Here I go again, guys ! This time, with a Dwarven Defender. Say hello to Arvar Dw'Girn !
As per my usual rule, I rolled the character without reallocating stats. With that in mind, that's truly an awesome roll, I even got a 16 Int (perfect for mind flayers !). His low Dex doesn't matter much, because armors in IR give penalty to Dex anyway. Since he's gonna be in heavy armors and rocking a shield all the time, high dex wouldn't have help him anyway.
It seems that no Dwarven Defender has made it to the Hall of Heroes yet, so I'll have a go at it. However... there's probably a good reason why no one has done it : it's such a munchkiny powergaming class that it seems a bit cheesy just to use it. C'mon : having a skill that grants better DR than an HLA at level 1, with a bonus to saving throws on top ? A bit much, if you ask me. It's even worst in my setup : in IR, armors give some amount of DR. In other words : a Dwarven Defender at level 5 in a full plate armor will stand at an undispellable 75 DR in my setup. That's just too much.
So, I tried to rebalanced the class somewhat. Here's the description :
The bonus to DR is changed to a bonus to AC that gets better over time. However, the penalty to thac0 also is getting worst with levels. I granted the class Grand Mastery in axes and war hammers, because it's just so thematically coherent, but restricted them to proficiency to all other weapons. If you consider that in an IR install medium and large shields give penalty to thac0, my Dwarven Defender under Defensive Stance can sufer up to -6 thac0 penalty with a weapon other than an axe or an hammer with a lower APR. Actually, even with an axe, my Dwarven Defender will still suffer a -3 penalty to thac0 at level 18. So, it's a defensive class that has to pay it with some offense and flexibility.
Is it perfectly balanced ? Nope. I still think it's much better than an unkitted fighter. However, I think it's actually not as good as a Barbarian or a Berserker if you think about the immunities they enjoy. All in all, it's nowhere near as cheesy as it was before, so, that's what I'm gonna go with. I probably will not release these modifications as a standalone mod, because I'm pretty sure nobody wants to play my nerfed version of that class...
This run is with my usual favorite mods : IR/SR, SCS with full prebuffs, Rogue Rebalancing, a whole bunch of NPC mods...
Arvar and his band of misfits are already waiting to fight the doppelgangers in the Ducal Palace, so I'll try to catch up in the next few days !!
@Arctodus: That's a pretty good way to balance the Dwarven Defender without crippling the kit. You might consider making a mod out of it!
If you did, though, it might be good to add some little extra "treat" to make the mod seem more like a rebalancing than a simple nerfing, since the only upside is a slight AC bonus. A good thematic example would be to borrow the IR Fortress Shield's area-effect AC bonus, which would make the rebalanced Dwarven Defender an actual defender of the party, instead of an invincible tank that many enemies will simply ignore when its resistances exceed 75%.
Garrick can't use the Shadow Orb to become a Nightsinger. How lame. Fortunately, ve have vays of dealing with zie situation.
Free lobotomies for all Imoen!
Boring Beetle transformation fails when you're in another form, but it does give you the beetle weapon and haste you, giving Mustard Slime the 5D4 it's supposed to get in melee anyway.
This guy actually killed himself dropping spells at point blank range, denying me the exp. Jerk.
Kirinhale's infinite teleport/charm/energy drain cheats are so obnoxious. She can barely even tickle our 2 APR Mustard Murder though.
The ghasts can't even do that, since they deal piercing damage and their hold is blocked by MR, but Kirinhale wastes so much time his Polyself ran out mid fight and he had to revert to typical fireball throwing.
The single event that summarises BG1 No-Reload runs:
Random friggin basilisk encounters.
: Well I gave up the magic that I just got, sold my soul to Shar, and violated all my moral principles, but at least I'm going to be a help to you with my new powers.
@Arctodus: That's a pretty good way to balance the Dwarven Defender without crippling the kit. You might consider making a mod out of it!
If you did, though, it might be good to add some little extra "treat" to make the mod seem more like a rebalancing than a simple nerfing, since the only upside is a slight AC bonus. A good thematic example would be to borrow the IR Fortress Shield's area-effect AC bonus, which would make the rebalanced Dwarven Defender an actual defender of the party, instead of an invincible tank that many enemies will simply ignore when its resistances exceed 75%.
That's a really good idea because it makes so much thematic sense ! I'll add the "aura" effect to Defensive Stance at level 8.
Not even getting involved. Pretty sure two rounds of anything those Shadow Fiends can cast would kill Jack with no way to avoid it.
She then followed the party after they rested away her fiends and was perforated by an icicle the size of her head. Happy endings for everyone! Except the party. Shadow adepts give no Exp.
Ulcaster Level 2 & 3 vs Invisibility spells and a thief with 120 Find Traps. Let's do this.
I was worried for a moment there. With no friendly targets, Aura sits around invisibly.
As a point of order, how the heck does a "charm" trap work? Whose side are you charmed to? The trap maker? What if they're dead? Who gives them orders?
Aura fails to spot a lightning trap. Invisibly she is returned and healed, but then:
Temple -> Ulcaster: Apparently basilisk central.
Killing the ghasts and other chaff without 90%+ MR, Jack "bravely" lures the rest of the group out of the carefully crafted position that his summons had put them into, because I'm a chucklehead who forgot he summoned and broke invisibility. Fortunately he has four slots of it, leaving only Archmage "too good to walk" Natas guarding the tomb.
Or possibly Archmage "Not Fireproof" Natas.
I could easily grab the other tomb where there's the ring of +2 to every spell slot almost completely unguarded, but meh, I'd only sell it anyway, and with infinite gold a trip to the temple away, not much motivation for that.
There's supposed to be a trio of red wizards waiting for you when you leave the dungeon, but didn't show last time either. They don't have any interesting stuff anyway.
I understand you had a bad experience in Rapture, Jack, but you don't need to pause over ice statues.
Attack Jack! He is - ow - stabbing us with pointy things! But we can't - ow - seeee him. T_T Let's - ow - just wait and see if he - ow - shows up. Should - ow - we move first?
Finally, four rounds later they finish their deliberations and actually move.
No ammo for you.
Seriously considered soloing with the mandatory NPCs just taking up party space, but I still have a few quests and dialogues I need to complete if nothing else.
The same Shatter that penetrates locks also ignores MR and deals 16d6 crushing to golems and elementals over four rounds. Rekt.
Ctrl-8 is for posers.
This bodes well for tougher fights.
Which doesn't include this one, obviously.
Changes nothing, but getting off the rails and saving the miner is always nice.
Rabbit: Surprisingly useful. Aura: Less so.
The mage not spamming invisibility purge is a nice change.
They think it's all over!
It is now.
A Shadow Adept has no problem whatsoever with handling weave forged weapons or wearing a robe of regular archmagi but muggles can't handle a dagger, dart, or ioun stone. This is a shame, since there's a niche for these items and they wouldn't unbalance things if they were more widely available.
To do: Bandits -> Cloakwood -> Section -> Stone of Askovar -> Oversight -> Weeaboo Quest -> Candlekeep level 14 Shadow Adept -> Beat Sarevok, probably naked and blindfolded after managing that lot.
We have done a few of the quests near the underground river with the effect that only Jaheira can level up again before the 500,000 experience cap. Dynaheir and Safana haven't reached it, but even when they do, they won't be able to level up.
This time through I am neither using BWOOOSH or poison in order to see how things work out doing that. How could a paladin stoop to such tactics?
EDIT
Just defeated Hephernaan. He has transported himself away and summoned more crusaders who are now defeated. It is now time for bed, so I will see what transpires tomorrow. I didn't bother returning to the Coalition Camp. Whether that is good or bad, I have no idea. I certainly don't need more equipment.
Selling and buying back an ankheg summonning amulet etc. might have been wise, but I have no idea what it would cost.
EDIT 2
I have discovered that I cannot get into the room to deal with the demon, and I have forgotten how I got hold of it last time. It looks like I might have to either exit the caves or look at a walkthrough. I'm wondering if it is BWOOSH that enables you to enter. Since this is only my second time in the Dragonspear basement I am playing this blind at the moment.
Well, a long while since I've had to report a death but Stirkus fell in the Underdark, while being assailed by Kuo-Toa and the lich Alachra Diggot. I'm not sure what happened, I think that I just kept playing too long while tired and failed to notice that he had been cornered by the Kuo-Toa while trying to evade the lich. It was a needless error to keep playing around with the soul trap machine, and one too many careless risks caught up with me! Ironic that trying to fulfil that ghostly paladin's (Fading Promises mod) mission killed him, and quite appropriate. He always wanted to be a noble hero... and failed... though I suppose his end of dying to cover his companion's retreat was considerably nobler than his performance cowering at the back in many other battles!
We had gone through the Sahaugin City killing the prince without too much trouble but the sheer immense quantity of spell triggers that high level mages release consistently caught me on the hop this run, I'm afraid I'm a little out of practice against high level SCS mages. My install - reduced XP, no Watcher's Keep, Item & Spell Revisions- also made things tricky, and I really needed to be playing with full concentration in each battle which becomes rather difficult after a while. The Psypher/ Mage dual was quite strong in many ways but non-warrior classes can lack some passive defences if you're not methodical with buffing.
I'll be back after a break, I have picked up the games for Android so will probably try my luck again away from the PC with whatever mods I can manage to install. (No-reloading the original Xcom on my commute presently, let me know if you'd like a soldier named after you and their post-mortem!) Playing with SCS may put too much of a strain on the fun roleplaying style I like to play with, but we'll see. For now it's time to celebrate the sweet pain of defeat again!
Blahhhh. Forgot there was a half-ogre in the bandit camp with a sword that causes berserk on hit. No other clerics and Aura's healing arrows stored safely in Jack's ammo belt from last time she died.
Damnez vous, Dark Side. You can't let your guard down for a second with those uberweapons.
Taryn began life under the brief misconception that he was a gnome who worshipped Baervan, but was gradually aided by family and friends to realise that he was not, in fact, a three foot tall scruffy midget who loved justice and turned to being a Monitor of Azuth instead.
But since gnomes get the best of everything, those formative years left him with the ability to summon bears and the ability to cast Insect Plague as a level 4 spell and Creeping Doom as a level 6.
Gnomes: Always overpowered.
Honestly did not expect the Rabbit to succeed here, it's a fire based trap so I was all up to trigger it.
Sticking with his own kind. Taryn, we've talked about this.
Since Invisibility does not, for some reason, count as a buff spell for Sanctuary (if I'd known I'd have just broken invisibility, cast Sanctuary and avoided this train wreck), and Open Lock, unlike Find Traps, breaks invisibility. Taryn de-cloaks to save Aura and is forced to use non-standard tactics: Auralora block the doorway, so around a dozen undead fail to enter and wander away down the corridor while Taryn turns one Ghast away and kills the other with magic missiles (gnome druids get to turn undead, obviously).
A ghost knight hadn't finished this movement and so tried to attack once the girls moved away, so they blocked the corridor and it died to Taryn's throwing dagger, having never found true love.
Two tomes, one sacrificial halfling who can and will be raised from the proceeds, and could have survived if she had a potion of invisibility.
Basil loses his family twice before being murdered by the specter of his father.
... Sigh. I guess I'll get Neera instead.
...
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
Bugger this for a game of soldiers, let's advance the plot.
Imagine, if you will, a stream of muttered curses from Beregost to the mines, through the mines, and back out the other end.
Nimbul: Has six level 1 spell slots.
Uses them all to cast Magic Missile.
While I think of it, what is it about Nashkel that both the assassins have infravision items? Ring on Nimbul, Helm on Neira.
Teeeechnically he's doomed, since eventually he'll hit level 7 spells, after which a single failed saving throw will kill him. But meh, Exp cap etc.
The game gets a lot easier when you stop playing by their rules. Invisibility with a thief plus Sanctuary to loot and a spare invisibility to recloak before Sanctuary ends. There's enough targets of opportunity out there to boost the thieves' level.
Considering we just ganked his quest reward, inclined to say it's not mandatory.
Target of opportunity. Animal Eyes turns any animal into a familiar and gives it a better chance of scoring a critical hit, while Beetle spam is a level 3 spell, giving him a convenient safe alternative to "actually talking to people".
Back up thief team do their jobs after Taryn whiffs a fear save. I should probably recruit a backup support cleric while I'm at it and load them up with Remove Paralysis/Fear/whatever.
Damnit, Taryn.
Talk about a forced conversion. He even loses Summon Ghast.
Taryyyyn.
... Damnit.
Surrounded by Shadow Fiends apathetic to the flames, she is trapped and can only die in a fire, as someone once requested of her on the deep shadow web.
Seriously, is this a mod byproduct? I've encountered four basilisks moving between Ulcaster and Beregost in the last two games.
Does anyone else find Blacktalon Elites to be stupidly dangerous? While Taryn wasn't exactly going full on in this particular confrontation in terms of buffs or anything, he does have a helmet, -17 AC vs. missiles, and he softened them up with a fireball beforehand so it was only one shot per elite.
Time for a bit of rough an' tumble.
Apparently Globe of Invulnerability doesn't protect you from your own badly aimed fireballs. You'd think it would, on grounds of the fireball being outside the globe and all.
Called it. Glad I made sure to come in from the other direction.
Stupid Flamestrike spamming clerics.
Fortunately this doubling doesn't show consistently, otherwise I'd have waaaay too much loot even compared to usual.
Sort of forgot to paste images for the last hour or so. Suffice to say: Kicked the help, going to plot.
Plot done. Get tomes.
The adept is kind of wandering around aimlessly, while the Flaming Fist guy is flailing uselessly at the wraiths, while Tiax is periodically dispelling illusions and Taryn is uselessly turning undead against the level 12 wraiths.
As soon as the wraiths go, so does she.
Not sure how she cast with 100% spell failure, but she still died from the insect damage.
@Pantalion: If you're not already aware, the ice arrows used by those archers on the bridge to Baldur's Gate, also used by the Caravan Guards at the Friendly Arm Inn, offer no saving throw for the hold effect. I've used charm to liberate the arrows from the Caravan Guards (not an option for the archers on the bridge, who are elves with 90% resistance) by sending them to die against the local hobgoblins. My most recent runs don't involve mod items, but those arrows are absolutely spectacular against any enemy that's not flat-out immune to hold effects (a very rare immunity in BG1 and SoD).
Good against: Squishy mages who can then not cast spells. Bad against: Regenerating scions of murder with 3 APR and 21 Strength.
Horror:
Good against: Regenerating scions of murder with 3 APR and 21 Strength. Bad against: Badly scripted NPCs who can cheesily drop spells or attack during horror.
You chose.... poorly.
Sigh. Its weapon broke. Can't do anything except annoy me. Which it does. Forever. Immune to magic damage, pretty much immune to elemental damage. Turns invisible every round or whenever its illusion is dispelled. This thing is cancer and whoever designed it should feel terrible.
After the mandatory Ashikururururu knockoffs die, the two surviving assistants are sent off to various spots in Baldur's Gate on the offchance I'll remember where.
Generally I don't consider soloing this far to be much of a feat. The "Shadow Warriors" aside, the vast majority of enemies are beatsticks, dealing out hurt rather than anything tricky, while they drop more healing potions than you could hope to consume. Fingers crossed the boss fight goes as smoothly.
Not that I don't intend to be cheeky about the whole thing.
Bing.
Bing.
Bong. Heroic gnome tiefling makes assassination great again.
Honestly the mage was the big concern, but apparently "web and chromatic orb" is the attack form of choice for mages these days.
Just in case you missed killing the monty haul loot pinatas, Dark Side has a shop where you can buy them on the cheap.
Also note that their rings of wizardry can't be used by Mage/Clerics because they're set to preclude clerics.
Given that the only class besides the Mage that has Arcane spell slots is the bard, couldn't you just block the bard and let everyone else put it on uselessly if they want to?
Money is no object, so Lantanese potions courtesy of Aura can be accumulated in their dozens, including potions granting backstab immunity, perfect for the weeaboo quest.
I actually lost count of how many ninja spawned in this first fight. I think around ten, and it was not pleasant.
Considering that ninja was nowhere near anyone, inclined to say that he was just kind of a jerk.
Stone of Askovar time!
And for the record, getting some backup clerics paid off as Taryn eats a confusion but gets Exaltated back to sanity in time to Shield, Skin up, and stab everything to death.
Stone Golems are still brutal. Otherwise, sort of steamrolling now I remembered where the lightning pylons were for the same reason as Section. Beatsticks with low AC don't do well against stoneskins and magic missiles, while the mages tend to waste some rounds setting up anti-magic/anti-range defences while Taryn charges up and bites their knees stabs them with his 2 APR dagger for double digit damage.
Fashion: Apparently less important than Free Action on an armour slot.
SoA boss fight, a few more Weeaboo encounters, Oversight HQ, and maybe werewolf isle to go before a hopefully smooth last two chapters.
semiticgod said:@Pantalion: If you're not already aware, the ice arrows used by those archers on the bridge to Baldur's Gate, also used by the Caravan Guards at the Friendly Arm Inn, offer no saving throw for the hold effect. I've used charm to liberate the arrows from the Caravan Guards (not an option for the archers on the bridge, who are elves with 90% resistance) by sending them to die against the local hobgoblins. My most recent runs don't involve mod items, but those arrows are absolutely spectacular against any enemy that's not flat-out immune to hold effects (a very rare immunity in BG1 and SoD).
That is why I don't use them nowadays. They are way too overpowered. I used to charm one of those guards to attack another to avoid risking PC being held. The one who isn't an archer has decent arnour for a bard or fighter/mage too. Useful for fighting Tristan and Isolde who also have achance of holding you. However after a few games I stopped doing it. It became too easy.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 149 part 123456 7 Zepp (Dwarven cleric of Talos, Gate70); Fiery (Dwarven Kensai, Grond0)
Session 7 is all about liches. We disdain scrolls of protection from undead, and instead use other buffs. This, naturally, results in Zepp surviving a Wilt by making her saving throw. She retreats and leaves Fiery to finish the City Gate Lich off. By the time she heals and returns, a Pit Fiend has also been accounted for.
On to an elemental lich. It's all going well, but yes another Wilt and another crawl out of danger.
We have a brief break in the Temple Sewers, Zepp believing she is in a Wilt-free zone. Quite true, however the Rakshasa down there soon has Zepp running for safety. Fiery tidies matters up.
Tarnor the Hatchetman has lost Gaius before "combat" starts and survives long enough to see his party shredded.
A bit of True Sight is enough to deal with Vampiric Mists, while Zepp is making shadowy f(r)iends in the most unlikely of situations.
Zepp has finally learnt her lesson and the penultimate lich is unable to Wilt her. It dies quickly, which is more than can be said for Kangaxx for whom we break out a pair of green protection scrolls.
We lovingly tap away. Tap. Tap. Tap. Kangaxx declines to talk and eventually we conclude that his script has failed. That's annoying.
We exit and rest, so on our return he can see and interact with (attack) us. Two stubborn dwarves and one stubborn lich. What could possibly go wrong.
We trade insults for many a round before Fiery goes a bit nuts.
We scamper outside, Zepp having healed Fiery then blocked Kangaxx a few times. Off to an inn to rest but to no avail. Experiments with Remove Curse and Dispel Magic fail miserably and we consider our options.
Fiery has a strength of 3. Temporary relief can be sought > Sewer rat form (18:00) > Strength (party, 18:75) > Potions
We decide to purchase a girdle of strength from the Promenade but on arrival Fiery finds the curse and strength reduction have both disappeared.
Bad news may lie ahead for Kangaxx due to console C:SetGlobal("KangaxxHurt","LOCALS",0)
The Seige of Dragonspear is over. I cannot believe how different it was compared to my last run through. This time the ending was so much better. I don't know whether this is because I made different choices, but in both cases I played what I thought was a good guy. I must say that I was impressed. I think that Im killed Caelar in my last game. This time she tried to redeem herself by doing what was right. It will be quite some time before Storak makes his way to Amn firstly because I haven't installed the mods yet and more importantly, by the time that I have done that, as I have been invited to India and Nepal for a month, I won't be playing BG, but having a RL adventure. Some screenshots.
In my party, the only character who was not at the level cap at the end was Jaheira, and even she was at the maximum level allowed in the game for a true druid.
A forced full party transition should only be used in cases where logically speaking it is appropriate. Not where the entry is an itty-bitty sub-room into a place where there's an army of hard hitting melee brutes that will chunk your gnomic comrades and trap you in the room when trying to escape.
Fortunately we have a spare Aura. Taryn survived on 1 HP, saved against confusion (he had an excellent chance regardless since he was well outside the enemy sight range and invisibility casting), invisibilitied up, and killed the toons that followed him up, meleeing the mage down first.
Let's see if we can't avenge our fallen Aura Mk I.
They better not have messed up her quest.
Welcome aboard, Aura Mk II! Let's turn in the SoA quest and see if we can't avoid you being chunked until after your quest is finished.
Heading to BG the party, or what remains of it, is once more accosted by ninja. Tiax helpfully shoots Aura in the face so she can't get chunked by a backstab, while Taryn shows them that there's going to be no more Mr nice gnome tiefling.
One more time, during which Taryn hits low health due to a combination of a backstab when his stoneskins ended unexpectedly and an exploding ninja, and it's time for a boss fight. I have skull trap this time around, and know to pre-buff Taryn to the gills, so fingers crossed.
I'm not sure if Fubuki is supposed to talk to you at this point, but in practise she just stands around waiting in awkward silence.
Well fear not, little weeaboo ninja girl, this isn't Taryn's first rodeo.
Let's go, we can do this, aja, aja, fighting.
... Well this is awkward.
Also awkward. Hold up, let's see here...
Well she's probably going to get chunked again after this, since I ultimately had to de-dead the original after the bugged duplicate obnoxiously disappeared with all my stuff (most importantly the gauntlets of dexterity and quiver of plenty, and I don't remember where the various Dexterity Gauntlets are in DSotSC, so that's a tragedy. Assuming I don't die. Let's do this.
Apparently all my buffs randomly disappeared anyway. How's that for a laugh?
Saito: Extreme melee combatant. Level 13 Kensai with Grand Mastery. Hits for 25+ damage easy.
Kagatsuchi: Berserker -> Cleric, who, according to my EE Keeper, has 37 proficiency pips in "Club".
Three random mimes: Mage, Wizard Slayer, and Monk. By this point their fire resistance had apparently worn off so they were blasted apart with fireballs. I can only presume each one was more dangerous than the last, and that they all had super interesting dialogues or something.
Taryn be all like "We done with this kabuki theatre so we can get back to being 100% about me forever?"
Aura be all like "Nopelol".
Then she breaks the magic sword that would have been the reward for fighting an army of ninja. Sigh.
If I'd been playing a class that wasn't restricted to around five different weapons, none of them katana related, I'd probably care more, but rules are rules, Aura Mk I is banished forever. And... Aura Mk II has apparently disintegrated so that's just bully.
Whatever, I'm going to put on some Team Fortress vs Overwatch rap battles and go blow up their base.
@Pantalion is all of the stuff you wrote mod head-aches? I don't recognize the issues you wrote about mostly. Sometimes less is more.
Yeah, I think if there was a single overarching title for all of the no-reload stuff I've done, it would be "Mod related headaches".
In the Oversight HQ, mid battle, Taryn spontaneously died.
I have no idea how, what caused it, and reloading and going through the combats again floor by floor I couldn't replicate the event (in fact I wiped the place easily, and discovered that killing the lower floors doesn't turn the upper floors hostile, which is handy).
He had a fresh set of stoneskins, he was over half health, and the log showed no incoming damage coming his way when he died. He was surrounded by a bunch of webbed Oversight guys and Jones the boss guy, who doesn't have anything like an instant kill weapon.
Since a death is a death, I suppose it's time to restart, probably after uninstalling everything and maybe installing the BG trilogy thing and that trilogy mod thing. I'm sure that won't be headache inducing.
@Pantalion Hold on a sec - other no-reloaders have also ran into the mysterious death thing too, and our investigations indicate it's some sort of bug in the EE engine. If this is the same bug, then you would allowed to reload and continue your run.
@Pantalion Hold on a sec - other no-reloaders have also ran into the mysterious death thing too, and our investigations indicate it's some sort of bug in the EE engine. If this is the same bug, then you would allowed to reload and continue your run.
Eh? I thought there was just the Durlag's fireball level bug? Certainly had that several times in my runs.
On the BioWare boards, we had a number of EE runs mysteriously end, yet there was no way they could have died (e.g., they had death ward, fire protection etc.). It happened enough times we concluded it's a just a bug in EE - you can mysterious die when you shouldn't. You are always allowed to reload on a bug, if you wish.
The siege of Dragonspear Castle is a very lengthy fight and we don't have time to prepare beforehand, so we can't maintain a lot of buffs very early or very late in the fight. Getting overwhelmed is a genuine possibility, so it's best for us to solidify an early advantage. Arrows of Detonation allow us to cripple the first wave of enemies, but they put Frisk in range of enemy fire. Even Improved Invisibility can't keep the arrows off of Frisk.
Frisk stays healthy by retreating occasionally and drinking potions. For mages whose Stoneskins and MGOI spells would block all damage from Arrows of Detonation, Frisk switches to Arrows of Dispelling. The Arrows of Detonation are absolutely crushing, and the Coalition forces make fast progress on the Crusaders. Corinth falls and we finally get our hands on the best longbow in the entire BG saga.
Yes, the whole saga. It has better stats than any longbow in BG2 or even Throne of Bhaal. A fabulous testament to how horrible longbows get in BG2.
Before we face Ashatiel, Frisk downs a couple of Potions of Cold Resistance (I think I've had Ashatiel use a Wand of Frost on me before) and casts Stoneskin and SI: Abjuration. Ashatiel is helpless against Arrows of Dispelling and Acid Arrows...
...but apparently even Improved Invisibility, which allows Ashatiel to attack us, counts as invisibility for the purposes of her script. This means she accuses us of cheating after a few rounds...
...which, as others have pointed out, is ironic considering Ashatiel uses Sanctuary to heal herself.
We have to fight everyone conventionally. Fortunately, we have lots of Arrows of Detonation, and in many situations that's the only strategy you really need. Combine it with Arrows of Dispelling, and even the spellcasters at Dragonspear can't function.
Of course, when the enemy gets close, you can't use Arrows of Detonation without endangering your allies. Chaos scrolls offer a party-friendly alternative, but they're not remotely as reliable.
Still, we can hold off the Crusaders with the Wand of Monster Summoning and we're at little risk of being overwhelmed. When Ashatiel approaches, we take down her defenses with an Arrow of Dispelling, though we fall back a bit to restore our own defenses lest the enemy's arrows prove the death of us.
Ashatiel's entry and our aura being spent on Frisk's defenses instead of summoning result in our wall disintegrating, forcing us to fall back. The Coalition is behind us and in excellent shape.
I burn a Potion of Magic Shielding to shore up Frisk's defenses and avoid a potentially fatal disabler on the off chance that the enemy manages to get a spell off the ground in spite of all the arrows and disablers Frisk is firing off. Finally, the siege comes to a close as Mizhena bashes in Ashatiel's brains.
We reorganize our inventory and spellbook one last time before entering Avernus. We don't fight the demons in the first area--I don't want to deal with Illaruel's arrows or all the crazy nonsense the other demons can throw at us--but the bridge has some mandatory fights. And the demons around here are pretty nasty. Our illusion spells are useless and our summons cannot fight, leaving Frisk's defenses in a very bad position.
Notice Frisk using Arrows of Fire, which are +2 weapons in my install, as they were in SoD. They're our best tools against these demons, and surprisingly enough, the Bone Fiends have no immunities to them, unlike the Bladed Skeletons they so resemble.
We have another mandatory fight outside the elevator to Belhifet with tougher critters, but this time we have plenty of time to summon some sturdier critters of our own with Animate Dead. Frisk picks off the enemies while our Skeleton Warriors hold the fort.
I answer Thrix's riddle and get a helmet, which I deemed to be the best option, but apparently Chaotic Good Frisk cannot equip it, making it useless gold fodder.
Before ascending the elevator, we buff Frisk with everything. Two scrolls of Protection from Fire, Protection from Cold, and Protection from Electricity, potions of Mind Focusing for 25 DEX, potions of Storm Giant Strength, Magic Protection, and Invulnerability, as well as multiple Potions of Heroism to boost Frisk's maximum HP just shy of 400. We chop up the demons who spawn on the way to Belhifet.
I absolutely have to get this right. This is a huge transition for Frisk: BG1 and SoD have been immensely difficult, and once Belhifet is gone, we're finally going to enter BG2, the game with which I am by far the most familiar. Once we're in Chateau Irenicus, we have a clear and easy path to Melissan.
But I'm not very familiar with the Belhifet fight, and I've never tackled it solo or in Legacy of Bhaal mode. It's especially tense because failure means we're going all the way back to Candlekeep and we'll have to scratch and claw our way through BG1 and SoD all over again. A lot depends on me getting this right.
This is what Frisk looks like at the end of SoD.
The smell of ash and smoke fills us with determination.
Frisk opens with a Wand of Monster Summoning, but all of our critters fail saves against fear effects. Caelar forcibly joins the party if you side with her without a full party, but to preserve the spirit of the solo run, I have her operate strictly by AI, as if she were fighting on her own. She lands one good hit before Belhifet smashes her into the ground.
Frisk casts Enchanted Weapon so we can hit Belhifet without needing +3 arrows. Soon, Belhifet gates in even more demons, while our own allies demonstrate their utter inferiority to the enemy.
We bring in more, but the enemy already outnumbers us and has far better stats than anything we can manage. The situation is grim.
But we're making some minimal progress on Belhifet. CTRL-M allows us to check on Belhifet's current HP, and it looks like we've already taken out 10% of his maximum HP, which stands at a ghastly 1,172. No, that's not a typo--he really has over 1,000 HP.
Worse yet, he has 50% resistance to missile damage and -16 AC from Improved Invisibility. Frisk, as an Archer/Mage, doesn't get a racial enemy like a normal Archer ranger would, so our THAC0 against Belhifet is only -6. That's 15.5 average damage per round assuming I make all four possible attack rolls.
Do the math. We need to survive for dozens of rounds if we're going to bring down Belhifet.
With a massive enemy horde to deal with, Frisk needs to use the Wand of Monster Summoning to buy time; otherwise we'll be wasting our rounds running away from Belhifet instead of making attack rolls. We follow a standard pattern: run away, use the wand on the enemies, make a few attack rolls, and repeat.
We take another 100 HP from Belhifet, but we're starting to see a problem.
The enemy horde is growing every few rounds. We can't really stop Belhifet from gating in new demons, and I've already run the numbers and it's impossible for us to take down the other demons; Belhifet spawns in demons faster than we could hope to kill them.
But that's not all. While the Erinyes are the only enemies with missile weapons, not all of the demons just lumber after us indefinitely. They like to teleport right on top of Frisk.
This is bad for two reasons: first, it forces Frisk to run away, which takes valuable time away from actually attacking Belhifet; and second, if too many demons teleport at the same time, they might box us in.
We stay on the run, but the Wand of Monster Summoning is increasingly showing its limitations. As the enemy horde grows, our summons die even faster, buying us less time for each use.
We can't make progress against Belhifet if we spend all of our time running away from him. And if we don't make progress, he's going to keep summoning more demons. Eventually, the whole map will be covered with them, and Frisk absolutely does not have the defenses to survive getting boxed in. Using a ranged weapon against Belhifet would give all nearby demons +4 to hit and damage against Frisk.
So why not engage Belhifet in melee, and tank things out with Durlag's Goblet? We simply don't have the APR for that to be cost-effective. You see, Archers can't put more than one pip in melee weapons, and since Frisk's Archer kit is a fighter kit, we don't get the dual-wielding pips that an Archer ranger gets, either, making dual-wielding counterproductive because the THAC0 penalties are too severe. This means our maximum melee APR without haste is 1.5.
And because of a very ancient bug, haste only grants an extra 1/2 APR if your APR is a fraction. Instead of bumping our APR to 2.5, we're stuck at 2. A normal fighter would be rocking 3 APR; we have a -33% melee damage penalty even without factoring in our lower damage per hit and worse THAC0.
As I've said before, the Archer/Mage is really only optimized for late-game BG2. It's absolutely terrible in BG1, and while it's had excellent performance in SoD, Belhifet is very, very different from the other SoD fights. The Archer/Mage's low melee damage is devastating, and Belhifet's extra missile damage resistance also hampers our ranged attacks.
We keep kiting the enemy and spamming the Wand of Monster Summoning. Frisk loses their last Stoneskin and manages to take another ~80 damage out of Belhifet, but he's already bringing more demons onto the map.
For every demon Belhifet adds to the map, kiting him becomes a little bit harder, because we need to spend a little bit more time running to avoid getting boxed in. I've already known that LoB Belhifet will win any war of attrition against a solo Charname, and now I'm starting to see the reality of that prediction.
Kiting is our only option. It's not like Frisk can stand still; the enemy hits too hard and too often and too reliably for us to let them get too close.
We have other summons besides the Wand of Monster Summoning. But even the Wand of Water Elemental Summoning is grievously insufficient.
The fight goes on. The enemy horde grows ever larger, and while we're making progress against Belhifet, I can feel that we're slowing down.
Frisk gets too close to some enemies and is forced to down a Potion of Invisibility. While we're invisible, I take a moment to drink a Potion of Invulnerability, but every round we spend without attacking Belhifet is a round that Belhifet is using to build his army.
A Potion of Clarity allows us to drink from Durlag's Goblet for the second time ever. We continue kiting, but it's looking even uglier than it was before. It does not help at all that our summons are getting charmed.
Charmed summons still count against the summoning limit, but do not make good tanks or decoys. Frisk fires a couple more arrows at Belhifet, but we're finding increasingly less time in which to make the shots.
The Cornugons are building up, and just like in BG2, they love their Lightning Bolt spells. Belhifet dips down to 640 HP as he casts Gate once again.
Despite my fears, we do still have time to land hits, and Belhifet drops to 598 HP.
Round after round after round, Frisk scurries around the map, summoning decoys and firing arrows at the massive demon slowly trudging after them. We take another 80 HP from Belhifet, leaving him just above 500 and finally at Badly Injured, but the demons are taking over the battlefield.
If Frisk stops moving for even a moment and there aren't any summons on the field, the demons will start teleporting over to them. And if I don't get them moving within a fraction of a second, the demons are going to box them in and destroy them. I still don't have Teleport Field to scatter them; I've never even seen the scroll in this run.
Teleport Field would be great.
We take Belhifet down to 452 HP and our Enchanted Weapon pre-buff finally wears off.
We have Enchanted Weapon scrolls, but the delay of scroll casting means that we have to spend an extra round drinking a Potion of Invisibility just to avoid getting boxed in by teleporting demons.
Frisk heals up once again using a still very full Durlag's Goblet, but... the demons are just everywhere.
I just don't have room to move around anymore. And if we spend even a fraction of a second too long in one place, the enemy will gleefully take advantage of our vulnerability.
I use CTRL-M to check on Belhifet's HP and discover to my horror that we've only dealt 7 net damage since we last checked on him.
With more Erinyes on the map, our summons are getting charmed at greater rates, forcing Frisk to shoot them down just so we can summon replacements. We take another 50 HP from Belhifet in the process, leaving him at 406.
But the situation is looking increasingly hopeless. We accidentally let our summons disappear for barely a second and suddenly the whole army starts teleporting all around us.
We just barely escape, only a few pixels or a few frames away from getting trapped. But even when Frisk gets out, the enemy pushes them into a corner. A Potion of Invisibility is our only means of escape when the enemy closes off the exits.
We have plenty of Potions of Invisibility, but that doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that we barely have any time to make attack rolls on Belhifet anymore, and the situation is only going to get worse.
When the enemy disperses for lack of a target, we reposition ourselves and resume kiting. Then, as we get cornered several rounds later, I check Belhifet's HP. The result fills me with despair.
He gained 4 HP. His regeneration is outpacing our ability to deal damage, and he's still got 400 HP left!
Our next round of summons gets charmed and destroyed in seconds, and in the very same round, when Frisk's aura is still clouded, the enemy swarms them. At the exact same time, Frisk's HP spontaneously drops to 150.
It seems that Potion of Power/Heroism stacking has a bug: when the first potion wears off, your current HP is reset to roughly its normal level even as your maximum HP only decrements slightly. Since your current HP is the only thing that actually keeps you alive, this means that Potions of Power/Heroism effectively all expire simultaneously.
Once our maximum HP drops to ~150, Frisk goes invisible to drink some spare Potions of Power and get their HP back up to a safe level. Only Belhifet and Erinyes can see through invisibility, and the crowd of enemies that's boxing us in also boxes out Belhifet, which means we suffer very little pressure as long as we're invisible and stuck in a corner.
Our summoned hobgoblin recovers from charm and draws the enemy's attention, but gets charmed within a round, resetting the situation. However, Frisk's invisibility eventually inspires the demons who can't see through it to start wandering around.
That opens a hole in the wall of demons, and Belhifet is quick to rush in and seize the opportunity.
There is no way we could possibly survive this without relying on luck; we don't have Stoneskin scrolls because a bug renders them uncastable in my install. Our only choice is to use a Dimension Door scroll to hop out.
This breaks invisibility and triggers the whole army to descend upon us, but at least we're away from Belhifet.
But the horde doesn't form a wall fast enough, and Belhifet closes in on us. Frisk is one or two hits away from death when their aura finally clears, allowing them to drink a Potion of Invisibility and escape both Belhifet and the horde.
Belhifet is now at 424 HP. Every time we get pinned down or forced into invisibility or have to run away, Belhifet regenerates and adds to his army.
The reality sinks in.
I don't know how to win this fight.
I was looking forward so much to the end of SoD and moving on to BG2. I so desperately wanted to reach the game I was truly familiar with, the game I knew I could win if I just got past BG1 and SoD. And now, suddenly, all of that has come crashing down.
Belhifet has every advantage. The Wand of Monster Summoning is worse than useless; it breaks my invisibility, uses up a round of aura, and costs us 2 seconds per use, while the enemy is so strong and so numerous that they can wipe out all of my summons in less than a single round. Kiting is impossible; the enemy blankets the map. Tanking is all but pointless; we don't have the melee damage output to bring down Belhifet (not even close). And spending all of our Potions of Invisibility to make a single attack roll at Belhifet per round would only deal about 100 damage before leaving us completely helpless.
Spells are useless. Wands are useless. Melee combat would get us nowhere, and ranged attacks would be suicidal at this point.
We're dead.
I'm going to continue the fight, but not because I'm hoping for a miracle. Miracles don't happen in the IE games on their own; the only factors in the outcome of a fight are the factors you put into it, and we don't have any secret weapons that we could use to win if we just got some lucky rolls. It's not like Belhifet's regeneration is just going to reverse itself or the demons are going to despawn or new resources will appear in our vanity.
The reason I'm continuing this fight is simply because I might be able to gather a little more information for the next run. Frisk might be doomed, but at least I can make sure we're a little better prepared for the next time we make it to Belhifet.
I pore through my inventory. I don't expect anything we have to save Frisk's life, but maybe we can still discover some new trick to pull, some new strategy that, if we had deployed it earlier on when we still had a chance, could actually win the fight for us.
Then I see it. One weapon that won't win us this fight, but might just win us the next one, long into the future. All I need to do is figure out if it's really practical.
Arrows of Detonation.
Everyone in this fight is immune to fire damage, but Arrows of Detonation also do 1d6 base missile damage, and all of our other damage bonuses will apply to it. They only strike as +1 weapons, but with Enchanted Weapon, they could hit Belhifet and Cornugons instead of just Erinyes and Abishais. But where do we get enough room to safely use them?
We don't have room. But it doesn't matter. Because we're going to fire them all at point-blank range, and soak up all the damage ourselves.
In full awareness that nothing lies ahead but death, Frisk drinks the last of our Potions of Power and fortifies their defenses, just so we have a chance to see if the arrows will be useful in a future run.
I double-check all of our defenses. A new Potion of Invulnerability ensures we'll make our saves against Hold Person and Dire Charm, while the Mind Shield icon from a Potion of Clarity shows we'll be able to drink Durlag's Goblet without trading the Helm of Balduran for Kiel's Helmet. Every bit of AC counts.
There is only one thing left to do.
Hopefully, the THAC0 penalties from Called Shot will keep the enemy's attacks at bay long enough for us to evaluate the usefulness of the Arrows of Detonation. The moment we break invisibility, the enemy crowds around us.
Everyone takes massive damage, including Frisk. The nearby Hamatulas retaliate with Barbed Defense.
But Frisk has 434 maximum HP and many charges left of Durlag's Goblet, more than enough to survive until our Arrows of Detonation are gone.
Then I realize that we actually have a chance at winning this. We probably won't be able to kill all of the Cornugons, but if we did spend the last 27 Arrows of Detonation at our disposal, we could definitely clear a lot of enemies from the map.
And once the map is clear, we can resume kiting. Kiting got us 700 damage on Belhifet, and while the second round of it wouldn't get us quite that much because of the lingering enemies from the first round of kiting still crowding up the map, it would definitely get us the ~450 damage we'd need to bring down Belhifet.
In fact, our odds are actually pretty excellent. All I need to do is make sure that I don't get overwhelmed by damage before I have a chance to drink from Durlag's Goblet. And with 14 uses left in the goblet, we have plenty of wiggle room.
I keep firing Arrows of Detonation at point-blank range, anxious to clear the map and seize the advantage while Belhifet is weak. But just as I drink from Durlag's Goblet once more, I lose control of Frisk.
I don't understand. I knew the fear effect from Durlag's Goblet offered no save, but I still see the Mind Shield icon from the Potion of Clarity; Frisk is supposed to be immune to fear.
Apparently that Mind Shield icon came from a completely different source.
The Potions of Mind Focusing, which last for 12 hours to a Potion of Clarity's 1 hour.
To my confusion, to my disbelief, to my frustration, and to my outrage, Potions of Mind Focusing use the same Mind Shield icon that is reserved exclusively for effects that grant immunity to mind-affecting spells, from the Greenstone Amulet to IWD's Mind Blank to both Berserker and Barbarian rage to Lilarcor, the Shield of Harmony, Chaotic Commands, and Acclamation. If something blocks mental status effects, it grants the "Mind Shield" icon. If that icon is on your portrait, you're immune to at least three or four disablers depending on where you got it from.
Except for Potions of Mind Focusing. The only item in all of the IE games that uses the Mind Shield icon without giving any mind shielding effects. The one subversion of the rule I thought had no exceptions: Mind Shield means protection from mental status effects.
That one inconsistently applied icon is the sole reason I did not bother drinking a Potion of Clarity. And now, thanks to that icon and my own ignorance of the inconsistency, Frisk is affected by an undispellable fear effect for the next 12 hours.
And as I watch them die, helpless to save them, I see the enemy getting absolutely crushed by those Arrows of Detonation.
Proof that the strategy was working. Proof--PROOF that we would have won that battle, because those Arrows of Detonation really would have cleared the field and allowed us to safely resume kiting and shoot down Belhifet, completely reversing the 100+ rounds of Belhifet's absolute control of the battlefield.
One misleading icon, and one false assumption about its meaning. That was all it took to steal a last-minute victory from us just as we were about to grasp it.
Frisk dies.
The screen goes black. The fight is over. SoD is over.
This... this meant so, so much to me. I've been struggling with burnout for a very long time, and I wanted this to be a "final" no-reload run for me, one run that I could be truly proud of before I let go of Baldur's Gate for a while and turned my attention to other things. I wanted to leave BG with a feeling that I had accomplished something... I did not want to turn away from the game with my head hanging low.
I haven't felt this kind of despair many times in my life, nor this weird feeling of physical weakness in my legs. I really had high hopes for this run. I really cared about this run and its success. And it hurts so much to see Frisk fall so late in SoD, at the exact moment I thought we were going to make it out okay, when we were finally going to be able to enter BG2. The exact moment when everything was supposed to turn around, and all of our hard work would finally pay off and let Frisk and I relax.
This run has been so much harder than anything else I've ever attempted. And seeing all our work turn to ash is just crushing. I invest really heavily in these runs, and I've invested more in this run than any other since I started the no-reload challenge three years ago. It was really important to me on a personal level... and now it's all gone.
@Pantalion: Did Taryn's portrait go black? If not, I don't know what caused the death, but if it did, it's definitely a bug.
Good to know, I'll check next time through.
Okay, so my newest playthrough makes use of the BWS tool, with a hazy at best idea of what mods it's actually included beyond Aura and Shadow Magic tacked on the end after hitting buttons at random trying to make it work.
Not five minutes in and already things just done got weird.
Oh, right.
After importing and exporting Raphael and starting over, I'm fairly sure he's a Druid/Luckrider/Darkcloak/Mistwalker of Leira, with a few extra innate abilities removed and a Katana/Dagger proficiency combination from loosened cleric proficiencies.
Also, check out this elven model replacement thing. The elven fights with leather? Actually have snazzy cloaks and trousers. Pretty awesome, eh, eh?
Free exp and reputation, and I'm not even out of Candlekeep. Apparently there's a zombie apocalypse I missed though.
@Pantalion is all of the stuff you wrote mod head-aches? I don't recognize the issues you wrote about mostly. Sometimes less is more.
Yeah, I think if there was a single overarching title for all of the no-reload stuff I've done, it would be "Mod related headaches".
In the Oversight HQ, mid battle, Taryn spontaneously died.
I have no idea how, what caused it, and reloading and going through the combats again floor by floor I couldn't replicate the event (in fact I wiped the place easily, and discovered that killing the lower floors doesn't turn the upper floors hostile, which is handy).
He had a fresh set of stoneskins, he was over half health, and the log showed no incoming damage coming his way when he died. He was surrounded by a bunch of webbed Oversight guys and Jones the boss guy, who doesn't have anything like an instant kill weapon.
Since a death is a death, I suppose it's time to restart, probably after uninstalling everything and maybe installing the BG trilogy thing and that trilogy mod thing. I'm sure that won't be headache inducing.
There are invisible enemies in there. Similar to those at the bottom of Durlag's Tower. The name is Ashikuru or something like that and there are the improved versions of them as well!!
There is one room in that dungeon that I now avoid as there is a strong possibility of party members dying with virtually no reward if you are successful.
Nevertheless, the loot down there is mind-blowing. So many suits of full plate and so many +1 swords!!
Make sure that you get full price for those items by not selling any of them beforehand.
Comments
Arvar Dw'Girn, the Dwarven Defender
Here I go again, guys ! This time, with a Dwarven Defender. Say hello to Arvar Dw'Girn !As per my usual rule, I rolled the character without reallocating stats. With that in mind, that's truly an awesome roll, I even got a 16 Int (perfect for mind flayers !). His low Dex doesn't matter much, because armors in IR give penalty to Dex anyway. Since he's gonna be in heavy armors and rocking a shield all the time, high dex wouldn't have help him anyway.
It seems that no Dwarven Defender has made it to the Hall of Heroes yet, so I'll have a go at it. However... there's probably a good reason why no one has done it : it's such a munchkiny powergaming class that it seems a bit cheesy just to use it. C'mon : having a skill that grants better DR than an HLA at level 1, with a bonus to saving throws on top ? A bit much, if you ask me. It's even worst in my setup : in IR, armors give some amount of DR. In other words : a Dwarven Defender at level 5 in a full plate armor will stand at an undispellable 75 DR in my setup. That's just too much.
So, I tried to rebalanced the class somewhat. Here's the description :
The bonus to DR is changed to a bonus to AC that gets better over time. However, the penalty to thac0 also is getting worst with levels. I granted the class Grand Mastery in axes and war hammers, because it's just so thematically coherent, but restricted them to proficiency to all other weapons. If you consider that in an IR install medium and large shields give penalty to thac0, my Dwarven Defender under Defensive Stance can sufer up to -6 thac0 penalty with a weapon other than an axe or an hammer with a lower APR. Actually, even with an axe, my Dwarven Defender will still suffer a -3 penalty to thac0 at level 18. So, it's a defensive class that has to pay it with some offense and flexibility.
Is it perfectly balanced ? Nope. I still think it's much better than an unkitted fighter. However, I think it's actually not as good as a Barbarian or a Berserker if you think about the immunities they enjoy. All in all, it's nowhere near as cheesy as it was before, so, that's what I'm gonna go with. I probably will not release these modifications as a standalone mod, because I'm pretty sure nobody wants to play my nerfed version of that class...
This run is with my usual favorite mods : IR/SR, SCS with full prebuffs, Rogue Rebalancing, a whole bunch of NPC mods...
Arvar and his band of misfits are already waiting to fight the doppelgangers in the Ducal Palace, so I'll try to catch up in the next few days !!
Edit : typo.
If you did, though, it might be good to add some little extra "treat" to make the mod seem more like a rebalancing than a simple nerfing, since the only upside is a slight AC bonus. A good thematic example would be to borrow the IR Fortress Shield's area-effect AC bonus, which would make the rebalanced Dwarven Defender an actual defender of the party, instead of an invincible tank that many enemies will simply ignore when its resistances exceed 75%.
Garrick can't use the Shadow Orb to become a Nightsinger. How lame. Fortunately, ve have vays of dealing with zie situation.
Free lobotomies for
allImoen!Boring Beetle transformation fails when you're in another form, but it does give you the beetle weapon and haste you, giving Mustard Slime the 5D4 it's supposed to get in melee anyway.
This guy actually killed himself dropping spells at point blank range, denying me the exp. Jerk.
Kirinhale's infinite teleport/charm/energy drain cheats are so obnoxious. She can barely even tickle our 2 APR Mustard Murder though.
The ghasts can't even do that, since they deal piercing damage and their hold is blocked by MR, but Kirinhale wastes so much time his Polyself ran out mid fight and he had to revert to typical fireball throwing.
The single event that summarises BG1 No-Reload runs:
Random friggin basilisk encounters.
Not even getting involved. Pretty sure two rounds of anything those Shadow Fiends can cast would kill Jack with no way to avoid it.
She then followed the party after they rested away her fiends and was perforated by an icicle the size of her head. Happy endings for everyone! Except the party. Shadow adepts give no Exp.
Ulcaster Level 2 & 3 vs Invisibility spells and a thief with 120 Find Traps. Let's do this.
I was worried for a moment there. With no friendly targets, Aura sits around invisibly.
As a point of order, how the heck does a "charm" trap work? Whose side are you charmed to? The trap maker? What if they're dead? Who gives them orders?
Aura fails to spot a lightning trap. Invisibly she is returned and healed, but then:
Temple -> Ulcaster: Apparently basilisk central.
Killing the ghasts and other chaff without 90%+ MR, Jack "bravely" lures the rest of the group out of the carefully crafted position that his summons had put them into, because I'm a chucklehead who forgot he summoned and broke invisibility. Fortunately he has four slots of it, leaving only Archmage "too good to walk" Natas guarding the tomb.
Or possibly Archmage "Not Fireproof" Natas.
I could easily grab the other tomb where there's the ring of +2 to every spell slot almost completely unguarded, but meh, I'd only sell it anyway, and with infinite gold a trip to the temple away, not much motivation for that.
There's supposed to be a trio of red wizards waiting for you when you leave the dungeon, but didn't show last time either. They don't have any interesting stuff anyway.
I understand you had a bad experience in Rapture, Jack, but you don't need to pause over ice statues.
Attack Jack! He is - ow - stabbing us with pointy things!
But we can't - ow - seeee him. T_T
Let's - ow - just wait and see if he - ow - shows up.
Should - ow - we move first?
Finally, four rounds later they finish their deliberations and actually move.
No ammo for you.
Seriously considered soloing with the mandatory NPCs just taking up party space, but I still have a few quests and dialogues I need to complete if nothing else.
The same Shatter that penetrates locks also ignores MR and deals 16d6 crushing to golems and elementals over four rounds. Rekt.
Ctrl-8 is for posers.
This bodes well for tougher fights.
Which doesn't include this one, obviously.
Changes nothing, but getting off the rails and saving the miner is always nice.
Rabbit: Surprisingly useful.
Aura: Less so.
The mage not spamming invisibility purge is a nice change.
They think it's all over!
It is now.
A Shadow Adept has no problem whatsoever with handling weave forged weapons or wearing a robe of regular archmagi but muggles can't handle a dagger, dart, or ioun stone. This is a shame, since there's a niche for these items and they wouldn't unbalance things if they were more widely available.
To do: Bandits -> Cloakwood -> Section -> Stone of Askovar -> Oversight -> Weeaboo Quest -> Candlekeep level 14 Shadow Adept -> Beat Sarevok, probably naked and blindfolded after managing that lot.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
We have done a few of the quests near the underground river with the effect that only Jaheira can level up again before the 500,000 experience cap. Dynaheir and Safana haven't reached it, but even when they do, they won't be able to level up.This time through I am neither using BWOOOSH or poison in order to see how things work out doing that. How could a paladin stoop to such tactics?
EDIT
Just defeated Hephernaan. He has transported himself away and summoned more crusaders who are now defeated. It is now time for bed, so I will see what transpires tomorrow.Selling and buying back an ankheg summonning amulet etc. might have been wise, but I have no idea what it would cost.
EDIT 2
I have discovered that I cannot get into the room to deal with the demon, and I have forgotten how I got hold of it last time.We had gone through the Sahaugin City killing the prince without too much trouble but the sheer immense quantity of spell triggers that high level mages release consistently caught me on the hop this run, I'm afraid I'm a little out of practice against high level SCS mages. My install - reduced XP, no Watcher's Keep, Item & Spell Revisions- also made things tricky, and I really needed to be playing with full concentration in each battle which becomes rather difficult after a while. The Psypher/ Mage dual was quite strong in many ways but non-warrior classes can lack some passive defences if you're not methodical with buffing.
I'll be back after a break, I have picked up the games for Android so will probably try my luck again away from the PC with whatever mods I can manage to install. (No-reloading the original Xcom on my commute presently, let me know if you'd like a soldier named after you and their post-mortem!) Playing with SCS may put too much of a strain on the fun roleplaying style I like to play with, but we'll see. For now it's time to celebrate the sweet pain of defeat again!
Damnez vous, Dark Side. You can't let your guard down for a second with those uberweapons.
But since gnomes get the best of everything, those formative years left him with the ability to summon bears and the ability to cast Insect Plague as a level 4 spell and Creeping Doom as a level 6.
Gnomes: Always overpowered.
Honestly did not expect the Rabbit to succeed here, it's a fire based trap so I was all up to trigger it.
Sticking with his own kind.Taryn, we've talked about this.Since Invisibility does not, for some reason, count as a buff spell for Sanctuary (if I'd known I'd have just broken invisibility, cast Sanctuary and avoided this train wreck), and Open Lock, unlike Find Traps, breaks invisibility. Taryn de-cloaks to save Aura and is forced to use non-standard tactics: Auralora block the doorway, so around a dozen undead fail to enter and wander away down the corridor while Taryn turns one Ghast away and kills the other with magic missiles (gnome druids get to turn undead, obviously).
A ghost knight hadn't finished this movement and so tried to attack once the girls moved away, so they blocked the corridor and it died to Taryn's throwing dagger, having never found true love.
Two tomes, one sacrificial halfling who can and will be raised from the proceeds, and could have survived if she had a potion of invisibility.
Basil loses his family twice before being murdered by the specter of his father.
... Sigh. I guess I'll get Neera instead.
...
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
Bugger this for a game of soldiers, let's advance the plot.
Imagine, if you will, a stream of muttered curses from Beregost to the mines, through the mines, and back out the other end.
Nimbul: Has six level 1 spell slots.
Uses them all to cast Magic Missile.
While I think of it, what is it about Nashkel that both the assassins have infravision items? Ring on Nimbul, Helm on Neira.
Teeeechnically he's doomed, since eventually he'll hit level 7 spells, after which a single failed saving throw will kill him. But meh, Exp cap etc.
The game gets a lot easier when you stop playing by their rules. Invisibility with a thief plus Sanctuary to loot and a spare invisibility to recloak before Sanctuary ends. There's enough targets of opportunity out there to boost the thieves' level.
Considering we just ganked his quest reward, inclined to say it's not mandatory.
Target of opportunity. Animal Eyes turns any animal into a familiar and gives it a better chance of scoring a critical hit, while Beetle spam is a level 3 spell, giving him a convenient safe alternative to "actually talking to people".
Back up thief team do their jobs after Taryn whiffs a fear save. I should probably recruit a backup support cleric while I'm at it and load them up with Remove Paralysis/Fear/whatever.
Damnit, Taryn.
Talk about a forced conversion. He even loses Summon Ghast.
Taryyyyn.
... Damnit.
Surrounded by Shadow Fiends apathetic to the flames, she is trapped and can only die in a fire, as someone once requested of her on the deep shadow web.
Seriously, is this a mod byproduct? I've encountered four basilisks moving between Ulcaster and Beregost in the last two games.
Does anyone else find Blacktalon Elites to be stupidly dangerous? While Taryn wasn't exactly going full on in this particular confrontation in terms of buffs or anything, he does have a helmet, -17 AC vs. missiles, and he softened them up with a fireball beforehand so it was only one shot per elite.
Time for a bit of rough an' tumble.
Apparently Globe of Invulnerability doesn't protect you from your own badly aimed fireballs. You'd think it would, on grounds of the fireball being outside the globe and all.
Called it. Glad I made sure to come in from the other direction.
Stupid Flamestrike spamming clerics.
Fortunately this doubling doesn't show consistently, otherwise I'd have waaaay too much loot even compared to usual.
Sort of forgot to paste images for the last hour or so. Suffice to say: Kicked the help, going to plot.
Plot done. Get tomes.
The adept is kind of wandering around aimlessly, while the Flaming Fist guy is flailing uselessly at the wraiths, while Tiax is periodically dispelling illusions and Taryn is uselessly turning undead against the level 12 wraiths.
As soon as the wraiths go, so does she.
Not sure how she cast with 100% spell failure, but she still died from the insect damage.
Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
We are doing nicely after defeating the crusaders in the basement and outside the castle.Now I need to find a way inside. Easier said than done.
Confusion and berserk:
Good against: Squishy mages who can then not cast spells.
Bad against: Regenerating scions of murder with 3 APR and 21 Strength.
Horror:
Good against: Regenerating scions of murder with 3 APR and 21 Strength.
Bad against: Badly scripted NPCs who can cheesily drop spells or attack during horror.
You chose.... poorly.
Sigh. Its weapon broke. Can't do anything except annoy me. Which it does. Forever. Immune to magic damage, pretty much immune to elemental damage. Turns invisible every round or whenever its illusion is dispelled. This thing is cancer and whoever designed it should feel terrible.
After the mandatory Ashikururururu knockoffs die, the two surviving assistants are sent off to various spots in Baldur's Gate on the offchance I'll remember where.
Generally I don't consider soloing this far to be much of a feat. The "Shadow Warriors" aside, the vast majority of enemies are beatsticks, dealing out hurt rather than anything tricky, while they drop more healing potions than you could hope to consume. Fingers crossed the boss fight goes as smoothly.
Not that I don't intend to be cheeky about the whole thing.
Bing.
Bing.
Bong. Heroic
gnometiefling makes assassination great again.Honestly the mage was the big concern, but apparently "web and chromatic orb" is the attack form of choice for mages these days.
Just in case you missed killing the monty haul loot pinatas, Dark Side has a shop where you can buy them on the cheap.
Also note that their rings of wizardry can't be used by Mage/Clerics because they're set to preclude clerics.
Given that the only class besides the Mage that has Arcane spell slots is the bard, couldn't you just block the bard and let everyone else put it on uselessly if they want to?
Money is no object, so Lantanese potions courtesy of Aura can be accumulated in their dozens, including potions granting backstab immunity, perfect for the weeaboo quest.
I actually lost count of how many ninja spawned in this first fight. I think around ten, and it was not pleasant.
Considering that ninja was nowhere near anyone, inclined to say that he was just kind of a jerk.
Stone of Askovar time!
And for the record, getting some backup clerics paid off as Taryn eats a confusion but gets Exaltated back to sanity in time to Shield, Skin up, and stab everything to death.
Stone Golems are still brutal. Otherwise, sort of steamrolling now I remembered where the lightning pylons were for the same reason as Section. Beatsticks with low AC don't do well against stoneskins and magic missiles, while the mages tend to waste some rounds setting up anti-magic/anti-range defences while Taryn charges up and
bites their kneesstabs them with his 2 APR dagger for double digit damage.Fashion: Apparently less important than Free Action on an armour slot.
SoA boss fight, a few more Weeaboo encounters, Oversight HQ, and maybe werewolf isle to go before a hopefully smooth last two chapters.
That is why I don't use them nowadays. They are way too overpowered. I used to charm one of those guards to attack another to avoid risking PC being held. The one who isn't an archer has decent arnour for a bard or fighter/mage too. Useful for fighting Tristan and Isolde who also have achance of holding you. However after a few games I stopped doing it. It became too easy.
Zepp (Dwarven cleric of Talos, Gate70); Fiery (Dwarven Kensai, Grond0)
Session 7 is all about liches. We disdain scrolls of protection from undead, and instead use other buffs. This, naturally, results in Zepp surviving a Wilt by making her saving throw. She retreats and leaves Fiery to finish the City Gate Lich off. By the time she heals and returns, a Pit Fiend has also been accounted for.
We lovingly tap away. Tap. Tap. Tap. Kangaxx declines to talk and eventually we conclude that his script has failed. That's annoying.
We exit and rest, so on our return he can see and interact with (attack) us. Two stubborn dwarves and one stubborn lich. What could possibly go wrong.
We trade insults for many a round before Fiery goes a bit nuts.
Fiery has a strength of 3. Temporary relief can be sought
> Sewer rat form (18:00)
> Strength (party, 18:75)
> Potions
We decide to purchase a girdle of strength from the Promenade but on arrival Fiery finds the curse and strength reduction have both disappeared.
Bad news may lie ahead for Kangaxx due to console
C:SetGlobal("KangaxxHurt","LOCALS",0)Journal of Storak Swiftaxe
The Seige of Dragonspear is over.I cannot believe how different it was compared to my last run through.
This time the ending was so much better.
I don't know whether this is because I made different choices, but in both cases I played what I thought was a good guy.
I must say that I was impressed.
I think that Im killed Caelar in my last game. This time she tried to redeem herself by doing what was right.
It will be quite some time before Storak makes his way to Amn firstly because I haven't installed the mods yet and more importantly, by the time that I have done that, as I have been invited to India and Nepal for a month, I won't be playing BG, but having a RL adventure.
Some screenshots.
In my party, the only character who was not at the level cap at the end was Jaheira, and even she was at the maximum level allowed in the game for a true druid.
A forced full party transition should only be used in cases where logically speaking it is appropriate. Not where the entry is an itty-bitty sub-room into a place where there's an army of hard hitting melee brutes that will chunk your gnomic comrades and trap you in the room when trying to escape.
Fortunately we have a spare Aura. Taryn survived on 1 HP, saved against confusion (he had an excellent chance regardless since he was well outside the enemy sight range and invisibility casting), invisibilitied up, and killed the toons that followed him up, meleeing the mage down first.
Let's see if we can't avenge our fallen Aura Mk I.
They better not have messed up her quest.
Welcome aboard, Aura Mk II! Let's turn in the SoA quest and see if we can't avoid you being chunked until after your quest is finished.
Heading to BG the party, or what remains of it, is once more accosted by ninja. Tiax helpfully shoots Aura in the face so she can't get chunked by a backstab, while Taryn shows them that there's going to be no more Mr nice
gnometiefling.One more time, during which Taryn hits low health due to a combination of a backstab when his stoneskins ended unexpectedly and an exploding ninja, and it's time for a boss fight. I have skull trap this time around, and know to pre-buff Taryn to the gills, so fingers crossed.
I'm not sure if Fubuki is supposed to talk to you at this point, but in practise she just stands around waiting in awkward silence.
Well fear not, little weeaboo ninja girl, this isn't Taryn's first rodeo.
Let's go, we can do this, aja, aja, fighting.
... Well this is awkward.
Also awkward. Hold up, let's see here...
Well she's probably going to get chunked again after this, since I ultimately had to de-dead the original after the bugged duplicate obnoxiously disappeared with all my stuff (most importantly the gauntlets of dexterity and quiver of plenty, and I don't remember where the various Dexterity Gauntlets are in DSotSC, so that's a tragedy. Assuming I don't die. Let's do this.
Apparently all my buffs randomly disappeared anyway. How's that for a laugh?
Saito: Extreme melee combatant. Level 13 Kensai with Grand Mastery. Hits for 25+ damage easy.
Kagatsuchi: Berserker -> Cleric, who, according to my EE Keeper, has 37 proficiency pips in "Club".
Three random mimes: Mage, Wizard Slayer, and Monk. By this point their fire resistance had apparently worn off so they were blasted apart with fireballs. I can only presume each one was more dangerous than the last, and that they all had super interesting dialogues or something.
Taryn be all like "We done with this kabuki theatre so we can get back to being 100% about me forever?"
Aura be all like "Nopelol".
Then she breaks the magic sword that would have been the reward for fighting an army of ninja. Sigh.
If I'd been playing a class that wasn't restricted to around five different weapons, none of them katana related, I'd probably care more, but rules are rules, Aura Mk I is banished forever. And... Aura Mk II has apparently disintegrated so that's just bully.
Whatever, I'm going to put on some Team Fortress vs Overwatch rap battles and go blow up their base.
In the Oversight HQ, mid battle, Taryn spontaneously died.
I have no idea how, what caused it, and reloading and going through the combats again floor by floor I couldn't replicate the event (in fact I wiped the place easily, and discovered that killing the lower floors doesn't turn the upper floors hostile, which is handy).
He had a fresh set of stoneskins, he was over half health, and the log showed no incoming damage coming his way when he died. He was surrounded by a bunch of webbed Oversight guys and Jones the boss guy, who doesn't have anything like an instant kill weapon.
Since a death is a death, I suppose it's time to restart, probably after uninstalling everything and maybe installing the BG trilogy thing and that trilogy mod thing. I'm sure that won't be headache inducing.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 8: Siege of Dragonspear
The siege of Dragonspear Castle is a very lengthy fight and we don't have time to prepare beforehand, so we can't maintain a lot of buffs very early or very late in the fight. Getting overwhelmed is a genuine possibility, so it's best for us to solidify an early advantage. Arrows of Detonation allow us to cripple the first wave of enemies, but they put Frisk in range of enemy fire. Even Improved Invisibility can't keep the arrows off of Frisk.Frisk stays healthy by retreating occasionally and drinking potions. For mages whose Stoneskins and MGOI spells would block all damage from Arrows of Detonation, Frisk switches to Arrows of Dispelling. The Arrows of Detonation are absolutely crushing, and the Coalition forces make fast progress on the Crusaders. Corinth falls and we finally get our hands on the best longbow in the entire BG saga.
Yes, the whole saga. It has better stats than any longbow in BG2 or even Throne of Bhaal. A fabulous testament to how horrible longbows get in BG2.
Before we face Ashatiel, Frisk downs a couple of Potions of Cold Resistance (I think I've had Ashatiel use a Wand of Frost on me before) and casts Stoneskin and SI: Abjuration. Ashatiel is helpless against Arrows of Dispelling and Acid Arrows...
...but apparently even Improved Invisibility, which allows Ashatiel to attack us, counts as invisibility for the purposes of her script. This means she accuses us of cheating after a few rounds...
...which, as others have pointed out, is ironic considering Ashatiel uses Sanctuary to heal herself.
We have to fight everyone conventionally. Fortunately, we have lots of Arrows of Detonation, and in many situations that's the only strategy you really need. Combine it with Arrows of Dispelling, and even the spellcasters at Dragonspear can't function.
Of course, when the enemy gets close, you can't use Arrows of Detonation without endangering your allies. Chaos scrolls offer a party-friendly alternative, but they're not remotely as reliable.
Still, we can hold off the Crusaders with the Wand of Monster Summoning and we're at little risk of being overwhelmed. When Ashatiel approaches, we take down her defenses with an Arrow of Dispelling, though we fall back a bit to restore our own defenses lest the enemy's arrows prove the death of us.
Ashatiel's entry and our aura being spent on Frisk's defenses instead of summoning result in our wall disintegrating, forcing us to fall back. The Coalition is behind us and in excellent shape.
I burn a Potion of Magic Shielding to shore up Frisk's defenses and avoid a potentially fatal disabler on the off chance that the enemy manages to get a spell off the ground in spite of all the arrows and disablers Frisk is firing off. Finally, the siege comes to a close as Mizhena bashes in Ashatiel's brains.
We reorganize our inventory and spellbook one last time before entering Avernus. We don't fight the demons in the first area--I don't want to deal with Illaruel's arrows or all the crazy nonsense the other demons can throw at us--but the bridge has some mandatory fights. And the demons around here are pretty nasty. Our illusion spells are useless and our summons cannot fight, leaving Frisk's defenses in a very bad position.
Notice Frisk using Arrows of Fire, which are +2 weapons in my install, as they were in SoD. They're our best tools against these demons, and surprisingly enough, the Bone Fiends have no immunities to them, unlike the Bladed Skeletons they so resemble.
We have another mandatory fight outside the elevator to Belhifet with tougher critters, but this time we have plenty of time to summon some sturdier critters of our own with Animate Dead. Frisk picks off the enemies while our Skeleton Warriors hold the fort.
I answer Thrix's riddle and get a helmet, which I deemed to be the best option, but apparently Chaotic Good Frisk cannot equip it, making it useless gold fodder.
Before ascending the elevator, we buff Frisk with everything. Two scrolls of Protection from Fire, Protection from Cold, and Protection from Electricity, potions of Mind Focusing for 25 DEX, potions of Storm Giant Strength, Magic Protection, and Invulnerability, as well as multiple Potions of Heroism to boost Frisk's maximum HP just shy of 400. We chop up the demons who spawn on the way to Belhifet.
I absolutely have to get this right. This is a huge transition for Frisk: BG1 and SoD have been immensely difficult, and once Belhifet is gone, we're finally going to enter BG2, the game with which I am by far the most familiar. Once we're in Chateau Irenicus, we have a clear and easy path to Melissan.
But I'm not very familiar with the Belhifet fight, and I've never tackled it solo or in Legacy of Bhaal mode. It's especially tense because failure means we're going all the way back to Candlekeep and we'll have to scratch and claw our way through BG1 and SoD all over again. A lot depends on me getting this right.
This is what Frisk looks like at the end of SoD.
The smell of ash and smoke fills us with determination.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 9: Siege of Dragonspear
Belhifet.Frisk opens with a Wand of Monster Summoning, but all of our critters fail saves against fear effects. Caelar forcibly joins the party if you side with her without a full party, but to preserve the spirit of the solo run, I have her operate strictly by AI, as if she were fighting on her own. She lands one good hit before Belhifet smashes her into the ground.
Frisk casts Enchanted Weapon so we can hit Belhifet without needing +3 arrows. Soon, Belhifet gates in even more demons, while our own allies demonstrate their utter inferiority to the enemy.
We bring in more, but the enemy already outnumbers us and has far better stats than anything we can manage. The situation is grim.
But we're making some minimal progress on Belhifet. CTRL-M allows us to check on Belhifet's current HP, and it looks like we've already taken out 10% of his maximum HP, which stands at a ghastly 1,172. No, that's not a typo--he really has over 1,000 HP.
Worse yet, he has 50% resistance to missile damage and -16 AC from Improved Invisibility. Frisk, as an Archer/Mage, doesn't get a racial enemy like a normal Archer ranger would, so our THAC0 against Belhifet is only -6. That's 15.5 average damage per round assuming I make all four possible attack rolls.
Do the math. We need to survive for dozens of rounds if we're going to bring down Belhifet.
With a massive enemy horde to deal with, Frisk needs to use the Wand of Monster Summoning to buy time; otherwise we'll be wasting our rounds running away from Belhifet instead of making attack rolls. We follow a standard pattern: run away, use the wand on the enemies, make a few attack rolls, and repeat.
We take another 100 HP from Belhifet, but we're starting to see a problem.
The enemy horde is growing every few rounds. We can't really stop Belhifet from gating in new demons, and I've already run the numbers and it's impossible for us to take down the other demons; Belhifet spawns in demons faster than we could hope to kill them.
But that's not all. While the Erinyes are the only enemies with missile weapons, not all of the demons just lumber after us indefinitely. They like to teleport right on top of Frisk.
This is bad for two reasons: first, it forces Frisk to run away, which takes valuable time away from actually attacking Belhifet; and second, if too many demons teleport at the same time, they might box us in.
We stay on the run, but the Wand of Monster Summoning is increasingly showing its limitations. As the enemy horde grows, our summons die even faster, buying us less time for each use.
We can't make progress against Belhifet if we spend all of our time running away from him. And if we don't make progress, he's going to keep summoning more demons. Eventually, the whole map will be covered with them, and Frisk absolutely does not have the defenses to survive getting boxed in. Using a ranged weapon against Belhifet would give all nearby demons +4 to hit and damage against Frisk.
So why not engage Belhifet in melee, and tank things out with Durlag's Goblet? We simply don't have the APR for that to be cost-effective. You see, Archers can't put more than one pip in melee weapons, and since Frisk's Archer kit is a fighter kit, we don't get the dual-wielding pips that an Archer ranger gets, either, making dual-wielding counterproductive because the THAC0 penalties are too severe. This means our maximum melee APR without haste is 1.5.
And because of a very ancient bug, haste only grants an extra 1/2 APR if your APR is a fraction. Instead of bumping our APR to 2.5, we're stuck at 2. A normal fighter would be rocking 3 APR; we have a -33% melee damage penalty even without factoring in our lower damage per hit and worse THAC0.
As I've said before, the Archer/Mage is really only optimized for late-game BG2. It's absolutely terrible in BG1, and while it's had excellent performance in SoD, Belhifet is very, very different from the other SoD fights. The Archer/Mage's low melee damage is devastating, and Belhifet's extra missile damage resistance also hampers our ranged attacks.
We keep kiting the enemy and spamming the Wand of Monster Summoning. Frisk loses their last Stoneskin and manages to take another ~80 damage out of Belhifet, but he's already bringing more demons onto the map.
For every demon Belhifet adds to the map, kiting him becomes a little bit harder, because we need to spend a little bit more time running to avoid getting boxed in. I've already known that LoB Belhifet will win any war of attrition against a solo Charname, and now I'm starting to see the reality of that prediction.
Kiting is our only option. It's not like Frisk can stand still; the enemy hits too hard and too often and too reliably for us to let them get too close.
We have other summons besides the Wand of Monster Summoning. But even the Wand of Water Elemental Summoning is grievously insufficient.
The fight goes on. The enemy horde grows ever larger, and while we're making progress against Belhifet, I can feel that we're slowing down.
Frisk gets too close to some enemies and is forced to down a Potion of Invisibility. While we're invisible, I take a moment to drink a Potion of Invulnerability, but every round we spend without attacking Belhifet is a round that Belhifet is using to build his army.
A Potion of Clarity allows us to drink from Durlag's Goblet for the second time ever. We continue kiting, but it's looking even uglier than it was before. It does not help at all that our summons are getting charmed.
Charmed summons still count against the summoning limit, but do not make good tanks or decoys. Frisk fires a couple more arrows at Belhifet, but we're finding increasingly less time in which to make the shots.
The Cornugons are building up, and just like in BG2, they love their Lightning Bolt spells. Belhifet dips down to 640 HP as he casts Gate once again.
Despite my fears, we do still have time to land hits, and Belhifet drops to 598 HP.
Round after round after round, Frisk scurries around the map, summoning decoys and firing arrows at the massive demon slowly trudging after them. We take another 80 HP from Belhifet, leaving him just above 500 and finally at Badly Injured, but the demons are taking over the battlefield.
If Frisk stops moving for even a moment and there aren't any summons on the field, the demons will start teleporting over to them. And if I don't get them moving within a fraction of a second, the demons are going to box them in and destroy them. I still don't have Teleport Field to scatter them; I've never even seen the scroll in this run.
Teleport Field would be great.
We take Belhifet down to 452 HP and our Enchanted Weapon pre-buff finally wears off.
We have Enchanted Weapon scrolls, but the delay of scroll casting means that we have to spend an extra round drinking a Potion of Invisibility just to avoid getting boxed in by teleporting demons.
Frisk heals up once again using a still very full Durlag's Goblet, but... the demons are just everywhere.
I just don't have room to move around anymore. And if we spend even a fraction of a second too long in one place, the enemy will gleefully take advantage of our vulnerability.
I use CTRL-M to check on Belhifet's HP and discover to my horror that we've only dealt 7 net damage since we last checked on him.
With more Erinyes on the map, our summons are getting charmed at greater rates, forcing Frisk to shoot them down just so we can summon replacements. We take another 50 HP from Belhifet in the process, leaving him at 406.
But the situation is looking increasingly hopeless. We accidentally let our summons disappear for barely a second and suddenly the whole army starts teleporting all around us.
We just barely escape, only a few pixels or a few frames away from getting trapped. But even when Frisk gets out, the enemy pushes them into a corner. A Potion of Invisibility is our only means of escape when the enemy closes off the exits.
We have plenty of Potions of Invisibility, but that doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that we barely have any time to make attack rolls on Belhifet anymore, and the situation is only going to get worse.
When the enemy disperses for lack of a target, we reposition ourselves and resume kiting. Then, as we get cornered several rounds later, I check Belhifet's HP. The result fills me with despair.
He gained 4 HP. His regeneration is outpacing our ability to deal damage, and he's still got 400 HP left!
Our next round of summons gets charmed and destroyed in seconds, and in the very same round, when Frisk's aura is still clouded, the enemy swarms them. At the exact same time, Frisk's HP spontaneously drops to 150.
It seems that Potion of Power/Heroism stacking has a bug: when the first potion wears off, your current HP is reset to roughly its normal level even as your maximum HP only decrements slightly. Since your current HP is the only thing that actually keeps you alive, this means that Potions of Power/Heroism effectively all expire simultaneously.
Once our maximum HP drops to ~150, Frisk goes invisible to drink some spare Potions of Power and get their HP back up to a safe level. Only Belhifet and Erinyes can see through invisibility, and the crowd of enemies that's boxing us in also boxes out Belhifet, which means we suffer very little pressure as long as we're invisible and stuck in a corner.
Our summoned hobgoblin recovers from charm and draws the enemy's attention, but gets charmed within a round, resetting the situation. However, Frisk's invisibility eventually inspires the demons who can't see through it to start wandering around.
That opens a hole in the wall of demons, and Belhifet is quick to rush in and seize the opportunity.
There is no way we could possibly survive this without relying on luck; we don't have Stoneskin scrolls because a bug renders them uncastable in my install. Our only choice is to use a Dimension Door scroll to hop out.
This breaks invisibility and triggers the whole army to descend upon us, but at least we're away from Belhifet.
But the horde doesn't form a wall fast enough, and Belhifet closes in on us. Frisk is one or two hits away from death when their aura finally clears, allowing them to drink a Potion of Invisibility and escape both Belhifet and the horde.
Belhifet is now at 424 HP. Every time we get pinned down or forced into invisibility or have to run away, Belhifet regenerates and adds to his army.
The reality sinks in.
I don't know how to win this fight.
I was looking forward so much to the end of SoD and moving on to BG2. I so desperately wanted to reach the game I was truly familiar with, the game I knew I could win if I just got past BG1 and SoD. And now, suddenly, all of that has come crashing down.
Belhifet has every advantage. The Wand of Monster Summoning is worse than useless; it breaks my invisibility, uses up a round of aura, and costs us 2 seconds per use, while the enemy is so strong and so numerous that they can wipe out all of my summons in less than a single round. Kiting is impossible; the enemy blankets the map. Tanking is all but pointless; we don't have the melee damage output to bring down Belhifet (not even close). And spending all of our Potions of Invisibility to make a single attack roll at Belhifet per round would only deal about 100 damage before leaving us completely helpless.
Spells are useless. Wands are useless. Melee combat would get us nowhere, and ranged attacks would be suicidal at this point.
We're dead.
I'm going to continue the fight, but not because I'm hoping for a miracle. Miracles don't happen in the IE games on their own; the only factors in the outcome of a fight are the factors you put into it, and we don't have any secret weapons that we could use to win if we just got some lucky rolls. It's not like Belhifet's regeneration is just going to reverse itself or the demons are going to despawn or new resources will appear in our vanity.
The reason I'm continuing this fight is simply because I might be able to gather a little more information for the next run. Frisk might be doomed, but at least I can make sure we're a little better prepared for the next time we make it to Belhifet.
I pore through my inventory. I don't expect anything we have to save Frisk's life, but maybe we can still discover some new trick to pull, some new strategy that, if we had deployed it earlier on when we still had a chance, could actually win the fight for us.
Then I see it. One weapon that won't win us this fight, but might just win us the next one, long into the future. All I need to do is figure out if it's really practical.
Arrows of Detonation.
Everyone in this fight is immune to fire damage, but Arrows of Detonation also do 1d6 base missile damage, and all of our other damage bonuses will apply to it. They only strike as +1 weapons, but with Enchanted Weapon, they could hit Belhifet and Cornugons instead of just Erinyes and Abishais. But where do we get enough room to safely use them?
We don't have room. But it doesn't matter. Because we're going to fire them all at point-blank range, and soak up all the damage ourselves.
In full awareness that nothing lies ahead but death, Frisk drinks the last of our Potions of Power and fortifies their defenses, just so we have a chance to see if the arrows will be useful in a future run.
I double-check all of our defenses. A new Potion of Invulnerability ensures we'll make our saves against Hold Person and Dire Charm, while the Mind Shield icon from a Potion of Clarity shows we'll be able to drink Durlag's Goblet without trading the Helm of Balduran for Kiel's Helmet. Every bit of AC counts.
There is only one thing left to do.
Hopefully, the THAC0 penalties from Called Shot will keep the enemy's attacks at bay long enough for us to evaluate the usefulness of the Arrows of Detonation. The moment we break invisibility, the enemy crowds around us.
Everyone takes massive damage, including Frisk. The nearby Hamatulas retaliate with Barbed Defense.
But Frisk has 434 maximum HP and many charges left of Durlag's Goblet, more than enough to survive until our Arrows of Detonation are gone.
Then I realize that we actually have a chance at winning this. We probably won't be able to kill all of the Cornugons, but if we did spend the last 27 Arrows of Detonation at our disposal, we could definitely clear a lot of enemies from the map.
And once the map is clear, we can resume kiting. Kiting got us 700 damage on Belhifet, and while the second round of it wouldn't get us quite that much because of the lingering enemies from the first round of kiting still crowding up the map, it would definitely get us the ~450 damage we'd need to bring down Belhifet.
In fact, our odds are actually pretty excellent. All I need to do is make sure that I don't get overwhelmed by damage before I have a chance to drink from Durlag's Goblet. And with 14 uses left in the goblet, we have plenty of wiggle room.
I keep firing Arrows of Detonation at point-blank range, anxious to clear the map and seize the advantage while Belhifet is weak. But just as I drink from Durlag's Goblet once more, I lose control of Frisk.
I don't understand. I knew the fear effect from Durlag's Goblet offered no save, but I still see the Mind Shield icon from the Potion of Clarity; Frisk is supposed to be immune to fear.
Apparently that Mind Shield icon came from a completely different source.
The Potions of Mind Focusing, which last for 12 hours to a Potion of Clarity's 1 hour.
To my confusion, to my disbelief, to my frustration, and to my outrage, Potions of Mind Focusing use the same Mind Shield icon that is reserved exclusively for effects that grant immunity to mind-affecting spells, from the Greenstone Amulet to IWD's Mind Blank to both Berserker and Barbarian rage to Lilarcor, the Shield of Harmony, Chaotic Commands, and Acclamation. If something blocks mental status effects, it grants the "Mind Shield" icon. If that icon is on your portrait, you're immune to at least three or four disablers depending on where you got it from.
Except for Potions of Mind Focusing. The only item in all of the IE games that uses the Mind Shield icon without giving any mind shielding effects. The one subversion of the rule I thought had no exceptions: Mind Shield means protection from mental status effects.
That one inconsistently applied icon is the sole reason I did not bother drinking a Potion of Clarity. And now, thanks to that icon and my own ignorance of the inconsistency, Frisk is affected by an undispellable fear effect for the next 12 hours.
And as I watch them die, helpless to save them, I see the enemy getting absolutely crushed by those Arrows of Detonation.
Proof that the strategy was working. Proof--PROOF that we would have won that battle, because those Arrows of Detonation really would have cleared the field and allowed us to safely resume kiting and shoot down Belhifet, completely reversing the 100+ rounds of Belhifet's absolute control of the battlefield.
One misleading icon, and one false assumption about its meaning. That was all it took to steal a last-minute victory from us just as we were about to grasp it.
Frisk dies.
The screen goes black. The fight is over. SoD is over.
This... this meant so, so much to me. I've been struggling with burnout for a very long time, and I wanted this to be a "final" no-reload run for me, one run that I could be truly proud of before I let go of Baldur's Gate for a while and turned my attention to other things. I wanted to leave BG with a feeling that I had accomplished something... I did not want to turn away from the game with my head hanging low.
I haven't felt this kind of despair many times in my life, nor this weird feeling of physical weakness in my legs. I really had high hopes for this run. I really cared about this run and its success. And it hurts so much to see Frisk fall so late in SoD, at the exact moment I thought we were going to make it out okay, when we were finally going to be able to enter BG2. The exact moment when everything was supposed to turn around, and all of our hard work would finally pay off and let Frisk and I relax.
This run has been so much harder than anything else I've ever attempted. And seeing all our work turn to ash is just crushing. I invest really heavily in these runs, and I've invested more in this run than any other since I started the no-reload challenge three years ago. It was really important to me on a personal level... and now it's all gone.
Just... ash.
Everything turned to ash.
...
The smell of ash fills us with determination.
Okay, so my newest playthrough makes use of the BWS tool, with a hazy at best idea of what mods it's actually included beyond Aura and Shadow Magic tacked on the end after hitting buttons at random trying to make it work.
Not five minutes in and already things just done got weird.
Oh, right.
After importing and exporting Raphael and starting over, I'm fairly sure he's a Druid/Luckrider/Darkcloak/Mistwalker of Leira, with a few extra innate abilities removed and a Katana/Dagger proficiency combination from loosened cleric proficiencies.
Also, check out this elven model replacement thing. The elven fights with leather? Actually have snazzy cloaks and trousers. Pretty awesome, eh, eh?
Free exp and reputation, and I'm not even out of Candlekeep. Apparently there's a zombie apocalypse I missed though.
There is one room in that dungeon that I now avoid as there is a strong possibility of party members dying with virtually no reward if you are successful.
Nevertheless, the loot down there is mind-blowing. So many suits of full plate and so many +1 swords!!
Make sure that you get full price for those items by not selling any of them beforehand.