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.
You can actually sleep in the temple at the FAI, I discovered. Didn't get interrupted, but may have been lucky I suppose.
In the interests of maximising inanity and minimising fair play, meet Jack, interation 9001.
Jack is a Loremaster, a class which exchanges a maximum x1 backstab multiplier and 18 skill points per level for having permanent Use Any Item from first level onwards, some lore bonuses, and a +1 Caster Level.
Given the amount of utterly ludicrous stuff in this modded trainwreck that BWP left of my install, this should be pretty darn interesting, whether or not I ultimately switch him to being a Shadow Adept with the orb his own UAI will assuredly permit him to use, or just recruit another adept, blitz through the quest, and have him use the scrolls to get his own shadow weave spells - which will also trigger the Charisma bonus, depending when he uses the scroll and his level.
Overall I'll probably just use the orb and switch into a better overall chassis with scroll use as needed. It seems arcane crafting is in so he has infinite scrolls available to cast with his soon to be infinite gold.
It's been twelve hours since the start of chapter one, or 1.5 days absolute maximum since she left Candlekeep.
Imoen's a big of a scrub.
Act 1: Bard with unique gear? Yoink!
No, he's not proficient, but it's a +3 bow to offset the proficiency penalty, and the bardic +3 bracers of archery and +2 cloak of (stacking) protection are pretty nice. He can upgrade to the dagger shortly, though he'll not be levelling until after the shadow orb is acquired since the thief skill points at least are non-retroactive, not to mention the Set Snare restriction.
Let it not be said I don't suffer for my shenanigans. Jack's been trading throwing dagger throws for about five minutes now, refreshing his single layer stoneskin cantrip every few rounds. He also accidentally nuked the ogre and his pet bunny, leading to an angry ogre fight while this was going on. Bit of a pigs ear overall, but he won in the end.
Jack loses: Mage casting ability. Jack keeps: +1 CL, UAI, +5 Lore.
The +1 CL combined with the +5 CL belt, the +1 CL cloak of minor of arcana, and the +4 CL from having 23 Int means if Jack ever hits level 9 he will be able to get a four projectile Shadefire arrow spell well before the SoD cap (probably the first dungeon). In the interests of maximum silliness, this means the Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, and three of the Wisdom Tomes must be kept until then to allow for 25 in Strength, Intelligence, Constitution and Wisdom, 24 Charisma and Dexterity after Hell Trial's and Lum's.
And Hexxat will still act like she's better than him.
@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?
It is indeed the Grey Clan Mod and in my installation it was possible to leave: not in my current installation as it isn't currently installed.
I hate having to start over from Candlekeep every single time this happens. It's not like BG1 is a challenge anymore; it's just a tedious chore.
We follow the same formula as always, and suffer a couple of setbacks in the process. Whenever we fail to charm a basilisk, we have to make our way back to a safe area to rest and try again. This exposes us to bandit ambushes, and surviving them is pure luck. We die twice in a row when traveling back from failed basilisk charms.
Finally, we complete the basilisk XP loop and the run proceeds safely. Everything goes pretty much the same as the previous BG1 run (well, the successful one), with four notable exceptions. First is Abela the Nymph, whom we fail to turn invisible and accidentally turn hostile when a confused summoned critter attacks her. Her Blinding Beauty spell forces Frisk to get the blindness cured at a temple.
Second, we have Frisk cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath late in the game instead of Ithtyl, which puts them in the north end of the map. Turns out that's not a good idea: the Doppelganger Assassin is to the north end of the map, and Frisk has to down a Potion of Invisibility to avoid a backstab that could deal 5-120 damage. I only notice the assassin approaching Frisk because of the telltale visual effect of Greater Malison showing it walking over to us.
Third, we land some successful Wand of Paralyzation charges on the doppelgangers, which is very rare for us.
Fourth, we charm Gorf instead of Haseo at the Undercity. There's only a single narrow spot where it's possible to charm Gorf without getting into Rahvin's field of vision (or whoever is the leader of the Undercity party) and therefore turning all of them hostile.
Gorf was indeed a better choice than Haseo as I had predicted, since he does so much more damage to the Skeleton Warriors.
Is there a reason you're doing the Ragefast fight every time, or does Frisk just not have the Charisma to pull off the talky-no-jutsu option even with Friends?
Jack's initial ascension goes smoothly, with only two attempts to charm his first Medusa, but her AI kicks in and she starts getting into melee combat, while Bunnzilla eats a poison hit from a second that almost kills him.
Fortunately Medusae wear distractingly skimpy clothing making them need to get extremely close to Jack to catch his eye (I can only assume this is the reason for their short range), and Jack and his spiritual ancestors have been playing keep away from this particular type of sprite for a decade and a half at this point, so he kills the second with his throwing dagger and charms the lesserlisk instead.
Meh, Lesserlisks are more my speed anyway, since they only petrify once per round.
Well that's that then. Time to grab a wisdom tome and the Shadowfire wand so we can actually cast spells.
Noooo. I still have spell failure chance. T_T
I hate her so much.
Whatever. Jack actually manages to cast magic missile equivalent and handle the mage that survived his one successful trap. Neera's cantrip is Conjure Rabbit. Sometimes it's a pit fiend, deal with it.
Speeding through interactions gets Neera Jack a unique helm of wild magic. He also has access to Aura's basilisk/blindness immunity goggles of 3/day identify, her healing arrows, her future shocking arrows, and 100 in Find Traps on demand. Which is nice.
With Faiths and Pantheons, Priestess/Artificer Aura needs some extensive save editing (well, it needs doing twice) to set her to Base Class, her alignment to NG instead of the illegal LG, choose a deity (I went with Tymora as the only C/T deity without Deception, which I figured would be against Aura's character as a domain) setting her spell list, then editing her back into an LG Priestess/Artificer again, and then...
Bam. Jack can cast full length spells without spell failure, making him safer to use in combat situations than Neera.
He also has the Strength tome, and no need to hold onto it since he gets up to 24 just using the three available tomes with the wand.
Chores done, time to remember what I was actually supposed to be doing.
Is there a reason you're doing the Ragefast fight every time, or does Frisk just not have the Charisma to pull off the talky-no-jutsu option even with Friends?
There is a slight benefit to fighting. Not only do you get Ragefast's equipment, but also the nymph cloak directly from Abela (otherwise you get a lock of hair that you have to pay to have upgraded into the nymph cloak).
Is there a reason you're doing the Ragefast fight every time, or does Frisk just not have the Charisma to pull off the talky-no-jutsu option even with Friends?
There is a slight benefit to fighting. Not only do you get Ragefast's equipment, but also the nymph cloak directly from Abela (otherwise you get a lock of hair that you have to pay to have upgraded into the nymph cloak).
Well, you can always talk her free then kill Ragefast afterwards, but point taken for the 4000 GP or whatever it costs.
Is there a reason you're doing the Ragefast fight every time, or does Frisk just not have the Charisma to pull off the talky-no-jutsu option even with Friends?
There is a slight benefit to fighting. Not only do you get Ragefast's equipment, but also the nymph cloak directly from Abela (otherwise you get a lock of hair that you have to pay to have upgraded into the nymph cloak).
Well, you can always talk her free then kill Ragefast afterwards, but point taken for the 4000 GP or whatever it costs.
As @Grond0 mentioned it was a "slight" benefit - think 500 gold to change the nymph's hair to a cloak. But when you have 100,000 gold you have yet to spend (that happened in our Trio run recently), it hardly is worth troubling over.
At this point, most of SoD is about as formulaic as BG1, and the first half of the game is little different from last time. Notable exceptions include:
1. Somehow we lured some of Korlasz' goons over to the Dispel Magic trap, forcing Frisk to drink a Potion of Invisibility to buff in safety. 2. We got too involved in the fight between the Dwarves of Dumathoin and the undead and accidentally turned the former hostile, forcing us to burn a whole bunch of Wand of Monster Summoning charges to bring down the dwarves. 3. I foolishly stay invisible during the fight with Ziatar instead of using Arrows of Dispelling to bring down the mages and isolate Ziatar herself. I assumed that the skeletons would be able to shrug off whatever the mages threw at them because of their undead immunities, but I failed to consider the importance of spell damage.
I also discover that if you throw non-undead summons at Ziatar, like critters from the Wand of Monster Summoning, she will use her breath weapon to devastating effect. And based on the numbers on the screen and in Near Infinity, it looks like Ziatar could almost kill Frisk in a single hit with that breath weapon.
If this was v2.5, Frisk would be able to gain immunity using a Protection from Undead scroll. But I accidentally made this a v2.3 install, so that's not an option.
I fail to keep Frisk out of range of the breath weapon, but a Potion of Invulnerability means we have guaranteed saving throws, and it seems that the spell regularly deals less damage than Near Infinity would indicate--though I have no explanation for that besides luck.
We get hit by another breath weapon, but again, it doesn't seem capable of dealing more than about 100 damage, which leaves Frisk with over 40 HP after every hit. Still, I'm not willing to risk getting close, so I pull back even farther and use the Wand of Monster Summoning from afar.
It's a slow process, and we burn 11 charges by the time it's over, but it's safe.
We rescue the Crusaders, but they seem less than grateful for some reason.
Back to Durlag's Tower! This time, we boost our saves into the negatives with a Potion of Invulnerability to make sure Fear can't paralyze us. When we first engage the Wardens, our summons crumple in short order, and Love's infinite Physical Mirror spells render Frisk helpless. Only when we get the enemy separated is it possible to bring them down.
Love seems impossible to handle quickly at first, but thanks to the Nazramu trick, we have lots of extra scrolls. It turns out that Love has very defenses against Spell Thrust, Secret Word, and Breach.
It takes multiple castings before Love finally goes down.
Everything plays out the same as in the previous run up until the Coalition Camp. I died here last time, but now I have a better strategy. The first two waves are no different, of course; just Arrows of Detonation and Arrows of Dispelling for the first and second waves, respectively.
The second wave is more complex than just firing off some arrows, though; Frisk has to renew their defenses a couple of times when SI: Abjuration expires and the mages hurl some magic attacks their way.
So how are we going to deal with the third wave? Well, we've been hoarding Skull Trap scrolls and Web scrolls for just this occasion. In between the second wave and the third, we use up all the scrolls before the fight begins.
The effect is incredible. Almost every enemy dies on the first round, and half of the remaining six are already at Near Death. The others are uninjured due to spawning after the Skull Traps fired.
The survivors don't get a chance to bounce back; there are too many Web spells holding them in place. Notice one of the enemies dying to a Coalition Mage's Chromatic Orb despite a net +11 save bonus.
We talk to Andrus and the bosses arrive. But since we fought off the other waves successfully, Auziel and Garrus are both immortal and can theoretically win the entire fight on their own. I still have Frisk pitch in; I don't want to place the fate of the run in the hands of an NPC, even an immortal one.
The enemy crumbles. Next up, the siege of Dragonspear Castle!
But we only need to kill one enemy. By running straight north to Ashatiel, we can trigger the duel early. This time, I don't buff with Improved Invisibility, so Ashatiel won't accuse us of cheating. Arrows of Dispelling and Acid Arrows bring her down.
From there, we follow the same formula up until Thrix. We don't need to fight his goons more than once; all we have to do to get past him is solve his riddle. I make absolutely sure that I don't press the wrong button by accident, because giving Thrix the wrong answer means instant death.
If this was v2.5, Frisk would be able to gain immunity using a Protection from Undead scroll. But I accidentally made this a v2.3 install, so that's not an option.
From the context I suspect you mean a protection from poison scroll here.
- 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.
========
Here we go into Durlag's Tower. Why so early, you might ask. Well, I wanna get a few levels under my belt before going into Cloakwood, and I also want to get good items early. I already got a ring of Free Action thanks to Dushai (who had a little but fatal accident after being charmed ), but I'm also looking for the ever elusive Greenstone Amulet.
So, we cleared the upper level of its Ghouls and Greater Basilisks infestation before delving in the underground. There, we gathered all the items required to satisfy the Warders' whim and then fought them all. The fight went real nice. Only Avarice and Pride were of some concern, because the former kept backstabbing Viconia and Montaron while the other is a awesome tank with plenty of firepower. Invisibility Purge took care of Avarice and kiting dispatched Pride.
We then took a quick peek in the second Underground. The Durlag's goblet was taken (it will be used, but not recharged, because I decided to forgo the selling/recharging gimmick). Bala's axe was also found. It's a pretty nice weapon in IR : it dispel the enemy unless a save vs Spell is made. It's really great, but not overpowered, because save vs spell are super strong on high level mages, which means that the dispel effect will be hard to pull off. Still no Greenstone Amulet to date, however.
Off we went into Cloakwoods. Druids were slained, spiders (and a fat woman) were killed. Soon, we had to face Drasus party. It can be a complicated fight, because there's two mages in the enemy party and we're at a point where we don't have much prebuffs to counter their spells. I usually try to take one of the mages out with a backstab. That's what a buffed up Montaron achieved with a beautiful crit.
We then engaged. We first focused on dispatching Genthore, which we did fast enough. Two enemies to go.
Drasus took a bit more time, because he's a tough customer, but Flame Arrow from Edwin killed him.
Only Rezdan left. His buffs were still very healthy and I had no Spell Thrust to counter him, because Edwin failed to learn it. Having no potions that boost intelligence in IR can be a pain in the butt, but makes Intelligence a worthy stat to have. Montaron, still hurt from the encounter, was trying to drink a potion of healing, but was tagged by Flame Arrow which killed him. When nonetheless managed to get pass his buffs and killed him soon enough.
Inside the mines, neither Hareishan nor Natasha were too much of a problem. Hareishan did kill Edwin by summoning Ogres right behind him (I didn't see it in the thick of battles before it was too late), but other than that, no biggie. Natasha dealt good damage with Fireburst (SR Sunfire), but she went down fast. Oh, and I switched Quayle for Yeslick. No way I'll let a fellow dwarf and his quest for revenge without help.
Davaeorn. The strat was really simple. Arvar would hunt down Davey while protected by a scroll of Protection from Magic, while the rest of the team would tank the Black Talons Elites and Battle Horrors. In this setup, I usually use a high level cleric to cast Cause Serious Wound on Davey from Invisibility, because the chance of outright killing him is fairly high with SR. I just wanted to approach the fight differently. Execution wise, I went ok. Montaron was killed by the Black Talons, because his average AC and hp couldn't help him survive even in Werewolf form (from IR's Relair Mistake). All the others did their job though. One other thing : to my surprise, Yeslick's Dispel didn't work against Davey. The spell was probably changed by SR. During that time, Arvar was running after Davey and eventually managed to dispel his buff with Bala's axe. It took quite a few number of hits to do so, proving that, while very strong, IR Bala's axe is not overpowered.
The doors of Baldur's Gate are opened. Being one more dwarf-strong, this party feel as confident as ever. Yippie !!
That awkward feeling when you have no recollection what you were doing, and so decide to get tomes instead.
Aura can't gib ghouls and ghasts, but her level 5 turn undead is enough to herd enemies away. Since I'm being unfair, Jack 9k1 and team head for the most unfair spot first: The tomb with the wyvren summoning amulet and the ring of x2 spells in every slot that only pure mages, and Jack, can use.
Since there's a limit to how much ridiculous I can take, even in this run dedicated to ridiculousness, I'll be restricting the "wyvren's" to mod specific dungeons that have been completed repeatedly to minimise my tedium.
Now I'm not scrabbling to survive or exterminating instantly without giving them a chance to save, the cheaty nature of their spellcasting is very obvious.
Unfortunately some quick checks with spells show that for some reason the caster level bonuses of Loremaster and the caster level from intelligence are either not stacking, or one of them is entirely absent. If it's the loremaster bonus that's missing, so be it, but if it's the intelligence bonus that's absent then that means he may as well be using every tome he sees with the wand, since he'll never be getting a 20 CL in BG1/SoD.
Also unfortunately, still no Ghost Mage #5. Anyone know if there's a trigger to making that one appear? Or is it just broken? Pretty sure no red mages either without it.
Stupid powerful katana is stupid powerful.
At least partly due to Jack's monstrous strength, 3 APR with no TWF penalty is enough to take down the Doomspeaker in single melee combat with a single layer of stoneskin even if it is immune to the hold effect. The sabre is consigned to mod-only status too, like its 5 APR throwing dagger cousin.
Two tomes, two party mates lost. I think to Xvarts. I wasn't paying much attention, but pretty sure they didn't actually have melee weapons. Since there aren't any tomes behind locks right now, they join the other restless spirits haunting Jack, whose apathy is palpable.
That's... 2/3 Strength and the Wisdom tome used, and Con, Cha, and 1/3 Wis tomes stored for SoD. Woooo.
Time to leave Dynaheir to her horrible culinary fate and go progress the plot to spawn more assassins/unique gear to plunder, I guess.
Since there's a limit to how much ridiculous I can take, even in this run dedicated to ridiculousness, I'll be restricting the "wyvren's" to mod specific dungeons that have been completed repeatedly to minimise my tedium.
Unfortunately some quick checks with spells show that for some reason the caster level bonuses of Loremaster and the caster level from intelligence are either not stacking, or one of them is entirely absent. If it's the loremaster bonus that's missing, so be it, but if it's the intelligence bonus that's absent then that means he may as well be using every tome he sees with the wand, since he'll never be getting a 20 CL in BG1/SoD.
When I was doing some testing in Near Infinity a while back, I found that caster level bonuses overrode each other instead of stacking. Apparently that's never been patched out, presumably because the unmodded game only has two sources of caster level bonuses and therefore the non-stacking behavior would never be visible: the Robe of Minor Arcana from SoD and the Wild Mage random bonuses (which I'm not even sure use the same opcode).
The last time I made it this far, I died by using Durlag's Goblet when I was under the false impression that Frisk was immune to fear. But even without that mistake, my experience against Belhifet has been very ugly.
The basic problem with Belhifet is that he summons one or two demons every 3 rounds. It is NOT possible for Frisk to deal enough damage to kill those demons faster than they appear. This means that, as the fight drags on, more and more demons will crowd up the map, until they box you in.
For a normal fighter, this is not a huge issue, since you can stack Potions of Power or Potions of Heroism to boost your HP into the hundreds and then use Durlag's Goblet to tank the enemy in melee combat. But because Frisk is an Archer/Mage, they can't put more than one proficiency point in any melee weapon, which means their maximum melee APR is 2 instead of 3. And since this Archer kit belongs to the fighter class instead of the ranger class, we don't have access to a racial enemy (which would give us a fantastic +4 to hit and damage against Belhifet), nor did we have the proficiency points to invest in dual-wielding, or even single-weapon style to help land critical hits with the Martyr's Morningstar (which reduces the target's maximum HP by 15% with every critical hit).
This means Frisk's only realistic means of taking down Belhifet is to use missile damage, despite the fact that Belhifet has 50% resistance to missile damage compared to 25% for melee weapons. But as we found in our first attempt, those constantly respawning demons make it increasingly difficult to maintain our distance from Belhifet as the fight goes on, until eventually kiting is virtually impossible.
I've run the numbers over and over and over again in Excel and even under optimal conditions and with good luck, we can't expect to deal more than 800 damage to Belhifet before the map is crawling with so many demons that Belhifet's regeneration outpaces our ability to deal damage to him.
Our only solution to this problem is Arrows of Detonation. Arrows of Detonation have 1d6 base damage, which means Frisk can deal area-effect missile damage--so much, in fact, that it could let us wipe out a whole herd of demons if we fired them at point-blank range while relying on Potions of Power/Heroism and Durlag's Goblet to avoid blowing ourselves up in the process. The strongest of Belhifet's summons, Cornugons, have 320 HP in LoB mode, which we can burn through with 19 Arrows of Detonation.
If we did clear out the demons this way, Frisk could resume kiting Belhifet, the most productive means of dealing damage at our disposal, until Belhifet restored his army and once again suffocated the map. I've done the math and it checks out even if we get really terrible luck. In fact, if we cleared the field on two occasions and spent the maximum amount of time kiting before and after each time, we could kill Belhifet two times over.
I originally planned on conducting some test runs on my previous save (I made that decision the same night I died), but it got overwritten at some point. I could still do a test run with my current save, but I'm feeling confident enough to jump right in.
After buffing the bejeezus out of Frisk, we use the Wand of Monster Summoning and the Bow of the Banshee to shoot down the demons on the elevator. I don't have Corinth's Bow because I skipped right to Ashatiel at Dragonspear Castle, so Frisk's damage output isn't quite what it should be, but I think the Arrows of Detonation strategy will render the bow unnecessary.
After the last batch of demons goes down, we cast SI: Abjuration and use the Escape key to skip the cutscene. Per the rules I used in the last run, Caelar can join the party due to the lack of a better option as long as she only operates using her normal script. Party members take double damage, however, so Caelar is pretty much useless in this fight.
Notice that Frisk has over 400 HP. This is not from Potions of Power, which only last for 40 rounds; this comes from stacking Potions of Heroism, which last for 100 rounds.
One of the big issues in this fight is Belhifet's incredible -12 base AC, which goes up to -16 when he casts Improved Invisibility. Fortunately, we have lots of castings of Detect Illusions to dispel it.
But Detect Illusions does nothing. I was all but positive that Detect Illusions could dispel Improved Invisibility, and that you only need higher-level divination spells to take down Shadow Door and Mislead.
It's another factor that will limit our damage output, but I'm still not too worried. My calculations showed the Arrows of Detonation would let us deal over 2,000 damage to Belhifet out of his maximum 1,172 HP, which gives us lots of wiggle room.
Kiting in this run works just the same as in our previous run: we use the Wand of Monster Summoning to distract the numerous demons while firing Arrows of Fire (which are +2 in SoD and in my EET install, but strike as +3 thanks to Enchanted Weapon) from a safe distance. We start making progress on Belhifet.
His HP is dropping fast, but I know better than to take that as a sign of victory. Every 3 rounds, Belhifet puts more demons on the map, and the additional pressure means we have less time to fire arrows. As the battle goes on, Frisk will deal less and less damage to Belhifet, until we hit a wall when Belhifet is around 400 HP.
Since we have plenty of Arrows of Detonation and clear the field at least two times, I'm willing to start tanking with Arrows of Detonation to thin the herd early. Frisk restores their defenses and picks a corner to hide in, since it will make it easier to box out Belhifet. The moment we become visible, demons start teleporting over to us.
We heal up with Durlag's Goblet, but we're still taking damage a lot faster than I expected. For safety's sake, I escape from the corner, using Dimension Door since Teleport Field scrolls have been mysteriously absent in my install.
Instead, I try firing Arrows of Detonation from afar, still using the Wand of Monster Summoning to distract the enemy. It's not as efficient, since I can't hit all demons at once with the arrows, but it's much safer, and we have plenty of Arrows of Detonation to spare.
Belhifet reminds us of the danger of wrestling with him in melee combat with one of his classic 50+ damage slashes. Durlag's Goblet is there to bail us out, but this time, I make a point of equipping Kiel's Helmet before drinking from the goblet, even if I see the Resist Fear icon already on Frisk's portrait.
We keep firing off Arrows of Detonation, choosing our targets carefully to make sure we take down as many demons in as little time as possible.
Due to his regeneration, Belhifet has taken exactly zero net damage since we first equipped the Arrows of Detonation; all we've done is thin the herd a little. We return to kiting with Arrows of Fire.
Then a wandersome Cornugon sneaks up on us and lands a horrifying spell on Frisk, one that I didn't even know about.
That's a flat 88 damage; there's no saving throw, no dice rolls, and magic resistance can't block it.
We keep up the kiting. Belhifet's HP shrinks while his allies grow.
We haven't retired the Arrows of Detonation; we've still got some wounded demons to take down.
Belhifet is suffering more than anyone else.
But we're in trouble. Frisk's Potions of Heroism are running out, and their current HP drops to their normal maximum.
We really need that extra HP to make sure we don't just die if we get boxed in by accident. Enter our last few Potions of Power, which will bring our HP back into the hundreds.
They're much stronger than Potions of Heroism, but with only a 40-round duration, that barrier only lasts so long.
We don't use the Wand of Monster Summoning to buy us time to drink the potions, though, as a Potion of Invisibility keeps most of the demons from teleporting over to us. Only the Erinyes and Belhifet can see through invisibility, so staying hidden will keep us from getting boxed in by Teleport Without Error spam.
I'm nervous about committing to the corner since we got overwhelmed when we tried it earlier on, so I decide to maintain our distance and keep using the Wand of Monster Summoning while firing our Arrows of Detonation... but I make the mistake of firing directly on my own summons, torching them down before I have enough time to re-use the wand and replace our decoys. The enemy teleports over to Frisk, forcing us to escape with Dimension Door once more.
I keep going, but make sure that I always have time to use the Wand of Monster Summoning before the last of our summons expire. This involves splitting up our summons and sending some of them away from the crowd.
We're clearing the field and making progress on Belhifet, but it's much more sluggish than I expected, and our Potions of Power are running out. Our HP barrier is gone.
Notice that we have a large number of demons, many of which are very low on HP while others are very high.
But those little health bars with only one chunk remaining are misleading. Those demons might be at Near Death, but that still means several dozen HP left, so even with Arrows of Detonation, it would take some time to bring them down--it's not like we can just bump them off with two or three spare arrows.
Belhifet is in bad condition, but the battlefield is quickly approaching saturation. Navigating the field is already difficult, and eventually it's going to become impossible.
Progress is increasingly slow, and our summons are vanishing faster and faster.
I try out an Arrow of Detonation and discover that it's much more dangerous to Frisk's own health than I realized. The dialogue box doesn't display it properly, but Frisk is taking double from their own attacks.
Also notice the Hamatula's Barbed Defense spell kicking in, a Fire Shield-type effect.
Belhifet keeps casting Gate. He's still taking damage, but the process is agonizing, and requires increasingly precise micromanagement from Frisk. Several rounds later, we take less than 50 HP off of him.
I can always go invisible to escape pressure, but if I'm not making attack rolls, Belhifet is regenerating. And while his 2 HP per round regeneration might not seem like much, it's a very big deal when the fight is already well beyond round 100 and still not over, especially when we're cutting things so very close with the damage we need to bring him down.
I switch between Arrows +3 and Arrows of Detonation. Belhifet summons one or two demons every 3 rounds, so every demon we kill essentially buys us another 6 seconds in which to deal damage to Belhifet--which amounts to maybe 2-6 points of damage. Every bit counts.
But too many demons are at high HP; I can't pick any of them off very easily. And Belhifet's HP vacillates up and down, when I desperately need it to just go down.
Things are looking ugly.
Once kiting truly becomes impossible, the only thing left is to stand and fight Belhifet directly, using Potions of Invisibility to escape notice whenever the pressure gets too heavy. Mirror Image scrolls could let me spend more time while visible, and Durlag's Goblet could keep me safe, but judging by the math, I'm just slightly short of being able to kill him. Maybe I could scrape by, but luck could tip the balance either way.
Belhifet's HP inches upward, and I'm worried that I've already hit the wall.
I've probably already hit it, but just to be sure, I'm going to keep going a little bit longer.
Then something incredible happens.
It's over! Frisk died! This is perfect!
Why is this perfect?
Look at that screenshot. Frisk's portrait is black.
It's the old black portrait bug! It's been around for ages, and I have no idea what causes it, but this bug is the only thing that causes your portrait to go black. Judging by the battlefield, which is suddenly clear of every actor onscreen as well as the corpses of fallen monsters and demons, this bug actually removes everyone from the map, which would explain why it causes a game over (any missing protagonist means a game over) and maybe also why it blacks out your portrait.
If Frisk had been killed by Belhifet or some other demon, this run would be over. But because we died to a bug, we actually get to reload and try again! It's a good thing, too, because things were looking very dicey near the end.
I've never had anything like this happen before. This bug might have saved the entire run!
But I'm not going to waste this opportunity. I planned on doing some tests long in advance of this fight, but at the elevator, I decided I didn't need to. This time, I'm going to do some proper tests before I tackle Belhifet.
I don't like test runs. They can give you misleading and potentially fatal information if you don't do them correctly or if you miss any important details. They also make me very anxious, because it really drags things out. I want this to be over, and a test run is just going to make things a lot more nerve-wracking. Worst of all, even if I kill Belhifet during a test, I still have to do it all over again in the real final battle. I still only get one shot at this fight.
But it's worth the anxiety and the strain. We've worked too hard on this run; we can't jeopardize its success by rushing back into the fight without thinking.
Mysterious black portraits fill us with determination.
Time to do the tests I said I'd do a long time ago. We get close to death one time when I try firing some Arrows of Detonation at close range with limited defenses...
...but by using the Void-tipped Arrows I had hoped to save for BG2 to land STR drain kills, we deal a lot more damage to Belhifet than before, and we do it a lot faster.
We try tanking in the westernmost corner, break out after killing some early enemies and making an opening in the wall of demons, and then nearly die when we re-start the tanking process in the south corner.
But tanking the enemy and firing Arrows of Detonation at point-blank is just as effective as I had hoped it would be. I should have just went for it in the previous run; it's a fantastic way to clear their field. Look at what's left of the enemy horde after just a few rounds of tanking!
Belhifet is already at Badly Injured and already bereft of allies, while Frisk is almost at peak strength and has deep wells of resources remaining. Killing him will be a cinch!
Unfortunately, this is a test run. So our success here does not count.
Still leery of going for the real run so soon, I reload and try to probe a little further. My skepticism turns out to be very well-warranted, as the Cornugons are easily capable of landing a near-instant kill on Frisk if they land Absorb Health spells in sequence.
Near Infinity shows that these spells strike as level 0 effects and bypass MR, so our only method of blocking that damage is to drink two Potions of Magic Shielding.
But first, one last test just to make sure that works.
Perfect. We're ready for the real run. It was worth the wait; we have a much better shot at winning the fight this time.
There's a quote from the ball game from Undertale that seems curiously relevant here.
...Potions' effects stacking exploit should definitely be removed from the game once and for all. Its' presence just completely destroys the gameplay...
I understand where you're coming from @Serg_BlackStrider, I wouldn't even use something like the basilisk loop either. However if someone's going to try to solo Beamdog's absurd LoB mode then one can't really blame them for using multiple exploits. It's too far from p&p to be of interest to me but many video game players enjoy that kind of extreme puzzle. And one can't deny the degree of skill and knowledge of the game engine required to accomplish it.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 149 part 12345678 9 Zepp (Dwarven cleric of Talos, Gate70); Fiery (Dwarven Kensai, Grond0)
Episode 9 is a lesson in covering ground quickly, lasting less than 2 hours but encompassing Umar Hills, the de'Arnise keep and the Planar Sphere.
Umar Hills: Zepp uses Turn Undead in the early stages, allowing Fiery time to pick them off one by one with Azuredge or his trusty swords. Thaxll'sillyia chomps away at summons but Zepp keeps adding more to the fray and eventually an Aerial Servant delivers a knockout blow. The Shade Lord is foiled by True Sight and Sunray, his Shadow Altar already having collected a Sunstone bullet.
Valygar's buddies attempt revenge for his death, and fail.
On to the de'Arnise lands. Fiery has a sword suitable for trolls and after a while Zepp has the Flail of Ages +3. A Firestorm allows Tor'Gal to be taken down with minimal buffing.
There's no room in our party (2) for Nalia so we abandon her and head to the Planar Sphere. While never in any danger, the golems inside gave Fiery several good beatings. Zepp was feeling good, having predicted and avoided a Wilt from Lavok - pity she then walked into the same from Tolgerias. His failure to kill her outright though meant she could use Greater Command on his minions and unexpectedly caught him too - and from which he failed to survive the count.
n.b. Fiery was caught out with ineffective weapons against golems more than once, and the Elder Orb inside used Multiplayer-fu to avoid the sphere guardian so Fiery was subjected to it's attention.
Zepp suggested the Planar Prison followed by Brynnlaw next time, Fiery saying the alternative was to head to Windspear. Decisions decisions.
@Mantis37 : I don't blame anyone, not at all. Nor I intend to do that or deny the one's skills and knowledge If one like to play as he/she pleased - just go ahead and have fun. I'm absolutely fine with that. My 'concern' is that the game engine itself allows this kind of exploits, and using those exploits just cheapens the possible accomplishment. I'm not familiar with Beamdog's LoB mode (and it is indeed sounds absurd) but for example there are plenty of gamers (including myself) who finished Icewind Dale on HoF mode without using exploits. Sure thing not with no-reload but anyway - it is possible and if it is possible in principle then, I'm sure, it is possible with no-reload. And personally I'll see such an achievement far more prominent and satisfying. Following the 'exploitless' runs is far more interesting and enjoyable for me as each time I can learn something new in fair tactic. 'Learning' new kind of exploit give nothing to me, but again - to each their own. All the best to all fellow no-reloaders - enjoy your runs and have fun!
As the person who is credited with the "invention" of the potion of Power stacking trick (even though I never actually used the trick in game and I'm pretty sure it was known before I wrote about it) and a follower/occasional participant of the solo LoB/SCS/Ascension challenge, I feel compelled to give my two cents on the matter.
LoB is a sorry excuse for a difficulty setting, whether it be for BG or IWD. Enemy stat boost is the cheapest way to make a rpg more difficult. It is nowhere near as refined as an SCS-type of difficulty. I think that SCS is so good that it actually ended up spoiling the fun I had with some of my most beloved rpgs : if the game is not difficult enough, but intelligently so, I lose interest really fast.
However, the combination of LoB and SCS gives... a decent result. It makes you think about different types of approach to the game, which is always nice, because the BG saga is the only game I've been playing in the last few years (and I intend to keep things that way); keeping things fresh is always good. It also definitively made me a better player, because I learned to micro-manage a character like never before : you have so little wiggle room that you HAVE to gain every little advantage you can get. LoB/SCS thus makes for an inane but rewarding playthrough.
As for exploits, I feel they're not *as bad* in this type of setting, because there's so many things stacked against you : for instance, LoB Tarnesh can deal up to 50 damage with a single casting of magic missile (!!). And, more importantly, I believe that, when a run is *as advertised*, I have no problem with it. That's the case with @semiticgod : he openly uses exploits and is honest about it. It's also because he tries to explore the possibilities of the Infinity Engine and that makes for very interesting runs. He thus made significant finds more than once, which probably resulted in bug fixing in the latest versions of the game (much to his dismay, I believe ). I think his approach is susceptible to make him eventually bored/burned out with the game, because, no matter how quirky IE can be, you can only find so much *interesting* exploits after a while. He's nonetheless and unequivocally a more than welcome addition in the no-reload community in my mind.
That doesn't mean that I play like him, because I don't; I consider myself a "classic" player who shuns exploits (even when I play on LoB/SCS), simply because that's how I have fun with the game. It's also why I consider @Alesia_BH THE best BG player out there. The type of success she had while being such a rigorous player is pretty phenomenal. However, at the end of the day, I consider that having different types of player only enriches the community.
I've actually only used four exploits in this run:
1. The basilisk XP loop, which replicates the effect of kiting my way through BG1 as a solo Archer. 2. The Bridgefort skip, which replicates the effect of surrendering Bridgefort. 3. The Nazramu trick, which saves a lot of inventory management. 4. Potion of Power stacking, which is MANDATORY for beating LoB Belhifet as a solo no-reload Archer/Mage or almost any other character. @Harpagornis pioneered this trick; it's been the standard method for tackling Belhifet for the past several months.
Plus, once I get past SoD, I'll use the item smuggling trick I discovered in EET, because BG2 sidequests are boring for me (I'm not keen on watching Skeleton Warriors fight through all of Chapter 2 while I pluck away at a bow) and I hate inventory micromanagement.
Otherwise this run is free of exploits. No Wand of Lightning trick, no item duplication, no clone items, no scorcher loop; nothing. This isn't like my Fighter/Mage/Thief run of this challenge, when I resorted to every dirty trick I knew. The only tricks I'm using in this run are the ones that are either difficulty-neutral (like number 2), near-difficulty-neutral (like number 1 and 3; the only difference would be using more potions) or simply required to get through the game (like number 4).
Without the Potion of Power trick, completing the challenge as an Archer/Mage would be impossible without relying on luck. You would either need to rely on landing critical hits with the Martyr's Morningstar while spamming Potions of Invisibility until you ran out, or rely on landing critical hits with arrows while also relying on low enemy attack rolls and low summoning rates from Belhifet. And relying on luck is just not smart in a no-reload context.
I chose the only strategy an Archer/Mage could use that was not luck-dependent. Archer/Mages are just that bad against Belhifet. If there was a safe alternative, I would gladly use it.
But there isn't.
It's possible to beat Belhifet no-reload as an Archer/Mage without using more than one Potion of Power. But it would basically boil down to drinking a bunch of Potions of Invisibility and hoping to land critical hits with the Martyr's Morningstar.
Honestly, which strategy seems more interesting and more challenging from a tactical perspective:
1. Kiting with the Wand of Monster Summoning and Enchanted-Weapon boosted arrows (Void-tipped Arrows, Arrows +3, and then Arrows of Fire +2) and carefully positioning Charname so that the massive enemy horde stays focused on our summons, using Arrows of Dispelling or Acid Arrows to dispel or kill charmed summons that are working against our summoning limit, constantly staying on the run and measuring the pixels and frames that are necessary to make attack rolls against Belhifet without endangering Frisk, while continuously switching out the Heart of Valor for the Amulet of Protection +2, and also switching out the Cloverleaf Belt for the Golden Girdle or Girdle of Piercing (depending on whether the Erinyes or another enemy is attacking Charname) in order to maximize our THAC0 when making attack rolls while still maximizing our AC for when one of the 20 enemies onscreen targets Charname, and possibly also switching out the Boots of Speed for the Boots Avoidance to deal with Erinyes arrows when movement rate is not important, and possibly also switching out the Helm of Balduran and the bow for the Wizzard Hat and Dervish Crescent to maximize movement rate in order to slip between enemies when the battlefield becomes too crowded; using Potions of Invisibility or Dimension Door/Teleport field to escape being boxed in when our summons vanish earlier than expected due to bad luck and all of the demons except for the Erinyes and Belhifet use Teleport Without Error to box in Charname; then, when the battlefield becomes so crowded that Belhifet's regeneration outpaces our ability to deal ranged damage without exposing Charname to unnecessary danger, setting up our defenses while under invisibility before leading Belhifet around the edges of the map, waiting until he casts Teleport Without Error to catch up with, and then, with Belhifet's aura no longer clear and therefore unable to teleport for the next 6 seconds, retreating to a corner and breaking invisibility without using up aura by firing an arrow so that the lesser demons all use Teleport Without Error to crowd around Frisk, minimizing the total number of demons surrounding us thanks to the corner while boxing out Belhifet using his own allies to form a wall, then using Enchanted Weapon-boosted Arrows of Detonation at point-blank range to deal area-effect missile damage while relying on the little-used auto-pause on hit option in the awareness that human reflexes and even the auto-pause on badly injured option does not guarantee a pause before death when damage values are this high and this fast, all while controlling the rate of fire for the Arrows of Detonation to make sure that we only run low on HP when our aura is clear from drinking the previous charge of Durlag's Goblet, continuing the process until the enemies begin to get low on HP, using CTRL-M to gauge each enemy's distance from death, constantly checking to make sure that Belhifet is not filling in any holes that form in the enemy wall, since the enemies have different HP values and die at different times under pressure from the Arrows of Detonation, then predicting the point at which the wall will disintegrate to the point that Belhifet can finally break through and then slipping out of the corner to resume kiting Belhifet, repeating all the steps in the first 236 words of this sentence while also deploying Arrows of Detonation or Acid Arrows to take down low-HP Cornugons when the opportunity presents itself, then, if necessary, repeating all the steps in the following 330 words of this sentence, until finally we grind down Belhifet's 1,172 HP and overcome his regeneration.
2. Spamming Potions of Invisibility for 50 rounds and hoping we land some critical hits with the Martyr's Morningstar.
I'm not even exaggerating. This really is what I'm dealing with here.
When I was doing some testing in Near Infinity a while back, I found that caster level bonuses overrode each other instead of stacking. Apparently that's never been patched out, presumably because the unmodded game only has two sources of caster level bonuses and therefore the non-stacking behavior would never be visible: the Robe of Minor Arcana from SoD and the Wild Mage random bonuses (which I'm not even sure use the same opcode).
Now that does have far reaching consequences for the Shadow Adept, since it makes both their belt of +CL and the cloak of minor arcana near completely useless with high int, at best giving +5 CL from the belt vs. +4 CL from 24 Int.
I guess that means Jack's dream is doomed like Xan, and he can just get onto abusing the wand to hit a measly 25/23/22/25/22/23.
Speaking of tedium...
This actually struck disaster as Jack whiffed his Hold Person save after Mulahey cast successfully through two daggers to the face and a magic missile. Fortunately Isra was alive, killed the kobold targeting Jack, attacked Mulahey.... And whiffed her save too.
Since Isra was closest, Mulahey killed her first, and the hold person expired the round after she died.
These guys need to be treated like a serious boss fight every time, complacency is death (not that it catches me out repeatedly). They're packed with crowd control spells that can wreck the party if they fluff a save, plenty of damage spells, and three to six Shadow Fiends, potentially half of them on a contingency. The shadows have a seek and destroy AI that lets them keep chasing their current target even if they can't see them, making it very hard to avoid them for the full 2-3 hours the summon lasts without a summon to distract them first.
Xan's entire job that combat was to stand outside being doomed, ready to pop in with the wand of fire if Jack didn't manage to save, or door, against a spell.
Naturally since I spent time prepping and being careful it was completely unnecessary and he didn't even summon a fiend or land anything worse than a blind before Jack got off a Malaison+Shadow Binding -8 save or hold on him.
Since BG1NPC is in, and Xan is in the party, slaver quest is a thing again.
I guessed wrong. The encounter happens in the corner of the map North East of the basilisk map, while I pre-trapped a similar looking spot in Larswood.
Fortunately shadows (not fiends, Jack isn't level 9 without stacked bonuses) distracted the bulk of the six mercenaries, Aura Glitterdusted the lot of them, and Isra pounded them with Jack in between the latter dropping a shadowball or two.
Then I chose the wrong conversation option and all their loot disappeared because the party was instaported to the Friendly Arm. Whoopsy.
Probably not the part where you challenged Jack to a fight, Xan ol' buddy. File that one firmly under "derp".
And that's about the most exciting part of that fight. Honestly the two wyverns that random encountered on the way back to the Friendly Arm was harder.
Woo. Palassin showed up, so I can spam wyvrens all over Section later and finally get another chance at Oversight.
This "+3" shield gives only +2 anti-missile AC, while Morwen's Armour actually has an undocumented +1 bonus against missile and piercing and +2 against slashing.
More importantly, however, a +3 shield should give 4 AC, not 3. What a gip.
Anyway, suppose I'd best kill the Flamestrike spamming cleric now and then get on with the plot.
Here we go. The real run. Testing has confirmed the strategy works, so as long as I play this correctly and stay focused, we should be able to make it. Unfortunately, the bug-induced death last time means that we have to start from the most recent save, which is in the elevator--I can't tweak my preparations in any way to optimize for the new strategy.
Like before, we bring Caelar into the party just long enough for her to discover LoB damage bonuses.
I no longer plan on saving any resources for smuggling into BG2; I already know that Belhifet will be much harder than anything I'll face after SoD. I therefore begin using our precious Void-tipped Arrows, which deal magical damage as well as missile damage. Belhifet has no magic damage resistance, so the magic damage should take about 300 HP out of Belhifet before I run out. Progress is noticeably faster than in my first attempt.
Our previous two attempts to kill Belhifet showed that we can get Belhifet down to about 400 HP before kiting becomes impossible and the map crowds up too much for us to function. Since Arrows of Detonation should give us a decent window of opportunity, I'm willing to start the process a little earlier. The moment Belhifet dips below 500 HP, I go invisible and begin restoring Frisk's buffs. I want to make sure they don't wear out while we're tanking.
We don't need to drink any Potions of Power yet, since our pre-drunk Potions of Heroism still have many rounds left. In previous attempts, I've relied on Potions of Invulnerability to guaranteed successful saving throws, but I still need to drink a couple of Potions of Magic Shielding--not for the save bonuses, but for the +50% resistance to magic damage so those Cornugons don't kill me with 88-damage Absorb Health spells. Notice our 127% resistance to elemental damage, courtesy of two scrolls of Protection from Fire and Cold to block Belhifet's fire spells and the Erinyes' Arrows of Ice, plus a level 5 Protection from Lightning spell to block the Cornugons' Lightning Bolts.
Once we're properly covered against all the threats we might possibly face, I keep running until Belhifet casts Teleport Without Error. Now that his aura is fogged, I know he can't teleport again for another 6 seconds. I retreat to a corner and fire off an Arrow of Detonation. Notice that Caelar is still on the map despite being dead; she takes damage from the blast.
The enemies get +4 to hit and damage against us when we're using the bow in melee combat, but by switching to one of Drizzt's scimitars when we're not actively firing the bow, we can attain pretty strong AC, albeit only for a short time.
It's remotely enough to hold off Belhifet, but we don't need to worry about him. Once the other demons teleport around us, Belhifet can't reach us.
I set auto-pause to "on hit." It'll trigger numerous times per round, which will ensure that I don't get killed during the tanking process. Other types of auto-pause might not save me in time when damage comes in such large hits so fast. And unlike my first run, I equip Kiel's Helmet before drinking from Durlag's Goblet even though my Potion of Clarity should last for many more rounds.
We accidentally hurt Aun Argent in his nearby cage, but he doesn't turn hostile and is impossible to kill anyway: CTRL-M confirms that he has a MINHP1 item.
Our strong AC keeps off many of the enemy's attacks, but there's one type of attack we cannot avoid: the Hamatulas' Barbed Defense spells, which trigger every time we hit them. We have multiple Hamatulas on the map, and the damage on Frisk builds up very, very fast.
This is why I need auto-pause on hit: there's a very narrow window in between having zero HP and the frame when auto-pause actually kicks in. This is also why I need to switch to melee every round instead of using my full 4 APR to land every Arrow of Detonation possible in each round: the damage is too severe to survive even with 400 maximum HP. Switching to melee and attacking with a scimitar lets us make a little extra progress on the higher-HP Cornugons while keeping our own HP at a safe range before our aura clears.
To absolutely maximize the number of demons we kill during the tanking process, we need to carefully manage which demons we kill, because if we open a hole in the wall, Belhifet will rush in and start attacking us, forcing us to flee, ending the process early. This means using CTRL-M and the scimitar to take down the enemies whose death will not open a hole for Belhifet.
This is important because the Cornugons have so much more HP than the Abishais, and if you let the Abishais die very early while ignoring everyone else, Belhifet will break through the wall before you can kill any of the Cornugons. Arrows of Detonation do the same amount of damage to every enemy; the arrow only makes a single damage roll for every target. Bear in mind that killing a few enemies does not mean the wall disintegrates; the wall has multiple layers and sometimes Belhifet gates in more demons to add to the outer layer.
We reach the point at which a single more Arrow of Detonation could open a hole for Belhifet by killing one or two of the last remaining enemies in a single hit. But rather than fire the last arrow, I decide to simply go invisible.
When you go invisible, the demons who can't see through invisibility (everyone but Belhifet and the Erinyes) will start to wander around after a few seconds. As long as I don't break invisibility, they'll keep wandering until a hole opens in the wall. This allows me to escape the wall with both invisibility and a clear aura, ensuring Frisk's safety.
Now that we're free from the corner and we've cleared the field of many of the demons, we can resume kiting with the Wand of Monster Summoning. To my disappointing, the tanking process has only taken 50 HP out of Belhifet despite him being well within the area of effect.
Why is this? Partly it's due to his regeneration during the re-buffing period, partly it's due to his 50% missile damage resistance, and partly it's because the tanking process is a lower-pressure process than you might expect considering how much pressure Frisk was under. You can only fire one or two Arrows of Detonation before you take too much damage to survive until your aura clears and you can drink from Durlag's Goblet again.
Back to kiting! With only so many demons on the map, it takes more than one round for the enemy to take down all of our summons, so we can keep using the Wand of Monster Summoning to keep the demons occupied. All this translates into more rounds available for firing arrows at Belhifet.
Belhifet drops to 380 HP, the lowest I've gotten him outside of a test. Soon after, Frisk's HP drops--those Potions of Heroism are wearing off.
We're back down to normal HP, at 154 with the Helm of Balduran and Ring of Purity (which grants Chant and +10 HP). This means we can't try tanking again to clear the field unless we buff with some Potions of Power.
That shouldn't be necessary, though. Belhifet has less than 400 damage, and we should be able to deal much more than that before the map becomes too crowded again. Knowing that 100 rounds have passed since I drank the first Potion of Heroism, and several tens of rounds must therefore have passed since I re-drank the 50-round-duration potions for the tanking process, I drink another set of potions while invisible.
Since I do still have a decent number of demons on the map, I decide that the safest option is to go ahead and re-start the tanking process to further clear the map. Enter 2 more Potions of Magic Shielding to block Absorb Health spells and Potions of Power. Belhifet has plenty of time to regenerate while we're buffing.
Same as before, we bait Belhifet's Teleport Without Error spell before breaking invisibility in a corner and drawing in the demons.
I deemed this the safer option, but soon realize it was a mistake. There are more Hamatulas on the map this time around, which means we take a lot more damage when firing Arrows of Detonation.
The damage is so extreme that we can only fire about a little more than a single arrow per round on average before we risk getting overwhelmed. I use the extra time to land melee hits on the Hamatulas and remove those Barbed Defense backlashes from the equation.
But there are a lot of them, and the process is slow. I count off the rounds, knowing that I could risk instant death if I don't escape from the corner before the first Potion of Power wears off and brings our current HP down to 154 instantly.
Then a Cornugon hits me with an Absorb Health spell, and I realize that I should have been counting the rounds until our Potions of Magic Shielding wore off.
We only have 50% resistance to magic damage; one of those potions wore off. Tanking without 100% immunity to magic damage could prove fatal. Knowing that I drank both Potions of Magic Shielding one after another, and therefore our second Potion of Magic Shielding is about to wear off, we immediately go invisible. Sure enough, our resistance to magic damage has vanished entirely.
Also notice that our electricity damage resistance has worn off, since I relied on the mage spell instead of a pair of green scrolls. A few rounds after we've returned to kiting, I notice that the Cornugons are using Lightning Bolts, when they previously hadn't bothered.
Hephernaan is almost dead. We finish him off with an Arrow of Detonation and drink a Potion of Absorption to get immunity to electricity damage in one round instead of two.
Tanking has kept the map from crowding up, but the net effect on Belhifet after all these rounds is pretty much zero.
Due to those Hamatulas and the expired Potions of Magic Shielding damaging the efficiency and shortening the duration of the tanking process, the map is actually slightly more crowded since we began the second round of tanking, so we've fallen behind. I shouldn't have bothered trying to clear the map a second time.
I need to switch back to kiting; it's the only way we can expect to bring down Belhifet. Finally, Belhifet's HP starts to go down again.
Belhifet is filling the map, but his HP is dropping fast, and it will be many rounds before he can summon enough demons to stop us from kiting.
Check out all the Cornugons. They have the most HP of all the summoned demons, but they're the only demon that comes alone when Belhifet casts Gate, so they actually indicate some good luck.
It's much better to have 5 Cornugons on the map than 10 Abishais, Hamatulas, or Erinyes.
Of course, it's not all good news. Cornugons can spam Lightning Bolts, and the damage really builds up when our summons are clustered together.
Even so, it takes more than 6 seconds for the enemy to wipe out all our summons, which means we have extra time to fire arrows. As always, Belhifet's army grows as his HP shrinks, but this time, he's working with a massive deficit thanks to the first round of tanking with Arrows of Detonation.
More and more demons enter the map and more and more of our summons collapse. All the while, Frisk keeps firing away. Belhifet is rapidly approaching his death.
But our summons are vanishing faster than I expected; those Cornugons are much worse news than I thought. We might not have reached the point where the enemy can kill our summons faster than we can replace them, but we're getting close to that point.
Knowing that being caught without summons for every a single second could result in a swarm of demons teleporting over and boxing us in while Frisk's aura is fogged, I decide to play it safe and stick to Potions of Invisibility. I have lots of them, so I can afford to burn a potion every single time I make an attack roll.
It's extremely inefficient since I'm only making one attack per round when I can theoretically fire up to four when hasted (or, more realistically, closer to two when kiting). However, Potions of Invisibility prevent everyone but Belhifet and the Erinyes from attacking Frisk. And it just so happens that there are no Erinyes on the map, not that they would deal much damage anyway. Our high movement rate therefore means invulnerability as long as those Potions of Invisibility last.
Better still, we get some lucky rolls, further hastening Belhifet's demise.
All the enemies follow us, but they won't teleport to Frisk unless Frisk is visible. As we run a circle around the map, the horde slowly trudges after us.
Aside from the botched attempt to clear the map the second time around, the course of this fight has been decisively in Frisk's favor, and victory by now is essentially certain. Belhifet is limping all the way.
Belhifet goes invisible, so we cast Stoneskin to avoid taking any damage when Belhifet breaks invisibility.
Then Belhifet pins us against a pillar, and for two terrifying seconds, I pause and un-pause over and again, trying to extricate Frisk. Finally we come loose, sparing us the need to use Dimension Door and then tank the demons when they teleport over to us.
Belhifet drops below 20 HP and makes one last attempt to bring down Frisk.
I check the Record screen. Our Potion of Invulnerability has worn off, leaving Frisk with a save vs. spell of 1. I'm not willing to trust that, though, and have Frisk equip the Ring of Free Action until the spell hits.
Another critical hit, and Belhifet goes down to single digits.
The next time we land a hit, Belhifet is left with only a single hit point to his name.
We shoot him down.
The other demons are supposed to vanish when Belhifet and Hephernaan are dead, but for some reason they stick around. We can't hope to kill the whole herd of demons, but we don't have to: all we have to do is speak with Aun Argent to trigger the cutscene, while using a couple Potions of Invisibility to maintain our invisibility after breaking it.
We drop off almost all of our equipment in a chest at Dragonspear Castle before heading upstairs. We get the hero's exit from Baldur's Gate and team up with Imoen and Khalid, because I already got Dynaheir, Minsc, and Jaheira killed earlier to steal their equipment. EET allows you to fight back against the ambush at the end of SoD, but there's not really any point; the enemies give little XP and they strictly deal nonlethal damage.
Siege of Dragonspear is over! Finally, finally we enter Shadows of Amn.
I've been waiting for this moment for so, so long. BG2 has always been the easiest part of the saga for me, and item smuggling will let me skip a whole bunch of side quests and dive right into the main questline without spending hours collecting gold and resources and micromanaging our inventory.
This is when the game will finally let up. BG1 and SoD have been immense struggles, but BG2 will a breeze as long as I don't do something incredibly stupid. Once I hit mage level 16, Frisk's Called Shot will deal STR drain, and the power of that STR will expand dramatically when we hit level 18 and when we get the Scorcher Ammunition. I could hit those levels early by farming Gauths our Ghoul Lords in the Unseeing Eye quest, but that won't be necessary. I won't need high levels to get through BG2; I know enough about the game to crush everything even with an underleveled character.
I have no more questions; no more uncertainties. I can see the path to victory all the way to Melissan. Finally, things are going to be okay.
Bwahahahaaha. Don't decide to "just get that little thing done" when your baby wakes you up at 3 a.m. The Belt of Antipode you forgot you had equipped and Flame Strike spamming cleric don't mesh so great.
Okay, next guy.
Val, as a favored soul, appears able to wear armour like a cleric, which is nice, and with Death domain as his selection, if he survives will be spamming Unholy Words from Projected Images to ensure no spellcaster within thirty feet of him has a spellcasting failure of less than 100%. Also he'll be casting Animate Dead as a level 3 spell.
I then switch him back to being a Sorcerer, because everything the Favoured Soul gives and takes, it does so at level 1, and being in a kit breaks his ability to craft, which wasn't supposed to be a thing for the kit. Also fix the effect where he loses two spells per day instead of one as per the kit description.
Current spells: Blind, Shield. (Command, Doom). Hopefully being a Shadow Adept (which is impossible for a Favoured Soul, I did check, presumably the dialogue monkey for using the orb is a summoned demon, making it impossible for the Favoured Soul and their permanent PfE to use the orb) was sufficient training to handle a limited spell list, because this will actually be my first serious sorcerer character.
More importantly, he has a Cantrip. Summon bunny.
Summoning whatmit? More bunnies you say?
I'm pretty sure PETA is going to hate me for this.
Pushed back by the Sirene/Dire Wolf combined forces, Valefar the Leporomancer is forced to fall back and regroup.
FOR BUNNY!
After a brief moment to honour the fallen, Valefar stamps his foot on the ground to indicate that it is time for the horde to move on...
To REDDER pastures.
Current spells: Blindness, Shield, Magic Missile, (Command, Doom), Invisibility, (Hold Person, Spiritual Hammer), Conjure Rabbit. Those ogres didn't stand a actually had a very good chance, but after a few dozen bunnies they started getting worn down.
The Surgeon was clearly a serial killer name anyway.
semiticgod said:Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 16: Siege of Dragonspear
From there, we follow the same formula up until Thrix. We don't need to fight his goons more than once; all we have to do to get past him is solve his riddle. I make absolutely sure that I don't press the wrong button by accident, because giving Thrix the wrong answer means instant death.
Solving fun puzzles fills us with determination.
I have completed SoD a few times, (Three times I think) and yet have never met Thrix.
What do you have to do, or where do you have to go to meet him/her/it?
@Wise_Grimwald: Thrix is the Cornugon that shows up right before the elevator to Belhifet. I'm pretty sure he always appears. You need to talk to him to open the door to the elevator.
@Wise_Grimwald I think you must have met him - I assume though that you just killed him rather than indulging him in conversation. He guards the doorway to the elevator up to Belhifet. You can get through the door by either killing him, or by killing the demons he summons and then answering his riddle (the latter approach also gets you a choice of one of three worthwhile magic items). There's also a way to get through the door using an exploit, but I don't suppose you're interested in that.
God, this is going to be so much easier than Belhifet.
We see some funny cutscene bugs due to a familiar EET issue that lets us walk around when the intro cutscene is supposed to start.
I resist the urge to attack Jon-bon while he's vulnerable.
Testing finds that we're allowed to rest as many times as we like in Chateau Irenicus once we boot Imoen from the party. This means we don't have to scrimp and save our Invisibility spells; we can just stomp everything with Animate Dead.
I'm still not going to tackle Ilyich. I don't need the XP and I don't need the loot.
I don't know how much damage the poison traps around here do, but Slow Poison can in fact slip between the damage triggers provided that you're not hasted. With a casting time of 1, it takes 0.6 seconds to cast the spell, while the damage only triggers once per second.
Frisk's impressive defenses turn out to be largely useless against the mephits, but locking the door behind us apparently is still a good way to escape their attention.
We skip everything using Invisibility and hike all the way back to Dragonspear Castle. We get our loot back!
By selling off some excess loot to Thalantyr (BG1 shops give better prices than BG2 shops), we crank our gold supply up to 100,000. It's not necessary in the least, but I am awfully impatient to get to Melissan, and this will obviate the need to scour the land for resources before completing BG2. We head straight to Trademeet to get the Efreeti Bottle, a fabulous summoning item that won't be obsolete nearly as early as the Wand of Monster Summoning.
We let Cernd/CTRL-Y kill Faldorn as always, get the Shield of Harmony, buy some largely extraneous gear in Trademeet, and finally scribe PFMW and Teleport Field. When we get back to Athkatla, we buy the Robe of Vecna and lots of other random crap, including the Strong Arm +2 longbow... for the sole reason that I failed to pick up Corinth's Bow.
Because, as I've mentioned before, and as I feel compelled to gripe about once more, BG2 longbows are so terrible that even the best one is inferior to the longbow you get at the end of SoD in every single way. Fortunately for us, investing in longbows to scrape by in Avernus will not cripple us in BG2, because we will only be using the Strong Arm +2 for everyday fights. For major fights, we'll be using Minute Meteors, Energy Blades, Darts of Stunning, and eventually the Scorcher Ammunition.
You know what the nice thing about the item smuggling trick is? You get to bring Arrows of Detonation into BG2. Too bad we lost so many fighting Belhifet.
You know what the nice thing about Vhailor's Helm is? You can fire arrows from the clone without losing any of your limited supply.
You what the nice thing about trolls is? Bombing the crap out of them.
On to the Temple Ruins! I really want that Cloak of Stars so we can get some +5 darts. A Protection from Undead scroll will get us past most of the fights, and Dimension Door will let us hop over the spawn trigger for the second, non-optional lich fight.
A Sunstone Bullet destroys the Shadow Altar as always, and our various summons tank the Shade Lord until his PFMW runs out.
The Shade Lord has lots of necromancy spells, but even when he wipes out our summons, we can always just bring out more.
He re-casts Shadow Mantle, renewing his PFMW, but once that runs out, he's done for. Frisk casts Improved Haste and then shoots him down.
I only came here for the Cloak of Stars, but I still grab our rewards from Imnesvale and stuff them into one of our two or three mod-introduced Bags of Holding, where they will never see the light of day again. On the way, we do the mimic quest and gain access to... I don't know what his name is, but the guy who doesn't like Daar, that guy lets us use his laboratory to construct our own golems (see the Golem Construction mod). CTRL-Q lets us check out our new Clay Golem's stats.
The funny thing is that despite those ridiculous resistances, the golem doesn't get LoB bonuses due to EET (it's coded as a familiar so it can follow you to any area), which means it will be utterly useless in any significant fight. The sturdier golems will only be available at higher levels, and the materials to make them will be very finite.
I don't really know how much XP I want to gather before proceeding to Spellhold, but I know that I'll get locked out of the Mae'Var questline if I side with Bodhi, and I'll also get locked out of Xzar's quest if I don't save Renfeld. So I head down to the Docks and pay a visit to Prebek, whose lack of PFMW makes him an easy target.
Next up, Rayic Gethras! His mephits block the stairway on the first floor, but I can make them scatter by breaking invisibility and then vanishing before they can spam their special ATweaks (or whichever mod) spells at us. Rather than spend precious seconds killing Ray-Ray conventionally, I just spam the Fireball trap.
Next up, Mae'Var! He'd be kind of dangerous if he actually could cast PFMW.
His goons would be dangerous, too, if they had a cure for Invisibility+SI: Divination, and if they carried magical weapons.
The Robe of Minor Arcana lets us get the level 15 Skeleton Warriors one level earlier than normal. Though we hit level 15 anyway the moment we report back to Renal Bloodscalp.
I don't want to side with either Bodhi or Aran Linvail. I never liked fighting Bodhi due to the finite supply of Protection from Undead scrolls, and my mods make Aran Linvail a lot harder than normal because you can't escape his lair until you kill him.
Well, unless I use the level 7 Teleport spell to just leave the area outright. That spell has all kinds of crazy uses I've never actually tried out. But instead, I'm just gonna make things easy for myself and side with Malficus from the Alternatives mod. He can also get you to Spellhold, but the first two tasks he gives you are zero-risk fetch quests...
...and the third one is the basic SCS Aran Linvail fight, without the clay golems and Kensai/Thieves backing him up (maybe that fight comes from Rogue Rebalancing?). But first, I want to grab the Tuigan Bow, even though a longbow gives me the same APR. A Dimension Door spell lets me hop over the Prismatic Spray trap on the off chance that the trap ignores SI: Evocation, and more Arrows of Dispelling take down the crummy, non-PFMW-casting mages of early BG1.
Back to business. I have some Shadow Thieves to kill. Because EE organizes spell slots alphabetically, our Vhailor's Helm clone doesn't get any Stoneskin spells unless I fail to memorize a lot of very important level 4 spells. As I should have expected, this makes it very easy for the enemy backstabbers to thrash it.
I hide behind invisibility as well as a wall and throw out summons at them, including our Clay Golem. They don't do very well against the Shadow Thieves; the mages are landing lots of disablers.
Still, the Clay Golem manages to escape the notice of the backstabbers and isolates one of the mages, tanking her spells with its 90% MR and very, very slowly smashing through her Stoneskins.
A week later, we come back with more summons and Frisk hides while our critters do all the work.
I've fought the souped-up Shadow Thief hideout more than once before, and it feels good to only have to fight the normal one.
Without item smuggling, I'd have to sit through a lot of fights that looked just like this: watch the Skeleton Warriors do most of the work, only jumping in when one of the enemies is proving stubborn.
I don't think I've mentioned it before in this run, but since EET puts all of the games into one install, all nonmagical weapons are subject to breaking. And in my install, nonmagical armor is also breakable, which can lead to hilarious situations like this.
Dedral doesn't flee because Frisk isn't visible, so he just fights the Skeleton Warriors himself. But while his nonmagical katana can't be broken, that isn't going to help him win this fight.
Don't forget the Maze trap in the chamber where Dedral normally appears. SI: Conjuration keeps us safe. And don't forget that Minor Spell Deflection and Minor Spell Turning cannot block level 8 spells like Maze.
And don't forget that the trap can go off multiple times. I use Dimension Door to hop over the trigger for the enemies in this room and head over to Haz to fire a bunch of Arrows of Detonation at him.
I don't particularly care about preserving the difficulty here. I don't remember the last time I've died in Shadows of Amn anyway. It's not going to get the least bit risky or difficult until ToB.
Honestly, SoA is just something for me to speed through.
Not that this whole run is just going to be blasting everything to bits with Arrows of Detonation. One of the things I've always liked is using Called Shot with Darts of Stunning. They just have excellent synergy.
I want to hit level 16 before leaving for Spellhold. Enter Smelly Porkslicer and the gang.
But since I'm greedy, I also want 20 reputation before I go to Spellhold. Because based on the numbers in Near Infinity, the Nazramu trick is also possible in the City of Caverns, just like in the vanilla game, provided I have high CHA and reputation. And the promise of tens of thousands of gold is tempting even though I have no idea what benefit it could possibly bring to the run at this point.
Why don't I already have 20 reputation? Well, I had to hold somebody hostage in order to get the Silver Pantaloons.
And "society" has some pretty oppressive ideas about kidnapping people to get shiny pants.
And just in case I somehow don't have enough resources to deal with the main questline, I decide to stop by a few places to get more stuff. I have competing impulses to get through SoA as fast as possible and to collect as much unique loot as possible for ToB.
But the important thing is that BG2 is going smoothly and I am no longer working hard.
Yaaay! Wooo!
Flipping off BG1 and SoD fills us with determination.
Comments
Jack is a Loremaster, a class which exchanges a maximum x1 backstab multiplier and 18 skill points per level for having permanent Use Any Item from first level onwards, some lore bonuses, and a +1 Caster Level.
Given the amount of utterly ludicrous stuff in this modded trainwreck that BWP left of my install, this should be pretty darn interesting, whether or not I ultimately switch him to being a Shadow Adept with the orb his own UAI will assuredly permit him to use, or just recruit another adept, blitz through the quest, and have him use the scrolls to get his own shadow weave spells - which will also trigger the Charisma bonus, depending when he uses the scroll and his level.
Overall I'll probably just use the orb and switch into a better overall chassis with scroll use as needed. It seems arcane crafting is in so he has infinite scrolls available to cast with his soon to be infinite gold.
It's been twelve hours since the start of chapter one, or 1.5 days absolute maximum since she left Candlekeep.
Imoen's a big of a scrub.
Act 1: Bard with unique gear? Yoink!
No, he's not proficient, but it's a +3 bow to offset the proficiency penalty, and the bardic +3 bracers of archery and +2 cloak of (stacking) protection are pretty nice. He can upgrade to the dagger shortly, though he'll not be levelling until after the shadow orb is acquired since the thief skill points at least are non-retroactive, not to mention the Set Snare restriction.
Let it not be said I don't suffer for my shenanigans. Jack's been trading throwing dagger throws for about five minutes now, refreshing his single layer stoneskin cantrip every few rounds. He also accidentally nuked the ogre and his pet bunny, leading to an angry ogre fight while this was going on. Bit of a pigs ear overall, but he won in the end.
Jack loses: Mage casting ability.
Jack keeps: +1 CL, UAI, +5 Lore.
The +1 CL combined with the +5 CL belt, the +1 CL cloak of minor of arcana, and the +4 CL from having 23 Int means if Jack ever hits level 9 he will be able to get a four projectile Shadefire arrow spell well before the SoD cap (probably the first dungeon). In the interests of maximum silliness, this means the Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, and three of the Wisdom Tomes must be kept until then to allow for 25 in Strength, Intelligence, Constitution and Wisdom, 24 Charisma and Dexterity after Hell Trial's and Lum's.
And Hexxat will still act like she's better than him.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 15: Baldur's Gate
I hate having to start over from Candlekeep every single time this happens. It's not like BG1 is a challenge anymore; it's just a tedious chore.We follow the same formula as always, and suffer a couple of setbacks in the process. Whenever we fail to charm a basilisk, we have to make our way back to a safe area to rest and try again. This exposes us to bandit ambushes, and surviving them is pure luck. We die twice in a row when traveling back from failed basilisk charms.
Finally, we complete the basilisk XP loop and the run proceeds safely. Everything goes pretty much the same as the previous BG1 run (well, the successful one), with four notable exceptions. First is Abela the Nymph, whom we fail to turn invisible and accidentally turn hostile when a confused summoned critter attacks her. Her Blinding Beauty spell forces Frisk to get the blindness cured at a temple.
Second, we have Frisk cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath late in the game instead of Ithtyl, which puts them in the north end of the map. Turns out that's not a good idea: the Doppelganger Assassin is to the north end of the map, and Frisk has to down a Potion of Invisibility to avoid a backstab that could deal 5-120 damage. I only notice the assassin approaching Frisk because of the telltale visual effect of Greater Malison showing it walking over to us.
Third, we land some successful Wand of Paralyzation charges on the doppelgangers, which is very rare for us.
Fourth, we charm Gorf instead of Haseo at the Undercity. There's only a single narrow spot where it's possible to charm Gorf without getting into Rahvin's field of vision (or whoever is the leader of the Undercity party) and therefore turning all of them hostile.
Gorf was indeed a better choice than Haseo as I had predicted, since he does so much more damage to the Skeleton Warriors.
Doing chores fills us with determination.
Is there a reason you're doing the Ragefast fight every time, or does Frisk just not have the Charisma to pull off the talky-no-jutsu option even with Friends?
Jack's initial ascension goes smoothly, with only two attempts to charm his first Medusa, but her AI kicks in and she starts getting into melee combat, while Bunnzilla eats a poison hit from a second that almost kills him.
Fortunately Medusae wear distractingly skimpy clothing making them need to get extremely close to Jack to catch his eye (I can only assume this is the reason for their short range), and Jack and his spiritual ancestors have been playing keep away from this particular type of sprite for a decade and a half at this point, so he kills the second with his throwing dagger and charms the lesserlisk instead.
Meh, Lesserlisks are more my speed anyway, since they only petrify once per round.
Well that's that then. Time to grab a wisdom tome and the Shadowfire wand so we can actually cast spells.
Noooo. I still have spell failure chance. T_T
I hate her so much.
Whatever. Jack actually manages to cast magic missile equivalent and handle the mage that survived his one successful trap. Neera's cantrip is Conjure Rabbit. Sometimes it's a pit fiend, deal with it.
Speeding through interactions gets
NeeraJack a unique helm of wild magic.He also has access to Aura's basilisk/blindness immunity goggles of 3/day identify, her healing arrows, her future shocking arrows, and 100 in Find Traps on demand. Which is nice.
With Faiths and Pantheons, Priestess/Artificer Aura needs some extensive save editing (well, it needs doing twice) to set her to Base Class, her alignment to NG instead of the illegal LG, choose a deity (I went with Tymora as the only C/T deity without Deception, which I figured would be against Aura's character as a domain) setting her spell list, then editing her back into an LG Priestess/Artificer again, and then...
Bam. Jack can cast full length spells without spell failure, making him safer to use in combat situations than Neera.
He also has the Strength tome, and no need to hold onto it since he gets up to 24 just using the three available tomes with the wand.
Chores done, time to remember what I was actually supposed to be doing.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 16: Siege of Dragonspear
At this point, most of SoD is about as formulaic as BG1, and the first half of the game is little different from last time. Notable exceptions include:1. Somehow we lured some of Korlasz' goons over to the Dispel Magic trap, forcing Frisk to drink a Potion of Invisibility to buff in safety.
2. We got too involved in the fight between the Dwarves of Dumathoin and the undead and accidentally turned the former hostile, forcing us to burn a whole bunch of Wand of Monster Summoning charges to bring down the dwarves.
3. I foolishly stay invisible during the fight with Ziatar instead of using Arrows of Dispelling to bring down the mages and isolate Ziatar herself. I assumed that the skeletons would be able to shrug off whatever the mages threw at them because of their undead immunities, but I failed to consider the importance of spell damage.
I also discover that if you throw non-undead summons at Ziatar, like critters from the Wand of Monster Summoning, she will use her breath weapon to devastating effect. And based on the numbers on the screen and in Near Infinity, it looks like Ziatar could almost kill Frisk in a single hit with that breath weapon.
If this was v2.5, Frisk would be able to gain immunity using a Protection from Undead scroll. But I accidentally made this a v2.3 install, so that's not an option.
I fail to keep Frisk out of range of the breath weapon, but a Potion of Invulnerability means we have guaranteed saving throws, and it seems that the spell regularly deals less damage than Near Infinity would indicate--though I have no explanation for that besides luck.
We get hit by another breath weapon, but again, it doesn't seem capable of dealing more than about 100 damage, which leaves Frisk with over 40 HP after every hit. Still, I'm not willing to risk getting close, so I pull back even farther and use the Wand of Monster Summoning from afar.
It's a slow process, and we burn 11 charges by the time it's over, but it's safe.
We rescue the Crusaders, but they seem less than grateful for some reason.
Back to Durlag's Tower! This time, we boost our saves into the negatives with a Potion of Invulnerability to make sure Fear can't paralyze us. When we first engage the Wardens, our summons crumple in short order, and Love's infinite Physical Mirror spells render Frisk helpless. Only when we get the enemy separated is it possible to bring them down.
Love seems impossible to handle quickly at first, but thanks to the Nazramu trick, we have lots of extra scrolls. It turns out that Love has very defenses against Spell Thrust, Secret Word, and Breach.
It takes multiple castings before Love finally goes down.
Everything plays out the same as in the previous run up until the Coalition Camp. I died here last time, but now I have a better strategy. The first two waves are no different, of course; just Arrows of Detonation and Arrows of Dispelling for the first and second waves, respectively.
The second wave is more complex than just firing off some arrows, though; Frisk has to renew their defenses a couple of times when SI: Abjuration expires and the mages hurl some magic attacks their way.
So how are we going to deal with the third wave? Well, we've been hoarding Skull Trap scrolls and Web scrolls for just this occasion. In between the second wave and the third, we use up all the scrolls before the fight begins.
The effect is incredible. Almost every enemy dies on the first round, and half of the remaining six are already at Near Death. The others are uninjured due to spawning after the Skull Traps fired.
The survivors don't get a chance to bounce back; there are too many Web spells holding them in place. Notice one of the enemies dying to a Coalition Mage's Chromatic Orb despite a net +11 save bonus.
We talk to Andrus and the bosses arrive. But since we fought off the other waves successfully, Auziel and Garrus are both immortal and can theoretically win the entire fight on their own. I still have Frisk pitch in; I don't want to place the fate of the run in the hands of an NPC, even an immortal one.
The enemy crumbles. Next up, the siege of Dragonspear Castle!
But we only need to kill one enemy. By running straight north to Ashatiel, we can trigger the duel early. This time, I don't buff with Improved Invisibility, so Ashatiel won't accuse us of cheating. Arrows of Dispelling and Acid Arrows bring her down.
From there, we follow the same formula up until Thrix. We don't need to fight his goons more than once; all we have to do to get past him is solve his riddle. I make absolutely sure that I don't press the wrong button by accident, because giving Thrix the wrong answer means instant death.
Solving fun puzzles fills us with determination.
Arvar Dw'Girn the Dwarven Defender
BG1 posts : 1, 2Notable 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.
========
Here we go into Durlag's Tower. Why so early, you might ask. Well, I wanna get a few levels under my belt before going into Cloakwood, and I also want to get good items early. I already got a ring of Free Action thanks to Dushai (who had a little but fatal accident after being charmed
So, we cleared the upper level of its Ghouls and Greater Basilisks infestation before delving in the underground. There, we gathered all the items required to satisfy the Warders' whim and then fought them all. The fight went real nice. Only Avarice and Pride were of some concern, because the former kept backstabbing Viconia and Montaron while the other is a awesome tank with plenty of firepower. Invisibility Purge took care of Avarice and kiting dispatched Pride.
We then took a quick peek in the second Underground. The Durlag's goblet was taken (it will be used, but not recharged, because I decided to forgo the selling/recharging gimmick). Bala's axe was also found. It's a pretty nice weapon in IR : it dispel the enemy unless a save vs Spell is made. It's really great, but not overpowered, because save vs spell are super strong on high level mages, which means that the dispel effect will be hard to pull off. Still no Greenstone Amulet to date, however.
Off we went into Cloakwoods. Druids were slained, spiders (and a fat woman) were killed. Soon, we had to face Drasus party. It can be a complicated fight, because there's two mages in the enemy party and we're at a point where we don't have much prebuffs to counter their spells. I usually try to take one of the mages out with a backstab. That's what a buffed up Montaron achieved with a beautiful crit.
We then engaged. We first focused on dispatching Genthore, which we did fast enough. Two enemies to go.
Drasus took a bit more time, because he's a tough customer, but Flame Arrow from Edwin killed him.
Only Rezdan left. His buffs were still very healthy and I had no Spell Thrust to counter him, because Edwin failed to learn it. Having no potions that boost intelligence in IR can be a pain in the butt, but makes Intelligence a worthy stat to have. Montaron, still hurt from the encounter, was trying to drink a potion of healing, but was tagged by Flame Arrow which killed him. When nonetheless managed to get pass his buffs and killed him soon enough.
Inside the mines, neither Hareishan nor Natasha were too much of a problem. Hareishan did kill Edwin by summoning Ogres right behind him (I didn't see it in the thick of battles before it was too late), but other than that, no biggie. Natasha dealt good damage with Fireburst (SR Sunfire), but she went down fast. Oh, and I switched Quayle for Yeslick. No way I'll let a fellow dwarf and his quest for revenge without help.
Davaeorn. The strat was really simple. Arvar would hunt down Davey while protected by a scroll of Protection from Magic, while the rest of the team would tank the Black Talons Elites and Battle Horrors. In this setup, I usually use a high level cleric to cast Cause Serious Wound on Davey from Invisibility, because the chance of outright killing him is fairly high with SR. I just wanted to approach the fight differently. Execution wise, I went ok. Montaron was killed by the Black Talons, because his average AC and hp couldn't help him survive even in Werewolf form (from IR's Relair Mistake). All the others did their job though. One other thing : to my surprise, Yeslick's Dispel didn't work against Davey. The spell was probably changed by SR. During that time, Arvar was running after Davey and eventually managed to dispel his buff with Bala's axe. It took quite a few number of hits to do so, proving that, while very strong, IR Bala's axe is not overpowered.
The doors of Baldur's Gate are opened. Being one more dwarf-strong, this party feel as confident as ever. Yippie !!
Edit : typos.
Aura can't gib ghouls and ghasts, but her level 5 turn undead is enough to herd enemies away. Since I'm being unfair, Jack 9k1 and team head for the most unfair spot first: The tomb with the wyvren summoning amulet and the ring of x2 spells in every slot that only pure mages, and Jack, can use.
Since there's a limit to how much ridiculous I can take, even in this run dedicated to ridiculousness, I'll be restricting the "wyvren's" to mod specific dungeons that have been completed repeatedly to minimise my tedium.
Now I'm not scrabbling to survive or exterminating instantly without giving them a chance to save, the cheaty nature of their spellcasting is very obvious.
Unfortunately some quick checks with spells show that for some reason the caster level bonuses of Loremaster and the caster level from intelligence are either not stacking, or one of them is entirely absent. If it's the loremaster bonus that's missing, so be it, but if it's the intelligence bonus that's absent then that means he may as well be using every tome he sees with the wand, since he'll never be getting a 20 CL in BG1/SoD.
Also unfortunately, still no Ghost Mage #5. Anyone know if there's a trigger to making that one appear? Or is it just broken? Pretty sure no red mages either without it.
Stupid powerful katana is stupid powerful.
At least partly due to Jack's monstrous strength, 3 APR with no TWF penalty is enough to take down the Doomspeaker in single melee combat with a single layer of stoneskin even if it is immune to the hold effect. The sabre is consigned to mod-only status too, like its 5 APR throwing dagger cousin.
Two tomes, two party mates lost. I think to Xvarts. I wasn't paying much attention, but pretty sure they didn't actually have melee weapons. Since there aren't any tomes behind locks right now, they join the other restless spirits haunting Jack, whose apathy is palpable.
That's... 2/3 Strength and the Wisdom tome used, and Con, Cha, and 1/3 Wis tomes stored for SoD. Woooo.
Time to leave Dynaheir to her horrible culinary fate and go progress the plot to spawn more assassins/unique gear to plunder, I guess.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 17: Siege of Dragonspear
It's time to tackle Belhifet.The last time I made it this far, I died by using Durlag's Goblet when I was under the false impression that Frisk was immune to fear. But even without that mistake, my experience against Belhifet has been very ugly.
The basic problem with Belhifet is that he summons one or two demons every 3 rounds. It is NOT possible for Frisk to deal enough damage to kill those demons faster than they appear. This means that, as the fight drags on, more and more demons will crowd up the map, until they box you in.
For a normal fighter, this is not a huge issue, since you can stack Potions of Power or Potions of Heroism to boost your HP into the hundreds and then use Durlag's Goblet to tank the enemy in melee combat. But because Frisk is an Archer/Mage, they can't put more than one proficiency point in any melee weapon, which means their maximum melee APR is 2 instead of 3. And since this Archer kit belongs to the fighter class instead of the ranger class, we don't have access to a racial enemy (which would give us a fantastic +4 to hit and damage against Belhifet), nor did we have the proficiency points to invest in dual-wielding, or even single-weapon style to help land critical hits with the Martyr's Morningstar (which reduces the target's maximum HP by 15% with every critical hit).
This means Frisk's only realistic means of taking down Belhifet is to use missile damage, despite the fact that Belhifet has 50% resistance to missile damage compared to 25% for melee weapons. But as we found in our first attempt, those constantly respawning demons make it increasingly difficult to maintain our distance from Belhifet as the fight goes on, until eventually kiting is virtually impossible.
I've run the numbers over and over and over again in Excel and even under optimal conditions and with good luck, we can't expect to deal more than 800 damage to Belhifet before the map is crawling with so many demons that Belhifet's regeneration outpaces our ability to deal damage to him.
Our only solution to this problem is Arrows of Detonation. Arrows of Detonation have 1d6 base damage, which means Frisk can deal area-effect missile damage--so much, in fact, that it could let us wipe out a whole herd of demons if we fired them at point-blank range while relying on Potions of Power/Heroism and Durlag's Goblet to avoid blowing ourselves up in the process. The strongest of Belhifet's summons, Cornugons, have 320 HP in LoB mode, which we can burn through with 19 Arrows of Detonation.
If we did clear out the demons this way, Frisk could resume kiting Belhifet, the most productive means of dealing damage at our disposal, until Belhifet restored his army and once again suffocated the map. I've done the math and it checks out even if we get really terrible luck. In fact, if we cleared the field on two occasions and spent the maximum amount of time kiting before and after each time, we could kill Belhifet two times over.
I originally planned on conducting some test runs on my previous save (I made that decision the same night I died), but it got overwritten at some point. I could still do a test run with my current save, but I'm feeling confident enough to jump right in.
After buffing the bejeezus out of Frisk, we use the Wand of Monster Summoning and the Bow of the Banshee to shoot down the demons on the elevator. I don't have Corinth's Bow because I skipped right to Ashatiel at Dragonspear Castle, so Frisk's damage output isn't quite what it should be, but I think the Arrows of Detonation strategy will render the bow unnecessary.
After the last batch of demons goes down, we cast SI: Abjuration and use the Escape key to skip the cutscene. Per the rules I used in the last run, Caelar can join the party due to the lack of a better option as long as she only operates using her normal script. Party members take double damage, however, so Caelar is pretty much useless in this fight.
Notice that Frisk has over 400 HP. This is not from Potions of Power, which only last for 40 rounds; this comes from stacking Potions of Heroism, which last for 100 rounds.
One of the big issues in this fight is Belhifet's incredible -12 base AC, which goes up to -16 when he casts Improved Invisibility. Fortunately, we have lots of castings of Detect Illusions to dispel it.
But Detect Illusions does nothing. I was all but positive that Detect Illusions could dispel Improved Invisibility, and that you only need higher-level divination spells to take down Shadow Door and Mislead.
It's another factor that will limit our damage output, but I'm still not too worried. My calculations showed the Arrows of Detonation would let us deal over 2,000 damage to Belhifet out of his maximum 1,172 HP, which gives us lots of wiggle room.
Kiting in this run works just the same as in our previous run: we use the Wand of Monster Summoning to distract the numerous demons while firing Arrows of Fire (which are +2 in SoD and in my EET install, but strike as +3 thanks to Enchanted Weapon) from a safe distance. We start making progress on Belhifet.
His HP is dropping fast, but I know better than to take that as a sign of victory. Every 3 rounds, Belhifet puts more demons on the map, and the additional pressure means we have less time to fire arrows. As the battle goes on, Frisk will deal less and less damage to Belhifet, until we hit a wall when Belhifet is around 400 HP.
Since we have plenty of Arrows of Detonation and clear the field at least two times, I'm willing to start tanking with Arrows of Detonation to thin the herd early. Frisk restores their defenses and picks a corner to hide in, since it will make it easier to box out Belhifet. The moment we become visible, demons start teleporting over to us.
We heal up with Durlag's Goblet, but we're still taking damage a lot faster than I expected. For safety's sake, I escape from the corner, using Dimension Door since Teleport Field scrolls have been mysteriously absent in my install.
Instead, I try firing Arrows of Detonation from afar, still using the Wand of Monster Summoning to distract the enemy. It's not as efficient, since I can't hit all demons at once with the arrows, but it's much safer, and we have plenty of Arrows of Detonation to spare.
Belhifet reminds us of the danger of wrestling with him in melee combat with one of his classic 50+ damage slashes. Durlag's Goblet is there to bail us out, but this time, I make a point of equipping Kiel's Helmet before drinking from the goblet, even if I see the Resist Fear icon already on Frisk's portrait.
We keep firing off Arrows of Detonation, choosing our targets carefully to make sure we take down as many demons in as little time as possible.
Due to his regeneration, Belhifet has taken exactly zero net damage since we first equipped the Arrows of Detonation; all we've done is thin the herd a little. We return to kiting with Arrows of Fire.
Then a wandersome Cornugon sneaks up on us and lands a horrifying spell on Frisk, one that I didn't even know about.
That's a flat 88 damage; there's no saving throw, no dice rolls, and magic resistance can't block it.
We keep up the kiting. Belhifet's HP shrinks while his allies grow.
We haven't retired the Arrows of Detonation; we've still got some wounded demons to take down.
Belhifet is suffering more than anyone else.
But we're in trouble. Frisk's Potions of Heroism are running out, and their current HP drops to their normal maximum.
We really need that extra HP to make sure we don't just die if we get boxed in by accident. Enter our last few Potions of Power, which will bring our HP back into the hundreds.
They're much stronger than Potions of Heroism, but with only a 40-round duration, that barrier only lasts so long.
We don't use the Wand of Monster Summoning to buy us time to drink the potions, though, as a Potion of Invisibility keeps most of the demons from teleporting over to us. Only the Erinyes and Belhifet can see through invisibility, so staying hidden will keep us from getting boxed in by Teleport Without Error spam.
I'm nervous about committing to the corner since we got overwhelmed when we tried it earlier on, so I decide to maintain our distance and keep using the Wand of Monster Summoning while firing our Arrows of Detonation... but I make the mistake of firing directly on my own summons, torching them down before I have enough time to re-use the wand and replace our decoys. The enemy teleports over to Frisk, forcing us to escape with Dimension Door once more.
I keep going, but make sure that I always have time to use the Wand of Monster Summoning before the last of our summons expire. This involves splitting up our summons and sending some of them away from the crowd.
We're clearing the field and making progress on Belhifet, but it's much more sluggish than I expected, and our Potions of Power are running out. Our HP barrier is gone.
Notice that we have a large number of demons, many of which are very low on HP while others are very high.
But those little health bars with only one chunk remaining are misleading. Those demons might be at Near Death, but that still means several dozen HP left, so even with Arrows of Detonation, it would take some time to bring them down--it's not like we can just bump them off with two or three spare arrows.
Belhifet is in bad condition, but the battlefield is quickly approaching saturation. Navigating the field is already difficult, and eventually it's going to become impossible.
Progress is increasingly slow, and our summons are vanishing faster and faster.
I try out an Arrow of Detonation and discover that it's much more dangerous to Frisk's own health than I realized. The dialogue box doesn't display it properly, but Frisk is taking double from their own attacks.
Also notice the Hamatula's Barbed Defense spell kicking in, a Fire Shield-type effect.
Belhifet keeps casting Gate. He's still taking damage, but the process is agonizing, and requires increasingly precise micromanagement from Frisk. Several rounds later, we take less than 50 HP off of him.
I can always go invisible to escape pressure, but if I'm not making attack rolls, Belhifet is regenerating. And while his 2 HP per round regeneration might not seem like much, it's a very big deal when the fight is already well beyond round 100 and still not over, especially when we're cutting things so very close with the damage we need to bring him down.
I switch between Arrows +3 and Arrows of Detonation. Belhifet summons one or two demons every 3 rounds, so every demon we kill essentially buys us another 6 seconds in which to deal damage to Belhifet--which amounts to maybe 2-6 points of damage. Every bit counts.
But too many demons are at high HP; I can't pick any of them off very easily. And Belhifet's HP vacillates up and down, when I desperately need it to just go down.
Things are looking ugly.
Once kiting truly becomes impossible, the only thing left is to stand and fight Belhifet directly, using Potions of Invisibility to escape notice whenever the pressure gets too heavy. Mirror Image scrolls could let me spend more time while visible, and Durlag's Goblet could keep me safe, but judging by the math, I'm just slightly short of being able to kill him. Maybe I could scrape by, but luck could tip the balance either way.
Belhifet's HP inches upward, and I'm worried that I've already hit the wall.
I've probably already hit it, but just to be sure, I'm going to keep going a little bit longer.
Then something incredible happens.
It's over! Frisk died! This is perfect!
Why is this perfect?
Look at that screenshot. Frisk's portrait is black.
It's the old black portrait bug! It's been around for ages, and I have no idea what causes it, but this bug is the only thing that causes your portrait to go black. Judging by the battlefield, which is suddenly clear of every actor onscreen as well as the corpses of fallen monsters and demons, this bug actually removes everyone from the map, which would explain why it causes a game over (any missing protagonist means a game over) and maybe also why it blacks out your portrait.
If Frisk had been killed by Belhifet or some other demon, this run would be over. But because we died to a bug, we actually get to reload and try again! It's a good thing, too, because things were looking very dicey near the end.
I've never had anything like this happen before. This bug might have saved the entire run!
But I'm not going to waste this opportunity. I planned on doing some tests long in advance of this fight, but at the elevator, I decided I didn't need to. This time, I'm going to do some proper tests before I tackle Belhifet.
I don't like test runs. They can give you misleading and potentially fatal information if you don't do them correctly or if you miss any important details. They also make me very anxious, because it really drags things out. I want this to be over, and a test run is just going to make things a lot more nerve-wracking. Worst of all, even if I kill Belhifet during a test, I still have to do it all over again in the real final battle. I still only get one shot at this fight.
But it's worth the anxiety and the strain. We've worked too hard on this run; we can't jeopardize its success by rushing back into the fight without thinking.
Mysterious black portraits fill us with determination.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 18: Siege of Dragonspear
Time to do the tests I said I'd do a long time ago. We get close to death one time when I try firing some Arrows of Detonation at close range with limited defenses......but by using the Void-tipped Arrows I had hoped to save for BG2 to land STR drain kills, we deal a lot more damage to Belhifet than before, and we do it a lot faster.
We try tanking in the westernmost corner, break out after killing some early enemies and making an opening in the wall of demons, and then nearly die when we re-start the tanking process in the south corner.
But tanking the enemy and firing Arrows of Detonation at point-blank is just as effective as I had hoped it would be. I should have just went for it in the previous run; it's a fantastic way to clear their field. Look at what's left of the enemy horde after just a few rounds of tanking!
Belhifet is already at Badly Injured and already bereft of allies, while Frisk is almost at peak strength and has deep wells of resources remaining. Killing him will be a cinch!
Unfortunately, this is a test run. So our success here does not count.
Still leery of going for the real run so soon, I reload and try to probe a little further. My skepticism turns out to be very well-warranted, as the Cornugons are easily capable of landing a near-instant kill on Frisk if they land Absorb Health spells in sequence.
Near Infinity shows that these spells strike as level 0 effects and bypass MR, so our only method of blocking that damage is to drink two Potions of Magic Shielding.
But first, one last test just to make sure that works.
Perfect. We're ready for the real run. It was worth the wait; we have a much better shot at winning the fight this time.
There's a quote from the ball game from Undertale that seems curiously relevant here.
Patience fills us with determination.
Zepp (Dwarven cleric of Talos, Gate70); Fiery (Dwarven Kensai, Grond0)
Episode 9 is a lesson in covering ground quickly, lasting less than 2 hours but encompassing Umar Hills,
the de'Arnise keep and the Planar Sphere.
Umar Hills: Zepp uses Turn Undead in the early stages, allowing Fiery time to pick them off one by one with Azuredge or his trusty swords. Thaxll'sillyia chomps away at summons but Zepp keeps adding more to the fray and eventually an Aerial Servant delivers a knockout blow. The Shade Lord is foiled by True Sight and Sunray, his Shadow Altar already having collected a Sunstone bullet.
n.b. Fiery was caught out with ineffective weapons against golems more than once, and the Elder Orb inside used Multiplayer-fu to avoid the sphere guardian so Fiery was subjected to it's attention.
LoB is a sorry excuse for a difficulty setting, whether it be for BG or IWD. Enemy stat boost is the cheapest way to make a rpg more difficult. It is nowhere near as refined as an SCS-type of difficulty. I think that SCS is so good that it actually ended up spoiling the fun I had with some of my most beloved rpgs : if the game is not difficult enough, but intelligently so, I lose interest really fast.
However, the combination of LoB and SCS gives... a decent result. It makes you think about different types of approach to the game, which is always nice, because the BG saga is the only game I've been playing in the last few years (and I intend to keep things that way); keeping things fresh is always good. It also definitively made me a better player, because I learned to micro-manage a character like never before : you have so little wiggle room that you HAVE to gain every little advantage you can get. LoB/SCS thus makes for an inane but rewarding playthrough.
As for exploits, I feel they're not *as bad* in this type of setting, because there's so many things stacked against you : for instance, LoB Tarnesh can deal up to 50 damage with a single casting of magic missile (!!). And, more importantly, I believe that, when a run is *as advertised*, I have no problem with it. That's the case with @semiticgod : he openly uses exploits and is honest about it. It's also because he tries to explore the possibilities of the Infinity Engine and that makes for very interesting runs. He thus made significant finds more than once, which probably resulted in bug fixing in the latest versions of the game (much to his dismay, I believe
That doesn't mean that I play like him, because I don't; I consider myself a "classic" player who shuns exploits (even when I play on LoB/SCS), simply because that's how I have fun with the game. It's also why I consider @Alesia_BH THE best BG player out there. The type of success she had while being such a rigorous player is pretty phenomenal. However, at the end of the day, I consider that having different types of player only enriches the community.
1. The basilisk XP loop, which replicates the effect of kiting my way through BG1 as a solo Archer.
2. The Bridgefort skip, which replicates the effect of surrendering Bridgefort.
3. The Nazramu trick, which saves a lot of inventory management.
4. Potion of Power stacking, which is MANDATORY for beating LoB Belhifet as a solo no-reload Archer/Mage or almost any other character. @Harpagornis pioneered this trick; it's been the standard method for tackling Belhifet for the past several months.
Plus, once I get past SoD, I'll use the item smuggling trick I discovered in EET, because BG2 sidequests are boring for me (I'm not keen on watching Skeleton Warriors fight through all of Chapter 2 while I pluck away at a bow) and I hate inventory micromanagement.
Otherwise this run is free of exploits. No Wand of Lightning trick, no item duplication, no clone items, no scorcher loop; nothing. This isn't like my Fighter/Mage/Thief run of this challenge, when I resorted to every dirty trick I knew. The only tricks I'm using in this run are the ones that are either difficulty-neutral (like number 2), near-difficulty-neutral (like number 1 and 3; the only difference would be using more potions) or simply required to get through the game (like number 4).
Without the Potion of Power trick, completing the challenge as an Archer/Mage would be impossible without relying on luck. You would either need to rely on landing critical hits with the Martyr's Morningstar while spamming Potions of Invisibility until you ran out, or rely on landing critical hits with arrows while also relying on low enemy attack rolls and low summoning rates from Belhifet. And relying on luck is just not smart in a no-reload context.
I chose the only strategy an Archer/Mage could use that was not luck-dependent. Archer/Mages are just that bad against Belhifet. If there was a safe alternative, I would gladly use it.
But there isn't.
It's possible to beat Belhifet no-reload as an Archer/Mage without using more than one Potion of Power. But it would basically boil down to drinking a bunch of Potions of Invisibility and hoping to land critical hits with the Martyr's Morningstar.
Honestly, which strategy seems more interesting and more challenging from a tactical perspective:
1. Kiting with the Wand of Monster Summoning and Enchanted-Weapon boosted arrows (Void-tipped Arrows, Arrows +3, and then Arrows of Fire +2) and carefully positioning Charname so that the massive enemy horde stays focused on our summons, using Arrows of Dispelling or Acid Arrows to dispel or kill charmed summons that are working against our summoning limit, constantly staying on the run and measuring the pixels and frames that are necessary to make attack rolls against Belhifet without endangering Frisk, while continuously switching out the Heart of Valor for the Amulet of Protection +2, and also switching out the Cloverleaf Belt for the Golden Girdle or Girdle of Piercing (depending on whether the Erinyes or another enemy is attacking Charname) in order to maximize our THAC0 when making attack rolls while still maximizing our AC for when one of the 20 enemies onscreen targets Charname, and possibly also switching out the Boots of Speed for the Boots Avoidance to deal with Erinyes arrows when movement rate is not important, and possibly also switching out the Helm of Balduran and the bow for the Wizzard Hat and Dervish Crescent to maximize movement rate in order to slip between enemies when the battlefield becomes too crowded; using Potions of Invisibility or Dimension Door/Teleport field to escape being boxed in when our summons vanish earlier than expected due to bad luck and all of the demons except for the Erinyes and Belhifet use Teleport Without Error to box in Charname; then, when the battlefield becomes so crowded that Belhifet's regeneration outpaces our ability to deal ranged damage without exposing Charname to unnecessary danger, setting up our defenses while under invisibility before leading Belhifet around the edges of the map, waiting until he casts Teleport Without Error to catch up with, and then, with Belhifet's aura no longer clear and therefore unable to teleport for the next 6 seconds, retreating to a corner and breaking invisibility without using up aura by firing an arrow so that the lesser demons all use Teleport Without Error to crowd around Frisk, minimizing the total number of demons surrounding us thanks to the corner while boxing out Belhifet using his own allies to form a wall, then using Enchanted Weapon-boosted Arrows of Detonation at point-blank range to deal area-effect missile damage while relying on the little-used auto-pause on hit option in the awareness that human reflexes and even the auto-pause on badly injured option does not guarantee a pause before death when damage values are this high and this fast, all while controlling the rate of fire for the Arrows of Detonation to make sure that we only run low on HP when our aura is clear from drinking the previous charge of Durlag's Goblet, continuing the process until the enemies begin to get low on HP, using CTRL-M to gauge each enemy's distance from death, constantly checking to make sure that Belhifet is not filling in any holes that form in the enemy wall, since the enemies have different HP values and die at different times under pressure from the Arrows of Detonation, then predicting the point at which the wall will disintegrate to the point that Belhifet can finally break through and then slipping out of the corner to resume kiting Belhifet, repeating all the steps in the first 236 words of this sentence while also deploying Arrows of Detonation or Acid Arrows to take down low-HP Cornugons when the opportunity presents itself, then, if necessary, repeating all the steps in the following 330 words of this sentence, until finally we grind down Belhifet's 1,172 HP and overcome his regeneration.
2. Spamming Potions of Invisibility for 50 rounds and hoping we land some critical hits with the Martyr's Morningstar.
I'm not even exaggerating. This really is what I'm dealing with here.
I guess that means Jack's dream is doomed like Xan, and he can just get onto abusing the wand to hit a measly 25/23/22/25/22/23.
Speaking of tedium...
This actually struck disaster as Jack whiffed his Hold Person save after Mulahey cast successfully through two daggers to the face and a magic missile. Fortunately Isra was alive, killed the kobold targeting Jack, attacked Mulahey.... And whiffed her save too.
Since Isra was closest, Mulahey killed her first, and the hold person expired the round after she died.
These guys need to be treated like a serious boss fight every time, complacency is death (not that it catches me out repeatedly). They're packed with crowd control spells that can wreck the party if they fluff a save, plenty of damage spells, and three to six Shadow Fiends, potentially half of them on a contingency. The shadows have a seek and destroy AI that lets them keep chasing their current target even if they can't see them, making it very hard to avoid them for the full 2-3 hours the summon lasts without a summon to distract them first.
Xan's entire job that combat was to stand outside being doomed, ready to pop in with the wand of fire if Jack didn't manage to save, or door, against a spell.
Naturally since I spent time prepping and being careful it was completely unnecessary and he didn't even summon a fiend or land anything worse than a blind before Jack got off a Malaison+Shadow Binding -8 save or hold on him.
Since BG1NPC is in, and Xan is in the party, slaver quest is a thing again.
I guessed wrong. The encounter happens in the corner of the map North East of the basilisk map, while I pre-trapped a similar looking spot in Larswood.
Fortunately shadows (not fiends, Jack isn't level 9 without stacked bonuses) distracted the bulk of the six mercenaries, Aura Glitterdusted the lot of them, and Isra pounded them with Jack in between the latter dropping a shadowball or two.
Then I chose the wrong conversation option and all their loot disappeared because the party was instaported to the Friendly Arm. Whoopsy.
Probably not the part where you challenged Jack to a fight, Xan ol' buddy. File that one firmly under "derp".
And that's about the most exciting part of that fight. Honestly the two wyverns that random encountered on the way back to the Friendly Arm was harder.
Woo. Palassin showed up, so I can spam wyvrens all over Section later and finally get another chance at Oversight.
This "+3" shield gives only +2 anti-missile AC, while Morwen's Armour actually has an undocumented +1 bonus against missile and piercing and +2 against slashing.
More importantly, however, a +3 shield should give 4 AC, not 3. What a gip.
Anyway, suppose I'd best kill the Flamestrike spamming cleric now and then get on with the plot.
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 19: Siege of Dragonspear
Here we go. The real run. Testing has confirmed the strategy works, so as long as I play this correctly and stay focused, we should be able to make it. Unfortunately, the bug-induced death last time means that we have to start from the most recent save, which is in the elevator--I can't tweak my preparations in any way to optimize for the new strategy.Like before, we bring Caelar into the party just long enough for her to discover LoB damage bonuses.
I no longer plan on saving any resources for smuggling into BG2; I already know that Belhifet will be much harder than anything I'll face after SoD. I therefore begin using our precious Void-tipped Arrows, which deal magical damage as well as missile damage. Belhifet has no magic damage resistance, so the magic damage should take about 300 HP out of Belhifet before I run out. Progress is noticeably faster than in my first attempt.
Our previous two attempts to kill Belhifet showed that we can get Belhifet down to about 400 HP before kiting becomes impossible and the map crowds up too much for us to function. Since Arrows of Detonation should give us a decent window of opportunity, I'm willing to start the process a little earlier. The moment Belhifet dips below 500 HP, I go invisible and begin restoring Frisk's buffs. I want to make sure they don't wear out while we're tanking.
We don't need to drink any Potions of Power yet, since our pre-drunk Potions of Heroism still have many rounds left. In previous attempts, I've relied on Potions of Invulnerability to guaranteed successful saving throws, but I still need to drink a couple of Potions of Magic Shielding--not for the save bonuses, but for the +50% resistance to magic damage so those Cornugons don't kill me with 88-damage Absorb Health spells. Notice our 127% resistance to elemental damage, courtesy of two scrolls of Protection from Fire and Cold to block Belhifet's fire spells and the Erinyes' Arrows of Ice, plus a level 5 Protection from Lightning spell to block the Cornugons' Lightning Bolts.
Once we're properly covered against all the threats we might possibly face, I keep running until Belhifet casts Teleport Without Error. Now that his aura is fogged, I know he can't teleport again for another 6 seconds. I retreat to a corner and fire off an Arrow of Detonation. Notice that Caelar is still on the map despite being dead; she takes damage from the blast.
The enemies get +4 to hit and damage against us when we're using the bow in melee combat, but by switching to one of Drizzt's scimitars when we're not actively firing the bow, we can attain pretty strong AC, albeit only for a short time.
It's remotely enough to hold off Belhifet, but we don't need to worry about him. Once the other demons teleport around us, Belhifet can't reach us.
I set auto-pause to "on hit." It'll trigger numerous times per round, which will ensure that I don't get killed during the tanking process. Other types of auto-pause might not save me in time when damage comes in such large hits so fast. And unlike my first run, I equip Kiel's Helmet before drinking from Durlag's Goblet even though my Potion of Clarity should last for many more rounds.
We accidentally hurt Aun Argent in his nearby cage, but he doesn't turn hostile and is impossible to kill anyway: CTRL-M confirms that he has a MINHP1 item.
Our strong AC keeps off many of the enemy's attacks, but there's one type of attack we cannot avoid: the Hamatulas' Barbed Defense spells, which trigger every time we hit them. We have multiple Hamatulas on the map, and the damage on Frisk builds up very, very fast.
This is why I need auto-pause on hit: there's a very narrow window in between having zero HP and the frame when auto-pause actually kicks in. This is also why I need to switch to melee every round instead of using my full 4 APR to land every Arrow of Detonation possible in each round: the damage is too severe to survive even with 400 maximum HP. Switching to melee and attacking with a scimitar lets us make a little extra progress on the higher-HP Cornugons while keeping our own HP at a safe range before our aura clears.
To absolutely maximize the number of demons we kill during the tanking process, we need to carefully manage which demons we kill, because if we open a hole in the wall, Belhifet will rush in and start attacking us, forcing us to flee, ending the process early. This means using CTRL-M and the scimitar to take down the enemies whose death will not open a hole for Belhifet.
This is important because the Cornugons have so much more HP than the Abishais, and if you let the Abishais die very early while ignoring everyone else, Belhifet will break through the wall before you can kill any of the Cornugons. Arrows of Detonation do the same amount of damage to every enemy; the arrow only makes a single damage roll for every target. Bear in mind that killing a few enemies does not mean the wall disintegrates; the wall has multiple layers and sometimes Belhifet gates in more demons to add to the outer layer.
We reach the point at which a single more Arrow of Detonation could open a hole for Belhifet by killing one or two of the last remaining enemies in a single hit. But rather than fire the last arrow, I decide to simply go invisible.
When you go invisible, the demons who can't see through invisibility (everyone but Belhifet and the Erinyes) will start to wander around after a few seconds. As long as I don't break invisibility, they'll keep wandering until a hole opens in the wall. This allows me to escape the wall with both invisibility and a clear aura, ensuring Frisk's safety.
Now that we're free from the corner and we've cleared the field of many of the demons, we can resume kiting with the Wand of Monster Summoning. To my disappointing, the tanking process has only taken 50 HP out of Belhifet despite him being well within the area of effect.
Why is this? Partly it's due to his regeneration during the re-buffing period, partly it's due to his 50% missile damage resistance, and partly it's because the tanking process is a lower-pressure process than you might expect considering how much pressure Frisk was under. You can only fire one or two Arrows of Detonation before you take too much damage to survive until your aura clears and you can drink from Durlag's Goblet again.
Back to kiting! With only so many demons on the map, it takes more than one round for the enemy to take down all of our summons, so we can keep using the Wand of Monster Summoning to keep the demons occupied. All this translates into more rounds available for firing arrows at Belhifet.
Belhifet drops to 380 HP, the lowest I've gotten him outside of a test. Soon after, Frisk's HP drops--those Potions of Heroism are wearing off.
We're back down to normal HP, at 154 with the Helm of Balduran and Ring of Purity (which grants Chant and +10 HP). This means we can't try tanking again to clear the field unless we buff with some Potions of Power.
That shouldn't be necessary, though. Belhifet has less than 400 damage, and we should be able to deal much more than that before the map becomes too crowded again. Knowing that 100 rounds have passed since I drank the first Potion of Heroism, and several tens of rounds must therefore have passed since I re-drank the 50-round-duration potions for the tanking process, I drink another set of potions while invisible.
Since I do still have a decent number of demons on the map, I decide that the safest option is to go ahead and re-start the tanking process to further clear the map. Enter 2 more Potions of Magic Shielding to block Absorb Health spells and Potions of Power. Belhifet has plenty of time to regenerate while we're buffing.
Same as before, we bait Belhifet's Teleport Without Error spell before breaking invisibility in a corner and drawing in the demons.
I deemed this the safer option, but soon realize it was a mistake. There are more Hamatulas on the map this time around, which means we take a lot more damage when firing Arrows of Detonation.
The damage is so extreme that we can only fire about a little more than a single arrow per round on average before we risk getting overwhelmed. I use the extra time to land melee hits on the Hamatulas and remove those Barbed Defense backlashes from the equation.
But there are a lot of them, and the process is slow. I count off the rounds, knowing that I could risk instant death if I don't escape from the corner before the first Potion of Power wears off and brings our current HP down to 154 instantly.
Then a Cornugon hits me with an Absorb Health spell, and I realize that I should have been counting the rounds until our Potions of Magic Shielding wore off.
We only have 50% resistance to magic damage; one of those potions wore off. Tanking without 100% immunity to magic damage could prove fatal. Knowing that I drank both Potions of Magic Shielding one after another, and therefore our second Potion of Magic Shielding is about to wear off, we immediately go invisible. Sure enough, our resistance to magic damage has vanished entirely.
Also notice that our electricity damage resistance has worn off, since I relied on the mage spell instead of a pair of green scrolls. A few rounds after we've returned to kiting, I notice that the Cornugons are using Lightning Bolts, when they previously hadn't bothered.
Hephernaan is almost dead. We finish him off with an Arrow of Detonation and drink a Potion of Absorption to get immunity to electricity damage in one round instead of two.
Tanking has kept the map from crowding up, but the net effect on Belhifet after all these rounds is pretty much zero.
Due to those Hamatulas and the expired Potions of Magic Shielding damaging the efficiency and shortening the duration of the tanking process, the map is actually slightly more crowded since we began the second round of tanking, so we've fallen behind. I shouldn't have bothered trying to clear the map a second time.
I need to switch back to kiting; it's the only way we can expect to bring down Belhifet. Finally, Belhifet's HP starts to go down again.
Belhifet is filling the map, but his HP is dropping fast, and it will be many rounds before he can summon enough demons to stop us from kiting.
Check out all the Cornugons. They have the most HP of all the summoned demons, but they're the only demon that comes alone when Belhifet casts Gate, so they actually indicate some good luck.
It's much better to have 5 Cornugons on the map than 10 Abishais, Hamatulas, or Erinyes.
Of course, it's not all good news. Cornugons can spam Lightning Bolts, and the damage really builds up when our summons are clustered together.
Even so, it takes more than 6 seconds for the enemy to wipe out all our summons, which means we have extra time to fire arrows. As always, Belhifet's army grows as his HP shrinks, but this time, he's working with a massive deficit thanks to the first round of tanking with Arrows of Detonation.
More and more demons enter the map and more and more of our summons collapse. All the while, Frisk keeps firing away. Belhifet is rapidly approaching his death.
But our summons are vanishing faster than I expected; those Cornugons are much worse news than I thought. We might not have reached the point where the enemy can kill our summons faster than we can replace them, but we're getting close to that point.
Knowing that being caught without summons for every a single second could result in a swarm of demons teleporting over and boxing us in while Frisk's aura is fogged, I decide to play it safe and stick to Potions of Invisibility. I have lots of them, so I can afford to burn a potion every single time I make an attack roll.
It's extremely inefficient since I'm only making one attack per round when I can theoretically fire up to four when hasted (or, more realistically, closer to two when kiting). However, Potions of Invisibility prevent everyone but Belhifet and the Erinyes from attacking Frisk. And it just so happens that there are no Erinyes on the map, not that they would deal much damage anyway. Our high movement rate therefore means invulnerability as long as those Potions of Invisibility last.
Better still, we get some lucky rolls, further hastening Belhifet's demise.
All the enemies follow us, but they won't teleport to Frisk unless Frisk is visible. As we run a circle around the map, the horde slowly trudges after us.
Aside from the botched attempt to clear the map the second time around, the course of this fight has been decisively in Frisk's favor, and victory by now is essentially certain. Belhifet is limping all the way.
Belhifet goes invisible, so we cast Stoneskin to avoid taking any damage when Belhifet breaks invisibility.
Then Belhifet pins us against a pillar, and for two terrifying seconds, I pause and un-pause over and again, trying to extricate Frisk. Finally we come loose, sparing us the need to use Dimension Door and then tank the demons when they teleport over to us.
Belhifet drops below 20 HP and makes one last attempt to bring down Frisk.
I check the Record screen. Our Potion of Invulnerability has worn off, leaving Frisk with a save vs. spell of 1. I'm not willing to trust that, though, and have Frisk equip the Ring of Free Action until the spell hits.
Another critical hit, and Belhifet goes down to single digits.
The next time we land a hit, Belhifet is left with only a single hit point to his name.
We shoot him down.
The other demons are supposed to vanish when Belhifet and Hephernaan are dead, but for some reason they stick around. We can't hope to kill the whole herd of demons, but we don't have to: all we have to do is speak with Aun Argent to trigger the cutscene, while using a couple Potions of Invisibility to maintain our invisibility after breaking it.
We drop off almost all of our equipment in a chest at Dragonspear Castle before heading upstairs. We get the hero's exit from Baldur's Gate and team up with Imoen and Khalid, because I already got Dynaheir, Minsc, and Jaheira killed earlier to steal their equipment. EET allows you to fight back against the ambush at the end of SoD, but there's not really any point; the enemies give little XP and they strictly deal nonlethal damage.
Siege of Dragonspear is over! Finally, finally we enter Shadows of Amn.
I've been waiting for this moment for so, so long. BG2 has always been the easiest part of the saga for me, and item smuggling will let me skip a whole bunch of side quests and dive right into the main questline without spending hours collecting gold and resources and micromanaging our inventory.
This is when the game will finally let up. BG1 and SoD have been immense struggles, but BG2 will a breeze as long as I don't do something incredibly stupid. Once I hit mage level 16, Frisk's Called Shot will deal STR drain, and the power of that STR will expand dramatically when we hit level 18 and when we get the Scorcher Ammunition. I could hit those levels early by farming Gauths our Ghoul Lords in the Unseeing Eye quest, but that won't be necessary. I won't need high levels to get through BG2; I know enough about the game to crush everything even with an underleveled character.
I have no more questions; no more uncertainties. I can see the path to victory all the way to Melissan. Finally, things are going to be okay.
We are filled with determination.
Okay, next guy.
Val, as a favored soul, appears able to wear armour like a cleric, which is nice, and with Death domain as his selection, if he survives will be spamming Unholy Words from Projected Images to ensure no spellcaster within thirty feet of him has a spellcasting failure of less than 100%. Also he'll be casting Animate Dead as a level 3 spell.
I then switch him back to being a Sorcerer, because everything the Favoured Soul gives and takes, it does so at level 1, and being in a kit breaks his ability to craft, which wasn't supposed to be a thing for the kit. Also fix the effect where he loses two spells per day instead of one as per the kit description.
Current spells: Blind, Shield. (Command, Doom).
Hopefully being a Shadow Adept (which is impossible for a Favoured Soul, I did check, presumably the dialogue monkey for using the orb is a summoned demon, making it impossible for the Favoured Soul and their permanent PfE to use the orb) was sufficient training to handle a limited spell list, because this will actually be my first serious sorcerer character.
More importantly, he has a Cantrip. Summon bunny.
Summoning whatmit? More bunnies you say?
I'm pretty sure PETA is going to hate me for this.
Pushed back by the Sirene/Dire Wolf combined forces, Valefar the Leporomancer is forced to fall back and regroup.
FOR BUNNY!
After a brief moment to honour the fallen, Valefar stamps his foot on the ground to indicate that it is time for the horde to move on...
To REDDER pastures.
Current spells: Blindness, Shield, Magic Missile, (Command, Doom), Invisibility, (Hold Person, Spiritual Hammer), Conjure Rabbit. Those ogres
didn't stand aactually had a very good chance, but after a few dozen bunnies they started getting worn down.The Surgeon was clearly a serial killer name anyway.
Part 16: Siege of Dragonspear
From there, we follow the same formula up until Thrix. We don't need to fight his goons more than once; all we have to do to get past him is solve his riddle. I make absolutely sure that I don't press the wrong button by accident, because giving Thrix the wrong answer means instant death.
Solving fun puzzles fills us with determination.
I have completed SoD a few times, (Three times I think) and yet have never met Thrix.
What do you have to do, or where do you have to go to meet him/her/it?
Frisk: A Solo Archer/Mage in Legacy of Bhaal Mode
Part 20: Shadows of Amn
Yaaay! Wooooo yay wooo!Yay! Shadows of Amn! Woo!
*flips off BG1 and SoD*
Woo!
God, this is going to be so much easier than Belhifet.
We see some funny cutscene bugs due to a familiar EET issue that lets us walk around when the intro cutscene is supposed to start.
I resist the urge to attack Jon-bon while he's vulnerable.
Testing finds that we're allowed to rest as many times as we like in Chateau Irenicus once we boot Imoen from the party. This means we don't have to scrimp and save our Invisibility spells; we can just stomp everything with Animate Dead.
I'm still not going to tackle Ilyich. I don't need the XP and I don't need the loot.
I don't know how much damage the poison traps around here do, but Slow Poison can in fact slip between the damage triggers provided that you're not hasted. With a casting time of 1, it takes 0.6 seconds to cast the spell, while the damage only triggers once per second.
Frisk's impressive defenses turn out to be largely useless against the mephits, but locking the door behind us apparently is still a good way to escape their attention.
We skip everything using Invisibility and hike all the way back to Dragonspear Castle. We get our loot back!
By selling off some excess loot to Thalantyr (BG1 shops give better prices than BG2 shops), we crank our gold supply up to 100,000. It's not necessary in the least, but I am awfully impatient to get to Melissan, and this will obviate the need to scour the land for resources before completing BG2. We head straight to Trademeet to get the Efreeti Bottle, a fabulous summoning item that won't be obsolete nearly as early as the Wand of Monster Summoning.
We let Cernd/CTRL-Y kill Faldorn as always, get the Shield of Harmony, buy some largely extraneous gear in Trademeet, and finally scribe PFMW and Teleport Field. When we get back to Athkatla, we buy the Robe of Vecna and lots of other random crap, including the Strong Arm +2 longbow... for the sole reason that I failed to pick up Corinth's Bow.
Because, as I've mentioned before, and as I feel compelled to gripe about once more, BG2 longbows are so terrible that even the best one is inferior to the longbow you get at the end of SoD in every single way. Fortunately for us, investing in longbows to scrape by in Avernus will not cripple us in BG2, because we will only be using the Strong Arm +2 for everyday fights. For major fights, we'll be using Minute Meteors, Energy Blades, Darts of Stunning, and eventually the Scorcher Ammunition.
You know what the nice thing about the item smuggling trick is? You get to bring Arrows of Detonation into BG2. Too bad we lost so many fighting Belhifet.
You know what the nice thing about Vhailor's Helm is? You can fire arrows from the clone without losing any of your limited supply.
You what the nice thing about trolls is? Bombing the crap out of them.
On to the Temple Ruins! I really want that Cloak of Stars so we can get some +5 darts. A Protection from Undead scroll will get us past most of the fights, and Dimension Door will let us hop over the spawn trigger for the second, non-optional lich fight.
A Sunstone Bullet destroys the Shadow Altar as always, and our various summons tank the Shade Lord until his PFMW runs out.
The Shade Lord has lots of necromancy spells, but even when he wipes out our summons, we can always just bring out more.
He re-casts Shadow Mantle, renewing his PFMW, but once that runs out, he's done for. Frisk casts Improved Haste and then shoots him down.
I only came here for the Cloak of Stars, but I still grab our rewards from Imnesvale and stuff them into one of our two or three mod-introduced Bags of Holding, where they will never see the light of day again. On the way, we do the mimic quest and gain access to... I don't know what his name is, but the guy who doesn't like Daar, that guy lets us use his laboratory to construct our own golems (see the Golem Construction mod). CTRL-Q lets us check out our new Clay Golem's stats.
The funny thing is that despite those ridiculous resistances, the golem doesn't get LoB bonuses due to EET (it's coded as a familiar so it can follow you to any area), which means it will be utterly useless in any significant fight. The sturdier golems will only be available at higher levels, and the materials to make them will be very finite.
I don't really know how much XP I want to gather before proceeding to Spellhold, but I know that I'll get locked out of the Mae'Var questline if I side with Bodhi, and I'll also get locked out of Xzar's quest if I don't save Renfeld. So I head down to the Docks and pay a visit to Prebek, whose lack of PFMW makes him an easy target.
Next up, Rayic Gethras! His mephits block the stairway on the first floor, but I can make them scatter by breaking invisibility and then vanishing before they can spam their special ATweaks (or whichever mod) spells at us. Rather than spend precious seconds killing Ray-Ray conventionally, I just spam the Fireball trap.
Next up, Mae'Var! He'd be kind of dangerous if he actually could cast PFMW.
His goons would be dangerous, too, if they had a cure for Invisibility+SI: Divination, and if they carried magical weapons.
The Robe of Minor Arcana lets us get the level 15 Skeleton Warriors one level earlier than normal. Though we hit level 15 anyway the moment we report back to Renal Bloodscalp.
I don't want to side with either Bodhi or Aran Linvail. I never liked fighting Bodhi due to the finite supply of Protection from Undead scrolls, and my mods make Aran Linvail a lot harder than normal because you can't escape his lair until you kill him.
Well, unless I use the level 7 Teleport spell to just leave the area outright. That spell has all kinds of crazy uses I've never actually tried out. But instead, I'm just gonna make things easy for myself and side with Malficus from the Alternatives mod. He can also get you to Spellhold, but the first two tasks he gives you are zero-risk fetch quests...
...and the third one is the basic SCS Aran Linvail fight, without the clay golems and Kensai/Thieves backing him up (maybe that fight comes from Rogue Rebalancing?). But first, I want to grab the Tuigan Bow, even though a longbow gives me the same APR. A Dimension Door spell lets me hop over the Prismatic Spray trap on the off chance that the trap ignores SI: Evocation, and more Arrows of Dispelling take down the crummy, non-PFMW-casting mages of early BG1.
Back to business. I have some Shadow Thieves to kill. Because EE organizes spell slots alphabetically, our Vhailor's Helm clone doesn't get any Stoneskin spells unless I fail to memorize a lot of very important level 4 spells. As I should have expected, this makes it very easy for the enemy backstabbers to thrash it.
I hide behind invisibility as well as a wall and throw out summons at them, including our Clay Golem. They don't do very well against the Shadow Thieves; the mages are landing lots of disablers.
Still, the Clay Golem manages to escape the notice of the backstabbers and isolates one of the mages, tanking her spells with its 90% MR and very, very slowly smashing through her Stoneskins.
A week later, we come back with more summons and Frisk hides while our critters do all the work.
I've fought the souped-up Shadow Thief hideout more than once before, and it feels good to only have to fight the normal one.
Without item smuggling, I'd have to sit through a lot of fights that looked just like this: watch the Skeleton Warriors do most of the work, only jumping in when one of the enemies is proving stubborn.
I don't think I've mentioned it before in this run, but since EET puts all of the games into one install, all nonmagical weapons are subject to breaking. And in my install, nonmagical armor is also breakable, which can lead to hilarious situations like this.
Dedral doesn't flee because Frisk isn't visible, so he just fights the Skeleton Warriors himself. But while his nonmagical katana can't be broken, that isn't going to help him win this fight.
Don't forget the Maze trap in the chamber where Dedral normally appears. SI: Conjuration keeps us safe. And don't forget that Minor Spell Deflection and Minor Spell Turning cannot block level 8 spells like Maze.
And don't forget that the trap can go off multiple times. I use Dimension Door to hop over the trigger for the enemies in this room and head over to Haz to fire a bunch of Arrows of Detonation at him.
I don't particularly care about preserving the difficulty here. I don't remember the last time I've died in Shadows of Amn anyway. It's not going to get the least bit risky or difficult until ToB.
Honestly, SoA is just something for me to speed through.
Not that this whole run is just going to be blasting everything to bits with Arrows of Detonation. One of the things I've always liked is using Called Shot with Darts of Stunning. They just have excellent synergy.
I want to hit level 16 before leaving for Spellhold. Enter Smelly Porkslicer and the gang.
But since I'm greedy, I also want 20 reputation before I go to Spellhold. Because based on the numbers in Near Infinity, the Nazramu trick is also possible in the City of Caverns, just like in the vanilla game, provided I have high CHA and reputation. And the promise of tens of thousands of gold is tempting even though I have no idea what benefit it could possibly bring to the run at this point.
Why don't I already have 20 reputation? Well, I had to hold somebody hostage in order to get the Silver Pantaloons.
And "society" has some pretty oppressive ideas about kidnapping people to get shiny pants.
And just in case I somehow don't have enough resources to deal with the main questline, I decide to stop by a few places to get more stuff. I have competing impulses to get through SoA as fast as possible and to collect as much unique loot as possible for ToB.
But the important thing is that BG2 is going smoothly and I am no longer working hard.
Yaaay! Wooo!
Flipping off BG1 and SoD fills us with determination.