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.
Do I take it that you have removed the Level Cap? None of my Characters went beyond 500,000. Jaheira didn't even reach the cap.
Wellp, there's apparently BGNPCs in here, badly scripted quests and all. Raphael gets Sleep as a level 1 spell thanks to.... I'm pretty sure he must have Heartwarder of Sune in there somewhere (sleep deprivation and a head cold have killed my any-term memory at the moment), so the two regular Sahuagin with their sometimes deadly (at level 1 at least) stunning bolts drop without drama while the I can only assume SCS enhanced AI of the clan leader spazzes into immobility as he mashes his face against the boat waiting to die.
Yeah.
Abandoninged by all but the loyal, sweet Xzar, Raphael sends the well adjusted fellow to parley, getting 5,000 Exp and an option on an ogre mage later.
Now being an option. Thanks for standing still casting spells!
Well, Dark Horizons is apparently still here, for good or ill. Here's wondering if the "BWP" stuff actually fixes any of its borked gear.
Nope. Still borked beyond recognition.
Unfamiliar NPC!
But.... I don't have a fireball wand and we're in town. Hm.
If you feel this to be unjustified, you've never been color sprayed to death by Neera in the ensuing fight. Good deed: Done. Her soon to be decomposing brain is now safe.
Too many unfamiliar NPCs, not enough fire. I'm assuming that it's safe to ignore him on grounds of him not trying to initiate conversation.
Don't mind if I do!
Well that's new.
Well this map got stupid dangerous.
Goodbye Brosilisk, your death was not in vain, because Raph got the killshot and a sweet 7k Exp along with most of the adventurer party.
Victory stings so good. Sadly Raph's inventory is full, so it's time to resort to desperate measures.
Sharing Exp. T_T
Korax briefly becomes even more of a bro by doing his own scouting.
Considering all the extra medusae, that's probably another 16-20k on the map's total exp.
While no wands of fire for Raph, Battle Horrors are golems. They cannot save against Shatter. The biggest problem is that they're really quick, and make short work of anything stupid enough to tank them.
Two shatters each and our cat lady in training does a fabulous job evading the second for three whole rounds.
Well, almost due for the first two tomes. I think Raph's maybe two levels off being able to solo Ulcaster level 2 & 3's tomes, so hopefully soon he'll be packing a modest 19 Strength/20 Wisdom soon.
@Wise_Grimwald: In this run, I am opting not to level up beyond what would normally be possible in BG1 or SoD, even though the XP in EET carries over from game to game. So I could have regained my Archer levels in BG1, but instead, I chose to avoid leveling up, to simulate the effects of the original BG1 and SoD level limits.
So for BG1, I'm at 5 mage levels and 8 inactive Archer levels, and in SoD, I'm at 8 Archer levels and up to 11 mage levels, just like if the XP caps were still in place.
- SCS with full prebuffs and full tactical challenge - IR/SR - Rogue Rebalancing - Item Randomizer - plenty of NPC mods
Modified Dwarven Defender description
DWARVEN DEFENDER: The Dwarven Defender is a formidable warrior that is reputed to be worth two soldiers of any other race. Trained extensively in the art of dwarven warfare, a handful of these stout fighters can render a defensive line all but unbreakable.
Advantages: – May use Defensive Stance once per day. Gains one use at level 1, one use at level 4, and an additional use every 4 levels thereafter.
DEFENSIVE STANCE: For 1 turn, the Dwarven Defender gains +2 to AC and 10% of damage reduction. However, since Defensive Stance requires full concentration on defense, the character receives a -1/2 attack per round penalty and a 50% movement rate penalty. At level 10, the bonus to AC becomes +3; the bonus goes up to +4 at level 17.
At level 8, an experienced Dwarven Defender learns to organize their allies to maximize their defensive position. Any ally standing within 3 feet of the Dwarven Defender will gain some of the AC bonus given by Defensive Stance. At level 8, allies will receive +1 bonus. The bonus to allies increases to +2 at level 10 and to +3 at level 17. Allies will not receive the bonus to damage reduction, but will not be affected by the attack per round penalty and the movement rate penalty.
– Hit Die: d12
Disadvantages: – Race restricted to dwarf. – May get to Grand Mastery (five slots) only in axes and war hammers. - May not use range weapon. – May not exceed Proficiency (one slot) in any other weapon.
So, here I go ! Arvar is ready to roll ! Here's his picture again, because that's the real first post of his run.
I've been busy in the last few days, because I was working on the kit mod for this run. I'm also trying to learn how to WeiDU my life away so I can let the kit go public, because why not ? A few changes were made, but nothing gamechanging, so I'll continue with a slightly different kit just before the final BG1 fight.
First, Arvin did a few easy quests around Beregost and Nashkel with Montaron. Xzar was simply dismissed. One thing happened though. Because Montaron is a bad s.o.b., he decided to attack Marl in Feldpost. That's why I never make Montaron into an assassin. An assassin is a quiet killer, someone who doesn't make any noise until it's too late for his prey. Montaron goes into a bar brawl with pleasure while using dirty tactics. He's a thug. Anyway, we killed Marl and had to flee the scene of the crime because our reputation took quite a hit.
Around Nashkel, we killed both Neira and Greywolf, who only gave us a longsword +1, because I have Item Randomizer installed. After we got a few levels under our belts (aka when level 4 was reached for Arvar), we started to recruit teammates. Quayle was lying around the Nashkel Carnival (I installed the component that make him start there), so we took him with us. Then, we met an annoying red wizard named Edwin. He seemed powerful so we took him in. He asked us to kill a witch for him in a Fortress full of gnolls, which we promptly did. No tome of Charisma was there, because Item Randomizer.
We then decided to continue the main questline. At this point, the kobolds were no real threats to us. Deep into the mines we met a thief named Mur'Neth. Ok, one more body on our side is always welcome. We then slew the last few kobolds with our new friend until we arrived in front of their boss, Mulahey. No biggie there, but he did managed to make good damage to our team with an Unholy Blight that we couldn't interrupt.
Mur'Neth also got himself killed by skeletons. Pff. Weakling. I dropped his body in the mines. A pansy elf named Xan then asked to give his sword back. We did, but we said to him to get bent, because no pansy elf is gonna be in this team led by a Dwarven Defender.
When we came back, we ran into Nimbul without having slept before hand. Seriously, I ALWAYS forget about him. Since this encounter can actually prove to be dangerous, we decided to go back into the carnaval to sleep. Nimbul gently waited for us there and was quickly dealt with soon after.
Since we were down to four teammates again, we tried to find some adventurers to help us. We stumbled upon a not-so comely lass named Shar Teel. After a fight in which Arvar proved his superiority, she joined our rank. I gave her the Berserker kit, but it's slightly nerfed in my install. A Berserker can only get up to Mastery in any melee weapon and only go up to Proficiency in weapon styles, but receive an extra 1/2 APR while berserking. Also, the rage doesn't give immunity to level drain, Maze and Imprisonment anymore. These changes are from a mod, I don't remember which. Even with only one pip in two weapon fighting, the thac0 bonus from Mastery and from the rage makes a dual wielding Shar Teel a superb killing machine. Note that, with IR, when you dual wield a medium weapon (longsword) with a small one (dagger), the penalty to thac0 is not as severe. Anyway, she kicks ass : it didn't take her long before she had the most kill in our party...
Bassilus was next on the list. We surrounded him, told him lies about his family so we could get rid of his skellies and ganged up on him. He went down quickly.
On our way to the Bandit Camp, we encountered an female drow who needed help against a Flaming Fist officer. After we killed him, we let her join our rank. Yeah, I know, I said that no pansy elf would be in this team. No pansy elf, except drows. Drows are not pansies, ok ?
We infiltrated the Bandit Camp by convincing Tazok that we are worthy thugs he could employ. We were then casually walking toward the main tent when we decided to talk a bit with Taurgosz Khosann. However, Shar Teel told him to fuck off, out of the blue. All the camp went aggro and we were without any buff ! Thanks Shar Teel ! Ugh...
So, Edwin was quickly turned into a pincushion by archers, but he somehow managed to get a Web spell off the ground before dying. That helped quite a lot.
After chugging plenty of potions of healing, we pulled through, also thanks to a Fireball wand wielded by Quayle and a few potions of explosion.
So, that's it for today. Our merry bunch of misfits is about to delve into Durlag's Tower ! Dum dumdum !
@Wise_Grimwald: In this run, I am opting not to level up beyond what would normally be possible in BG1 or SoD, even though the XP in EET carries over from game to game. So I could have regained my Archer levels in BG1, but instead, I chose to avoid leveling up, to simulate the effects of the original BG1 and SoD level limits.
So for BG1, I'm at 5 mage levels and 8 inactive Archer levels, and in SoD, I'm at 8 Archer levels and up to 11 mage levels, just like if the XP caps were still in place.
That is what I have done in previous runs. It works well.
Trio EE attempt 5, update 1234 5 Corey_Russell: Killye, Dwarven Fighter / Cleric. Lawful Good Grond0: Evas, Dwarven Fighter / Thief. Chaotic Good Gate70: Felai, Human Dragon Disciple and Protagonist. Lawful Neutral
It looks like the last BG:EE session for these three - they're stood outside the Ducal Palace watching the Coronation start. After an embarrassing knockback from the guard they go find an invitation courtesy of Slythe. Belt survives, Liia less so.
Rahvin and his gang get silence, backstab and fireball before glitterdust, melee and more backstabs finish them off.
Semaj and Sarevok really shouldn't come out to play if Angelo and Tazok aren't allowed out.
SoA Felai makes a slow start to the session - I have a computer problem. The two dwarves are able to carry on as I switch between the game and task manager to try and hunt down whatever is killing audio for me. After a few minutes that is sorted and Felai adds her casting to the melee madness.
Once outside, Felai cannot cast for fear of arrest. Killye has no such qualms.
We round up enough trouble for everyone at the Docks before letting a sated vampire depart of her own accord.
The last act of the day is to relieve Officer "Plate" Dirth of his armour.
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.
Aye? Never saw them in Oversight (yes, they're invisible, but they announce their presence with "Immunity to normal missiles" in Section), and the ones in Section were supremely annoying, but didn't penetrate stoneskin. I totally avoid them wherever possible, though, they are truly the most annoying things I have ever faced.
Even without getting infinite gold, just selling everything to the dorf in Beregost means I generally have more cash than I know what to do with and piles of full plate left to rot in the sun.
Three greater doppelgangers, two tomes, and a shield upgrade. That'll do, pig. Time to raise Shar-Teel, because there's no way Raphael has bag space for all this junk.
Questgiver gives quest in Ulcaster. Raphael is around 1200 exp from hitting level 7 thief, so... can probably do it now.
Mad ghost wizard. Apparently script casts horror every time it sees you. Not sure why. It did nothing else but wander around and flail in melee, poorly.
The Death Knights take a few points of damage every time you enter an area. This can and does kill them if you spam stairs, which obviously I did.
First one down.
Shar-Teel barrier in place, and no nasty Death Knights (honestly Death Knights may be a lot wussier than I expect, but I remember Lord Soth and am not testing it), time to safely kill some greater ghouls.
Tried to lure, but it wasn't cooperating, instead insisting on standing still while Raphael killed it. Jerk.
While it takes awhile, killing the beefy skeleton warriors and less beefy ghasts n' ghouls with invisibility is completely safe. Safe enough that I dual Shar-Teel when she hits level 7.
And then my offspring distracts me by shoving some Angry Birds game in my face when a ghast spawns during a rest attempt, I don't move far enough away, and it holds Raphael and kills him.
Sigh. I hate Angry Birds.
Ah well, proof of concept achieved. Try and try again. I have one more devious trick I want to try.
BlackJack.
Who is, at least for now, a Nightcloak of Shar, the very fine folks whom spend their time tending to the butthurt. Weirdly pleasant and nice for Sharrans, but there you are. It also gives a nice RP justification for seeking out quests for helping people on the grounds of alleviating their suffering.
Also remember that Keldorn would kill Jack for this. Never trust paladins.
Because the inn is super crowded someone actually spots Jack filching the usual scrolls, and he is forced to walk around until reaching Winthrop in order to spend all his gold on throwing daggers, which are ridiculously expensive.
Since apparently Cantrips are in this install, and Jack gets to choose, naturally he's got the best one: Earthen Grasp. Lock down any melee range critter with no save, potentially holding them while doing so.
It also doesn't make things hostile, meaning he can hold the Gatekeeper, Imoen, Elminster, and every other annoying bloody plot NPC who won't shut up endlessly.
This includes all three assassins killed without risk, and Jack, whose spells at this point are "friends" and "find familiar", which will not be changing in the short term, gets some free armour which gives him the nifty hooded ranger look. Which is neat since I haven't yet got around to keepering his avatar into a mage/tiefling.
Trousers and a cape makes Jack a happy boy.
Dagger get. Party dump. Nymph murder. Blah blah blah.
I assume this is a quest, but honestly scouring Beregost looking for a hooker in need is pretty low on my agenda.
It's a little curvier than my usual infinite Exp buddy, but it'll do.
Ever have one of those days when it comes to random spawns?
Probably my favourite shaman exclusive spell, if not particularly strong even as a level 3. Still plenty to get more scrolls.
Darkcloak of Shar, meet Shadow Magic.
Sadly the option to offer his own rabbit didn't come up. Sort of hoping it's not in the cave with the insane shadow mage.
Of course it is.
Well I need a bunny to clear out the ogre so I can murder the mage so I can embrace Shar ever closer, so... Carnival time?
Jack then goes on to ask the man called "Rabbit Breeder" if he sells rabbits.
If he doesn't, I can only assume his parents either hated him, or really wanted grandkids.
Mission accomplished, now Jack gets to run from a shadow mage demanding his eyeballs or something.
And then the mage killed him. I think I'll avoid that particular little girl quest until after the shadow mage next time.
[insert Pan doing everything over again here]
Well that's going to conflict with Stone of Askovar, better clear her out.
Ffffff. Ogre isn't a quantum one, it's there quest or not.
Not going to lie, the skeleton has been doing pretty much all the heavy lifting this entire fight, the only exception being Jack managing to get off a silence some point after being blinded.
So, I heard you like shadows, so I...
Broke your connection to the weave and sold your soul.
What's that? You don't like this new type of magic and want to combat its encroachment onto Faerun?
Fine.
Disclaimer: This is nowhere near that simple and involved some experimentation on my part. Select new deity stops working if you level cleric, so I actually engaged in an awkward side-venture using Morwen and her biting arrows to poison lock the adept to death while Jack was level 1.
Then head towards the lisk map to hit level 7.
Still performing regular Darkcloak duties on the way, of course.
Damnit, she still exists.
Spoke too soon.
Neera is by far the most annoying EE addition (not 2EE. of course, that would be Hexxat) for this ridiculous encounter in the middle of town. She dies more than half the time with no way of reviving her since she's out of party until after the fight, and in this modded game there's a very real chance that a Morninglord will show up and attack you for defending yourself against Red Wizards.
Hardcore levelling necessarily takes place after going through this awkwardness until the cap.
And bam, the Shadow mage is saved by Azuth, keeping their shadow weave spells and their ability to use Shadow Adept items. You may also note the Turn Undead level and death save, since he first switched to Kelemvor first. Moving from Shadow Adept added a new "Choose Deity" before finally selecting Azuth, losing his shadow mage stat bonuses in exchange for the more consistent benefits of faith.
@Pantalion: The Guril Berries are for a werewolf quest. There should be a woman shouting outside Thalantyr's tower because she wants him to help her cure her husband of lycanthropy. One of the possible cures Thalantyr suggests is Guril Berries; another is Belladonna.
Every single time I've tried using Guril Berries, they have failed. The one time I used Belladonna from Balduran's Isle, it worked. So I think the Guril Berries serve only as a red herring in your BG1 install.
Still disappointed at Frisk's death at the hands of Belhifet, I start over from Candlekeep. While BG1 is very difficult, I have a solid, low-risk strategy for handling the entire thing. I want to hurry through BG1 as fast as possible so I can get through SoD and proceed to BG2, so I'm going to move as fast as possible and avoid gathering any more loot or XP than I really need. Combined with CTRL-J and a custom rest spell once we get Invisibility, we should be able to get through the first game within the space of a single day.
Since Frisk will have to spend most of BG1 as a level 5 mage, we're heavily dependent on items for our survival. We'll need Algernon's Cloak and lots of Wand of Monster Summoning charges. But first, in order to travel safely, we need to jump up to Archer level 8 so we can dual-class to mage and cast Invisibility. Enter the basilisk XP loop. Once we've sold off the Ring of Wizardry and ankheg plate mail, we do all the necessary shopping, kill Algernon, and head off to Mutamin's garden.
Non-mages only get one shot at the basilisk XP loop since there's only one Protection from Petrification green scroll, and since Frisk cannot use Hide in Shadows and can't afford the Ring of Invisibility, we have to approach the basilisk with a Potion of Mirrored Eyes. If we fail to charm the basilisk, we have to rest and try again, so it's possible that we'd fail the charm until all of our potions were gone, at which point we'd have to make a save vs. death at -4 every time we tried to charm the thing.
But the odds are in our favor overall, restarting the game is cheap at this point, and this time, we're in luck.
But I forget to use the Protection from Petrification scroll on our pet basilisk, forcing us to drink a Potion of Mirrored Eyes to distract the other basilisks while we use a Stone to Flesh scroll on our own.
This is when I discover that Potions of Mirrored Eyes only last for 10 rounds. I thought they lasted for an hour, like Potions of Clarity.
It's extremely aggravating, but it doesn't cost us all that much time in the scheme of things. We start over from Candlekeep and work out way back. I forget to use the Protection from Petrification scroll on our basilisk once again, but I fix the situation and we use the basilisk XP loop to reach level 8, dual-class, and hit level 5. We use a Potion of Invisibility to nab the Wand of Monster Summoning from the tombs east of Nashkel and we're in business.
Since Potions of Invisibility are a precious resource (invisibility spells can always be disrupted, unlike potions), I charm Jaheira and sacrifice her to some hobgoblins to get our hands on a new one.
Invisibility gets us some loot from the ankheg burrow and allows us to travel without worrying about ambushes. Dushai goes down with the help of a Wand of Monster Summoning (she has a mace in my install, so fighting her head-on is not wise).
Fun fact: that Robe of the Good Archmagi is strictly cosmetic; it grants no bonuses whatsoever.
Anxious to get back to SoD, I speed through BG1. I'm too impatient to wait five minutes for Drizzt to die to the gnolls, so I just kill him.
Due to a bug that sets his APR to zero in LoB mode, Drizzt is defenseless against those gnolls; he's guaranteed to die as long as you stay out of the fight.
Like before, Invisibility can get us to Mulahey and Algernon's Cloak can kill him by simply turning the nearby kobolds hostile and letting them do the work for us. Attacking him ourselves would break the charm on Mulahey, but sending them off to die against other critters does not.
As for Tranzig, all we need to do is charm Tiax and have him summon a ghast.
The Wand of Monster Summoning clears out some gibberlings from the tower in Peldvale/the Larswood, allowing us to meet Baeloth and send him to the Friendly Arm Inn, where Algernon's Cloak promptly gets him killed.
We escape Tazok's grasp at the bandit camp using Invisibility and then defeat him with the Wand of Monster Summoning. A Potion of Absorption grants immunity to the Lightning Bolt trap in the main tent, and a Potion of Invisibility lets us escape without a fight when opening the chest breaks our invisibility.
I flub up the fight against Bassilus by getting too close to him and triggering his dialogue when trying to charm him. Rather than burn a bunch of Wand of Monster Summoning charges taking him down, I just flee.
We sneak through the Cloakwood and charm one of the guards at the front to turn him against his friend. Once again, we get bad luck, but we damage the other guard enough for a Wand of Fire charge to finish him off when our own guard dies.
I charm Kysus (as long as you don't get in Drasus' field of vision, the enemy won't go hostile unless you attack them), but he completely fails to kill any of the other members of the Drasus party.
I use Invisibility to attempt to charm Drasus from behind a corner. Our positioning ensures that we can always escape if the charm fails, so we can try as many times as we like. When it finally works, we turn Drasus against Genthore and use the Wand of Monster Summoning to bring down the survivor.
Rezdan remains. We charm a squirrel to bait him into breaking invisibility by casting a spell, which allows us to charm him. We kill him with his own summoned ogre.
No need to fight anyone in the Cloakwood mines before Davaeorn; we sneak past everyone. Charming the guard allows us to lure the Battle Horrors north and take them down without fighting Davaeorn.
We approach Davaeorn just enough for him to turn hostile, then fall back and let his buffs expire, at which point we can send in our guard to cut him down. Davaeorn's script doesn't register charmed enemies, so he can't react.
I do a few quick quests to hit 20 reputation and use the lower store prices to recharge our Wand of Monster Summoning and buy some Arrows of Detonation for SoD.
Ragefast is too dangerous for us to confront in an enclosed space, so we use summons and evasive tactics to stay out of his way.
Spamming the Wand of Monster Summoning lets us take down the Ogre Mage, but it takes a lot of charges because the carrion crawlers are very good at paralyzing our summons.
The wand gets us past the doppelgangers at the Seven Suns and Invisibility lets us nab the documents from the Iron Throne. Running away from the Ogre Magi at Candlekeep lets us go invisible and make our way inside without a fight, at which point we begin the long process of kiting and summoning to take down Rieltar and the gang. The Wand of Paralyzation helps, too.
It's very unwise to get within range of Rieltar or especially Kestor, since Rieltar has mage spells and Kestor has Darts of Stunning.
In the catacombs, we use the Wand of Monster Summoning to slowly bring down the Phase Spiders.
Looting the place only requires Knock and Invisibility, but I'm worried that the Phase Spiders could disrupt an Invisibility spell, and Potions of Invisibility, the un-disruptable option, are finite and therefore more valuable than Wand of Monster Summoning charges, which I can always get back with a little gold.
It's time to build up resources to make sure we can get through the Ducal Palace fight, Sarevok, and the first dungeon of SoD. We loot the Ulcaster ruins and a few areas in Durlag's Tower with minimal fights (mage buffs protect us from the traps in the latter) before returning to Baldur's Gate. We charm Ramazith (he won't be hostile on the first level of his tower; you can rest and re-try if charming fails) and waste his spells on thin air, but when his Skeleton Warrior goes hostile after we make him cast Melf's Acid Arrow on himself, we have to use the Wand of Monster Summoning to finish him off.
The Shennara clones are still in the Iron Throne due to a bug, so I use Detect Invisibility to reveal one, charm her, and turn her against her male counterpart with the help of some wand charges.
Cythandria takes a moment to respond to Shennara's backstabbing, but when she does go hostile and summons her golem buddies, Shennara is helpless.
Taking down Cythandria is a long slog of spamming the wand to drain her best spells, waiting out her buffs, spying on her from behind invisibility, weather her weakest spells, escape down the stairs when necessary, and finally confront her when she is too weak to fight back.
Next up, Slythe and Kristin. Algernon's Cloak gets Quenash killed and we use the Wand of Monster Summoning to very slowly grind down Slythe. Frisk has to stay out of sight, lest a backstab bring our run to a sudden end.
When Krystin joins the fight, it's time to leave. No reason to risk getting hit with a Chaos spell. Frisk goes invisible and finds a new safe space to use the wand.
It takes nine charges from the wand, but finally Slythe goes down. Then it's just a matter of kiting Krystin and letting her buffs expire as she wastes her best spells on disposable summons.
As in our previous run, we charm Ithtyl and bring her to the Ducal Palace fight, where Greater Malison and Chaos disable the Doppelganger Mage.
Unfortunately, Protection from Normal Weapons cannot protect Ithtyl from the doppelgangers. Their natural weapons are coded (I believe erroneously, judging by the file names) as magical weapons.
Multiple Chaos spells only manage to disable a few doppelgangers at a time as the fight drags on. The mage recovers from the earlier Chaos spell and throws Remove Magic at Frisk, but a well-timed Invisibility spell lets us hide and use the Greenstone Amulet to avoid any nasty disablers.
It's a very long fight, and the doppelgangers make their saving throws against the Wand of Paralyzation despite an incredible -3 net save penalty (-4 base, +5 from LoB, +4 from Greater Malison) and multiple charges. But since we keep Frisk out of the way, the enemy stays focused on Ithtyl and our summons.
Finally, only the Doppelganger Mage is left.
The doppelgangers apparently have really spectacular saving throws, so disabling them reliably is a crapshoot. It looks like the critical factor is keeping Liia Jannath invisible, avoiding the Doppelganger Assassin's backstabs, and making sure you're immune to any disablers the Doppelganger Mage or Shaman might throw out.
We go bankrupt buying up the last resources we can collect. Protection from Fire, Invisibility, and a Potion of Insulation get us through the maze without any trouble.
The formula for Sarevok is very simple once you get used to it. Lure Sarevok and company to the southwest, leaving Angelo vulnerable; wear down Angelo (in our case, with summons) and wait out his buffs while avoiding his divination spells; and then bomb Sarevok and the others with Fireballs once Diarmid's Protection from Magic scroll has worn off. Whenever a Skeleton Warrior rises when one of Sarevok's allies dies, kite it to death out of Sarevok's field of vision.
When Sarevok is alone, just stay out of his way and attack from afar.
Now that we're in SoD, we no longer have to hold back on leveling up, and can finally use the excess XP we had been gathering in BG1. This is what Frisk looks like at the start of SoD.
That's how you win a solo LoB+SCS run of BG1. Charm people, petrify basilisks, spam wands, spend most of the game invisible, and skip everything else. It's not very exciting after the first time you've done it, but it works.
The grand, sweeping music of Siege of Dragonspear fills us with determination.
Jack still has access to the shadow store, which is helpful considering he's skint and I needs me that wand before I start grabbing tomes.
Summon Rabbit: Soul food.
If in any doubt, I'm not interested in playing fair with these adepts and their contingency'd shadows.
Uhhhhh....
everythingwentbetterthanexpected.jpg
Thank you, Dread Lord Satan!
His turn attempts killing ghasts is pretty awesome, have to say.
Not quite so effective against Skeleton Warriors.
Really liking all these extra quests with good-aligned options. Jack, Darkmonitor of Sharzuth, has so far done more good deeds for people than most of my good characters.
Apparently it also removed the Exp cap, so I'll be spending a lot of time controlling my ADD rather than pushing the shiny button.
Jack should probably start travelling with more people so as not to be over 500k by the time he reaches SoD.
The Doomsayer is basically a glorified Battle Horror, and as such a golem, taking 12d6 damage from Shatter with no save.
Also, bunny spam. Still weirdly useful.
She has a face. This instantly leads me to think "assassin", but given the options I'm assuming "newfriend".
... Newfriend with 8 HP. Looks like a keeper, this one.
Random priest offers to watch your kids.
Obviously accept. Jack is a master class babysitter, even if these kids make Noober look positively delightful in comparison.
Being an equal opportunity helper, Jack agrees to help Edwin and Minsc find the same person, hopefully for double renumeration. Also someone was apparently murdered in the face somewhere to the west, so... Extra quests mean extra loot, I guess?
In vanilla play, I tend to be a bit lary of Rangers (worse fighters), Paladins (worse fighters with overpowered teacher's pet gear selection), Clerics (worse mages) and Druids (worse clerics with three good spells). Even without all the fun system abuse I've managed to eke from it (in Jack's case, cherry picking spells from three different spell lists, a turn undead level higher than the SoA level cap, access to adept exclusive gear, three cantrips, a caster level and cast speed bonus, and somehow managing to get katana proficiency on a cleric), it feels like a much needed boost in variety and versatility for the classes that otherwise are somewhat overshadowed.
Shortly after this, Minsc spontaneously went berzerk in the middle of fighting some gnolls and stabbed Edwin in the face.
I assume Edwin deserved it, but still, how random.
The first dungeon in SoD is very tense for no-reload runs because it's easy to get ambushed when you're trying to rest, and in LoB mode, every interrupted rest adds over 1,000 HP of skeletons to the map. It's very important to minimize combat in this area. A high CHA will let you persuade Porios to surrender, while a high STR can let you intimidate him into surrendering.
However, there are other enemies who are blocking the door to Porios. But you can get open the door without fighting them as long as you're invisible...
...and if you have a stack of ankheg shells and a suit of plate mail, say, even a 19 STR Charname can be rooted to the ground, which allows us to talk to Porios from a distance, giving the enemy not even a single frame to attack us before we coerce Porios into surrendering the entire force.
By luck, we get a successful rest, and we fill up the high-level spell slots that we couldn't memorize in BG1 due to being stuck at level 5. Protection from Undead, Invisibility, Minor Spell Deflection, and the Greenstone Amulet let us sneak all the way to Korlasz without fighting any enemies or having to make saves against whatever traps are on the map. We buff the hell out of Frisk, summon a few critters, and take down Korlasz with Arrows of Dispelling.
After a few hits, she surrenders, and when she does, all the humans in the area do as well, and all the undead spontaneously die.
After we talk to Minsc and Dynaheir, get the Spectacles of Spectacle, and do some shopping, we leave Baldur's Gate and head to Coastway Crossing. Since we killed Baeloth in BG1 and we have EET installed, he's no longer present in SoD. All that's left of his sideshow is a neverending race war between chickens.
As before, we lure a whole bunch of ghouls and wights over to the Dwarves of Dumathoin to get them killed. It's a lot easier than fighting them ourselves, and it gets us their amulets with no risk.
We use a Protection from Undead scroll to sneak through the next level, deploying some summons to kill the Bronze Sentry, which otherwise would lead other enemies towards us and block us in. We kill our last summons before proceeding; our summons would also make everyone in the area start looking for me.
We give the amulets to the lich, ask for his assistance in fighting Caelar, and wait out the next fight by hiding behind a tent.
There's little reason to tackle most of the fights in SoD in a solo LoB run because the XP is extraneous and a single character usually isn't tough enough to take out SoD's large groups of critters without multiple rests, so we'll be skipping a lot of things in this run.
Fun fact: getting Jaheira killed in BG1 to loot her Potion of Invisibility apparently counts as attacking her in SoD. Voghiln goes hostile the moment we talk to him!
Next up, the temple of Bhaal. The only required fights are against Ziatar, the Neothelid (well, technically you could run past it, but you can't escape it), and Akanna. Ziatar comes with mage buddies at higher difficulties, but an Arrow of Dispelling is enough to kill basically any mage in SoD.
Heavy pressure brings down the enemy before anything bad can happen to us.
The Neothelid has a habit of disappearing when you try to attack it with ranged weapons, but it proves a lot less trouble than I expected. Heavy pressure once again wins the fight before the enemy can gain the advantage. Frisk has pretty strong ranged damage output thanks to grandmastery in longbow, about as good as a single-classed fighter (though their melee damage output, as discussed in the previous run against Belhifet, is terrible).
As for Akanna, she fails one save and is doomed.
Over at Bridgefort, I once again accidentally turn the camp hostile by charming Hormorn and getting him killed. Maybe certain people automatically turn the Crusaders hostile when they die; maybe I could avoid it by making Hormorn die outside of the camp.
Anyway, we summon the Flaming Fist to come help us, but they don't do very well, and the Crusaders remain strong. Rather than resort to spamming the Wand of Monster Summoning or abusing the ledge like we did in the previous run, I decide to just abandon the fight and make our escape. I see no reason to waste our time on an avoidable fight with no valuable reward.
I could have surrendered the fort as well, but that doesn't feel right.
We use the Nazramu trick to cram our inventory with a whole bunch of potions and scrolls and wands and arrows that we'll probably never use, then do some light quests to get our hands on a very precious item.
We desperately need better THAC0 for Belhifet; my calculations have shown that there's plenty of room for bad luck to ruin our efforts to take him down.
I waste a fair amount of time trying to bring down the guards at the entrance to the Underground River, but our summons manage to open a path inside.
No need to do all the quests inside the tunnels; the reward is minimal and the risk is high due to the numerous enemies and close quarters. We shoot down Strunk to make sure he doesn't show up at the siege of Dragonspear Castle.
Unfortunately, because we don't have a Caelar's seal due to a bug (we couldn't rescue the Crusaders imprisoned at the temple of Bhaal) and we don't get the option of planting an explosion as a distraction for some reason, there's no way to get to the upper levels without turning a bunch of people hostile.
But none of these guys have divination spells and they don't form a wall, so we can just sneak right past them.
Upstairs, we poison the supplies and use a Knock scroll and two Potions of Magic Protection to get a Spell Immunity scroll and the Crown of Lies without dying to a Maze trap.
When I break invisibility to turn Hephernaan hostile and make my escape under a new invisibility effect, the enemy forms a wall blocking the way to the elevator.
I have to break invisibility once more (an enemy divination spell does it for me) and lure the enemy a little closer to unblock the exit and flee the scene.
There are several spellcasters with divination spells on the bottom level, and we have to do a lot of running to make sure a band of wandersome myconids don't box us. It's a combination of running around and waiting out the enemy's True Seeing spells.
There are a LOT of divination spells, so we have to retreat several times to avoid being spotted. There's only one divination spell that we don't have to worry about: Detect Invisibility, which doesn't bypass MR.
It's guaranteed because we still had 100% MR from the potions we drank to resist the Maze trap earlier.
Before we proceed to the Coalition Camp and fight off the invaders, I stop by Durlag's Tower, courtesy of EET, which lets us revisit BG1 areas aside from Baldur's Gate itself. I didn't get Durlag's Goblet in BG1 because relying on the Wand of Monster Summoning would take forever, but now that we have higher-level spells and Archer levels, we can take down the Warders.
Unfortunately, one of the Warders cannot be placated. Apparently we need a Glittering Beljuril Gemstone, but it's nowhere in sight.
I reload earlier saves, but I can't see where it vanished. Only when I use the console to teleport around do I discover where I left it.
I didn't know it was a quest item, so I sold it off at Sorcerous Sundries. Specifically, I sold it at the SoD version of the store, which is completely inaccessible, even if I were to use the WoL trick and a Dimension Door scroll to sneak back into the BG1 version of Baldur's Gate via the bridge. The only way to access SoD Baldur's Gate is via script.
It's impossible for us to ever proceed any further in Durlag's Tower. The goblet is permanently out of reach. We will have to fight Belhifet without it.
We return to the Coalition Camp, where the Crusaders have launched an invasion. The distant roar of combat fills us with determination.
Hark! This lower cave is protected by three "high" level special kobolds! Surely this infers something of value in the cave thus yonder!
Nopelol. Just Xvarts as usual. Why the heck are kobold clan leaders hanging out in xvart country?
"Find my journal" says the witch. "It twill be easily got." she says.
So Jack searched until his summoned shades expired. Which is a long time.
My "unfamiliar NPC" sense triggered against this flaming fist guy, since I forgot he haunted the road trying to pick a fight. Fortunately a quick charm and chat solved that particular issue.
Isn't this great? All of us, doing nice things, being happy. It's great!
Gods help us, they're multiplying.
Considering her habit for fireballing the party, I think "scout" suited Dynaheir perfectly. The only question is if there's extra quest I'm missing with her dead and gone, and whether I care enough.
I kid not.
If nothing else, all this do-gooding sure keeps a Darkmonitor busy.
One almost got away. Stabby stabby!
This quest is even easier when you don't have to stop walking. But we're actually here looking for...
This guy, who despite saying he was heading north to a farm instead turned up in an inn. Apparently he has the same focus I do. Well that was a wasted week searching.
Unfa-, no, wait, I know Isra, I reviewed her BG2 mod. Yet another paladin, yet another two handed sword specialist.
Since I fully expect all these mages to chunk sooner or later that likely means I'll have Sirene, Minsc, and Isra competing over the two handed sword market.
And another babysit NPC who doesn't level.
Ooo, I like her, she's sensible. She needs a better portrait.
Well that was close. Revenant held Jack on its first hit as he was moving to go outside, then held Valerie as she tried to cloak him out of harm's way. If Jack hadn't done quite so much damage in his opening "hello" then Aura wouldn't have been able to take it down in time to save him.
Now that is satisfying.
Turnabout is satisfying too.
Rasaad didn't make it either, probably shouldn't have stuck his nose in with level 1 HP. Goodbye mighty fister belt.
Well what do you know, apparently it was just VERY bad crabs.
And this is Jack's reward.
I don't even.
Well apparently this guy wants to make up for all the not-levelling the other babysit characters get up to. Since he's a priest, he can't even use his own chainmail, and can't actually select a deity, leaving him with around three priest spells to choose from, which I'll fix at some point, I guess.
Also, apparently Sirine is also a Cavalier. Two cavaliers with a two handed sword specialisation. I've half a mind to go keeper one of them into something interesting instead. This makes four LG and one NG partymates for the neutral worshipper of Ashar, and at least a third of them are gay; the jury is still out on Gavin.
Neutral people trend toward good because it's better to have good neighbours than bad ones.
Somehow I'm more inclined to help this guy now he has a portrait. And not just because I misjudged how close to get to acquire his scimitars.
Ulcaster's may not be the fastest Exp in the game, but it's definitely up there on my personal favourites. Dread wolves are all but harmless in BG1, and for Jack they die on the turn attempt for over 100 exp per party member.
Sadly the ghost wizards down in the basement aren't undead, but that doesn't mean Jack can't purge most of the dungeon just walking around invisible.
... Was worth a try.
By a strange quirk, the entrance to the basement isn't a Gather Your Party block, but to leave the basement by either exit is, so in the end after purging 20k of experience and loot the entire party has to either get kicked or dragged down.
Yep, think we can do this.
Shame about the cheating scripts. She doesn't even bother to cast a vocalise.
And done. The last death knight and twin high level skeleton warriors took about a full twenty four hours worth of summons to handle, and for an example how cheaty he is, he never actually saw Jack, but that web spell came sailing out of the fog of war regardless. I suppose I should be appreciative that it wasn't finger of death.
Still can't find one of the ghost wizards. No idea why, considering Jack and Aura wandered throughout both maps scanning for traps and atomising undead.
Wandered into a random house in Beregost, asked to speak to the lady of the house, attacked by a bunch of dudes. Buuuut no rep loss, so it's all good.
Something something missing persons? Also this person was congenitally sad, so as a good Darkcloak Jack was forced to kill them to stop them being sad. I think?
And then Jack got 2000 Exp and 2000 Gold and praise at the temple.
Jack has no idea what that was all about, but he's rolling with it admirably.
Stupidly forgot that I don't have a ring of free action this game, since there was no sign of Alora in Gullykin and Aura sucks at pick pocket. Thankfully Gavin and his newly repaired remove paralysis spell came in ample time.
Soon we'll discover that Valerie is afraid of heights and have a hat trick of phobias.
Technically since Aura is hydrophobic and ursaphobic, and Jack fears only fear itself (phobophobic) we already have three, but y'know.
This guy asks a lot of personal questions. This one's pretty fitting though.
They see me steamrolling. They dyin'.
First step into Cloakwood, and already an unfamiliar NPC too close to burn. Life is cruel.
The Coalition Camp invasion is very different from the other fights we've been dealing with.
The invasion is divided into three waves of Crusaders, each with a different type of enemies, before a gang of bosses enter the field. If you get through the first three waves okay, then your allies Auziel and Garrus, if they're still alive, will be immortal for the final fight and can handle things with little support.
However, if you let any of the enemies from the first three waves get too close to the barrels near Andrus to the south, all of the remaining waves plus the bosses will arrive on the map almost simultaneously--and put together, they're all but unstoppable. If the enemies manage to destroy the barrels, which have like 10 HP and 10 AC and no other defenses, then it's an instant game over.
Trying to kite the enemy in this fight is just going to get us killed. In order to survive, Frisk needs to be able to stand in one place and hold that position until each of the three waves is over.
The first wave is a bunch of ogres and trolls, all melee bruisers with lots of hit points and strong damage output. The trolls are immune to practically all disablers. Skeletons make excellent summons for this fight because they only take half damage from the trolls' piercing attacks.
This also means the optimal allies for this fight (you get to choose which forces accompany you at each wave) are the skeletons sent by the Coldhearth Lich as a reward for killing the Dwarves of Dumathoin way back in Coastway Crossing. But the best way to handle this fight is simply to deal lots of area-effect damage really fast, and the best way to do that is with Arrows of Detonation. With 8 levels of Archer and grandmastery in longbows, Frisk can easily hit 4 APR with a bow just by drinking an Oil of Speed. The damage is so massive that we quickly destroy our own summoned skeletons and badly wound the skeletons from the Coldhearth Lich, so we back them up with the Wand of Monster Summoning.
We only end up spending 12 Arrows of Detonation before the strength of the enemy is broken.
Before every wave, you get the opportunity to have Dosia heal you or rest the entire party, giving you all of your spells and innate abilities back. But we don't need her quite yet.
The next wave consists entirely of mages, some of which are multi-classed. The Wizard Slayers and Inquisitors are obviously the best allies for this fight, but even their spell failure and Dispel Magic spells aren't enough to lock down the enemy entirely. Arrows of Dispelling, however, are enough to take down any of the mages' buffs, and we have plenty of Acid Arrows thanks to the Nazramu trick.
One of our gnolls from the Wand of Monster Summoning fails a save against a fear effect and runs over to the south. I'm pretty sure that allies who wander close to the barrels won't trigger the next waves early--that only happens if the player or the enemy gets too far south--but just to be sure, I nail the gnoll with an Arrow of Dispelling to dispel the fear effect and rein him in.
By switching targets frequently and using Arrows of Dispelling on any mage who has more than a single buff active, we can make it all but impossible for the enemy to function, and when the Wizard Slayers get a few hits in on a mage, he or she is doomed. The mages cannot cast spells under so much pressure, and soon go down.
The third wave consists entirely of paladins and clerics, highly resistant to fear effects and hold effects thanks to their Remove Fear and Remove Paralysis spells. They have no immunity to Chaos and Slow, however, and I have spare scrolls of each. The Wand of Monster Summoning can hold them off as long as most of them are suffering from confusion.
But confusion also makes them wander around, and I can't afford to let any of them get too close to the barrels. I burn an Arrow of Dispelling on one of the enemies to cure the confusion and make sure he stays close.
But we've disabled many of the Crusaders using Chaos, and there's another one heading even further south. Another Arrow of Dispelling cures her confusion.
It isn't enough. Shortly afterward, a Messenger arrives to tell us that they can't hold back the enemy anymore.
It won't be long before the bosses arrive. We need to take down the clerics and paladins, and we need to do it fast. We deploy the Arrows of Detonation once again, but the third wave is pretty sturdy, and we don't have as strong a wall as we did before; the critters from the Wand of Monster Summoning are a lot squishier than skeletons. The enemies advance on us.
Frisk pulls off to the east in the hopes that the Coalition Mages with their Mirror Images and Stoneskins will be able to keep the remaining clerics and paladins distracted until we can pick them off. Then I see Bird-Dog appear in the dialogue box. The bosses have already arrived!
Only one of the enemies is close to Frisk, so the pressure on us is minimal. Hopefully we'll be able to hold the fort using the Wand of Monster Summoning, but the bosses have really high damage output.
The Coalition Warmages lose their Mirror Images and Stoneskins to the enemy's sky-high APR, and our precious few allies collapse. The enemy outnumbers us, and our wall is rapidly crumbling.
We fire off more Arrows of Detonation, but Frisk is under heavy pressure.
I want to cast Emotion: Hopelessness via a scroll, since it just might knock out a few key enemies and make the enemy horde more manageable. But Frisk is taking too much damage, and as much as I want to protect the barrels, Frisk's safety must always come first. I have them go invisible to ensure they can heal up.
But I don't have time to drink a bunch of healing spells; the enemy is already advancing on Garrus and Dosia, the last of our allies besides Andrus. Frisk uses the Wand of Monster Summoning to distract some of the enemies near the back and fires off some Acid Arrows.
But because we failed to bring down the third wave properly, Garrus is not immortal, and cannot stand forever. Knowing that Dosia and Andrus can't hold off all the enemies on their own, Frisk heads north in the hopes that putting themself in danger will keep the enemy from encroaching on the barrels.
The gambit fails. Frisk can't possibly hold up against the entire horde on their own; not even for a few precious rounds. We are forced to flee to the west, and Frisk goes down to 1 HP before managing to drink our only Potion of Superior Healing.
The enemy is almost on top of the barrels. Our only hope is to wipe out the enemy with as many Arrows of Detonation as we can possibly fire in the few moments we have left. But most of the survivors are still at high HP.
We deal massive damage, but we're running out of friends. Dosia dies to our own arrows.
And while Andrus is a very high-level mage, even he has only so many Stoneskins to protect him. He is no fortress on his own.
With only 25 HP left, Frisk could die in two hits, and therefore goes invisible. But we're on our own now--no one else is there to protect the barrels. And the enemy targets them.
I break invisibility to shoot down the Crusaders before they can destroy the barrels. We take down two of their number.
But it's not enough. We simply don't have the means to keep the enemy at bay.
The Crusaders destroy the last of the barrels, there is a massive explosion, and then the game is over.
Simply by using Chaos scrolls on those clerics and paladins, we completely botched the defense of the Coalition Camp. A single confused Crusader wandering too far south was enough to trigger the arrival of the bosses and render Garrus and Auziel mortal, and without a strong wall, we couldn't hold back the enemy. The Crusaders pushed us further and further back until we could go no more.
It's another crushing defeat, and I feel the same despair and weakness in my legs I felt when Belhifet killed us in the previous run. Just like in the previous run, we had been doing so well, and we were so close to making it. It hurts to lose another run like this.
I'm having doubts that I can even manage it, or that I'll be able to keep going if we suffer any more setbacks. I'm not sure I can win this run. Maybe I don't have the willpower; I don't know. All I know is that the run has become very painful, and yet I can't stomach the thought of giving up.
I can't let it go. I feel compelled to do this. But it's so, so hard. I've never had a run that was so oppressively challenging before. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in this game. It hurts so much.
Is this a byproduct of the whole "better calls for help" thing where the initial reaction to being hit with a fireball is to tightly converge on the person thus hit with a fireball? 's weird.
If I forget this kid then explaining to his mother that I drowned him is going to be awkward.
Invisible Hareishan starts casting a spell only to be held after Jack targets the golem and sends it her way.
Gawd this party is chatty. Also, apparently Gavin wasn't paying attention. Dwarves were wiped out already by the same river plug Jack will be using to wipe out the mine.
Two Skeleton Warriors and the Darkmonitor versus Dave:
The skellies died after exhausting every spell Dave had, and he died to the dagger of uber venom.
Jack takes a moment to red pill Gavin on why racial harmony is even more impossible on a world with sentient murderspiders than it is in a world where it's just different breeds of humans biologically hardwired to hate genetic outsiders.
All part of the service that Darkcloaks provide, folks.
Oh, right. You exist. Well we have some druids to kill first.
Gavin then reveals that he is nigh literally a cuckold, adventuring to make money for a child that is not his own from a previous cheating partner, and seems to consider this to be in some way having misled the party, despite having specifically said he was adventuring... to make money.
Seems like you're on an uphill slope with this one, Jack.
Since I'm not sure where the druid is at this point, this is quite impressive.
Apparently the paladin assassin isn't showing up in this game, but I can still to Stone of Askovar, starting with the most important: Dat robe of free action.
Apparently game install is glitched so the extra two areas aren't showing up, making it impossible to complete the quest, or to get the other two (terrible) talismans.
Shame. I guess I'll go see if I can enter Oversight without completing Section, since that's glitched as well without the palassin, and if not, find and use an area code to bust in and see what happens if I don't happen to have a note.
Brief pause to show off how faaaaaabulous Jack looks in his new robe.
Skeletons and shades for everyone! #youtoo
Apparently plenty of new awful quests to compensate.
Wellp, Valerie's been talking about how men are unnecessary if only she can find the right spell, so... Sort of torn on raising her. Maybe I should go grab Verr'Sza instead, to maintain the diversity quota?
Since I stopped by the inn for a leisurely nap, I can only presume this commoner has been standing there, bleeding, for the last nine hours waiting for someone to listen to their dying words.
At least Aura is safe.
Enemies killing enemies in cutscenes. I think I should get exp for having to wait.
Apparently I'm searching for six keys, have found four, and hopefully that's not something preventing a plot death later on.
I... uh... I thought it was a nickname.
Every time you mess up, the golem detonates into a fireball.
Large groups of high AC enemies with mundane weaponry?
Oh nooooo.
Also, 15 Exp? What the heck, mod?
This is what I get for leaving the thief dead, isn't it? Ambushes everywhere.
Well a quick duck into the temple let me evade the attentions of the main boss guy, whose Chaos spell would have been a fun and friendly experience for all, and the three undead soldiers soaked up around seven hundred damage between them from wand charges before falling down.
The heck is this cheatery? No save hold person?
Okay, not much I can do about that. Checking, apparently he's a Fighter 19/Mage 15/Cleric 20 (7.3e6 million exp if that's from two duals), 1 in every save, -2 THAC0, 5 APR, and 178 HP.
@Pantalion: I'm not sure how you're supposed to beat him in a normal game. I think someone in this thread had a decent strategy for him, but I forget who.
Spamming the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning is the only method I know of to bring him down.
@Pantalion: I'm not sure how you're supposed to beat him in a normal game. I think someone in this thread had a decent strategy for him, but I forget who.
Spamming the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning is the only method I know of to bring him down.
And here I was trying to beat him fair(ish) like a sucker. If his dialogue doesn't trigger on invisible characters then seven snares pre-loaded around the top of the stairs (so as not to trigger against the wind horrors), invisible thief breaking his mirror images before he goes red, and three toons using wands of fire could take him down before he busts out that 20d8 killshot? That or spam him with Fire immune Shades, assuming his script doesn't just have him snipe CHARNAME from across the map.
I really don't want to have to go through the creation of another Shadow Adept/Mage/Cleric/Cleric/Cleric though.
You can kite him. If he doesn’t get close enough his script doesn’t use his contingencies to summon his ridiculously overpowered Skeletons and he eventually dies. You still have to bait out all his annoying disable spells though.
Since my BG1 formula is risk-free all the way up until the Drasus fight, I decide to save myself a few hours of drudgery by skipping straight to the Drasus party. But when I flub it up and get charmed and killed, I realize that skipping ahead over and over would just be a cheat. Repeating the drudgery is part of the price of starting over after a no-reload run fails.
It might be tedious, but at least the formula is reliable. Kill Algernon, buy stuff for basilisk XP loop, fail to charm a basilisk, get killed by hobgoblins on the way to a safe resting place...
Actually, that last one isn't a very good formula. I start over and try again. This time, I decide NOT to get killed by the next hobgoblin ambush.
We charm our Lesser Basilisk, petrify a Greater Basilisk, and the basilisk XP loop gets us to Archer level 8 and then mage level 5. As always, we will have to complete BG1 as a crummy underleveled human mage with an unnatural hit point count. That's what Algernon's Cloak is for: killing powerful critters so we don't have to.
Turns out that Tranzig isn't as helpless against Tiax's ghast as I once thought. If the ghast makes low enough attack rolls and Tranzig makes high enough saving throws, he can actually bring it down before it paralyzes him!
We have to use the Wand of Monster Summoning to kill him instead. The wand also takes care of Tazok, and a Potion of Insulation and a Potion of Invisibility get us the documents at the bandit camp.
Speaking of the Wand of Monster Summoning, I foolishly hold back on summoning another batch of critters and get caught off-guard by one of the ankhegs when our summons vanish earlier than I expected.
Another strong attack roll forces me to flee and drink a potion instead of using the wand, and judging by our HP when we finally escaped, Frisk's only successful saving throw might well have helped us escape death.
We recharge the wand and head to the Cloakwood. This time, I have a much better strategy for handling Drasus: instead of turning the first two guards against each other, I use them to safely kill the people I charm. Charmed enemies don't go red if other enemies attack them, and you can force them to just stand there until they die.
This works on everyone in the Drasus party, including Drasus himself. We get our Boots of Speed without any risk at all!
We follow the same formula for the mines: sneak past everyone until Davaeorn; charm the guard, lure the Battle Horrors to their death, provoke Davaeorn, retreat, and let the guard kill him offscreen.
Then we do some quests to get reputation up to 20, buy Arrows of Detonation and stuff from Sorcerous Sundries, and go kill Ramazith using the Wand of Monster Summoning (with an Invisibility spell on Abela to make sure our confused summons don't attack her!). We have potions and Minor Spell Deflection to block his disablers, but nothing to defend us against his damage spells. Fortunately, Frisk has massive hitpoints and can easily tank a Fireball even on a failed save with bad luck on the damage rolls.
Ramazith also falls to the wand, but since he's much more dangerous, we have to use Algernon's Cloak to drain his spells first.
Seven Suns? Wand. Ogre Mage in the sewers? Skipped. Ogre Magi at Candlekeep? Potion of Clarity. Rieltar at Candlekeep? Wand and invisibility, plus a charmed Reader just for a little extra help.
Thanks to killing Dushai earlier in this run, we already have a Ring of Free Action and don't need to worry about Kestor's Darts of Stunning.
Phase Spiders in the catacombs? Wand of Monster Summoning, then Wand of Fire.
Shennara clones? Detect Invisibility and Algernon's Cloak.
Cythandria? Well, Shennara can only do so much on her own.
After that, we just wait out her buffs and run around hiding behind invisibility and throwing out summons. The idea is simple, but the positioning is more complex than I can describe without a video.
Slythe and Kristin? Invisibility and the Wand of Monster Summoning.
Which actually took a really long time and at least 8 charges from the wand.
This time, we bring the local Priest of Helm to the Ducal Palace as well as Ithtyl, because Frisk is far too good to just have one date. But once again, the doppelgangers stubbornly refuse to play along, consistently resisting our Chaos spells.
Finally we disable two of the doppelgangers and bring down the shaman early with coordinated effort. The mage is in another room and out of our hair.
After trading blows for several rounds, the mage nails Frisk with Remove Magic, and we respond with a well-timed Invisibility spell right after it hits--the exact same thing that happened in the previous run.
Belt is dead but the fight is not complicated: summon monsters, cast disablers via scrolls, and stay out of the way, using invisibility whenever threatened. When we run out of Invisibility spells, we use a scroll instead of the more-valuable potions. Once the doppelgangers go down, we throw monsters at Sarevok.
We collect a few last items, do a last round of shopping, and tank our way through the traps of the maze before entering the Undercity.
You know that Undercity party before Sarevok? Normally, I skip it, because it's a massive risk with no meaningful rewards. But it turns out that you can attempt to charm some of the party members without turning anyone hostile if you fail!
On careful consideration, I decide to charm Haseo, the Kensai of the group. He has ludicrous damage output and hundreds of HP, so he'll be a priceless addition to the Sarevok fight. I smuggle him into the final battle arena by ordering him to attack Frisk as they head inside.
We store Haseo the Kensai in the southwest corner and follow our typical formula: lure Sarevok, isolate Angelo, wait out his buffs, provoke him, drain his spells, and finally pounce on him. This time, Haseo joins the fight when Angelo is vulnerable. Haseo only deals half damage to the Skeleton Warrior, but he's still really good at chopping up our enemies for us, just due to his high APR and low THAC0.
I make sure to have Haseo kill our summons to make sure they don't follow Frisk around and get in Sarevok's line of sight while we're bombing the enemy from the fog of war.
Eventually, only Sarevok is left. Since Sarevok would absolutely crush Haseo in a one-on-one fight, I use the Wand of Monster Summoning to distract Sarevok while Haseo slashes away, pulling Haseo to the side whenever Sarevok takes a swing at him.
Based on our experience with Haseo from the Undercity, I think it's better to charm Gorf instead. His damage output isn't quite as good, but unlike Haseo, he won't suffer any damage penalties when fighting the Skeleton Warriors. I'll use him instead next time, in the likely event that we die before completing this current run.
Planning for our own deaths fills us with determination.
Thanks to killing Dushai earlier in this run, we already have a Ring of Free Action and don't need to worry about Kestor's Darts of Stunning.
You may not need to, but that will be because of a mod component that allows free action to protect against stun. By default that's not the case - as I've confirmed to my cost plenty of times ...
Rest to clear prebuffs, charm Wudei, rest, charm Gorf. The Skeleton Warrior from Wudei will easily kill Angelo while Gorf will be a great meat shield for Sarevok and friends. Add Nymph Cloak and you can charm the whole group. Big fun incoming!
@Harpagornis: Since resting in the Undercity is hard, I decided not to try to charm two critters at once, on the grounds that I wouldn't have been willing to spend so much time trying to get extra allies.
Granted, I do use a custom rest spell to deal with rest ambushes whenever I have access to Invisibility to save time, and I did quick save to simplify the charming process and save time there as well. But that's just meant to replicate what I would have done otherwise, and I would not have invested the time in charming more than one person. Besides, the first charm effect would only have 4 hours left after resting, so it would wear off by the time Diarmid lost his Protection from Magic effect.
I don't have the Nymph Cloak in all of my runs due to sometimes turning Abela hostile (and once I think I missed it for some other, completely different reason), and at any rate, it's rigged to be a once-per-day item instead of a 40-charge item in my install. I'm normally only working with one or two charms per day.
The first dungeon of SoD goes the same way as it did last run: intimidate Porios to surrender with 16+ STR, use invisibility and Protection from Undead to reach Korlasz, and take her down with Arrows of Dispelling. Baldur's Gate is the same as well: get Minsc and Dynaheir to join the coalition, grab the Spectacles of Spectacle, and buy some Arrows of Detonation. We also use our mage levels to score an extra unique item from Irina just north of the stoner elf:
It's quite excellent for a restless run.
Coastway Crossing is also the same: lure undead to kill the dwarves so we can loot their amulets and use a Protection from Undead scroll to reach the lich, stopping at the Bronze Sentry to destroy it with summons. Then hide behind a tent at the bridge fight.
This time, I go to Durlag's Tower early, and I don't forget to hold onto the Glittering Beljuril Gemstone. We activate the Wardens and begin the fight with Love, Avarice, Fear, and Pride (I'm having flashbacks to Pride from Fullmetal Alchemist). I bait the enemy with summons and run away, but Fear follows me.
And then I see a disturbing projectile.
That's the GAZE.pro projectile, the same one used by basilisks. Apparently Fear has a ranged paralysis attack. I thought I was invisible, but it seems that the Blur effect only created the impression of invisibility.
I drink a healing potion and switch to the Ring of Free Action. It penalizes our movement rate, but it'll give us immunity to any hold effects Fear might use on us. We hurry away, but we're still in trouble: Fear follows us upstairs, and he hits hard. Being unable to move quickly is a major disadvantage here.
I can barely move at all with Fear hitting me so many times. Frisk trades the Ring of Free Action for the Boots of Speed to slip out the door, but just as I thought I got out of Fear's visual range, it hits us. And against all odds, Frisk gets paralyzed.
It's another deeply frustrating death. I never even heard of that paralysis attack.
At least we died early in SoD instead of late. Looking at the bright side of life fills us with determination.
In my installation i can rest without any risk in front of the temple @semiticgod. The four hours left on Wudei are no problem when you kill her with the Skeleton Warrior (in my installation summons dont turn hostile when their caster gets attacked). So at the end i can get one Skel (for Angelo) and Gorf (for Sarevok). However: Both arent needed unless playing with heavy restrictions.
@Pantalion: The Guril Berries are for a werewolf quest. There should be a woman shouting outside Thalantyr's tower because she wants him to help her cure her husband of lycanthropy. One of the possible cures Thalantyr suggests is Guril Berries; another is Belladonna.
Every single time I've tried using Guril Berries, they have failed. The one time I used Belladonna from Balduran's Isle, it worked. So I think the Guril Berries serve only as a red herring in your BG1 install.
The Guril berries are NOT a red herring.
I have found that I succeed with them more often than I fail. I am playing on core to get these results. Perhaps the values of your attributes plays a part as my character has very good stats.
@Pantalion: I'm not sure how you're supposed to beat him in a normal game. I think someone in this thread had a decent strategy for him, but I forget who.
Spamming the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning is the only method I know of to bring him down.
Send in summoned monsters so that he targets them. You should be well away from the spell so use potions of speed to escape. It's an area effect spell. You may still be affected by it even if you flee, but so long as you are well away from him, you will have time to recover. If you think that you are going to be affected take a potion of invisibility.
Then take on the various monsters a few at a time for ease in killing them. I don't have improved calls for help installed which might make it easier.
With this tactic he is beatable. I have never had the amulet of wyvern summoning so I know that amulet isn't necessary, though I have used more than one charge of the wand of monster summoning in order to beat him.
Always remember that if the battle is going against you, you can run away to the ankheg area (or the bridge area) to rest. He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day!!
Don't run to the area to the south of the FAI. The likelihood of having your beauty sleep interrupted is much higher there and don't try to rest at the FAI. Interruptions are certain there.
@Wise_Grimwald: If my memory is correct, in my install, it was impossible to leave the area until the quest was complete, so resting was impossible. This is the Grey Clan mod, right?
Comments
Jaheira didn't even reach the cap.
Wellp, there's apparently BGNPCs in here, badly scripted quests and all. Raphael gets Sleep as a level 1 spell thanks to.... I'm pretty sure he must have Heartwarder of Sune in there somewhere (sleep deprivation and a head cold have killed my any-term memory at the moment), so the two regular Sahuagin with their sometimes deadly (at level 1 at least) stunning bolts drop without drama while the I can only assume SCS enhanced AI of the clan leader spazzes into immobility as he mashes his face against the boat waiting to die.
Yeah.
Abandon
inged by all but the loyal, sweet Xzar, Raphael sends the well adjusted fellow to parley, getting 5,000 Exp and an option on an ogre mage later.Now being an option. Thanks for standing still casting spells!
Well, Dark Horizons is apparently still here, for good or ill. Here's wondering if the "BWP" stuff actually fixes any of its borked gear.
Nope. Still borked beyond recognition.
Unfamiliar NPC!
But.... I don't have a fireball wand and we're in town. Hm.
If you feel this to be unjustified, you've never been color sprayed to death by Neera in the ensuing fight. Good deed: Done. Her soon to be decomposing brain is now safe.
Too many unfamiliar NPCs, not enough fire. I'm assuming that it's safe to ignore him on grounds of him not trying to initiate conversation.
Don't mind if I do!
Well that's new.
Well this map got stupid dangerous.
Goodbye Brosilisk, your death was not in vain, because Raph got the killshot and a sweet 7k Exp along with most of the adventurer party.
Victory stings so good. Sadly Raph's inventory is full, so it's time to resort to desperate measures.
Sharing Exp. T_T
Korax briefly becomes even more of a bro by doing his own scouting.
Considering all the extra medusae, that's probably another 16-20k on the map's total exp.
While no wands of fire for Raph, Battle Horrors are golems. They cannot save against Shatter. The biggest problem is that they're really quick, and make short work of anything stupid enough to tank them.
Two shatters each and our cat lady in training does a fabulous job evading the second for three whole rounds.
Well, almost due for the first two tomes. I think Raph's maybe two levels off being able to solo Ulcaster level 2 & 3's tomes, so hopefully soon he'll be packing a modest 19 Strength/20 Wisdom soon.
So for BG1, I'm at 5 mage levels and 8 inactive Archer levels, and in SoD, I'm at 8 Archer levels and up to 11 mage levels, just like if the XP caps were still in place.
Arvar Dw'Girn the Dwarven Defender
BG1 posts : 1Notable mods
- SCS with full prebuffs and full tactical challenge
- IR/SR
- Rogue Rebalancing
- Item Randomizer
- plenty of NPC mods
Modified Dwarven Defender description
DWARVEN DEFENDER: The Dwarven Defender is a formidable warrior that is reputed to be worth two soldiers of any other race. Trained extensively in the art of dwarven warfare, a handful of these stout fighters can render a defensive line all but unbreakable.
Advantages:
– May use Defensive Stance once per day. Gains one use at level 1, one use at level 4, and an additional use every 4 levels thereafter.
DEFENSIVE STANCE: For 1 turn, the Dwarven Defender gains +2 to AC and 10% of damage reduction. However, since Defensive Stance requires full concentration on defense, the character receives a -1/2 attack per round penalty and a 50% movement rate penalty. At level 10, the bonus to AC becomes +3; the bonus goes up to +4 at level 17.
At level 8, an experienced Dwarven Defender learns to organize their allies to maximize their defensive position. Any ally standing within 3 feet of the Dwarven Defender will gain some of the AC bonus given by Defensive Stance. At level 8, allies will receive +1 bonus. The bonus to allies increases to +2 at level 10 and to +3 at level 17. Allies will not receive the bonus to damage reduction, but will not be affected by the attack per round penalty and the movement rate penalty.
– Hit Die: d12
Disadvantages:
– Race restricted to dwarf.
– May get to Grand Mastery (five slots) only in axes and war hammers.
- May not use range weapon.
– May not exceed Proficiency (one slot) in any other weapon.
So, here I go ! Arvar is ready to roll ! Here's his picture again, because that's the real first post of his run.
I've been busy in the last few days, because I was working on the kit mod for this run. I'm also trying to learn how to WeiDU my life away so I can let the kit go public, because why not ? A few changes were made, but nothing gamechanging, so I'll continue with a slightly different kit just before the final BG1 fight.
First, Arvin did a few easy quests around Beregost and Nashkel with Montaron. Xzar was simply dismissed. One thing happened though. Because Montaron is a bad s.o.b., he decided to attack Marl in Feldpost. That's why I never make Montaron into an assassin. An assassin is a quiet killer, someone who doesn't make any noise until it's too late for his prey. Montaron goes into a bar brawl with pleasure while using dirty tactics. He's a thug. Anyway, we killed Marl and had to flee the scene of the crime because our reputation took quite a hit.
Around Nashkel, we killed both Neira and Greywolf, who only gave us a longsword +1, because I have Item Randomizer installed. After we got a few levels under our belts (aka when level 4 was reached for Arvar), we started to recruit teammates. Quayle was lying around the Nashkel Carnival (I installed the component that make him start there), so we took him with us. Then, we met an annoying red wizard named Edwin. He seemed powerful so we took him in. He asked us to kill a witch for him in a Fortress full of gnolls, which we promptly did. No tome of Charisma was there, because Item Randomizer.
We then decided to continue the main questline. At this point, the kobolds were no real threats to us. Deep into the mines we met a thief named Mur'Neth. Ok, one more body on our side is always welcome. We then slew the last few kobolds with our new friend until we arrived in front of their boss, Mulahey. No biggie there, but he did managed to make good damage to our team with an Unholy Blight that we couldn't interrupt.
Mur'Neth also got himself killed by skeletons. Pff. Weakling. I dropped his body in the mines. A pansy elf named Xan then asked to give his sword back. We did, but we said to him to get bent, because no pansy elf is gonna be in this team led by a Dwarven Defender.
When we came back, we ran into Nimbul without having slept before hand. Seriously, I ALWAYS forget about him. Since this encounter can actually prove to be dangerous, we decided to go back into the carnaval to sleep. Nimbul gently waited for us there and was quickly dealt with soon after.
Since we were down to four teammates again, we tried to find some adventurers to help us. We stumbled upon a not-so comely lass named Shar Teel. After a fight in which Arvar proved his superiority, she joined our rank. I gave her the Berserker kit, but it's slightly nerfed in my install. A Berserker can only get up to Mastery in any melee weapon and only go up to Proficiency in weapon styles, but receive an extra 1/2 APR while berserking. Also, the rage doesn't give immunity to level drain, Maze and Imprisonment anymore. These changes are from a mod, I don't remember which. Even with only one pip in two weapon fighting, the thac0 bonus from Mastery and from the rage makes a dual wielding Shar Teel a superb killing machine. Note that, with IR, when you dual wield a medium weapon (longsword) with a small one (dagger), the penalty to thac0 is not as severe. Anyway, she kicks ass : it didn't take her long before she had the most kill in our party...
Bassilus was next on the list. We surrounded him, told him lies about his family so we could get rid of his skellies and ganged up on him. He went down quickly.
On our way to the Bandit Camp, we encountered an female drow who needed help against a Flaming Fist officer. After we killed him, we let her join our rank. Yeah, I know, I said that no pansy elf would be in this team. No pansy elf, except drows. Drows are not pansies, ok ?
We infiltrated the Bandit Camp by convincing Tazok that we are worthy thugs he could employ. We were then casually walking toward the main tent when we decided to talk a bit with Taurgosz Khosann. However, Shar Teel told him to fuck off, out of the blue. All the camp went aggro and we were without any buff ! Thanks Shar Teel ! Ugh...
So, Edwin was quickly turned into a pincushion by archers, but he somehow managed to get a Web spell off the ground before dying. That helped quite a lot.
After chugging plenty of potions of healing, we pulled through, also thanks to a Fireball wand wielded by Quayle and a few potions of explosion.
So, that's it for today. Our merry bunch of misfits is about to delve into Durlag's Tower ! Dum dumdum !
Corey_Russell: Killye, Dwarven Fighter / Cleric. Lawful Good
Grond0: Evas, Dwarven Fighter / Thief. Chaotic Good
Gate70: Felai, Human Dragon Disciple and Protagonist. Lawful Neutral
It looks like the last BG:EE session for these three - they're stood outside the Ducal Palace watching the Coronation start. After an embarrassing knockback from the guard they go find an invitation courtesy of Slythe. Belt survives, Liia less so.
SoA
Felai makes a slow start to the session - I have a computer problem. The two dwarves are able to carry on as I switch between the game and task manager to try and hunt down whatever is killing audio for me. After a few minutes that is sorted and Felai adds her casting to the melee madness.
Even without getting infinite gold, just selling everything to the dorf in Beregost means I generally have more cash than I know what to do with and piles of full plate left to rot in the sun.
Three greater doppelgangers, two tomes, and a shield upgrade. That'll do, pig. Time to raise Shar-Teel, because there's no way Raphael has bag space for all this junk.
Questgiver gives quest in Ulcaster. Raphael is around 1200 exp from hitting level 7 thief, so... can probably do it now.
Mad ghost wizard. Apparently script casts horror every time it sees you. Not sure why. It did nothing else but wander around and flail in melee, poorly.
The Death Knights take a few points of damage every time you enter an area. This can and does kill them if you spam stairs, which obviously I did.
First one down.
Shar-Teel barrier in place, and no nasty Death Knights (honestly Death Knights may be a lot wussier than I expect, but I remember Lord Soth and am not testing it), time to safely kill some greater ghouls.
Tried to lure, but it wasn't cooperating, instead insisting on standing still while Raphael killed it. Jerk.
While it takes awhile, killing the beefy skeleton warriors and less beefy ghasts n' ghouls with invisibility is completely safe. Safe enough that I dual Shar-Teel when she hits level 7.
And then my offspring distracts me by shoving some Angry Birds game in my face when a ghast spawns during a rest attempt, I don't move far enough away, and it holds Raphael and kills him.
Sigh. I hate Angry Birds.
Ah well, proof of concept achieved. Try and try again. I have one more devious trick I want to try.
Who is, at least for now, a Nightcloak of Shar, the very fine folks whom spend their time tending to the butthurt. Weirdly pleasant and nice for Sharrans, but there you are. It also gives a nice RP justification for seeking out quests for helping people on the grounds of alleviating their suffering.
Also remember that Keldorn would kill Jack for this. Never trust paladins.
Because the inn is super crowded someone actually spots Jack filching the usual scrolls, and he is forced to walk around until reaching Winthrop in order to spend all his gold on throwing daggers, which are ridiculously expensive.
Since apparently Cantrips are in this install, and Jack gets to choose, naturally he's got the best one: Earthen Grasp. Lock down any melee range critter with no save, potentially holding them while doing so.
It also doesn't make things hostile, meaning he can hold the Gatekeeper, Imoen, Elminster, and every other annoying bloody plot NPC who won't shut up endlessly.
This includes all three assassins killed without risk, and Jack, whose spells at this point are "friends" and "find familiar", which will not be changing in the short term, gets some free armour which gives him the nifty hooded ranger look. Which is neat since I haven't yet got around to keepering his avatar into a mage/tiefling.
Trousers and a cape makes Jack a happy boy.
Dagger get. Party dump. Nymph murder. Blah blah blah.
I assume this is a quest, but honestly scouring Beregost looking for a hooker in need is pretty low on my agenda.
It's a little curvier than my usual infinite Exp buddy, but it'll do.
Ever have one of those days when it comes to random spawns?
Probably my favourite shaman exclusive spell, if not particularly strong even as a level 3. Still plenty to get more scrolls.
Darkcloak of Shar, meet Shadow Magic.
Sadly the option to offer his own rabbit didn't come up. Sort of hoping it's not in the cave with the insane shadow mage.
Of course it is.
Well I need a bunny to clear out the ogre so I can murder the mage so I can embrace Shar ever closer, so... Carnival time?
Jack then goes on to ask the man called "Rabbit Breeder" if he sells rabbits.
If he doesn't, I can only assume his parents either hated him, or really wanted grandkids.
Mission accomplished, now Jack gets to run from a shadow mage demanding his eyeballs or something.
And then the mage killed him. I think I'll avoid that particular little girl quest until after the shadow mage next time.
[insert Pan doing everything over again here]
Well that's going to conflict with Stone of Askovar, better clear her out.
Ffffff. Ogre isn't a quantum one, it's there quest or not.
Not going to lie, the skeleton has been doing pretty much all the heavy lifting this entire fight, the only exception being Jack managing to get off a silence some point after being blinded.
So, I heard you like shadows, so I...
Broke your connection to the weave and sold your soul.
What's that? You don't like this new type of magic and want to combat its encroachment onto Faerun?
Fine.
Then head towards the lisk map to hit level 7.
Still performing regular Darkcloak duties on the way, of course.
Damnit, she still exists.
Spoke too soon.
Neera is by far the most annoying EE addition (not 2EE. of course, that would be Hexxat) for this ridiculous encounter in the middle of town. She dies more than half the time with no way of reviving her since she's out of party until after the fight, and in this modded game there's a very real chance that a Morninglord will show up and attack you for defending yourself against Red Wizards.
Hardcore levelling necessarily takes place after going through this awkwardness until the cap.
And bam, the Shadow mage is saved by Azuth, keeping their shadow weave spells and their ability to use Shadow Adept items. You may also note the Turn Undead level and death save, since he first switched to Kelemvor first. Moving from Shadow Adept added a new "Choose Deity" before finally selecting Azuth, losing his shadow mage stat bonuses in exchange for the more consistent benefits of faith.
Phew. That took a lot of work.
Every single time I've tried using Guril Berries, they have failed. The one time I used Belladonna from Balduran's Isle, it worked. So I think the Guril Berries serve only as a red herring in your BG1 install.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 10: Baldur's Gate
Still disappointed at Frisk's death at the hands of Belhifet, I start over from Candlekeep. While BG1 is very difficult, I have a solid, low-risk strategy for handling the entire thing. I want to hurry through BG1 as fast as possible so I can get through SoD and proceed to BG2, so I'm going to move as fast as possible and avoid gathering any more loot or XP than I really need. Combined with CTRL-J and a custom rest spell once we get Invisibility, we should be able to get through the first game within the space of a single day.Since Frisk will have to spend most of BG1 as a level 5 mage, we're heavily dependent on items for our survival. We'll need Algernon's Cloak and lots of Wand of Monster Summoning charges. But first, in order to travel safely, we need to jump up to Archer level 8 so we can dual-class to mage and cast Invisibility. Enter the basilisk XP loop. Once we've sold off the Ring of Wizardry and ankheg plate mail, we do all the necessary shopping, kill Algernon, and head off to Mutamin's garden.
Non-mages only get one shot at the basilisk XP loop since there's only one Protection from Petrification green scroll, and since Frisk cannot use Hide in Shadows and can't afford the Ring of Invisibility, we have to approach the basilisk with a Potion of Mirrored Eyes. If we fail to charm the basilisk, we have to rest and try again, so it's possible that we'd fail the charm until all of our potions were gone, at which point we'd have to make a save vs. death at -4 every time we tried to charm the thing.
But the odds are in our favor overall, restarting the game is cheap at this point, and this time, we're in luck.
But I forget to use the Protection from Petrification scroll on our pet basilisk, forcing us to drink a Potion of Mirrored Eyes to distract the other basilisks while we use a Stone to Flesh scroll on our own.
This is when I discover that Potions of Mirrored Eyes only last for 10 rounds. I thought they lasted for an hour, like Potions of Clarity.
It's extremely aggravating, but it doesn't cost us all that much time in the scheme of things. We start over from Candlekeep and work out way back. I forget to use the Protection from Petrification scroll on our basilisk once again, but I fix the situation and we use the basilisk XP loop to reach level 8, dual-class, and hit level 5. We use a Potion of Invisibility to nab the Wand of Monster Summoning from the tombs east of Nashkel and we're in business.
Since Potions of Invisibility are a precious resource (invisibility spells can always be disrupted, unlike potions), I charm Jaheira and sacrifice her to some hobgoblins to get our hands on a new one.
Invisibility gets us some loot from the ankheg burrow and allows us to travel without worrying about ambushes. Dushai goes down with the help of a Wand of Monster Summoning (she has a mace in my install, so fighting her head-on is not wise).
Fun fact: that Robe of the Good Archmagi is strictly cosmetic; it grants no bonuses whatsoever.
Anxious to get back to SoD, I speed through BG1. I'm too impatient to wait five minutes for Drizzt to die to the gnolls, so I just kill him.
Due to a bug that sets his APR to zero in LoB mode, Drizzt is defenseless against those gnolls; he's guaranteed to die as long as you stay out of the fight.
Like before, Invisibility can get us to Mulahey and Algernon's Cloak can kill him by simply turning the nearby kobolds hostile and letting them do the work for us. Attacking him ourselves would break the charm on Mulahey, but sending them off to die against other critters does not.
As for Tranzig, all we need to do is charm Tiax and have him summon a ghast.
The Wand of Monster Summoning clears out some gibberlings from the tower in Peldvale/the Larswood, allowing us to meet Baeloth and send him to the Friendly Arm Inn, where Algernon's Cloak promptly gets him killed.
We escape Tazok's grasp at the bandit camp using Invisibility and then defeat him with the Wand of Monster Summoning. A Potion of Absorption grants immunity to the Lightning Bolt trap in the main tent, and a Potion of Invisibility lets us escape without a fight when opening the chest breaks our invisibility.
I flub up the fight against Bassilus by getting too close to him and triggering his dialogue when trying to charm him. Rather than burn a bunch of Wand of Monster Summoning charges taking him down, I just flee.
We sneak through the Cloakwood and charm one of the guards at the front to turn him against his friend. Once again, we get bad luck, but we damage the other guard enough for a Wand of Fire charge to finish him off when our own guard dies.
I charm Kysus (as long as you don't get in Drasus' field of vision, the enemy won't go hostile unless you attack them), but he completely fails to kill any of the other members of the Drasus party.
I use Invisibility to attempt to charm Drasus from behind a corner. Our positioning ensures that we can always escape if the charm fails, so we can try as many times as we like. When it finally works, we turn Drasus against Genthore and use the Wand of Monster Summoning to bring down the survivor.
Rezdan remains. We charm a squirrel to bait him into breaking invisibility by casting a spell, which allows us to charm him. We kill him with his own summoned ogre.
No need to fight anyone in the Cloakwood mines before Davaeorn; we sneak past everyone. Charming the guard allows us to lure the Battle Horrors north and take them down without fighting Davaeorn.
We approach Davaeorn just enough for him to turn hostile, then fall back and let his buffs expire, at which point we can send in our guard to cut him down. Davaeorn's script doesn't register charmed enemies, so he can't react.
I do a few quick quests to hit 20 reputation and use the lower store prices to recharge our Wand of Monster Summoning and buy some Arrows of Detonation for SoD.
Ragefast is too dangerous for us to confront in an enclosed space, so we use summons and evasive tactics to stay out of his way.
Spamming the Wand of Monster Summoning lets us take down the Ogre Mage, but it takes a lot of charges because the carrion crawlers are very good at paralyzing our summons.
The wand gets us past the doppelgangers at the Seven Suns and Invisibility lets us nab the documents from the Iron Throne. Running away from the Ogre Magi at Candlekeep lets us go invisible and make our way inside without a fight, at which point we begin the long process of kiting and summoning to take down Rieltar and the gang. The Wand of Paralyzation helps, too.
It's very unwise to get within range of Rieltar or especially Kestor, since Rieltar has mage spells and Kestor has Darts of Stunning.
In the catacombs, we use the Wand of Monster Summoning to slowly bring down the Phase Spiders.
Looting the place only requires Knock and Invisibility, but I'm worried that the Phase Spiders could disrupt an Invisibility spell, and Potions of Invisibility, the un-disruptable option, are finite and therefore more valuable than Wand of Monster Summoning charges, which I can always get back with a little gold.
It's time to build up resources to make sure we can get through the Ducal Palace fight, Sarevok, and the first dungeon of SoD. We loot the Ulcaster ruins and a few areas in Durlag's Tower with minimal fights (mage buffs protect us from the traps in the latter) before returning to Baldur's Gate. We charm Ramazith (he won't be hostile on the first level of his tower; you can rest and re-try if charming fails) and waste his spells on thin air, but when his Skeleton Warrior goes hostile after we make him cast Melf's Acid Arrow on himself, we have to use the Wand of Monster Summoning to finish him off.
The Shennara clones are still in the Iron Throne due to a bug, so I use Detect Invisibility to reveal one, charm her, and turn her against her male counterpart with the help of some wand charges.
Cythandria takes a moment to respond to Shennara's backstabbing, but when she does go hostile and summons her golem buddies, Shennara is helpless.
Taking down Cythandria is a long slog of spamming the wand to drain her best spells, waiting out her buffs, spying on her from behind invisibility, weather her weakest spells, escape down the stairs when necessary, and finally confront her when she is too weak to fight back.
Next up, Slythe and Kristin. Algernon's Cloak gets Quenash killed and we use the Wand of Monster Summoning to very slowly grind down Slythe. Frisk has to stay out of sight, lest a backstab bring our run to a sudden end.
When Krystin joins the fight, it's time to leave. No reason to risk getting hit with a Chaos spell. Frisk goes invisible and finds a new safe space to use the wand.
It takes nine charges from the wand, but finally Slythe goes down. Then it's just a matter of kiting Krystin and letting her buffs expire as she wastes her best spells on disposable summons.
As in our previous run, we charm Ithtyl and bring her to the Ducal Palace fight, where Greater Malison and Chaos disable the Doppelganger Mage.
Unfortunately, Protection from Normal Weapons cannot protect Ithtyl from the doppelgangers. Their natural weapons are coded (I believe erroneously, judging by the file names) as magical weapons.
Multiple Chaos spells only manage to disable a few doppelgangers at a time as the fight drags on. The mage recovers from the earlier Chaos spell and throws Remove Magic at Frisk, but a well-timed Invisibility spell lets us hide and use the Greenstone Amulet to avoid any nasty disablers.
It's a very long fight, and the doppelgangers make their saving throws against the Wand of Paralyzation despite an incredible -3 net save penalty (-4 base, +5 from LoB, +4 from Greater Malison) and multiple charges. But since we keep Frisk out of the way, the enemy stays focused on Ithtyl and our summons.
Finally, only the Doppelganger Mage is left.
The doppelgangers apparently have really spectacular saving throws, so disabling them reliably is a crapshoot. It looks like the critical factor is keeping Liia Jannath invisible, avoiding the Doppelganger Assassin's backstabs, and making sure you're immune to any disablers the Doppelganger Mage or Shaman might throw out.
We go bankrupt buying up the last resources we can collect. Protection from Fire, Invisibility, and a Potion of Insulation get us through the maze without any trouble.
The formula for Sarevok is very simple once you get used to it. Lure Sarevok and company to the southwest, leaving Angelo vulnerable; wear down Angelo (in our case, with summons) and wait out his buffs while avoiding his divination spells; and then bomb Sarevok and the others with Fireballs once Diarmid's Protection from Magic scroll has worn off. Whenever a Skeleton Warrior rises when one of Sarevok's allies dies, kite it to death out of Sarevok's field of vision.
When Sarevok is alone, just stay out of his way and attack from afar.
Now that we're in SoD, we no longer have to hold back on leveling up, and can finally use the excess XP we had been gathering in BG1. This is what Frisk looks like at the start of SoD.
That's how you win a solo LoB+SCS run of BG1. Charm people, petrify basilisks, spam wands, spend most of the game invisible, and skip everything else. It's not very exciting after the first time you've done it, but it works.
The grand, sweeping music of Siege of Dragonspear fills us with determination.
Jack still has access to the shadow store, which is helpful considering he's skint and I needs me that wand before I start grabbing tomes.
Summon Rabbit: Soul food.
If in any doubt, I'm not interested in playing fair with these adepts and their contingency'd shadows.
Uhhhhh....
everythingwentbetterthanexpected.jpg
Thank you, Dread Lord Satan!
His turn attempts killing ghasts is pretty awesome, have to say.
Not quite so effective against Skeleton Warriors.
Really liking all these extra quests with good-aligned options. Jack, Darkmonitor of Sharzuth, has so far done more good deeds for people than most of my good characters.
Apparently it also removed the Exp cap, so I'll be spending a lot of time controlling my ADD rather than pushing the shiny button.
Jack should probably start travelling with more people so as not to be over 500k by the time he reaches SoD.
The Doomsayer is basically a glorified Battle Horror, and as such a golem, taking 12d6 damage from Shatter with no save.
Also, bunny spam. Still weirdly useful.
She has a face. This instantly leads me to think "assassin", but given the options I'm assuming "newfriend".
... Newfriend with 8 HP. Looks like a keeper, this one.
Random priest offers to watch your kids.
Obviously accept. Jack is a master class babysitter, even if these kids make Noober look positively delightful in comparison.
Being an equal opportunity helper, Jack agrees to help Edwin and Minsc find the same person, hopefully for double renumeration. Also someone was apparently murdered in the face somewhere to the west, so... Extra quests mean extra loot, I guess?
In vanilla play, I tend to be a bit lary of Rangers (worse fighters), Paladins (worse fighters with overpowered teacher's pet gear selection), Clerics (worse mages) and Druids (worse clerics with three good spells). Even without all the fun system abuse I've managed to eke from it (in Jack's case, cherry picking spells from three different spell lists, a turn undead level higher than the SoA level cap, access to adept exclusive gear, three cantrips, a caster level and cast speed bonus, and somehow managing to get katana proficiency on a cleric), it feels like a much needed boost in variety and versatility for the classes that otherwise are somewhat overshadowed.
Shortly after this, Minsc spontaneously went berzerk in the middle of fighting some gnolls and stabbed Edwin in the face.
I assume Edwin deserved it, but still, how random.
Zepp (Dwarven cleric of Talos, Gate70); Fiery (Dwarven Kensai, Grond0)
Revenge is a dish best served consoled (variable reset)
The Shield of Balduran and Turn Undead simplified matters greatly but Zepp shows her taste for Wilting is unabated.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 11: Siege of Dragonspear
The first dungeon in SoD is very tense for no-reload runs because it's easy to get ambushed when you're trying to rest, and in LoB mode, every interrupted rest adds over 1,000 HP of skeletons to the map. It's very important to minimize combat in this area. A high CHA will let you persuade Porios to surrender, while a high STR can let you intimidate him into surrendering.However, there are other enemies who are blocking the door to Porios. But you can get open the door without fighting them as long as you're invisible...
...and if you have a stack of ankheg shells and a suit of plate mail, say, even a 19 STR Charname can be rooted to the ground, which allows us to talk to Porios from a distance, giving the enemy not even a single frame to attack us before we coerce Porios into surrendering the entire force.
By luck, we get a successful rest, and we fill up the high-level spell slots that we couldn't memorize in BG1 due to being stuck at level 5. Protection from Undead, Invisibility, Minor Spell Deflection, and the Greenstone Amulet let us sneak all the way to Korlasz without fighting any enemies or having to make saves against whatever traps are on the map. We buff the hell out of Frisk, summon a few critters, and take down Korlasz with Arrows of Dispelling.
After a few hits, she surrenders, and when she does, all the humans in the area do as well, and all the undead spontaneously die.
After we talk to Minsc and Dynaheir, get the Spectacles of Spectacle, and do some shopping, we leave Baldur's Gate and head to Coastway Crossing. Since we killed Baeloth in BG1 and we have EET installed, he's no longer present in SoD. All that's left of his sideshow is a neverending race war between chickens.
As before, we lure a whole bunch of ghouls and wights over to the Dwarves of Dumathoin to get them killed. It's a lot easier than fighting them ourselves, and it gets us their amulets with no risk.
We use a Protection from Undead scroll to sneak through the next level, deploying some summons to kill the Bronze Sentry, which otherwise would lead other enemies towards us and block us in. We kill our last summons before proceeding; our summons would also make everyone in the area start looking for me.
We give the amulets to the lich, ask for his assistance in fighting Caelar, and wait out the next fight by hiding behind a tent.
There's little reason to tackle most of the fights in SoD in a solo LoB run because the XP is extraneous and a single character usually isn't tough enough to take out SoD's large groups of critters without multiple rests, so we'll be skipping a lot of things in this run.
Fun fact: getting Jaheira killed in BG1 to loot her Potion of Invisibility apparently counts as attacking her in SoD. Voghiln goes hostile the moment we talk to him!
Next up, the temple of Bhaal. The only required fights are against Ziatar, the Neothelid (well, technically you could run past it, but you can't escape it), and Akanna. Ziatar comes with mage buddies at higher difficulties, but an Arrow of Dispelling is enough to kill basically any mage in SoD.
Heavy pressure brings down the enemy before anything bad can happen to us.
The Neothelid has a habit of disappearing when you try to attack it with ranged weapons, but it proves a lot less trouble than I expected. Heavy pressure once again wins the fight before the enemy can gain the advantage. Frisk has pretty strong ranged damage output thanks to grandmastery in longbow, about as good as a single-classed fighter (though their melee damage output, as discussed in the previous run against Belhifet, is terrible).
As for Akanna, she fails one save and is doomed.
Over at Bridgefort, I once again accidentally turn the camp hostile by charming Hormorn and getting him killed. Maybe certain people automatically turn the Crusaders hostile when they die; maybe I could avoid it by making Hormorn die outside of the camp.
Anyway, we summon the Flaming Fist to come help us, but they don't do very well, and the Crusaders remain strong. Rather than resort to spamming the Wand of Monster Summoning or abusing the ledge like we did in the previous run, I decide to just abandon the fight and make our escape. I see no reason to waste our time on an avoidable fight with no valuable reward.
I could have surrendered the fort as well, but that doesn't feel right.
We use the Nazramu trick to cram our inventory with a whole bunch of potions and scrolls and wands and arrows that we'll probably never use, then do some light quests to get our hands on a very precious item.
We desperately need better THAC0 for Belhifet; my calculations have shown that there's plenty of room for bad luck to ruin our efforts to take him down.
I waste a fair amount of time trying to bring down the guards at the entrance to the Underground River, but our summons manage to open a path inside.
No need to do all the quests inside the tunnels; the reward is minimal and the risk is high due to the numerous enemies and close quarters. We shoot down Strunk to make sure he doesn't show up at the siege of Dragonspear Castle.
Unfortunately, because we don't have a Caelar's seal due to a bug (we couldn't rescue the Crusaders imprisoned at the temple of Bhaal) and we don't get the option of planting an explosion as a distraction for some reason, there's no way to get to the upper levels without turning a bunch of people hostile.
But none of these guys have divination spells and they don't form a wall, so we can just sneak right past them.
Upstairs, we poison the supplies and use a Knock scroll and two Potions of Magic Protection to get a Spell Immunity scroll and the Crown of Lies without dying to a Maze trap.
When I break invisibility to turn Hephernaan hostile and make my escape under a new invisibility effect, the enemy forms a wall blocking the way to the elevator.
I have to break invisibility once more (an enemy divination spell does it for me) and lure the enemy a little closer to unblock the exit and flee the scene.
There are several spellcasters with divination spells on the bottom level, and we have to do a lot of running to make sure a band of wandersome myconids don't box us. It's a combination of running around and waiting out the enemy's True Seeing spells.
There are a LOT of divination spells, so we have to retreat several times to avoid being spotted. There's only one divination spell that we don't have to worry about: Detect Invisibility, which doesn't bypass MR.
It's guaranteed because we still had 100% MR from the potions we drank to resist the Maze trap earlier.
Before we proceed to the Coalition Camp and fight off the invaders, I stop by Durlag's Tower, courtesy of EET, which lets us revisit BG1 areas aside from Baldur's Gate itself. I didn't get Durlag's Goblet in BG1 because relying on the Wand of Monster Summoning would take forever, but now that we have higher-level spells and Archer levels, we can take down the Warders.
Unfortunately, one of the Warders cannot be placated. Apparently we need a Glittering Beljuril Gemstone, but it's nowhere in sight.
I reload earlier saves, but I can't see where it vanished. Only when I use the console to teleport around do I discover where I left it.
I didn't know it was a quest item, so I sold it off at Sorcerous Sundries. Specifically, I sold it at the SoD version of the store, which is completely inaccessible, even if I were to use the WoL trick and a Dimension Door scroll to sneak back into the BG1 version of Baldur's Gate via the bridge. The only way to access SoD Baldur's Gate is via script.
It's impossible for us to ever proceed any further in Durlag's Tower. The goblet is permanently out of reach. We will have to fight Belhifet without it.
We return to the Coalition Camp, where the Crusaders have launched an invasion. The distant roar of combat fills us with determination.
Hark! This lower cave is protected by three "high" level special kobolds! Surely this infers something of value in the cave thus yonder!
Nopelol. Just Xvarts as usual. Why the heck are kobold clan leaders hanging out in xvart country?
"Find my journal" says the witch. "It twill be easily got." she says.
So Jack searched until his summoned shades expired. Which is a long time.
My "unfamiliar NPC" sense triggered against this flaming fist guy, since I forgot he haunted the road trying to pick a fight. Fortunately a quick charm and chat solved that particular issue.
Isn't this great? All of us, doing nice things, being happy. It's great!
Gods help us, they're multiplying.
Considering her habit for fireballing the party, I think "scout" suited Dynaheir perfectly. The only question is if there's extra quest I'm missing with her dead and gone, and whether I care enough.
I kid not.
If nothing else, all this do-gooding sure keeps a Darkmonitor busy.
One almost got away. Stabby stabby!
This quest is even easier when you don't have to stop walking. But we're actually here looking for...
This guy, who despite saying he was heading north to a farm instead turned up in an inn. Apparently he has the same focus I do. Well that was a wasted week searching.
Unfa-, no, wait, I know Isra, I reviewed her BG2 mod. Yet another paladin, yet another two handed sword specialist.
Since I fully expect all these mages to chunk sooner or later that likely means I'll have Sirene, Minsc, and Isra competing over the two handed sword market.
And another babysit NPC who doesn't level.
Ooo, I like her, she's sensible. She needs a better portrait.
Well that was close. Revenant held Jack on its first hit as he was moving to go outside, then held Valerie as she tried to cloak him out of harm's way. If Jack hadn't done quite so much damage in his opening "hello" then Aura wouldn't have been able to take it down in time to save him.
Now that is satisfying.
Turnabout is satisfying too.
Rasaad didn't make it either, probably shouldn't have stuck his nose in with level 1 HP. Goodbye mighty fister belt.
Well what do you know, apparently it was just VERY bad crabs.
And this is Jack's reward.
I don't even.
Well apparently this guy wants to make up for all the not-levelling the other babysit characters get up to. Since he's a priest, he can't even use his own chainmail, and can't actually select a deity, leaving him with around three priest spells to choose from, which I'll fix at some point, I guess.
Also, apparently Sirine is also a Cavalier. Two cavaliers with a two handed sword specialisation. I've half a mind to go keeper one of them into something interesting instead. This makes four LG and one NG partymates for the neutral worshipper of Ashar, and at least a third of them are gay; the jury is still out on Gavin.
Neutral people trend toward good because it's better to have good neighbours than bad ones.
Somehow I'm more inclined to help this guy now he has a portrait. And not just because I misjudged how close to get to acquire his scimitars.
Ulcaster's may not be the fastest Exp in the game, but it's definitely up there on my personal favourites. Dread wolves are all but harmless in BG1, and for Jack they die on the turn attempt for over 100 exp per party member.
Sadly the ghost wizards down in the basement aren't undead, but that doesn't mean Jack can't purge most of the dungeon just walking around invisible.
... Was worth a try.
By a strange quirk, the entrance to the basement isn't a Gather Your Party block, but to leave the basement by either exit is, so in the end after purging 20k of experience and loot the entire party has to either get kicked or dragged down.
Yep, think we can do this.
Shame about the cheating scripts. She doesn't even bother to cast a vocalise.
And done. The last death knight and twin high level skeleton warriors took about a full twenty four hours worth of summons to handle, and for an example how cheaty he is, he never actually saw Jack, but that web spell came sailing out of the fog of war regardless. I suppose I should be appreciative that it wasn't finger of death.
Still can't find one of the ghost wizards. No idea why, considering Jack and Aura wandered throughout both maps scanning for traps and atomising undead.
Wandered into a random house in Beregost, asked to speak to the lady of the house, attacked by a bunch of dudes. Buuuut no rep loss, so it's all good.
Something something missing persons? Also this person was congenitally sad, so as a good Darkcloak Jack was forced to kill them to stop them being sad. I think?
And then Jack got 2000 Exp and 2000 Gold and praise at the temple.
Jack has no idea what that was all about, but he's rolling with it admirably.
Stupidly forgot that I don't have a ring of free action this game, since there was no sign of Alora in Gullykin and Aura sucks at pick pocket. Thankfully Gavin and his newly repaired remove paralysis spell came in ample time.
Soon we'll discover that Valerie is afraid of heights and have a hat trick of phobias.
Technically since Aura is hydrophobic and ursaphobic, and Jack fears only fear itself (phobophobic) we already have three, but y'know.
This guy asks a lot of personal questions. This one's pretty fitting though.
They see me steamrolling. They dyin'.
First step into Cloakwood, and already an unfamiliar NPC too close to burn. Life is cruel.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 12: Siege of Dragonspear
The Coalition Camp invasion is very different from the other fights we've been dealing with.The invasion is divided into three waves of Crusaders, each with a different type of enemies, before a gang of bosses enter the field. If you get through the first three waves okay, then your allies Auziel and Garrus, if they're still alive, will be immortal for the final fight and can handle things with little support.
However, if you let any of the enemies from the first three waves get too close to the barrels near Andrus to the south, all of the remaining waves plus the bosses will arrive on the map almost simultaneously--and put together, they're all but unstoppable. If the enemies manage to destroy the barrels, which have like 10 HP and 10 AC and no other defenses, then it's an instant game over.
Trying to kite the enemy in this fight is just going to get us killed. In order to survive, Frisk needs to be able to stand in one place and hold that position until each of the three waves is over.
The first wave is a bunch of ogres and trolls, all melee bruisers with lots of hit points and strong damage output. The trolls are immune to practically all disablers. Skeletons make excellent summons for this fight because they only take half damage from the trolls' piercing attacks.
This also means the optimal allies for this fight (you get to choose which forces accompany you at each wave) are the skeletons sent by the Coldhearth Lich as a reward for killing the Dwarves of Dumathoin way back in Coastway Crossing. But the best way to handle this fight is simply to deal lots of area-effect damage really fast, and the best way to do that is with Arrows of Detonation. With 8 levels of Archer and grandmastery in longbows, Frisk can easily hit 4 APR with a bow just by drinking an Oil of Speed. The damage is so massive that we quickly destroy our own summoned skeletons and badly wound the skeletons from the Coldhearth Lich, so we back them up with the Wand of Monster Summoning.
We only end up spending 12 Arrows of Detonation before the strength of the enemy is broken.
Before every wave, you get the opportunity to have Dosia heal you or rest the entire party, giving you all of your spells and innate abilities back. But we don't need her quite yet.
The next wave consists entirely of mages, some of which are multi-classed. The Wizard Slayers and Inquisitors are obviously the best allies for this fight, but even their spell failure and Dispel Magic spells aren't enough to lock down the enemy entirely. Arrows of Dispelling, however, are enough to take down any of the mages' buffs, and we have plenty of Acid Arrows thanks to the Nazramu trick.
One of our gnolls from the Wand of Monster Summoning fails a save against a fear effect and runs over to the south. I'm pretty sure that allies who wander close to the barrels won't trigger the next waves early--that only happens if the player or the enemy gets too far south--but just to be sure, I nail the gnoll with an Arrow of Dispelling to dispel the fear effect and rein him in.
By switching targets frequently and using Arrows of Dispelling on any mage who has more than a single buff active, we can make it all but impossible for the enemy to function, and when the Wizard Slayers get a few hits in on a mage, he or she is doomed. The mages cannot cast spells under so much pressure, and soon go down.
The third wave consists entirely of paladins and clerics, highly resistant to fear effects and hold effects thanks to their Remove Fear and Remove Paralysis spells. They have no immunity to Chaos and Slow, however, and I have spare scrolls of each. The Wand of Monster Summoning can hold them off as long as most of them are suffering from confusion.
But confusion also makes them wander around, and I can't afford to let any of them get too close to the barrels. I burn an Arrow of Dispelling on one of the enemies to cure the confusion and make sure he stays close.
But we've disabled many of the Crusaders using Chaos, and there's another one heading even further south. Another Arrow of Dispelling cures her confusion.
It isn't enough. Shortly afterward, a Messenger arrives to tell us that they can't hold back the enemy anymore.
It won't be long before the bosses arrive. We need to take down the clerics and paladins, and we need to do it fast. We deploy the Arrows of Detonation once again, but the third wave is pretty sturdy, and we don't have as strong a wall as we did before; the critters from the Wand of Monster Summoning are a lot squishier than skeletons. The enemies advance on us.
Frisk pulls off to the east in the hopes that the Coalition Mages with their Mirror Images and Stoneskins will be able to keep the remaining clerics and paladins distracted until we can pick them off. Then I see Bird-Dog appear in the dialogue box. The bosses have already arrived!
Only one of the enemies is close to Frisk, so the pressure on us is minimal. Hopefully we'll be able to hold the fort using the Wand of Monster Summoning, but the bosses have really high damage output.
The Coalition Warmages lose their Mirror Images and Stoneskins to the enemy's sky-high APR, and our precious few allies collapse. The enemy outnumbers us, and our wall is rapidly crumbling.
We fire off more Arrows of Detonation, but Frisk is under heavy pressure.
I want to cast Emotion: Hopelessness via a scroll, since it just might knock out a few key enemies and make the enemy horde more manageable. But Frisk is taking too much damage, and as much as I want to protect the barrels, Frisk's safety must always come first. I have them go invisible to ensure they can heal up.
But I don't have time to drink a bunch of healing spells; the enemy is already advancing on Garrus and Dosia, the last of our allies besides Andrus. Frisk uses the Wand of Monster Summoning to distract some of the enemies near the back and fires off some Acid Arrows.
But because we failed to bring down the third wave properly, Garrus is not immortal, and cannot stand forever. Knowing that Dosia and Andrus can't hold off all the enemies on their own, Frisk heads north in the hopes that putting themself in danger will keep the enemy from encroaching on the barrels.
The gambit fails. Frisk can't possibly hold up against the entire horde on their own; not even for a few precious rounds. We are forced to flee to the west, and Frisk goes down to 1 HP before managing to drink our only Potion of Superior Healing.
The enemy is almost on top of the barrels. Our only hope is to wipe out the enemy with as many Arrows of Detonation as we can possibly fire in the few moments we have left. But most of the survivors are still at high HP.
We deal massive damage, but we're running out of friends. Dosia dies to our own arrows.
And while Andrus is a very high-level mage, even he has only so many Stoneskins to protect him. He is no fortress on his own.
With only 25 HP left, Frisk could die in two hits, and therefore goes invisible. But we're on our own now--no one else is there to protect the barrels. And the enemy targets them.
I break invisibility to shoot down the Crusaders before they can destroy the barrels. We take down two of their number.
But it's not enough. We simply don't have the means to keep the enemy at bay.
The Crusaders destroy the last of the barrels, there is a massive explosion, and then the game is over.
Simply by using Chaos scrolls on those clerics and paladins, we completely botched the defense of the Coalition Camp. A single confused Crusader wandering too far south was enough to trigger the arrival of the bosses and render Garrus and Auziel mortal, and without a strong wall, we couldn't hold back the enemy. The Crusaders pushed us further and further back until we could go no more.
It's another crushing defeat, and I feel the same despair and weakness in my legs I felt when Belhifet killed us in the previous run. Just like in the previous run, we had been doing so well, and we were so close to making it. It hurts to lose another run like this.
I'm having doubts that I can even manage it, or that I'll be able to keep going if we suffer any more setbacks. I'm not sure I can win this run. Maybe I don't have the willpower; I don't know. All I know is that the run has become very painful, and yet I can't stomach the thought of giving up.
I can't let it go. I feel compelled to do this. But it's so, so hard. I've never had a run that was so oppressively challenging before. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in this game. It hurts so much.
Crushing despair fills us with determination.
Is this a byproduct of the whole "better calls for help" thing where the initial reaction to being hit with a fireball is to tightly converge on the person thus hit with a fireball? 's weird.
If I forget this kid then explaining to his mother that I drowned him is going to be awkward.
Invisible Hareishan starts casting a spell only to be held after Jack targets the golem and sends it her way.
Gawd this party is chatty. Also, apparently Gavin wasn't paying attention. Dwarves were wiped out already by the same river plug Jack will be using to wipe out the mine.
Two Skeleton Warriors and the Darkmonitor versus Dave:
The skellies died after exhausting every spell Dave had, and he died to the dagger of uber venom.
Jack takes a moment to red pill Gavin on why racial harmony is even more impossible on a world with sentient murderspiders than it is in a world where it's just different breeds of humans biologically hardwired to hate genetic outsiders.
All part of the service that Darkcloaks provide, folks.
Oh, right. You exist. Well we have some druids to kill first.
Gavin then reveals that he is nigh literally a cuckold, adventuring to make money for a child that is not his own from a previous cheating partner, and seems to consider this to be in some way having misled the party, despite having specifically said he was adventuring... to make money.
Seems like you're on an uphill slope with this one, Jack.
Since I'm not sure where the druid is at this point, this is quite impressive.
Apparently the paladin assassin isn't showing up in this game, but I can still to Stone of Askovar, starting with the most important: Dat robe of free action.
Apparently game install is glitched so the extra two areas aren't showing up, making it impossible to complete the quest, or to get the other two (terrible) talismans.
Shame. I guess I'll go see if I can enter Oversight without completing Section, since that's glitched as well without the palassin, and if not, find and use an area code to bust in and see what happens if I don't happen to have a note.
Brief pause to show off how faaaaaabulous Jack looks in his new robe.
Skeletons and shades for everyone! #youtoo
Apparently plenty of new awful quests to compensate.
Wellp, Valerie's been talking about how men are unnecessary if only she can find the right spell, so... Sort of torn on raising her. Maybe I should go grab Verr'Sza instead, to maintain the diversity quota?
Since I stopped by the inn for a leisurely nap, I can only presume this commoner has been standing there, bleeding, for the last nine hours waiting for someone to listen to their dying words.
At least Aura is safe.
Enemies killing enemies in cutscenes. I think I should get exp for having to wait.
Apparently I'm searching for six keys, have found four, and hopefully that's not something preventing a plot death later on.
I... uh... I thought it was a nickname.
Every time you mess up, the golem detonates into a fireball.
Sirene has over 100% fire resistance.
Oh lookie, base 100% scribe chance get.
Large groups of high AC enemies with mundane weaponry?
Oh nooooo.
Also, 15 Exp? What the heck, mod?
This is what I get for leaving the thief dead, isn't it? Ambushes everywhere.
Well a quick duck into the temple let me evade the attentions of the main boss guy, whose Chaos spell would have been a fun and friendly experience for all, and the three undead soldiers soaked up around seven hundred damage between them from wand charges before falling down.
The heck is this cheatery? No save hold person?
Okay, not much I can do about that. Checking, apparently he's a Fighter 19/Mage 15/Cleric 20 (7.3e6 million exp if that's from two duals), 1 in every save, -2 THAC0, 5 APR, and 178 HP.
That's... not sensible for Baldur's Gate 1.
Spamming the Amulet of Wyvren Summoning is the only method I know of to bring him down.
I really don't want to have to go through the creation of another Shadow Adept/Mage/Cleric/Cleric/Cleric though.
You can kite him. If he doesn’t get close enough his script doesn’t use his contingencies to summon his ridiculously overpowered Skeletons and he eventually dies. You still have to bait out all his annoying disable spells though.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 13: Baldur's Gate
Since my BG1 formula is risk-free all the way up until the Drasus fight, I decide to save myself a few hours of drudgery by skipping straight to the Drasus party. But when I flub it up and get charmed and killed, I realize that skipping ahead over and over would just be a cheat. Repeating the drudgery is part of the price of starting over after a no-reload run fails.It might be tedious, but at least the formula is reliable. Kill Algernon, buy stuff for basilisk XP loop, fail to charm a basilisk, get killed by hobgoblins on the way to a safe resting place...
Actually, that last one isn't a very good formula. I start over and try again. This time, I decide NOT to get killed by the next hobgoblin ambush.
We charm our Lesser Basilisk, petrify a Greater Basilisk, and the basilisk XP loop gets us to Archer level 8 and then mage level 5. As always, we will have to complete BG1 as a crummy underleveled human mage with an unnatural hit point count. That's what Algernon's Cloak is for: killing powerful critters so we don't have to.
Turns out that Tranzig isn't as helpless against Tiax's ghast as I once thought. If the ghast makes low enough attack rolls and Tranzig makes high enough saving throws, he can actually bring it down before it paralyzes him!
We have to use the Wand of Monster Summoning to kill him instead. The wand also takes care of Tazok, and a Potion of Insulation and a Potion of Invisibility get us the documents at the bandit camp.
Speaking of the Wand of Monster Summoning, I foolishly hold back on summoning another batch of critters and get caught off-guard by one of the ankhegs when our summons vanish earlier than I expected.
Another strong attack roll forces me to flee and drink a potion instead of using the wand, and judging by our HP when we finally escaped, Frisk's only successful saving throw might well have helped us escape death.
We recharge the wand and head to the Cloakwood. This time, I have a much better strategy for handling Drasus: instead of turning the first two guards against each other, I use them to safely kill the people I charm. Charmed enemies don't go red if other enemies attack them, and you can force them to just stand there until they die.
This works on everyone in the Drasus party, including Drasus himself. We get our Boots of Speed without any risk at all!
We follow the same formula for the mines: sneak past everyone until Davaeorn; charm the guard, lure the Battle Horrors to their death, provoke Davaeorn, retreat, and let the guard kill him offscreen.
Then we do some quests to get reputation up to 20, buy Arrows of Detonation and stuff from Sorcerous Sundries, and go kill Ramazith using the Wand of Monster Summoning (with an Invisibility spell on Abela to make sure our confused summons don't attack her!). We have potions and Minor Spell Deflection to block his disablers, but nothing to defend us against his damage spells. Fortunately, Frisk has massive hitpoints and can easily tank a Fireball even on a failed save with bad luck on the damage rolls.
Ramazith also falls to the wand, but since he's much more dangerous, we have to use Algernon's Cloak to drain his spells first.
Seven Suns? Wand. Ogre Mage in the sewers? Skipped. Ogre Magi at Candlekeep? Potion of Clarity. Rieltar at Candlekeep? Wand and invisibility, plus a charmed Reader just for a little extra help.
Thanks to killing Dushai earlier in this run, we already have a Ring of Free Action and don't need to worry about Kestor's Darts of Stunning.
Phase Spiders in the catacombs? Wand of Monster Summoning, then Wand of Fire.
Shennara clones? Detect Invisibility and Algernon's Cloak.
Cythandria? Well, Shennara can only do so much on her own.
After that, we just wait out her buffs and run around hiding behind invisibility and throwing out summons. The idea is simple, but the positioning is more complex than I can describe without a video.
Slythe and Kristin? Invisibility and the Wand of Monster Summoning.
Which actually took a really long time and at least 8 charges from the wand.
This time, we bring the local Priest of Helm to the Ducal Palace as well as Ithtyl, because Frisk is far too good to just have one date. But once again, the doppelgangers stubbornly refuse to play along, consistently resisting our Chaos spells.
Finally we disable two of the doppelgangers and bring down the shaman early with coordinated effort. The mage is in another room and out of our hair.
After trading blows for several rounds, the mage nails Frisk with Remove Magic, and we respond with a well-timed Invisibility spell right after it hits--the exact same thing that happened in the previous run.
Belt is dead but the fight is not complicated: summon monsters, cast disablers via scrolls, and stay out of the way, using invisibility whenever threatened. When we run out of Invisibility spells, we use a scroll instead of the more-valuable potions. Once the doppelgangers go down, we throw monsters at Sarevok.
We collect a few last items, do a last round of shopping, and tank our way through the traps of the maze before entering the Undercity.
You know that Undercity party before Sarevok? Normally, I skip it, because it's a massive risk with no meaningful rewards. But it turns out that you can attempt to charm some of the party members without turning anyone hostile if you fail!
On careful consideration, I decide to charm Haseo, the Kensai of the group. He has ludicrous damage output and hundreds of HP, so he'll be a priceless addition to the Sarevok fight. I smuggle him into the final battle arena by ordering him to attack Frisk as they head inside.
We store Haseo the Kensai in the southwest corner and follow our typical formula: lure Sarevok, isolate Angelo, wait out his buffs, provoke him, drain his spells, and finally pounce on him. This time, Haseo joins the fight when Angelo is vulnerable. Haseo only deals half damage to the Skeleton Warrior, but he's still really good at chopping up our enemies for us, just due to his high APR and low THAC0.
I make sure to have Haseo kill our summons to make sure they don't follow Frisk around and get in Sarevok's line of sight while we're bombing the enemy from the fog of war.
Eventually, only Sarevok is left. Since Sarevok would absolutely crush Haseo in a one-on-one fight, I use the Wand of Monster Summoning to distract Sarevok while Haseo slashes away, pulling Haseo to the side whenever Sarevok takes a swing at him.
Based on our experience with Haseo from the Undercity, I think it's better to charm Gorf instead. His damage output isn't quite as good, but unlike Haseo, he won't suffer any damage penalties when fighting the Skeleton Warriors. I'll use him instead next time, in the likely event that we die before completing this current run.
Planning for our own deaths fills us with determination.
Granted, I do use a custom rest spell to deal with rest ambushes whenever I have access to Invisibility to save time, and I did quick save to simplify the charming process and save time there as well. But that's just meant to replicate what I would have done otherwise, and I would not have invested the time in charming more than one person. Besides, the first charm effect would only have 4 hours left after resting, so it would wear off by the time Diarmid lost his Protection from Magic effect.
I don't have the Nymph Cloak in all of my runs due to sometimes turning Abela hostile (and once I think I missed it for some other, completely different reason), and at any rate, it's rigged to be a once-per-day item instead of a 40-charge item in my install. I'm normally only working with one or two charms per day.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 14: Siege of Dragonspear
The first dungeon of SoD goes the same way as it did last run: intimidate Porios to surrender with 16+ STR, use invisibility and Protection from Undead to reach Korlasz, and take her down with Arrows of Dispelling. Baldur's Gate is the same as well: get Minsc and Dynaheir to join the coalition, grab the Spectacles of Spectacle, and buy some Arrows of Detonation. We also use our mage levels to score an extra unique item from Irina just north of the stoner elf:It's quite excellent for a restless run.
Coastway Crossing is also the same: lure undead to kill the dwarves so we can loot their amulets and use a Protection from Undead scroll to reach the lich, stopping at the Bronze Sentry to destroy it with summons. Then hide behind a tent at the bridge fight.
This time, I go to Durlag's Tower early, and I don't forget to hold onto the Glittering Beljuril Gemstone. We activate the Wardens and begin the fight with Love, Avarice, Fear, and Pride (I'm having flashbacks to Pride from Fullmetal Alchemist). I bait the enemy with summons and run away, but Fear follows me.
And then I see a disturbing projectile.
That's the GAZE.pro projectile, the same one used by basilisks. Apparently Fear has a ranged paralysis attack. I thought I was invisible, but it seems that the Blur effect only created the impression of invisibility.
I drink a healing potion and switch to the Ring of Free Action. It penalizes our movement rate, but it'll give us immunity to any hold effects Fear might use on us. We hurry away, but we're still in trouble: Fear follows us upstairs, and he hits hard. Being unable to move quickly is a major disadvantage here.
I can barely move at all with Fear hitting me so many times. Frisk trades the Ring of Free Action for the Boots of Speed to slip out the door, but just as I thought I got out of Fear's visual range, it hits us. And against all odds, Frisk gets paralyzed.
It's another deeply frustrating death. I never even heard of that paralysis attack.
At least we died early in SoD instead of late. Looking at the bright side of life fills us with determination.
I have found that I succeed with them more often than I fail. I am playing on core to get these results. Perhaps the values of your attributes plays a part as my character has very good stats.
Then take on the various monsters a few at a time for ease in killing them.
I don't have improved calls for help installed which might make it easier.
With this tactic he is beatable. I have never had the amulet of wyvern summoning so I know that amulet isn't necessary, though I have used more than one charge of the wand of monster summoning in order to beat him.
Always remember that if the battle is going against you, you can run away to the ankheg area (or the bridge area) to rest. He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day!!
Don't run to the area to the south of the FAI. The likelihood of having your beauty sleep interrupted is much higher there and don't try to rest at the FAI. Interruptions are certain there.