As usual the session started with me examining my character record to try and find out what I was playing. That examination showed I had thief abilities and I congratulated myself on remembering to disarm the traps on the second mine level - at least until Gate70 rather rudely pointed out that Iter was smoothly detouring round the 3 traps at the end of the level . Laran managed to blind Mulahey, which was an invitation for Iter to backstab - but his stealth broke as he came into the attack and a bit of running round to deal with the summoned reinforcements was necessary before finishing off the cleric.
Outside the mine the amazons were luckily blinded - luckily for them as they really didn't want to see the nasty mess they were creating as they died.
Then it was on to Nashkel where Laran made sure Rasaad wouldn't interfere with fighting Nimbul by blinding him. Iter didn't want to wait for more spells though and went the backstab route.
Tranzig was blinded and backstabbed on the way to the Bandit Camp. Things seemed to be going well there when Taurgosz chased out of range of his bandit archers and realized the hopelessness of his position. We had been having a discussion about whether things could be backstabbed if they were helpless and no attack roll was required - this provided an affirmative answer.
There were still a number of bandits left though and Iter had to run for cover when taken down to single figures.
After resting the duo sneaked into the tent. Laran tried blinding Venkt, but without success - not that that made any difference to someone disabled by stinking cloud and web.
There was another problem in the second Cloakwood area when Iter tried dragging ettercaps individually back from a trap. That's possible with 4 of the 5 ettercaps, but Iter was only on the second when an attempted attack on it turned into a movement order instead. Multiple clicks were made to cancel the order, but without success as the dwarf trudged forward right through the trap and 4 ettercaps attacked. It was a good job that he saved there and was able to retreat back out.
Drasus & co failed to take any action when affected by area disablers and the route down through the mine was easy as well.
There was a bonus at the end when a MP glitch that sometimes misplaces opponents for the client computer did so for Davaeorn this time. That allowed Laran to kill him with magic missiles and a skull trap.
If you look closely you can see the after-effects of the computers being out of synchronization as the fatal skull trap is still seen on my computer (but in that situation, when it bursts it doesn't actually inflict damage).
Arriving in Baldur's Gate, Laran made a beeline for Sorcerous Sundries for a spot more spell-learning. He'd been making a bit of a thing about trying on different mage robes and the City provided plenty of opportunities to try out new things to wear. One of those on offer was Drelik's, which Iter got with a backstab through mirror images - though he missed the action as a result of running out of the door to dodge an expected horror.
Upstairs, Jardak was feeling much luckier and a series of high rolled attacks forced Iter to run - and Laran to produce some summoned monsters to help out.
Monsters were also used to prevent Lothander from getting away - so that Iter could get some boots of speed to keep up with Laran.
Archy was heading down the mine. Archery is not a bad option in BG1 - but y’all knew that. The mine was a breeze and Mulahey ended up a hedgehog
Well a dead one luckily.
Tranzig, Silke and Nimbul ended the same way. Hiding in the shadows and taking pot shots:
Playing an archer in version 1.3 meant that you could wear the Ankheg armor. Version 2.3 isnt that lenient - but the work around is hiding in the shadows... its a change - but not for the worse.
The bandit camp was dealt with stealth and sniping:
In the tent Archy had to melee (dualwielding off course). Some potions would have made a difference - but Archy prevailed and headed for the second mine...
I had opted for a solo run. But having to face Big B ( and not having finished my SoD test run yet) made me reconsider. If I have to face Bel, I want the goblet and the helmet, which means Durlags Tower, which means a thief. Enter Coran... a sniper like Archy - and a decent thief. Unfortunately Coran wants a wyvern head!! So away we go.
or should I say run? We did get the head, but ended up kiting and running for our lives. Not my finest moment - but we lived.
The Drasus party was also a mishap. We charmed a guard with Algernons cloak, and got Genthore. But and ensuing Chaos and horror combo wrecked havoc.
The guard killed a horse, the mages killed the guard and Coran. After the Benny hill show ended, I killed the rest from stealth.
We where more cautious in the mine. Taking stealth shots and looting our kill.
The mine flodded, and we ran to Baldurs Gate. We have some shopping to do - and some looting.
Killed Sunin from steath and went to the hall of wonders. Adherrents of Gond will find solace there - the rest of us want the priests 20 potions of speed at a fair price.
In version 2.5 it will be 20 hours of Improved haste - Archy will await the patch. Against Bel he will have 7 apr against a racial enemy
Alright, Aldain II is moving on to Siege of Dragonspear.
Difficulty: Insane with no extra damage (actually has an effect in SoD, as opposed to BG1EE), max HP on level up. Mods: None (no SCS in SoD). Self-imposed restrictions: I am only allowed to import the protagonist, and even then he can only come over with his personal gear, with an extra allowance for bringing the Chain Mail +3 along for later importing into BG2EE (if Aldain II doesn't suffer an equally humiliating defeat as Adamant before then...). Also, I cannot strip the starting party of their gear at the conclusion of the introduction dungeon. I am allowed to use their gear, potions etc to get me through the dungeon, but that's it: I can't even buy a bunch of useful potions/scrolls from the Flaming Fist Healer for the starting gold you get and bring said items with me. Anything that we get FROM the introduction dungeon I will of course bring with me.
The intent with the above is to keep a modicum of early-game challenge, which is seldom the case if you have too much money or powerful potions/scrolls/items to work with. So, lest we forget, here is our protagonist, fresh from his victory over Sarevok: Aldain II, the level 9 Human Conjurer.
For those so interested, Aldain II begins play with the following items:
Robe of the Good Archmagi The Amplifier Legacy of the Masters Ring of Wizardry The Guard's Ring +2 Elves' Bane Senses of the Cat Cloak of Displacement Aule's Staff +3 Arla's Dragonbane +3 80x each of Bullet of Electricity +1, Bullet of Fire +1 and Bullet +2 5x Potions of Extra Healing 5x Potions of Invisibility Wand of Fire with 20/20 charges Chain Mail +3 Familiar (Pseudo Dragon)
Maybe I should've just had him start with nothing... that's some seriously powerful gear. Anyway. I will be aiming for a party of Minsc, Dynaheir, Glint, Viconia and Corwin. So very light on frontliners, and very heavy on spellcasters. Hopefully we can compensate a bit with raw arcane power and Animate Dead, though I am a bit worried how the final battle will go... even mighty Aldain II and his epic quarterstaff may not be enough melee muscle. We'll see.
So, onward!
Aldain II, Human Conjurer, SoD Update 1 BG1EE Updates: 1, 2, 3, 4 SoD Updates: 1, 2
The default Good party for SoD is Minsc, Dynaheir, Jaheira, Khalid and Safana. A bit light on the healing and clerical side of things... but we'll muddle through Korlasz's tomb, I'm sure. And we do. I opt to try and clear the tomb without even resting to pick spells, and as a result we have a bit of a rough time of it: Dynaheir dies, but that doesn't really impact the group much (the Flaming Fist Healer will apparently only raise one companion for free though... if you need more, you have to pay). A slightly more serious complication arises when, all but entirely out of spells and healing potions, we fight the final group of undead to the south of Korlasz's chamber and their attendant Skeleton Mage. Safana drops due a hasted Bladed Skeleton, and for a while things look a bit tense, but the undead clearly did not anticipate Aldain II's brilliant staff-wielding.
Korlasz's goons do not react well at all to a dual Fireball, and the mage herself surrenders soon after. The stunted Baldur's Gate we are treated to is cleared without much to report. Safana is temporarily recruited to loot the Palace cellar, and Minsc and Dynaheir are likewise picked up. Aldain II accidentally flexes his muscles at the Three Old Kegs and scares off the two parties of sailors, so no magic weapons to sell for us. And with his abysmal charisma, he likewise fails to trick the plotting nobles into implicating themselves. Boo! The vocal expression of dissatisfaction, not the rodent. We finish up the little errands and depart for Dragonspear Castle (recruiting Viconia before marching out of Baldur's Gate).
Now in Chapter 8, Corwin is also recruited, and Glint replaces Safana. Huzzah, our final party assembled! We of course begin by avenging the vile misconduct of justice that was the death of Adamant.
A Sword Spider and Gargantuan Spider emerge unscathed from the barrage, ending with said Sword Spider badly hurting a webbed Corwin (it seems to intentionally go for disabled party members, which explains why Adamant was singled out last time), but she survives, while the spiders do not. We move north and east, and enter the undead-infested caverns. The Dwarves of Dumathoin are of course rescued, and we get a first look at what we will be dealing with.
Yes, including the fried Greater Ghast, that's a dozen (!) undead, all but two of whom cause status effects on hit. A group like that would actually be quite difficult to fight for our party without adequate magic support. We'll make sure such magic is always available. The party proceeds throughout the mine. There are literal hordes of undead just standing around waiting for us, and the set of spells that was intended to see us safely through the entire dungeon now instead is spent merely clearing the first level. There's little choice; Minsc cannot hold off a dozen undead on his own, our own Skeleton Warriors (we only had 4x Animate Dead available) do not last long against such numbers as these, and we can only memorize so many Fireball. Thankfully, Web is still very effective, but we only prepared two of those (a mistake that will be rectified).
Still, for all the difficulties, the first level is cleared. The party retreats to the camp and reshuffles spell slots extensively: Priority is given to Animate Dead, Fireball, Web, Free Action and whatever buffs we can squeeze in (healing will be handled by cheap potions). Thus prepared, the party returns and enters the dark library where the undead plague originated, intent on seeing this threat ended! The first undead wave meets what was, is and will typically be our go-to tactic: Roast it until it stops moving.
One group down, oodles to go. But we have many spells remaining. Burning Skeletons to the west of the dungeon are cleared using Web and Glitterdust. Moving east, we eventually stumble across what has to be the largest spawn I've seen since the Gibberling Hordes outside Nashkel.
That's 17 (!) undead, with several Wraiths still invisible, and a few more currently out of sight shuffling in from the east. Even with a wall of our own Skeleton Warriors, we end up having to blow several Glitterdust, Fireball and even a desperate Sunfire to cleanse the horde. In contrast, a single Tarnished Sentry, no matter how tough, does not last long. Though you know things aren't going great when you send your mages to beat something to death in melee.
So, even though we are blowing through our memorized spells at a frightening rate, things are going reasonably well. Might as well change that! The party enters the laboratory, easily fending off the skeletal undead guarding the door. We explore towards the lower left part, where you are boxed in by test tubes. Prime spot for an ambush. Well, you can guess what happens. Invisible Glint, scouting ahead for traps, is spotted by a Bonebat to the north. Said Bonebat decides to bring every single undead left in the laboratory. This by itself is pretty bad, as we're now contending with some 20 enemies. What's even worse is that one of them is a Skeletal Mage, and before we are able to focus him down, he drops a Stinking Cloud straight into the hopelessly stuck party (test tubes make it impossible to run anywhere except straight into more melee enemies). Cue a desperate fight where we never have more than 4 party members awake at once.
Minsc gives a good show of himself holding off the hordes to the north (only two can reach to attack him at a time), but eventually falls unconscious and is stunned by a Bonebat straight after. Dynaheir moves in and has just enough time to cast Improved Invisibility on him before she too goes unconscious. This actually worked slightly in our favour, as the now invisible Minsc blocks the northern path to the party, forcing the almost entirely melee enemies to move around and attack from the east. Here they face a mighty Glint, whose superior gnomish saves allows him to stay awake throughout the Stinking Cloud. Somehow, with intermittent assistance from Aldain II, Dynaheir, Corwin (when they made their saves) and Viconia, whose magic resistance allowed her to stay mobile almost as much of the time as Glint, we prevail. Badly, badly wounded and drained of both potions and spells, but everyone is still alive. Pictured: The tipping point, when we finally managed to kill off enough undead that we were no longer in any real danger.
With barely a Magic Missile left between us, we take the hint and retreat to rest and heal up, then return. There are only three groups of enemies left: A few Fireball, a Slow and Glitterdust successfully destroy/disable the group guarding the pillars. Beyond the door, the second group drags with it the third group. We unleash several Web, but these undead have serious missile damage resistance, and we're not really making much of a dent in them. Eventually we resort to what Fireballs we have left, but even then it's barely enough: We are contending with two 9HD Skeleton Warriors, and Minsc might as well be in his smallclothes for all the good his armor does him, the ferocious Skeleton Warriors hitting on nearly every swing (even after Minsc gets an Improved Invisibility!). We do eventually bring them down, but are once again almost completely out of spells. Fortunately, we won't need many more spells.
Pressing past the pool of blood, we witness Coldhearth's transformation. The only buff we apply is Haste (for the movement speed) before confronting him. Coldhearth triggers all manner of defensive shenanigans, but thankfully no Improved Invisibility. He is therefore easily targetted by The Secret Revealed (gifted to us by Brother Deepvein, whom we talked to during one of our many retreats to rest and heal), and subsequently dies in less than a round.
No time to waste! Glint spent those few seconds it took to kill Coldhearth finding the secret door in his chamber. The party rushes up, snags the phylactery (second one from the left), and makes their way back towards the fire portal room. Minsc takes another serious beating, as the cutscene that triggers here doesn't stop the enemies in the room from attacking, but survives thanks to having gulped a Potion of Fire Resistance beforehand. Huzzah, the evil lich is no more!
We clear the enemies that follow us out of the room, and head back upstairs to talk with Brother Deepvein. Immensely grateful, he rewards us with the Helmet of Dumathoin, a Scroll of Greater Restoration, and the promise of aid against the Crusade. Hooray!
The party, once again all but out of spells and with barely a dozen healing potions between them, limps back to camp. Where they can still be found, licking their wounds (so to speak) and preparing for what remains of Chapter 8, which will hopefully be less brutal than the endless hordes of the undead. Aldain II remains a level 9 Human Conjurer, but edges ever closer to that delectable level 10...
The monks were all in stealth when leaving the Graveyard, which gave them a head start when ambushed by Suna Seni and a couple of thief backstabs didn't do too much damage to them.
At the Docks they took on some pirates. The mage there has high magic resistance - but that's no help against stunning blows.
Starting Mae'Var's tasks they went to the Temple - rescuing Renfeld on the way. That led them to shut Prebek & Sanasha up permanently
and loot the harpers before both web tangle and stun ensured there would be no escape for Lucette.
Moving on to Rayic Gethras, the monks launched their standard stealth attack. The mage saved against the stunning blows, but still died of the damage before his buffs could fire.
Reporting his demise to Edwin pushed everyone to level 11 (giving them a useful immunity to poison).
They cleared the upper levels of Mae'Var's guild, but took quite a few backstabs in the process and went to rest before assaulting the leader. The problem with that attack was that Chimera's horror worked too well . The cleric and Mae'Var were killed by the initial assault, but all the thieves ran in horror
- meaning they were all started backstabbing at the same time. Spirit started running when hit for the second time, but was struck again for the last time before she could get out of range.
After a visit to the local temple the monks returned and took their revenge.
In the Promenade an initial attempt to web Brennan Riesling failed and the monks instead used the stairs and stealth attacks to isolate and kill the enemies.
Leaving the area the monks ran into one of the SCS ambushes. They were all in stealth, but didn't react quickly enough to get ready for combat and suffered when several of them were affected by chaos and then later hold person. Here, Chimera was the only one active (and he was blinded) while trying to keep the last few bandits occupied instead of finishing off the other 2 monks - he successfully did that though.
After paying out vast sums for raise dead, the monks successfully made their way to the Bridge District. They gave the Rune Assassins relatively little opportunity for backstabs and they were finished off easily enough.
Dracondros & co were pulled outside one by one and beaten up and the kidnappers got similar treatment. There was a need for a temple visit when Spook was petrified by the trap on the temple, but the attack on Captain Dennis went very well (no thanks to the first outing for the berserk warrior which spent most of the battle attacking the monks).
On the way to Trademeet the monks were ambushed by orogs. The orogs all enraged, so were immune to stun and the mage and archers were significant threats as well. In theory there should have been time to run away before a spell was cast, but the habit of icons getting stuck on each other meant I had to split the monks up and Spirit was targeted by chaos - which she succumbed to.
That led to a long and complex fight, with danger remaining throughout (particularly when Chimera was PW:slept), but the monks eventually triumphed when one of them managed to tag the mage with a stunning blow.
Arriving in Trademeet, Taquee failed to survive a mass stunning attack.
They immediately went inside to do the same to Faafirah, while Kitthix did a good job of holding up the Khan for more stunning blows.
I compromised my principles a bit by buying a few goodies there, despite reputation only being up to 16, ready to move on to the Druid Grove.
I finally learned from my earlier mistakes and switched to using a cleric-based build with a deep gnome rather than relying on sorcerer levels to speed up the early game with Wail of the Banshee. We picked a cleric of Helm for the extra +2 AC and, more importantly, the once-per-day casting of Aegis once we hit level 17. It made things very sluggish at first, since we had to kill everything using raw damage alone, and the ice wall in particular was a miserable slog because I kept failing to cast Aegis to block the enemy's Dispel Magic spells, but when we got past Dragon's Eye, in the last ~10% of the game, it finally paid off. We brought down Saablic Tan by pre-buffing with basically everything, casting Greater Shield of Lathander for near-immunity to weapons, and then just smashed him while keeping our HP with Heal. Once he was gone, we summoned some orogs, went invisible using Sanctuary, and fled the area once the enemy started chasing the orogs and allowed us to escape the box.
The Severed Hand was a breeze by comparison. Most of the dungeon is a series of low-intensity fetch quests, and while it has some really hard-hitting enemies, they don't occur in quite such massive numbers as you see in other parts of the game. With more than 90 AC when fully buffed (or 101 with Tenser's Transformation!), we were even able to dodge half-dragon attacks and enemy mages' Mordenkainen's Sword spells. Greater Shield of Lathander and Heal made us virtually indestructible, and thanks to some restructuring on my part, we also had very excellent damage output using the Massive Greataxe of Flame, a very rare and very lucky random drop.
We did not attempt to get the +10 longsword Light of Cera Sumat, even though we could have used it. Jaegar's vorpal arrows were an unacceptable risk.
The final battle was simple. We pre-buffed with everything we had, including some precious mage options (the higher-level spells came from scrolls, not our illusionist levels), followed up with Greater Shield of Lathander for safety's sake, then nailed Isair with a Protection from Magic scroll, as he was the weaker of the cambion twins without his buffs (Madae's spells also pose a serious threat, but 50 SR and Greater Shield of Lathander meant that we could deal with her Blasphemy spells). Without Improved Invisibility and Mirror Image, Isair went down very quickly, and the next few rounds was a low-intensity fight with their goons. They even had a pair of liches with constant effect Improved Alacrity, but they didn't throw out anything we couldn't resist.
In the second phase of the fight, we used our very last Protection from Magic scroll to block his spells and chopped him up within a few rounds.
One solo Heart of Fury run of Icewind Dale 2 with Tactics, complete.
I have hundreds of screenshots documenting the run, but I'm a little worn out. I'll probably post some tomorrow.
As always, Frisky Bits was our Charname. We used a very weird but very effective character build, a deep gnome Cleric of Helm(21)/Monk(1)/Illusionist(8). That gave us WIS bonuses to AC, lots of important damage buffs, and Improved Invisibility spells to negate enemy attacks (with short lasting Blink spells for an additional 50% miss rate when dealing with hard-hitting critters).
The reason we didn't have more levels, like we did in my previous attempts, was because I put the level cap back at 30, as it is in the unmodded game. I wanted to make sure that no enemies could get a caster level higher than 30, since that would make our 50 SR much easier to break through.
Besides, the XP needed to reach levels beyond 30 is extremely high and requires lots of painful level-squatting. I've never even approached the XP needed to hit level 40, even when I was playing solo in HoF mode.
This run was very difficult, but it was worth it. I learned a lot about IWD2, including some very discoveries about where game balance truly lies. I had long thought sorcerers dominated high-level gameplay, but they're just not that good in the late game. Clerics are the only way to stay competitive in terms of damage output, at least as a solo character (a party of 6 sorcerers would probably do fine with Mordenkainen's Sword spells).
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APRIL FOOLS!
I didn't even start a new run, much less finish it.
For some bizarre reason I decided to punish myself last night by taking a little rest from the monks and having another go with Wimp, the statistically challenged wild mage, in an SCS/Ascension installation. The session got off to a good start when she was lucky in learning the identify scroll in Candlekeep at the first attempt and further progress has included: - summoned a pseudo-dragon familiar - familiar ate Shoal (level 3) - picked up Algernon's Cloak - charmed an ogre to get its belt on the way to the FAI - familiar beat up some fishermen and returned their bowl to Tenya - charmed Dushai at only the fifth attempt and led her away to grab her ring - helped Firebead and Mr Colquetle (level 4) - charmed the sirines in Beregost temple and led them outside for disposal (level 5) - familiar nibbled a bunch of basilisks (level 6) before Korax helped out with Mutamin. Kirian & co were charmed - at the FAI 2 charmed guards killed Tarnesh (if you use the ones near the gate they can kill him while neutral as they don't have a script making them move around) and Landrin got his goods back. Also charmed Jaheira to get her potion of invisibility (important as some areas are not safe to travel to even during the day) - at the Valley of the Tombs gave the Revenant its dagger back to get another invisibility potion and dodged the ghasts to get a wand of monster summoning - the familiar dragged all the xvarts away from Arabelle to save her. That pushed reputation up to 9 and Wimp went to Nashkel for the first time with the intention of talking to Oublek for a further reputation point to ensure she got CLW as a first Bhaal power. On arrival though she realized she needed she was a victim of gender confusion and hurriedly set off again to find Brage and get the requisite reputation. Here's her current character record and inventory in all their glory.
Wimp made her way through the Cloud Peaks, with lots of shuffling back to the Carnival to drop off items (moved using quick loot). At the Gnoll Stronghold she killed the half-ogres and various xvarts to open up the route to the cave with the charisma tome in. Inside, she failed to charm a xvart with Algernon's Cloak, so instead dodged outside with the idea of running the xvarts round to create enough space to be able to get back into the cave. In the process of doing that though, 3 more xvart groups spawned - meaning about a dozen of them were chasing. The thought of working through that lot was unappealing, so Wimp tried to divert as many as possible of them before aiming to nip in and get the tome. That was always going to be risky and her familiar got trapped and hit with several criticals in quick succession to kill it - triggering death for Wimp as well.
Update; The good news is he rejoined the group after their fight ... the surprising news is that he won the fight and the bad news is we had to find a new thief.
I assumed it was over when a gas cloud killed half my party but we still whittled him down for a messy victory.
Well my seducer bit it fighting silke. I moved my seducer off to the side away from the fight safely tucked away and began the fight with the rest of the party as per @Grond0 's advice. Which was a strong and great choice. However I did not take into account lightning bolt bounce which bounced and cut back killing my charname which was no where even close to the fight. Hilarious really. I laughed my butt off.
Well Ill try again in a couple of weeks when I have time.
Best of luck to everyone in the meantime.
May your saving throws be strong and your hp high.
The Trio found themselves at Sorcerous Sundries. Ah yes, that's right we had just cleared out the Candlekeep Crypts, as evidenced by two tomes in Mikel's inventory. So it was time to deal with Slythe. Mikel is master in crossbows, but used a non-proficient bow to dispel Slythe's buffs to pull him. Unsurprisingly, this meant Slythe didn't last long. We took the letters and scooted.
Next up was the Duchal Palace - we used haste potion on everyone and also strength potion for Trukk - the battle went well, and even Liia survived. The maze was no problem for this team. The only really tricky part was the party VERY carefully hugged the wall to avoid the 4 traps by the skeleton warriors - no mishaps with that.
We weren't sure what exactly to do with the undercity party. Grond0 had some arrows of detonation so Mikel tried that. While the party was victorious, the entire party was near death - close one. Probably would have worked better if whole party used those arrows. Ah well.
Time deal with Mikel's half brother. Not a lot of buffs, mostly haste potions. Sarevok was carefully pulled. But even so Semaj came as well. Mikel tried dispel arrows on Semaj but the others could not kill Semaj in time, and whole party got hit with chaos! Mikel, despite being only an elf, was the only one to make his save (or maybe it was the potion of magic protection that corey_russell had Mikel gulp, just in case...). Mikel tried to dispel Trukk's chaos with dispelling arrows, but could not hit him. Worse, Trukk wandered and pulled Tazok and Angelo! Yikes!
It was clear that Trukk was a lost cause, so instead Mikel dispelled Alors chaos with a dispelling arrow (successfully). Alor would try to bring up summons and Mikel would try to run and shoot. Even though Trukk had died by this time, he did not die in vain, as Tazok killed Angelo for hurting Tazok with those exploding arrows.
While we made some progress, Alor eventually died. So it was up to Mikel to run and shoot repeatedly until Sarevok fell, and indeed he did! Whew!
Corey_Russell was quite inexperienced with EE, and didn't have EE Keeper to bring his compatriots back to life (who were dead). So after a lot of ring-a-role, we eventually got going (about 30 minutes later - we use a two hour session).
The Trio successfully negotiated Irenicus' dungeon without a thief, and nothing much of note happened while doing that.
The circus was solved without any difficulty as well. We were running out of time (maybe 10 minutes) and we thought maybe we could deal with the Beastmaster before we finished. But Trukk and Alor were not full health and refused to rest and usually don't use heal potions. This proved costly as both Trukk and Alor died. Mikel managed to run and shoot all the survivors however.
Fortunately, it was not night time, so Mikel had no trouble going to nearby temple, raising his friends, and then freeing Hendak.
We were out of time, so saved our session here. Grond0 should be satisfied, as he feels there isn't enough adventure in a session if at least one person in the party didn't die - this time 4 did!
Aldain II, Human Conjurer, SoD Update 2 BG1EE Updates: 1, 2, 3, 4 SoD Updates: 1, 2
Returning to our party, not much remains to take care of in chapter 8. The rest of the map is explored, during which time some horrific, half-elf hating Spiders are treated to a fiery grave.
Yeah, I'm taking no chances. Gargantuan Spiders that Web + Phase Spiders that will doubtlessly teleport instantly to anyone that gets stuck... no. Better they never get the chance to become a threat.
Teleria (the Mutamin knock-off) actually throws up some prebuffs, but it's not enough. She and her Lesser Stone Golem are swiftly put down.
We wander up to the bridge, the latter subsequently being exploded, and fight the crusaders stranded on our side. Poor Minsc is once again treated to a severe beating as he attempts to hold off the melee bruisers. Unsurprisingly, 16 dexterity and a two-hander does not make for an ideal tank. I'll try him out with shield + mace once we find a +2 mace, hopefully that'll mean he'll need less healing. Anyway, everyone else comes through alright. Caelar interrupts the fight, we talk, tell her she's insane, and let the surviving crusaders go.
Alright, just the little side area left! Much as I dislike the female vampire hunter's demeanour, she's still human, and a vampire is still a vampire, so we gang up on Tsolak. A bog-standard vampire without the absurd powers SCS grants them really has no chance, and Tsolak goes down without even having gotten a Domination off (2x Minor Sequencer with 2x Magic Missile each were helpful in that regard). The 14 or so Dire Wolves Tsolak summons prove to be more of a handful, but we over-did it with buffs and summons, so we're fine.
We move up the path, disarming traps as we go, stake Tsolak and return to the vampire hunters for a small reward. I opt to later hand over the heirlooms rather than keep them (The Biter is nice to have in BG2EE, if we make it that far).
Anyway, all that remains is the orc party to the south of Tsolak's cave. They are educated in the dangers of being far too low level, said lesson being delivered in the form of a Cloudkill. They didn't even get to roll a save.
We tell Rasaad to go to the camp, and head back ourselves. Since we've amassed a fairly respectable fortune, I spend a little of it towards improving Aldain II's and Dynaheir's spellbooks (mostly for completion's sake when it comes to Aldain II, since he had almost every spell that's for sale already, but Dynaheir really needed a better selection). Off to chapter 9!
We do a thorough sweep of the initial map. There are no difficult encounters here; the trolls are the most annoying since they sometimes are very slow to go unconscious (even though they're taking enormous amounts of damage), but pretty much everything is highly vulnerable to simple tactics like multiple disablers or just Cloudkill/Fireball. Pictured: Hopeless bands of baddies falling to our overwhelming assortment of spells-per-day.
We enter the troll cave and deal with its inhabitants: The initial wave is treated to a double Fireball, whilst the band of Spectral Trolls behind the hidden wall are held off using a few Skeleton Warriors. To my horror, the amulet that grants +1 caster level for clerics/paladins can NOT be used by evil characters! So Viconia will never reach caster level 11 and hence never get the 7 HD version of Skeleton Warriors. Boo!
You'll note Minsc's portrait gives the impression that he is wielding a mace. Indeed, I gave him Glimmer of Hope along with the shield you get from the mummy in the introduction dungeon. The extra +3 AC seems to be making a real difference, and being Minsc with his 18/93 strength, he still deals good damage. I'll keep him like this unless we're fighting something where every little bit of extra damage counts.
Everything in the first area cleared, we move towards the Boareskyr Bridge, and get the orcs vs trolls ambush on the way. Not much to report: The orcs outside the troll cave are very easily dispatched (and yield almost 80 Arrows of Fire for Corwin, nice!). Inside the cave, we scout out the trolls by the pond and drop a double Fireball. Which deals enough damage to instantly knock ALL of them unconscious, allowing Dynaheir to take her time bringing them down with The Biter. Also nice.
Descending the submerged staircase, the trolls in the meat larder put up more of a fight, but there's never any real danger: We just make sure to kill the two Mutated Crawlers quickly to avoid them Holding anyone, and likewise stick a Skeleton Warrior on the Neo-Oytugh to keep it from Diseasing/Slowing anyone. Minsc is doing a bang-up job tanking!
We pick up the Firefly sling (going to Viconia), and head out to Boareskyr Bridge, where we agree to find the missing crusader what's-his-face. Finally, we cleanse the goblin cavern to the north. I considered blowing a Wand of Fire charge, but decided against it. They're goblins... even some 30-odd are no danger, especially considering their abysmal saving throws. A Horror/Glitterdust combo disables 20 of them, making the remainder easy pickings.
This seems a good spot to wrap things up for now. The party returns to camp, selling off their ill-gotten gains. Next, a visit to a ruined temple, where certainly all manner of dread opponent await... Aldain II is now a mighty level 10 Human Conjurer.
Dari (CHARNAME) and Lucia, Halfling Priest of Helm and Half-elf Shaman respectively. BG1: Introduction So I'm not going to be super detailed: it was essentially running as a kiting duo until around 30k experience, before picking up Imoen and Ajantis. The only one of these fights that was really sketchy was fighting vs Basillus: Lucia is Held, and Dari proceeds to save through the next two Hold Persons.
As a party, everyone's joining as level 5: I was aiming for level 6, oops. Regardless, we start clearing more difficult or tedious locations: Zordral, the entirety of the western Sword Coast outside of the Doomsayer (we fled with Brage after essentially losing the fight), Kirian and co., Battle Horrors, Sirines, before finally tackling Basillus. No deaths, though Imoen was really close after getting held by a Ghast in the tower and we resorted to using an Oil of Burning to help clear the area, dropping her to single HP. Imoen duals to Mage at level 6 Thief.
Shaman is pretty incredible at this stage of the game: Call Lightning is an answer to almost everything difficult.
Tranzig and Nimbul are treated to True Seeing + 4 people murdering them as well. We pick up Alora for the Ring of Free Action and traps and locks for a bit, while Imoen is in the Dual phase. At the Bandit Camp, two Webs, Cloudkill, and the level 2 Shaman spell whose name I forget help control the field. We're essentially unscathed by the end.
Ambushes: True Seeing more or less defangs the Amazons.
Molkar and co: Alora's caught by something and ends up in melee range and dies. Everyone else is dealing with a Web from Imoen, and Free Action on Dari and Ajantis by ring and sword respectively.
After a raise dead at a temple, Shaman summons soak a ton of damage from Drasus, allowing the other 4 to pluck at him at range.
The mages are dealt with with Darts of Wounding + True Seeing.
We recruit Yeslick just for this dungeon, and same gameplan for Davaeorn: Ajantis uses PfM, everyone else fights in the bottleneck. Both Battle Horrors are soloed by Ajantis before Davaeorn's script fully fires, so no bandits spawn before the Battle Horrors are dead.
In Baldur's Gate, we do everything I see as fairly easy experience or a useful item for SoD. So Basilisks, 5k experience from Doppelgangers (though there was a bug that meant I had to use console to solve the doppelgangers: the screenshotted command is actually wrong, and the variable name is AldethDopple. Programmers couldn't even name their variables consistently with the monster name.)
Thieves hurt. Should've had True Seeing running.
10k extra experience and another Wisdom tome? Don't mind if I do!
I... don't have any pictures of the Iron Throne fight, which I undertake for another Ring of Free Actions. We sunk a bit of gold on Chaos scrolls for Imoen for this fight. A preemptive True Seeing clears the backstab threats, and Imoen's second scroll effects everyone not enraged. Zhalimur disappears after being chased around by Ajantis for awhile, which becomes important due to me almost having to do the entire chapter over due to him. Summoned monsters and fireballs help deal with some of the threats, but two or three of them are still living after Chaos ends. Spiritual Clarity has to be used from Lucia to clear a Charm or Confusion near the end of the fight. In version 1, we immediately begin the next chapter and kill the ogre mages and quit and save. However, upon loading the quicksave the next day or so, something caused an immediate CtD. The only thing in the console was Zhalimur's Enrage expiring, which considering he's in Baldur's Gate and I'm in Candlekeep, is almost certainly the problems. I try 5 or so times, and everything gives an immediate crash to desktop. My only previous saves are the Autosave leaving Southern Baldur's Gate and the beginning of chapter 5. Most loads of the Autosave crash immediately as well, but one finally doesn't. We hunt down Zhalimur on the roof before refighting the Ogre Mages in version 2.
Spirit Fire and Fireballs wreck Pratt's party. All tomes are looted and both basilisks slaughtered.
Back to Baldur's Gate. I have to ask: is anyone else's versions of Slythe and Krystin randomly going invisible in between actions? Because I've had Slythe randomly disappear during the initial pull after drinking a Fire Giant Strength potion. Both Ajantis and Imoen are slaughtered before x4 Backstabs doing like 50 damage each, and I can't even reveal him with True Seeing. Two quick Raise Deads, entering through the Blushing Mermaid, and I fight Krystin. Who ALSO goes Invisible in between spells without anything in the console and without Aura. She's a level 9+ Mage casting Sunfires, untargetable between casts. This is completely unfair behavior, possible some script conflict between SCS and... Rogue Rebalancing? I can't think of what else might be doing this if it's not doing this in other people's installs. Regardless, we manage it, and kill Slythe. He stops going randomly invisible after running out of other actions to use. Wand of Heaven finishes him off after killing Ajantis again.
Ducal Palace: Invisibility scroll on Liia, we have 3 Skelly warriors and True Seeing, the Mage spends almost all its time trying to keep Mirror Image up and failing.
We make our way through the Thief's maze and bomb the Undercity party with Spirit Fire and Fireballs from Imoen. Our setup for Sarevok: Ajantis uses a PfM, and takes the sling from Dari while everyone else goes invisible. Diarmid is the most dangerous, but Ajantis has -14 vs Missiles between everything.
Imoen brings everyone else Invisible, and both Diarmid and Tazok are killed with Ajantis hiding behind an invisible wall. To find Angelo and Semaj, Dari uses True Seeing again, and I think Angelo dies before Semaj gets really weird. He targets a Chaos spell on Imoen, who's still Invisible: Lucia and Dari drink potions of magic shielding, and only Ajantis is Confused by the AoE. Semaj then finally uses a Divination spell, but the invisible wall breaks invisibility to go after that mage. He's interrupted and then, same with Slythe and Krystin, goes invisible without spell or sequencer or contingency. Ajantis dies to Sarevok before Spiritual Clarity can save him, and then it's desperately trying to keep everyone away from Sarevok, tossing around the Boots of Cheetah Speed. We're successful, but bloody.
In SoD, scrolling through all the loot causes a CtD again: I suspect it's that broken piece of armor. We re-equip Ajantis without going further than his items, and use 2 Sanctuaries and 3 Invisibility potions to bypass all the undead. Korlasz surrenders, and after stripping people of items, I realize I never reclaimed my scrollcase from Imoen. That thing contained 2 PfM scrolls, among other things, but too late now. We'll have to rebuild our scroll collection from scratch.
Though struggling with illness (sympathetically described as "man flu" by his wife), Gate70 held out long enough yesterday to make a decent bit of progress .
At the Iron Throne Iter sneaked upstairs, but then failed to hide a number of times to get back down and, giving up on that, he just ran for it. In SP it's easy to avoid anyone following in that situation, but the greater delays in MP give enemies more of a chance and Aasim managed to follow him all the way outside - but failed to finish casting any spells at the bottom.
Back at Candlekeep, Iter had to rest 12 times (to learn DUHM). He disarmed most of the traps with the help of the boost from DUHM, but couldn't find the web trap. Laran helped him out there by putting malison to use against some spiders - in this case to make her skull traps more effective.
Prat's gang found malison even more deadly as they were stuck while death rained down - Prat himself though clearly didn't know what was happening.
Before heading back to the City, the duo paid a visit to Drizzt. Iter had traps available, but was hitting often enough he was happy to stick to his bow while Drizzt played first with some gnolls and then a pair of Laran's skeleton warriors.
That was costly in reputation and also gold as Iter should really have stocked up on potions before the kill rather than afterwards ...
After luring Slythe out to confront a skeleton warrior, Iter made pretty short work of him with a backstab followed by a critical hit.
The skeleton warrior then provided a tempting target for Krystin to dispose of Quenash (along with herself ).
The palace fight can be a nightmare if all the dopplegangers immediately attack the dukes. In this case though only 2 or 3 of them did so. That was still enough to account for Liia, but Belt was hardly scratched before the last doppleganger fell (though technically 2 of them had already fallen down as a result of a malison + emotion combination).
For the Undercity party Laran decided it was only fair to swap a few of his exploding arrows for those carried by Rahvin.
After a nice smooth session things might have been expected to go badly wrong in the old temple - but they didn't. Semaj teleported out to be greeted by a few summons and lasted only moments after being hit by dispelling arrows. Sarevok then got the same treatment before Laran tagged him with her favorite malison. That could have made web a good option, but there would have been potential problems for us running round that. Instead she went for slow and poor old Sarevok was left struggling to lumber after us as he was shot up (made easier by the AC penalty imposed by slow).
After leaving the monks in limbo for a week or so I was thinking about making a bit of progress with them this evening, but was then struck by a nasty thought. Most of the time I only save using quick saves, which hadn't been a problem as it's some time since I played BG2 with anything other than the monks. However, I did run one of my long-life characters into BG2 the other day and checking just now showed that the monks' save has gone and they will have to remain limbo dancing for ever . On the plus side that lets me pretend that this time they would have made it all the way .
The first level of the SoD prologue dungeon took only a few moments until Porios was persuaded to surrender. Downstairs, the undead proved somewhat more resilient and their shots in retaliation for fireballs took Laran down to a single HP.
She got some Flaming Fist healing before continuing on. For once we explored the secret room there, targeting the bonebat in particular to prevent it getting in any paralyzing attacks.
The final group of mercenary guards were webbed and fireballed before Iter did his usual trick of moving too impatiently and spotting traps the old-fashioned way.
Korlasz then didn't last long - dispelling arrows removing defences there.
After a bit of shopping in Baldur's Gate the duo marched out with the army. No work was done in the initial area, apart from hiding (invisibly or behind the tent) until Caelar was ready to parley at the bridge.
The Troll Claw Woods were also skipped before business started for real at the Forest of Wyrms - Iter taking advantage of his higher backstab multiplier to account for 4 wyverns with 4 blows.
On the way into the temple there were more backstabs, including a first century score from a bugbear shaman.
Various guards didn't cause much trouble before Iter landed another backstab on Ziatar. She survived and disappeared into sanctuary, but Laran let fly with a scorcher to ensure she had no chance to stage a comeback.
The Neothelid beat off an initial attack from Iter, but Laran once more made him feel the burn.
There were then a few fun and games trying to get the shadow aspect to remain visible and still long enough for Iter to get a backstab in - eventually he was successful in that.
Iter thought that a good tactic for Darskhelin & co would be to pelt them with exploding arrows. While no doubt true, the fact the arrows had been left in the travelling chest was a slight problem and we couldn't be bothered to go and get them. Instead a series of attacks and retreats helped split the opposition up for easy disposal. Darskhelin was another to survive a backstab, but his morale broke in the process and he failed to run before a further blow landed.
Laran got very gung-ho against Akanna - using mirror image to tempt the aerial servants out of hiding, despite the fact that an unlucky blow could easily have been fatal. She survived though and, once visible, the servants were easy targets - as was Akanna.
On the way out Iter tried a pot-shot with a throwing dagger at Morentherene, but missed. Still feeling like riding her luck, Laran wanted to stay and fight even after the dragon leapt up, but changed her mind after being critically wounded by a poisonous breath. Iter did just get to her in time with slow poison, but a greater wyvern finished her off before she could move away.
On the way back to camp Iter ignored the cries for help of a young green dragon. He also tried to ignore a bunch of trolls and hobgoblins on the road, but they followed him to camp anyway and made a bit of a mess of the Flaming Fist before succumbing.
My Archer Archy is (still) safely stored in BG1 awaiting the 2.5 patch. But while we are waiting I decided on a HoF run in IWD. This time with a half orc F/C. He is min maxed (19/18/19/9/18/3). His charisma was too low for the name Godot, so he was named HHH.
Hhh did the chores in Easthaven and gained some levels
The first milestone is getting some Summons. The undead at level 3 are pretty solid. But getting there is a chore. With a sling and a flail the goblins where wasted until the final level was gained
The undead cleared the rest - and the wolf
Actually the undead cleared everything...
The only exception was the shadow in the vales, that is immune to non magical weapons. Due to my low charisma I couldnt buy Love of Black Bess. So I had to trek back to the Kuldahar Pass to grind XP and shortbows, so I could level up and buy a the cool: LoBB.
Back in the vale the undead killed some Yeti and an obscene amount of undead. Clearing the tomb Hhh reached level 10/11, and gained access to the much lauded spell level 6 and some nice summons.
Here hhh and Kres poses in a “I cleared the tomb selfie”
Next up: more killing (its a IWD run, so its pretty much given).
Alright, could do a more full update, but kind of frustrated by this death. Underground river cavern system, come into the 3 blind albino wyvern cavern I didn't even know existed. Killed by acid damage in one second, as I was trying to leave the cave.
And that's after barely cheating death at the hands of Morenthene: is there actually a safe way to deal with ridiculously high Poison damage at that point in the game without being a Cavalier?
Man. I remember reading some of you guy's progress reports on the original Bioware forums back in 05-06. Even back then i always meant to give it a run and 12 years later i still haven't pulled the trigger. Some of you guys are absolutely bosses at this game!
@Neverused If I recall correctly, with the release of the new patch (which, according to what we know, might be at the end of the month), protection from poison scrolls will protect against poison damage.
However, while Morentheren does indeed deal poison damage, as you noted, the blind albino wyrmlings are acid-based foes, so traditional protection from acid scrolls do help for this encounter.
Yep, Acid protection would've worked, if I had known they existed at all. Also, seems SCS is incompatible with 2.5 as of now, so I'm mildly torn. Working on a new install, essentially SCS + Scales of Balance. Going to see just how crazy new proficiency systems make things...
The tale of Gothna the half-orc monk! No reloads, 80 point build (I AM a hero after all...).
Yes, I know that half-orcs can't be monks, I simply rolled a human and gave her green skin. I'm aware that she'll never have the delicious 19 Strength to start with, however it is attainable using tomes (granted a true half-orc could achieve a 20 strength with tomes but still, I can RP this just fine).
Stats:
Str: 18 Dex: 18 Con: 16 Int: 9 Wis: 10 Cha: 8
Alignment: Lawful Good
Proficiencies: Scimitars + Single Weapon Style +
Gothna was a humble half-orc who was raised in Candlekeep by her foster father, Gorion. Seeking to shelter her from the violent lifestyle typical of orcs and the murderous blood of her true father, he raised her in the monk order in Candlekeep. Even though he was sometimes stern with her, Gorion saw to it that Gothna grew up with correct morals and principles, so that she would grow to be a kind and goodhearted person. Gothna took to her monk training very well, but soon the day came when her life was in danger and she had to leave Candlekeep for good. Gothna completed various tasks around Candlekeep in preparation for her long journey. She was even ambushed twice in separate houses by nefarious men looking to cash in on the bounty on her head, but she was able to dispatch of both men with her martial arts. Finally, Gorion and Gothna set out, the road stretched before them and the sun slowly dipping behind the horizon.
It all happened so fast, Gorion called out a warning to Gothna just moments before figures stepped out of the darkness, one of them clad in black demonic-looking armor. They demanded Gorion hand over Gothna, who heroically refused and stood to face them. Gothna fled at Gorion's request, while he stayed and battled their ambushers with his powerful magics. Unfortunately, it was not enough, and the last thing Gothna saw out of the corner of her eye as she fled was Gorion being run through by the black armored figure's sword.
Weary and coming down from the adrenaline high, Gothna managed to escape her pursuers for the moment and slept. She was awakened in the dawn by a familiar voice. Imoen! She had followed her. Normally Gothna would've scolded the young brat, however she welcomed Imoen's company. The two continued along the path, passing a pair of dubious looking travelers on the road. They continued their trek towards the Friendly Arms Inn per Gorion's last instructions. They were stopped by a curious old man wearing a red cloak. He was kind enough to point the way towards the Friendly Arms Inn.
Several hours later, they arrived. Weary after having spent the day traveling, they immediately headed towards the inn. A strange man wearing a black cloak approached them, calling Gothna "friend" and asking who she was. Gothna advised that they were just travelers in search of a place to rest. The man introduced himself as Tarnesh and asked if she had come from Candlekeep recently. Having learned her lesson from before, she told the man to mind his own business. He responded by attacking!
First, he cast a mirror image spell, hiding his true self amongst several illusory clones. Imoen, knowing that mages had deadly magics, immediately put some distance between herself and the enemy mage and began peppering the mage with arrows as best she could, hoping that at least one would strike true. Gothna rushed the clones, dispatching one that she for sure thought was the real Tarnesh. Alas, it was a clone. At this point the town guard rushed in and joined the fray, having seen how he initiated the attack first. Tarnesh, still protected by multiple mirror images, cast a powerful fear dweomer, striking fear into the guards and forcing them to flee the battle. Gothna at first felt horror, however her years of monk training had taught her how to overcome emotion, and she was able to still her mind and continue attacking.
She resumed attacking Tarnesh and his clones. She lashed out at another, delivering a powerful kick to the face. This would've incapacitated a normal human, but alas she struck yet another clone. The enemy mage unleashed a powerful magical barrage of energy darts, each one striking true and painfully wounding Gothna. Desperate, Gothna took a deep breath and focused her mind, for she would only have one last chance. Gothna unleashed a flurry of blows, one of which was aimed at a vulnerable pain-point that would render anyone stunned and vulnerable. There were only two images left, and surely one of them was the mage. Unfortunately, her blows caused the image to vanish in a blink. Imoen, seeing that the clones were gone and the real Tarnesh was in sight, knocked another arrow in her shortbow and let it fly! However, she missed the shot as she was trying not to hit her companion in the back.
The vile mage sneered and cast yet another barrage of seething magical energy darts. This time however, one magical dart hit Gothna right in her heart, striking a mortal blow. Gothna immediately dropped to her knees, her strength failing her. She knew her time had come. The last thing she heard was Imoen's scream as everything faded to blackness...
Yes, I died because of Tarnesh lol. It was fun while it lasted! Now to roll up a new charname...
I've got a no-reload party run going in IWD2 with my new "semiOverhaul for IWD2" mod installed and we're at the river caves, right after the white dragons and before the duergar. I started the run mostly to test out the mod so I could balance things out better, but if it's a success, I'll post the run here just for fun. So far the game has been much more fun than the vanilla game, and I like how the rebalances are affecting gameplay.
I have thousands of screenshots from my old solo HoF IWD2 runs, but I've never ended up posting them here. Let it be known that even if I make it through this current run, I am not a perfect player and I have tons of failed runs behind this one.
You know, I have some successful runs of the IWD games, but the Hall of Heroes has historically been reserved for successful runs of the BG games, so my runs are buried somewhere in this thread. What do you guys think about expanding the Hall to IWD, NWN, and PST runs, or maybe creating a separate "hall" for those games?
Creating a separate hall seems like a fine option (in my opinion, the challenge of no-reloading through the entire baldur's gate series is on a bit of a different level compared to getting through just one of those games, so I wouldn't exactly want them to be part of the same hall), though I don't quite see the challenge in no-reloading through PST, since success is almost inevitable
@Enuhal: We briefly discussed a PST no-reload run in the past and we agreed that the appropriate equivalent was a no-death run, aside from deaths that are mandatory for quests.
IWD2 isn't quite as hard to play no-reload as the BG games, but it's far more challenging than the first IWD game, at least with the Tactics4IWD2 mod installed. Immunity to disablers is much harder to come by, items and spells are much less broken, and the game is much more linear, limiting the player's options and preventing the kind of crazy gimmicks that can smooth out the difficulty. A solo HoF run of IWD2 is almost as challenging as a solo LoB run of the BG saga, and distinctly more difficult than any one of the BG games individually.
Today's session started with sorting out equipment following the death at the end of the previous session. We then set out for Boareskyr Bridge, though spent a bit of time clearing a troll cave ambush area on the way.
A mage became a backstab victim and his scroll was used to repair the magical shields on the fort. At that stage the safe thing to do would have been to surrender the fort, but instead we told Khalid to come out fighting when he heard the Flaming Fist arrive.
Another ambush area, with a bunch of myconids in, was cleared on the way back to camp. Arriving there, no-one was available to talk to to organize the Fist - I think they must have fallen victim to the trolls that invaded the camp last time. Resigned to attacking by ourselves we returned to Boareskyr and initiated combat. The guards around the gate were dealt with easily enough and we got a surprise towards the end of that combat when some Flaming Fist turned up after all. On entering the main gate though we found a horde of enemies present. I'm not sure whether that reflected that they'd just finished making mincemeat of Khalid, or that Khalid hadn't come out to fight as a result of the delayed entry of the Flaming Fist.
Several fireballs hurt the opposition while they were being held up by the Fist, but most of them were near dead rather than properly dead when they removed that obstacle and stormed after us. They were hasted, so fighting a rear-guard battle was difficult and we were quickly pushed back towards the edge of the map. Oloneiros was a particular danger and Iter tried to remove his last few HPs before retreating again - but the mage got his own fatal attack in first.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 153 - update 1 of 1 (when you need a job done badly, get a gnome. Source: Wikignomia) Jen (gnome Illusionist / Thief, Gate70); Ogel (half elf Fighter / Druid, Grond0)
Jen had a nice little gnome back-story, being almost related to Jan. Her wisely companion found himself wielding a fragile scimitar when any fool knows the cheaper Ninjato never breaks. Still, best to keep quiet as the corpses of others (Imoen, Xzar, Montaron, Ajantis) were unable to attest.
Rule 1 of being a gnome is that you never cut corners. Sure, you might blind a helpless nereid and make her day go from bad to worse but that's the circle of life and doesn't involve any edges.
Resplendent with XP we're ready to face anything. Hah, those ambushers won't know what hit just managed to run away from them with only one potion needed to stay alive.
Ogel bit his lip when told to check out an ankheg nest at low level, proved to be correct as the second one used two critical attacks to start feasting on him. With large parts of his body missing, Jen was able to drag the remnants back to a temple. Since Ajantis' shield hadn't helped Ogel that much she kicked the paladin's body on the way past. He was such a cheapskate with gear that hardly helped anyone else's cause.
Jen needed to learn Invisibility fast. Really fast. Ogel sighed as he watched her root around for ingredients. How many basilisk claws are needed for that concoction (four it turns out). Ogel waited with baited breath, hardly daring to wonder at how long these claws would take to simmer down into gnomish magic but the answer was that you can just buy Invisibility scrolls at High Hedge once you have the XP to memorise them. Who'd have thought it.
So now we have invisibility, let's go use it. Jen leads the way and proudly says she'll turn us invisible so we can walk right past those battle horror doom guard whatever they are. Ogel nods, it was his plan anyway and as plain as the scimitar on the roof - that's another story though. Jen almost casts Invisibility on Erdane the merchant but realises her mistake and focuses on the party. There are two of us and one merchant, highly confusing but 19 INT gets there eventually.
So we're invisible. We stroll down to Durlags Tower and it's a mere formality. Although there is a ghast in the way. It's got a big broad back and in true gnomish tradition you won't need any armour or even a magical weapon in this tight confined place because there's no such thing as multiplayer lag. Gnomeland security will handle this since the half-elf is still clambering up the stairs .
Her first ghastly attempt at a backstab only connects with air but still turns out to be fatal. Ogel tries to get past the stricken Jen and eventually does so but the ghast is not to be put off it's tender snack and Ogel can only provide a post-mortem. Died from stupidity and saved everybody a lot of time.
Comments
Iter (dwarf fighter/thief, Grond0); Laran (Human Diviner, Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/965097/#Comment_965097
As usual the session started with me examining my character record to try and find out what I was playing. That examination showed I had thief abilities and I congratulated myself on remembering to disarm the traps on the second mine level - at least until Gate70 rather rudely pointed out that Iter was smoothly detouring round the 3 traps at the end of the level
Outside the mine the amazons were luckily blinded - luckily for them as they really didn't want to see the nasty mess they were creating as they died.
Tranzig was blinded and backstabbed on the way to the Bandit Camp. Things seemed to be going well there when Taurgosz chased out of range of his bandit archers and realized the hopelessness of his position. We had been having a discussion about whether things could be backstabbed if they were helpless and no attack roll was required - this provided an affirmative answer.
There was another problem in the second Cloakwood area when Iter tried dragging ettercaps individually back from a trap. That's possible with 4 of the 5 ettercaps, but Iter was only on the second when an attempted attack on it turned into a movement order instead. Multiple clicks were made to cancel the order, but without success as the dwarf trudged forward right through the trap and 4 ettercaps attacked. It was a good job that he saved there and was able to retreat back out.
Drasus & co failed to take any action when affected by area disablers and the route down through the mine was easy as well.
Arriving in Baldur's Gate, Laran made a beeline for Sorcerous Sundries for a spot more spell-learning. He'd been making a bit of a thing about trying on different mage robes and the City provided plenty of opportunities to try out new things to wear. One of those on offer was Drelik's, which Iter got with a backstab through mirror images - though he missed the action as a result of running out of the door to dodge an expected horror.
Iter, Fighter 6 / Thief 7, 76 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 234 kills
Laran, Diviner 8, 41 HPs, 105 kills, 1 death
Before: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/968093/#Comment_968093
Archy was heading down the mine. Archery is not a bad option in BG1 - but y’all knew that. The mine was a breeze and Mulahey ended up a hedgehog
Tranzig, Silke and Nimbul ended the same way. Hiding in the shadows and taking pot shots:
Playing an archer in version 1.3 meant that you could wear the Ankheg armor. Version 2.3 isnt that lenient - but the work around is hiding in the shadows... its a change - but not for the worse.
The bandit camp was dealt with stealth and sniping:
I had opted for a solo run. But having to face Big B ( and not having finished my SoD test run yet) made me reconsider. If I have to face Bel, I want the goblet and the helmet, which means Durlags Tower, which means a thief. Enter Coran... a sniper like Archy - and a decent thief.
Unfortunately Coran wants a wyvern head!! So away we go.
or should I say run? We did get the head, but ended up kiting and running for our lives. Not my finest moment - but we lived.
The Drasus party was also a mishap. We charmed a guard with Algernons cloak, and got Genthore. But and ensuing Chaos and horror combo wrecked havoc.
We where more cautious in the mine. Taking stealth shots and looting our kill.
Killed Sunin from steath and went to the hall of wonders. Adherrents of Gond will find solace there - the rest of us want the priests 20 potions of speed at a fair price.
I ran away from Imoen, collected a party then went Bug hunting for experience before clearing out the various bandits for good profit.
I spent all our gold on better gear and I'm now allowed into the city so what could possibly go wrong?
Difficulty: Insane with no extra damage (actually has an effect in SoD, as opposed to BG1EE), max HP on level up.
Mods: None (no SCS in SoD).
Self-imposed restrictions: I am only allowed to import the protagonist, and even then he can only come over with his personal gear, with an extra allowance for bringing the Chain Mail +3 along for later importing into BG2EE (if Aldain II doesn't suffer an equally humiliating defeat as Adamant before then...).
Also, I cannot strip the starting party of their gear at the conclusion of the introduction dungeon.
I am allowed to use their gear, potions etc to get me through the dungeon, but that's it: I can't even buy a bunch of useful potions/scrolls from the Flaming Fist Healer for the starting gold you get and bring said items with me.
Anything that we get FROM the introduction dungeon I will of course bring with me.
The intent with the above is to keep a modicum of early-game challenge, which is seldom the case if you have too much money or powerful potions/scrolls/items to work with.
So, lest we forget, here is our protagonist, fresh from his victory over Sarevok: Aldain II, the level 9 Human Conjurer.
For those so interested, Aldain II begins play with the following items:
Robe of the Good Archmagi
The Amplifier
Legacy of the Masters
Ring of Wizardry
The Guard's Ring +2
Elves' Bane
Senses of the Cat
Cloak of Displacement
Aule's Staff +3
Arla's Dragonbane +3
80x each of Bullet of Electricity +1, Bullet of Fire +1 and Bullet +2
5x Potions of Extra Healing
5x Potions of Invisibility
Wand of Fire with 20/20 charges
Chain Mail +3
Familiar (Pseudo Dragon)
Maybe I should've just had him start with nothing... that's some seriously powerful gear. Anyway.
I will be aiming for a party of Minsc, Dynaheir, Glint, Viconia and Corwin. So very light on frontliners, and very heavy on spellcasters. Hopefully we can compensate a bit with raw arcane power and Animate Dead, though I am a bit worried how the final battle will go... even mighty Aldain II and his epic quarterstaff may not be enough melee muscle. We'll see.
So, onward!
Aldain II, Human Conjurer, SoD Update 1
BG1EE Updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
SoD Updates: 1, 2
The default Good party for SoD is Minsc, Dynaheir, Jaheira, Khalid and Safana. A bit light on the healing and clerical side of things... but we'll muddle through Korlasz's tomb, I'm sure.
And we do. I opt to try and clear the tomb without even resting to pick spells, and as a result we have a bit of a rough time of it: Dynaheir dies, but that doesn't really impact the group much (the Flaming Fist Healer will apparently only raise one companion for free though... if you need more, you have to pay).
A slightly more serious complication arises when, all but entirely out of spells and healing potions, we fight the final group of undead to the south of Korlasz's chamber and their attendant Skeleton Mage. Safana drops due a hasted Bladed Skeleton, and for a while things look a bit tense, but the undead clearly did not anticipate Aldain II's brilliant staff-wielding.
Korlasz's goons do not react well at all to a dual Fireball, and the mage herself surrenders soon after.
The stunted Baldur's Gate we are treated to is cleared without much to report. Safana is temporarily recruited to loot the Palace cellar, and Minsc and Dynaheir are likewise picked up.
Aldain II accidentally flexes his muscles at the Three Old Kegs and scares off the two parties of sailors, so no magic weapons to sell for us. And with his abysmal charisma, he likewise fails to trick the plotting nobles into implicating themselves. Boo! The vocal expression of dissatisfaction, not the rodent.
We finish up the little errands and depart for Dragonspear Castle (recruiting Viconia before marching out of Baldur's Gate).
Now in Chapter 8, Corwin is also recruited, and Glint replaces Safana. Huzzah, our final party assembled!
We of course begin by avenging the vile misconduct of justice that was the death of Adamant.
A Sword Spider and Gargantuan Spider emerge unscathed from the barrage, ending with said Sword Spider badly hurting a webbed Corwin (it seems to intentionally go for disabled party members, which explains why Adamant was singled out last time), but she survives, while the spiders do not.
We move north and east, and enter the undead-infested caverns.
The Dwarves of Dumathoin are of course rescued, and we get a first look at what we will be dealing with.
Yes, including the fried Greater Ghast, that's a dozen (!) undead, all but two of whom cause status effects on hit.
A group like that would actually be quite difficult to fight for our party without adequate magic support.
We'll make sure such magic is always available.
The party proceeds throughout the mine. There are literal hordes of undead just standing around waiting for us, and the set of spells that was intended to see us safely through the entire dungeon now instead is spent merely clearing the first level. There's little choice; Minsc cannot hold off a dozen undead on his own, our own Skeleton Warriors (we only had 4x Animate Dead available) do not last long against such numbers as these, and we can only memorize so many Fireball. Thankfully, Web is still very effective, but we only prepared two of those (a mistake that will be rectified).
Still, for all the difficulties, the first level is cleared. The party retreats to the camp and reshuffles spell slots extensively: Priority is given to Animate Dead, Fireball, Web, Free Action and whatever buffs we can squeeze in (healing will be handled by cheap potions). Thus prepared, the party returns and enters the dark library where the undead plague originated, intent on seeing this threat ended!
The first undead wave meets what was, is and will typically be our go-to tactic: Roast it until it stops moving.
One group down, oodles to go. But we have many spells remaining. Burning Skeletons to the west of the dungeon are cleared using Web and Glitterdust.
Moving east, we eventually stumble across what has to be the largest spawn I've seen since the Gibberling Hordes outside Nashkel.
That's 17 (!) undead, with several Wraiths still invisible, and a few more currently out of sight shuffling in from the east. Even with a wall of our own Skeleton Warriors, we end up having to blow several Glitterdust, Fireball and even a desperate Sunfire to cleanse the horde.
In contrast, a single Tarnished Sentry, no matter how tough, does not last long. Though you know things aren't going great when you send your mages to beat something to death in melee.
So, even though we are blowing through our memorized spells at a frightening rate, things are going reasonably well. Might as well change that!
The party enters the laboratory, easily fending off the skeletal undead guarding the door.
We explore towards the lower left part, where you are boxed in by test tubes. Prime spot for an ambush. Well, you can guess what happens. Invisible Glint, scouting ahead for traps, is spotted by a Bonebat to the north. Said Bonebat decides to bring every single undead left in the laboratory. This by itself is pretty bad, as we're now contending with some 20 enemies. What's even worse is that one of them is a Skeletal Mage, and before we are able to focus him down, he drops a Stinking Cloud straight into the hopelessly stuck party (test tubes make it impossible to run anywhere except straight into more melee enemies).
Cue a desperate fight where we never have more than 4 party members awake at once.
Minsc gives a good show of himself holding off the hordes to the north (only two can reach to attack him at a time), but eventually falls unconscious and is stunned by a Bonebat straight after. Dynaheir moves in and has just enough time to cast Improved Invisibility on him before she too goes unconscious.
This actually worked slightly in our favour, as the now invisible Minsc blocks the northern path to the party, forcing the almost entirely melee enemies to move around and attack from the east.
Here they face a mighty Glint, whose superior gnomish saves allows him to stay awake throughout the Stinking Cloud. Somehow, with intermittent assistance from Aldain II, Dynaheir, Corwin (when they made their saves) and Viconia, whose magic resistance allowed her to stay mobile almost as much of the time as Glint, we prevail. Badly, badly wounded and drained of both potions and spells, but everyone is still alive. Pictured: The tipping point, when we finally managed to kill off enough undead that we were no longer in any real danger.
With barely a Magic Missile left between us, we take the hint and retreat to rest and heal up, then return.
There are only three groups of enemies left: A few Fireball, a Slow and Glitterdust successfully destroy/disable the group guarding the pillars.
Beyond the door, the second group drags with it the third group. We unleash several Web, but these undead have serious missile damage resistance, and we're not really making much of a dent in them.
Eventually we resort to what Fireballs we have left, but even then it's barely enough: We are contending with two 9HD Skeleton Warriors, and Minsc might as well be in his smallclothes for all the good his armor does him, the ferocious Skeleton Warriors hitting on nearly every swing (even after Minsc gets an Improved Invisibility!).
We do eventually bring them down, but are once again almost completely out of spells. Fortunately, we won't need many more spells.
Pressing past the pool of blood, we witness Coldhearth's transformation. The only buff we apply is Haste (for the movement speed) before confronting him. Coldhearth triggers all manner of defensive shenanigans, but thankfully no Improved Invisibility. He is therefore easily targetted by The Secret Revealed (gifted to us by Brother Deepvein, whom we talked to during one of our many retreats to rest and heal), and subsequently dies in less than a round.
No time to waste! Glint spent those few seconds it took to kill Coldhearth finding the secret door in his chamber. The party rushes up, snags the phylactery (second one from the left), and makes their way back towards the fire portal room. Minsc takes another serious beating, as the cutscene that triggers here doesn't stop the enemies in the room from attacking, but survives thanks to having gulped a Potion of Fire Resistance beforehand. Huzzah, the evil lich is no more!
We clear the enemies that follow us out of the room, and head back upstairs to talk with Brother Deepvein.
Immensely grateful, he rewards us with the Helmet of Dumathoin, a Scroll of Greater Restoration, and the promise of aid against the Crusade. Hooray!
The party, once again all but out of spells and with barely a dozen healing potions between them, limps back to camp. Where they can still be found, licking their wounds (so to speak) and preparing for what remains of Chapter 8, which will hopefully be less brutal than the endless hordes of the undead.
Aldain II remains a level 9 Human Conjurer, but edges ever closer to that delectable level 10...
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/962353/#Comment_962353
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/968392/#Comment_968392
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/968555/#Comment_968555
The monks were all in stealth when leaving the Graveyard, which gave them a head start when ambushed by Suna Seni and a couple of thief backstabs didn't do too much damage to them.
At the Docks they took on some pirates. The mage there has high magic resistance - but that's no help against stunning blows.
Moving on to Rayic Gethras, the monks launched their standard stealth attack. The mage saved against the stunning blows, but still died of the damage before his buffs could fire.
In the Promenade an initial attempt to web Brennan Riesling failed and the monks instead used the stairs and stealth attacks to isolate and kill the enemies.
After paying out vast sums for raise dead, the monks successfully made their way to the Bridge District. They gave the Rune Assassins relatively little opportunity for backstabs and they were finished off easily enough.
On the way to Trademeet the monks were ambushed by orogs. The orogs all enraged, so were immune to stun and the mage and archers were significant threats as well. In theory there should have been time to run away before a spell was cast, but the habit of icons getting stuck on each other meant I had to split the monks up and Spirit was targeted by chaos - which she succumbed to.
Arriving in Trademeet, Taquee failed to survive a mass stunning attack.
Wraith - L11, 83 HPs, 70 kills (+465 in BG1), 2 deaths
Spectre - L11, 79 HPs, 55 kills (+403 in BG1), 4 deaths
Phantom - L11, 78 HPs, 54 kills (+349 in BG1), 2 deaths
Spook - L11, 78 HPs, 51 kills (+342 in BG1), 3 deaths
Spirit - L11, 80 HPs, 55 kills (+329 in BG1), 5 deaths
Chimera - L11, 74 HPs (incl. 6 from ioun stone), 76 kills (+570 in BG1)
Jesus Christ, this took a long time.
I finally learned from my earlier mistakes and switched to using a cleric-based build with a deep gnome rather than relying on sorcerer levels to speed up the early game with Wail of the Banshee. We picked a cleric of Helm for the extra +2 AC and, more importantly, the once-per-day casting of Aegis once we hit level 17. It made things very sluggish at first, since we had to kill everything using raw damage alone, and the ice wall in particular was a miserable slog because I kept failing to cast Aegis to block the enemy's Dispel Magic spells, but when we got past Dragon's Eye, in the last ~10% of the game, it finally paid off. We brought down Saablic Tan by pre-buffing with basically everything, casting Greater Shield of Lathander for near-immunity to weapons, and then just smashed him while keeping our HP with Heal. Once he was gone, we summoned some orogs, went invisible using Sanctuary, and fled the area once the enemy started chasing the orogs and allowed us to escape the box.
The Severed Hand was a breeze by comparison. Most of the dungeon is a series of low-intensity fetch quests, and while it has some really hard-hitting enemies, they don't occur in quite such massive numbers as you see in other parts of the game. With more than 90 AC when fully buffed (or 101 with Tenser's Transformation!), we were even able to dodge half-dragon attacks and enemy mages' Mordenkainen's Sword spells. Greater Shield of Lathander and Heal made us virtually indestructible, and thanks to some restructuring on my part, we also had very excellent damage output using the Massive Greataxe of Flame, a very rare and very lucky random drop.
We did not attempt to get the +10 longsword Light of Cera Sumat, even though we could have used it. Jaegar's vorpal arrows were an unacceptable risk.
The final battle was simple. We pre-buffed with everything we had, including some precious mage options (the higher-level spells came from scrolls, not our illusionist levels), followed up with Greater Shield of Lathander for safety's sake, then nailed Isair with a Protection from Magic scroll, as he was the weaker of the cambion twins without his buffs (Madae's spells also pose a serious threat, but 50 SR and Greater Shield of Lathander meant that we could deal with her Blasphemy spells). Without Improved Invisibility and Mirror Image, Isair went down very quickly, and the next few rounds was a low-intensity fight with their goons. They even had a pair of liches with constant effect Improved Alacrity, but they didn't throw out anything we couldn't resist.
In the second phase of the fight, we used our very last Protection from Magic scroll to block his spells and chopped him up within a few rounds.
One solo Heart of Fury run of Icewind Dale 2 with Tactics, complete.
As always, Frisky Bits was our Charname. We used a very weird but very effective character build, a deep gnome Cleric of Helm(21)/Monk(1)/Illusionist(8). That gave us WIS bonuses to AC, lots of important damage buffs, and Improved Invisibility spells to negate enemy attacks (with short lasting Blink spells for an additional 50% miss rate when dealing with hard-hitting critters).
The reason we didn't have more levels, like we did in my previous attempts, was because I put the level cap back at 30, as it is in the unmodded game. I wanted to make sure that no enemies could get a caster level higher than 30, since that would make our 50 SR much easier to break through.
Besides, the XP needed to reach levels beyond 30 is extremely high and requires lots of painful level-squatting. I've never even approached the XP needed to hit level 40, even when I was playing solo in HoF mode.
This run was very difficult, but it was worth it. I learned a lot about IWD2, including some very discoveries about where game balance truly lies. I had long thought sorcerers dominated high-level gameplay, but they're just not that good in the late game. Clerics are the only way to stay competitive in terms of damage output, at least as a solo character (a party of 6 sorcerers would probably do fine with Mordenkainen's Sword spells).
...
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...
...
...
APRIL FOOLS!
I didn't even start a new run, much less finish it.
For some bizarre reason I decided to punish myself last night by taking a little rest from the monks and having another go with Wimp, the statistically challenged wild mage, in an SCS/Ascension installation. The session got off to a good start when she was lucky in learning the identify scroll in Candlekeep at the first attempt and further progress has included:
- summoned a pseudo-dragon familiar
- familiar ate Shoal (level 3)
- picked up Algernon's Cloak
- charmed an ogre to get its belt on the way to the FAI
- familiar beat up some fishermen and returned their bowl to Tenya
- charmed Dushai at only the fifth attempt and led her away to grab her ring
- helped Firebead and Mr Colquetle (level 4)
- charmed the sirines in Beregost temple and led them outside for disposal (level 5)
- familiar nibbled a bunch of basilisks (level 6) before Korax helped out with Mutamin. Kirian & co were charmed
- at the FAI 2 charmed guards killed Tarnesh (if you use the ones near the gate they can kill him while neutral as they don't have a script making them move around) and Landrin got his goods back. Also charmed Jaheira to get her potion of invisibility (important as some areas are not safe to travel to even during the day)
- at the Valley of the Tombs gave the Revenant its dagger back to get another invisibility potion and dodged the ghasts to get a wand of monster summoning
- the familiar dragged all the xvarts away from Arabelle to save her. That pushed reputation up to 9 and Wimp went to Nashkel for the first time with the intention of talking to Oublek for a further reputation point to ensure she got CLW as a first Bhaal power. On arrival though she realized she needed she was a victim of gender confusion and hurriedly set off again to find Brage and get the requisite reputation. Here's her current character record and inventory in all their glory.
Wild mage L6, 32 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 9 kills
Wimp made her way through the Cloud Peaks, with lots of shuffling back to the Carnival to drop off items (moved using quick loot). At the Gnoll Stronghold she killed the half-ogres and various xvarts to open up the route to the cave with the charisma tome in. Inside, she failed to charm a xvart with Algernon's Cloak, so instead dodged outside with the idea of running the xvarts round to create enough space to be able to get back into the cave. In the process of doing that though, 3 more xvart groups spawned - meaning about a dozen of them were chasing. The thought of working through that lot was unappealing, so Wimp tried to divert as many as possible of them before aiming to nip in and get the tome. That was always going to be risky and her familiar got trapped and hit with several criticals in quick succession to kill it - triggering death for Wimp as well.
The good news is he rejoined the group after their fight ... the surprising news is that he won the fight and the bad news is we had to find a new thief.
I assumed it was over when a gas cloud killed half my party but we still whittled him down for a messy victory.
Well Ill try again in a couple of weeks when I have time.
Best of luck to everyone in the meantime.
May your saving throws be strong and your hp high.
Mikel - elven archer, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Trukk - dwarven dwarven defender (Gate70)
Alor - Half-orc shaman (Grond0)
The Trio found themselves at Sorcerous Sundries. Ah yes, that's right we had just cleared out the Candlekeep Crypts, as evidenced by two tomes in Mikel's inventory. So it was time to deal with Slythe. Mikel is master in crossbows, but used a non-proficient bow to dispel Slythe's buffs to pull him. Unsurprisingly, this meant Slythe didn't last long. We took the letters and scooted.
Next up was the Duchal Palace - we used haste potion on everyone and also strength potion for Trukk - the battle went well, and even Liia survived. The maze was no problem for this team. The only really tricky part was the party VERY carefully hugged the wall to avoid the 4 traps by the skeleton warriors - no mishaps with that.
We weren't sure what exactly to do with the undercity party. Grond0 had some arrows of detonation so Mikel tried that. While the party was victorious, the entire party was near death - close one. Probably would have worked better if whole party used those arrows. Ah well.
Time deal with Mikel's half brother. Not a lot of buffs, mostly haste potions. Sarevok was carefully pulled. But even so Semaj came as well. Mikel tried dispel arrows on Semaj but the others could not kill Semaj in time, and whole party got hit with chaos! Mikel, despite being only an elf, was the only one to make his save (or maybe it was the potion of magic protection that corey_russell had Mikel gulp, just in case...). Mikel tried to dispel Trukk's chaos with dispelling arrows, but could not hit him. Worse, Trukk wandered and pulled Tazok and Angelo! Yikes!
It was clear that Trukk was a lost cause, so instead Mikel dispelled Alors chaos with a dispelling arrow (successfully). Alor would try to bring up summons and Mikel would try to run and shoot. Even though Trukk had died by this time, he did not die in vain, as Tazok killed Angelo for hurting Tazok with those exploding arrows.
While we made some progress, Alor eventually died. So it was up to Mikel to run and shoot repeatedly until Sarevok fell, and indeed he did! Whew!
Corey_Russell was quite inexperienced with EE, and didn't have EE Keeper to bring his compatriots back to life (who were dead). So after a lot of ring-a-role, we eventually got going (about 30 minutes later - we use a two hour session).
The Trio successfully negotiated Irenicus' dungeon without a thief, and nothing much of note happened while doing that.
The circus was solved without any difficulty as well. We were running out of time (maybe 10 minutes) and we thought maybe we could deal with the Beastmaster before we finished. But Trukk and Alor were not full health and refused to rest and usually don't use heal potions. This proved costly as both Trukk and Alor died. Mikel managed to run and shoot all the survivors however.
Fortunately, it was not night time, so Mikel had no trouble going to nearby temple, raising his friends, and then freeing Hendak.
We were out of time, so saved our session here. Grond0 should be satisfied, as he feels there isn't enough adventure in a session if at least one person in the party didn't die - this time 4 did!
the mop up operation is finished and I'm at the first camp tonight... money is a little tighter than normal
because I forgot to spend it on scrolls before the ambush but I have all the gear so we should be ok.
BG1EE Updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
SoD Updates: 1, 2
Returning to our party, not much remains to take care of in chapter 8.
The rest of the map is explored, during which time some horrific, half-elf hating Spiders are treated to a fiery grave.
Yeah, I'm taking no chances. Gargantuan Spiders that Web + Phase Spiders that will doubtlessly teleport instantly to anyone that gets stuck... no. Better they never get the chance to become a threat.
Teleria (the Mutamin knock-off) actually throws up some prebuffs, but it's not enough. She and her Lesser Stone Golem are swiftly put down.
We wander up to the bridge, the latter subsequently being exploded, and fight the crusaders stranded on our side. Poor Minsc is once again treated to a severe beating as he attempts to hold off the melee bruisers. Unsurprisingly, 16 dexterity and a two-hander does not make for an ideal tank. I'll try him out with shield + mace once we find a +2 mace, hopefully that'll mean he'll need less healing. Anyway, everyone else comes through alright. Caelar interrupts the fight, we talk, tell her she's insane, and let the surviving crusaders go.
Alright, just the little side area left! Much as I dislike the female vampire hunter's demeanour, she's still human, and a vampire is still a vampire, so we gang up on Tsolak. A bog-standard vampire without the absurd powers SCS grants them really has no chance, and Tsolak goes down without even having gotten a Domination off (2x Minor Sequencer with 2x Magic Missile each were helpful in that regard).
The 14 or so Dire Wolves Tsolak summons prove to be more of a handful, but we over-did it with buffs and summons, so we're fine.
We move up the path, disarming traps as we go, stake Tsolak and return to the vampire hunters for a small reward. I opt to later hand over the heirlooms rather than keep them (The Biter is nice to have in BG2EE, if we make it that far).
Anyway, all that remains is the orc party to the south of Tsolak's cave.
They are educated in the dangers of being far too low level, said lesson being delivered in the form of a Cloudkill. They didn't even get to roll a save.
We tell Rasaad to go to the camp, and head back ourselves. Since we've amassed a fairly respectable fortune, I spend a little of it towards improving Aldain II's and Dynaheir's spellbooks (mostly for completion's sake when it comes to Aldain II, since he had almost every spell that's for sale already, but Dynaheir really needed a better selection). Off to chapter 9!
We do a thorough sweep of the initial map. There are no difficult encounters here; the trolls are the most annoying since they sometimes are very slow to go unconscious (even though they're taking enormous amounts of damage), but pretty much everything is highly vulnerable to simple tactics like multiple disablers or just Cloudkill/Fireball. Pictured: Hopeless bands of baddies falling to our overwhelming assortment of spells-per-day.
We enter the troll cave and deal with its inhabitants: The initial wave is treated to a double Fireball, whilst the band of Spectral Trolls behind the hidden wall are held off using a few Skeleton Warriors.
To my horror, the amulet that grants +1 caster level for clerics/paladins can NOT be used by evil characters! So Viconia will never reach caster level 11 and hence never get the 7 HD version of Skeleton Warriors. Boo!
You'll note Minsc's portrait gives the impression that he is wielding a mace. Indeed, I gave him Glimmer of Hope along with the shield you get from the mummy in the introduction dungeon. The extra +3 AC seems to be making a real difference, and being Minsc with his 18/93 strength, he still deals good damage. I'll keep him like this unless we're fighting something where every little bit of extra damage counts.
Everything in the first area cleared, we move towards the Boareskyr Bridge, and get the orcs vs trolls ambush on the way. Not much to report: The orcs outside the troll cave are very easily dispatched (and yield almost 80 Arrows of Fire for Corwin, nice!). Inside the cave, we scout out the trolls by the pond and drop a double Fireball. Which deals enough damage to instantly knock ALL of them unconscious, allowing Dynaheir to take her time bringing them down with The Biter. Also nice.
Descending the submerged staircase, the trolls in the meat larder put up more of a fight, but there's never any real danger: We just make sure to kill the two Mutated Crawlers quickly to avoid them Holding anyone, and likewise stick a Skeleton Warrior on the Neo-Oytugh to keep it from Diseasing/Slowing anyone. Minsc is doing a bang-up job tanking!
We pick up the Firefly sling (going to Viconia), and head out to Boareskyr Bridge, where we agree to find the missing crusader what's-his-face. Finally, we cleanse the goblin cavern to the north.
I considered blowing a Wand of Fire charge, but decided against it. They're goblins... even some 30-odd are no danger, especially considering their abysmal saving throws. A Horror/Glitterdust combo disables 20 of them, making the remainder easy pickings.
This seems a good spot to wrap things up for now. The party returns to camp, selling off their ill-gotten gains. Next, a visit to a ruined temple, where certainly all manner of dread opponent await...
Aldain II is now a mighty level 10 Human Conjurer.
BG1: Introduction
So I'm not going to be super detailed: it was essentially running as a kiting duo until around 30k experience, before picking up Imoen and Ajantis. The only one of these fights that was really sketchy was fighting vs Basillus: Lucia is Held, and Dari proceeds to save through the next two Hold Persons.
As a party, everyone's joining as level 5: I was aiming for level 6, oops. Regardless, we start clearing more difficult or tedious locations: Zordral, the entirety of the western Sword Coast outside of the Doomsayer (we fled with Brage after essentially losing the fight), Kirian and co., Battle Horrors, Sirines, before finally tackling Basillus. No deaths, though Imoen was really close after getting held by a Ghast in the tower and we resorted to using an Oil of Burning to help clear the area, dropping her to single HP. Imoen duals to Mage at level 6 Thief.
Shaman is pretty incredible at this stage of the game: Call Lightning is an answer to almost everything difficult.
Tranzig and Nimbul are treated to True Seeing + 4 people murdering them as well. We pick up Alora for the Ring of Free Action and traps and locks for a bit, while Imoen is in the Dual phase. At the Bandit Camp, two Webs, Cloudkill, and the level 2 Shaman spell whose name I forget help control the field. We're essentially unscathed by the end.
Ambushes: True Seeing more or less defangs the Amazons.
Molkar and co: Alora's caught by something and ends up in melee range and dies. Everyone else is dealing with a Web from Imoen, and Free Action on Dari and Ajantis by ring and sword respectively.
After a raise dead at a temple, Shaman summons soak a ton of damage from Drasus, allowing the other 4 to pluck at him at range.
The mages are dealt with with Darts of Wounding + True Seeing.
We recruit Yeslick just for this dungeon, and same gameplan for Davaeorn: Ajantis uses PfM, everyone else fights in the bottleneck. Both Battle Horrors are soloed by Ajantis before Davaeorn's script fully fires, so no bandits spawn before the Battle Horrors are dead.
In Baldur's Gate, we do everything I see as fairly easy experience or a useful item for SoD. So Basilisks, 5k experience from Doppelgangers (though there was a bug that meant I had to use console to solve the doppelgangers: the screenshotted command is actually wrong, and the variable name is AldethDopple. Programmers couldn't even name their variables consistently with the monster name.)
Thieves hurt. Should've had True Seeing running.
10k extra experience and another Wisdom tome? Don't mind if I do!
I... don't have any pictures of the Iron Throne fight, which I undertake for another Ring of Free Actions. We sunk a bit of gold on Chaos scrolls for Imoen for this fight. A preemptive True Seeing clears the backstab threats, and Imoen's second scroll effects everyone not enraged. Zhalimur disappears after being chased around by Ajantis for awhile, which becomes important due to me almost having to do the entire chapter over due to him.
Summoned monsters and fireballs help deal with some of the threats, but two or three of them are still living after Chaos ends. Spiritual Clarity has to be used from Lucia to clear a Charm or Confusion near the end of the fight.
In version 1, we immediately begin the next chapter and kill the ogre mages and quit and save. However, upon loading the quicksave the next day or so, something caused an immediate CtD. The only thing in the console was Zhalimur's Enrage expiring, which considering he's in Baldur's Gate and I'm in Candlekeep, is almost certainly the problems. I try 5 or so times, and everything gives an immediate crash to desktop. My only previous saves are the Autosave leaving Southern Baldur's Gate and the beginning of chapter 5. Most loads of the Autosave crash immediately as well, but one finally doesn't. We hunt down Zhalimur on the roof before refighting the Ogre Mages in version 2.
Spirit Fire and Fireballs wreck Pratt's party. All tomes are looted and both basilisks slaughtered.
Back to Baldur's Gate. I have to ask: is anyone else's versions of Slythe and Krystin randomly going invisible in between actions? Because I've had Slythe randomly disappear during the initial pull after drinking a Fire Giant Strength potion. Both Ajantis and Imoen are slaughtered before x4 Backstabs doing like 50 damage each, and I can't even reveal him with True Seeing. Two quick Raise Deads, entering through the Blushing Mermaid, and I fight Krystin. Who ALSO goes Invisible in between spells without anything in the console and without Aura. She's a level 9+ Mage casting Sunfires, untargetable between casts. This is completely unfair behavior, possible some script conflict between SCS and... Rogue Rebalancing? I can't think of what else might be doing this if it's not doing this in other people's installs. Regardless, we manage it, and kill Slythe. He stops going randomly invisible after running out of other actions to use. Wand of Heaven finishes him off after killing Ajantis again.
Ducal Palace: Invisibility scroll on Liia, we have 3 Skelly warriors and True Seeing, the Mage spends almost all its time trying to keep Mirror Image up and failing.
We make our way through the Thief's maze and bomb the Undercity party with Spirit Fire and Fireballs from Imoen. Our setup for Sarevok: Ajantis uses a PfM, and takes the sling from Dari while everyone else goes invisible. Diarmid is the most dangerous, but Ajantis has -14 vs Missiles between everything.
Imoen brings everyone else Invisible, and both Diarmid and Tazok are killed with Ajantis hiding behind an invisible wall. To find Angelo and Semaj, Dari uses True Seeing again, and I think Angelo dies before Semaj gets really weird. He targets a Chaos spell on Imoen, who's still Invisible: Lucia and Dari drink potions of magic shielding, and only Ajantis is Confused by the AoE. Semaj then finally uses a Divination spell, but the invisible wall breaks invisibility to go after that mage. He's interrupted and then, same with Slythe and Krystin, goes invisible without spell or sequencer or contingency. Ajantis dies to Sarevok before Spiritual Clarity can save him, and then it's desperately trying to keep everyone away from Sarevok, tossing around the Boots of Cheetah Speed. We're successful, but bloody.
In SoD, scrolling through all the loot causes a CtD again: I suspect it's that broken piece of armor. We re-equip Ajantis without going further than his items, and use 2 Sanctuaries and 3 Invisibility potions to bypass all the undead. Korlasz surrenders, and after stripping people of items, I realize I never reclaimed my scrollcase from Imoen. That thing contained 2 PfM scrolls, among other things, but too late now. We'll have to rebuild our scroll collection from scratch.
Iter (dwarf fighter/thief, Grond0); Laran (Human Diviner, Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/965097/#Comment_965097
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/968661/#Comment_968661
Though struggling with illness (sympathetically described as "man flu" by his wife), Gate70 held out long enough yesterday to make a decent bit of progress
At the Iron Throne Iter sneaked upstairs, but then failed to hide a number of times to get back down and, giving up on that, he just ran for it. In SP it's easy to avoid anyone following in that situation, but the greater delays in MP give enemies more of a chance and Aasim managed to follow him all the way outside - but failed to finish casting any spells at the bottom.
Back at Candlekeep, Iter had to rest 12 times (to learn DUHM). He disarmed most of the traps with the help of the boost from DUHM, but couldn't find the web trap. Laran helped him out there by putting malison to use against some spiders - in this case to make her skull traps more effective.
Before heading back to the City, the duo paid a visit to Drizzt. Iter had traps available, but was hitting often enough he was happy to stick to his bow while Drizzt played first with some gnolls and then a pair of Laran's skeleton warriors.
After luring Slythe out to confront a skeleton warrior, Iter made pretty short work of him with a backstab followed by a critical hit.
The palace fight can be a nightmare if all the dopplegangers immediately attack the dukes. In this case though only 2 or 3 of them did so. That was still enough to account for Liia, but Belt was hardly scratched before the last doppleganger fell (though technically 2 of them had already fallen down as a result of a malison + emotion combination).
For the Undercity party Laran decided it was only fair to swap a few of his exploding arrows for those carried by Rahvin.
After a nice smooth session things might have been expected to go badly wrong in the old temple - but they didn't. Semaj teleported out to be greeted by a few summons and lasted only moments after being hit by dispelling arrows. Sarevok then got the same treatment before Laran tagged him with her favorite malison. That could have made web a good option, but there would have been potential problems for us running round that. Instead she went for slow and poor old Sarevok was left struggling to lumber after us as he was shot up (made easier by the AC penalty imposed by slow).
Iter, Fighter 7 / Thief 7, 85 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 273 kills
Laran, Diviner 9, 47 HPs, 115 kills, 1 death
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
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/962353/#Comment_962353
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/968392/#Comment_968392
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/968555/#Comment_968555
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/968791/#Comment_968791
After leaving the monks in limbo for a week or so I was thinking about making a bit of progress with them this evening, but was then struck by a nasty thought. Most of the time I only save using quick saves, which hadn't been a problem as it's some time since I played BG2 with anything other than the monks. However, I did run one of my long-life characters into BG2 the other day and checking just now showed that the monks' save has gone and they will have to remain limbo dancing for ever
Iter (dwarf fighter/thief, Grond0); Laran (Human Diviner, Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/965097/#Comment_965097
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/968661/#Comment_968661
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/970605/#Comment_970605
The first level of the SoD prologue dungeon took only a few moments until Porios was persuaded to surrender. Downstairs, the undead proved somewhat more resilient and their shots in retaliation for fireballs took Laran down to a single HP.
After a bit of shopping in Baldur's Gate the duo marched out with the army. No work was done in the initial area, apart from hiding (invisibly or behind the tent) until Caelar was ready to parley at the bridge.
On the way into the temple there were more backstabs, including a first century score from a bugbear shaman.
The Neothelid beat off an initial attack from Iter, but Laran once more made him feel the burn.
Iter thought that a good tactic for Darskhelin & co would be to pelt them with exploding arrows. While no doubt true, the fact the arrows had been left in the travelling chest was a slight problem and we couldn't be bothered to go and get them.
Laran got very gung-ho against Akanna - using mirror image to tempt the aerial servants out of hiding, despite the fact that an unlucky blow could easily have been fatal. She survived though and, once visible, the servants were easy targets - as was Akanna.
On the way out Iter tried a pot-shot with a throwing dagger at Morentherene, but missed. Still feeling like riding her luck, Laran wanted to stay and fight even after the dragon leapt up, but changed her mind after being critically wounded by a poisonous breath. Iter did just get to her in time with slow poison, but a greater wyvern finished her off before she could move away.
On the way back to camp Iter ignored the cries for help of a young green dragon. He also tried to ignore a bunch of trolls and hobgoblins on the road, but they followed him to camp anyway and made a bit of a mess of the Flaming Fist before succumbing.
Iter, Fighter 8 / Thief 9, 93 HPs (incl. 5 from helm), 338 kills
Laran, Diviner 10, 51 HPs, 178 kills, 2 deaths
HHH - because we are waiting for 2.5
My Archer Archy is (still) safely stored in BG1 awaiting the 2.5 patch. But while we are waiting I decided on a HoF run in IWD. This time with a half orc F/C. He is min maxed (19/18/19/9/18/3). His charisma was too low for the name Godot, so he was named HHH.Hhh did the chores in Easthaven and gained some levels
The first milestone is getting some Summons. The undead at level 3 are pretty solid. But getting there is a chore. With a sling and a flail the goblins where wasted until the final level was gained
The undead cleared the rest - and the wolf
Actually the undead cleared everything...
The only exception was the shadow in the vales, that is immune to non magical weapons. Due to my low charisma I couldnt buy Love of Black Bess. So I had to trek back to the Kuldahar Pass to grind XP and shortbows, so I could level up and buy a the cool: LoBB.
Back in the vale the undead killed some Yeti and an obscene amount of undead. Clearing the tomb Hhh reached level 10/11, and gained access to the much lauded spell level 6 and some nice summons.
Here hhh and Kres poses in a “I cleared the tomb selfie”
Next up: more killing (its a IWD run, so its pretty much given).
And that's after barely cheating death at the hands of Morenthene: is there actually a safe way to deal with ridiculously high Poison damage at that point in the game without being a Cavalier?
However, while Morentheren does indeed deal poison damage, as you noted, the blind albino wyrmlings are acid-based foes, so traditional protection from acid scrolls do help for this encounter.
Working on a new install, essentially SCS + Scales of Balance. Going to see just how crazy new proficiency systems make things...
Yes, I know that half-orcs can't be monks, I simply rolled a human and gave her green skin. I'm aware that she'll never have the delicious 19 Strength to start with, however it is attainable using tomes (granted a true half-orc could achieve a 20 strength with tomes but still, I can RP this just fine).
Stats:
Str: 18
Dex: 18
Con: 16
Int: 9
Wis: 10
Cha: 8
Alignment: Lawful Good
Proficiencies:
Scimitars +
Single Weapon Style +
Gothna was a humble half-orc who was raised in Candlekeep by her foster father, Gorion. Seeking to shelter her from the violent lifestyle typical of orcs and the murderous blood of her true father, he raised her in the monk order in Candlekeep. Even though he was sometimes stern with her, Gorion saw to it that Gothna grew up with correct morals and principles, so that she would grow to be a kind and goodhearted person. Gothna took to her monk training very well, but soon the day came when her life was in danger and she had to leave Candlekeep for good. Gothna completed various tasks around Candlekeep in preparation for her long journey. She was even ambushed twice in separate houses by nefarious men looking to cash in on the bounty on her head, but she was able to dispatch of both men with her martial arts. Finally, Gorion and Gothna set out, the road stretched before them and the sun slowly dipping behind the horizon.
It all happened so fast, Gorion called out a warning to Gothna just moments before figures stepped out of the darkness, one of them clad in black demonic-looking armor. They demanded Gorion hand over Gothna, who heroically refused and stood to face them. Gothna fled at Gorion's request, while he stayed and battled their ambushers with his powerful magics. Unfortunately, it was not enough, and the last thing Gothna saw out of the corner of her eye as she fled was Gorion being run through by the black armored figure's sword.
Weary and coming down from the adrenaline high, Gothna managed to escape her pursuers for the moment and slept. She was awakened in the dawn by a familiar voice. Imoen! She had followed her. Normally Gothna would've scolded the young brat, however she welcomed Imoen's company. The two continued along the path, passing a pair of dubious looking travelers on the road. They continued their trek towards the Friendly Arms Inn per Gorion's last instructions. They were stopped by a curious old man wearing a red cloak. He was kind enough to point the way towards the Friendly Arms Inn.
Several hours later, they arrived. Weary after having spent the day traveling, they immediately headed towards the inn. A strange man wearing a black cloak approached them, calling Gothna "friend" and asking who she was. Gothna advised that they were just travelers in search of a place to rest. The man introduced himself as Tarnesh and asked if she had come from Candlekeep recently. Having learned her lesson from before, she told the man to mind his own business. He responded by attacking!
First, he cast a mirror image spell, hiding his true self amongst several illusory clones. Imoen, knowing that mages had deadly magics, immediately put some distance between herself and the enemy mage and began peppering the mage with arrows as best she could, hoping that at least one would strike true. Gothna rushed the clones, dispatching one that she for sure thought was the real Tarnesh. Alas, it was a clone. At this point the town guard rushed in and joined the fray, having seen how he initiated the attack first. Tarnesh, still protected by multiple mirror images, cast a powerful fear dweomer, striking fear into the guards and forcing them to flee the battle. Gothna at first felt horror, however her years of monk training had taught her how to overcome emotion, and she was able to still her mind and continue attacking.
She resumed attacking Tarnesh and his clones. She lashed out at another, delivering a powerful kick to the face. This would've incapacitated a normal human, but alas she struck yet another clone. The enemy mage unleashed a powerful magical barrage of energy darts, each one striking true and painfully wounding Gothna. Desperate, Gothna took a deep breath and focused her mind, for she would only have one last chance. Gothna unleashed a flurry of blows, one of which was aimed at a vulnerable pain-point that would render anyone stunned and vulnerable. There were only two images left, and surely one of them was the mage. Unfortunately, her blows caused the image to vanish in a blink. Imoen, seeing that the clones were gone and the real Tarnesh was in sight, knocked another arrow in her shortbow and let it fly! However, she missed the shot as she was trying not to hit her companion in the back.
The vile mage sneered and cast yet another barrage of seething magical energy darts. This time however, one magical dart hit Gothna right in her heart, striking a mortal blow. Gothna immediately dropped to her knees, her strength failing her. She knew her time had come. The last thing she heard was Imoen's scream as everything faded to blackness...
Yes, I died because of Tarnesh lol. It was fun while it lasted! Now to roll up a new charname...
I have thousands of screenshots from my old solo HoF IWD2 runs, but I've never ended up posting them here. Let it be known that even if I make it through this current run, I am not a perfect player and I have tons of failed runs behind this one.
You know, I have some successful runs of the IWD games, but the Hall of Heroes has historically been reserved for successful runs of the BG games, so my runs are buried somewhere in this thread. What do you guys think about expanding the Hall to IWD, NWN, and PST runs, or maybe creating a separate "hall" for those games?
IWD2 isn't quite as hard to play no-reload as the BG games, but it's far more challenging than the first IWD game, at least with the Tactics4IWD2 mod installed. Immunity to disablers is much harder to come by, items and spells are much less broken, and the game is much more linear, limiting the player's options and preventing the kind of crazy gimmicks that can smooth out the difficulty. A solo HoF run of IWD2 is almost as challenging as a solo LoB run of the BG saga, and distinctly more difficult than any one of the BG games individually.
Iter (dwarf fighter/thief, Grond0); Laran (Human Diviner, Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/965097/#Comment_965097
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/968661/#Comment_968661
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/970605/#Comment_970605
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/971282/#Comment_971282
Today's session started with sorting out equipment following the death at the end of the previous session. We then set out for Boareskyr Bridge, though spent a bit of time clearing a troll cave ambush area on the way.
A mage became a backstab victim and his scroll was used to repair the magical shields on the fort. At that stage the safe thing to do would have been to surrender the fort, but instead we told Khalid to come out fighting when he heard the Flaming Fist arrive.
Another ambush area, with a bunch of myconids in, was cleared on the way back to camp. Arriving there, no-one was available to talk to to organize the Fist - I think they must have fallen victim to the trolls that invaded the camp last time. Resigned to attacking by ourselves we returned to Boareskyr and initiated combat. The guards around the gate were dealt with easily enough and we got a surprise towards the end of that combat when some Flaming Fist turned up after all. On entering the main gate though we found a horde of enemies present. I'm not sure whether that reflected that they'd just finished making mincemeat of Khalid, or that Khalid hadn't come out to fight as a result of the delayed entry of the Flaming Fist.
Several fireballs hurt the opposition while they were being held up by the Fist, but most of them were near dead rather than properly dead when they removed that obstacle and stormed after us. They were hasted, so fighting a rear-guard battle was difficult and we were quickly pushed back towards the edge of the map. Oloneiros was a particular danger and Iter tried to remove his last few HPs before retreating again - but the mage got his own fatal attack in first.
(when you need a job done badly, get a gnome. Source: Wikignomia)
Jen (gnome Illusionist / Thief, Gate70); Ogel (half elf Fighter / Druid, Grond0)
Jen had a nice little gnome back-story, being almost related to Jan. Her wisely companion found himself wielding a fragile scimitar when any fool knows the cheaper Ninjato never breaks. Still, best to keep quiet as the corpses of others (Imoen, Xzar, Montaron, Ajantis) were unable to attest.
Rule 1 of being a gnome is that you never cut corners. Sure, you might blind a helpless nereid and make her day go from bad to worse but that's the circle of life and doesn't involve any edges.
hitjust managed to run away from them with only one potion needed to stay alive.Ogel bit his lip when told to check out an ankheg nest at low level, proved to be correct as the second one used two critical attacks to start feasting on him. With large parts of his body missing, Jen was able to drag the remnants back to a temple. Since Ajantis' shield hadn't helped Ogel that much she kicked the paladin's body on the way past. He was such a cheapskate with gear that hardly helped anyone else's cause.
Jen needed to learn Invisibility fast. Really fast. Ogel sighed as he watched her root around for ingredients. How many basilisk claws are needed for that concoction (four it turns out). Ogel waited with baited breath, hardly daring to wonder at how long these claws would take to simmer down into gnomish magic but the answer was that you can just buy Invisibility scrolls at High Hedge once you have the XP to memorise them. Who'd have thought it.
So now we have invisibility, let's go use it. Jen leads the way and proudly says she'll turn us invisible so we can walk right past those battle horror doom guard whatever they are. Ogel nods, it was his plan anyway and as plain as the scimitar on the roof - that's another story though. Jen almost casts Invisibility on Erdane the merchant but realises her mistake and focuses on the party. There are two of us and one merchant, highly confusing but 19 INT gets there eventually.
So we're invisible. We stroll down to Durlags Tower and it's a mere formality. Although there is a ghast in the way. It's got a big broad back and in true gnomish tradition you won't need any armour or even a magical weapon in this tight confined place because there's no such thing as multiplayer lag. Gnomeland security will handle this since the half-elf is still clambering up the stairs .
Her first ghastly attempt at a backstab only connects with air but still turns out to be fatal. Ogel tries to get past the stricken Jen and eventually does so but the ghast is not to be put off it's tender snack and Ogel can only provide a post-mortem. Died from stupidity and saved everybody a lot of time.