My imp decided to play a practical joke on Boo by perimorphing himself into a ferret (type of groundhog) … I suspect Neera may have some involvement The good news is he can still climb into my pack and says he can do simple thief jobs The bad news is Imoen has nicknamed him Nimran which upset the little guy but he got his own back on her.
We made it to daylight only to see how magic users are treated in this city. I had to sell most of my items to pay for a licence and the potion of nicking stuff helped me grab a nice ring but the upstairs shop still spotted me trying to swipe glasses and started yelling thief… the hyporcrite lost some of my rep and I may have to find work outside the city because of it
The monks walked into an ambush at the bridge, but fireballs and wand blasts quickly turned the tables
so that only one of the enemies was alive when Caelar called for a parley (and he died after that finished).
Arriving at the Troll Claw Woods the monks beat up some Irregulars before systematically clearing the area - essentially always leaving a clear area behind them in order to be able to scout ahead using stealth and then pull enemies into a running fight.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge they beat up some goblins guarding a hole in the ground. Descending into that they used missiles to kill one group of myconids, but then went into melee on the next. The myconids proved to ignore stun, which gave them more opportunity to confuse the monks than I expected and the 2 not confused had to expose themselves to protect the others. I made a mistake at one point though when one of the shielding monks slipped into stealth - resulting in Chimera taking a critical hit. Not long after that though everyone regained their senses.
At the bridge they cleared the external area, including deciding to take the quick option against a cave full of goblins.
Just for fun I thought I would see what happened if the monks tried to talk their way into the camp. They got thrown in prison, but a grateful miner from Nashkel released them. With limited room for manouver they didn't fancy trying to fight the camp at this stage and left for the Forest of Wyrms - helping out a baby green dragon on the way.
At the Forest of Wyrms they quickly picked up some Stalker Gauntlets. Wraith took those - as the leader she's normally the one that scouts ahead so the stealth bonus is most helpful to her. Together with the Blood Red Ioun Stone and Sidestep Slippers that also raises her dexterity to 21 to improve her AC. After clearing the paths they used stealth and free action to get rid of the web traps in the spider cave before running round the spiders themselves.
One oddity there was that the phase spiders don't seem to be doing any phasing in SoD. Wraith felt a responsibility to finish off the final Wraith spider in single combat - while wielding Twinkle she has a pretty respectable AC of -7 now, so that wasn't difficult. Some beetles then tried to colonize the cave, but the big one struggled to move around in it.
Moving on to the next cave the 2 characters with dagger proficiency crept forward and let fly at Morentherene. My experience of how deeply she sleeps has been very mixed, but on this occasion she ignored the fact that daggers were clinking on the stones all around her until the 9th attack finally got a hit.
The bugbears at the entrance to the next area were soon killed and the monks spotted a greater shadow there using the spectacles. They decided not to pull it into this world and, as I expected, couldn't hurt it without doing so.
More bugbears were surprisingly poor at chasing the monks, so were able to be dealt with in ones and twos without taking any damage. Unfortunately though Wraith was feebleminded by the trap there. The monks tried resting for a full day, but the effect seemed to be permanent (as per the spell). Luckily though, Chimera had picked up a greater restoration scroll from somewhere and that set Wraith to rights (the icon remained, but she came back under control).
Inside the temple Wraith was soon in trouble again when held by a trap in sight of 3 invisible stalkers. Once her stealth wore off she was attacked and would have died there if the monks had not had access to wands.
After killing all her guards, the monks moved on to Ziatar and attempted to stun her - and slightly to my surprise that worked .
After releasing the prisoners they moved on to the Neothelid. That was drawn outside its starting room and, though it immediately charmed Wraith, wand blasts quickly took it to near death before standard attacks finished it off.
That got everyone the XP for level 9. Their final die rolls were again excellent (2 10s, 3 9s and an 8), while it's nice they won't have to be worried about being charmed in future. Their fists now also count as +1, which is a further bonus.
I managed to remember this time the combination for the secret door to the Shadow Aspect (thanks to Wise pointing out it was Pi ). It got one good backstab in, but then fell to the weight of attacks.
Wraith used a storm giant strength potion to get the fractal blade (4 of the monks now have +3 weapons available). For Darskhelin the monks all threw in fireballs - the 3 without Necklaces using potions.
That only killed the mage, but Darskhelin himself died in their first running volley of +2 bullets.
The remaining enemies were then easily finished off with stealth attacks.
Wraith then attempted to tank a pair of aerial servants. They both missed with initial attacks and one was killed before the other got a blow in for a pretty ferocious 40 damage (that would have been a one-shot kill if it had been a critical).
The other monks responded by burning it down before it could attack again.
Akanna was then tempted out of hiding and given the stunning treatment.
Korlasz's Crypt is cleared with help from a Protection from Undead scroll, but now that I can't spam Chains with Doom projectiles and now that the AI is much smarter, its harder to deal with groups. I'll have to use these wands of fire that have been collecting in my bag of hoarding. I opt to make Korlazs surrender instead of fighting her, and skip the group waiting outside where she's holed up.
Before heading out to Dragonspear, I sell expensive jewelry and then buy the Peacock Cap, which gives me another +2 CHA bonus, increasing DOOL and L&B's bonuses to +5! Buying some Potions of Persuasion from Belegarm gets me up to 25 CHA which gives +6! I enter the dwarven digsite and start clearing out the undead, but one of the dwarf clerics stumbles into my ray of fire. Damn.
A wight hit me and level drained me, turning off all my saving throw boosts. A cleric immediately took advantage of this and put me to sleep with Command, then a ghast held me. That's the end. What a miserable way to go.
Spaz - Warlock 18 (RIP)
So what's next? Should I restart back to the very beginning, or try SoD over again? Or move on to BG2 with the Spaz that killed Sarevok and call it a trilogy no-reload instead?
Hard luck, @Flashburn. I completely forgot about the level drain saving throw thing--that's a devastating loss for any character that relies on save-boosting buffs.
I suppose you could bring it into BG2 and just call it a trilogy no-reload. Starting over in SoD would be faster, but the Hall of Heroes is traditionally limited to runs that are one continuous narrative, as I learned when I re-started a run from the beginning of ToB and found out that it wouldn't count (and later restarted from Candlekeep just to get into the Hall!). I personally have a habit of restarting over from Candlekeep in order to put a character into the Hall, but I'm not sure that I would recommend it. Playing to get the trophy is not much fun, as I've said before.
Which game do you think is most fun to play with this class?
I suppose you could bring it into BG2 and just call it a trilogy no-reload. Starting over in SoD would be faster, but the Hall of Heroes is traditionally limited to runs that are one continuous narrative, as I learned when I re-started a run from the beginning of ToB and found out that it wouldn't count (and later restarted from Candlekeep just to get into the Hall!).
I'll still be able to enter the Hall again if I import to BG2 from when I killed Sarevok, right? If so, then there's still a chance. If not, I'll just do something else instead.
Which game do you think is most fun to play with this class?
Undoubtedly BG2. Once you get UAI, you'll get all kinds of solutions to problems and be able to outfit yourself for any kind of situation, and be able to be decent at melee. The good-aligned HLA path is ridiculous. Mages won't really be able to touch you except by summoning fallen planetars. You get to ignore mage fencing almost entirely because your blasts ignore spell protections, no matter what essence/shape you put on it.
Arriving in Troll Claw Woods we immediately decided we'd seen enough of that and pushed straight on to the Forest of Wyrms. On the way there we found a hole in the ground with some myconids in. Skyler put her plate on against the first group and, despite being confused almost all the time, he was able to kill them without taking any damage.
The second group though not only confused, but feebleminded her - and Duoa responded by laying down a fireball barrage.
On arrival Skyler scouted ahead and spotted a group of wyverns. After using a malison Duoa managed to affect them all with emotion or chaos to make beating them up easy enough.
Progress remained easy on the way to a dragon cave - which was left for now.
In the temple Skyler was held by a trap, but far enough from a group of guards for them not to turn hostile - though Duoa did raise a slight worry by terribly helpfully saying "Don't worry, I'll bring them to you".
The final group of guards looked like they would be easy when Duoa threw a web and cloudkill into the room before shutting the door.
When the mist cleared there was one archer badly wounded and 2 thieves at near death. Normally that would have been no trouble, but both thieves managed to get a critical backstab on Skyler - and she had swapped to the trollblood regeneration stone after taking a small amount of damage from the monk (and ioun stones don't protect against critical hits in SoD). That left her suddenly short of HPs, but one thief was already dead by then and the other didn't have an invisibility potion left.
If the guards had been more difficult than expected, the reverse was true for Ziatar. Duoa threw a web in and she got stuck. She remained stuck as arrows and a malison poured in and died without ever getting free.
The Neothelid was a different story. The intention was to distract it with summons, but it was playing hard to get and surfaced several times for just short periods - one of those was painful for Skyler who was caught in a poisonous breath.
When the Neothelid tried attacking Duoa she quickly ran away, but went a fraction too far and alerted several carrion crawlers. Coming back she was then hit hard by a flame strike trap,
but looked to have saved the day when a magic missile finished off the Neothelid.
However, with the crawlers still advancing she tried to retreat back into the main room and crossed a patch of ground still infected by the Neothelid's poison - with fatal results.
After going back to the Flaming Fist camp to raise Duoa, Skyler also bought some raise dead scrolls in case of future contingencies before returning to the temple. On the way in Skyler threw a few daggers at Morentherene. It looked like the hoped for quick kill was not on the table when the dragon reared up and shook off the damage from one dagger. However, the asynchronicity of computers when playing MP worked in our favor this time and the following dagger not only hit, but penetrated to the dragon's heart.
Next up was the Shadow Aspect. That got a backstab in on Skyler and forced her to retreat, while Duoa summoned some monsters as a distraction. With the Shadow Aspect focused on those a couple of critical hits with missiles helped finish it off quickly.
A couple of rests allowed for healing before Skyler sneaked up to open Darskhelin's door. A web slowed down the exit from there, meaning Darskhelin was chasing alone - and it didn't make much progress against missile fire.
The remaining enemies had already taken damage from a couple of detonation arrows and were soon finished off with sneak attacks.
The final target in the temple was Akanna. The intention there was to use summons to distract her aerial servants, but they followed too quickly and Duoa was hit hard.
Skyler took a punch of her own, but with the servants now visible they could be killed easily enough - one was confused and struck down and the other blinded and shot down.
Akanna then choked her way through a cloudkill and didn't survive a follow-up attack.
At Boareskyr Bridge Vichand is far enough away from the Crusaders to be attacked. However, an initial assault didn't quite kill him before his buffs fired. If he'd run at that time and brought in the rest of the camp things might have been dodgy, but he chose to stand and fight - and died.
After making some +3 arrows from magical residues the fort was surrendered and we went to kill the mage blocking the bridge. That again didn't go quite as smoothly as intended though . Skyler targeted the mage with arrows of detonation, but he disappeared in time to not only save himself, but also all his guards.
With them moving forward rapidly Duoa was taken down to 1 HP, before Skyler also was badly wounded and had to retreat.
The Flaming Fist provided some distraction, but not before one of the Crusaders had managed to get a killing blow in on Duoa.
Skyler was able to help the Fist take revenge before using a scroll to put Duoa back together again and move on to the Coalition Camp.
We have finally reached the Underdark! I don't know why we're in the Underdark, but not understanding the direction of the plot is pretty standard for Icewind Dale 2.
Anyway, Malavon Despana the drow mage--who is totally not the demented clone Malavon from the first Icewind Dale, who also cloned himself--wants us to rescue his sister Ginafae, who is with driders for some reason. And the driders are here because of something called the Viciscamera, which has some relation to the Legion of the Chimera.
I don't know the plot and I don't have to. All I know is that we have to fight driders, kill the hideous blob of meat called the Viciscamera, and talk to Ginafae. But first, there's a drow ambush literally just outside Malavon's camp. Fun fact: Wail of the Banshee bypasses spell resistance.
I think this is a mod-introduced fight, but I'm not sure. Either way, the drow backstabbers drop a lot of Potions of Invisibility.
We also have to fight some local mind flayers with long, unpronounceable names. I am enjoying Frisky Bits' newfound fighting abilities. Landing critical hits is always very satisfying, and Executioner's Eyes and 2 points of luck from Young Ned's Knucky make 30% of our attacks into critical hits.
Next up, the Viciscamera. Characters with high Alchemy can concoct a poison to take it down, but you can also just walk up and kill it. The disadvantage of the direct approach is that multiple waves of driders come after you, and both the drider sorcerers and the drider clerics use Dispel Magic, forcing us to burn Invisibility spells to avoid a 5% chance of losing all of our buffs.
It's very difficult to get a handle on the enemy. They have massive circles, which makes getting boxed in a genuine risk, and since they come in waves, you can neutralize a patch of them and then just see more driders take their place. You can nail them with Symbol of Hopelessness, but the clerics will cure it with Remove Fear and Remove Paralysis. You can bring them down with Wail of the Banshee, but that takes a whole round to cast, and we can only destroy the Viciscamera by dedicating time and energy to melee attacks--it's completely immune to magic.
That blue visual effect over the driders is Remove Paralysis curing the effects of Frisky Bits' Symbol of Hopelessness spell.
One of the enemy wizards fires off a Disintegrate spell at Frisky Bits. We should be immune by virtue of having reached level 26, but since Frisky Bits makes their save, we don't get the message proving that immunity, leaving me to worry.
Notice that Frisky Bits gets a +39 bonus to their Fortitude save. We have a lot of buffs that improve our saves, but by far the best is our 32 Charisma, which gives +11 to all of our saving throws thanks to our one level in paladin. A single paladin level is a great benefit to any sorcerer, much like a single monk level is a great benefit to any cleric or druid because of the WIS-based AC bonuses when not wearing armor or robes or a shield.
IWD2 has lots of multi-classing options, but the optimal builds tend to be involve taking a single class for the level 1 bonuses and then concentrating all the other levels into something that scales quadratically.
Anyway, Frisky Bits casts Holy Power to get another +4 to damage (one of the reasons why clerics are better damage dealers than actual fighters), but finds that they can't deal any damage to the Viciscamera with arrows. Some types of damage reduction in IWD2 can be bypassed by enchantment levels, so I switch to Sure Striking Arrows, which have no bonuses but strike as +5 (they also work great against Sherincal).
We're lucky to have summons, because the sorcerers apparently have Icelance and we could have been stunned for up to 4 rounds if we hadn't cast Aegis before it hit.
It takes a long time and multiple castings of Invisibility and summoning spells, but Frisky Bits takes down the Viciscamera with the help of a Remorhaz.
Remorhazes are the only decent summons we get from Shades. It actually used to be better (or at least much more reliable and easy to use) before we hit level 20, because we regularly got Frost Giants and werewolves and scrags. At level 20, it usually gets us a Greater Feyr, which has weak damage output and a habit of failing saves against its own fear spells. We clean up with Wail of the Banshee and sell off a bunch of junk to the local duergar merchants, bumping our gold supply up to 500,000.
Next up, the mind flayer area. I've heard that it's possible to sneak up to the Elder Brain without fighting anyone and convince it to let you pass through in peace if you have a high Diplomacy check. Looking up the dialogue tree in Near Infinity confirms it.
But it's not possible to avoid the first fight in the area, at least with Tactics installed. Abdoshanheth and the other mind flayers can see through invisibility.
We dispatch the first group without much trouble by relying on disablers.
However, I'm not sure how we're going to deal with the mind flayers.
In IWD2, mind flayers don't have INT drain, since stat drain is nonlethal in IWD2 (your ability scores can never drop below 1). Instead, their melee attacks Feeblemind the target for 3 rounds on a failed Will save (DC 20) and also penalize Will saves by 4 for 60 seconds on a failed Fortitude save (DC 20). That's not really worrisome, though, since Mind Blank grants us immunity to Feeblemind effects.
What is worrisome is their Ultrablast spell. Ultrablast has a thin cone-shaped projectile like Shout and stuns the target for 6-10 rounds on a failed Will save (DC 14). Getting hit during the stun effect doesn't remove the stun. That basically means death if it works.
Since we never picked Seven Eyes (which could block a single Ultrablast, no more), the only means we have of blocking stun is to use Antimagic Field, which lasts for 10 rounds per level and works like a Protection from Magic scroll that also grants immunity to death magic and stun effects (for whatever reason). But this would disable our spellcasting and remove all our existing effects, which means our maximum possible AC would be 48.
Frisky Bits could not withstand even the slightest pressure with only 48 AC; the average attack bonus for HoF enemies at this point is in the 40s. Nor could we hope to make any meaningful progress using items and scrolls alone; the enemy would just crush us.
We have to take the gamble. There simply is no alternative.
We run up the Elder Brain in the hopes of convincing it to let us go in peace, but having fought the first group of enemies makes this impossible. I think the only way to get through this area without fighting, at least with Tactics installed, is to just ignore Abdoshanheth's opening attacks and run straight to the Elder Brain under invisibility.
When the Elder Brain goes hostile, a massive horde spawns. We've got drow thralls, Fomorian Giants, Umber Hulks, duergar, mages, and multiple Mind Golems. Mercifully, Frisky Bits makes their Will save against two Ultrablast spells at the start of combat.
Seven Eyes would not have been sufficient to guarantee survival; it would have only blocked the first Ultrablast. And I think Antimagic Field would have prevented us from going invisible even via a potion, making it impossible to escape. Knowing that we have no guarantee of survival against further Ultrablast spells, we flee immediately, using Aegis to block an Icelance and then Improved Invisibility to hide (again, normal Invisibility won't work under Aegis).
I consider my options. Ultrablast has a long range and invisibility is no defense, so we'd really need summons to hold off the enemy if we had any hope of survival. Then I realize that I have one extremely powerful option to neutralize the mind flayers: Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.
With a base casting time of 1, Improved Initiative makes Resilient Sphere cast instantly. With a save DC of 29, 8 castings of the spell, and the ability to spam the spell until we run out, the chance of the first mind flayer escaping the effects is virtually impossible. This gives us 20 rounds of free action, which is more than enough time to clear out the rest of the enemies and surround the mind flayer with summons.
Somehow a Mind Golem more or less teleports onto our summons. Since our summons have nonmagical attacks and constructs apparently are immune to critical hit, they can't touch the golem. Frisky Bits brings out the Sure Striking Arrows to bypass the golem's damage reduction.
Eventually we bring the golem down, and Frisky Bits takes a few steps to the west to make sure the mind flayer can't reach them when they escape the Resilient Sphere. We stomp the mind flayer with our summons, only to see another arrive on the scene. We trap it before it can try to stun Frisky Bits.
More enemies crowd up the hall, including some Mind Golems. We manage to summon some Remorhazes, who have the attack power to actually damage the golems.
We fall back, rest, and return. But there's a collision bug in the hall that effectively forms an invisible wall blocking our access to the rest of the area.
This would constitute a game-breaking bug unless I can find a way to teleport past it. I decide to give a shot at fighting the enemy with the wall in place, hopefully using the bug in my favor, and if it proves impossible to proceed, I will reload to a previous save, use CTRL-J to hop over the wall, and the re-fight the enemies as if the wall was not present. The wall can be both a help and a hindrance, so I have to complete the area either both the help and the hindrance, or with neither.
I summon some goblins since they come out fast, then follow up with sturdier summons to send into the hall. When the enemy approaches, we trap the mind flayer and kill the golem with Remorhazes before shooting down the mind flayer from afar, just like before.
Then I discover I can remove the invisible wall just by saving and loading the game. Problem solved! We use the same strategy to bring down the rest of the enemies, and Frisky Bits never again has to make a saving throw against Ultrablast. Finally we reach the exit and clear out the last of the enemies, though the mind flayer manages to get a failed Reflex save out of Frisky Bits on a Mordenkainen's Force Missiles spell.
Mordenkainen's Force Missiles doesn't benefit from Spell Focus: Evocation due to a bug, but the damage scales dramatically with levels, assuming the target fails its save. A level 30 Mordenkainen's Force Missiles would deal 245 damage if the target failed all of its Reflex saves.
Next up, Mirabel and Majrash, two mages who come with a bunch of Harpies and Earth Elementals for some reason. There's a genuine risk of getting boxed in and overwhelmed, so I cast Shades to create a decoy and then go invisible.
When the enemy converges on our summoned Remorhaz, we hurry down to the south. Mirabel and Majrash prove too resistant to Resilient Sphere for us to trap them (Tactics mages tend to have excellent Reflex saves), so we just fire off a Symbol of Hopelessness to buy us time to cast Wail of the Banshee.
We trade spells with the mages for many rounds, with Frisky Bits notably surviving a Flesh to Stone spell thanks to Protection from Petrification (a very niche but very necessary spell).
Then things get ugly. Mirabel and Majrash both cast Cacofiend, and both prove immune to Insect Plague.
Why does Insect Plague exist if spellcasters are immune to it? I try to end things early, but Mirabel and Majrash are also immune to death magic.
There are now two hostile Cornugons on the map, and both of them use Blink, forcing a 50% miss chance on us. It makes combat deeply unsatisfying because it makes the fight take twice as long and there's no way to get around it, and the Cornugons also have damage reduction against Frisky Bits' arrows, forcing us to break out our +2 arrows.
One of the Cornugons fails its save against Symbol of Hopelessness and gets stunned for 10 rounds, but only because it rolled a 2. The Cornugons have Will saves of 26 and are immune to fear, so there's only a 7.5% chance of stunning the other Cornugon with another Symbol of Hopelessness, not counting its spell resistance. More irritating still, the Cornugons are immune to death magic.
Immunities are not fun. Resistances are a much better way of handling instant death effects when it comes to bosses.
I'm running low on summons, so I cast Vipergout and down one of our many Potions of Invisibility. Our vipers can do the work.
It takes many rounds, but the vipers finally bring down the mages, while the Cornugons simply vanish when Cacofiend's duration expires.
We enter Kuldahar Valley. The various undead go down to Symbol of Hopelessness and the Holy Swizarnian Hammer of Lucerne, which has a disruption effect with a high save DC.
For Hiepherus, Wail of the Banshee and Executioner's Eyes with a bow.
In Kuldahar, we use our massive gold supply to purchase a few important items, among them Big Black Flying-Death, a two-handed throwing axe.
Big Black Flying-Death has massive potential. It has great range, good numbers, has a triple critical hit damage multiplier due to being an axe, and the STR bonus to damage is 1.5 times the norm because it's a two-handed weapon. We also get the Boots of Speed and the Every God Ring for +5 to Wisdom, which gives us another +3 to AC at a time when every additional point of AC is getting increasingly more important.
Next, we assault the Yuan-ti temple of Sseth. Wail of the Banshee and Symbol of Hopelessness for the grunts...
...and Executioner's Eyes to land high-damage hits on enemies with immunities or strong saving throws. Blasphemy stuns us for a single round but our summons are already soaking up most of the pressure, leaving Frisk safe.
Solving a puzzle by random button pressing gets us another extremely useful bastard sword.
It's essentially an unreliable but potentially infinite source of summoned vipers.
When Symbol of Hopelessness fails against the Coiled Cabal, we switch to Wail of the Banshee. Some enemies have strong Will saves, some have strong Reflex saves, and some have strong Fortitude saves, but seldom do they have all three. Rock-paper-scissors.
Then the Viper's Fang Assassins come, and their leader, Ashra, has high APR, high-accuracy, high-damage ranged backstabs. We use invisibility to find a safe spot and bring out some summons before using Wail of the Banshee to clear the field.
We beat down Ashra. The battle is won! Now we must return to Kuldahar and brace for the invasion.
In Tactics4IWD2, Iselore has improved AI during this extremely lengthy fight of multiple waves, but is no longer immortal and his death means a game over. We're excellent at handling the various melee grunts, but the spellcasters are another issue.
Cedra is the only sorcerer with immunities, but she's very dangerous even by herself, as she attacks with Mordenkainen's Sword, and Mordenkainen's Sword gives her such massive attack bonuses that no character can reach the AC necessary to avoid her attacks.
We also see another terrifying sign. One of the Harpies fails a Will save against another Harpy's wail, revealing that a Harpy's wail can impose stun, the game-ending disabler against which there are practically no immunities in IWD2.
We can hardly touch Cedra thanks to her Improved Invisibility, but she is very capable of touching us.
Her attack bonus is 76. You'd need an AC of 96 to force her to roll a critical to hit you. Getting a 96 is theoretically possible but I'm not sure it's ever been done, because the sacrifices needed to attain an AC that high would render the character immensely impractical. There's no such thing as a 96. Even the mid-80s are scarcely even real.
Iselora is at Hurt (the IWD2 version of Injured), and while he's taking damage very slowly, I don't want him getting into trouble. Fortunately, Resilient Sphere offers no save for friendly critters.
Dispel Magic forces us to cast either Invisibility or Aegis. I choose Aegis, which ends up getting me into trouble when I can't cast Mirror Image and have to resort to Improved Invisibility when the pressure gets too high.
We're running low on summons, so I switch to the Black Adder bastard sword to summon some vipers by whomping everyone in sight.
Cedra persists even when the next waves arrive, but fortunately Frisky Bits' aura is clear when Cedra casts Blasphemy when we're under heavy pressure, allowing us to escape via potion when a spell would come out too slowly (Blasphemy and Holy Word both have base casting times of 1, and Invisibility is 2).
Frisky Bits casts Holy Power and Executioner's Eyes, which allow us to deal massive damage with Big Black Flying-Death. Our vipers keep the enemy busy.
More waves come in, and we cast Resilient Sphere on Iselore for the third time. More enemies, more summons, and more buffs when our old ones wear off after tens of rounds have passed. Finally, a summoned Remorhaz smashes the last of the enemy.
We hit cleric level 13 and finally gain access to level 7 spells, but unfortunately, Holy Aura is not a level 7 spell like I thought. This means that we can't attain long-duration high spell resistance to avoid getting stunned by Blasphemy. It'll be a long time before we can get that far.
On to Dragon's Eye! I don't know why the plot leads there, but it does. Most of these fights are not very interesting. Again, it's just Wail of the Banshee and stuff.
The clerics have Death Ward, so Wail of the Banshee is useless and we have to spend a long time killing them with melee damage. It's difficult but it's not interesting to discuss.
Downstairs, we try out Greater Shield of Lathander, which grants +40 spell resistance and 30- universal damage reduction, but only for 3 rounds (which, combined with its long casting time, is why it's not a reliable way of blocking Blasphemy). Turns out that 30- damage reduction isn't all that much against an Iron Golem's critical hit.
Next up, Olive Slimes. We use the same two fire spells we used to roast the jellies near the duergar slaver area.
We do all the relevant fetch quests and transform into a histachii to access a secret lever or something, with a Potion of Invisibility to escape attention since the histachii forms disables spellcasting.
All that's left is Thorasskus. We kill the Efreet with Wail of the Banshee and trap Thorasskus so we can deal with his allies without him bothering us.
Unfortunately, the other clerics like to cast Dispel Magic, which frees Thorasskus from the Resilient Sphere. Frisky Bits gets stun-locked by Blasphemy for three whole rounds, surviving because the enemies kept focusing on our summons instead of us.
We summon some vipers using the Black Adder and then start chopping up Thorasskus with a Greataxe +5, our highest-damage weapon.
Then it's just a long process of summoning new monsters and running away from Blasphemy spells until eventually we cut through the enemy's massive HP.
We buy a bunch of Holdfast Arrows from the fake Nathaniel and sell off another 500,000 gold's worth of extra loot. Holdfast Arrows don't deal much damage, but they entangle the target for 4 rounds without a saving throw. Only spell resistance, MGOI, or Freedom of Movement can block it.
Finally, Lord Pyros' lair. The absolute low point of the entire game, simultaneously the most ambitious and yet most clumsily executed questline in all of the Infinity Engine games. It's an extremely long and boring slog, there are zero clues about what you have to do and where you have to go, you end up backtracking over and over again, and you get exactly zero interesting items and barely any XP for all of your trouble.
Worse yet, we have to fight a beholder named Zil-t'yor (whoever came up with these names clearly had some bizarre punctuation fetish) who repeatedly spams an area-effect Dispel Magic spell that also imposes 100% spell failure. There is no saving throw and apparently it bypasses Aegis. Dumber still, the beholder is out of reach of most melee weapons and yet has massive resistance to missile damage as well as spell resistance, which means killing him takes forever.
This would be forgivable if the beholder wasn't able to fire off instant death and petrification rays within the anti-magic field (which can permanently kill party members), and if you didn't immediately get swarmed by a bunch of enemies from the south. With a clouded aura due to my forgetting about the spell failure effect, Frisky Bits barely survives long enough to drink a potion and hide.
Our pre-summoned undead to the north bring down the beholder before Frisky Bits even recovers from the spell failure.
In my first documented no-reload run of IWD2, I think I relied on Acid Fog to bring down the beholder, since it bypassed his spell resistance and the beholder didn't have the AI to float out of the cloud. Apparently you can do it just by letting summons fight it out off-screen.
After much backtracking, boredom, and a game-breaking bug where a cutscene stops halfway through (and it's a soft-lock; there's not even any indication that the questline has been broken!), we finally reach Izbelah. Based on advice from a walkthrough, I trap her in a Resilient Sphere while she's still non-hostile so we have time to summon critters to throw at her.
But Frisky Bits' Resilient Sphere lasts 20 rounds, and apparently that's enough time for Izbelah to switch to casting Temporal Stasis after Aegis. My memories of this fight suggest that Izbelah takes time to cast several layers of buffs before Temporal Stasis, but it seems that Resilient Sphere sped up the process by forcing her to wait.
Temporal Stasis has a casting time of 10 and it's an instant game over if she casts it because time paradoxes or something. Unsure if we can disrupt her spellcasting, and positive that we can't kill her in the 7 seconds before she ends the game, I resort to using one of our extremely rare and precious Protection from Magic scrolls on her, hoping that the spell failure will apply to Temporal Stasis.
We never find out if it does. We disrupt the spell by damage alone.
She starts casting it again, which I didn't know she could do, but we disrupt that casting as well. Soon Izbelah collapses and we talk to the Archon from afar using the encumbrance trick (we weigh down Frisky Bits by hauling several high-weight objects from a Bag of Holding).
Next up, the ice temple.
Nickademus has called in a favor and wants us to kill a bunch of demons for him. Fun fact: even if you never promised him a favor or never even spoke to him, he'll still summon you; he'll just give it with a slightly different dialogue.
I will spare you the lengthy and miserable process that I had to go through to win this fight. It took like two hours of tedious and repetitive micromanagement and drained all of our resources. The only reason we made it out alive is thanks to incredibly precise resource management.
Here's the deal. This area is crawling with Gelugons, Cornugons, Glabrezus, Abishais, and Lemures. The first three, especially the Gelugons, will gate in other demons. All of them have spell resistance and immunity to death magic, making our best options worthless. They also have high damage reduction that makes it hard for summoned critters to hurt them. They also deal lots of damage.
Our undead summons did not last long, and all of our non-undead summons constantly failed saves against confusion and fear effects, disabling them over and over. Worse yet, the big three were all nearly impossible to harm: the Gelugons have the highest HP and the best damage reduction; the Cornugons have Blink and therefore impose an unstoppable 50% miss chance; and the Glabrezus spam Mirror Image, forcing you to land extra attacks just to make them vulnerable.
These are all of the resources I had to burn in order to win this fight:
1. All of our summoning spells, including all 7 of our Vipergout spells, which amounted to 140 rounds of 140 vipers 2. All of our Holy Power, Executioner's Eyes, and Emotion: Hope spells and both of our Emotion: Hope scrolls 3. All 150+ of our +4 arrows 4. Over 150 arrows +3 5. All of our scrolls of Luck, Haste, Mordenkainen's Sword, Tenser's Transformation, Cat's Grace, and god knows what else I did to improve our ranged damage against the demons 6. All of our level 2, 5, 6, 7, and 9 sorcerer spell slots
We were completely empty when we took down the final Gelugon. For the first time ever, I ran out of spells--and even ran out of many of the scrolls and other resources I'd been collecting for a rainy day. I never really thought I'd bother digging that Spider Spawn scroll out of our scroll case, but we needed it. We needed every single spell and item we expended in this fight; we might not have made it if we hadn't burned every one.
Some highlights from the longest fight I've ever had in IWD2:
Discovering that the Gelugons actually give a tiny amount of XP, and also gate in Slayer Knights of Xvim, which are THE end-game fighters of IWD2:
Using the Halberd of the North's on-hit cold damage to remove extra Mirror Images from a Glabrezu and allow us to land more hits than would otherwise be possible.
Using the Black Adder to summon a chain of vipers so the Gelugons could gobble them up:
Resorting to Vipergout to keep the demons at bay while we attack from afar using Big Black Flying-Death:
Switching to arrows when I realized that I needed the superior attack bonuses from a bow to reliably hit the Gelugon's high AC:
The supreme confirmation of the fact that vipers were all but necessary to survive, because the enemy dealt so much more damage so much more easily than we did with all of our normal summons:
The absolute misery of trying to deal damage to a Cornugon despite their infinite Blink spells:
Seeing another Cornugon join the fight from the south just as the previous one went down (this happened many times, for Glabrezus and Gelugons as well as Cornugons):
Getting zapped by a Glabrezu because invisibility is worthless against demons and we were out of Mirror Images:
Summoning precious Remorhazes, only to see their spectacular offensive options neutralized by disablers:
Trying to run from the demons under invisibility when we ran out of Vipergout spells, then resorting to the Black Adder when they chased us into the halls:
Using our last Arrows +4 in a desperate attempt to overcome the demons' absurd damage reduction as our resources rapidly dwindled:
Using our last Mirror Image spell so we could tank a Gelugon after losing all of our summons:
And the last enemy falling:
For a long time, I've been wondering where a mysterious source of generic AC (the only type of AC that stacks in IWD2) on Frisky Bits is coming from. I finally realize that Tactics adds a single point of generic AC to your character, at least in HoF mode, after completing certain milestones in the main questline.
We arrive at the Fields of Slaughter. There are several tough fights here, including an extremely dangerous battle with Saablic Tan and his Mordenkainen's Sword spell. Basically, we HAVE to use a Protection from Magic scroll on him and then repeatedly attack him from behind invisibility until his death destroys the invisible barrier that prevents us from escaping the area. Then we have to deal with M'darfein, the magic-immune lich with Improved Alacrity who spams Mordenkainen's Force Missiles and Horrid Wilting.
After that, we have to deal with the Severed Hand. That's where things are going to get really ugly, especially because I'm not sure if we can get 8th level spells at this pace, and we really need those spells so we can cast Holy Aura and get our spell resistance up high enough to block all the Blasphemy spells that are going to come at us.
Isair and Madae are going to be even worse. Aside from the two liches with Improved Alacrity, all the enemies in that fight have crazy stats and amazing spells and resistances and immunities. It's just a bunch of horrible things happening all at once.
Corthief XIII the human thief update Traveling with: Shar-Teel, Viconia, Khalid, Imoen, Coran
Been a while since we have heard from him, but he is still alive. Corthief XIII has had some really rough moments which you will about to see.
We had a lot of summons so we thought we could take on Karhk, but we were very, very wrong. The EE Karhk seems considerably tougher than vanilla - the run nearly ended right here but a desparate scorcher finished the monster off.
So we gather what equipment we can, then try to get to civilization to raise our friends but on the way we run into a baslisk ambush!
We run south and managed to escape unscathed. Close call.
With some difficulty we mopped up the bandit camp. There was the Thay Wizards area to clear, but we badly underestimated the group of spiders and the web trap. Corthief nearly died to poison, I was clicking antidote but it wasn't clearing the poision, but finally it registered at the last possible second. We looted what we could and headed back to a temple, while encumbered. Luckily no ambushes on the way and we brought back our friends.
Gloryseekers' run ended where you find Rufie. Our mage was killed when some skellies sneaked up from the rear. We attacked them whereupon they retreated, though one died. We followed them and as a result got emboiled with some Amnish hunters. Wisdom would have said, "Run away" but we were all followers of Tempus so that wasn't an option.
The result was the end of the run.
I then played Gloryseeker herself solo. I thought that her enrage would be sufficient to beat Tarnesh but it wasn't. Glitterdust blinded her and she was then put to sleep. End of story!
Clearly Tarnesh's spell picks are different in EE.
The first spell after mirror image was usually fear which would have been ineffective against her. The ones that he chose this time were not.
Back at Boareskyre Bridge the monks quickly ran through a few quests, including having to restore Chimera after Junia got in touch with her darker side. They also got Jegg to make some +3 Bullets of Darkness for them.
After going to fetch the Flaming Fist the monks supported with slings to work their way through the initial crusaders. Wands then came into their own to deal with Oloneiros and the other leaders before stopping the mage blowing up the bridge.
Moving on to the Coalition Camp, the monks called Nazramu into the Material Plane using the spectacles and took advantage of his high prices to sell lots of hoarded equipment - netting the best part of 300k there. After completing a few little tasks in the Camp the monks set out for Dead Man's Pass. On the way they ran into a dead magic zone and unleashed a round of fireballs killing several mercenaries and persuading the Shadowy Figure to run away.
They cleared the Dead Man's Pass without too much trouble. That included making a final use of the Spectacles to bring Reanndra into the world. I didn't know what to expect there, but she handed over the Ring of the Tiny Fiend which seems like a decent item - as well as a bit of cash when she was killed before leaving. Chimera also used a fire giant strength potion topped up by his new DUHM ability from the Headband of Focus to bash the lock on a chest in a Hole in the Ground - he went on absent-mindedly to open it himself, saving against something there. There was also a potential problem in the other inside location - but the other monks were able to kill the mimic quickly enough to save Wraith after she was held.
At Dragonspear Castle the monks rescued Skie, before blagging their way into the Courtyard. The first thing they did there was adjudicate on an argument between Corinth and Valis. I thought I'd done that before, but this time determining that Corinth was guilty led to the entire group going hostile. As the monks ran away an emotion caught them and put 3 of them to sleep and Wraith had to rapidly change direction and take the pursuers away before going into stealth. Several rounds later she'd got back to the others thinking it was going to be possible to let the emotion wear off and then pick off the hostile enemies - but then suddenly it appeared that word had spread among the Crusaders that the monks were now persona non grata.
Chimera used a Bhaal horror to reduce the immediate pressure, while Phantom tried to lure the stone golems away, but took a couple of nasty hits as he ran past them.
Moments later he was killed rather oddly - apparently by a backstab from a crusader scout about 10 yards away (are they supposed to have the ability to do ranged backstabs?).
With further enemies appearing to the north it was clear this wasn't a battle that could be won and Chimera & Wraith took invisibility potions. Seconds later the others were dead
and Wraith & Chimera picked up all the valuable equipment before heading for the camp to ask Mizhena if she did a volume discount. Re-equipping everyone took a while, but they're finally ready to head off to Bloodbark Grove. I think I've had enough party play for a bit though, so the monks can have a rest there for a little while.
The Fields of Slaughter, like many upcoming fights, feature a mixture of fighters, clerics, and mages, plus some critters with immunities and/or spell resistance. The standard procedure is Wail of the Banshee on anyone who's not immune to it, Symbol of Hopelessness on everyone else unless they have a powerful Will save, and heavy melee pressure on clerics who will resist both.
Blasphemy spells will be increasingly common in this run and it worries me. Frisky Bits still has no effective defense against it; the only decent defense is high spell resistance, and we can't muster the 50 SR necessary to reliably block it unless we use Greater Shield of Lathander alongside Spell Resistance, and we can only maintain that for 6 rounds at most. Plus, Greater Shield of Lathander has a very slow casting time and chain-casting it is difficult to time (Improved Alacrity and casting multiple spells per round means we can't use the natural limitations of aura to count off the rounds).
We need Holy Aura, a level 8 spell, to block Blasphemy. Holy Aura will last over 10 rounds per casting and grant +25 SR, which should get us to 50 SR by the time we can cast it. But that requires two more levels and I'm not sure when, if ever, we'll be able to get those levels.
I decide to grab Cera Sumat. In HoF mode, it's a +10 longsword (yes, +10) that also grants +30 SR, which by itself should be enough to block a certain percentage of Blasphemy spells (maybe 75% for most spellcasters). However, it involves one of the toughest fights in the entire game--possibly the toughest. They have ludicrous stats, comprehensive immunities, massive resistances, and high-level spells. But after doing the math, I find that we can expect to deal about 100 damage per round from Frisky Bits alone if we buff with every spell we have (most importantly, Holy Power for +4 damage, Haste for +1 APR, and Executioner's Eyes for +4 to hit and critical threat range). That should be enough to bring down the enemy fighters with a high-pressure approach, leaving only the spellcasters, whom we can drain with summons, possibly including Vipergout.
It's a pretty big risk, but the biggest problem should be spells. And we get Cera Sumat at the start of the fight; not the end.
We position our summons so the enemy focuses on them instead of us, giving us room to cast Holy Power and Executioner's Eyes and start chopping them from afar with Big Black Flying-Death, but the enemy has amazing damage output and our summons aren't equipped to handle the pressure.
I summon a Remorhaz and keep going, but the damage we get is disappointing; the enemy has some 10- resistances that didn't show up in Near Infinity. Plus, the enemy archer has vorpal arrows.
Still, the enemy mage's Blink spell is backfiring spectacularly, and Frisky Bits is making decent progress because of their numerous triple-damage critical hits.
Broken Khree targets Frisky Bits. Knowing that he might have Stunning Attack or even Quivering Palm, we bolt. A monster summoning spells gives us multiple critters at once, forming a faster and more effective wall than Animate Dead or Shades. The Frost Salamanders we get have far inferior damage output, though.
Then the game abruptly ends.
Apparently the archer's vorpal arrows bypass Death Ward. I meant to double-check if Death Ward granted immunity to vorpal strikes, but I never did.
That's IWD2 for you. Like I said, our biggest problem would always be the 5% chance of a critical failure on a saving throw.
The only way of blocking that vorpal strike without relying on a saving throw is to use Antimagic Field, which means no buffs and no spells for the whole fight. So basically the fight is a no-go for a no-reload run.
The run is over, but to my surprise, I don't feel anything. I didn't really invest in this run the way I did in other runs, and I'm not sure I'll try again. The fastest way of beating the game is to use a build like the one I did (Wail of the Banshee is just so much more productive than basically anything else), and I don't want to start over with the same build.
The optimal build would likely be evil-aligned due to evil alignments' innate immunity to Blasphemy, or else have high long-duration SR, which would involve the deep gnome or drow races, Spell Resistance, and/or Holy Aura. I don't think I could play an evil-aligned character for a solo run; I kind of have a thing where every solo run has to be Undertale-themed, and playing an evil Frisk or Chara doesn't feel right. Playing a drow or deep gnome seems less user-friendly, and a cleric-heavy build would progress much slower through the game without access to Wail of the Banshee. Using mod items would speed things up, but the best mod items seem too game-breaking to be fun even in HoF mode.
It's too bad. I started this run because I wanted to do a solo no-reload run of every IE game on LoB/HoF difficulty. At least we've established that it's feasible. The only thing I don't really know is if it's realistic to beat Tactics HoF IWD2 without the Tactics HoF bonuses, which I don't think would be very fun anyway.
Aegis isn't quite as important as I thought it would be, at least as long as you have the Tactics HoF bonuses with Improved Alacrity, since you can escape most sources of Dispel Magic or Icelance with a quick Invisibility spell (note that you need high Spellcraft to see these spells coming). Minor Globe of Invulnerability will only block a single Dispel Magic, but you're probably only going to see a single Dispel Magic at a time from a critter that can see through Invisibility. MGOI should be mostly sufficient; Aegis isn't strictly necessary (though it is a lot better under certain circumstances).
The Tactics HoF bonuses are more impactful than I expected. I already knew you got +10 to AC, +2 to all ability scores, and Improved Alacrity, but apparently you also get +1 or +2 AC after completing certain milestones in the main questline, which amounted to +8 as of the Fields of Slaughter and probably goes up to +10 by the final battle. Monk levels might not be necessary to achieve adequate AC for tanking, which means you wouldn't need to have a lawful alignment.
Maybe I'll just leave this challenge incomplete. Maybe someone else will give it a shot someday.
I'm getting bored of casters, let's tear shit up psycho style. Meet,
Krieg the War Hulk!
Again, mod installation hasn't changed from Brunash or Spaz's playthrough. The War Hulk kit was created by @semiticgod and its description and abilities can be found here.
I've got the early game down to a science: Sell the Ring of Wizardry, kill Algernon, charm firebead, toast landrin's spiders, kill karlat, exhaust firebead's spells and murder him, charm silke, denature and then murder her, charm and lure and kill Kelddath's sirines, sell your loot, buy scrolls of stone to flesh from Kelddath and Gellana and some mirrored eyes potions in Ulgoth's Beard and Aule's Staff +3 in addition to Dushai's Ring of Free Action, go to basilisk country and use Korax to charm your first basilisk, set up the loop, and console in the rest of the XP. Boom, level 9 already. Go back to the Friendly Arm Inn, buy Buckley's Buckler, and boom: 20 CON for regenerating bucketloads of HP.
Krieg is now one-shotting every trash mob with his Speed Factor of 0 so I decide to do some wilderness quests. Melicamp does not survive being anti-chickenated.
I get more XP scrolls from Alvenhendar.
Got the CHA tome.
A bunch more wilderness quests are done so I do the main quest. Dave falls.
Got the DEX tome.
Leveled up from saving Aldeth's consortium.
Got the INT tome.
Got the WIS tome from the Tymora temple.
Larze squishes Quenash for the Cloak of Balduran.
Marek and Lothander's quest is finished.
Got more XP scrolls from BG's temple's and from the guy that wants the Helm of Balduran and got 2 more levels out of it.
Drizzt gets styled upon due to my very low THAC0 and his armor's weakness to crushing damage.
That's about as far as I've gotten in the span of a day. Not bad if you ask me. Kind of getting sick of the documentation part though, because I just want to play instead of write.
@Flashburn: A solo War Hulk? Seriously? How are you going to survive? Every time you take damage, you run the risk of suffering from berserk on a failed save vs. spell, and every hit penalizes your AC and save vs. spell by 1. I deemed a solo War Hulk run impossible!
@Flashburn: A solo War Hulk? Seriously? How are you going to survive? Every time you take damage, you run the risk of suffering from berserk on a failed save vs. spell, and every hit penalizes your AC and save vs. spell by 1. I deemed a solo War Hulk run impossible!
It probably is impossible, but I'll try it anyway for the hell of it. The penalties aren't as bad as they sound unless you approach the "AC penalty death-spiral" zone. Usually you can kill stuff in one or two hits before that happens, but big groups can be a problem.
The Iron Throne party is disposed of using careful line-of-sight cheesing and I move on to Candlekeep Catacombs. I bust open the two locks that previously foiled Spaz and raise my WIS and STR. The vault containing the STR tome required a Potion of Storm Giant Strength to crack open as 23 STR wasn't enough.
From Candlekeep's temple of Oghma, I bought more XP scrolls and cash them in for 105k XP, which wasn't enough to get me a level.
Meanwhile on the Ice Island, I level up.
I opt not to do any of the other TotSC content, because I have no way to disarm traps like Brunash's party or just jump over them like Spaz, and the Werewolf Island isn't worth it. Onto Sarevok's coronation. I'm not sure I can keep the dukes alive. I gulp an oil of speed and use Potions of Firebreath to toast the dopplegangers, making sure not to hit the dukes. The Flaming Fist gets caught in it, however, reducing my sterling 20 reputation back down to 1.
Onto Sarevok and his goons. With the power of double-strength Haste, I kite Sarevok while I take potshots at Semaj with the Throwing Axe +2. When all of his mirror images are gone, I zip up and smack the bastard.
Angelo is next, who suffers extra damage from using missile weapons in melee.
I'm either too fast for Tazok, or he's just afraid to come out of hiding. But I kite Sarevok in a square with more Potions of Firebreath and take potshots at him too but with my Speed Factor 0 staff instead. He falls.
Picture from Vielmond This character's going to dual to Fighter at level 3, aiming for Grandmastery in Slings. Spells are mostly going to go towards Identify and Invisibility, but having the ability to use wands and scrolls in armor is going to prove useful. Hopefully.
We only stayed in the Coalition Camp long enough to pick up some Bwoosh and poison before heading for Dead Man's Pass. We didn't use invisibility going along the road, which meant we had to fight group after group encamped along it. At one point that resulted in an unintended death for someone called Ephrik, but checking up while writing this suggests that he deserved it.
We'd done pretty well to deal with all the enemies without making much in the way of mistakes,
but after resting found that a new lot of enemies had arrived right next to us.
Saying sod that for a game of soldiers we just ran round them to get to the area exit.
A quick trip to Dragonspear castle saved Skie before moving on to Bloodbark Grove. The basilisk there offered a tempting source of XP and that was soon in the bag. In the process though a group of skeleton archers were activated and the skeletal mage with them sent Skyler running in panic - though Duoa was able to pretty quickly cure that.
A bit more fighting saw off the last of the skeletons
and we decided to investigate a nearby lair. The vampire and dread wolves inside it were swiftly dealt with,
but there were a couple of chests there that proved too tempting to resist. Duoa saved against a trap on the first, but the second hit her for 64 damage - more than enough to chunk her. There was no obvious animation as she died,
so we initially thought it must have been a spike trap, though I did say the damage was more like what you would expect from an acid trap - and when Skyler moved closer she did indeed see some evil green liquid gently bubbling and chuckling to itself.
Random roll 151 deals me a swashie, and Grond0 is given an assassin. I decide to deal with locks, traps and snares while Grond0 will focus on stealth then snares. I realise while selecting weapon proficiencies that I need to change alignment so reroll (noticing I had forgotten to change any of the 6 primary stats). Once we start the game Grond0 realises he intended to set CON to 19, but left it at 18. Not a huge problem but we really should pay more attention to this stuff...
I have a shortbow when not using scimitar + buckler. Grond0 has crossbow and quarterstaff. Off we go.
Candlekeep - done. Shoal - done in. Noober - talked out. Ogre girdle - shot down. Samuel - turned in.
Drughliya had lost a couple of snares on her travels. Where where they.
Basilisks - Drughliya melees as Bump backstabs, or shoots when stealth fails.
A minor hiccup sees Mutamin provide an unguided tour to the area. Drughliya eventually snapping out of horror without taking any damage.
Bump is keen to demonstrate his snare abilities but Kirian uses her multiplayer-fu to spot him and in his frustration he says the wrong thing and her entire party walk away. Oh well.
Snares and backstabs make the lighthouse a warg free area.
Drughliya is not sure about taking on the sirines. Some Dutch Courage (potions of defence, clarity and speed) are enough to convince her. She intended sneaking in with a snare for the second group but Bump wandered in and upset them so we did it the hard (for them) way.
Inside the cave we moaned about not having +1 arrows and having to squander arrows of biting. Bump minimised the need for that by blatantly racking up triple damage backstabs before the next patch removes such abuse.
Due to Gloryseeker having such a good roll, I decided to try her again. She is a Chaotic Neutral Gloryblood of Tempus. From her behaviour you would think that her alignment should be good. It is her motivation that is the problem. She just likes the adulation that arises from being a hero, so if an evil choice would make her more popular, that is the choice she would make.
In Candlekeep I killed three upgraded assassins.
In Beregost Finch complained when Karlat started hitting a girl wearing glasses.
I headed to Nashkel where I found some decent armour. On the way I was given a ring that increased my charisma to 18.
Upon returning to Beregost, I helped Eltoth get back into shape.
Heading northwards I killed an ogre with a belt fetish.
I then returned Joia['s ring.
I then killed Tarnesh after a bloody fight, some of it being mine.
I gained a useful ring after helping Mirianne.
I then helped Aiwell, Mellicamp, and Jamdak.
I returned aptly named Perdue's lost sword.
I then successfully went in search of an axe that a sirine had stolen and killed some other sirines.
The Trio made some more progress today, and almost without death: * When we loaded up, we noticed we had just beaten Mulahey. Our victory might have made us complacenet, as Trukk got spotted before Alor was done casting buffs. All of a sudden, the party was scrambling. Trukk's health rapidly dwindled, he tried to make a run for it got both held and poisoned. We didn't have any tricks to save him. Mikel and Alor were able to at least avenge Trukk's death.
After raising our friend, the rest of the session was much smoother. Some things we did: * Ankhegs nest was cleared. By this point, the party is doing a lot of damage, Trukk with his fighter skills, Alor with his great strength, and Mikel with his crossbow of speed. * Sirenes were dealt with. A clarity potion was enough for this part. The golems were a bit trickier, as we couldn't disarm the traps, but our good damage dealing made them simple enough. * We dealt with Bjorin's half-ogres, as well as the bandits in the area. * Tranzig understandably had no chance. * Nimbul and Neira also had no chance, though Trukk managed to get himself both feared and held, but Alor and Mikel easily dealt with the assassins before they could finish off Trukk. * The Bandit Camp (outside) went really well when Alor got lucky and managed to charm Khosahnn. We repaid him for his help by pumping him with bolts and bullets. * Mikel tried a risky play but it worked out great - he used a firebreath potion on Venkt (via stealth). Mikel caught one of his party members, but the enemies soon fell. * About this time, we worked our way through the Cloakwood. We mostly just skipped enemies, though we did fight out the odd ambush or two (why not with a dwarven defender in the party). We made a stop by Drassus. We tried a fireball, shaman fog, and other things - it was all too much for the enemies and Trukk inherited Drassus' boots.
* The party carefully worked their way through the mines, mostly by skipping enemies. We managed to avoid Heirashan by having Mikel stealth, and then tried to exit the level with Trukk and Alor in the closest room - this avoided any fighting that large group. * We made it all the way to Davaeorn and defeated him. But then Gate70 tried to warn Mikel of the trap that has yet to trigger - Corey_Russell quickly backed off - but apparently too quickly, as the game crashed.
We ran out of time, so we loaded from autosave, saved, and will continue next week.
In Dragonspear's intro dungeon, I make it to the end thanks to a scroll of Protection from Undead again, but I almost paid the price for skipping most of the fighting because it takes too long. Korlasz's army had me boxed in with no way out, but I used an invisibility potion to save myself. Through careful pathfinding, I was able to disentangle myself from the meat walls and torched them with a Potion of Firebreath with double-strength Haste.
The rest were whittled down using the explosive potions, and I killed Korlasz.
Meanwhile in the dwarven digsite, I used 2 more scrolls of Protection from Run-Ending Assholes while I beat them up without retaliation. I managed to level up from doing so.
The Coldhearth Lich is destroyed.
Morentherene is one-shotted.
Ziatar is put down as well.
For the Neothelid, I drink a Potion of Clarity and kite the Mordy Swords until it pops out, then take a whack at it. Pretty easy.
Darskhelin and his goons are rekt.
I level up while dealing with the spellstone and I surrender Bridgefort to the crusade but destroy the supplies. The crusader mage blocking the bridge is killed with a very lucky crit despite having like 6 mirror images up.
Rigah and Julanne are killed. Rigah's sword will increase my critical chance by 10% whenever I get hit, leading to devastating criticals. The necromancer cabal beneath Dragonspear is dealt with. Zhadroth is killed by using the Secret Revealed and Rigah's keen sword. His Ring of Regeneration will let me heal outside of combat and without expending regeneration potions.
The crusader attacks were super dangerous. Getting hit once could spell an enraged death-spiral. I expend most of my potions of firebreath trying to deal extra damage to them. The trolls are dealt with just fine.
The warmages were a bit easier but the warpriests were tricky because Sanctuary made it so they could outheal my firebreath potions. They eventually all fall however. For the fight with Grimgor and co., I have to take on one named goon at a time and kite them with double strength haste. I slowly cleave through them.
Onto the siege of dragonspear, our forces hold up against Caelar's quite well without much of my assistance. When I see that we aren't gaining ground, I use the rest of my potions of firebreath and run along the perimeter of the battlefield damaging anyone in my way.
The main battlefield gets cleared when crusaders start coming from down the lane. I advance and Ashatiel teleports in and challenges me to a 1v1. I accept and win, leveling up as a result.
Meanwhile in hell, more careful kiting is done against the devils. Hamatulas in particular are dangerous because of their backlash damage.
I kill Thrix and his goons, then level up on the elevator.
I accept Caelar's help but I do not command her manually. She buys me enough time to apply an oil of speed and potion of magic resistance so that the Cornugons don't spam Lightning Bolts. I put on a potion of invulnerability and then have at Belhifet, using the same strategy I used against Sarevok.
I decided a few days ago it was time to pick up this challenge again after making 10 initial attempts some time ago. Bash is a fighter / mage who is able to use any of his abilities, but severely restricted in that he can only use Brage's berserking sword to kill anything that he gets XP for. He would thus be allowed to summon a pit fiend and watch it slaughter its way through a town, but couldn't do the same with standard summons. He's playing in an SCS installation.
An 11th attempt failed against Greywolf when I misjudged how easily the bounty hunter would hit Bash before he had got full plate and the slashing girdle.
The 12th attempt didn't get even that far. On the way through the Cloud Peaks Bash had taken some damage in a gnoll travel ambush. After sleeping Caldo & Krumm and a couple of dire wolves he decided to rest in the cave to recover HPs. Resting is safe there, so would only have taken a few seconds anyway, but he tried speeding things up fractionally by using LMD on a bat. I'm too used to playing LoB now though and had forgotten that would kill the bat ...
The 13th attempt seemed to be going well with reputation up to 19 and Bash at level 5. After sleeping and killing the xvarts attacking Arabelle I forgot to put Bash's armor back on though - and even the half dozen bandits that ambushed him on the way to the basilisk area proved too much.
For his 14th attempt Bash once more died after a reasonable start. He'd just finished work in the Cloud Peaks and got to level 5 when ambushed by an ogre mage. He could have used a potion of invisibility at the start of the contest, but it's doubtful if he could have then got out of sight before going berserk. Instead he chose to attack, but couldn't get through mirror images quite quickly enough and died with the ogre mage at near death.
Starting the 15th attempt Bash went straight from Candlekeep to find Brage and bring him back to Nashkel. The ankheg armor was picked up there and Bash also learnt LMD before returning to Beregost and slaughtering Algernon. His cloak was used to ensure Neera did no talking while Bash approached her and cut her in half to get at her gem bag.
The first levels were intended to have been gained from Shoal. She was charmed and went in search of a wolf that could chew her up while Bash waited just out of sight to avoid going berserk. She didn't find one of those, so eventually settled for a ghoul and was duly paralyzed. Bash moved forward to try and finish her off, but got a poor initiative roll and the ghoul got a fatal blow in as Bash was about to swing. The ghoul failed to get a hit on Bash though before he swung again at it.
Looking for an alternative source of quick XP Bash went to the Beregost temple and charmed the sirines there. They were dragged outside and chewed up by dogs to allow Bash to finish them off with one chop. That lot pushed him up to level 3/3.
After visiting High Hedge to learn some spells, Bash headed north. The belt ogre was slept before he returned Tenya's bowl (after the need to chase one of the fishermen proved to be bad news for Ajantis).
That allowed Bash to use invisibility to bypass the nearby ankheg without going berserk and move on to Ulgoth's Beard. Dushai was charmed there and pulled away from any innocents before being put to the sword. Bash also importantly succeeded in learning her web scroll - web + free action makes for a nice combination for a melee specialist .
Reputation was pushed back up thanks to encounters with Joia, Mr Colquetle and Firebead as well as a few temple donations. However, while en route to do Melicamp Kissiq proved to be just too slow to walk away and his death undid most previous gains.
More hard earned money was given to the temple before Melicamp added insult to injury by croaking.
Helping Ardrouine was made easy by sleeping 2 worgs from out of sight (note that when doing that you need to change armor before the spell projectile hits or the game will count it as being in combat). Charleston Nib was potentially more of a problem, due to the chance of attacking him once all the diggers were dead. Fortunately Bash didn't instantly go hostile as he withdrew from the diggers after the cut-scene and was able to charm the archaeologist to get him out of the line of fire (he wouldn't then give a reward until Bash rested to let the charm expire).
Webbing and killing Laryssa provided mage level 4 (as always when talking to Brage I lured him away first earlier on to leave Laryssa for later).
Further enemies (actual or potential) were webbed on the way through the Cloud Peaks to help Drienne. She was straightforward, but Bash had to put Caldo & Krumm to sleep (as usual using LMD from extreme range to annoy them first) to avoid any risk of attacking the Dryad. At the Gnoll Stronghold, Gnarl & Hairtooth failed to escape from a web before Bash went to collect the charisma tome. Moving north a polar bear was stuck in webs.
It wasn't really a good idea to be exploring the Cloud Peaks at level 4 due to the chance of an ogre mage ambush sleeping Bash. However, he safely returned to Nashkel and disposed of his loot. He also killed Vitiare at the Carnival. There was the possibility of a massacre of innocents there, so Bash learned PW:sleep to give himself an option if Vitiare broke from the web after being hit once - but he didn't anyway (and didn't go hostile).
All the xvarts attacking Arabelle were slept
before just a pair of wolves tried an ambush when returning Samuel to the FAI. While there Tarnesh was webbed and chopped down. In Beregost Bash did a few more jobs. Pulling Karlat into a webbed area worked well, but attacking Silke was a mistake. I forgot that her scripted stoneskin would fire when she was damaged, despite being held in a web. That gave her enough time to break free and cast mirror image, but fortunately she got stuck again after that and died without managing another spell.
Webs wouldn't be much good against Landrin's spiders, so strength (pushing that from 18(99) to 18(00) and mirror image were used instead there - that got Bash to level 5 fighter.
Next Bash went ankheg hunting. The use of web from out of sight meant the ankhegs got few attacks and Bash took no damage there. Clearing the nest took a while (going to the edge of the map to rest between each fight and back to Beregost to sell shells after every third fight), but Bash was rewarded by getting mage level 5 there.
Sleeping Bjornin's half-ogres provided his final reputation point, though he had to survive a small bandit ambush on the way back to Beregost (he'd remembered to put his armor on this time). At Ulgoth's Beard he successfully learned all the spells available there (including remove curse which will give him lots of extra combat options if he lasts long enough to use it). On the way back from there Bash ran into his first full bandit ambush. There was a nasty moment there when the bandits scored 3 critical hits in a row, but the last half dozen of them failed to do any more damage.
Bash then bought a few more scrolls, along with upgrading his ankheg armor for full plate.
I knew I shouldn't have bothered posting an update!
With full plate and the girdle of bluntness I decided it was time for Bash to face some basilisks. The first of the lesser ones to the south died without trouble, but the greater basilisk got lucky with its attacks and it was a relief to see him go down with Bash down to 40% HPs. The remaining 2 lesser ones then failed to get a hit in. To the north I had intended to leave the statue as a potential source of future reputation, but as soon as Bash saw one of the basilisks nearby he turned round and chopped the statue. The basilisks were next though and got him to fighter level 6.
He recruited Korax and sent him in invisible to attack Mutamin. The mage was duly paralysed, which should have made finishing the combat easy enough. However, I was a bit slow to move Korax as Bash came forward and, as he went instantly berserk on sighting Mutamin, he focused on Korax to attack. Even though he didn't actually make an attack, Korax still went hostile. That gave Mutamin the chance to recover while Bash was fighting the others and a remove magic was all that he needed to decide the contest.
A couple of sessions today, detailed below. We start off by picking up a tome of leadership. After that we're off to Durlags Tower. The entrance fee turns out to be higher than we anticipated, seeing Bump raised at a temple courtesy of a Battle Horror. Drughliya heads off to the temple but Grond0 suggests as the Battle Horror is down to 10hp it should be finished off - this means Bump is down on XP.
Drughliya uses her remaining wand of missiles charges and the last one completes the job.
We've decided Bump could do with an upgrade from Silke's quarterstaff so reputation is upped to 20 (The Dig, and Brage). Bump gets a last +1 backstab in.
Meilum donates his bracers to our cause. We return to Durlag's Tower for the Wisdom tome, and for a scimitar +2. The greater basilisks run us around enough for our potions to run out so the last one is left alone on the roof.
Drughliya was unable to remove the trap on the scimitar container - her fire protection ring working as intended though.
We had fun in Nashkel Mine to start with. Miner Beldin survived thanks to a snare that caught all four kobolds before they could target him. Things turned a bit more ugly when kobolds outside Mulahey's lair hit Drughliya twice and forced her to run. She dropped a snare on the way but nobody was pursuing and Bump tidied up before she returned. Mulahey got what he deserved and we exited.
The Amazons were outside, Bump had been in the shadows and forgot he had failed to hide so combat began without our advantage. Drughliya drew a few spells and saved their effects but when facing disabling spells it is best to put as much distance down as you can.
This meant Bump had to fend for himself and he took a few spells. He looked done for so Drughliya carefully picked her moments before realising Bump was faring better than expected. Drughliya ventured in and cured light wounds on him before retreating once more as Bump was finally held fast.
Drughliya picked up the pieces from stealth and hit a temple. On our return Bump had managed to hide and we made short work of the Amazons second time around.
The bandit camp was cleared without incident, Taughosz Khosann chasing us into snares before falling onto a scimitar blade.
Venkt and co wisely declined to fight outside so our snares remained idle. Drughliya meleed Venkt down while Bump swapped poisoned projectiles with Hakt. Drughliya suspected Raemon had suffered an earlier backstab accident (as had Britik).
Cloakwood has been traversed. We had to retreat from the ettercaps and spiders once as our wandering combat brought several spider respawns in and standing our ground to thin them down led to some poison being absorbed. More care on our return saw the area cleared.
Gloryseeker has decided not to keep evil creatures in her party for any length of time as their actions would tend to lose her reputation. She felt it wise also to avoid having the ultra-righteous in her team as they would sense the fact that her apparent goodness was just a sham. She therefore dropped off Khalid. As a result she is trying to restrict her party to those who are neutral, thus she invited Jaheira, Tenya and Branwen to join . She will be acquiring a neutral thief and mage ASAP. on a previous post I neglected to mention that Finch's flail broke when fighting Karlat. She has killed Caldo and Krumm and also got involved in some minor skirmishes when trying to rest. This taught her that Jaheira' inability to wear decent armour meant that she needed protection.
EDIT
After completing a number of quests in the south, Gloryseeker headed to the lighthouse area where she killed 3 sirine and a number of pirates and rescued a boy from some worgs.
(After all of these years playing BG1, I discovered that to enlist Safana, you need a male in the group. It shows that I haven't been using Safana very often. )
A fter looting the caves and killing the three golems, Gloryseeker helped Charleston Nib, killed Gallor and helped Brage. In that time Rep didn't go up even one point. Looks like either a mod or EE is stopping rep going up.
@Flashburn: I'm amazed you got so far! Congratulations!
I am wondering how you're going to deal with SCS mages, though. Hard-locked 1 APR means it would take 10 rounds to remove a high-level mage's Stoneskins, and SCS mages will re-cast that spell once or twice after it runs out. One of the War Hulk's HLAs has an instant death effect, but plot-critical mages like Irenicus will be immune.
By the way: I've lost a lot of computer files due to a bad hard drive, but I've been considering releasing an updated version of the War Hulk kit. The new version wouldn't have hard-locked 1 APR, but I figured out a way (and could probably figure it out again, with a little work) to make only a single attack per round benefit from the War Hulk's various bonuses. I've also considered using a different method of boosting damage: instead of granting a flat +1 bonus per X levels or whatever, the War Hulks would get +5% to all physical damage dealt and maybe a maximum damage effect in order to encourage the use of two-handed weapons.
Comments
The good news is he can still climb into my pack and says he can do simple thief jobs
The bad news is Imoen has nicknamed him Nimran which upset the little guy but he got his own back on her.
We made it to daylight only to see how magic users are treated in this city. I had to sell most of my items to pay for a licence and the potion of nicking stuff helped me grab a nice ring but the upstairs shop still spotted me trying to swipe glasses and started yelling thief… the hyporcrite lost some of my rep and I may have to find work outside the city because of it
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/954289/#Comment_954289
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/954338/#Comment_954338
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/954617/#Comment_954617
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/960637/#Comment_960637
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/960902/#Comment_960902
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/961191/#Comment_961191
The monks walked into an ambush at the bridge, but fireballs and wand blasts quickly turned the tables
Arriving at the Troll Claw Woods the monks beat up some Irregulars before systematically clearing the area - essentially always leaving a clear area behind them in order to be able to scout ahead using stealth and then pull enemies into a running fight.
On the way to Boareskyr Bridge they beat up some goblins guarding a hole in the ground. Descending into that they used missiles to kill one group of myconids, but then went into melee on the next. The myconids proved to ignore stun, which gave them more opportunity to confuse the monks than I expected and the 2 not confused had to expose themselves to protect the others. I made a mistake at one point though when one of the shielding monks slipped into stealth - resulting in Chimera taking a critical hit. Not long after that though everyone regained their senses.
At the bridge they cleared the external area, including deciding to take the quick option against a cave full of goblins.
At the Forest of Wyrms they quickly picked up some Stalker Gauntlets. Wraith took those - as the leader she's normally the one that scouts ahead so the stealth bonus is most helpful to her. Together with the Blood Red Ioun Stone and Sidestep Slippers that also raises her dexterity to 21 to improve her AC. After clearing the paths they used stealth and free action to get rid of the web traps in the spider cave before running round the spiders themselves.
Moving on to the next cave the 2 characters with dagger proficiency crept forward and let fly at Morentherene. My experience of how deeply she sleeps has been very mixed, but on this occasion she ignored the fact that daggers were clinking on the stones all around her until the 9th attack finally got a hit.
More bugbears were surprisingly poor at chasing the monks, so were able to be dealt with in ones and twos without taking any damage. Unfortunately though Wraith was feebleminded by the trap there. The monks tried resting for a full day, but the effect seemed to be permanent (as per the spell). Luckily though, Chimera had picked up a greater restoration scroll from somewhere and that set Wraith to rights (the icon remained, but she came back under control).
Inside the temple Wraith was soon in trouble again when held by a trap in sight of 3 invisible stalkers. Once her stealth wore off she was attacked and would have died there if the monks had not had access to wands.
After killing all her guards, the monks moved on to Ziatar and attempted to stun her - and slightly to my surprise that worked
I managed to remember this time the combination for the secret door to the Shadow Aspect (thanks to Wise pointing out it was Pi
Wraith - L9, 79 HPs, 407 kills, 1 death
Spectre - L9, 75 HPs, 353 kills, 1 death
Phantom - L9, 74 HPs, 269 kills, 0 deaths
Spook - L9, 74 HPs, 265 kills, 2 deaths
Spirit - L9, 76 HPs, 273 kills, 1 death
Chimera - L9, 74 HPs (incl. 10 from bracers), 453 kills
Spaz the Warlock!
BG1: 1, 2, 3Korlasz's Crypt is cleared with help from a Protection from Undead scroll, but now that I can't spam Chains with Doom projectiles and now that the AI is much smarter, its harder to deal with groups. I'll have to use these wands of fire that have been collecting in my bag of hoarding. I opt to make Korlazs surrender instead of fighting her, and skip the group waiting outside where she's holed up.
Before heading out to Dragonspear, I sell expensive jewelry and then buy the Peacock Cap, which gives me another +2 CHA bonus, increasing DOOL and L&B's bonuses to +5! Buying some Potions of Persuasion from Belegarm gets me up to 25 CHA which gives +6! I enter the dwarven digsite and start clearing out the undead, but one of the dwarf clerics stumbles into my ray of fire. Damn.
A wight hit me and level drained me, turning off all my saving throw boosts. A cleric immediately took advantage of this and put me to sleep with Command, then a ghast held me. That's the end. What a miserable way to go.
Spaz - Warlock 18 (RIP)
So what's next? Should I restart back to the very beginning, or try SoD over again? Or move on to BG2 with the Spaz that killed Sarevok and call it a trilogy no-reload instead?
I suppose you could bring it into BG2 and just call it a trilogy no-reload. Starting over in SoD would be faster, but the Hall of Heroes is traditionally limited to runs that are one continuous narrative, as I learned when I re-started a run from the beginning of ToB and found out that it wouldn't count (and later restarted from Candlekeep just to get into the Hall!). I personally have a habit of restarting over from Candlekeep in order to put a character into the Hall, but I'm not sure that I would recommend it. Playing to get the trophy is not much fun, as I've said before.
Which game do you think is most fun to play with this class?
Skyler (Elf ranger, Grond0); Duoa (Human Conjurer, Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/957980/#Comment_957980
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/959603/#Comment_959603
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/960256/#Comment_960256
Arriving in Troll Claw Woods we immediately decided we'd seen enough of that and pushed straight on to the Forest of Wyrms. On the way there we found a hole in the ground with some myconids in. Skyler put her plate on against the first group and, despite being confused almost all the time, he was able to kill them without taking any damage.
On arrival Skyler scouted ahead and spotted a group of wyverns. After using a malison Duoa managed to affect them all with emotion or chaos to make beating them up easy enough.
In the temple Skyler was held by a trap, but far enough from a group of guards for them not to turn hostile - though Duoa did raise a slight worry by terribly helpfully saying "Don't worry, I'll bring them to you".
If the guards had been more difficult than expected, the reverse was true for Ziatar. Duoa threw a web in and she got stuck. She remained stuck as arrows and a malison poured in and died without ever getting free.
The Neothelid was a different story. The intention was to distract it with summons, but it was playing hard to get and surfaced several times for just short periods - one of those was painful for Skyler who was caught in a poisonous breath.
After going back to the Flaming Fist camp to raise Duoa, Skyler also bought some raise dead scrolls in case of future contingencies before returning to the temple. On the way in Skyler threw a few daggers at Morentherene. It looked like the hoped for quick kill was not on the table when the dragon reared up and shook off the damage from one dagger. However, the asynchronicity of computers when playing MP worked in our favor this time and the following dagger not only hit, but penetrated to the dragon's heart.
Next up was the Shadow Aspect. That got a backstab in on Skyler and forced her to retreat, while Duoa summoned some monsters as a distraction. With the Shadow Aspect focused on those a couple of critical hits with missiles helped finish it off quickly.
The final target in the temple was Akanna. The intention there was to use summons to distract her aerial servants, but they followed too quickly and Duoa was hit hard.
At Boareskyr Bridge Vichand is far enough away from the Crusaders to be attacked. However, an initial assault didn't quite kill him before his buffs fired. If he'd run at that time and brought in the rest of the camp things might have been dodgy, but he chose to stand and fight - and died.
Skyler, Ranger 9, 105 HPs incl. 5 from Helm), 447 kills
Duoa, Conjurer 10, 38 HPs, 165 kills, 5 deaths
Anyway, Malavon Despana the drow mage--who is totally not the demented clone Malavon from the first Icewind Dale, who also cloned himself--wants us to rescue his sister Ginafae, who is with driders for some reason. And the driders are here because of something called the Viciscamera, which has some relation to the Legion of the Chimera.
I don't know the plot and I don't have to. All I know is that we have to fight driders, kill the hideous blob of meat called the Viciscamera, and talk to Ginafae. But first, there's a drow ambush literally just outside Malavon's camp. Fun fact: Wail of the Banshee bypasses spell resistance.
I think this is a mod-introduced fight, but I'm not sure. Either way, the drow backstabbers drop a lot of Potions of Invisibility.
We also have to fight some local mind flayers with long, unpronounceable names. I am enjoying Frisky Bits' newfound fighting abilities. Landing critical hits is always very satisfying, and Executioner's Eyes and 2 points of luck from Young Ned's Knucky make 30% of our attacks into critical hits.
Next up, the Viciscamera. Characters with high Alchemy can concoct a poison to take it down, but you can also just walk up and kill it. The disadvantage of the direct approach is that multiple waves of driders come after you, and both the drider sorcerers and the drider clerics use Dispel Magic, forcing us to burn Invisibility spells to avoid a 5% chance of losing all of our buffs.
It's very difficult to get a handle on the enemy. They have massive circles, which makes getting boxed in a genuine risk, and since they come in waves, you can neutralize a patch of them and then just see more driders take their place. You can nail them with Symbol of Hopelessness, but the clerics will cure it with Remove Fear and Remove Paralysis. You can bring them down with Wail of the Banshee, but that takes a whole round to cast, and we can only destroy the Viciscamera by dedicating time and energy to melee attacks--it's completely immune to magic.
That blue visual effect over the driders is Remove Paralysis curing the effects of Frisky Bits' Symbol of Hopelessness spell.
One of the enemy wizards fires off a Disintegrate spell at Frisky Bits. We should be immune by virtue of having reached level 26, but since Frisky Bits makes their save, we don't get the message proving that immunity, leaving me to worry.
Notice that Frisky Bits gets a +39 bonus to their Fortitude save. We have a lot of buffs that improve our saves, but by far the best is our 32 Charisma, which gives +11 to all of our saving throws thanks to our one level in paladin. A single paladin level is a great benefit to any sorcerer, much like a single monk level is a great benefit to any cleric or druid because of the WIS-based AC bonuses when not wearing armor or robes or a shield.
IWD2 has lots of multi-classing options, but the optimal builds tend to be involve taking a single class for the level 1 bonuses and then concentrating all the other levels into something that scales quadratically.
Anyway, Frisky Bits casts Holy Power to get another +4 to damage (one of the reasons why clerics are better damage dealers than actual fighters), but finds that they can't deal any damage to the Viciscamera with arrows. Some types of damage reduction in IWD2 can be bypassed by enchantment levels, so I switch to Sure Striking Arrows, which have no bonuses but strike as +5 (they also work great against Sherincal).
We're lucky to have summons, because the sorcerers apparently have Icelance and we could have been stunned for up to 4 rounds if we hadn't cast Aegis before it hit.
It takes a long time and multiple castings of Invisibility and summoning spells, but Frisky Bits takes down the Viciscamera with the help of a Remorhaz.
Remorhazes are the only decent summons we get from Shades. It actually used to be better (or at least much more reliable and easy to use) before we hit level 20, because we regularly got Frost Giants and werewolves and scrags. At level 20, it usually gets us a Greater Feyr, which has weak damage output and a habit of failing saves against its own fear spells. We clean up with Wail of the Banshee and sell off a bunch of junk to the local duergar merchants, bumping our gold supply up to 500,000.
Next up, the mind flayer area. I've heard that it's possible to sneak up to the Elder Brain without fighting anyone and convince it to let you pass through in peace if you have a high Diplomacy check. Looking up the dialogue tree in Near Infinity confirms it.
But it's not possible to avoid the first fight in the area, at least with Tactics installed. Abdoshanheth and the other mind flayers can see through invisibility.
We dispatch the first group without much trouble by relying on disablers.
However, I'm not sure how we're going to deal with the mind flayers.
In IWD2, mind flayers don't have INT drain, since stat drain is nonlethal in IWD2 (your ability scores can never drop below 1). Instead, their melee attacks Feeblemind the target for 3 rounds on a failed Will save (DC 20) and also penalize Will saves by 4 for 60 seconds on a failed Fortitude save (DC 20). That's not really worrisome, though, since Mind Blank grants us immunity to Feeblemind effects.
What is worrisome is their Ultrablast spell. Ultrablast has a thin cone-shaped projectile like Shout and stuns the target for 6-10 rounds on a failed Will save (DC 14). Getting hit during the stun effect doesn't remove the stun. That basically means death if it works.
Since we never picked Seven Eyes (which could block a single Ultrablast, no more), the only means we have of blocking stun is to use Antimagic Field, which lasts for 10 rounds per level and works like a Protection from Magic scroll that also grants immunity to death magic and stun effects (for whatever reason). But this would disable our spellcasting and remove all our existing effects, which means our maximum possible AC would be 48.
Frisky Bits could not withstand even the slightest pressure with only 48 AC; the average attack bonus for HoF enemies at this point is in the 40s. Nor could we hope to make any meaningful progress using items and scrolls alone; the enemy would just crush us.
We have to take the gamble. There simply is no alternative.
We run up the Elder Brain in the hopes of convincing it to let us go in peace, but having fought the first group of enemies makes this impossible. I think the only way to get through this area without fighting, at least with Tactics installed, is to just ignore Abdoshanheth's opening attacks and run straight to the Elder Brain under invisibility.
When the Elder Brain goes hostile, a massive horde spawns. We've got drow thralls, Fomorian Giants, Umber Hulks, duergar, mages, and multiple Mind Golems. Mercifully, Frisky Bits makes their Will save against two Ultrablast spells at the start of combat.
Seven Eyes would not have been sufficient to guarantee survival; it would have only blocked the first Ultrablast. And I think Antimagic Field would have prevented us from going invisible even via a potion, making it impossible to escape. Knowing that we have no guarantee of survival against further Ultrablast spells, we flee immediately, using Aegis to block an Icelance and then Improved Invisibility to hide (again, normal Invisibility won't work under Aegis).
I consider my options. Ultrablast has a long range and invisibility is no defense, so we'd really need summons to hold off the enemy if we had any hope of survival. Then I realize that I have one extremely powerful option to neutralize the mind flayers: Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.
With a base casting time of 1, Improved Initiative makes Resilient Sphere cast instantly. With a save DC of 29, 8 castings of the spell, and the ability to spam the spell until we run out, the chance of the first mind flayer escaping the effects is virtually impossible. This gives us 20 rounds of free action, which is more than enough time to clear out the rest of the enemies and surround the mind flayer with summons.
Somehow a Mind Golem more or less teleports onto our summons. Since our summons have nonmagical attacks and constructs apparently are immune to critical hit, they can't touch the golem. Frisky Bits brings out the Sure Striking Arrows to bypass the golem's damage reduction.
Eventually we bring the golem down, and Frisky Bits takes a few steps to the west to make sure the mind flayer can't reach them when they escape the Resilient Sphere. We stomp the mind flayer with our summons, only to see another arrive on the scene. We trap it before it can try to stun Frisky Bits.
More enemies crowd up the hall, including some Mind Golems. We manage to summon some Remorhazes, who have the attack power to actually damage the golems.
We fall back, rest, and return. But there's a collision bug in the hall that effectively forms an invisible wall blocking our access to the rest of the area.
This would constitute a game-breaking bug unless I can find a way to teleport past it. I decide to give a shot at fighting the enemy with the wall in place, hopefully using the bug in my favor, and if it proves impossible to proceed, I will reload to a previous save, use CTRL-J to hop over the wall, and the re-fight the enemies as if the wall was not present. The wall can be both a help and a hindrance, so I have to complete the area either both the help and the hindrance, or with neither.
I summon some goblins since they come out fast, then follow up with sturdier summons to send into the hall. When the enemy approaches, we trap the mind flayer and kill the golem with Remorhazes before shooting down the mind flayer from afar, just like before.
Then I discover I can remove the invisible wall just by saving and loading the game. Problem solved! We use the same strategy to bring down the rest of the enemies, and Frisky Bits never again has to make a saving throw against Ultrablast. Finally we reach the exit and clear out the last of the enemies, though the mind flayer manages to get a failed Reflex save out of Frisky Bits on a Mordenkainen's Force Missiles spell.
Mordenkainen's Force Missiles doesn't benefit from Spell Focus: Evocation due to a bug, but the damage scales dramatically with levels, assuming the target fails its save. A level 30 Mordenkainen's Force Missiles would deal 245 damage if the target failed all of its Reflex saves.
Next up, Mirabel and Majrash, two mages who come with a bunch of Harpies and Earth Elementals for some reason. There's a genuine risk of getting boxed in and overwhelmed, so I cast Shades to create a decoy and then go invisible.
When the enemy converges on our summoned Remorhaz, we hurry down to the south. Mirabel and Majrash prove too resistant to Resilient Sphere for us to trap them (Tactics mages tend to have excellent Reflex saves), so we just fire off a Symbol of Hopelessness to buy us time to cast Wail of the Banshee.
We trade spells with the mages for many rounds, with Frisky Bits notably surviving a Flesh to Stone spell thanks to Protection from Petrification (a very niche but very necessary spell).
Then things get ugly. Mirabel and Majrash both cast Cacofiend, and both prove immune to Insect Plague.
Why does Insect Plague exist if spellcasters are immune to it? I try to end things early, but Mirabel and Majrash are also immune to death magic.
There are now two hostile Cornugons on the map, and both of them use Blink, forcing a 50% miss chance on us. It makes combat deeply unsatisfying because it makes the fight take twice as long and there's no way to get around it, and the Cornugons also have damage reduction against Frisky Bits' arrows, forcing us to break out our +2 arrows.
One of the Cornugons fails its save against Symbol of Hopelessness and gets stunned for 10 rounds, but only because it rolled a 2. The Cornugons have Will saves of 26 and are immune to fear, so there's only a 7.5% chance of stunning the other Cornugon with another Symbol of Hopelessness, not counting its spell resistance. More irritating still, the Cornugons are immune to death magic.
Immunities are not fun. Resistances are a much better way of handling instant death effects when it comes to bosses.
I'm running low on summons, so I cast Vipergout and down one of our many Potions of Invisibility. Our vipers can do the work.
It takes many rounds, but the vipers finally bring down the mages, while the Cornugons simply vanish when Cacofiend's duration expires.
Our reward is the best line in the entire game.
For Hiepherus, Wail of the Banshee and Executioner's Eyes with a bow.
In Kuldahar, we use our massive gold supply to purchase a few important items, among them Big Black Flying-Death, a two-handed throwing axe.
Big Black Flying-Death has massive potential. It has great range, good numbers, has a triple critical hit damage multiplier due to being an axe, and the STR bonus to damage is 1.5 times the norm because it's a two-handed weapon. We also get the Boots of Speed and the Every God Ring for +5 to Wisdom, which gives us another +3 to AC at a time when every additional point of AC is getting increasingly more important.
Next, we assault the Yuan-ti temple of Sseth. Wail of the Banshee and Symbol of Hopelessness for the grunts...
...and Executioner's Eyes to land high-damage hits on enemies with immunities or strong saving throws. Blasphemy stuns us for a single round but our summons are already soaking up most of the pressure, leaving Frisk safe.
Solving a puzzle by random button pressing gets us another extremely useful bastard sword.
It's essentially an unreliable but potentially infinite source of summoned vipers.
When Symbol of Hopelessness fails against the Coiled Cabal, we switch to Wail of the Banshee. Some enemies have strong Will saves, some have strong Reflex saves, and some have strong Fortitude saves, but seldom do they have all three. Rock-paper-scissors.
Then the Viper's Fang Assassins come, and their leader, Ashra, has high APR, high-accuracy, high-damage ranged backstabs. We use invisibility to find a safe spot and bring out some summons before using Wail of the Banshee to clear the field.
We beat down Ashra. The battle is won! Now we must return to Kuldahar and brace for the invasion.
In Tactics4IWD2, Iselore has improved AI during this extremely lengthy fight of multiple waves, but is no longer immortal and his death means a game over. We're excellent at handling the various melee grunts, but the spellcasters are another issue.
Cedra is the only sorcerer with immunities, but she's very dangerous even by herself, as she attacks with Mordenkainen's Sword, and Mordenkainen's Sword gives her such massive attack bonuses that no character can reach the AC necessary to avoid her attacks.
We also see another terrifying sign. One of the Harpies fails a Will save against another Harpy's wail, revealing that a Harpy's wail can impose stun, the game-ending disabler against which there are practically no immunities in IWD2.
We can hardly touch Cedra thanks to her Improved Invisibility, but she is very capable of touching us.
Her attack bonus is 76. You'd need an AC of 96 to force her to roll a critical to hit you. Getting a 96 is theoretically possible but I'm not sure it's ever been done, because the sacrifices needed to attain an AC that high would render the character immensely impractical. There's no such thing as a 96. Even the mid-80s are scarcely even real.
Iselora is at Hurt (the IWD2 version of Injured), and while he's taking damage very slowly, I don't want him getting into trouble. Fortunately, Resilient Sphere offers no save for friendly critters.
Dispel Magic forces us to cast either Invisibility or Aegis. I choose Aegis, which ends up getting me into trouble when I can't cast Mirror Image and have to resort to Improved Invisibility when the pressure gets too high.
We're running low on summons, so I switch to the Black Adder bastard sword to summon some vipers by whomping everyone in sight.
Cedra persists even when the next waves arrive, but fortunately Frisky Bits' aura is clear when Cedra casts Blasphemy when we're under heavy pressure, allowing us to escape via potion when a spell would come out too slowly (Blasphemy and Holy Word both have base casting times of 1, and Invisibility is 2).
Frisky Bits casts Holy Power and Executioner's Eyes, which allow us to deal massive damage with Big Black Flying-Death. Our vipers keep the enemy busy.
More waves come in, and we cast Resilient Sphere on Iselore for the third time. More enemies, more summons, and more buffs when our old ones wear off after tens of rounds have passed. Finally, a summoned Remorhaz smashes the last of the enemy.
We hit cleric level 13 and finally gain access to level 7 spells, but unfortunately, Holy Aura is not a level 7 spell like I thought. This means that we can't attain long-duration high spell resistance to avoid getting stunned by Blasphemy. It'll be a long time before we can get that far.
On to Dragon's Eye! I don't know why the plot leads there, but it does. Most of these fights are not very interesting. Again, it's just Wail of the Banshee and stuff.
The clerics have Death Ward, so Wail of the Banshee is useless and we have to spend a long time killing them with melee damage. It's difficult but it's not interesting to discuss.
Downstairs, we try out Greater Shield of Lathander, which grants +40 spell resistance and 30- universal damage reduction, but only for 3 rounds (which, combined with its long casting time, is why it's not a reliable way of blocking Blasphemy). Turns out that 30- damage reduction isn't all that much against an Iron Golem's critical hit.
Next up, Olive Slimes. We use the same two fire spells we used to roast the jellies near the duergar slaver area.
We do all the relevant fetch quests and transform into a histachii to access a secret lever or something, with a Potion of Invisibility to escape attention since the histachii forms disables spellcasting.
All that's left is Thorasskus. We kill the Efreet with Wail of the Banshee and trap Thorasskus so we can deal with his allies without him bothering us.
Unfortunately, the other clerics like to cast Dispel Magic, which frees Thorasskus from the Resilient Sphere. Frisky Bits gets stun-locked by Blasphemy for three whole rounds, surviving because the enemies kept focusing on our summons instead of us.
We summon some vipers using the Black Adder and then start chopping up Thorasskus with a Greataxe +5, our highest-damage weapon.
Then it's just a long process of summoning new monsters and running away from Blasphemy spells until eventually we cut through the enemy's massive HP.
We buy a bunch of Holdfast Arrows from the fake Nathaniel and sell off another 500,000 gold's worth of extra loot. Holdfast Arrows don't deal much damage, but they entangle the target for 4 rounds without a saving throw. Only spell resistance, MGOI, or Freedom of Movement can block it.
Finally, Lord Pyros' lair. The absolute low point of the entire game, simultaneously the most ambitious and yet most clumsily executed questline in all of the Infinity Engine games. It's an extremely long and boring slog, there are zero clues about what you have to do and where you have to go, you end up backtracking over and over again, and you get exactly zero interesting items and barely any XP for all of your trouble.
Worse yet, we have to fight a beholder named Zil-t'yor (whoever came up with these names clearly had some bizarre punctuation fetish) who repeatedly spams an area-effect Dispel Magic spell that also imposes 100% spell failure. There is no saving throw and apparently it bypasses Aegis. Dumber still, the beholder is out of reach of most melee weapons and yet has massive resistance to missile damage as well as spell resistance, which means killing him takes forever.
This would be forgivable if the beholder wasn't able to fire off instant death and petrification rays within the anti-magic field (which can permanently kill party members), and if you didn't immediately get swarmed by a bunch of enemies from the south. With a clouded aura due to my forgetting about the spell failure effect, Frisky Bits barely survives long enough to drink a potion and hide.
Our pre-summoned undead to the north bring down the beholder before Frisky Bits even recovers from the spell failure.
In my first documented no-reload run of IWD2, I think I relied on Acid Fog to bring down the beholder, since it bypassed his spell resistance and the beholder didn't have the AI to float out of the cloud. Apparently you can do it just by letting summons fight it out off-screen.
After much backtracking, boredom, and a game-breaking bug where a cutscene stops halfway through (and it's a soft-lock; there's not even any indication that the questline has been broken!), we finally reach Izbelah. Based on advice from a walkthrough, I trap her in a Resilient Sphere while she's still non-hostile so we have time to summon critters to throw at her.
But Frisky Bits' Resilient Sphere lasts 20 rounds, and apparently that's enough time for Izbelah to switch to casting Temporal Stasis after Aegis. My memories of this fight suggest that Izbelah takes time to cast several layers of buffs before Temporal Stasis, but it seems that Resilient Sphere sped up the process by forcing her to wait.
Temporal Stasis has a casting time of 10 and it's an instant game over if she casts it because time paradoxes or something. Unsure if we can disrupt her spellcasting, and positive that we can't kill her in the 7 seconds before she ends the game, I resort to using one of our extremely rare and precious Protection from Magic scrolls on her, hoping that the spell failure will apply to Temporal Stasis.
We never find out if it does. We disrupt the spell by damage alone.
She starts casting it again, which I didn't know she could do, but we disrupt that casting as well. Soon Izbelah collapses and we talk to the Archon from afar using the encumbrance trick (we weigh down Frisky Bits by hauling several high-weight objects from a Bag of Holding).
Next up, the ice temple.
Nickademus has called in a favor and wants us to kill a bunch of demons for him. Fun fact: even if you never promised him a favor or never even spoke to him, he'll still summon you; he'll just give it with a slightly different dialogue.
I will spare you the lengthy and miserable process that I had to go through to win this fight. It took like two hours of tedious and repetitive micromanagement and drained all of our resources. The only reason we made it out alive is thanks to incredibly precise resource management.
Here's the deal. This area is crawling with Gelugons, Cornugons, Glabrezus, Abishais, and Lemures. The first three, especially the Gelugons, will gate in other demons. All of them have spell resistance and immunity to death magic, making our best options worthless. They also have high damage reduction that makes it hard for summoned critters to hurt them. They also deal lots of damage.
They also have some ugly spells:
Gelugons: Chaos, Confusion, Ice Storm
Cornugons: Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Blink
Glabrezus: Mirror Image, Lightning Bolt
Our undead summons did not last long, and all of our non-undead summons constantly failed saves against confusion and fear effects, disabling them over and over. Worse yet, the big three were all nearly impossible to harm: the Gelugons have the highest HP and the best damage reduction; the Cornugons have Blink and therefore impose an unstoppable 50% miss chance; and the Glabrezus spam Mirror Image, forcing you to land extra attacks just to make them vulnerable.
These are all of the resources I had to burn in order to win this fight:
1. All of our summoning spells, including all 7 of our Vipergout spells, which amounted to 140 rounds of 140 vipers
2. All of our Holy Power, Executioner's Eyes, and Emotion: Hope spells and both of our Emotion: Hope scrolls
3. All 150+ of our +4 arrows
4. Over 150 arrows +3
5. All of our scrolls of Luck, Haste, Mordenkainen's Sword, Tenser's Transformation, Cat's Grace, and god knows what else I did to improve our ranged damage against the demons
6. All of our level 2, 5, 6, 7, and 9 sorcerer spell slots
We were completely empty when we took down the final Gelugon. For the first time ever, I ran out of spells--and even ran out of many of the scrolls and other resources I'd been collecting for a rainy day. I never really thought I'd bother digging that Spider Spawn scroll out of our scroll case, but we needed it. We needed every single spell and item we expended in this fight; we might not have made it if we hadn't burned every one.
Some highlights from the longest fight I've ever had in IWD2:
Discovering that the Gelugons actually give a tiny amount of XP, and also gate in Slayer Knights of Xvim, which are THE end-game fighters of IWD2:
Using the Halberd of the North's on-hit cold damage to remove extra Mirror Images from a Glabrezu and allow us to land more hits than would otherwise be possible.
Using the Black Adder to summon a chain of vipers so the Gelugons could gobble them up:
Resorting to Vipergout to keep the demons at bay while we attack from afar using Big Black Flying-Death:
Switching to arrows when I realized that I needed the superior attack bonuses from a bow to reliably hit the Gelugon's high AC:
The supreme confirmation of the fact that vipers were all but necessary to survive, because the enemy dealt so much more damage so much more easily than we did with all of our normal summons:
The absolute misery of trying to deal damage to a Cornugon despite their infinite Blink spells:
Seeing another Cornugon join the fight from the south just as the previous one went down (this happened many times, for Glabrezus and Gelugons as well as Cornugons):
Getting zapped by a Glabrezu because invisibility is worthless against demons and we were out of Mirror Images:
Summoning precious Remorhazes, only to see their spectacular offensive options neutralized by disablers:
Trying to run from the demons under invisibility when we ran out of Vipergout spells, then resorting to the Black Adder when they chased us into the halls:
Using our last Arrows +4 in a desperate attempt to overcome the demons' absurd damage reduction as our resources rapidly dwindled:
Using our last Mirror Image spell so we could tank a Gelugon after losing all of our summons:
And the last enemy falling:
For a long time, I've been wondering where a mysterious source of generic AC (the only type of AC that stacks in IWD2) on Frisky Bits is coming from. I finally realize that Tactics adds a single point of generic AC to your character, at least in HoF mode, after completing certain milestones in the main questline.
We arrive at the Fields of Slaughter. There are several tough fights here, including an extremely dangerous battle with Saablic Tan and his Mordenkainen's Sword spell. Basically, we HAVE to use a Protection from Magic scroll on him and then repeatedly attack him from behind invisibility until his death destroys the invisible barrier that prevents us from escaping the area. Then we have to deal with M'darfein, the magic-immune lich with Improved Alacrity who spams Mordenkainen's Force Missiles and Horrid Wilting.
After that, we have to deal with the Severed Hand. That's where things are going to get really ugly, especially because I'm not sure if we can get 8th level spells at this pace, and we really need those spells so we can cast Holy Aura and get our spell resistance up high enough to block all the Blasphemy spells that are going to come at us.
Isair and Madae are going to be even worse. Aside from the two liches with Improved Alacrity, all the enemies in that fight have crazy stats and amazing spells and resistances and immunities. It's just a bunch of horrible things happening all at once.
Traveling with: Shar-Teel, Viconia, Khalid, Imoen, Coran
Been a while since we have heard from him, but he is still alive. Corthief XIII has had some really rough moments which you will about to see.
We had a lot of summons so we thought we could take on Karhk, but we were very, very wrong. The EE Karhk seems considerably tougher than vanilla - the run nearly ended right here but a desparate scorcher finished the monster off.
So we gather what equipment we can, then try to get to civilization to raise our friends but on the way we run into a baslisk ambush!
We run south and managed to escape unscathed. Close call.
With some difficulty we mopped up the bandit camp. There was the Thay Wizards area to clear, but we badly underestimated the group of spiders and the web trap. Corthief nearly died to poison, I was clicking antidote but it wasn't clearing the poision, but finally it registered at the last possible second. We looted what we could and headed back to a temple, while encumbered. Luckily no ambushes on the way and we brought back our friends.
Will try to be more careful.
The result was the end of the run.
I then played Gloryseeker herself solo. I thought that her enrage would be sufficient to beat Tarnesh but it wasn't. Glitterdust blinded her and she was then put to sleep. End of story!
Clearly Tarnesh's spell picks are different in EE.
The first spell after mirror image was usually fear which would have been ineffective against her. The ones that he chose this time were not.
Obviously different tactics are needed.
The Fallen make as good a reading as the Ascended -- an essential part of every nutritious no-reload thread.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/954289/#Comment_954289
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/954338/#Comment_954338
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/954617/#Comment_954617
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/960637/#Comment_960637
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/960902/#Comment_960902
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/961191/#Comment_961191
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/961890/#Comment_961890
Back at Boareskyre Bridge the monks quickly ran through a few quests, including having to restore Chimera after Junia got in touch with her darker side. They also got Jegg to make some +3 Bullets of Darkness for them.
After going to fetch the Flaming Fist the monks supported with slings to work their way through the initial crusaders. Wands then came into their own to deal with Oloneiros and the other leaders before stopping the mage blowing up the bridge.
Moving on to the Coalition Camp, the monks called Nazramu into the Material Plane using the spectacles and took advantage of his high prices to sell lots of hoarded equipment - netting the best part of 300k there. After completing a few little tasks in the Camp the monks set out for Dead Man's Pass. On the way they ran into a dead magic zone and unleashed a round of fireballs killing several mercenaries and persuading the Shadowy Figure to run away.
They cleared the Dead Man's Pass without too much trouble. That included making a final use of the Spectacles to bring Reanndra into the world. I didn't know what to expect there, but she handed over the Ring of the Tiny Fiend which seems like a decent item - as well as a bit of cash when she was killed before leaving. Chimera also used a fire giant strength potion topped up by his new DUHM ability from the Headband of Focus to bash the lock on a chest in a Hole in the Ground - he went on absent-mindedly to open it himself, saving against something there. There was also a potential problem in the other inside location - but the other monks were able to kill the mimic quickly enough to save Wraith after she was held.
At Dragonspear Castle the monks rescued Skie, before blagging their way into the Courtyard. The first thing they did there was adjudicate on an argument between Corinth and Valis. I thought I'd done that before, but this time determining that Corinth was guilty led to the entire group going hostile. As the monks ran away an emotion caught them and put 3 of them to sleep and Wraith had to rapidly change direction and take the pursuers away before going into stealth. Several rounds later she'd got back to the others thinking it was going to be possible to let the emotion wear off and then pick off the hostile enemies - but then suddenly it appeared that word had spread among the Crusaders that the monks were now persona non grata.
Wraith - L9, 89 HPs (incl. 10 from ring), 424 kills, 1 death
Spectre - L9, 75 HPs, 370 kills, 2 deaths
Phantom - L9, 74 HPs, 300 kills, 1 death
Spook - L9, 74 HPs, 299 kills, 3 deaths
Spirit - L9, 76 HPs, 300 kills, 2 deaths
Chimera - L9, 74 HPs (incl. 10 from bracers), 489 kills
Blasphemy spells will be increasingly common in this run and it worries me. Frisky Bits still has no effective defense against it; the only decent defense is high spell resistance, and we can't muster the 50 SR necessary to reliably block it unless we use Greater Shield of Lathander alongside Spell Resistance, and we can only maintain that for 6 rounds at most. Plus, Greater Shield of Lathander has a very slow casting time and chain-casting it is difficult to time (Improved Alacrity and casting multiple spells per round means we can't use the natural limitations of aura to count off the rounds).
We need Holy Aura, a level 8 spell, to block Blasphemy. Holy Aura will last over 10 rounds per casting and grant +25 SR, which should get us to 50 SR by the time we can cast it. But that requires two more levels and I'm not sure when, if ever, we'll be able to get those levels.
I decide to grab Cera Sumat. In HoF mode, it's a +10 longsword (yes, +10) that also grants +30 SR, which by itself should be enough to block a certain percentage of Blasphemy spells (maybe 75% for most spellcasters). However, it involves one of the toughest fights in the entire game--possibly the toughest. They have ludicrous stats, comprehensive immunities, massive resistances, and high-level spells. But after doing the math, I find that we can expect to deal about 100 damage per round from Frisky Bits alone if we buff with every spell we have (most importantly, Holy Power for +4 damage, Haste for +1 APR, and Executioner's Eyes for +4 to hit and critical threat range). That should be enough to bring down the enemy fighters with a high-pressure approach, leaving only the spellcasters, whom we can drain with summons, possibly including Vipergout.
It's a pretty big risk, but the biggest problem should be spells. And we get Cera Sumat at the start of the fight; not the end.
We position our summons so the enemy focuses on them instead of us, giving us room to cast Holy Power and Executioner's Eyes and start chopping them from afar with Big Black Flying-Death, but the enemy has amazing damage output and our summons aren't equipped to handle the pressure.
I summon a Remorhaz and keep going, but the damage we get is disappointing; the enemy has some 10- resistances that didn't show up in Near Infinity. Plus, the enemy archer has vorpal arrows.
Still, the enemy mage's Blink spell is backfiring spectacularly, and Frisky Bits is making decent progress because of their numerous triple-damage critical hits.
Broken Khree targets Frisky Bits. Knowing that he might have Stunning Attack or even Quivering Palm, we bolt. A monster summoning spells gives us multiple critters at once, forming a faster and more effective wall than Animate Dead or Shades. The Frost Salamanders we get have far inferior damage output, though.
Then the game abruptly ends.
Apparently the archer's vorpal arrows bypass Death Ward. I meant to double-check if Death Ward granted immunity to vorpal strikes, but I never did.
That's IWD2 for you. Like I said, our biggest problem would always be the 5% chance of a critical failure on a saving throw.
The only way of blocking that vorpal strike without relying on a saving throw is to use Antimagic Field, which means no buffs and no spells for the whole fight. So basically the fight is a no-go for a no-reload run.
The run is over, but to my surprise, I don't feel anything. I didn't really invest in this run the way I did in other runs, and I'm not sure I'll try again. The fastest way of beating the game is to use a build like the one I did (Wail of the Banshee is just so much more productive than basically anything else), and I don't want to start over with the same build.
The optimal build would likely be evil-aligned due to evil alignments' innate immunity to Blasphemy, or else have high long-duration SR, which would involve the deep gnome or drow races, Spell Resistance, and/or Holy Aura. I don't think I could play an evil-aligned character for a solo run; I kind of have a thing where every solo run has to be Undertale-themed, and playing an evil Frisk or Chara doesn't feel right. Playing a drow or deep gnome seems less user-friendly, and a cleric-heavy build would progress much slower through the game without access to Wail of the Banshee. Using mod items would speed things up, but the best mod items seem too game-breaking to be fun even in HoF mode.
It's too bad. I started this run because I wanted to do a solo no-reload run of every IE game on LoB/HoF difficulty. At least we've established that it's feasible. The only thing I don't really know is if it's realistic to beat Tactics HoF IWD2 without the Tactics HoF bonuses, which I don't think would be very fun anyway.
Aegis isn't quite as important as I thought it would be, at least as long as you have the Tactics HoF bonuses with Improved Alacrity, since you can escape most sources of Dispel Magic or Icelance with a quick Invisibility spell (note that you need high Spellcraft to see these spells coming). Minor Globe of Invulnerability will only block a single Dispel Magic, but you're probably only going to see a single Dispel Magic at a time from a critter that can see through Invisibility. MGOI should be mostly sufficient; Aegis isn't strictly necessary (though it is a lot better under certain circumstances).
The Tactics HoF bonuses are more impactful than I expected. I already knew you got +10 to AC, +2 to all ability scores, and Improved Alacrity, but apparently you also get +1 or +2 AC after completing certain milestones in the main questline, which amounted to +8 as of the Fields of Slaughter and probably goes up to +10 by the final battle. Monk levels might not be necessary to achieve adequate AC for tanking, which means you wouldn't need to have a lawful alignment.
Maybe I'll just leave this challenge incomplete. Maybe someone else will give it a shot someday.
Krieg the War Hulk!
Again, mod installation hasn't changed from Brunash or Spaz's playthrough. The War Hulk kit was created by @semiticgod and its description and abilities can be found here.
I've got the early game down to a science: Sell the Ring of Wizardry, kill Algernon, charm firebead, toast landrin's spiders, kill karlat, exhaust firebead's spells and murder him, charm silke, denature and then murder her, charm and lure and kill Kelddath's sirines, sell your loot, buy scrolls of stone to flesh from Kelddath and Gellana and some mirrored eyes potions in Ulgoth's Beard and Aule's Staff +3 in addition to Dushai's Ring of Free Action, go to basilisk country and use Korax to charm your first basilisk, set up the loop, and console in the rest of the XP. Boom, level 9 already. Go back to the Friendly Arm Inn, buy Buckley's Buckler, and boom: 20 CON for regenerating bucketloads of HP.
Krieg is now one-shotting every trash mob with his Speed Factor of 0 so I decide to do some wilderness quests. Melicamp does not survive being anti-chickenated.
I get more XP scrolls from Alvenhendar.
Got the CHA tome.
A bunch more wilderness quests are done so I do the main quest. Dave falls.
Got the DEX tome.
Leveled up from saving Aldeth's consortium.
Got the INT tome.
Got the WIS tome from the Tymora temple.
Larze squishes Quenash for the Cloak of Balduran.
Marek and Lothander's quest is finished.
Got more XP scrolls from BG's temple's and from the guy that wants the Helm of Balduran and got 2 more levels out of it.
Drizzt gets styled upon due to my very low THAC0 and his armor's weakness to crushing damage.
That's about as far as I've gotten in the span of a day. Not bad if you ask me. Kind of getting sick of the documentation part though, because I just want to play instead of write.
Krieg - War Hulk 13
Krieg the War Hulk
"Pain Party on the rise!"
BG1: 1The Iron Throne party is disposed of using careful line-of-sight cheesing and I move on to Candlekeep Catacombs. I bust open the two locks that previously foiled Spaz and raise my WIS and STR. The vault containing the STR tome required a Potion of Storm Giant Strength to crack open as 23 STR wasn't enough.
From Candlekeep's temple of Oghma, I bought more XP scrolls and cash them in for 105k XP, which wasn't enough to get me a level.
Meanwhile on the Ice Island, I level up.
I opt not to do any of the other TotSC content, because I have no way to disarm traps like Brunash's party or just jump over them like Spaz, and the Werewolf Island isn't worth it. Onto Sarevok's coronation. I'm not sure I can keep the dukes alive. I gulp an oil of speed and use Potions of Firebreath to toast the dopplegangers, making sure not to hit the dukes. The Flaming Fist gets caught in it, however, reducing my sterling 20 reputation back down to 1.
Onto Sarevok and his goons. With the power of double-strength Haste, I kite Sarevok while I take potshots at Semaj with the Throwing Axe +2. When all of his mirror images are gone, I zip up and smack the bastard.
Angelo is next, who suffers extra damage from using missile weapons in melee.
I'm either too fast for Tazok, or he's just afraid to come out of hiding. But I kite Sarevok in a square with more Potions of Firebreath and take potshots at him too but with my Speed Factor 0 staff instead. He falls.
Baldur's Gate 1 Complete!
Picture from Vielmond
This character's going to dual to Fighter at level 3, aiming for Grandmastery in Slings. Spells are mostly going to go towards Identify and Invisibility, but having the ability to use wands and scrolls in armor is going to prove useful. Hopefully.
Skyler (Elf ranger, Grond0); Duoa (Human Conjurer, Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/957980/#Comment_957980
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/959603/#Comment_959603
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/960256/#Comment_960256
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/962058/#Comment_962058
We only stayed in the Coalition Camp long enough to pick up some Bwoosh and poison before heading for Dead Man's Pass. We didn't use invisibility going along the road, which meant we had to fight group after group encamped along it. At one point that resulted in an unintended death for someone called Ephrik, but checking up while writing this suggests that he deserved it.
We'd done pretty well to deal with all the enemies without making much in the way of mistakes,
A quick trip to Dragonspear castle saved Skie before moving on to Bloodbark Grove. The basilisk there offered a tempting source of XP and that was soon in the bag. In the process though a group of skeleton archers were activated and the skeletal mage with them sent Skyler running in panic - though Duoa was able to pretty quickly cure that.
A bit more fighting saw off the last of the skeletons
Drughliya (Dwarf Swashbuckler, Gate70); Bump (dwarf Assassin, Grond0)
Random roll 151 deals me a swashie, and Grond0 is given an assassin. I decide to deal with locks, traps and snares while Grond0 will focus on stealth then snares. I realise while selecting weapon proficiencies that I need to change alignment so reroll (noticing I had forgotten to change any of the 6 primary stats). Once we start the game Grond0 realises he intended to set CON to 19, but left it at 18. Not a huge problem but we really should pay more attention to this stuff...
I have a shortbow when not using scimitar + buckler. Grond0 has crossbow and quarterstaff. Off we go.
Candlekeep - done.
Shoal - done in.
Noober - talked out.
Ogre girdle - shot down.
Samuel - turned in.
Drughliya had lost a couple of snares on her travels. Where where they.
Inside the cave we moaned about not having +1 arrows and having to squander arrows of biting. Bump minimised the need for that by blatantly racking up triple damage backstabs before the next patch removes such abuse.
In Candlekeep I killed three upgraded assassins.
I then returned Joia['s ring.
I returned aptly named Perdue's lost sword.
To be continued.
Mikel - elven archer, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Alor - half-orc shaman (Grond0)
Trukk - dwarven dwarven defender (Gate70)
The Trio made some more progress today, and almost without death:
* When we loaded up, we noticed we had just beaten Mulahey. Our victory might have made us complacenet, as Trukk got spotted before Alor was done casting buffs. All of a sudden, the party was scrambling. Trukk's health rapidly dwindled, he tried to make a run for it got both held and poisoned. We didn't have any tricks to save him. Mikel and Alor were able to at least avenge Trukk's death.
After raising our friend, the rest of the session was much smoother. Some things we did:
* Ankhegs nest was cleared. By this point, the party is doing a lot of damage, Trukk with his fighter skills, Alor with his great strength, and Mikel with his crossbow of speed.
* Sirenes were dealt with. A clarity potion was enough for this part. The golems were a bit trickier, as we couldn't disarm the traps, but our good damage dealing made them simple enough.
* We dealt with Bjorin's half-ogres, as well as the bandits in the area.
* Tranzig understandably had no chance.
* Nimbul and Neira also had no chance, though Trukk managed to get himself both feared and held, but Alor and Mikel easily dealt with the assassins before they could finish off Trukk.
* The Bandit Camp (outside) went really well when Alor got lucky and managed to charm Khosahnn. We repaid him for his help by pumping him with bolts and bullets.
* Mikel tried a risky play but it worked out great - he used a firebreath potion on Venkt (via stealth). Mikel caught one of his party members, but the enemies soon fell.
* About this time, we worked our way through the Cloakwood. We mostly just skipped enemies, though we did fight out the odd ambush or two (why not with a dwarven defender in the party). We made a stop by Drassus. We tried a fireball, shaman fog, and other things - it was all too much for the enemies and Trukk inherited Drassus' boots.
* The party carefully worked their way through the mines, mostly by skipping enemies. We managed to avoid Heirashan by having Mikel stealth, and then tried to exit the level with Trukk and Alor in the closest room - this avoided any fighting that large group.
* We made it all the way to Davaeorn and defeated him. But then Gate70 tried to warn Mikel of the trap that has yet to trigger - Corey_Russell quickly backed off - but apparently too quickly, as the game crashed.
We ran out of time, so we loaded from autosave, saved, and will continue next week.
Krieg the War Hulk
"I'm gonna swallow your throat, Belhifet!"
BG1: 1, 2In Dragonspear's intro dungeon, I make it to the end thanks to a scroll of Protection from Undead again, but I almost paid the price for skipping most of the fighting because it takes too long. Korlasz's army had me boxed in with no way out, but I used an invisibility potion to save myself. Through careful pathfinding, I was able to disentangle myself from the meat walls and torched them with a Potion of Firebreath with double-strength Haste.
The rest were whittled down using the explosive potions, and I killed Korlasz.
Meanwhile in the dwarven digsite, I used 2 more scrolls of Protection from Run-Ending Assholes while I beat them up without retaliation. I managed to level up from doing so.
The Coldhearth Lich is destroyed.
Morentherene is one-shotted.
Ziatar is put down as well.
For the Neothelid, I drink a Potion of Clarity and kite the Mordy Swords until it pops out, then take a whack at it. Pretty easy.
Darskhelin and his goons are rekt.
I level up while dealing with the spellstone and I surrender Bridgefort to the crusade but destroy the supplies. The crusader mage blocking the bridge is killed with a very lucky crit despite having like 6 mirror images up.
Rigah and Julanne are killed. Rigah's sword will increase my critical chance by 10% whenever I get hit, leading to devastating criticals. The necromancer cabal beneath Dragonspear is dealt with. Zhadroth is killed by using the Secret Revealed and Rigah's keen sword. His Ring of Regeneration will let me heal outside of combat and without expending regeneration potions.
The crusader attacks were super dangerous. Getting hit once could spell an enraged death-spiral. I expend most of my potions of firebreath trying to deal extra damage to them. The trolls are dealt with just fine.
The warmages were a bit easier but the warpriests were tricky because Sanctuary made it so they could outheal my firebreath potions. They eventually all fall however. For the fight with Grimgor and co., I have to take on one named goon at a time and kite them with double strength haste. I slowly cleave through them.
Onto the siege of dragonspear, our forces hold up against Caelar's quite well without much of my assistance. When I see that we aren't gaining ground, I use the rest of my potions of firebreath and run along the perimeter of the battlefield damaging anyone in my way.
The main battlefield gets cleared when crusaders start coming from down the lane. I advance and Ashatiel teleports in and challenges me to a 1v1. I accept and win, leveling up as a result.
Meanwhile in hell, more careful kiting is done against the devils. Hamatulas in particular are dangerous because of their backlash damage.
I kill Thrix and his goons, then level up on the elevator.
I accept Caelar's help but I do not command her manually. She buys me enough time to apply an oil of speed and potion of magic resistance so that the Cornugons don't spam Lightning Bolts. I put on a potion of invulnerability and then have at Belhifet, using the same strategy I used against Sarevok.
Belhifet himself gets styled upon 3 times with the last one being the finishing blow.
Siege of Dragonspear Complete!
Original post and previous run updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/936609/#Comment_936609
I decided a few days ago it was time to pick up this challenge again after making 10 initial attempts some time ago. Bash is a fighter / mage who is able to use any of his abilities, but severely restricted in that he can only use Brage's berserking sword to kill anything that he gets XP for. He would thus be allowed to summon a pit fiend and watch it slaughter its way through a town, but couldn't do the same with standard summons. He's playing in an SCS installation.
An 11th attempt failed against Greywolf when I misjudged how easily the bounty hunter would hit Bash before he had got full plate and the slashing girdle.
The 12th attempt didn't get even that far. On the way through the Cloud Peaks Bash had taken some damage in a gnoll travel ambush. After sleeping Caldo & Krumm and a couple of dire wolves he decided to rest in the cave to recover HPs. Resting is safe there, so would only have taken a few seconds anyway, but he tried speeding things up fractionally by using LMD on a bat. I'm too used to playing LoB now though and had forgotten that would kill the bat ...
The 13th attempt seemed to be going well with reputation up to 19 and Bash at level 5. After sleeping and killing the xvarts attacking Arabelle I forgot to put Bash's armor back on though - and even the half dozen bandits that ambushed him on the way to the basilisk area proved too much.
For his 14th attempt Bash once more died after a reasonable start. He'd just finished work in the Cloud Peaks and got to level 5 when ambushed by an ogre mage. He could have used a potion of invisibility at the start of the contest, but it's doubtful if he could have then got out of sight before going berserk. Instead he chose to attack, but couldn't get through mirror images quite quickly enough and died with the ogre mage at near death.
Starting the 15th attempt Bash went straight from Candlekeep to find Brage and bring him back to Nashkel. The ankheg armor was picked up there and Bash also learnt LMD before returning to Beregost and slaughtering Algernon. His cloak was used to ensure Neera did no talking while Bash approached her and cut her in half to get at her gem bag.
The first levels were intended to have been gained from Shoal. She was charmed and went in search of a wolf that could chew her up while Bash waited just out of sight to avoid going berserk. She didn't find one of those, so eventually settled for a ghoul and was duly paralyzed. Bash moved forward to try and finish her off, but got a poor initiative roll and the ghoul got a fatal blow in as Bash was about to swing. The ghoul failed to get a hit on Bash though before he swung again at it.
Looking for an alternative source of quick XP Bash went to the Beregost temple and charmed the sirines there. They were dragged outside and chewed up by dogs to allow Bash to finish them off with one chop. That lot pushed him up to level 3/3.
After visiting High Hedge to learn some spells, Bash headed north. The belt ogre was slept before he returned Tenya's bowl (after the need to chase one of the fishermen proved to be bad news for Ajantis).
Reputation was pushed back up thanks to encounters with Joia, Mr Colquetle and Firebead as well as a few temple donations. However, while en route to do Melicamp Kissiq proved to be just too slow to walk away and his death undid most previous gains.
Helping Ardrouine was made easy by sleeping 2 worgs from out of sight (note that when doing that you need to change armor before the spell projectile hits or the game will count it as being in combat). Charleston Nib was potentially more of a problem, due to the chance of attacking him once all the diggers were dead. Fortunately Bash didn't instantly go hostile as he withdrew from the diggers after the cut-scene and was able to charm the archaeologist to get him out of the line of fire (he wouldn't then give a reward until Bash rested to let the charm expire).
Further enemies (actual or potential) were webbed on the way through the Cloud Peaks to help Drienne. She was straightforward, but Bash had to put Caldo & Krumm to sleep (as usual using LMD from extreme range to annoy them first) to avoid any risk of attacking the Dryad. At the Gnoll Stronghold, Gnarl & Hairtooth failed to escape from a web before Bash went to collect the charisma tome. Moving north a polar bear was stuck in webs.
It wasn't really a good idea to be exploring the Cloud Peaks at level 4 due to the chance of an ogre mage ambush sleeping Bash. However, he safely returned to Nashkel and disposed of his loot. He also killed Vitiare at the Carnival. There was the possibility of a massacre of innocents there, so Bash learned PW:sleep to give himself an option if Vitiare broke from the web after being hit once - but he didn't anyway (and didn't go hostile).
All the xvarts attacking Arabelle were slept
Next Bash went ankheg hunting. The use of web from out of sight meant the ankhegs got few attacks and Bash took no damage there. Clearing the nest took a while (going to the edge of the map to rest between each fight and back to Beregost to sell shells after every third fight), but Bash was rewarded by getting mage level 5 there.
Sleeping Bjornin's half-ogres provided his final reputation point, though he had to survive a small bandit ambush on the way back to Beregost (he'd remembered to put his armor on this time). At Ulgoth's Beard he successfully learned all the spells available there (including remove curse which will give him lots of extra combat options if he lasts long enough to use it). On the way back from there Bash ran into his first full bandit ambush. There was a nasty moment there when the bandits scored 3 critical hits in a row, but the last half dozen of them failed to do any more damage.
Fighter 5 / Mage 5, 48 HPs, 172 kills
Previous updates:
I knew I shouldn't have bothered posting an update!
With full plate and the girdle of bluntness I decided it was time for Bash to face some basilisks. The first of the lesser ones to the south died without trouble, but the greater basilisk got lucky with its attacks and it was a relief to see him go down with Bash down to 40% HPs. The remaining 2 lesser ones then failed to get a hit in. To the north I had intended to leave the statue as a potential source of future reputation, but as soon as Bash saw one of the basilisks nearby he turned round and chopped the statue. The basilisks were next though and got him to fighter level 6.
He recruited Korax and sent him in invisible to attack Mutamin. The mage was duly paralysed, which should have made finishing the combat easy enough. However, I was a bit slow to move Korax as Bash came forward and, as he went instantly berserk on sighting Mutamin, he focused on Korax to attack. Even though he didn't actually make an attack, Korax still went hostile. That gave Mutamin the chance to recover while Bash was fighting the others and a remove magic was all that he needed to decide the contest.
Drughliya (Dwarf Swashbuckler, Gate70); Bump (dwarf Assassin, Grond0)
A couple of sessions today, detailed below. We start off by picking up a tome of leadership. After that we're off to Durlags Tower. The entrance fee turns out to be higher than we anticipated, seeing Bump raised at a temple courtesy of a Battle Horror. Drughliya heads off to the temple but Grond0 suggests as the Battle Horror is down to 10hp it should be finished off - this means Bump is down on XP.
Drughliya uses her remaining wand of missiles charges and the last one completes the job.
Drughliya was unable to remove the trap on the scimitar container - her fire protection ring working as intended though.
We had fun in Nashkel Mine to start with. Miner Beldin survived thanks to a snare that caught all four kobolds before they could target him. Things turned a bit more ugly when kobolds outside Mulahey's lair hit Drughliya twice and forced her to run. She dropped a snare on the way but nobody was pursuing and Bump tidied up before she returned. Mulahey got what he deserved and we exited.
This meant Bump had to fend for himself and he took a few spells. He looked done for so Drughliya carefully picked her moments before realising Bump was faring better than expected. Drughliya ventured in and cured light wounds on him before retreating once more as Bump was finally held fast.
Drughliya picked up the pieces from stealth and hit a temple. On our return Bump had managed to hide and we made short work of the Amazons second time around.
Cloakwood has been traversed. We had to retreat from the ettercaps and spiders once as our wandering combat brought several spider respawns in and standing our ground to thin them down led to some poison being absorbed. More care on our return saw the area cleared.
@Flashburn Congrats on reaching Amn.
@Grond0 Sad to hear of your demise.
She felt it wise also to avoid having the ultra-righteous in her team as they would sense the fact that her apparent goodness was just a sham. She therefore dropped off Khalid.
As a result she is trying to restrict her party to those who are neutral, thus she invited Jaheira, Tenya and Branwen to join . She will be acquiring a neutral thief and mage ASAP.
on a previous post I neglected to mention that Finch's flail broke when fighting Karlat.
She has killed Caldo and Krumm and also got involved in some minor skirmishes when trying to rest. This taught her that Jaheira' inability to wear decent armour meant that she needed protection.
EDIT
After completing a number of quests in the south, Gloryseeker headed to the lighthouse area where she killed 3 sirine and a number of pirates and rescued a boy from some worgs.(After all of these years playing BG1, I discovered that to enlist Safana, you need a male in the group. It shows that I haven't been using Safana very often. )
A fter looting the caves and killing the three golems, Gloryseeker helped Charleston Nib, killed Gallor and helped Brage. In that time Rep didn't go up even one point.
I am wondering how you're going to deal with SCS mages, though. Hard-locked 1 APR means it would take 10 rounds to remove a high-level mage's Stoneskins, and SCS mages will re-cast that spell once or twice after it runs out. One of the War Hulk's HLAs has an instant death effect, but plot-critical mages like Irenicus will be immune.
By the way: I've lost a lot of computer files due to a bad hard drive, but I've been considering releasing an updated version of the War Hulk kit. The new version wouldn't have hard-locked 1 APR, but I figured out a way (and could probably figure it out again, with a little work) to make only a single attack per round benefit from the War Hulk's various bonuses. I've also considered using a different method of boosting damage: instead of granting a flat +1 bonus per X levels or whatever, the War Hulks would get +5% to all physical damage dealt and maybe a maximum damage effect in order to encourage the use of two-handed weapons.