
Ow. Probably should have Imaged up beforehand, those fireballs hit hard.
Fool me once...
Fool me twice...
Third time I'm going to trap both sides of the door, ward up and lure you into an ambush with shocking disregard for the safety of the inn's patronage.
Honestly at this point, it's pretty unlikely these ninja will kill Gabriel. Guess that's a good sign that the mod's balanced, because Gabriel certainly isn't.
Aura was kidnapped by ninja? Am I a bad enough dude?
Oh, nevermind, she ran off to fight ninja alone.
I'm not sure why she thought that was a good idea, all things considered, since she's the only party member to almost die against the ninja squads.
Well that was a brief departure.
Oh Aura-chan, never change your weeaboo ways, but do kindly get on with it.
Punch time?
Nevermind.
Oh c'mon!
Sigh.
1: Five people with completely random, unsignposted fire immunity after just being hurt with fire damage in the cutscene prior. What should have been a disrupting wall of flaming AOE death was instead a friendly fire catastrophe.
2: Couldn't pre-buff because the whole map was a cutscene as soon as the party arrived. Can solve this next time now I know where the railroad starts.
3: Wand of Shadowfire is bugged. Trying to use the shadowball to disrupt casting did nothing whatsoever and just wasted Gabriel's aura where he could have been trying to recover buffs instead.
Buffless, confused, cornered by the melee stabby boss, and killed.
If the part involving being thrown into the fight without warning is that problematic I can do something about it. It's just a huge pain in the rear to make scripts fire based off the party's exact location on the map, but I'll figure something out.
Hi all, a brief update on Stirkus' progress. Apart from family stuff my game suffered from some bad bugs, which were partially mitigated with the assistance of @PaulaMigrate. Such delights as the mage who opens Bodhi's lair being chopped up by Captain Haegan for example.... In game terms Stirkus has made decent progress, despite my XP reducing tweaks he's now a level 11 Psypher/ 13 Mage, and has completed the tasks required to go to Spellhold, along with a few extra companion & romance quests. These had some nasty surprises, such as me discovering that a mage in Nalia's romance was not in fact low level...Stirkus is the invisible blob off to the left, as usual .
In roleplaying terms.... it's a bit of a mess. Despite being nominally in the employ of the Order of Aster, and indirectly Chief Inspector Brega and Prelate Wessan, Stirkus is now being attacked on sight by the Order, and indeed the Harpers thanks to Jaheira. He's a rep 20 baby kisser, hero of the people... and now he'll never be the knight he wanted to be. So we have the guy who just wanted to be a part of the establishment... now leading a team of renegades and rebels like some sort of alternate A-Team. He's begun to take the violent solutions to conflicts with other organisations, like the Harpers & Rasaad's pursuers, and may eventually just have to become James Cagney . Branwen was very useful for taking on the vampires but I'm not 100% sure if she's going to stick around, she doesn't quite fit the party theme so we'll see.
I imagine we'll do one or two more quests and then head on to Spellhold. Happy no-reloading.
If the part involving being thrown into the fight without warning is that problematic I can do something about it. It's just a huge pain in the rear to make scripts fire based off the party's exact location on the map, but I'll figure something out.
It's fine, it's basically like any ambush, the only time it's a problem is the first time. Now I know about it I can pre-buff before going to the map (and lay enough snares to kill the demogorgon on the bridge). The bigger issue was the wasted round with the Shadow Fire Wand fizzling, but it was still a combination of bad luck and things I could have done better, same as every failed run.
The biggest problem is that having enjoyed the mildly overpowered Shining Hand dual I have no idea what to play next. I need a Shadow Adept cleric variant or something so I can play a twin soul Mage/Shadow Adept multiclass. Or someone to finally implement a "Druid" cleric kit.
I acquired some extra companions in Baldur's Gate, having lost some carefully nurtured companions.
We have reached the Coast Way Crossing without any major incidents as would be expected. I have spent all but 106gp of my gold, most of it on spells for Dynaheir.
Well, I uninstalled Monastic Orders for being overpowered, but I'm still totally going to abuse the heck out of the Shadow Adept's kit replacement mechanics.
Not being a Mage/Thief is causing me almost physical pain. I am this close to rerolling a Shadowdancer/Mage or something.
Of course, the other issue is that I'd like to go for level 9 before dualling at a natural breakpoint at +3/+3 damage, which means being a Kensai into SoD and dualling into Adept then, because I like to live dangerously (and will be hiding behind a lot of other people like a sissy throughout).
This is off to a tenuous start. Fortunately I have a cunning plan.
Nepotism.
One shotted on sight.
So, so mean. Now get out of here Xan and Montaron, turns out I didn't need you. At least until the next time I need some sacrificial fodder to charm a lisk.
Possssibly should have waited a bit for that particular fight. At least until I had any wands whatsoever.
Damn you arbitrary game constructs!
Valentine has to dual, because the conversation only pops up if he, personally, is a mage, therefore if he waits until level 9 Kensai in SoD the orb will be unavailable.
There’s a hidden thing. Kryn will offer the orb to any Mage who initiates conversation with him, not just the main character. So you could’ve used any Mage to pick up the orb and then held it until SoD.
Probably won’t do you much good now though...
By the way Nym is getting deleveled in the next update.
There’s a hidden thing. Kryn will offer the orb to any Mage who initiates conversation with him, not just the main character. So you could’ve used any Mage to pick up the orb and then held it until SoD.
Probably won’t do you much good now though...
By the way Nym is getting deleveled in the next update.
Running some tests on a save:
Speaking to Krynn and offering to find the apprentii did not set quest, had to ask the "If you're their master" question first, then accept the quest from that dialogue, only then did Nym show.
Ahhh. I see the issue. I was talking to him with Imoen, who is good and ineligible. Shame, I wanted to use her "shadow adept" portrait.
Meh, since I'm now mid-petrify cycle with Valentine 2.0 (fortunately I feel no compulsion to reroll on a no-death restart) may as well just hit 7 -> 8 mage anyway, he's more likely to survive anyway.
Also, considering his spell list and ease of door dodging him, overall I'd say Nym's the simplest of the four (three) I faced (the overall party was just level 5, Imoen had virtually no spells, and they still survived the encounter). Ivette and her shades were far more troublesome. Could have been bad if he'd targeted Val with the phantasmal killer though.
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled skewed k/d ratio.
Sometimes you need a single dead bard, sometimes you forget that you didn't buy any scrolls of Stone to Flesh after sacrificing two party mates and need to drop the last one. Circle, life, etc.
Disaster as Korax died to a 20 damage crit to the second Greater Basilisk turns into opportunity when it fails its save against Algernon's cloak, taking out the adventurer party, guarding Val while he rests to recover his lightning spells, and ultimately dying horribly to said lightning spells. Don't kill my ghoul buddy.
He summoned shadow fiends this time, on a contingency, no less. Here Val has managed to blind the second of two fiends that were chasing him and is trying to rest, while inside the cave the adept has killed the rest of the party with the other fiend and various blasting spells. I have no idea if he's used his death spell.
Two gibberling hordes later.
Oh c'mon!
Okay, this right here? Blatant cheating. This is the second time he's dropped an instant cast unmask to take out Valentine's potions of invisibility in the last three rounds. I know he doesn't have the spell slots left after dropping Sigil of Madness, Void Blast, and Cone of Bitter Cold in the fight, and he has no way of knowing when Valentine was in range to recast, not to mention no way of casting it instantly.
Valentine is spotted by the shadow fiends, doesn't quite make the kill with lightning bolt, gets hit by sleep, and though he makes his save against the shadow fiend hitting him to wake him up, he didn't against a second hit and was held and killed. Cheap.
Edit: Well, apparently kitted dual characters cannot typically use the Shadow Orb, despite not actually being on the list of characters that cannot use the Shadow Orb, so... I guess I was wasting my time with Valentine regardless. There goes one more interesting idea.
Okay. I'm looking through the Shadow Adept's AI script, and bear in mind I wrote it months ago, and I have no idea what I was smoking. Unmask is the only spell that they will cast repeatedly, once every five rounds, without a care for whether they actually know the spell or not. I... I don't know what my state of mind was when I wrote this. Note how the chat box simply says "Nym Phaundal: Unmask" rather than "Nym Phaundal: Casts Unmask" as a mage spell would be displayed. That's a sign that it's a "cast instantly regardless of whether you know the spell" script.
Done most of the quests on the Coast Way Crossing and in the Coast Way Forest. I am slowly and very carefully doing the Dwarves of Dumathoin Quest, popping outside quite frequently to sleep as I am using up a lot of spells to stay safe. When I came across Coldhearth, he had turned himself into a lich and had to die.
Well, I hope my doomed playthroughs are helpful. My latest was a weird one where successfully luring away the shadow fiends out of the cave and halfway across the map before ditching them with invisibility potions, which resulted in them somehow appearing back in the cave a few rounds after I reentered to attack the newly unmasked Val. I've reached the point I'm not prepared to touch the shadow adept quest until everyone has magic weapons and CHARNAME a ring of Free Action, the fiends are that much nastier than the mages themselves.
Valentine IV, Psionicist bound for the dark.
Yes, I will be using both the caster classes that cast from HP, and probably aiming for an awkward 8 -> 31 dual which can't complete in BG.
Shoal raises Jaheira for me, because I forgot to kick her. Ah well. I remembered to kick everyone after to jump Val to level 4 at least.
Cosmic balance reasserts itself as Valentine shells his own party with a potion of burning rather than tolerate one more of those bloody commandos.
Sometimes against my best efforts the bard survives. In which case I send her to scout Mutamin, kick her from party as soon as he's visible to Basilisk target, and leave her stranded in the wilderness with no gear.
So. Mean.
Crime pays. Or somat.
Apparently I bugged Ishlilka this time around by telling her to bugger off on the initial encounter, so... I can actually recruit a decent partymate! And stop being human! Oh goody!
I have a very poor learning curve.
Fortunately Turn Undead with Sanctuary does the job nicely.
Just in time.
And we're ready to swap Polymorph Self and Spell Immunity for... stuff?
Side thought: They get protection from weave forged weapons, why wouldn't they get weave protection spells too? All the adept encounters seem to have a bunch of MR for some reason. Another side thought: Shouldn't there be an entire shadow magic school for dealing illusory non-lethal damage all about making people think they died? Wasn't that how illusion spells were supposed to work in 2e?
Whatevs, time to shatter things with cold damage anyway.
Damn skippy, catboy.
Also, since they talk now, attacking with summons/familiars means they remain blue circles and die quietly.
Whoops?
So... Your sword is mine either way, I guess?
My default response to Shadow Binding was "Mage Hold Person, Ignore", until I noticed the -4 save penalty hidden in the text. Forget shadowball, save at -4 or basically die is where it's at.
Did you know that Battle Horrors' flame blades were non-magical like the spell, making them incapable of hurting a mage in Slime form or, in this case, summoned shades?
Sigh. I miss polymorph self.
Fun fact: Psypher keeps the psionic powers you actually advanced after dualling. Val has permanently lost the three baseline powers, but kept telepathy, which he maxed. This includes Intellect Fortress: Complete immunity to mind affecting abilities and effects.
Suck on shadow skeleton summons, scum!
Slightly better than Ishlilka, and slightly less talkative, which isn't a downside at this point. Also a complete dearth of overpowered magical gear, which is generally unexpected.
Time to advance the plot I suppose.
Adept Kills: 2. Assassin squads down: 5? 6? I lost count. Way too many either way.
Ucurian and his band of rejects - Part X: Firkraag's Lair, The Unseeing Eye, the strangely dangerous SCS Temple of Talos, Bodhi's Lair, the sewer illithids and the guarded compound
Firkraag's Lair turned out to be easier than expected, mainly because Ucurian's levels are high enough at this point to use turn undead to a) kill elder vampires on a good roll and b) strike fear into the hearts of ancient vampires on almost any roll:
All I had to do after an invisible Ucurian took care of the elder vampires was to have Camalan and Ayla chase down the ancient vampires while they continually tried to run away from Ucurian:
I also had a special surprise for the golems in this place: Item randomiser neglected to give us any infinite ammo +1 containers in WK level 1, but we did get Roranach's Horn instead. You know what that means: 100% resistance to blunt damage for our dwarven defender:
Samia's party and Conster were mostly taken down by traps. Of course, we did leave Firkraag for later.
Since I had access to level 15 skeleton warriors now, I decided to tackle the remaining part of the Unseeing Eye quest (the beholder hive). Groups of five skeleton warriors did very well against any opposition in there. I prepared traps for the Unseeing Eye, but they turned out to be useless - they reduced its health to "Near Death", which is what the Rift Device would've done anyway. With my party at a safe distance, my skeletons took down the death tyrants first, and the boss was next:
Now, this gave me the opportunity to do my stronghold quests. Easy enough (though the acolyte fighting me for my position for some reason used the fighter HLA "War Cry" - how? why?). Anway, after I saved the Temple of Lathander and finished the stronghold quest, it turned out the entire Temple of Talos was still hostile towards me, so I decided to clear it out. Inside, however, to my surprise, I encountered a high level mage with powerful protections, and a rather dangerous battle ensued, forcing me to carefully split up my party members when my opponent fired an AHW of all things. It took me quite a while to defeat her:
As I had reasonable success with Firkraag's vampires, I went to Bodhi's Lair next. Here, there weren't even any ancient vampires, so with a bit of waiting, invisible Ucurian was basically able to take all of them down. Tanova was the only notable exception (to be fair, I didn't try to tackle her with turn undead, because getting close to her seemed way too dangerous to me). She did her best to ignore my summons and go straight for the party, and she was also the first opponent to use SI:Divination to protect her buffs - but I was prepared for this in the form of Tarnele and her 100 points in detect illusions:
The battle still took quite a bit of time, as Tanova was always quick to put up new protection spells, but eventually, she was left without any further defensive options and died (though not before dispelling Ismene's cc and dominating her):
Lassal had to face my undead hunter, buffed up with various potions and mirror images thanks to the cool ring I found during Rasaad's quest:
Sadly, I didn't get a chance to see what SCS' slightly improved Bodhi would try to do at this point, as she decided to flee right away after getting hit by Tarnele's traps.
I decided to go for the sewer illithids next. Why? Well, my party was completely buffed after killing Bodhi and I didn't want to waste the buffs by doing nothing with them, so I decided to try and clear at least the first room down there, as there aren't a lot of illithids in that one. This worked out well enough (mostly thanks to true sight), and I decided to rest, summon 5 skeleton warriors and give the next room a shot. I had noticed that SCS illithids would often try to teleport to the party, so I also prepared some traps - this worked out very well. None of the new illithid abilities seemed too scary to me (as Ucurian has 6 level 5 spells available at this point, not even counting wondrous recall). After the room was cleared, I decided to give the last one a try. When I carefully poked into the room, all the illithids except for the alhoon either followed Camalan into my waiting traps or teleported to the party (with the same result - getting hit by traps). The alhoon, however, refused to come out and play. I sent in my skeletons, and soon realized that I was dealing with a really high level spellcaster here, with access to multiple level 9 spells. At this point, I should've propably just retreated (I was scared of the possibility of timestop, the alhoon teleporting to Ucurian and int-draining him without me having any chance of fighting back), but I figured that, if my party always stayed out of sight and just sent summons into the room, I could stay and try to drain my foe out of spells.
I used literally all available summons (and if you know my playstyle, you will know that's usually a lot) before the alhoon only seemed to use low level damage spells anymore. With that in mind, I decided to send Camalan, who has the best saves in my party, to try and deal with this powerful enemy:
Indeed, the alhoon only had a bunch of stonekins left. It took a while, but my dwarven defender emerged victorious and with chaotic commands still going:
Ironically, after having dealt with all the powerful undead in chapters 2/3, this is where I found the MoD.
Having dealt with one powerful spellcaster, I thought that I might as well try my hand at the guarded compound (where I expected Sion to be the main threat). My primary plan was to lure my foes downstairs into waiting traps, which does work in vanilla, but it seems like the SCS AI is too smart for that one - no one would follow me downstairs. So I used some instant summoning abilities via items to distract my foes while Tarnele disarmed traps, giving me some room - while always running downstairs when it looked like Sion was casting a truly dangerous spell. Eventually, careful hit and run tactics allowed me to take down most of the foes, but Sion was still untouched:
His spell selection was far more suited to go up against my style, as he had many death spells at the ready, and he eventually managed to land a remove magic on my party, forcing me to retreat and rest. My next attempt, however, turned out to be somewhat easier: When I entered again, the mage's buffs hadn't fired yet, so Tarnele smashed him in one hit:
No Celestial Fury here, but I did find Daystar. Oh, item randomiser, you are so funny - why are you giving me all these anti-undead weapons after I've already taken down the undead around here?
Next time, I will try my hand at the planar sphere. I have lots of ruby rays to take down spelltraps, lots of summons to drain spellbooks and all that - and I feel much safer now that Ucurian has access to Shield of the Archons. However, there are demons outside... and I haven't faced those with SCS before.
In the adventurers' lounge @Enuhal gave me a useful tip so that I could swap Minsc for Jaheira whilst keeping up the roleplaying. Paladins don't deliberately kill their allies just to get rid of them.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
We have now got as far as the forest of Wyrms and I think that it is only the caves that need doing. However, it is a long time since I have visited SoD, so I might have forgotten a quest or so. Just about to investigate the northern cave. Haven't investigated the southern one yet.
I think that there is a dragon in one of them but can't remember which. A poor memory certainly makes the game a bit more interesting.
EDIT 1
I discovered which one it was, and the dragon is now dead.
EDIT 2
I forgot about the bugbear stalkers with the result that Safana's health went waydown to 26. Fortunately there is Tenya and Jaheira on hand to rectify things.
Just the last room of the temple to finish now. I can remember how hard it is, so it can wait until I've had a good night's sleep.
Having dealt with one powerful spellcaster, I thought that I might as well try my hand at the guarded compound (where I expected Sion to be the main threat). My primary plan was to lure my foes downstairs into waiting traps, which does work in vanilla, but it seems like the SCS AI is too smart for that one - no one would follow me downstairs.
Where enemies are refusing to follow a visible character through a transition, a tactic that usually works is to send a single invisible character to them - enemy scripts then tend to force them to seek out visible members of the party (in this case downstairs).
Where enemies are refusing to follow a visible character through a transition, a tactic that usually works is to send a single invisible character to them - enemy scripts then tend to force them to seek out visible members of the party (in this case downstairs).
That is something that I discovered the hard way against the spiders at the bottom of Candlekeep.
I used a thief to disable a trap and moved him away so that he could hide with the result that the phase spiders jumped straight to a mage who was a long way away and almost killed her. Those scripts can work for or against you, but if you know how they work, you can usually make them work for you.
There were more than one room remaining. I thought that the Neothelid was the last enemy but it wasn't!
After getting it to attack us, we fled so that the sword wouldn't find us. That meant that we only had the Neothelid to fight. We beat it and all the other denizens of the temple that we could find.
I remembered that the code for getting into the secret room was pi. In my previous game in SoD I guessed the code. Perhaps reading all the paperwork would have given me the answer. I didn't, but used my intuition instead.
I remembered that the code for getting into the secret room was pi. In my previous game in SoD I guessed the code. Perhaps reading all the paperwork would have given me the answer. I didn't, but used my intuition instead.
Interesting. I could never remember the code either and have just experimented with combinations of 1, 3 and 4 until it opens. If it's pi though I might have a small chance of remembering it for next time .
I remembered that the code for getting into the secret room was pi. In my previous game in SoD I guessed the code. Perhaps reading all the paperwork would have given me the answer. I didn't, but used my intuition instead.
Interesting. I could never remember the code either and have just experimented with combinations of 1, 3 and 4 until it opens. If it's pi though I might have a small chance of remembering it for next time .
A number of computer games use pi as a code to open doors etc. It's always worthwhile giving it a try.
I was expecting it to be at LEAST one more digit, being a Land Surveyor I had it memorised to 3.1415926 as I used it so often.
Then Texas brought out the pocket calculator (which had pi hard-coded) which meant that both the Curta and 7 figure logs were a thing of the past. I went to the Science Museum in London about 20 years ago, and already all my tools in the 60s were exhibits: Slide Rules; Computer Punch Cards amd Peters six figure tables. It made me feel old even though I was then still well below retirement age.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
I left without the Wardstone having missed seeing a door. Shows how long it is since I last reached SoD!! I had to go back and look again. I made a minor mistake in fighting the priestess just because she was evil. As a result Safana was killed and Harper's Call had to be used followed by Heal.
The party has now entered Bridgefort and has spoken to Khalid.
I got that pi reference in SoD, but I couldn't figure out how to do that button puzzle until I looked it up. Knowing the secret is 3, 1, 4 doesn't do you much good if you don't know which button is 3, which button is 1, and which button is 4.
I've decided to attempt a solo no-reload tetralogy run of Baldur's Gate, Siege of Dragonspear, Shadows of Amn, and Throne of Bhaal in Legacy of Bhaal mode. I've never done a solo no-reload run before, nor have I done a no-reload LoB run, so this will be my first of both.
Some of you may remember my "glitch exhibition" run of LoB mode with a Fighter/Mage/Thief, which I discounted as the holy grail run due to the sheer number of exploits in it. I eventually abandoned when I heard that some of the tricks were going to be removed in the v2.5 update. This is the holy grail run I spoke of. The rules are:
1. Solo (no party members except for Caelar, who has to operate entirely via AI) 2. Legacy of Bhaal mode 3. No mod items can be used 4. No Wand of Lightning trick 5. No leveling up beyond the XP cap for each game (161,000 in BG1; 500,000 in SoD; 8 million in BG2) 6. No reloading except in the case of bugs
Notable mods include Sword Coast Stratagems (SCS), Ascension, ATweaks, Wheels of Prophecy, Universal Archer Kit, Golem Construction, Enhanced Edition Trilogy (EET), Better Stat Drain, CDTweaks, and Klatu Tweaks and Fixes. I installed all the AI components of SCS to keep the difficulty as high as humanly possible, from Ascension Melissan to Tactics Bodhi. The WeiDu log with all my mods is attached to this post.
For those who don't know, Legacy of Bhaal mode is the maximum difficulty setting for EE. All enemies deal double damage and get triple HP plus 80 HP on top, +12 levels, +5 THAC0, +5 to all saving throws, and +1 APR. On top of that, enemy hordes in SoD are larger and the enemies use more special abilities. Summoned critters only get double HP instead of triple, with 20 HP on top. Thanks to EET, familiars get nothing.
Our Charname this time is Frisk! Because I am hopeless Undertale trash. This portrait is cropped from a post by dreamy94 on tumblr, a Charisk shipper who was on hiatus when I tried to contact them for permission to use the picture.
Although the name doesn't show up on the Record screen, Frisk is an Archer, but not the ranger kit. The Universal Archer Kit, like the Generic Archer kit from Tactics and the Marksman kit from Might and Guile, allows you to apply the kit to a fighter, which means we'll be able to dual-class to mage later on. It's a very, very late-blooming class. It'll be miserably underpowered for all of BG1 and most of SoD, until it becomes very effective in late SoA and devastating in mid-ToB.
If we die even once at any point in the entire tetralogy, we have to start all over from Candlekeep. We are filled with determination.
Our first problem is that, in order to reach our maximum potential by the end of Throne of Bhaal but still survive SoD and function in BG1, we have to dual-class to mage at level 8. That means we're going to have to spend most of BG1 as a pathetic level 5 mage.
How do we get to level 8 as a single-classed fighter who can't cast a single summoning spell in a world where a kobold has 100 HP? The answer is the basilisk XP loop, a trick I invented specifically for this challenge.
First, we need money. We can nab a Ring of Wizardry from a tree outside the Friendly Arm Inn and dig up a suit of Ankheg Plate Mail from a farm in Nashkel, which gives us about enough gold for all the ingredients we need.
Specifically, we need the Protection from Petrification green scroll from the Nashkel Carnival, some Potions of Mirrored Eyes from Thalantyr at High Hedge, some mage scrolls for when we dual-class, and exactly 23 scrolls of Stone to Flesh. But there is one item we can't buy: Algernon's Cloak. Since Frisk cannot pickpocket, there is only one way for us to retrieve it from poor Algernon.
Algernon's Cloak grants +2 Charisma and allows us to charm a single critter of any type for 12 hours on a failed save vs. breath, once per day (before EE, it had effectively infinite uses, at 65,535). What do we need this cloak for?
Well, basically everything. Even after the EE nerf, Algernon's Cloak is incredibly powerful. Or at least, it can be, if you know exactly how to use it. Case in point: Mutamin's Garden. But first, we accidentally trigger a tasloi, and because it has so much HP and it could kill us in a single hit, we have to run away from it and fire arrows at it until it dies after about 5 minutes of "kiting," another word for hit-and-run tactics.
Without Algernon's Cloak, LoB mode for an Archer is basically nothing but kiting.
To dual-class to mage and complete BG1 without spending 50 hours kiting gibberlings or whatever, we need to perform the basilisk XP loop. The first step is charming a basilisk with Algernon's Cloak. You can do this safely by approaching under invisibility, but as a single-classed fighter, Frisk has no access to any form of invisibility (Thalantyr has no Invisibility spell in my install, so charming him wouldn't work). Instead, Frisk chugs a Potion of Mirrored Eyes to gain 10 rounds of immunity to petrification. We only get a few shots at this, but Frisk manages to charm the basilisk on the first try.
The next step is using the Protection from Petrification green scroll on the Lesser Basilisk, granting our pet basilisk long-term immunity to petrification. We need this because our pet basilisk is going to kill all the other basilisks on the map for us.
But that's enough to get us to level 8. So we un-petrify a Greater Basilisk using a Stone to Flesh scroll and then have our pet basilisk petrify it again for another 7,000 XP.
There's a finite number of Stone to Flesh scrolls in the game, especially before reaching the city of Baldur's Gate itself, but there are still a lot of them, and as long as you have enough scrolls, you can keep trading a single Stone to Flesh scroll with a gold cost of 100-250 gold for 7,000 XP. That's more than enough to get any solo character to the BG1 level cap.
But our problems aren't over yet--not even close. Since we can't level up beyond the BG1 XP cap (though additional XP will carry over into SoD), Frisk is stuck at mage level 5, unable to use any of their fighter abilities and only able to cast a few low-level spells per day.
That's what we need Algernon's Cloak for. Algernon's Cloak and the Nymph Cloak are the only ways of charming anything in the game that won't turn the target hostile if they fail or when they run out. This means that we can charm neutral characters at zero risk!
Our next mission is to take down the spiders in Beregost. Frisk can't fight them on their own without an hour or two of kiting, but Marl and Silke will gladly fight for us if we charm them first (you can have two charmed two characters at once if you rest in between uses of the cloak).
Marl has lots of HP even outside of LoB mode, but the spiders have far superior damage output. Even with Silke contributing with her bard spells, Marl can't hold the fort forever.
Silke and Frisk finish off the spiders, but not before I let Silke's HP drop low enough for Frisk to wipe her out with a single blow. Unfortunately, when I take Silke back to her normal standing place and lob a rock at her head, Frisk's lousy THAC0 reminds me not to rely on a level 5 mage's attack rols.
Silke's Lightning Bolt is unlikely to slay Frisk, but she also has a double Charm Person Minor Sequencer, and solo characters get an instant game over if they get charmed or Mazed. It's never a good idea to take chances in no-reload runs, so Frisk turns invisible to escape. It's just as well; Silke's pre-cast Stoneskin buff would block the next 10 hits we could make, so she'd probably kill us with her staff before we took her down.
Frisk might have lousy offensive powers, but the key thing in no-reload runs is to maintain strong defenses, and their Invisibility spells will protect them from all kinds of threats in BG1, while Algernon's Cloak can let other people do the heavy lifting. Case in point: Tarnesh, the cause of many deaths in BG1, but who doesn't even have the AI to defend himself against the local guards.
Most SCS mages aren't this stupid. In fact, they can be pretty brilliant at times, and they'll be an increasingly huge threat as we progress through the tetralogy.
Invisibility also lets us nab some nice treasures, including the Wand of Fire and some merchant fodder from the ankheg nest.
We purchase a mod-introduced Bag of Holding (I'm willing to make an exception for mod-introduced containers for convenience's sake) from Thalantyr to minimize inventory management and go grab some more treasures, notably a stat tome from the Flesh Golem cave and the Golden Pantaloons from a guy at the Friendly Arm Inn.
Notice the "Spell Ineffective" messages. There are traps in the Flesh Golem cave, one of which is a charm spell that would be fatal if Frisk failed their save. But Minor Spell Deflection can block many traps, if not all of them, and Invisibility lets us slip past the golems. We also nab a Potion of Invisibility (which activates instantly, unlike an Invisibility spell, and is therefore a superior escape option) and a Wand of Monster Summoning from the Valley of Tombs east of Nashkel.
The Wand of Monster Summoning will be our primary weapon whenever Algernon's Cloak cannot win the fight on its own. But recharging the wand at a merchant costs money, and every use of the wand is worth 375 gold--or a lot more, depending on your Charisma and reputation.
We have the basic tools to function in this run, so it's time to move on with the main quest and proceed to Nashkel. Minor Spell Deflection can't block all the traps in the Nashkel mines, but Frisk's huge HP pool from those 8 fighter levels keeps them safe.
There are lots of kobolds in this area who would completely waste Frisk if given the chance, but that's what Invisibility is for. It's usually not worth tackling these low-level critters in LoB mode unless you enable the bonus XP from kills (which I have not; we'd only get 6 XP for each dead kobold). Unfortunately, they block the path to the next area and refuse to get out of the way, which means we need to use Algernon's Cloak to lead the kobolds out of the narrow bridge using a spider as bait, though it takes a couple tries to charm the spider (the +5 bonus to enemy saves in LoB mode makes stuff awfully hard to charm).
The only enemy we need to kill in this whole area is Mulahey (in some installs, you can complete this quest just by looting the nearby chest), but Mulahey doesn't start out hostile, and you can safely rest in the same area. This means we can attempt to charm him as many times as we like with no chance of being mobbed by enemies.
You can force a charmed enemy like Mulahey to waste all of their spells, and usually, their summoned critters will remain on your side even after you attack them. But the safest way to dispose of Mulahey is not to waste his spells and then attack him--it's to send him after some other critters and just let him die. By unequipping his weapon and making him fight with his fists, we can give the nearby kobolds +4 to hit and damage against Mulahey. Since the kobolds are enemies, Mulahey doesn't go hostile when he's attacked. He dutifully just stands there until he dies.
We might be vastly inferior to the enemy in almost every way, but we can survive in LoB mode by using manipulation and invisibility to defeat our enemies. Nominal nonviolence fills us with determination.
On with the main questline! Charm continues to win the day back in Beregost, where Tiax, whom SCS moves to a more convenient location, summons a ghast to fight for us after we charm him. The ghast really doesn't receive as much attention as it deserves: with immunity to almost all disablers, multiple attacks per round, and the ability to paralyze its victim on a failed save vs. death, it's an excellent anti-mage tool. Tranzig is doomed the moment he fails a single saving throw.
With Tranzig dead and with Frisk above 10,000 XP, we're on schedule to get ambushed by two very strong enemy parties belonging to Lamalha and Molkar. But by repeatedly traveling between areas under invisibility, we can ensure that the ambushes happen when Frisk is hidden, allowing us to flee without a fight.
The Cloakwood is coming up soon, and I'll want a fully charged Wand of Monster Summoning before I head in. That means we need to collect some more gold. Bassilus is an excellent target, but he's far too powerful for us to tackle alone--he'd destroy anything we might throw at him with the Wand of Monster Summoning. However, by approaching him under invisibility, using Algernon's Cloak on him, and then immediately fleeing his field of vision whenever he makes his saving throw, we can safely attempt to charm until it succeeds. Then we can have him summon a Skeleton Warrior (the level 15 kind due to his LoB level bonuses, which is immune to normal weapons and has 90% magic resistance) and an Aerial Servant (which deals massive crushing damage with every hit) before wasting his spells and nailing himself with Flame Strike.
Notice that the Skeleton Warrior has now gone hostile along with Bassilus, while the Aerial Servant remains on our side. For some reason, Skeleton Warriors side with their masters, unlike other summons. Fortunately for us, the Aerial Servant gets some lucky rolls and chunks Bassilus well before the enemy has a chance to kill it.
]
That Aerial Servant could kill Frisk in a single blow if we tried to fight Bassilus without Algernon's Cloak. Not that the skeletons and zombies couldn't kill Frisk just as easily on their own.
We didn't quite clear out all the enemies in Mutamin's Garden, so we can get a little more gold by taking on Mutamin himself. Again, Frisk isn't remotely strong enough to handle the mage on their own, but charmed basilisks, buffed with Protection from Petrification, can deal him with quite easily.
Note that we couldn't do this without mage levels. There's only a single Protection from Petrification green scroll available in BG1, at least before reaching the city of Baldur's Gate, which means that, while you can charm basilisks as much as you want, you can't keep them from getting petrified by Mutamin's basilisks.
In the interests of collecting gold, we loot the Ulcaster Ruins under invisibility and kill Nimbul, using the local priest to tank him while Frisk stays hidden.
In order to get that cleric out of the temple, we had to charm him and then order him to attack Frisk right before Frisk left the temple. It would also work if we had him try to cast a spell at Frisk. That's the only way to get charmed critters to move between areas, but it doesn't work when an area transition forces an auto-save; only familiars and party members can make those area transitions.
Next up, the bandit camp! The enemy here is even more overwhelming powerful than the other stuff we've faced, so fighting them is simply not an option. Fortunately, we don't have to: all we need to do is fight Tazok and then steal some documents from the main tent.
Tazok moves fast and hits hard, so the moment we arrive, we have to go invisible, lest Frisk get butchered in the first two or three rounds. Then we charm Teven and have him fight Tazok alongside some critters from the Wand of Monster Summoning.
Once Tazok takes enough damage, he lets us into the camp. To deal with the main tent, we need to down a Potion of Absorption (or a Potion of Insulation while wearing the Boots of Grounding from Mulahey) to survive the Lightning Bolt trap on the chest with the relevant documents. Opening the chest breaks invisibility, and while we could re-cast Invisibility, it's safer to use a Potion of Invisibility, since it activates faster and can't be disrupted.
Guess how we're going to deal with the Cloakwood!
The best way to beat the game in LoB mode is not to fight anything you don't absolutely have to. That's even more true in a solo run.
We still need to fight Drasus, though, because his Boots of Speed will give us a boost we'll really need to run around the various enemies of BG1 and SoD. Drasus starts out neutral and can be charmed safely, but the first two guards are hostile and Frisk has to run away to cast Invisibility if charming fails. Turning the guards against each other is partly luck-dependent, because fights take so long in LoB mode than nonmagical weapons often break, and a charmed guard isn't as strong as armed guard.
We have to rest and charm the armed one instead, which gets the weaker one killed and the stronger one under our control. But he's not strong enough to weaken the Drasus party very much.
I really only want Drasus dead, so I rest and approach him under invisibility. Whenever the charm fails, Frisk just runs away to try again.
It finally works, and Drasus takes down Genthore. But when I try to get the mages to kill Drasus, he ends up getting teleported to an inaccessible area via Teleport Field. And killing him with missile weapons is... impractical for a level 5 mage.
We need to burn a charge from the Wand of Monster Summoning to bring him down, and the EE quick loot feature lets us grab his boots from across the moat.
Turns out approaching enemies via invisibility and running the moment Algernon's Cloak triggers is a safe way of charming people. No one seems to respond fast enough to attack you, as long as you time it correctly.
Since Rezdan's pre-buffs don't seem to fire properly if he's charmed, Kysus has a strong advantage and Rezdan doesn't have the strength to take him down. Frisk takes over 80 damage from a Sunfire spell, but survives thanks to their massive HP pool.
They have almost as much HP as a Hobgoblin Elite!
Rezdan goes down, but Frisk can turn invisible and charm Kysus, turning his own spells back on him. It's not enough to kill him, but the Wand of Fire finishes him off.
We sneak past absolutely everyone in the mines and go straight to Davaeorn. We charm the guard after several tries (fleeing the area every time it doesn't work) and have Frisk soak up some damage from the traps.
We accidentally trigger Davaeorn's dialogue and therefore his buffs, but he fails to approach. We wait out his defenses and then have the guard lure the Battle Horrors over to Frisk so we could destroy them with the Wand of Monster Summoning (which we still haven't recharged due to having more charges than I thought we'd have at this point).
Once the Battle Horrors are gone, I rest to give the guard a little more HP and come back. Davaeorn blasts the guard with Cone of Cold when I send him in, but otherwise, Davaeorn just lets the guard whomp on him until his sword breaks.
The guard can only do nonlethal damage, but when Davaeorn loses consciousness at 1 HP, Frisk can burn him down with the Wand of Fire without worrying about getting hit with a spell when they approach.
I burn some charges of the Wand of Monster Summoning on some ankhegs and then recharge it after pawning off a lot of loose gold. We do a few chores and stop by to watch Drizzt get killed by gnolls. He's still bugged to have 0 APR in LoB mode, which saves us from having to kill him with a lot of Wand of Monster Summoning charges.
The nearby enemy party is vulnerable to charm, so I grab some more easy loot.
Some enemy parties are rigged so the whole group turns hostile only when the leader initiates dialogue, so you can get within visual range of another party without the party going red. It makes it easy to pick them off one by one.
Once our reputation is up to 20, we go shopping at Sorcerous Sundries and grab some stuff we'll need in SoD, plus a new Wand of Monster Summoning. Frisk has terrible damage output and will continue to have terrible damage output until they can level up in SoD and recover their Archer levels, so summons are their only hope of bringing down enemies, and with only one level 3 mage spell slot, the wand is the only viable source of summons they can use.
There are limitations to the wand, though. For one thing, they have no special immunities, so they're pretty much helpless against the carrion crawlers in the Baldur's Gate sewers. It takes lots of charges to make any progress.
Plus, while Frisk can spam them for many rounds on end, summons don't get as many bonuses as LoB enemies, so a single charge is sometimes just barely enough to kill a single enemy before they die or vanish.
Plus, the wand has limited range and only the ogres have a magical weapon. But they are still limitless, and as long as you have the resources to keep them charged, they can handle certain encounters on their own.
Fun fact: you don't have to fight Ramazith at the top of his tower. You can just charm him at the bottom floor and then empty his spellbook. For some reason, his Skeleton Warrior doesn't go hostile where Bassilus' did, which means we can let the Skeleton Warrior do all the work. At 90% MR (any enemy mage or cleric will get the level 15 Animate Dead version in LoB mode), the Skeleton Warrior is impossible for Ramazith to kill.
The Iron Throne is yet another fight we can't possibly win. But it's also yet another fight we can bypass with invisibility; all we need is to nab the documents and bail.
We flee the Ogre Magi ambush at Candlekeep so I can enter under invisibility and pre-buff for the fight, but things go really poorly; the enemy keeps disabling our summons. I can attempt land a Horror spell, but the enemy's saves are too good, and my summons keep disintegrating.
In the end, I decide to just talk to the Keeper of the Portal and head inside Candlekeep without fussing with the Ogre Magi. They don't offer any meaningful loot anyway.
Rieltar is worth fighting, however, because his party has a lot of high-priced magical gear. We provoke him with a Wand of Fire charge and send in some critters from the Wand of Monster Summoning, at which point I realize that the enemy uses Darts of Stunning--which would mean guaranteed death if Frisk got hit by one and failed a save vs. spell.
We have lots of wand charges, so I play it safe and send in a steady stream of monsters while keeping Frisk far from the enemy.
Rieltar breaks his weapon, but the enemy is advancing on Frisk, making their way further south.
We're in trouble if the enemy reaches Frisk. Using the wand clouds Frisk's aura, and if Frisk's aura is clouded, they won't be able to go invisible or respond effectively if the enemy attacks. I decide to run for a far corner and go invisible early.
I'm running low on invisibility options, but the important thing is to stay safe. I can always run away if things go badly. But some scouting and probing shows that Rieltar, the only mage, is dead, and the thief with Darts of Stunning appears to have run out. Without any good ranged options, the enemy shouldn't pose a threat to Frisk as long as we keep monsters on the map. We return to our summoning strategy, with Frisk contributing what little spells they have.
We burn a lot of wand charges, but the enemy finally wears thin, and the loot is worth the lost charges.
In the catacombs, we have to tank a Lightning Bolt trap and deal with some Phase Spiders. The Boots of Grounding and Frisk's HP pool can handle the former, but we need wands and kiting to deal with the latter. It takes many rounds and running in circles, but when the spiders are gone, we can safely loot the place.
Invisibility gets us outside; we have no reason to fight Prat or the doppelgangers.
We only need a few more things before we're ready to enter the endgame and therefore SoD. We've neglected the three AC girdles, but the Wand of Monster Summoning, Algernon's Cloak, and a pet basilisk can get us all three.
We return to Baldur's Gate and promptly get arrested before solving Neb's riddle and escaping prison. Getting away with the murder of a prominent businessman fills us with determination.
Not actually doing anything yet this play session, but gods do they look garish. How the heck are you getting an AC bonus by walking around like a big glowing target? I'd make a gif or video if I cared enough, but Sirene is literally pulsating puke green.
It's easy to look at Shadow Fiends no selling these things and think "Look! Weapon immunity! Overpowered!", but honestly they kind of suck against anything hold immune with their 16 THAC0, while the mage could be killing all four at once with Fireshield Red and Polymorph Self, which, incidentally, there is a scroll of on this very tower level.
Rest encounters are handled so badly in this game. How did these ghouls spontaneously teleport into the middle of the party in the zero seconds since they started resting?
Psychic Crush: Save at, I think at this point -3, or be stunned for 3 rounds. Very worth the 8 level dual awkwardness to get.
Blah blah chess. Stupid cat and dwarf AI sent them trundling forth aggroing the entire board. I think there may have been one rook I didn't have to kill.
Glowing, ridiculous, teal.
One area the Shadow Adept excels is handling MR critters. Black Ooze and Impose both ignore MR and cause one round helplessness, so taking down the Demon Knight here was a case of four spells and the entire party whaling on him.
Durlag's down, two Adepts and a million assassins to go. Whee.
Comments
It's a little known factoid that Durlag helped cut costs on his own tower construction by using cutting edge modular construction methods. Each individual floor module can be found in various structures across the sword coast.
What's that? Blue circles? Let me just.... fireball you to death, thanks for your passivity.
Yeah, I assume that didn't break any railroading plot, and the game crashing the first time I did it wasn't a bad sign.
Well it's nice that the rest of the level is blue circle as well. Makes it easier for my kill squad.
Every single enemy is a loot pinata, endless potions of haste and health, full plates for everyone, endless magic swords, endless +1 and +2 arrows...
Oh now that's lazy. they didn't even remove Joseph's Greenstone Ring from the map.
Ashikirukuru "Shadow Warriors" instead of spiders. How vile. A few backstabs get Ishlilka pretty low, but she had around fifty potions in her pack to recover.
Entire room of backstabbing, invisibility spamming, shadow warriors. Yeslick got chunked but as I was picking up all their lost gear...
Sigh. I don't care about Yeslick enough to redo the entire level over even if it wasn't no reload.
Whatever, I've watched enough horror movies to know the right answer to these things.
Split up!
Non-magical weapons? Meet Shadow Fiends.
This guy died on top of the container, so all their loot ended up inside it. Neat.
B-Team took out their aggressors with no losses. Woo.
And found more. Neatoh. I suppose I could technically be bypassing the entire place since, y'know, it's the Cloakwood mine map, but storming an enemy base requires a certain level of professionalism when it comes to murdering everything that moves.
Was this supposed to be a boss character? Two fireballs say no, but she's carrying a wardstone for some reason.
Well this seems new at least. Not shown: Several hundred thousand gold's worth of magic gear simply left on the floor. Perhaps if the Section personnel actually used their five haste potions, five health potions, and five healing potions, things might be different, but I'm pretty sure at this point I've enough loot and potions to last all the way through SoD.
Wide open area with archers killed Verr'Sza, so... Go back upstairs to the chokepoint and fry them with a single scorcher charge before falling back on old faithful: More shadow fiends.
Whew. Wonder how deep this place is?
I actually had to Ctrl-J up the spiral staircase to get up here, which screams "boss fight" to me.
[crash alternity]
Bosses? Zat you?
Well I assume it was.
[/alternity]
I hope this is the end of the content, I've had to repeat three floors now.
I let them talk, final bosses deserve a bit of a monologue.
Cartoonishly evil villains plus one mandatory token good person, check.
I... guess talking to them makes the fight easier? What weirdness is this?
Okay, maybe they spawn some new guards?
Nope.
Deja vu.
For the record, whoever made Sanctuary the number one go to defensive spell for a heavily wounded cleric needs to be slapped upside their head with a newspaper. It's a defensive choice that stops you getting healed, takes an age to cast (unlike invisibility), and leaves you ultimately vulnerable to any fireballs flying around.
Also for the record, considering all the lunatic gear being thrown around and the fact that the team was two people down, that was a surprisingly straight forward boss fight. Scorcher, some melee scrapping, some ranged support. Nothing particularly onerous all told, especially compared to the floor just before it, which was pretty brutal.
Whatever, now for the long trek back to the surface. Ho hum.
Oh goody. Apparently the boss fight has a boss fight. Faaaabulous.
Since I "lost" Yeslick, I supposed it only fair to downgrade to the assassin lass when she offered. I am going to be juggling so much inventory now.
Also I forgot where their hideout is, so probably going to have to search house to house again.
And Stone of Askovar is now completed. Been carrying that around for awhile now.
Ucurian and his band of rejects - Part IX: Mekrath's Lair and all of the NPC quests
I decided that doing at least part 1 of the Haer'Dalis couldn't hurt, as I had managed to kill Yuan-Ti mages in De'Arnise keep already, so why not kill some more?
Indeed, these ones turned out to be much easier, as they didn't have access to death spell. Thus, they utterly failed at dealing with my skeleton warriors:
I also helped Mekrath to get his mirror back before killing him via traps.
Next, I decided to do literally all of the NPC quests, swapping out different party members all the time to stay at about even experience (though Ucurian would clearly be ahead). I already had helped Cernd, so next was Anomen (easy, no battles), Edwin (I used traps against both the lich and the red wizards, so that one was very easy), Jan (traps against the githyanki), Keldorn (no fighting), Mazzy (an easy battle), Nalia (only one minor fight) and finally, Jaheira. This last one was the only one of significant interest, as it involved quite a few battles, and some with little to no preparation, with harper groups appearing after I had just rested (and I didn't think to lay down some traps this time). The final group, lead by Dermin, was the only one to cause any trouble - I was completely unbuffed when combat started, and while I managed to get off the greater malison + chaos combo right away, I, in turn, was hit with a confusion spell - and focusing on disabling my foes left my weaker characters without any defenses. This resulted in Saldor being attacked and heavily wounded thanks to a confused foe, while Jaheira and Tarnele were confused:
However, all relevant foes were affected by chaos, so I only had to survive physical attacks - which was easy with Saldor drinking an invisibility potion, Tarnele getting un-confused via Tangled Strings (my first time using this item in BG2) and the last non-confused foe, Lennah, getting poisoned by her own leader:
After that, victory was ours.
Now, with the old NPC quests done, the far more dangerous new ones had to be tackled. Now, I have never done any of these in a no-reload game - indeed, I have only ever done them once at all, right after I got the enhanced edition games. I can't claim to remember a whole lot about them, so this was a somewhat risky move, but there are some very useful items and more experience to obtain here.
I started with Neera's quest, making my way through the Wild Forest and, because I distinctly remember getting a character killed by a trap here, searching for traps all the time everywhere. This made my progress very slow, and even then I ended up triggering a trap (though only one). After that, the minor quests at the Wild Mage Hideout were completed relatively quickly (though herding cats was annoying as hell). Because Zaviak wanted me to find Wilson, I didn't continue with Neera's main quest yet, though.
To get Wilson, I had to swap Neera for Rasaad. His quest turned out to be the easiest (by far, if I'm being honest). Basically no fighting during the first part (though I did up killing the adventuring party, because I remembered them having great loot ). During the second part, I completed the various trials and waged the final battle, once again with great help by greater malison and chaos:
At this point, I had gotten some great loot already: Basically an amulet of proteciton +2 from one of the wild mage quests and a ring with 3x mirror image charges/day for killing the adventurers during Rasaads quest plus the gem of true seeing at the temple. I felt great about my choice to do these quests, but things were about to get difficult.
With Wilson freed, I returned to Neera's questline. I decided to try and not take her along to rescue the wild mages, because I remembered this part being quite difficult, so I wanted to have Saldor instead. Still, I underestimated the order opposing me: Their mages were using very effective scrips, going for remove magic, greater malison and chaos while protected by a whole arsenal of defensive spells. The first battle left me with a wounded and exhausted party:
I decided not to let things get so close again - I went outside to rest and from now on, every room was taken with 5 skeleton warriors leading the charge and a fully buffed party. The remaining part of the quest was relatively easy with this approach, and I managed to save all the wild mages.
Next, I picked up Dorn. Doing his first two quests was kind of a catastrophe from a roleplaying perspective, considering one of my characters is an undead hunter and the bhaalspawn is literally a priest of helm. I made sure to keep my reputation up with temple donations after each part of the questline. The first quest was easy, the second one involved some powerful melee fighters on the opposing side, but nothing that a couple of skeleton warriors couldn't handle. I tried my hand at assassining my primary target with Tarnele - which didn't work out instantly, but another hit was enough to take down the priest:
The lack of ranged options and arcane spellcasters on my opponents part was their downfall, and I continued on to the third part, which was surprisingly simple. I decided to kill both potential patrons, and they failed to remove Ucurians chaotic command buffs, so they were killed in melee combat without offering any significant resistance (truth be told, none of their spells did anything and none of their attacks hit anything).
I was happy to get rid of Dorn and have Hexxat join instead. Nothing much to say about the first tomb. Of course, there are mind flayers in the second one, but I didn't get the feeling that these were affected by SCS (though I can't be sure, they died very fast, and my mind flayers, while they are smarter and can see through invisibility, don't get extra resistances):
The other significant encounter here were the three mages - sadly, they didn't have access to death spell, so skeleton warriors spelled their doom. Otherwise, this could've been a rough fight:
The final battle in the second tomb was unremarkable and quickly won. Same goes for most of the third tomb, including the final battle. However, this does definitely NOT include the group of spirits encountered at the entrance of the tomb. I decided to fight these (foolishly, I might add), because I was hoping for some easy extra experience. This turned out to be a horrible idea, and I'm lucky I survived this battle at all.
So both enemy mages started off with alteration spells, and I thought: "Oh, they're propably gonna haste the rest of the group, I should make sure to kill of the fighters quickly in that case". Little did I know:
So yes, we got our first timestops of this run. Yes, timestops plural - both of them stopped time, and both of them used that time to throw an AHW, cast spell turning and sunfire. I was very lucky that they decided to target Saldor with their AHWs. While the spells were flying at him, I had him (hasted and equipped with boots of speed) run far to the south to build some distance to the spell projectiles and go for SI:N - which he managed to cast just in time:
The sunfires put Hexxat down to exactly 1 hp, but she was able to heal up with potions. Meanwhile, while I tried to dispel some of my foes' buffs, but this turned out to be difficult. Still, I got rid of all the non-mages before deciding to retreat and leave the field to my skeleton warriors (once again, my foes had no access to death spell - very lucky for me). Still, I wasn't as save as I thought I was. Both mages summoned an efreet, and both of these went straight for my party, ignoring my summons. Everyone took quite a bit of damage, as this caught me very much off guard:
I had Ucurian drink a fire protection potion. My party killed the efreeti two times before they were actually done for, and at this point, the skeleton warriors managed to take down the mages. Still, I apparently had one foe remaining: One of the opposing spellcasters had summoned a pit fiend! Camalan had to take that one down:
Not sure what would've happened if both AHWs would've been aimed at Ucurian. Does drinking an invisibility potion stop the AHW projectiles from doing their damage? I wasn't sure about that, so I decided not to try and go for SI:N instead - but it might be helpful to know for the future. Anyway, this fight did provide me with a shortbow +3, which is somewhat useful for Tarnele, and some more experience. Still, not really worth it considering the power level of my foes (oh, and I should have used traps! Why did I forget about that?).
Anyway, I travelled to the Windspear Hills and took out the Rukh Transmuter with the help of skeleton warriors and aerial servants. He almost killed Camalan with a single 3x flame arrow spell sequencer. That's quite something, considering we're talking about a dwarven defender. After that, I went back to Garren's place, rested and stopped playing for now.
Enuhal
Welcome to Baldur's Gate.
Let's get ninja'd. Protect me Quenash!
Noooo!
Phew.
Apparently if you sleep in inns, the ninja kindly let you leave the inn first.
Ow. Probably should have Imaged up beforehand, those fireballs hit hard.
Fool me once...
Fool me twice...
Third time I'm going to trap both sides of the door, ward up and lure you into an ambush with shocking disregard for the safety of the inn's patronage.
Honestly at this point, it's pretty unlikely these ninja will kill Gabriel. Guess that's a good sign that the mod's balanced, because Gabriel certainly isn't.
Aura was kidnapped by ninja? Am I a bad enough dude?
Oh, nevermind, she ran off to fight ninja alone.
I'm not sure why she thought that was a good idea, all things considered, since she's the only party member to almost die against the ninja squads.
Well that was a brief departure.
Oh Aura-chan, never change your weeaboo ways, but do kindly get on with it.
Punch time?
Nevermind.
Oh c'mon!
Sigh.
1: Five people with completely random, unsignposted fire immunity after just being hurt with fire damage in the cutscene prior. What should have been a disrupting wall of flaming AOE death was instead a friendly fire catastrophe.
2: Couldn't pre-buff because the whole map was a cutscene as soon as the party arrived. Can solve this next time now I know where the railroad starts.
3: Wand of Shadowfire is bugged. Trying to use the shadowball to disrupt casting did nothing whatsoever and just wasted Gabriel's aura where he could have been trying to recover buffs instead.
Buffless, confused, cornered by the melee stabby boss, and killed.
Damnit weeaboo quest.
Whoopsy doopsy.
If the part involving being thrown into the fight without warning is that problematic I can do something about it. It's just a huge pain in the rear to make scripts fire based off the party's exact location on the map, but I'll figure something out.
In roleplaying terms.... it's a bit of a mess. Despite being nominally in the employ of the Order of Aster, and indirectly Chief Inspector Brega and Prelate Wessan, Stirkus is now being attacked on sight by the Order, and indeed the Harpers thanks to Jaheira. He's a rep 20 baby kisser, hero of the people... and now he'll never be the knight he wanted to be. So we have the guy who just wanted to be a part of the establishment... now leading a team of renegades and rebels like some sort of alternate A-Team. He's begun to take the violent solutions to conflicts with other organisations, like the Harpers & Rasaad's pursuers, and may eventually just have to become James Cagney
I imagine we'll do one or two more quests and then head on to Spellhold. Happy no-reloading.
The biggest problem is that having enjoyed the mildly overpowered Shining Hand dual I have no idea what to play next. I need a Shadow Adept cleric variant or something so I can play a twin soul Mage/Shadow Adept multiclass. Or someone to finally implement a "Druid" cleric kit.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
I acquired some extra companions in Baldur's Gate, having lost some carefully nurtured companions.We have reached the Coast Way Crossing without any major incidents as would be expected. I have spent all but 106gp of my gold, most of it on spells for Dynaheir.
Not being a Mage/Thief is causing me almost physical pain. I am this close to rerolling a Shadowdancer/Mage or something.
Of course, the other issue is that I'd like to go for level 9 before dualling at a natural breakpoint at +3/+3 damage, which means being a Kensai into SoD and dualling into Adept then, because I like to live dangerously (and will be hiding behind a lot of other people like a sissy throughout).
This is off to a tenuous start. Fortunately I have a cunning plan.
Nepotism.
One shotted on sight.
So, so mean. Now get out of here Xan and Montaron, turns out I didn't need you. At least until the next time I need some sacrificial fodder to charm a lisk.
Possssibly should have waited a bit for that particular fight. At least until I had any wands whatsoever.
Damn you arbitrary game constructs!
Valentine has to dual, because the conversation only pops up if he, personally, is a mage, therefore if he waits until level 9 Kensai in SoD the orb will be unavailable.
Time to restart him and dual at 7 I suppose.
There’s a hidden thing. Kryn will offer the orb to any Mage who initiates conversation with him, not just the main character. So you could’ve used any Mage to pick up the orb and then held it until SoD.
Probably won’t do you much good now though...
By the way Nym is getting deleveled in the next update.
Speaking to Krynn and offering to find the apprentii did not set quest, had to ask the "If you're their master" question first, then accept the quest from that dialogue, only then did Nym show.
Ahhh. I see the issue. I was talking to him with Imoen, who is good and ineligible. Shame, I wanted to use her "shadow adept" portrait.
Meh, since I'm now mid-petrify cycle with Valentine 2.0 (fortunately I feel no compulsion to reroll on a no-death restart) may as well just hit 7 -> 8 mage anyway, he's more likely to survive anyway.
Also, considering his spell list and ease of door dodging him, overall I'd say Nym's the simplest of the four (three) I faced (the overall party was just level 5, Imoen had virtually no spells, and they still survived the encounter). Ivette and her shades were far more troublesome. Could have been bad if he'd targeted Val with the phantasmal killer though.
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled skewed k/d ratio.
Sometimes you need a single dead bard, sometimes you forget that you didn't buy any scrolls of Stone to Flesh after sacrificing two party mates and need to drop the last one. Circle, life, etc.
Disaster as Korax died to a 20 damage crit to the second Greater Basilisk turns into opportunity when it fails its save against Algernon's cloak, taking out the adventurer party, guarding Val while he rests to recover his lightning spells, and ultimately dying horribly to said lightning spells. Don't kill my ghoul buddy.
He summoned shadow fiends this time, on a contingency, no less. Here Val has managed to blind the second of two fiends that were chasing him and is trying to rest, while inside the cave the adept has killed the rest of the party with the other fiend and various blasting spells. I have no idea if he's used his death spell.
Two gibberling hordes later.
Oh c'mon!
Okay, this right here? Blatant cheating. This is the second time he's dropped an instant cast unmask to take out Valentine's potions of invisibility in the last three rounds. I know he doesn't have the spell slots left after dropping Sigil of Madness, Void Blast, and Cone of Bitter Cold in the fight, and he has no way of knowing when Valentine was in range to recast, not to mention no way of casting it instantly.
Valentine is spotted by the shadow fiends, doesn't quite make the kill with lightning bolt, gets hit by sleep, and though he makes his save against the shadow fiend hitting him to wake him up, he didn't against a second hit and was held and killed. Cheap.
Edit: Well, apparently kitted dual characters cannot typically use the Shadow Orb, despite not actually being on the list of characters that cannot use the Shadow Orb, so... I guess I was wasting my time with Valentine regardless. There goes one more interesting idea.
Okay. I'm looking through the Shadow Adept's AI script, and bear in mind I wrote it months ago, and I have no idea what I was smoking. Unmask is the only spell that they will cast repeatedly, once every five rounds, without a care for whether they actually know the spell or not. I... I don't know what my state of mind was when I wrote this. Note how the chat box simply says "Nym Phaundal: Unmask" rather than "Nym Phaundal: Casts Unmask" as a mage spell would be displayed. That's a sign that it's a "cast instantly regardless of whether you know the spell" script.
Soon enough you will be ready for improved anvil, which does this type of thing EVERY fight.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
Done most of the quests on the Coast Way Crossing and in the Coast Way Forest. I am slowly and very carefully doing the Dwarves of Dumathoin Quest, popping outside quite frequently to sleep as I am using up a lot of spells to stay safe. When I came across Coldhearth, he had turned himself into a lich and had to die.It will soon be time to move on.
to attack the newly unmasked Val. I've reached the point I'm not prepared to touch the shadow adept quest until everyone has magic weapons and CHARNAME a ring of Free Action, the fiends are that much nastier than the mages themselves.
Valentine IV, Psionicist bound for the dark.
Yes, I will be using both the caster classes that cast from HP, and probably aiming for an awkward 8 -> 31 dual which can't complete in BG.
Shoal raises Jaheira for me, because I forgot to kick her. Ah well. I remembered to kick everyone after to jump Val to level 4 at least.
Cosmic balance reasserts itself as Valentine shells his own party with a potion of burning rather than tolerate one more of those bloody commandos.
Sometimes against my best efforts the bard survives. In which case I send her to scout Mutamin, kick her from party as soon as he's visible to Basilisk target, and leave her stranded in the wilderness with no gear.
So. Mean.
Crime pays. Or somat.
Apparently I bugged Ishlilka this time around by telling her to bugger off on the initial encounter, so... I can actually recruit a decent partymate! And stop being human! Oh goody!
I have a very poor learning curve.
Fortunately Turn Undead with Sanctuary does the job nicely.
Just in time.
And we're ready to swap Polymorph Self and Spell Immunity for... stuff?
Side thought: They get protection from weave forged weapons, why wouldn't they get weave protection spells too? All the adept encounters seem to have a bunch of MR for some reason.
Another side thought: Shouldn't there be an entire shadow magic school for dealing illusory non-lethal damage all about making people think they died? Wasn't that how illusion spells were supposed to work in 2e?
Whatevs, time to shatter things with cold damage anyway.
Damn skippy, catboy.
Also, since they talk now, attacking with summons/familiars means they remain blue circles and die quietly.
Whoops?
So... Your sword is mine either way, I guess?
My default response to Shadow Binding was "Mage Hold Person, Ignore", until I noticed the -4 save penalty hidden in the text. Forget shadowball, save at -4 or basically die is where it's at.
Did you know that Battle Horrors' flame blades were non-magical like the spell, making them incapable of hurting a mage in Slime form or, in this case, summoned shades?
Sigh. I miss polymorph self.
Fun fact: Psypher keeps the psionic powers you actually advanced after dualling. Val has permanently lost the three baseline powers, but kept telepathy, which he maxed. This includes Intellect Fortress: Complete immunity to mind affecting abilities and effects.
Suck on shadow skeleton summons, scum!
Slightly better than Ishlilka, and slightly less talkative, which isn't a downside at this point. Also a complete dearth of overpowered magical gear, which is generally unexpected.
Time to advance the plot I suppose.
Adept Kills: 2.
Assassin squads down: 5? 6? I lost count. Way too many either way.
Firkraag's Lair turned out to be easier than expected, mainly because Ucurian's levels are high enough at this point to use turn undead to a) kill elder vampires on a good roll and b) strike fear into the hearts of ancient vampires on almost any roll:
All I had to do after an invisible Ucurian took care of the elder vampires was to have Camalan and Ayla chase down the ancient vampires while they continually tried to run away from Ucurian:
I also had a special surprise for the golems in this place: Item randomiser neglected to give us any infinite ammo +1 containers in WK level 1, but we did get Roranach's Horn instead. You know what that means: 100% resistance to blunt damage for our dwarven defender:
Samia's party and Conster were mostly taken down by traps. Of course, we did leave Firkraag for later.
Since I had access to level 15 skeleton warriors now, I decided to tackle the remaining part of the Unseeing Eye quest (the beholder hive). Groups of five skeleton warriors did very well against any opposition in there. I prepared traps for the Unseeing Eye, but they turned out to be useless - they reduced its health to "Near Death", which is what the Rift Device would've done anyway. With my party at a safe distance, my skeletons took down the death tyrants first, and the boss was next:
Now, this gave me the opportunity to do my stronghold quests. Easy enough (though the acolyte fighting me for my position for some reason used the fighter HLA "War Cry" - how? why?).
Anway, after I saved the Temple of Lathander and finished the stronghold quest, it turned out the entire Temple of Talos was still hostile towards me, so I decided to clear it out. Inside, however, to my surprise, I encountered a high level mage with powerful protections, and a rather dangerous battle ensued, forcing me to carefully split up my party members when my opponent fired an AHW of all things. It took me quite a while to defeat her:
As I had reasonable success with Firkraag's vampires, I went to Bodhi's Lair next. Here, there weren't even any ancient vampires, so with a bit of waiting, invisible Ucurian was basically able to take all of them down. Tanova was the only notable exception (to be fair, I didn't try to tackle her with turn undead, because getting close to her seemed way too dangerous to me). She did her best to ignore my summons and go straight for the party, and she was also the first opponent to use SI:Divination to protect her buffs - but I was prepared for this in the form of Tarnele and her 100 points in detect illusions:
The battle still took quite a bit of time, as Tanova was always quick to put up new protection spells, but eventually, she was left without any further defensive options and died (though not before dispelling Ismene's cc and dominating her):
Lassal had to face my undead hunter, buffed up with various potions and mirror images thanks to the cool ring I found during Rasaad's quest:
Sadly, I didn't get a chance to see what SCS' slightly improved Bodhi would try to do at this point, as she decided to flee right away after getting hit by Tarnele's traps.
I decided to go for the sewer illithids next. Why? Well, my party was completely buffed after killing Bodhi and I didn't want to waste the buffs by doing nothing with them, so I decided to try and clear at least the first room down there, as there aren't a lot of illithids in that one. This worked out well enough (mostly thanks to true sight), and I decided to rest, summon 5 skeleton warriors and give the next room a shot. I had noticed that SCS illithids would often try to teleport to the party, so I also prepared some traps - this worked out very well. None of the new illithid abilities seemed too scary to me (as Ucurian has 6 level 5 spells available at this point, not even counting wondrous recall). After the room was cleared, I decided to give the last one a try.
When I carefully poked into the room, all the illithids except for the alhoon either followed Camalan into my waiting traps or teleported to the party (with the same result - getting hit by traps). The alhoon, however, refused to come out and play. I sent in my skeletons, and soon realized that I was dealing with a really high level spellcaster here, with access to multiple level 9 spells. At this point, I should've propably just retreated (I was scared of the possibility of timestop, the alhoon teleporting to Ucurian and int-draining him without me having any chance of fighting back), but I figured that, if my party always stayed out of sight and just sent summons into the room, I could stay and try to drain my foe out of spells.
I used literally all available summons (and if you know my playstyle, you will know that's usually a lot) before the alhoon only seemed to use low level damage spells anymore. With that in mind, I decided to send Camalan, who has the best saves in my party, to try and deal with this powerful enemy:
Indeed, the alhoon only had a bunch of stonekins left. It took a while, but my dwarven defender emerged victorious and with chaotic commands still going:
Ironically, after having dealt with all the powerful undead in chapters 2/3, this is where I found the MoD.
Having dealt with one powerful spellcaster, I thought that I might as well try my hand at the guarded compound (where I expected Sion to be the main threat). My primary plan was to lure my foes downstairs into waiting traps, which does work in vanilla, but it seems like the SCS AI is too smart for that one - no one would follow me downstairs. So I used some instant summoning abilities via items to distract my foes while Tarnele disarmed traps, giving me some room - while always running downstairs when it looked like Sion was casting a truly dangerous spell. Eventually, careful hit and run tactics allowed me to take down most of the foes, but Sion was still untouched:
His spell selection was far more suited to go up against my style, as he had many death spells at the ready, and he eventually managed to land a remove magic on my party, forcing me to retreat and rest. My next attempt, however, turned out to be somewhat easier: When I entered again, the mage's buffs hadn't fired yet, so Tarnele smashed him in one hit:
No Celestial Fury here, but I did find Daystar. Oh, item randomiser, you are so funny - why are you giving me all these anti-undead weapons after I've already taken down the undead around here?
Next time, I will try my hand at the planar sphere. I have lots of ruby rays to take down spelltraps, lots of summons to drain spellbooks and all that - and I feel much safer now that Ucurian has access to Shield of the Archons. However, there are demons outside... and I haven't faced those with SCS before.
Enuhal
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
We have now got as far as the forest of Wyrms and I think that it is only the caves that need doing. However, it is a long time since I have visited SoD, so I might have forgotten a quest or so. Just about to investigate the northern cave. Haven't investigated the southern one yet.I think that there is a dragon in one of them but can't remember which. A poor memory certainly makes the game a bit more interesting.
EDIT 1
I discovered which one it was, and the dragon is now dead.EDIT 2
I forgot about the bugbear stalkers with the result that Safana's health went waydown to 26.Just the last room of the temple to finish now. I can remember how hard it is, so it can wait until I've had a good night's sleep.
Where enemies are refusing to follow a visible character through a transition, a tactic that usually works is to send a single invisible character to them - enemy scripts then tend to force them to seek out visible members of the party (in this case downstairs).
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
There were more than one room remaining. I thought that the Neothelid was the last enemy but it wasn't!After getting it to attack us, we fled so that the sword wouldn't find us. That meant that we only had the Neothelid to fight. We beat it and all the other denizens of the temple that we could find.
I remembered that the code for getting into the secret room was pi. In my previous game in SoD I guessed the code. Perhaps reading all the paperwork would have given me the answer. I didn't, but used my intuition instead.
Here are the screenshots.
I was expecting it to be at LEAST one more digit, being a Land Surveyor I had it memorised to 3.1415926 as I used it so often.
Then Texas brought out the pocket calculator (which had pi hard-coded) which meant that both the Curta and 7 figure logs were a thing of the past. I went to the Science Museum in London about 20 years ago, and already all my tools in the 60s were exhibits: Slide Rules; Computer Punch Cards amd Peters six figure tables. It made me feel old even though I was then still well below retirement age.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
I left without the Wardstone having missed seeing a door. Shows how long it is since I last reached SoD!!I had to go back and look again. I made a minor mistake in fighting the priestess just because she was evil.
As a result Safana was killed and Harper's Call had to be used followed by Heal.
The party has now entered Bridgefort and has spoken to Khalid.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 0: Introduction
I've decided to attempt a solo no-reload tetralogy run of Baldur's Gate, Siege of Dragonspear, Shadows of Amn, and Throne of Bhaal in Legacy of Bhaal mode. I've never done a solo no-reload run before, nor have I done a no-reload LoB run, so this will be my first of both.Some of you may remember my "glitch exhibition" run of LoB mode with a Fighter/Mage/Thief, which I discounted as the holy grail run due to the sheer number of exploits in it. I eventually abandoned when I heard that some of the tricks were going to be removed in the v2.5 update. This is the holy grail run I spoke of. The rules are:
1. Solo (no party members except for Caelar, who has to operate entirely via AI)
2. Legacy of Bhaal mode
3. No mod items can be used
4. No Wand of Lightning trick
5. No leveling up beyond the XP cap for each game (161,000 in BG1; 500,000 in SoD; 8 million in BG2)
6. No reloading except in the case of bugs
Notable mods include Sword Coast Stratagems (SCS), Ascension, ATweaks, Wheels of Prophecy, Universal Archer Kit, Golem Construction, Enhanced Edition Trilogy (EET), Better Stat Drain, CDTweaks, and Klatu Tweaks and Fixes. I installed all the AI components of SCS to keep the difficulty as high as humanly possible, from Ascension Melissan to Tactics Bodhi. The WeiDu log with all my mods is attached to this post.
For those who don't know, Legacy of Bhaal mode is the maximum difficulty setting for EE. All enemies deal double damage and get triple HP plus 80 HP on top, +12 levels, +5 THAC0, +5 to all saving throws, and +1 APR. On top of that, enemy hordes in SoD are larger and the enemies use more special abilities. Summoned critters only get double HP instead of triple, with 20 HP on top. Thanks to EET, familiars get nothing.
Our Charname this time is Frisk!
Because I am hopeless Undertale trash. This portrait is cropped from a post by dreamy94 on tumblr, a Charisk shipper who was on hiatus when I tried to contact them for permission to use the picture.
Although the name doesn't show up on the Record screen, Frisk is an Archer, but not the ranger kit. The Universal Archer Kit, like the Generic Archer kit from Tactics and the Marksman kit from Might and Guile, allows you to apply the kit to a fighter, which means we'll be able to dual-class to mage later on. It's a very, very late-blooming class. It'll be miserably underpowered for all of BG1 and most of SoD, until it becomes very effective in late SoA and devastating in mid-ToB.
If we die even once at any point in the entire tetralogy, we have to start all over from Candlekeep. We are filled with determination.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 1: Baldur's Gate
Our first problem is that, in order to reach our maximum potential by the end of Throne of Bhaal but still survive SoD and function in BG1, we have to dual-class to mage at level 8. That means we're going to have to spend most of BG1 as a pathetic level 5 mage.How do we get to level 8 as a single-classed fighter who can't cast a single summoning spell in a world where a kobold has 100 HP? The answer is the basilisk XP loop, a trick I invented specifically for this challenge.
First, we need money. We can nab a Ring of Wizardry from a tree outside the Friendly Arm Inn and dig up a suit of Ankheg Plate Mail from a farm in Nashkel, which gives us about enough gold for all the ingredients we need.
Specifically, we need the Protection from Petrification green scroll from the Nashkel Carnival, some Potions of Mirrored Eyes from Thalantyr at High Hedge, some mage scrolls for when we dual-class, and exactly 23 scrolls of Stone to Flesh. But there is one item we can't buy: Algernon's Cloak. Since Frisk cannot pickpocket, there is only one way for us to retrieve it from poor Algernon.
Algernon's Cloak grants +2 Charisma and allows us to charm a single critter of any type for 12 hours on a failed save vs. breath, once per day (before EE, it had effectively infinite uses, at 65,535). What do we need this cloak for?
Well, basically everything. Even after the EE nerf, Algernon's Cloak is incredibly powerful. Or at least, it can be, if you know exactly how to use it. Case in point: Mutamin's Garden. But first, we accidentally trigger a tasloi, and because it has so much HP and it could kill us in a single hit, we have to run away from it and fire arrows at it until it dies after about 5 minutes of "kiting," another word for hit-and-run tactics.
Without Algernon's Cloak, LoB mode for an Archer is basically nothing but kiting.
To dual-class to mage and complete BG1 without spending 50 hours kiting gibberlings or whatever, we need to perform the basilisk XP loop. The first step is charming a basilisk with Algernon's Cloak. You can do this safely by approaching under invisibility, but as a single-classed fighter, Frisk has no access to any form of invisibility (Thalantyr has no Invisibility spell in my install, so charming him wouldn't work). Instead, Frisk chugs a Potion of Mirrored Eyes to gain 10 rounds of immunity to petrification. We only get a few shots at this, but Frisk manages to charm the basilisk on the first try.
The next step is using the Protection from Petrification green scroll on the Lesser Basilisk, granting our pet basilisk long-term immunity to petrification. We need this because our pet basilisk is going to kill all the other basilisks on the map for us.
But that's enough to get us to level 8. So we un-petrify a Greater Basilisk using a Stone to Flesh scroll and then have our pet basilisk petrify it again for another 7,000 XP.
There's a finite number of Stone to Flesh scrolls in the game, especially before reaching the city of Baldur's Gate itself, but there are still a lot of them, and as long as you have enough scrolls, you can keep trading a single Stone to Flesh scroll with a gold cost of 100-250 gold for 7,000 XP. That's more than enough to get any solo character to the BG1 level cap.
But our problems aren't over yet--not even close. Since we can't level up beyond the BG1 XP cap (though additional XP will carry over into SoD), Frisk is stuck at mage level 5, unable to use any of their fighter abilities and only able to cast a few low-level spells per day.
That's what we need Algernon's Cloak for. Algernon's Cloak and the Nymph Cloak are the only ways of charming anything in the game that won't turn the target hostile if they fail or when they run out. This means that we can charm neutral characters at zero risk!
Our next mission is to take down the spiders in Beregost. Frisk can't fight them on their own without an hour or two of kiting, but Marl and Silke will gladly fight for us if we charm them first (you can have two charmed two characters at once if you rest in between uses of the cloak).
Marl has lots of HP even outside of LoB mode, but the spiders have far superior damage output. Even with Silke contributing with her bard spells, Marl can't hold the fort forever.
Silke and Frisk finish off the spiders, but not before I let Silke's HP drop low enough for Frisk to wipe her out with a single blow. Unfortunately, when I take Silke back to her normal standing place and lob a rock at her head, Frisk's lousy THAC0 reminds me not to rely on a level 5 mage's attack rols.
Silke's Lightning Bolt is unlikely to slay Frisk, but she also has a double Charm Person Minor Sequencer, and solo characters get an instant game over if they get charmed or Mazed. It's never a good idea to take chances in no-reload runs, so Frisk turns invisible to escape. It's just as well; Silke's pre-cast Stoneskin buff would block the next 10 hits we could make, so she'd probably kill us with her staff before we took her down.
Frisk might have lousy offensive powers, but the key thing in no-reload runs is to maintain strong defenses, and their Invisibility spells will protect them from all kinds of threats in BG1, while Algernon's Cloak can let other people do the heavy lifting. Case in point: Tarnesh, the cause of many deaths in BG1, but who doesn't even have the AI to defend himself against the local guards.
Most SCS mages aren't this stupid. In fact, they can be pretty brilliant at times, and they'll be an increasingly huge threat as we progress through the tetralogy.
Invisibility also lets us nab some nice treasures, including the Wand of Fire and some merchant fodder from the ankheg nest.
We purchase a mod-introduced Bag of Holding (I'm willing to make an exception for mod-introduced containers for convenience's sake) from Thalantyr to minimize inventory management and go grab some more treasures, notably a stat tome from the Flesh Golem cave and the Golden Pantaloons from a guy at the Friendly Arm Inn.
Notice the "Spell Ineffective" messages. There are traps in the Flesh Golem cave, one of which is a charm spell that would be fatal if Frisk failed their save. But Minor Spell Deflection can block many traps, if not all of them, and Invisibility lets us slip past the golems. We also nab a Potion of Invisibility (which activates instantly, unlike an Invisibility spell, and is therefore a superior escape option) and a Wand of Monster Summoning from the Valley of Tombs east of Nashkel.
The Wand of Monster Summoning will be our primary weapon whenever Algernon's Cloak cannot win the fight on its own. But recharging the wand at a merchant costs money, and every use of the wand is worth 375 gold--or a lot more, depending on your Charisma and reputation.
We have the basic tools to function in this run, so it's time to move on with the main quest and proceed to Nashkel. Minor Spell Deflection can't block all the traps in the Nashkel mines, but Frisk's huge HP pool from those 8 fighter levels keeps them safe.
There are lots of kobolds in this area who would completely waste Frisk if given the chance, but that's what Invisibility is for. It's usually not worth tackling these low-level critters in LoB mode unless you enable the bonus XP from kills (which I have not; we'd only get 6 XP for each dead kobold). Unfortunately, they block the path to the next area and refuse to get out of the way, which means we need to use Algernon's Cloak to lead the kobolds out of the narrow bridge using a spider as bait, though it takes a couple tries to charm the spider (the +5 bonus to enemy saves in LoB mode makes stuff awfully hard to charm).
The only enemy we need to kill in this whole area is Mulahey (in some installs, you can complete this quest just by looting the nearby chest), but Mulahey doesn't start out hostile, and you can safely rest in the same area. This means we can attempt to charm him as many times as we like with no chance of being mobbed by enemies.
You can force a charmed enemy like Mulahey to waste all of their spells, and usually, their summoned critters will remain on your side even after you attack them. But the safest way to dispose of Mulahey is not to waste his spells and then attack him--it's to send him after some other critters and just let him die. By unequipping his weapon and making him fight with his fists, we can give the nearby kobolds +4 to hit and damage against Mulahey. Since the kobolds are enemies, Mulahey doesn't go hostile when he's attacked. He dutifully just stands there until he dies.
We might be vastly inferior to the enemy in almost every way, but we can survive in LoB mode by using manipulation and invisibility to defeat our enemies. Nominal nonviolence fills us with determination.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 2: Baldur's Gate
On with the main questline! Charm continues to win the day back in Beregost, where Tiax, whom SCS moves to a more convenient location, summons a ghast to fight for us after we charm him. The ghast really doesn't receive as much attention as it deserves: with immunity to almost all disablers, multiple attacks per round, and the ability to paralyze its victim on a failed save vs. death, it's an excellent anti-mage tool. Tranzig is doomed the moment he fails a single saving throw.With Tranzig dead and with Frisk above 10,000 XP, we're on schedule to get ambushed by two very strong enemy parties belonging to Lamalha and Molkar. But by repeatedly traveling between areas under invisibility, we can ensure that the ambushes happen when Frisk is hidden, allowing us to flee without a fight.
The Cloakwood is coming up soon, and I'll want a fully charged Wand of Monster Summoning before I head in. That means we need to collect some more gold. Bassilus is an excellent target, but he's far too powerful for us to tackle alone--he'd destroy anything we might throw at him with the Wand of Monster Summoning. However, by approaching him under invisibility, using Algernon's Cloak on him, and then immediately fleeing his field of vision whenever he makes his saving throw, we can safely attempt to charm until it succeeds. Then we can have him summon a Skeleton Warrior (the level 15 kind due to his LoB level bonuses, which is immune to normal weapons and has 90% magic resistance) and an Aerial Servant (which deals massive crushing damage with every hit) before wasting his spells and nailing himself with Flame Strike.
Notice that the Skeleton Warrior has now gone hostile along with Bassilus, while the Aerial Servant remains on our side. For some reason, Skeleton Warriors side with their masters, unlike other summons. Fortunately for us, the Aerial Servant gets some lucky rolls and chunks Bassilus well before the enemy has a chance to kill it.
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That Aerial Servant could kill Frisk in a single blow if we tried to fight Bassilus without Algernon's Cloak. Not that the skeletons and zombies couldn't kill Frisk just as easily on their own.
We didn't quite clear out all the enemies in Mutamin's Garden, so we can get a little more gold by taking on Mutamin himself. Again, Frisk isn't remotely strong enough to handle the mage on their own, but charmed basilisks, buffed with Protection from Petrification, can deal him with quite easily.
Note that we couldn't do this without mage levels. There's only a single Protection from Petrification green scroll available in BG1, at least before reaching the city of Baldur's Gate, which means that, while you can charm basilisks as much as you want, you can't keep them from getting petrified by Mutamin's basilisks.
In the interests of collecting gold, we loot the Ulcaster Ruins under invisibility and kill Nimbul, using the local priest to tank him while Frisk stays hidden.
In order to get that cleric out of the temple, we had to charm him and then order him to attack Frisk right before Frisk left the temple. It would also work if we had him try to cast a spell at Frisk. That's the only way to get charmed critters to move between areas, but it doesn't work when an area transition forces an auto-save; only familiars and party members can make those area transitions.
Next up, the bandit camp! The enemy here is even more overwhelming powerful than the other stuff we've faced, so fighting them is simply not an option. Fortunately, we don't have to: all we need to do is fight Tazok and then steal some documents from the main tent.
Tazok moves fast and hits hard, so the moment we arrive, we have to go invisible, lest Frisk get butchered in the first two or three rounds. Then we charm Teven and have him fight Tazok alongside some critters from the Wand of Monster Summoning.
Once Tazok takes enough damage, he lets us into the camp. To deal with the main tent, we need to down a Potion of Absorption (or a Potion of Insulation while wearing the Boots of Grounding from Mulahey) to survive the Lightning Bolt trap on the chest with the relevant documents. Opening the chest breaks invisibility, and while we could re-cast Invisibility, it's safer to use a Potion of Invisibility, since it activates faster and can't be disrupted.
Guess how we're going to deal with the Cloakwood!
The best way to beat the game in LoB mode is not to fight anything you don't absolutely have to. That's even more true in a solo run.
We still need to fight Drasus, though, because his Boots of Speed will give us a boost we'll really need to run around the various enemies of BG1 and SoD. Drasus starts out neutral and can be charmed safely, but the first two guards are hostile and Frisk has to run away to cast Invisibility if charming fails. Turning the guards against each other is partly luck-dependent, because fights take so long in LoB mode than nonmagical weapons often break, and a charmed guard isn't as strong as armed guard.
We have to rest and charm the armed one instead, which gets the weaker one killed and the stronger one under our control. But he's not strong enough to weaken the Drasus party very much.
I really only want Drasus dead, so I rest and approach him under invisibility. Whenever the charm fails, Frisk just runs away to try again.
It finally works, and Drasus takes down Genthore. But when I try to get the mages to kill Drasus, he ends up getting teleported to an inaccessible area via Teleport Field. And killing him with missile weapons is... impractical for a level 5 mage.
We need to burn a charge from the Wand of Monster Summoning to bring him down, and the EE quick loot feature lets us grab his boots from across the moat.
Turns out approaching enemies via invisibility and running the moment Algernon's Cloak triggers is a safe way of charming people. No one seems to respond fast enough to attack you, as long as you time it correctly.
Since Rezdan's pre-buffs don't seem to fire properly if he's charmed, Kysus has a strong advantage and Rezdan doesn't have the strength to take him down. Frisk takes over 80 damage from a Sunfire spell, but survives thanks to their massive HP pool.
They have almost as much HP as a Hobgoblin Elite!
Rezdan goes down, but Frisk can turn invisible and charm Kysus, turning his own spells back on him. It's not enough to kill him, but the Wand of Fire finishes him off.
We sneak past absolutely everyone in the mines and go straight to Davaeorn. We charm the guard after several tries (fleeing the area every time it doesn't work) and have Frisk soak up some damage from the traps.
We accidentally trigger Davaeorn's dialogue and therefore his buffs, but he fails to approach. We wait out his defenses and then have the guard lure the Battle Horrors over to Frisk so we could destroy them with the Wand of Monster Summoning (which we still haven't recharged due to having more charges than I thought we'd have at this point).
Once the Battle Horrors are gone, I rest to give the guard a little more HP and come back. Davaeorn blasts the guard with Cone of Cold when I send him in, but otherwise, Davaeorn just lets the guard whomp on him until his sword breaks.
The guard can only do nonlethal damage, but when Davaeorn loses consciousness at 1 HP, Frisk can burn him down with the Wand of Fire without worrying about getting hit with a spell when they approach.
I burn some charges of the Wand of Monster Summoning on some ankhegs and then recharge it after pawning off a lot of loose gold. We do a few chores and stop by to watch Drizzt get killed by gnolls. He's still bugged to have 0 APR in LoB mode, which saves us from having to kill him with a lot of Wand of Monster Summoning charges.
The nearby enemy party is vulnerable to charm, so I grab some more easy loot.
Some enemy parties are rigged so the whole group turns hostile only when the leader initiates dialogue, so you can get within visual range of another party without the party going red. It makes it easy to pick them off one by one.
Once our reputation is up to 20, we go shopping at Sorcerous Sundries and grab some stuff we'll need in SoD, plus a new Wand of Monster Summoning. Frisk has terrible damage output and will continue to have terrible damage output until they can level up in SoD and recover their Archer levels, so summons are their only hope of bringing down enemies, and with only one level 3 mage spell slot, the wand is the only viable source of summons they can use.
There are limitations to the wand, though. For one thing, they have no special immunities, so they're pretty much helpless against the carrion crawlers in the Baldur's Gate sewers. It takes lots of charges to make any progress.
Plus, while Frisk can spam them for many rounds on end, summons don't get as many bonuses as LoB enemies, so a single charge is sometimes just barely enough to kill a single enemy before they die or vanish.
Plus, the wand has limited range and only the ogres have a magical weapon. But they are still limitless, and as long as you have the resources to keep them charged, they can handle certain encounters on their own.
Fun fact: you don't have to fight Ramazith at the top of his tower. You can just charm him at the bottom floor and then empty his spellbook. For some reason, his Skeleton Warrior doesn't go hostile where Bassilus' did, which means we can let the Skeleton Warrior do all the work. At 90% MR (any enemy mage or cleric will get the level 15 Animate Dead version in LoB mode), the Skeleton Warrior is impossible for Ramazith to kill.
The Iron Throne is yet another fight we can't possibly win. But it's also yet another fight we can bypass with invisibility; all we need is to nab the documents and bail.
We flee the Ogre Magi ambush at Candlekeep so I can enter under invisibility and pre-buff for the fight, but things go really poorly; the enemy keeps disabling our summons. I can attempt land a Horror spell, but the enemy's saves are too good, and my summons keep disintegrating.
In the end, I decide to just talk to the Keeper of the Portal and head inside Candlekeep without fussing with the Ogre Magi. They don't offer any meaningful loot anyway.
Rieltar is worth fighting, however, because his party has a lot of high-priced magical gear. We provoke him with a Wand of Fire charge and send in some critters from the Wand of Monster Summoning, at which point I realize that the enemy uses Darts of Stunning--which would mean guaranteed death if Frisk got hit by one and failed a save vs. spell.
We have lots of wand charges, so I play it safe and send in a steady stream of monsters while keeping Frisk far from the enemy.
Rieltar breaks his weapon, but the enemy is advancing on Frisk, making their way further south.
We're in trouble if the enemy reaches Frisk. Using the wand clouds Frisk's aura, and if Frisk's aura is clouded, they won't be able to go invisible or respond effectively if the enemy attacks. I decide to run for a far corner and go invisible early.
I'm running low on invisibility options, but the important thing is to stay safe. I can always run away if things go badly. But some scouting and probing shows that Rieltar, the only mage, is dead, and the thief with Darts of Stunning appears to have run out. Without any good ranged options, the enemy shouldn't pose a threat to Frisk as long as we keep monsters on the map. We return to our summoning strategy, with Frisk contributing what little spells they have.
We burn a lot of wand charges, but the enemy finally wears thin, and the loot is worth the lost charges.
In the catacombs, we have to tank a Lightning Bolt trap and deal with some Phase Spiders. The Boots of Grounding and Frisk's HP pool can handle the former, but we need wands and kiting to deal with the latter. It takes many rounds and running in circles, but when the spiders are gone, we can safely loot the place.
Invisibility gets us outside; we have no reason to fight Prat or the doppelgangers.
We only need a few more things before we're ready to enter the endgame and therefore SoD. We've neglected the three AC girdles, but the Wand of Monster Summoning, Algernon's Cloak, and a pet basilisk can get us all three.
We return to Baldur's Gate and promptly get arrested before solving Neb's riddle and escaping prison. Getting away with the murder of a prominent businessman fills us with determination.
Not actually doing anything yet this play session, but gods do they look garish. How the heck are you getting an AC bonus by walking around like a big glowing target? I'd make a gif or video if I cared enough, but Sirene is literally pulsating puke green.
Assassins dead, Plot progressed, clerics corpses, Shadow Adept ex-mortis. Inventory space: Nil.
Double billing is the best kind of billing.
Blah blah assassins.
Blah blah greater doppelgangers.
Blah blah doom guard.
It's easy to look at Shadow Fiends no selling these things and think "Look! Weapon immunity! Overpowered!", but honestly they kind of suck against anything hold immune with their 16 THAC0, while the mage could be killing all four at once with Fireshield Red and Polymorph Self, which, incidentally, there is a scroll of on this very tower level.
Rest encounters are handled so badly in this game. How did these ghouls spontaneously teleport into the middle of the party in the zero seconds since they started resting?
Psychic Crush: Save at, I think at this point -3, or be stunned for 3 rounds. Very worth the 8 level dual awkwardness to get.
Blah blah chess. Stupid cat and dwarf AI sent them trundling forth aggroing the entire board. I think there may have been one rook I didn't have to kill.
Glowing, ridiculous, teal.
One area the Shadow Adept excels is handling MR critters. Black Ooze and Impose both ignore MR and cause one round helplessness, so taking down the Demon Knight here was a case of four spells and the entire party whaling on him.
Durlag's down, two Adepts and a million assassins to go. Whee.
By the way, I really like seeing your posts on mod content. It's always cool to see new sights and new things.