Favorite random moment during current run: getting back to Trademeet just as a party of Harpers show up to take revenge on Jaheira, and watching the city guard leap to the defense of their Heros. I know it's just a response to the Harpers getting flagged as hostile, but it felt really organic.
Other random thought- when you're trying to keep your resting time down, Edwin spends a lot of time feeling like dead weight. At least at low to mid levels. Going to need to rethink how I pick mage spells to get more mileage from them.
Noywad VI entering no-reload challenge... Noywad VI - dwarven fighter, neutral good, level 8
Here is my new character: NOTE: my pic for some reason doesn't show in the party list, so changed it to a default one. He will be SOLO for all battles main quest related. NPCs are allowed to join for certain tasks/quests, or to be looted.
One really nice thing about being solo fighter type is it's very easy to make rapid progress. I just started him yesterday, but he's already at his level cap as well as just about to make his way through the thieve's maze.
This is how he made his progress:
* Improving his AC was a top priority at first. To that end, going to Nashkel and getting the Ankheg armor was a priority, as well as getting Merrianne's ring. * Now that he had AC, he went to Friendly Arm Inn to get the wizard's ring to sell to get him a +1 axe as well as large shield +1 * Next up, needed to make his way to Gnoll Fortress to get the gauntlets of dexterity, which he used until a tome put his DEX at 18 much later. He also SOLD the CHA tome, which was useless to him anyways. This was enough with his current gold to upgrade his armor to full plate, which he will use to the end. * Fire resistance ring obtained, as well as Carnival goodies like the shield amulet and necklace of missiles. The necklace was used quite often against enemy parties, such as Kirian or Drassus parties. * Eventually, had enough money for the greenstone amulet, which as a fighter with insufficient saves, it saw quite a bit of use. We even sold it and rebought it. It got used against Bassilus, which gave Noywad VI a hammer he will use to the end, and also against any enemy that might charm or hold. * Clarity potion used against sirenes at the lighthouse. Greenstone amulet used for traps and potion of absorption for the golems. * Greenstone amulet was also used to rescue Shoal from Droth. I needed a NPC with CHA, so recruited Imoen for this, since she had to take the kiss of death. What's funny is during the battle with Droth Imoen got put to sleep - once victory obtained, I removed her from the group and left the area - so she will wake up and find her group-mate missing - wonder what she thinks of that? I prefer the resulting helmet over the helm of baldran, as the elemental resistances are quite useful. * Forgot to mention, the cloak of displacement was obtained as soon as I could afford it and could safely traverse to Ulgoth's Beard.
Main Quest: * Nashkel Mines - Greenstone amulet and Necklace of Missiles made Mulahey and his buddies a cinch. Greenstone amulet was also too much for the Amazon Assassins to handle. * Bandit Camp - the bandits had difficulty hitting Noywad VI, and he went through the camp like a whirlwind. He used a potion of absorption against Khosann, but it was unnecessary, as by this point Noywad VI was dual-wielding and killed Khosann in seconds. Potion of magic blocking and firebreath potion were plenty for Tazok's Tent enemies. * Cloakwood - almost entirely skipped. One key part was using potion of invisibility and potion of freedom to safely and quickly skip area 2. Lots of buffs used against drassus, but as it turned out, the necklace of missiles (two blasts) killed the mages before they could do anything, so ended up being pretty easy after all. As Noywad VI was heavily buffed still, he quickly went down to Heirashan and wiped her and lot of her friends with more necklace of missiles charges. * Davaoern's level - no way to de-trap, so used a strength and haste potion to quickly burn down the battle horrors. Davaeorn couldn't do much before he was chunked. * City of Baldu'rs Gate - very little done here. Only the following: 1) DEX tome 2) helm of balduran (for Amn) 3) +2 ring from Razamith 4) Seven Suns and dealing with Ogre mage and carrion crawlers problem. 5) Iron Throne. I didn't want to waste invisibility potions so decided to fight it out. Mostly with protection from magic scroll, strength buff and haste - success, though took some damage. * So it was on to Candekeep! Almost skipped, but PfM scroll and storm giant potion used to open crypts and to deal with traps. Potion of invulnerability put his save vs. death to be safe from the phase spider poison. Then invis until Prat. Haste was enough to see easy victory, then potion of mirror eyes for the basilisks. * Slythe - did not dispel his buffs, just straight attacks though I did have belt of piercing, haste and strength buff. After Slythe fell, quickly ran to the palace, did DUHM and attacked the dopplegangers. It was close, Liaa died and belt was 1/2 life but made it.
Forgot to mention battled the Mountain maulers for their +2 axe, here's a screenie. Interestingly enough, just a potion of magic blocking was enough for victory.
Next session will skip the thieve's maze and Undercity Party and deal with my half-brother!
We carefully made our way down the mine until we came to a party of assassins who were backed up by nearby kobolds. The battle was hard and though we won we ended up so badly hurt that we returned to the surface to rest and recuperate. We found this suit of armour which both I and Ajantis should be able to wear but cannot.
I am thinking that the powerful magic of Near Infinity might be needed. What thinkest thou?
I looked at it in Near Infinity and got these images.
I cannot understand why either of my Champions cannot use it. Clearly my Zealots shouldn't be able to.
Noywad VI the solo dwarven fighter update SETUP: BG 1 EE, no mods, Core Rules at all times Game duration of this run: two days
Well I am pleased to report Noywad VI made it to Amn - but his half-brother nearly did him in. Read on.
So as mentioned last update, Noywad VI was at the entrance to the thieve's maze. He had protection from magic and invisibility (potion). He quickly ran all the way to the Temple of Bhaal, where Sarevok was hiding.
Noywad VI took a while to do his potion buffs, then pulled Sarevok. This was a mixed blessing: 1) ONLY Sarevok and Semaj came, which was good. 2) But the dispelling arrows never connected.
This meant Noywad VI had to risk direct melee against a hasted Sarevok, dangerous proposition indeed. Noywad VI tried to use an invis potion but it didn't click (interrupted?), so he tried again and this time he disappeared - just in time as death nearly took Noywad VI!
Noywad VI then spent a lot of time with heal potions - but Semaj's own cloudkill killed himself (Noywad VI NEVER targeted Semaj!!!), and got Sarevok to near-death! Once healed up, Noywad VI did DUHM and moved in for the kill - Sarevok's death was swift!
Noywad VI will move onto Amn. He will be solo for all main quest encounters, but is not opposed to NPCs joining for a specific task or for a quest - they will be kicked out once quest/task complete.
Interesting fact: Noywad VI's HP is normally 104 HP - but if he didn't buff then his damage taken would have killed him. He only survived because of 10 extra HP from heroism potion.
Thanks @Wise_Grimwald ! I was very, very careful the entire run, and every battle pretty much went to plan, except for the final. With all my runs I've had, you'd be surprised how many narrow victories (and defeats too) I have had...the final battle tends to be chaotic, but perhaps that's no surprise, since Semaj is fond of casting chaos...
A quick update. After resting at the carnival we headed north where we picked up Tenya. On the way through the ankheg area we killed a few of them with the result that Isra and Sirene both reached level 6. We then joined up with Imoen who is a conjurer/thief courtesy of the Imoen as conjurer magic. The above comments caused me to edit the colour of Imoen's tunic on the portrait I made from an excellent Espen Winther photo.
Having a rep and charisma of 20 the party did some shopping after selling unwanted items. However, they are still in need of finance as Nigretta has seen some items that she would dearly like to buy. The problem is that they would come DEARLY.
Noywad VI the solo dwarven fighter continues his adventures... SETUP: BG 2 EE, no mods, Core rules at all times
So Noywad VI finds himself captured by an unknown mage. Who comes to his cell and frees him, but the girl (Imoen) who Noywad VI abandoned in BG 1? He felt bad about leaving her without warning, so decided to make it up to her by helping her escape this dungeon. So Imoen was allowed to stay in the party until she got kidnapped.
The duo handled the dungeon well. Imoen was quite helpful in a few places, such as summons to absorb the initial stuns of the mephits in the air plane, and also improved invisibility for Noywad VI when he was fighting mages. But Noywad VI did most of the work. Once out, Imoen promptly got kidnapped by Cowled Wizards. Now I suppose since she rescued me from my cell, I gotta rescue her from the Cowlies, grumble, grumble.
So the first thing Corey_Russell did was closely examine his saves. A charm ends his game, so he needs spell defense. One of the most effective early defense for a melee character is the improved invisibility from the Air Control ring - this was indeed the 1st purchase.
Noywad VI then found himself in a strange "circus". Mostly undead he had to kill, and then the "mighty" Kalah, who died quick.
The Shield of Harmony was a vital item to get, both for AC but especially the automatic saves vs. bad things like hold, confusion, and charm. Until his saves get to -1 (which they aren't) vs. spell save, he really needs to keep this equipped if any of those prior threats are possible.
But first he has to get it. So Noywad VI purchased a green scroll of protection from petrification. He tried to get to Trademeet, but found Renfeld instead, so then had to double-back to unload this body. While in the area, improved invisibiliy and DUHM got Noywad VI full plate from Officer Dirth, which was a welcome item to get.
Then Noywad VI heads to Trademeet once again. He got the dreaded orog ambush, but improved invisibility once again, made it no problem to win that fight. Finally he gets there and rests and buffs before engaging the genies. With haste, protection from petrification, DUHM, and dual-wielding, Noywad VI's victory was assured and the Shield of Harmony was now his! While here he purchased the cloak of displacement to get automatic saves vs. death to anything that doesn't have a penalty.
He then returned to the slums to free Hendak - with his high AC, Noywad VI had no problem. Nowayd then purchased Azuredge, Stonefire, and sling of seeking (for much, much later). Stonefire will be the primary weapon - forgot to mention I found the Ashideena in Irenicus' dungeon, which is the off-hand weapon when applicable.
The quest for Lilacor was also done - this was completely unremarkable. Before trying to take on the slavers in the moored ship, Noywad VI wanted to improve his missile defense. He had just the thing, since he had no boots. The graveyard was visited - a peasant was killed by a hasted mummy, then a +2 axe was found just lying in a crypt. Then a man who was buried alive was rescued by Noywad VI. Noywad VI then quested a gravekeeper, who gave a clue on the bad guys' hide-out in the bridge district.
So Noywad VI heads to the Bridge District to confront Tiris enemies - the enemies could do nothing but die, and now some boots of avoidance are now Noywad VI. Noywad realized he needed the potion bag from Watcher's keep. Then he returned to the Copper Coronet Sewers, and will enter the slavers hide-out next session.
Noywad VI the solo dwarven fighter continues his struggle... SETUP: BG 2 EE, no mods, Core rules at all times Progress: Level 16, 2.1 million experience
So Noywad VI continues to make progress. He wanted the Horn of Valhalla, but didn't know of a "solo" way to get it without spell turning, which he won't get until book of infinite spells possibly. So instead he recruited Minsc. Minsc tripped the maze trap, Noywad VI got the horn of valhalla, and then removed Minsc from the group. So Noywad VI will be gone by the time Minsc returns (if he returns). Noywad VI has a pattern of doing this, as he also left Imoen in BG 1 after she fell asleep at Droth's hands.
So Noywad VI wanted to do Umar Hills early to avoid the high level spawns. To prepare for that, he got a protection from undead scroll for the Shade Lord (Noywad VI doesn't want to die to Finger of Death, thank you very much!). Then on to Umar Hills! The Umar Hills issues were simple enough, since for example SoH stops the mimic's hold, and the stone golem wasn't going to much with Noywad VI protected by Ilbratha.
As it turned out, clearing out the old Amauntar temple of undead was one of the easiest times ever - in vanilla, I don't use Azuredge here as Azuredge is bugged and only kills vampires. However, in EE it's a great choice for this area, and it ended up being a breeze with hardly a heal potion being gulped. The dragon was SKIPPED (for now) - why don't my paladins have the maturity the other characters of mine have - their low INT? The protection from undead scroll was used and Azuredge cleaned up the Shade Lord and his buddies, with a sunfire bullet taking out the altar.
Since improved mace of disruption is the only level drain protection Noywad VI can use until Yaga's Warhammer, he then worked on the Sir Sarles quest. This involved quite a bit of running around, and then he realized having a true invisibility item would help for the ore merchant (looking at you Brennan Risling). Noywad VI believed he was strong enough - strength potion, haste potion, DUHM, mirror image and improved invisibility (air control ring), dual wield, then beat up Brennan - oh and also two summons for distractions. These buffs worked great, and all of Mencar's gang defeated! There were useful items besides the sandthief's ring, such as protection from fire scroll.
In any case, was ready to talk to Jerlia and rest out in the open thanks to his new ring. Sir Sarles rejected the alloy, but the Temple accepted it. Neb was also taken out - full plate and belt of piercing and a real shield doesn't give Neb much of a chance.
I realized the Namurra would be quite helpful in the druid grove, so bought a protection from undead scroll and cleared out the graveyard (top side, not the lower crypts).
While I did have JUST enough to talk to Galen, then I wouldn't have enough to forge the IMOD. So then the Trademeet main quest was done. Most of it was easy, but a few harder fights: 1) Troll Mound - I remember having nightmares with other solo characters, duos and even the Trio. So haste potion strength potion used, plus the common buffs like Ilbratha and air control ring and also summons. This was enough for victory. The only reason I did the mound was because I had no bracers so might as well have the bracers of archery for the few times I might be at range. 2) Mage and her druid buddies - Noywad VI stayed at a distance and as soon as the mage because hostile, did the Namuraa silence - it worked! Horror averted. 3) Final group of shadow druids saw use of Namuraa and the genie lamp. Cernd of course challenged and defeated Faldhorn.
Once back in Trademeet, also got the mantle of Waukeen for the Mayor and also helped Tiris, putting Noywad's rep at 20. Maybe he should try to be able to get his CHA to 20...
Noywad VI returns to the docks. While here, he decided he might as well "help" the Harpers, mostly for their heal potions. Maevar and his goons were also dealt with. With full plate, reflection shield and also belt of piercing, the thieves had a heck of time connecting with Noywad VI, while he on the other hand had no trouble cutting them down with Stonefire. Ilbratha, DUHM, and Air Control ring buff once again used for an easy victory over Maevar.
Time to work on the main quest a bit - this was mostly to get the mace of disruption, then coming back to docks to forge the IMoD. Only fight of note was Tanova. I had three summons drain her most dangerous spells (Kithix, genie lamp, horn of valhalla), then Noywad VI buffed then attacked - success!
Once the IMoD was forged, he returned to the graveyard to finish them off. By this time he also had the Daystar, which was used in the ambush room on the lower level. The vamps were easy now, not even Bodhi could do much before she ran in fear.
Forgot to mention, before killing Maevar's merchant, Noywad VI had the foresight to get the Nymph's Cloak. This means he can get 20 CHA - combined with his 20 rep, he was able to get good deals on the dwarven warhammer in Trademeet, Ras, Tasheron's bow, and Shield of Balduran.
Noywad VI would like to get the Gaxx ring, but first needed to clear out the sewers. Using his invisibility rings, Noywad VI carefully drew out and waited out Gaius True sights. Then Noywad buffed, got right next to Gauis and attacked - Noywad got Gauis to near death but couldn't kill him, though Gauis couldn't target Noywad VI because of the improved invisiblity. So then Noywad VI burned down a few other enemies, then came back to Gauis - success! Enemies cleared.
Next session Noywad VI will deal with the Unseeing Eye. This is his equipment to date:
EDIT: Woops you said quickslot, not weapon. The item is the upgraded horn of valhalla - a merchant in Waukeen's Promenade can upgrade the basic horn for some gold and diamond and bejuril gems.
Noywad VI continues his quest... SETUP: BG 2 EE, no mods, Core rules at all times Progress: 3 million experience, 1st HLA: Hardiness
Noywad VI got two levels doing the Unseeing Eye quest. Improved Mace of Disruption, Shield of Balduran and a protection from undead scorll plus his good saves made the end result not in doubt. The other encounter of importance was the blind priests, but using Namaraa to silence them solved that problem.
Noywad VI was flush with cash, so got some needed scrolls, as well as dispelling arrows, which might be useful for Irenicus and Melissan.
He decided it was high time to have an encounter with Kangaxx. Unsurprisingly, the IMoD and an protection from undead scroll did in fact get Noywad VI the Ring of Gaxx. Noywad's saves vs. spells is now at -4, which Noywad VI was happy about.
Noywad VI also decided it was high time he avenged Jeanluc's death. I used this technique once before and it seems fool-proof, so here's the manual:
******************************************************************************** How to defeat Thaxxy as a solo fighter before spell-hold ********************************************************************************* Equipment needed: 1) Improved Mace of Disruption 2) 1 clarity potion 3) Shield of Harmony 4) 2 full charged Magic Missile wands (sell/buy back wands)
Why this equipment: 1) IMoD defends against Thaxxy's ranged attack, the level drain one 2) Clarity potion defends against dragon fear 3) Shield of Harmony allows defense of chaos, while also keeping the IMoD equipped 4) Magic missile wands allow ranged attack while still being protected by level drain
Tactics: 1) Equip Shield of Harmony and select the IMoD, if you haven't already 2) Use clarity potion 3) Stand by the alcove in the upper right of Thaxxy's area, fire magic missile wand 4) Lure Thaxxy by that alcove in #3, you might get hit once. Once he's close run to the northern wall of the alcove. 5) Thaxxy's level drain attack also blinds, which is why it's a good idea to not attack with your MM wands until he does that 6) After blindness wears, fire off 3 shots of the MM wand, Thaxxy will try to level drain which will also blind. Wait it out. 7) Repeat step #6 until Thaxxy dies.
FINAL TALLY: For Noywad VI, it took 132 shots of his MM wands until Thaxxy died. Other than the initial hit when Noywad VI lured Thaxxy to the alcove, Noywad VI took no damage.
Burl paid Gaelan Bayle and then quickly ran through Aran's tasks. He got a level by dealing with the Guild Contact (webbing him to ensure he didn't drink one of his invulnerability potions).
That led to the Graveyard where he played safe by picking up the MoD and upgrading that before persuading Bodhi to run away.
There was another level for talking to Aran Linvail and agreeing to take ship to Brynnlaw. On arrival there, Burl one-shotted Perth to get access to Spellhold.
His book briefly offered farsight, but Burl turned a page looking for a better alternative and discarded it when arriving at burning hands.
In Spellhold it didn't take long to get another level.
The lich there died I think from the deathblow effect - rather than the standard HLA, deathblow and greater deathblow require a save vs death (at -4/-6) from enemies of any level to survive a critical hit.
Moving on to the next level, I belatedly realized that Burl had picked up a further level.
He then moved on to Judgment - the efreeti accounting for enemies out of his melee reach on the way.
For the battle with Irenicus, Burl tried using a simmy to help him attack, but that quickly fell victim to a simulacrum bug. Without the ability to finish Irenicus off quickly, Burl retreated with the help of an invisibility potion to wait out some summons and buffs.
His own summons were then used to draw out spells before Burl re-engaged to finish things off.
Burl took ship from Spellhold, but got involved in a diversion and has just taken his 29th level after agreeing to help the Sahuagin king out.
War Hulk L29, 358 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 946 kills (663 in BGEE/SoD)
Noywad VI the solo dwarven fighter update (Windspear Hills and Planar Sphere)
So Noywad continues to make some progress. He decided to do the "monster hunting" in Windspear Hills, per that noble's request. A lot of enemies here, but Noywad VI did well. Sunray did a nice job on the large group of undead, the common buffs of Ilbratha and Air Control Ring did well against Samia's gang. 100% fire resistance made clearing out the genies easy enough.
But the run nearly ended against the Greater Wolfweres. These things hit like mach trucks, and have massive regeneration - Noywad VI nearly died. If it weren't for his Rod of Resurrection heal and his ToB abilities, he would have been toast.
But he presses on. The next mage confrontation of any note was Conster. I remember Alesia_BH's recommendation to always fight mages at range to avoid their nasty touch spells like maze and imprisonment. So I used the Tuigan's bow and opened fire, including some dispelling arrows - oh but before arriving also did invulnerability potion. Conster never bothered dispelling my invulnerability potion, so I knew the final outcome was never in doubt since that was the case.
I passed on Firkraag. Fighting him is high risk, but pretty much no reward that I want. I'll probably take him out after returning from the Underdark.
Decided with my new cash, I would get some of the key anti-magic potions that Roger had (things like potion of magic protection, shielding, invulnerability. Potion of absorption is extremely useful potion against strong crushing enemies).
I would probably like to forge the improved +3 hammer (name escaping me at the moment). So I went ahead and ventured into the Illithid lair in the Temple Sewers. I did just a few buffs, the 1st battle went really great. But then middle of the second battle, I realized I forgot to buff with some potions of genius! Woops! Fixed that right away. After doing that, the rest of the lair went well. Success!
Then I tried to open the planar sphere - but wait it's locked? But I know I killed Valygar - oh, must have forgot to loot his body. So had to venture back to Umar Hills. Sure enough his body was in Valygar's cabin - good thing it didn't decompose after all this time!
As solo characters, I often don't venture in the planar sphere, but decided that if I followed Alesia_BH's advice and stay at range, maybe I'd be ok. So once again, the next key battle was against the halfling mage. I did use a potion of magic protection for safety and did engage with my shortbow at range - this did in fact win the battle! The same tactic also worked well against the mage in the furnace room.
The next major battle was against Lavok - I tried to stay at range, but then he was immune - needed non-magic ammo, but didn't have any! Hmm...so at one point he was trying to use MM on me, but had shield amulet active, and my arrows weren't hurting him, so we both had no effect on the other. He eventually came into melee, so I knew that was my cue to melee myself - success!
The next major battle was fighting a demon - I decided to invis as close as I could to him, then GWW and see if that killed it before it could anything of note - that worked!
The next major encounter was Tolgerias - I stayed at range, did a lot of necklace of missiles shots because of the summons, and a dispelling arrow eventually connected on Tolgerias, then fire arrows eventually took him out. Was a lengthy battle, but success was eventually won!
I then had to deal with the enemies in the fire room. This battle was hard - even with 100% fire resistance, Noywad VI was getting hammered, had to RoR heal to keep himself together. He did eventually win it. The ice room was much easier for some reason, though a GWW in the ice room was quite helpful. I found my favorite helm here, and I might be ditching the helm of balduran now for the new one.
Ran out of time, will install the demon heart next session.
Upon going to the Lighthouse area, Isra was sadly killed by some sirines. They paid the ultimate price. We helped Sil against the pirates and the flesh golems were no problem.
Aerie raised Isra and we went into the depths of the mines where Mulahey proved to be no problem.
We then plundered the caves and killed Narwillinger before returning to Nashkel where two assassins were killed before we returned to Beregost.
@Wise_Grimwald Last time I easily made it to Melissan, but didn't have a strategy for beating her. I think I have one this time - use dispelling arrows, which is basically how the paladins beat her.
Started a new no-reload run after a year or so hiatus. Playing with Core, SCS + all difficulty mods, Ascension, + some personal conducts (no stealing, no recharging, no mislead / PI / anything else I feel is exploity / etc.). I am intentionally NOT including chunk resistance. Starting in BG2 because I don't feel like replaying BG1 when I inevitably get killed a bunch of times in SoA while I remember how to play.
Party of Half-elf CG FMT, Jaheira, Anomen, Aerie, Nalia, Minsc -> Yoshimo -> Imoen. First time I've played with either Anomen or Nalia, which has been fun. They turn out to have a ton of comments through out the game that I've never seen before.
My plan was to rush to spellhold early because there is no way to spawn level 13 imoen given class structures due to the need for an average party character level of 13. The hope was to get there around 600-800k exp (rather than 1.2m+), so Imoen would be about one level behind permanently instead of two levels behind. That would mean she gets her final level 9 spell at the end of ToB and doesn't feel too gimped throughout the rest of the saga.
It turns out that default BG2EE (I think) fixes her starting experience so this was unnecessary. Nevertheless, I ultimately cheated her down to 400k experience (from the 750k which she spawned at) in order to reflect the original game behavior. I didn't know any of this in advance, however.
To get to spellhold as early as I felt survivable, I planned to do the following in Chapter 2/3:
Copper Coronet (added lilarcor as even though I didn't want the XP I did want the charm immunity for Minsc)
Misc non-quest Athkatla (get the berserker horn, get Namarra, rob the temples for wands and pots, etc.)
De'arnise Keep
Trademeet
Ring of fire resistance from Windspear (don't go inside to avoid spawning the vampires; in hindsight I possibly could have snuck by them with invisibility)
Buy potion container from WK
Finish things in Athkatla (chapter 3 quests, Temple sewers party, Delosars Inn party, rescue haerdalis for the resurrection wand)
I normally play with at least one evil member (typically Viccy and/or Edwin), so this was possibly my first play through where I could get to 20 reputation for the shop discount, which was helpful given limited gold availability prior to leaving for spellhold. I temporarily recruited viccy for the rep penalty to make temple donations cheaper. I donated up to 14 rep, dismissed viccy for +2, and then got to 20 via circus, slave child rescue, and trademeet. Charname maxed the charisma discount with ring of human influence + friends.
I'm current on my fifth try and just entered the underdark.
Four earlier iterations fell to:
1) Giant mess during the fight with Baron Ployer, after I foolishly assumed that the house was a safe place to cast arcane spells. I had already been warned by the cowled wizards and was no match for their enforcers. A contingency horrid wilting killed at least Aerie and the fight went south from there. I ultimately lured two outside and was able to kill one after he ran out of PfMW. I possibly could have killed the others, but by this point they had despawned. I also had the misfortune of spawning some sort of backstabbing invisible thug encounter while retreating to the slums temple to buy healing spells. One of those thugs ultimately killed charname when the thug apparently retreated and hid inside baron's house and subsequently got a backstab off that I wasn't expecting. Besides that backstab, the fight was over and charname was killing the last of the original mages. In later runs, I decided to just let the cowled enforcers despawn after a few hours and not deal with them.
2) Someone (I think Aerie or Nalia) getting chunked by a surprise crit after stoneskin wore off during a fight - I can't remember which fight
3) Some other charname death I can't remember
4) Getting whipped by Torgal who ultimately chunked Aerie and forced a restart. The SCS Torgal fight is a weird fight (to me anyway) in that sometimes it is easy and can lure you into a false sense of security. In actuality, it is a very dangerous fight for an early party.
When the fight goes easily, it might look like the following. Disable the two yuanti mages with cloud kill and chaos. Resist / be immune to the umber hulk elder's confusion. Kill him first as he has limited defenses. Kill the two giant trolls per normal. Run around to avoid torgal / distract him with summons. Finish off the yuanti. Tank Torgal with stoneskin / mirror image / good AC. Everyone casts a zillion evocations and everything else on Torgal, who goes down pretty quickly when focused by a full party. He is also vulnerable to slow and blind.
When the fight goes poorly, the party depletes its resources on Torgal without killing him (allowing him to regen for free) and wastes other resources on Torgal's party while getting in a slugmatch with the yuanti mages. If a few party members die, charname doesn't have any stoneskin / mirror image left, and casters run low on spells, Torgal can become a real terror. He has ~150hp, lots of damage resistances and a lot of regen, particularly when he isn't slow. He also hits like a truck and will gladly chase you throughout the keep.
Anyway, this particular party had the "goes poorly" outcome. While running away through the keep, a bunch of trolls respawned (including spirit trolls). Somehow charname, Aerie and Nalia survived all that to reach the safety of the outside of the keep. I refuse to resurrect characters if the party wouldn't reasonably have access to their bodies, so it was up to the three to face Torgal again alone. Ultimately, they couldn't do enough damage and before I could get away to try again (or perhaps sneak to the bottom of the keep to raise dead), Aerie got chunked. I resolved on future playthroughs to stack a bunch of traps outside Torgal's room before engaging.
It didn't take long for Burl to make his way through Fish City, picking up a new cloak on the way.
First the king and then the prince discovered the folly of trusting other species.
In the Underdark, Burl chewed through some drow before helping out the deep gnomes - I'd thought Ras would last long enough for Burl to kill the balor there, but its physical resistance allowed it to get a blow in just before it went down - Burl getting another level for surviving that attack.
He killed everything in the Western Tunnels. The Prince's regeneration stood up to his standard attacks, but didn't help him against a critical death blow.
Burl switched to a speed 0 weapon to avoid retaliation from the death knights while picking up the Soul Reaver sword.
I didn't bother with the illithid, but did want the Greenstone Amulet. The elder orb at the entrance could easily have been a problem though, so Burl initially just went past it invisibly. A few gauth still gave him another level though, while grabbing the amulet.
On the way back he decided to test the elder orb out. An initial power attack stunned it for a round, but I thought its buffs might still fire. However, there was still no stoneskin by the time a second attack proved fatal.
After buying a few things from the drow, Burl returned to Adalon. Unsurprisingly, she was immune to the unconscious effect from power attack, so Burl settled back for the long haul of nipping up and down the stairs to wear down stoneskins.
Back in Athkatla, Burl forged the Wave halberd. Looking for other useful equipment upgrades he went to Umar Hills to get some nifty armor.
Together with his magic resistance HLA that would provide the possibility of getting magic resistance to over 100% in ToB. Next he returned to Watcher's Keep to beat up some statues and get down to the second level. First though I realized Burl hadn't picked up any slippers - oh well, that's an easy problem to sort out.
Another level later
and the way down was clear for Burl to go and find the poison head for the FoA.
Returning to the Graveyard, Burl used the iMoD to beat a path through the vampires.
Bodhi was weakened by Elhan's holy water and then brought to the verge of death by a sunfire.
Burl is currently standing outside Suldanesselar.
War Hulk L29, 358 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 946 kills (663 in BGEE/SoD)
Billy is a half-elf FMT with proficiencies in dagger, quarterstaff and two weapon fighting. He will later get warhammer proficiencies and two handed weapon fighting.
Irenicus's dungeon is annoying after the zillionth playthrough, but I do have a little fun trying to get it more and more optimized. It's disappointing that enchant weapon no longer creates +3 weapons, as creating two +3 maces for minsc was previously a pretty good use of Imoen's level 4 spell slots. I still try to maximize use of jaheira's shape change, yoshimo's backstabs, and the limited spell power we have in order to minimize the amount of healing potions consumed inside the dungeons.
Had a brief scare when nearly the entire party got put unconcious by a radiant mephit in the mephit room, but other than that the dungeon went OK.
Upon exiting from the dungeon, our first goal was to recruit the rest of the party members (Aerie, Anomen, Nalia).
The circus was completed straightforwardly, with a little bit of hassle per usual from the werewolves, who are immune to normal weapons. Minsc has the +2 sword of chaos and dealt with them, however.
After rescuing Aerie, the party went to the Copper Coronet. Jahiera shape changed into a cold-immune wolf to kill the winter wolf. To defeat the beast master, the party used chaos, holy smite, insect plague, and good old fashioned elbow grease from our warriors.
We then rescued Viccy and let her join the party temporarily while we donated up to 14 rep. We then rescued Jan and used him temporarily to rob some easily available items throughout athkatla, like the berserker horn.
We tried to squeek in the Trademeet arc before Nalia's quest timer went off, but it went off on arrival in Trademeet. We took a moment to pickpocket the Efreeti lamp before setting out for the De'arnise keep.
In the Keep, spirit trolls proved as annoying as ever. At some point, BG2EE seems to have fixed / changed the command sleep effect to NOT be removed by damage. This turns the spirit troll greater command into a really terrifying spell as the party only has one cast of chaotic commands from anomen. The permanent improved invisibility of the spirit trolls (seemingly only removable by glitterdust) is also really annoying.
Despite these challenges, we slowly slogged our way through the keep. The drawbridge was raised, some delicious pets were cooked for dinner, and the captain of the guard was freed from his charm.
Upon reaching Torgal's chamber, I resolved to not make previous mistakes by underestimating the fight.
We set 6x traps outside the chamber, in a plan to lure him outside once his party was dead. We also resolved not to let anyone waste resources by tanking him and to kite him instead. Finally, we resolved to focus on his party before trying to do any damage to Torgal, so as not to split our resources and waste damage output on his regen.
The fight went mostly to plan, not least because the yuanti mage AI is for whatever reasons bad at getting out of cloudkill in this fight. Once his party was defeated, we mass attacked Torgal with evocations and melee while charname tanked with his remaining stone skin and mirror image. Torgal fell soon after.
Leaving the keep creates a tricky dialogue moment. Normally, just having Nalia in the party for the quest generates an additional 10k gold, which provides this party essential funds in the limited time they have before leaving for spellhold. In this case, however, because Billy is an FMT, she offers the stronghold quest. This offer can easily lead to not getting the planar sphere (and its delicious stronghold quest item), Nalia leaving the party permanently, or not getting the 10k extra gold.
The correct path through her dialogue is to listen to her request (thus giving the party the extra 10k gold), but then immediately turn down her request for help. This prevents the stronghold quest from starting, and causes Nalia to leave the party. However, UNLIKE the outcome that occurs if you turn her down later in her dialogue chain, she will now rejoin the party upon speaking to her on the keep drawbridge. If the party turns her down later in the dialogue chain, she will not rejoin the party unless the stronghold quest is accepted.
Subsequent to the keep, the party set off for Trademeet. We killed the trolls in the forest, nearly getting killed when we somehow pulled three different sets of monsters (two troll groups, including three spirit trolls, plus a group of spiders). It's funny how trollish regeneration goes from "not a big problem" when you have a lot of damage output because you have all six party members able and fighting from full spell books, to "big problem" the farther you get from that status. Anyhow, the party prevailed with a chaos to disable the spiders and some tactical retreating to get better positioning and focus down the trolls.
The troll hut was cleared soon after. At some point I realized kithix has a web ability, which I did not know even after all these years and is pretty good... After clearing the trolls we worked our way up the map past a few other fights to get belm for Jaheira.
Faldorn herself is made significantly harder by SCS in several ways. If the party (or Jaheira) fight her, she is now a much more powerful druid and much harder to take down. With the lack of chunk resistance, I didn't trust Jaheira to win in a duel. I worried that getting disabled could lead to her getting chunked by an unlucky crit or spell. I therefore decided to let Cernd handle the fight.
My understanding is that Cernd is supposed to automatically win the fight if you tell him you observe. However, it appears that SCS breaks his script, so he doesn't properly turn into a werewolf and will therefore lose during the cutscene. To fix this issue, the correct thing to do is to temporarily recruit him so that he can be turned into a werewolf while a member of the party. He can then be removed, and told to challenge Faldorn. He will then correctly enter the fight as a werewolf, and easily defeat faldorn.
I unintentionally defeated Faldorn without killing the druids outside her sanctuary first (due to Cernd teleporting us inside). I therefore lost out on a magic club for Jaheira and would have to wait to get blackblood later.
We bought a few potions from the witch before speaking with the Djinnis. Upon returning to fight the three rakshasas, we basically got bullied a lot by disables and evocations until they finally ran out of steam and we were able to focus them down.
The trademeet rakshasas are a tough fight early on due to their spell immunities, even with dispel illusion from the FMT. I brought zone of clean air to deal with the cloud kills, but they're still really tanky with all their stone skins and low AC (plus spell immunity), and they have a lot of other evocations between the three of them. One of them also has a web/stink sequencer, which is sort of ridiculously effective. Eventually, I drank enough healing pots that they ran out of steam and was able to kill them.
The windspear rakshasa was also a big bully but fortunately did not kill charname with his 3x skull sequencer (he did get minsc though). This fight is probably too dangerous without the belt of inertial barrier, but we got away with it.
The party was now high enough level to deal with the temple sewers and the Delosars inn fight. I wanted to do the delosars inn fight for the gold from the full plate armor and for the boomerang dagger, as Billy has ** in daggers as his ranged attack. The sewers fight is on the way to haerdalis (for the resurrect wand) and also has some decent equipment. Both enemy parties get pretty thrashed by chaos, smite, insect plague and other mid-level AoE spells.
I noticed at this point that SCS fireshield DOES NOT correctly block insect plague, so I've resolved to avoid using it on fireshielded mages.
Anyway, the mage who captured haerdalis isn't very dangerous, but he has a random spawn in his dungeon that creates three yuanti mages + some other yuanti, which is much scarrier. Cloud kill + traps helped against them, but the fight was still a real slog with several members getting confused or charmed. Spell strike and secret word make yuanti mages a lot less scary, as they are then easy to interrupt with magic missile and they don't have a lot of hp or resistances. However, I stupidly didn't have either of those spells yet and so it was a bit of a mess. The party nevertheless prevailed.
We then set out to deal with the Chapter 3 quests.
Have being told by Tenya that a witch near the Firewine Ruins would be able to teach her how to use her bowl, we went to investigate and were forced to kill that witch. Tenya can now use that bowl. Afterwards we killed Meilum and as a result I have a much better attack. Having discovered just how dangerous Khaark is in a previous incarnation, we avoided him.
Upon travelling we were assaulted by more assassins and the thieves in that party backstabbed Imoen thus killing her. We therefore went to see Aerie who helped us to recover at a price. Imoen is now not far from levelling up after which I hope that she won't be quite so fragile.
EDIT Have now used the magic of NearInfinity to correct Ebba +2 so that Tenya can use it. It's quite clear from the description that it should be useable by her.
Noywad VI the solo dwarven fighter (Spellhold, Sahuagin City)
Brynnlaw and the 1st two levels of spellhold were pretty unremarkable, except for the following: 1) While I wasn't sure about EE script, but I know vanilla Pert the Adept will maze - kinda a problem for a soloist. And also didn't want to waste a protection from magic scroll for him. In theory can be safe at range, but you are in an enclosed space (his house). An expert like @Grond0 might be able to make him waste his maze by coming in/out of the house at just the right time, but not me. So to be safe, I got myself committed via convincing the Pirate Lord I was insane - not too hard with 20 CHA (RoHI and also Nymph's Cloak). 2) I went invisible to see what kind of enemies guarded the exit of the 1st level - lots of Yuan-ti, including 3 mages! Yikes! Fortunately, they don't maze, however, so I equipped Stonefire and Frostweaver and GWW the mages to kill them as quick as possible - this worked! 3) Large group of undead just before Dace could have been nasty, but a protection from undead scroll solved that problem. Note that after killing Dace, I rested 1st before staking him (to get rid of my protection from undead) to prevent a bug that prevents getting the hand if you are protected from undead. Don't know if this bug happens in EE, but decided to play it safe, just in case. 4) Had to use a fire giant potion to open the gesen bow chest. I actually didn't really want the gesen bow component, but I did want those gray thingies to get some boots. Such as the haste boots I now finally possess
Irenicus Battle (Spellhold) Of all the Irenicus' battles, this is no doubt the easiest. I had very little in buffs, just a potion of magic shielding. I then use dispelling arrows to remove his defenses, then ice arrows with Tuigan's bow to disrupt his spells. He gave up in less than a minute. I had a shield equipped for the muggers, with my -14 AC to piercing, it was no surprise that the muggers could do very little before I cut them down with Thunderbolt warhammer.
I went with Saemon - I did not have the ward stone, but Grond0 must be right - the bridge trap did not trip, so must be disarmed automatically.
I eventually found myself in Sahuagin City. Had to do a "test" vs. an Ettin - but unsurprisingly, GWW killed him fast.
Doing the trapped area of the city wasn't too bad, as whenever possible I hugged the edges to try to avoid the traps. When doing the imp "game", I stayed the outer edge of the circle to avoid the traps at all times - this is important, as one trap is a maze trap - a bad thing for a soloer. I also got my 1st (and probably last) use of a potion of insight, which was used to get the non-fighting dialog option with the beholder guarding the chest.
Noywad VI was cruel to his "fish" enemies by donning the Reflection Shield - Noywad VI would merrily throw his dwarven warhammer at the enemies, while they uselessly fired missile weapons on Noywad VI. An undead scroll and Daystar ability made short work of the undead in the area. The large group of enemies in the center, Noywad VI fired quite a few necklace of missile charges. Either the fish have good saves, or the fireballs are pretty weak. In any case, victory for Noywad VI against them.
He will enter Prince Villianty's lair next session.
1) While I wasn't sure about EE script, but I know vanilla Pert the Adept will maze - kinda a problem for a soloist. And also didn't want to waste a protection from magic scroll for him. In theory can be safe at range, but you are in an enclosed space (his house). An expert like @Grond0 might be able to make him waste his maze by coming in/out of the house at just the right time, but not me.
He doesn't have great HPs, so if a fighter has GWW by that point it's not difficult to sneak up and kill him before his buffs fire.
Noywad VI the solo dwarven fighter - FINAL Update!
I regret to inform you all Noywad VI came to a sticky end vs. the shadow knights. I badly underestimated their threat, and found out my GWW were not helpful at all (got interrupted and dispelled in middle of them). I managed to RoR heal once, but again GWW got interrupted and then a power: word stun landed - the final result is not in doubt.
I'm in the mood to do something different, so will try a human cleric to thief dual - maybe STR 25 backstabs can give me some fun?
Starting the game this morning I found there was the possibility of updating the game - but decided not to do that until I've finished this run.
In Suldanesselar Burl crushed a few golems before picking up a level from a nabassu.
He nipped in and out against Raamilat (waiting until he'd started casting each time to ensure there was no danger of a maze).
Against Nizi, Burl used the berserk warrior as a target for insect plague as that would probably have sent him into a berserk condition that he almost certainly wouldn't have survived. After a period of run and stab to get rid of stoneskins (using a potion of magic shielding to reduce acid damage from breath), Burl brought out Ras to let him quickly finish the dragon off.
The Avatar was sub-contracted to avoid any need to fight at the Temple.
On the Tree, Burl killed the first 2 parasites (getting another level in the process) and went to put a summons up near Jon - noticing in the process that the efreeti bottle had disappeared from his backpack. Shrugging that off he used the air elemental to absorb Jon's opening time stops and a couple more summons to draw out more spells. Once Jon started chasing him, Burl again waited until he started casting before coming in to attack - and one clean strike ended the contest.
In hell, Burl picked up 20% resistance to some elements, immunity to +1 weapons (using a potion of clarity to defend against fear there), +10% MR, +2 saving throws and +1 strength (it was already at 24 so he couldn't get +2). Burl managed his first hit of over 200 damage against Wraith Sarevok there.
There was then the usual run and stab tactics against the demons before Burl faced the Slayer.
He used his simmy for the first time in a while in that fight to draw out spells and provide a distraction. That meant the Slayer was vulnerable by the time it started chasing the real Burl and 3 more hits saw Irenicus dispatched to the pit.
ToB is next where Burl is likely to meet his maker.
War Hulk L36, 420 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 1,136 kills (663 in BGEE/SoD)
At the start of ToB, Ilasera acted tough, but failed to survive a single love tap from Burl's flail.
In the Pocket Plane, Burl attempted to upgrade the FoA - only to find that the poison head was another item to have mysteriously vanished from his equipment. That's even more annoying than the efreeti bottle, but he decided to once more ignore the loss and soldier on.
The first pocket plane challenge saw him retreat to the stairs to minimize the number of attackers while he chewed through the first couple of waves. Ellesime sent a creeping doom after him, but he dodged that while killing the enemies (it eventually then bounced off his magic resistance anyway).
In Saradush, Burl helped out Lazarus in order to get the scrolls to upgrade his +2 cloak. He then accepted the offer of a vampire courtesan to let him into the prison and used the iMoD to clear a path onwards - getting a level there.
He used invisibility to bypass the initial enemies in the corridor, but killed the enemies in the rooms immediately below the palace in order to secure a line of retreat. On the first palace level the battle mage knew someone was there, but didn't have time to cast true sight before he exploded.
The same thing happened to Karun the Black in the Throne Room
before Burl settled in to some stair hopping to deal with the others - eventually realizing he'd got another level while doing that.
The battle mage saved against deathblows from 2 critical hits, but eventually ran out of stoneskins.
That left Gromnir exposed - he didn't want to believe it, but he had to go ...
In search of Yaga-Shura, Burl went to find Nyalee - using a scroll of PfU to clear the way there.
Moving on to the Fire Temple he gained a penultimate level running a group of fire giants around.
It didn't then take long to get his final level - courtesy of a new record strike.
That left him stuck on a mere 458 HPs.
Upstairs, Burl used the narrow passage to take on more fire giants one at a time without the need to run round. Back at the Forest of Mir, Nyalee had a change of hearts, but Burl just ran away without bothering to kill her.
Burl attempted to drag Yaga-Shura away on his own, but some of his gang started to follow. I thought Burl would still have the time to finish Yaga off safely, but when his second attack missed I thought that could potentially be a problem and decided to switch to a running battle instead.
He used his magic resistance HLA to fend off another insect spell and had another critical miss before Yaga finally felt the force of his sword thrust.
Burl passed through the Oasis - using power attack there to stun Jamis and grab the Answerer sword.
In Amkethran though I made a bad mistake - I wanted to buy the boots that prevent backstabs, but misjudged how quickly Carras would die to attacking monks there and didn't make any use of magic to speed up killing the monks. That meant the shop closed permanently just before the last monk fell.
I wasn't sure how difficult the second Pocket Plane challenge would be and Burl took various potions for the first time in a long while and used his simmy as well. In the event though, Burl managed to kill Semaj before he could buff and the others put up very little resistance.
Next up will be Abazigal.
War Hulk L40, 458 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 1,260 kills (663 in BGEE/SoD)
Billy V the FMT's No-Exploit SCS Ascension playthrough
Episode 3: Or, How dangerous is the underdark really?
Billy hates the underdark. It's filled with tough battles, the party hasn't scaled to HLA levels yet, and there's no way to skip anything without losing it permanently (although just writing this now I'm wondering whether anything actually stops you from returning). At the least, Ust Natha will get permanently closed.
Anyway, Billy hates the underdark. I also hate the underdark. I can't resist fighting everything down there, and there are two liches as well as a bunch of other tough fights via mindflayers, beholders, and house jae'llet. And the damned drow are highly magic resistant, which means we can't bully them with AoE evocations and disables. And if you mess things up in Ust Natha, the city goes hostile and you can get trapped inside until you kill the matron mother alongside her streams of reinforcements. Good luck.
However, nearly all the dangerous content is optional, IF Ust Natha stays friendly. The exceptions are (to my knowledge) the balor fight in the dwarf village and the exit fight near the entry to the surface. I think the exit fight is actually safer if you do it before teleporting with Adalon, but that makes it a tough fight with no support.
So what Billy could do is just pay a visit to the fish prince for his blood, and then do the bare minimum in Ust Natha to get out. Stay away from trapped souls, stay away from golden ropes, stay away from mindflayers, stay away from beholders. The Deirex / Jae'llet combo in particular is quite unrewarding for how dangerous it is.
But he isn't going to do that.
Determined to clean house, the first order of business is the easy stuff. We're so close to some critical levels on certain party members and would really like those levels before facing the harder stuff. Anomen really wants level 14 for level 7 cleric spells. Then he really wants level 15 for the final grade of skeleton summon. Nalia really wants level 14 for her first level 7 spell. Imoen really wants level 13 for a second 6th level spell. Aerie really wants level 12 in cleric for a level 6 spell - Anomen's 6th level spells are filled with wondrous recalls so he can cover everyone with chaotic commands, and we would really like to be able to summon an aerial servant.
Right out of the gate, Billy and his friends get bullied by the drow priest party and realize how problematic magic resistance is alongside high level remove magic casters. Remove magic strips jaheira and anomen and leaves Billy as the only combat capable warrior. Casters are meanwhile relatively toothless due to magic resistance. Jaheira was killed by a missed save on a flame strike after having her resist fire dispelled. Fortunately she was not chunked (died from near full health to about 75 damage from the strike). Billy slogged through, but it wasn't pretty.
After the fight, we shifted our casting strategy. Fireball out, melfs magic missile in. More defenses and summons and anything that doesn't care about enemy magic resistance. MMM shines against the otherwise difficult to hit, magic resistant drow and is a good way to convert spells to magic resistance ignoring damage. We also picked up drow armor, and gave Jaheria and Anomen plate+5, while the arcane casters got elven chain.
Billy then rescued the missing dwarf kid. Second slot from the right in the lost soul machine. We didn't want to accidentally summon a lich!
Then we visited the fish monsters to the west, because we were slavering for the delicious frost giant belt one of the demon knights has. It was decided that Billy would face the demon knights alone, guarded by skeleton warriors. Demon knights provide several sources of danger. One is outright melee damage, as they hit hard and accurately (and there are a bunch of them). Billy can counter that with AC, stone skin, and mirror images. Another is level drain on hit, which he can counter with the amulet of power. They also instacast fireballs, power word stuns, and remove magic. Billy prebuffed with chaotic commands, resist fire, and SI:A. He also improve hasted from Nalia for good measure.
The fight did not go as planned. It turns out that the demon knights can also cast power word blind, which I was not expecting. They cut down the skeleton warriors quickly, as the skellies were not the level 15 version and therefore did not have the magic resistance to reliably resist fireballs.
Only two knights had fallen by the time all the skellies were dead and Billy had run out of mirror images.
Fortunately, the Infinity Engine is basically bad and melee units have no real way of forcing faster units to engage. So Billy cheasily used his cheetah boots and boomerang dagger + staff of striking to alternately run away and hide for backstabs and sometimes just jog around throwing the dagger. After the knights seemed to run out of spells, anomen came in to help wielding the +2 MoD. He was probably more trouble than he was worth. His trash dexterity is really a problem for his AC because the party does not have the dex gloves yet.
After dealing with the knights, Jaheira was terribly pleased to put on the frost giant belt for permanent 21 strength. She won't really come into her own as a fighter until she gets level 12 for ** in two weapon fighting and then level 13 for another 1/2 APR, but it's still a big upgrade over the 18/50 strength she was using previously (via the strength spell). The other demon items were put in the bag of holding for later.
The party then bulldozed the rest of the fish people, and was lucky enough to find two more scrolls of spell shield. I think either SCS or BG2EE 2.X makes spell shield more easily available, but I only buy the underdark scroll as I believe that is the original game behavior. With only that scroll guaranteed available until ToB, the party is very happy to get it randomly dropped as the party has four arcane casters to cover.
After defeating the fishes, we dealt with Vithal. I read somewhere that his alignment is evil. I therefore have no qualms murdering him even though the act is otherwise highly morally suspect. He doesn't seem to prebuff even with full SCS prebuffs, so he's very easy to kill. He drops a variety of high level spells, including time stop, and a helm which provides 1/day death spell which we give to Aerie.
Still not having spoken to Adalon, we decide to deal with the Mindflayers. The Ust Natha quest timers are actually very generous, but Billy doesn't like to feel rushed.
Comments
Other random thought- when you're trying to keep your resting time down, Edwin spends a lot of time feeling like dead weight. At least at low to mid levels. Going to need to rethink how I pick mage spells to get more mileage from them.
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/20227-torqion/
Noywad VI - dwarven fighter, neutral good, level 8
Here is my new character: NOTE: my pic for some reason doesn't show in the party list, so changed it to a default one. He will be SOLO for all battles main quest related. NPCs are allowed to join for certain tasks/quests, or to be looted.
One really nice thing about being solo fighter type is it's very easy to make rapid progress. I just started him yesterday, but he's already at his level cap as well as just about to make his way through the thieve's maze.
This is how he made his progress:
* Improving his AC was a top priority at first. To that end, going to Nashkel and getting the Ankheg armor was a priority, as well as getting Merrianne's ring.
* Now that he had AC, he went to Friendly Arm Inn to get the wizard's ring to sell to get him a +1 axe as well as large shield +1
* Next up, needed to make his way to Gnoll Fortress to get the gauntlets of dexterity, which he used until a tome put his DEX at 18 much later. He also SOLD the CHA tome, which was useless to him anyways. This was enough with his current gold to upgrade his armor to full plate, which he will use to the end.
* Fire resistance ring obtained, as well as Carnival goodies like the shield amulet and necklace of missiles. The necklace was used quite often against enemy parties, such as Kirian or Drassus parties.
* Eventually, had enough money for the greenstone amulet, which as a fighter with insufficient saves, it saw quite a bit of use. We even sold it and rebought it. It got used against Bassilus, which gave Noywad VI a hammer he will use to the end, and also against any enemy that might charm or hold.
* Clarity potion used against sirenes at the lighthouse. Greenstone amulet used for traps and potion of absorption for the golems.
* Greenstone amulet was also used to rescue Shoal from Droth. I needed a NPC with CHA, so recruited Imoen for this, since she had to take the kiss of death. What's funny is during the battle with Droth Imoen got put to sleep - once victory obtained, I removed her from the group and left the area - so she will wake up and find her group-mate missing - wonder what she thinks of that? I prefer the resulting helmet over the helm of baldran, as the elemental resistances are quite useful.
* Forgot to mention, the cloak of displacement was obtained as soon as I could afford it and could safely traverse to Ulgoth's Beard.
Main Quest:
* Nashkel Mines - Greenstone amulet and Necklace of Missiles made Mulahey and his buddies a cinch. Greenstone amulet was also too much for the Amazon Assassins to handle.
* Bandit Camp - the bandits had difficulty hitting Noywad VI, and he went through the camp like a whirlwind. He used a potion of absorption against Khosann, but it was unnecessary, as by this point Noywad VI was dual-wielding and killed Khosann in seconds. Potion of magic blocking and firebreath potion were plenty for Tazok's Tent enemies.
* Cloakwood - almost entirely skipped. One key part was using potion of invisibility and potion of freedom to safely and quickly skip area 2. Lots of buffs used against drassus, but as it turned out, the necklace of missiles (two blasts) killed the mages before they could do anything, so ended up being pretty easy after all. As Noywad VI was heavily buffed still, he quickly went down to Heirashan and wiped her and lot of her friends with more necklace of missiles charges.
* Davaoern's level - no way to de-trap, so used a strength and haste potion to quickly burn down the battle horrors. Davaeorn couldn't do much before he was chunked.
* City of Baldu'rs Gate - very little done here. Only the following: 1) DEX tome 2) helm of balduran (for Amn) 3) +2 ring from Razamith 4) Seven Suns and dealing with Ogre mage and carrion crawlers problem. 5) Iron Throne. I didn't want to waste invisibility potions so decided to fight it out. Mostly with protection from magic scroll, strength buff and haste - success, though took some damage.
* So it was on to Candekeep! Almost skipped, but PfM scroll and storm giant potion used to open crypts and to deal with traps. Potion of invulnerability put his save vs. death to be safe from the phase spider poison. Then invis until Prat. Haste was enough to see easy victory, then potion of mirror eyes for the basilisks.
* Slythe - did not dispel his buffs, just straight attacks though I did have belt of piercing, haste and strength buff. After Slythe fell, quickly ran to the palace, did DUHM and attacked the dopplegangers. It was close, Liaa died and belt was 1/2 life but made it.
Forgot to mention battled the Mountain maulers for their +2 axe, here's a screenie. Interestingly enough, just a potion of magic blocking was enough for victory.
Next session will skip the thieve's maze and Undercity Party and deal with my half-brother!
Diary of Nigretta
We carefully made our way down the mine until we came to a party of assassins who were backed up by nearby kobolds. The battle was hard and though we won we ended up so badly hurt that we returned to the surface to rest and recuperate.We found this suit of armour which both I and Ajantis should be able to wear but cannot.
I am thinking that the powerful magic of Near Infinity might be needed. What thinkest thou?
I looked at it in Near Infinity and got these images.
I cannot understand why either of my Champions cannot use it. Clearly my Zealots shouldn't be able to.
Any suggestions?
SETUP: BG 1 EE, no mods, Core Rules at all times
Game duration of this run: two days
Well I am pleased to report Noywad VI made it to Amn - but his half-brother nearly did him in. Read on.
So as mentioned last update, Noywad VI was at the entrance to the thieve's maze. He had protection from magic and invisibility (potion). He quickly ran all the way to the Temple of Bhaal, where Sarevok was hiding.
Noywad VI took a while to do his potion buffs, then pulled Sarevok. This was a mixed blessing: 1) ONLY Sarevok and Semaj came, which was good. 2) But the dispelling arrows never connected.
This meant Noywad VI had to risk direct melee against a hasted Sarevok, dangerous proposition indeed. Noywad VI tried to use an invis potion but it didn't click (interrupted?), so he tried again and this time he disappeared - just in time as death nearly took Noywad VI!
Noywad VI then spent a lot of time with heal potions - but Semaj's own cloudkill killed himself (Noywad VI NEVER targeted Semaj!!!), and got Sarevok to near-death! Once healed up, Noywad VI did DUHM and moved in for the kill - Sarevok's death was swift!
Noywad VI will move onto Amn. He will be solo for all main quest encounters, but is not opposed to NPCs joining for a specific task or for a quest - they will be kicked out once quest/task complete.
Interesting fact: Noywad VI's HP is normally 104 HP - but if he didn't buff then his damage taken would have killed him. He only survived because of 10 extra HP from heroism potion.
Diary of Nigretta
A quick update.After resting at the carnival we headed north where we picked up Tenya. On the way through the ankheg area we killed a few of them with the result that Isra and Sirene both reached level 6. We then joined up with Imoen who is a conjurer/thief courtesy of the Imoen as conjurer magic.
The above comments caused me to edit the colour of Imoen's tunic on the portrait I made from an excellent Espen Winther photo.
Having a rep and charisma of 20 the party did some shopping after selling unwanted items. However, they are still in need of finance as Nigretta has seen some items that she would dearly like to buy. The problem is that they would come DEARLY.
SETUP: BG 2 EE, no mods, Core rules at all times
So Noywad VI finds himself captured by an unknown mage. Who comes to his cell and frees him, but the girl (Imoen) who Noywad VI abandoned in BG 1? He felt bad about leaving her without warning, so decided to make it up to her by helping her escape this dungeon. So Imoen was allowed to stay in the party until she got kidnapped.
The duo handled the dungeon well. Imoen was quite helpful in a few places, such as summons to absorb the initial stuns of the mephits in the air plane, and also improved invisibility for Noywad VI when he was fighting mages. But Noywad VI did most of the work. Once out, Imoen promptly got kidnapped by Cowled Wizards. Now I suppose since she rescued me from my cell, I gotta rescue her from the Cowlies, grumble, grumble.
So the first thing Corey_Russell did was closely examine his saves. A charm ends his game, so he needs spell defense. One of the most effective early defense for a melee character is the improved invisibility from the Air Control ring - this was indeed the 1st purchase.
Noywad VI then found himself in a strange "circus". Mostly undead he had to kill, and then the "mighty" Kalah, who died quick.
The Shield of Harmony was a vital item to get, both for AC but especially the automatic saves vs. bad things like hold, confusion, and charm. Until his saves get to -1 (which they aren't) vs. spell save, he really needs to keep this equipped if any of those prior threats are possible.
But first he has to get it. So Noywad VI purchased a green scroll of protection from petrification. He tried to get to Trademeet, but found Renfeld instead, so then had to double-back to unload this body. While in the area, improved invisibiliy and DUHM got Noywad VI full plate from Officer Dirth, which was a welcome item to get.
Then Noywad VI heads to Trademeet once again. He got the dreaded orog ambush, but improved invisibility once again, made it no problem to win that fight. Finally he gets there and rests and buffs before engaging the genies. With haste, protection from petrification, DUHM, and dual-wielding, Noywad VI's victory was assured and the Shield of Harmony was now his! While here he purchased the cloak of displacement to get automatic saves vs. death to anything that doesn't have a penalty.
He then returned to the slums to free Hendak - with his high AC, Noywad VI had no problem. Nowayd then purchased Azuredge, Stonefire, and sling of seeking (for much, much later). Stonefire will be the primary weapon - forgot to mention I found the Ashideena in Irenicus' dungeon, which is the off-hand weapon when applicable.
The quest for Lilacor was also done - this was completely unremarkable. Before trying to take on the slavers in the moored ship, Noywad VI wanted to improve his missile defense. He had just the thing, since he had no boots. The graveyard was visited - a peasant was killed by a hasted mummy, then a +2 axe was found just lying in a crypt. Then a man who was buried alive was rescued by Noywad VI. Noywad VI then quested a gravekeeper, who gave a clue on the bad guys' hide-out in the bridge district.
So Noywad VI heads to the Bridge District to confront Tiris enemies - the enemies could do nothing but die, and now some boots of avoidance are now Noywad VI. Noywad realized he needed the potion bag from Watcher's keep. Then he returned to the Copper Coronet Sewers, and will enter the slavers hide-out next session.
Here is his equipment to date:
Luckily I was able to lock him in a closet before he really got himself in trouble!
SETUP: BG 2 EE, no mods, Core rules at all times
Progress: Level 16, 2.1 million experience
So Noywad VI continues to make progress. He wanted the Horn of Valhalla, but didn't know of a "solo" way to get it without spell turning, which he won't get until book of infinite spells possibly. So instead he recruited Minsc. Minsc tripped the maze trap, Noywad VI got the horn of valhalla, and then removed Minsc from the group. So Noywad VI will be gone by the time Minsc returns (if he returns). Noywad VI has a pattern of doing this, as he also left Imoen in BG 1 after she fell asleep at Droth's hands.
So Noywad VI wanted to do Umar Hills early to avoid the high level spawns. To prepare for that, he got a protection from undead scroll for the Shade Lord (Noywad VI doesn't want to die to Finger of Death, thank you very much!). Then on to Umar Hills! The Umar Hills issues were simple enough, since for example SoH stops the mimic's hold, and the stone golem wasn't going to much with Noywad VI protected by Ilbratha.
As it turned out, clearing out the old Amauntar temple of undead was one of the easiest times ever - in vanilla, I don't use Azuredge here as Azuredge is bugged and only kills vampires. However, in EE it's a great choice for this area, and it ended up being a breeze with hardly a heal potion being gulped. The dragon was SKIPPED (for now) - why don't my paladins have the maturity the other characters of mine have - their low INT? The protection from undead scroll was used and Azuredge cleaned up the Shade Lord and his buddies, with a sunfire bullet taking out the altar.
Since improved mace of disruption is the only level drain protection Noywad VI can use until Yaga's Warhammer, he then worked on the Sir Sarles quest. This involved quite a bit of running around, and then he realized having a true invisibility item would help for the ore merchant (looking at you Brennan Risling). Noywad VI believed he was strong enough - strength potion, haste potion, DUHM, mirror image and improved invisibility (air control ring), dual wield, then beat up Brennan - oh and also two summons for distractions. These buffs worked great, and all of Mencar's gang defeated! There were useful items besides the sandthief's ring, such as protection from fire scroll.
In any case, was ready to talk to Jerlia and rest out in the open thanks to his new ring. Sir Sarles rejected the alloy, but the Temple accepted it. Neb was also taken out - full plate and belt of piercing and a real shield doesn't give Neb much of a chance.
I realized the Namurra would be quite helpful in the druid grove, so bought a protection from undead scroll and cleared out the graveyard (top side, not the lower crypts).
While I did have JUST enough to talk to Galen, then I wouldn't have enough to forge the IMOD. So then the Trademeet main quest was done. Most of it was easy, but a few harder fights:
1) Troll Mound - I remember having nightmares with other solo characters, duos and even the Trio. So haste potion strength potion used, plus the common buffs like Ilbratha and air control ring and also summons. This was enough for victory. The only reason I did the mound was because I had no bracers so might as well have the bracers of archery for the few times I might be at range.
2) Mage and her druid buddies - Noywad VI stayed at a distance and as soon as the mage because hostile, did the Namuraa silence - it worked! Horror averted.
3) Final group of shadow druids saw use of Namuraa and the genie lamp.
Cernd of course challenged and defeated Faldhorn.
Once back in Trademeet, also got the mantle of Waukeen for the Mayor and also helped Tiris, putting Noywad's rep at 20. Maybe he should try to be able to get his CHA to 20...
Noywad VI returns to the docks. While here, he decided he might as well "help" the Harpers, mostly for their heal potions. Maevar and his goons were also dealt with. With full plate, reflection shield and also belt of piercing, the thieves had a heck of time connecting with Noywad VI, while he on the other hand had no trouble cutting them down with Stonefire. Ilbratha, DUHM, and Air Control ring buff once again used for an easy victory over Maevar.
Time to work on the main quest a bit - this was mostly to get the mace of disruption, then coming back to docks to forge the IMoD. Only fight of note was Tanova. I had three summons drain her most dangerous spells (Kithix, genie lamp, horn of valhalla), then Noywad VI buffed then attacked - success!
Once the IMoD was forged, he returned to the graveyard to finish them off. By this time he also had the Daystar, which was used in the ambush room on the lower level. The vamps were easy now, not even Bodhi could do much before she ran in fear.
Forgot to mention, before killing Maevar's merchant, Noywad VI had the foresight to get the Nymph's Cloak. This means he can get 20 CHA - combined with his 20 rep, he was able to get good deals on the dwarven warhammer in Trademeet, Ras, Tasheron's bow, and Shield of Balduran.
Noywad VI would like to get the Gaxx ring, but first needed to clear out the sewers. Using his invisibility rings, Noywad VI carefully drew out and waited out Gaius True sights. Then Noywad buffed, got right next to Gauis and attacked - Noywad got Gauis to near death but couldn't kill him, though Gauis couldn't target Noywad VI because of the improved invisiblity. So then Noywad VI burned down a few other enemies, then came back to Gauis - success! Enemies cleared.
Next session Noywad VI will deal with the Unseeing Eye. This is his equipment to date:
EDIT: Woops you said quickslot, not weapon. The item is the upgraded horn of valhalla - a merchant in Waukeen's Promenade can upgrade the basic horn for some gold and diamond and bejuril gems.
SETUP: BG 2 EE, no mods, Core rules at all times
Progress: 3 million experience, 1st HLA: Hardiness
Noywad VI got two levels doing the Unseeing Eye quest. Improved Mace of Disruption, Shield of Balduran and a protection from undead scorll plus his good saves made the end result not in doubt. The other encounter of importance was the blind priests, but using Namaraa to silence them solved that problem.
Noywad VI was flush with cash, so got some needed scrolls, as well as dispelling arrows, which might be useful for Irenicus and Melissan.
He decided it was high time to have an encounter with Kangaxx. Unsurprisingly, the IMoD and an protection from undead scroll did in fact get Noywad VI the Ring of Gaxx. Noywad's saves vs. spells is now at -4, which Noywad VI was happy about.
Noywad VI also decided it was high time he avenged Jeanluc's death. I used this technique once before and it seems fool-proof, so here's the manual:
********************************************************************************
How to defeat Thaxxy as a solo fighter before spell-hold
*********************************************************************************
Equipment needed:
1) Improved Mace of Disruption
2) 1 clarity potion
3) Shield of Harmony
4) 2 full charged Magic Missile wands (sell/buy back wands)
Why this equipment:
1) IMoD defends against Thaxxy's ranged attack, the level drain one
2) Clarity potion defends against dragon fear
3) Shield of Harmony allows defense of chaos, while also keeping the IMoD equipped
4) Magic missile wands allow ranged attack while still being protected by level drain
Tactics:
1) Equip Shield of Harmony and select the IMoD, if you haven't already
2) Use clarity potion
3) Stand by the alcove in the upper right of Thaxxy's area, fire magic missile wand
4) Lure Thaxxy by that alcove in #3, you might get hit once. Once he's close run to the northern wall of the alcove.
5) Thaxxy's level drain attack also blinds, which is why it's a good idea to not attack with your MM wands until he does that
6) After blindness wears, fire off 3 shots of the MM wand, Thaxxy will try to level drain which will also blind. Wait it out.
7) Repeat step #6 until Thaxxy dies.
FINAL TALLY: For Noywad VI, it took 132 shots of his MM wands until Thaxxy died. Other than the initial hit when Noywad VI lured Thaxxy to the alcove, Noywad VI took no damage.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/987830/#Comment_987830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988193/#Comment_988193
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988472/#Comment_988472
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988833/#Comment_988833
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/989178/#Comment_989178
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/989394/#Comment_989394
Burl paid Gaelan Bayle and then quickly ran through Aran's tasks. He got a level by dealing with the Guild Contact (webbing him to ensure he didn't drink one of his invulnerability potions).
There was another level for talking to Aran Linvail and agreeing to take ship to Brynnlaw. On arrival there, Burl one-shotted Perth to get access to Spellhold.
In Spellhold it didn't take long to get another level.
For the battle with Irenicus, Burl tried using a simmy to help him attack, but that quickly fell victim to a simulacrum bug. Without the ability to finish Irenicus off quickly, Burl retreated with the help of an invisibility potion to wait out some summons and buffs.
Burl took ship from Spellhold, but got involved in a diversion and has just taken his 29th level after agreeing to help the Sahuagin king out.
War Hulk L29, 358 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 946 kills (663 in BGEE/SoD)
So Noywad continues to make some progress. He decided to do the "monster hunting" in Windspear Hills, per that noble's request. A lot of enemies here, but Noywad VI did well. Sunray did a nice job on the large group of undead, the common buffs of Ilbratha and Air Control Ring did well against Samia's gang. 100% fire resistance made clearing out the genies easy enough.
But the run nearly ended against the Greater Wolfweres. These things hit like mach trucks, and have massive regeneration - Noywad VI nearly died. If it weren't for his Rod of Resurrection heal and his ToB abilities, he would have been toast.
But he presses on. The next mage confrontation of any note was Conster. I remember Alesia_BH's recommendation to always fight mages at range to avoid their nasty touch spells like maze and imprisonment. So I used the Tuigan's bow and opened fire, including some dispelling arrows - oh but before arriving also did invulnerability potion. Conster never bothered dispelling my invulnerability potion, so I knew the final outcome was never in doubt since that was the case.
I passed on Firkraag. Fighting him is high risk, but pretty much no reward that I want. I'll probably take him out after returning from the Underdark.
Decided with my new cash, I would get some of the key anti-magic potions that Roger had (things like potion of magic protection, shielding, invulnerability. Potion of absorption is extremely useful potion against strong crushing enemies).
I would probably like to forge the improved +3 hammer (name escaping me at the moment). So I went ahead and ventured into the Illithid lair in the Temple Sewers. I did just a few buffs, the 1st battle went really great. But then middle of the second battle, I realized I forgot to buff with some potions of genius! Woops! Fixed that right away. After doing that, the rest of the lair went well. Success!
Then I tried to open the planar sphere - but wait it's locked? But I know I killed Valygar - oh, must have forgot to loot his body. So had to venture back to Umar Hills. Sure enough his body was in Valygar's cabin - good thing it didn't decompose after all this time!
As solo characters, I often don't venture in the planar sphere, but decided that if I followed Alesia_BH's advice and stay at range, maybe I'd be ok. So once again, the next key battle was against the halfling mage. I did use a potion of magic protection for safety and did engage with my shortbow at range - this did in fact win the battle! The same tactic also worked well against the mage in the furnace room.
The next major battle was against Lavok - I tried to stay at range, but then he was immune - needed non-magic ammo, but didn't have any! Hmm...so at one point he was trying to use MM on me, but had shield amulet active, and my arrows weren't hurting him, so we both had no effect on the other. He eventually came into melee, so I knew that was my cue to melee myself - success!
The next major battle was fighting a demon - I decided to invis as close as I could to him, then GWW and see if that killed it before it could anything of note - that worked!
The next major encounter was Tolgerias - I stayed at range, did a lot of necklace of missiles shots because of the summons, and a dispelling arrow eventually connected on Tolgerias, then fire arrows eventually took him out. Was a lengthy battle, but success was eventually won!
I then had to deal with the enemies in the fire room. This battle was hard - even with 100% fire resistance, Noywad VI was getting hammered, had to RoR heal to keep himself together. He did eventually win it. The ice room was much easier for some reason, though a GWW in the ice room was quite helpful. I found my favorite helm here, and I might be ditching the helm of balduran now for the new one.
Ran out of time, will install the demon heart next session.
Diary of Nigritta
Upon going to the Lighthouse area, Isra was sadly killed by some sirines. They paid the ultimate price.We helped Sil against the pirates and the flesh golems were no problem.
Aerie raised Isra and we went into the depths of the mines where Mulahey proved to be no problem.
We then plundered the caves and killed Narwillinger before returning to Nashkel where two assassins were killed before we returned to Beregost.
Party of Half-elf CG FMT, Jaheira, Anomen, Aerie, Nalia, Minsc -> Yoshimo -> Imoen. First time I've played with either Anomen or Nalia, which has been fun. They turn out to have a ton of comments through out the game that I've never seen before.
My plan was to rush to spellhold early because there is no way to spawn level 13 imoen given class structures due to the need for an average party character level of 13. The hope was to get there around 600-800k exp (rather than 1.2m+), so Imoen would be about one level behind permanently instead of two levels behind. That would mean she gets her final level 9 spell at the end of ToB and doesn't feel too gimped throughout the rest of the saga.
It turns out that default BG2EE (I think) fixes her starting experience so this was unnecessary. Nevertheless, I ultimately cheated her down to 400k experience (from the 750k which she spawned at) in order to reflect the original game behavior. I didn't know any of this in advance, however.
To get to spellhold as early as I felt survivable, I planned to do the following in Chapter 2/3:
- Copper Coronet (added lilarcor as even though I didn't want the XP I did want the charm immunity for Minsc)
- Misc non-quest Athkatla (get the berserker horn, get Namarra, rob the temples for wands and pots, etc.)
- De'arnise Keep
- Trademeet
- Ring of fire resistance from Windspear (don't go inside to avoid spawning the vampires; in hindsight I possibly could have snuck by them with invisibility)
- Buy potion container from WK
- Finish things in Athkatla (chapter 3 quests, Temple sewers party, Delosars Inn party, rescue haerdalis for the resurrection wand)
I normally play with at least one evil member (typically Viccy and/or Edwin), so this was possibly my first play through where I could get to 20 reputation for the shop discount, which was helpful given limited gold availability prior to leaving for spellhold. I temporarily recruited viccy for the rep penalty to make temple donations cheaper. I donated up to 14 rep, dismissed viccy for +2, and then got to 20 via circus, slave child rescue, and trademeet. Charname maxed the charisma discount with ring of human influence + friends.I'm current on my fifth try and just entered the underdark.
Four earlier iterations fell to:
1) Giant mess during the fight with Baron Ployer, after I foolishly assumed that the house was a safe place to cast arcane spells. I had already been warned by the cowled wizards and was no match for their enforcers. A contingency horrid wilting killed at least Aerie and the fight went south from there. I ultimately lured two outside and was able to kill one after he ran out of PfMW. I possibly could have killed the others, but by this point they had despawned. I also had the misfortune of spawning some sort of backstabbing invisible thug encounter while retreating to the slums temple to buy healing spells. One of those thugs ultimately killed charname when the thug apparently retreated and hid inside baron's house and subsequently got a backstab off that I wasn't expecting. Besides that backstab, the fight was over and charname was killing the last of the original mages. In later runs, I decided to just let the cowled enforcers despawn after a few hours and not deal with them.
2) Someone (I think Aerie or Nalia) getting chunked by a surprise crit after stoneskin wore off during a fight - I can't remember which fight
3) Some other charname death I can't remember
4) Getting whipped by Torgal who ultimately chunked Aerie and forced a restart. The SCS Torgal fight is a weird fight (to me anyway) in that sometimes it is easy and can lure you into a false sense of security. In actuality, it is a very dangerous fight for an early party.
When the fight goes easily, it might look like the following. Disable the two yuanti mages with cloud kill and chaos. Resist / be immune to the umber hulk elder's confusion. Kill him first as he has limited defenses. Kill the two giant trolls per normal. Run around to avoid torgal / distract him with summons. Finish off the yuanti. Tank Torgal with stoneskin / mirror image / good AC. Everyone casts a zillion evocations and everything else on Torgal, who goes down pretty quickly when focused by a full party. He is also vulnerable to slow and blind.
When the fight goes poorly, the party depletes its resources on Torgal without killing him (allowing him to regen for free) and wastes other resources on Torgal's party while getting in a slugmatch with the yuanti mages. If a few party members die, charname doesn't have any stoneskin / mirror image left, and casters run low on spells, Torgal can become a real terror. He has ~150hp, lots of damage resistances and a lot of regen, particularly when he isn't slow. He also hits like a truck and will gladly chase you throughout the keep.
Anyway, this particular party had the "goes poorly" outcome. While running away through the keep, a bunch of trolls respawned (including spirit trolls). Somehow charname, Aerie and Nalia survived all that to reach the safety of the outside of the keep. I refuse to resurrect characters if the party wouldn't reasonably have access to their bodies, so it was up to the three to face Torgal again alone. Ultimately, they couldn't do enough damage and before I could get away to try again (or perhaps sneak to the bottom of the keep to raise dead), Aerie got chunked. I resolved on future playthroughs to stack a bunch of traps outside Torgal's room before engaging.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/987830/#Comment_987830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988193/#Comment_988193
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988472/#Comment_988472
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988833/#Comment_988833
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/989178/#Comment_989178
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/989394/#Comment_989394
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/990117/#Comment_990117
It didn't take long for Burl to make his way through Fish City, picking up a new cloak on the way.
In the Underdark, Burl chewed through some drow before helping out the deep gnomes - I'd thought Ras would last long enough for Burl to kill the balor there, but its physical resistance allowed it to get a blow in just before it went down - Burl getting another level for surviving that attack.
He killed everything in the Western Tunnels. The Prince's regeneration stood up to his standard attacks, but didn't help him against a critical death blow.
I didn't bother with the illithid, but did want the Greenstone Amulet. The elder orb at the entrance could easily have been a problem though, so Burl initially just went past it invisibly. A few gauth still gave him another level though, while grabbing the amulet.
After buying a few things from the drow, Burl returned to Adalon. Unsurprisingly, she was immune to the unconscious effect from power attack, so Burl settled back for the long haul of nipping up and down the stairs to wear down stoneskins.
Back in Athkatla, Burl forged the Wave halberd. Looking for other useful equipment upgrades he went to Umar Hills to get some nifty armor.
Returning to the Graveyard, Burl used the iMoD to beat a path through the vampires.
Burl is currently standing outside Suldanesselar.
War Hulk L29, 358 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 946 kills (663 in BGEE/SoD)
Billy is a half-elf FMT with proficiencies in dagger, quarterstaff and two weapon fighting. He will later get warhammer proficiencies and two handed weapon fighting.
Irenicus's dungeon is annoying after the zillionth playthrough, but I do have a little fun trying to get it more and more optimized. It's disappointing that enchant weapon no longer creates +3 weapons, as creating two +3 maces for minsc was previously a pretty good use of Imoen's level 4 spell slots. I still try to maximize use of jaheira's shape change, yoshimo's backstabs, and the limited spell power we have in order to minimize the amount of healing potions consumed inside the dungeons.
Had a brief scare when nearly the entire party got put unconcious by a radiant mephit in the mephit room, but other than that the dungeon went OK.
Upon exiting from the dungeon, our first goal was to recruit the rest of the party members (Aerie, Anomen, Nalia).
The circus was completed straightforwardly, with a little bit of hassle per usual from the werewolves, who are immune to normal weapons. Minsc has the +2 sword of chaos and dealt with them, however.
After rescuing Aerie, the party went to the Copper Coronet. Jahiera shape changed into a cold-immune wolf to kill the winter wolf. To defeat the beast master, the party used chaos, holy smite, insect plague, and good old fashioned elbow grease from our warriors.
We then rescued Viccy and let her join the party temporarily while we donated up to 14 rep. We then rescued Jan and used him temporarily to rob some easily available items throughout athkatla, like the berserker horn.
We tried to squeek in the Trademeet arc before Nalia's quest timer went off, but it went off on arrival in Trademeet. We took a moment to pickpocket the Efreeti lamp before setting out for the De'arnise keep.
In the Keep, spirit trolls proved as annoying as ever. At some point, BG2EE seems to have fixed / changed the command sleep effect to NOT be removed by damage. This turns the spirit troll greater command into a really terrifying spell as the party only has one cast of chaotic commands from anomen. The permanent improved invisibility of the spirit trolls (seemingly only removable by glitterdust) is also really annoying.
Despite these challenges, we slowly slogged our way through the keep. The drawbridge was raised, some delicious pets were cooked for dinner, and the captain of the guard was freed from his charm.
Upon reaching Torgal's chamber, I resolved to not make previous mistakes by underestimating the fight.
We set 6x traps outside the chamber, in a plan to lure him outside once his party was dead. We also resolved not to let anyone waste resources by tanking him and to kite him instead. Finally, we resolved to focus on his party before trying to do any damage to Torgal, so as not to split our resources and waste damage output on his regen.
The fight went mostly to plan, not least because the yuanti mage AI is for whatever reasons bad at getting out of cloudkill in this fight. Once his party was defeated, we mass attacked Torgal with evocations and melee while charname tanked with his remaining stone skin and mirror image. Torgal fell soon after.
Leaving the keep creates a tricky dialogue moment. Normally, just having Nalia in the party for the quest generates an additional 10k gold, which provides this party essential funds in the limited time they have before leaving for spellhold. In this case, however, because Billy is an FMT, she offers the stronghold quest. This offer can easily lead to not getting the planar sphere (and its delicious stronghold quest item), Nalia leaving the party permanently, or not getting the 10k extra gold.
The correct path through her dialogue is to listen to her request (thus giving the party the extra 10k gold), but then immediately turn down her request for help. This prevents the stronghold quest from starting, and causes Nalia to leave the party. However, UNLIKE the outcome that occurs if you turn her down later in her dialogue chain, she will now rejoin the party upon speaking to her on the keep drawbridge. If the party turns her down later in the dialogue chain, she will not rejoin the party unless the stronghold quest is accepted.
Subsequent to the keep, the party set off for Trademeet. We killed the trolls in the forest, nearly getting killed when we somehow pulled three different sets of monsters (two troll groups, including three spirit trolls, plus a group of spiders). It's funny how trollish regeneration goes from "not a big problem" when you have a lot of damage output because you have all six party members able and fighting from full spell books, to "big problem" the farther you get from that status. Anyhow, the party prevailed with a chaos to disable the spiders and some tactical retreating to get better positioning and focus down the trolls.
The troll hut was cleared soon after. At some point I realized kithix has a web ability, which I did not know even after all these years and is pretty good... After clearing the trolls we worked our way up the map past a few other fights to get belm for Jaheira.
Faldorn herself is made significantly harder by SCS in several ways. If the party (or Jaheira) fight her, she is now a much more powerful druid and much harder to take down. With the lack of chunk resistance, I didn't trust Jaheira to win in a duel. I worried that getting disabled could lead to her getting chunked by an unlucky crit or spell. I therefore decided to let Cernd handle the fight.
My understanding is that Cernd is supposed to automatically win the fight if you tell him you observe. However, it appears that SCS breaks his script, so he doesn't properly turn into a werewolf and will therefore lose during the cutscene. To fix this issue, the correct thing to do is to temporarily recruit him so that he can be turned into a werewolf while a member of the party. He can then be removed, and told to challenge Faldorn. He will then correctly enter the fight as a werewolf, and easily defeat faldorn.
I unintentionally defeated Faldorn without killing the druids outside her sanctuary first (due to Cernd teleporting us inside). I therefore lost out on a magic club for Jaheira and would have to wait to get blackblood later.
We bought a few potions from the witch before speaking with the Djinnis. Upon returning to fight the three rakshasas, we basically got bullied a lot by disables and evocations until they finally ran out of steam and we were able to focus them down.
The trademeet rakshasas are a tough fight early on due to their spell immunities, even with dispel illusion from the FMT. I brought zone of clean air to deal with the cloud kills, but they're still really tanky with all their stone skins and low AC (plus spell immunity), and they have a lot of other evocations between the three of them. One of them also has a web/stink sequencer, which is sort of ridiculously effective. Eventually, I drank enough healing pots that they ran out of steam and was able to kill them.
The windspear rakshasa was also a big bully but fortunately did not kill charname with his 3x skull sequencer (he did get minsc though). This fight is probably too dangerous without the belt of inertial barrier, but we got away with it.
The party was now high enough level to deal with the temple sewers and the Delosars inn fight. I wanted to do the delosars inn fight for the gold from the full plate armor and for the boomerang dagger, as Billy has ** in daggers as his ranged attack. The sewers fight is on the way to haerdalis (for the resurrect wand) and also has some decent equipment. Both enemy parties get pretty thrashed by chaos, smite, insect plague and other mid-level AoE spells.
I noticed at this point that SCS fireshield DOES NOT correctly block insect plague, so I've resolved to avoid using it on fireshielded mages.
Anyway, the mage who captured haerdalis isn't very dangerous, but he has a random spawn in his dungeon that creates three yuanti mages + some other yuanti, which is much scarrier. Cloud kill + traps helped against them, but the fight was still a real slog with several members getting confused or charmed. Spell strike and secret word make yuanti mages a lot less scary, as they are then easy to interrupt with magic missile and they don't have a lot of hp or resistances. However, I stupidly didn't have either of those spells yet and so it was a bit of a mess. The party nevertheless prevailed.
We then set out to deal with the Chapter 3 quests.
Journal of Nigretta
Have being told by Tenya that a witch near the Firewine Ruins would be able to teach her how to use her bowl, we went to investigate and were forced to kill that witch. Tenya can now use that bowl.Having discovered just how dangerous Khaark is in a previous incarnation, we avoided him.
Upon travelling we were assaulted by more assassins and the thieves in that party backstabbed Imoen thus killing her.
We therefore went to see Aerie who helped us to recover at a price.
Imoen is now not far from levelling up after which I hope that she won't be quite so fragile.
EDIT
Have now used the magic of NearInfinity to correct Ebba +2 so that Tenya can use it. It's quite clear from the description that it should be useable by her.
Brynnlaw and the 1st two levels of spellhold were pretty unremarkable, except for the following:
1) While I wasn't sure about EE script, but I know vanilla Pert the Adept will maze - kinda a problem for a soloist. And also didn't want to waste a protection from magic scroll for him. In theory can be safe at range, but you are in an enclosed space (his house). An expert like @Grond0 might be able to make him waste his maze by coming in/out of the house at just the right time, but not me. So to be safe, I got myself committed via convincing the Pirate Lord I was insane - not too hard with 20 CHA (RoHI and also Nymph's Cloak).
2) I went invisible to see what kind of enemies guarded the exit of the 1st level - lots of Yuan-ti, including 3 mages! Yikes! Fortunately, they don't maze, however, so I equipped Stonefire and Frostweaver and GWW the mages to kill them as quick as possible - this worked!
3) Large group of undead just before Dace could have been nasty, but a protection from undead scroll solved that problem. Note that after killing Dace, I rested 1st before staking him (to get rid of my protection from undead) to prevent a bug that prevents getting the hand if you are protected from undead. Don't know if this bug happens in EE, but decided to play it safe, just in case.
4) Had to use a fire giant potion to open the gesen bow chest. I actually didn't really want the gesen bow component, but I did want those gray thingies to get some boots. Such as the haste boots I now finally possess
Irenicus Battle (Spellhold)
Of all the Irenicus' battles, this is no doubt the easiest. I had very little in buffs, just a potion of magic shielding. I then use dispelling arrows to remove his defenses, then ice arrows with Tuigan's bow to disrupt his spells. He gave up in less than a minute. I had a shield equipped for the muggers, with my -14 AC to piercing, it was no surprise that the muggers could do very little before I cut them down with Thunderbolt warhammer.
I went with Saemon - I did not have the ward stone, but Grond0 must be right - the bridge trap did not trip, so must be disarmed automatically.
I eventually found myself in Sahuagin City. Had to do a "test" vs. an Ettin - but unsurprisingly, GWW killed him fast.
Doing the trapped area of the city wasn't too bad, as whenever possible I hugged the edges to try to avoid the traps. When doing the imp "game", I stayed the outer edge of the circle to avoid the traps at all times - this is important, as one trap is a maze trap - a bad thing for a soloer. I also got my 1st (and probably last) use of a potion of insight, which was used to get the non-fighting dialog option with the beholder guarding the chest.
Noywad VI was cruel to his "fish" enemies by donning the Reflection Shield - Noywad VI would merrily throw his dwarven warhammer at the enemies, while they uselessly fired missile weapons on Noywad VI. An undead scroll and Daystar ability made short work of the undead in the area. The large group of enemies in the center, Noywad VI fired quite a few necklace of missile charges. Either the fish have good saves, or the fireballs are pretty weak. In any case, victory for Noywad VI against them.
He will enter Prince Villianty's lair next session.
I regret to inform you all Noywad VI came to a sticky end vs. the shadow knights. I badly underestimated their threat, and found out my GWW were not helpful at all (got interrupted and dispelled in middle of them). I managed to RoR heal once, but again GWW got interrupted and then a power: word stun landed - the final result is not in doubt.
I'm in the mood to do something different, so will try a human cleric to thief dual - maybe STR 25 backstabs can give me some fun?
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/987830/#Comment_987830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988193/#Comment_988193
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988472/#Comment_988472
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988833/#Comment_988833
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/989178/#Comment_989178
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/989394/#Comment_989394
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/990117/#Comment_990117
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/990324/#Comment_990324
Starting the game this morning I found there was the possibility of updating the game - but decided not to do that until I've finished this run.
In Suldanesselar Burl crushed a few golems before picking up a level from a nabassu.
On the Tree, Burl killed the first 2 parasites (getting another level in the process) and went to put a summons up near Jon - noticing in the process that the efreeti bottle had disappeared from his backpack. Shrugging that off he used the air elemental to absorb Jon's opening time stops and a couple more summons to draw out more spells. Once Jon started chasing him, Burl again waited until he started casting before coming in to attack - and one clean strike ended the contest.
In hell, Burl picked up 20% resistance to some elements, immunity to +1 weapons (using a potion of clarity to defend against fear there), +10% MR, +2 saving throws and +1 strength (it was already at 24 so he couldn't get +2). Burl managed his first hit of over 200 damage against Wraith Sarevok there.
ToB is next where Burl is likely to meet his maker.
War Hulk L36, 420 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 1,136 kills (663 in BGEE/SoD)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/987830/#Comment_987830
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988193/#Comment_988193
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988472/#Comment_988472
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/988833/#Comment_988833
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/989178/#Comment_989178
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/989394/#Comment_989394
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/990117/#Comment_990117
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/990324/#Comment_990324
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/990551/#Comment_990551
At the start of ToB, Ilasera acted tough, but failed to survive a single love tap from Burl's flail.
In the Pocket Plane, Burl attempted to upgrade the FoA - only to find that the poison head was another item to have mysteriously vanished from his equipment. That's even more annoying than the efreeti bottle, but he decided to once more ignore the loss and soldier on.
The first pocket plane challenge saw him retreat to the stairs to minimize the number of attackers while he chewed through the first couple of waves. Ellesime sent a creeping doom after him, but he dodged that while killing the enemies (it eventually then bounced off his magic resistance anyway).
In Saradush, Burl helped out Lazarus in order to get the scrolls to upgrade his +2 cloak. He then accepted the offer of a vampire courtesan to let him into the prison and used the iMoD to clear a path onwards - getting a level there.
He used invisibility to bypass the initial enemies in the corridor, but killed the enemies in the rooms immediately below the palace in order to secure a line of retreat. On the first palace level the battle mage knew someone was there, but didn't have time to cast true sight before he exploded.
In search of Yaga-Shura, Burl went to find Nyalee - using a scroll of PfU to clear the way there.
Upstairs, Burl used the narrow passage to take on more fire giants one at a time without the need to run round. Back at the Forest of Mir, Nyalee had a change of hearts, but Burl just ran away without bothering to kill her.
Burl attempted to drag Yaga-Shura away on his own, but some of his gang started to follow. I thought Burl would still have the time to finish Yaga off safely, but when his second attack missed I thought that could potentially be a problem and decided to switch to a running battle instead.
Burl passed through the Oasis - using power attack there to stun Jamis and grab the Answerer sword.
I wasn't sure how difficult the second Pocket Plane challenge would be and Burl took various potions for the first time in a long while and used his simmy as well. In the event though, Burl managed to kill Semaj before he could buff and the others put up very little resistance.
Next up will be Abazigal.
War Hulk L40, 458 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 1,260 kills (663 in BGEE/SoD)
Episode 3: Or, How dangerous is the underdark really?
Billy hates the underdark. It's filled with tough battles, the party hasn't scaled to HLA levels yet, and there's no way to skip anything without losing it permanently (although just writing this now I'm wondering whether anything actually stops you from returning). At the least, Ust Natha will get permanently closed.
Anyway, Billy hates the underdark. I also hate the underdark. I can't resist fighting everything down there, and there are two liches as well as a bunch of other tough fights via mindflayers, beholders, and house jae'llet. And the damned drow are highly magic resistant, which means we can't bully them with AoE evocations and disables. And if you mess things up in Ust Natha, the city goes hostile and you can get trapped inside until you kill the matron mother alongside her streams of reinforcements. Good luck.
However, nearly all the dangerous content is optional, IF Ust Natha stays friendly. The exceptions are (to my knowledge) the balor fight in the dwarf village and the exit fight near the entry to the surface. I think the exit fight is actually safer if you do it before teleporting with Adalon, but that makes it a tough fight with no support.
So what Billy could do is just pay a visit to the fish prince for his blood, and then do the bare minimum in Ust Natha to get out. Stay away from trapped souls, stay away from golden ropes, stay away from mindflayers, stay away from beholders. The Deirex / Jae'llet combo in particular is quite unrewarding for how dangerous it is.
But he isn't going to do that.
Determined to clean house, the first order of business is the easy stuff. We're so close to some critical levels on certain party members and would really like those levels before facing the harder stuff. Anomen really wants level 14 for level 7 cleric spells. Then he really wants level 15 for the final grade of skeleton summon. Nalia really wants level 14 for her first level 7 spell. Imoen really wants level 13 for a second 6th level spell. Aerie really wants level 12 in cleric for a level 6 spell - Anomen's 6th level spells are filled with wondrous recalls so he can cover everyone with chaotic commands, and we would really like to be able to summon an aerial servant.
Right out of the gate, Billy and his friends get bullied by the drow priest party and realize how problematic magic resistance is alongside high level remove magic casters. Remove magic strips jaheira and anomen and leaves Billy as the only combat capable warrior. Casters are meanwhile relatively toothless due to magic resistance. Jaheira was killed by a missed save on a flame strike after having her resist fire dispelled. Fortunately she was not chunked (died from near full health to about 75 damage from the strike). Billy slogged through, but it wasn't pretty.
After the fight, we shifted our casting strategy. Fireball out, melfs magic missile in. More defenses and summons and anything that doesn't care about enemy magic resistance. MMM shines against the otherwise difficult to hit, magic resistant drow and is a good way to convert spells to magic resistance ignoring damage. We also picked up drow armor, and gave Jaheria and Anomen plate+5, while the arcane casters got elven chain.
Billy then rescued the missing dwarf kid. Second slot from the right in the lost soul machine. We didn't want to accidentally summon a lich!
Then we visited the fish monsters to the west, because we were slavering for the delicious frost giant belt one of the demon knights has. It was decided that Billy would face the demon knights alone, guarded by skeleton warriors. Demon knights provide several sources of danger. One is outright melee damage, as they hit hard and accurately (and there are a bunch of them). Billy can counter that with AC, stone skin, and mirror images. Another is level drain on hit, which he can counter with the amulet of power. They also instacast fireballs, power word stuns, and remove magic. Billy prebuffed with chaotic commands, resist fire, and SI:A. He also improve hasted from Nalia for good measure.
The fight did not go as planned. It turns out that the demon knights can also cast power word blind, which I was not expecting. They cut down the skeleton warriors quickly, as the skellies were not the level 15 version and therefore did not have the magic resistance to reliably resist fireballs.
Only two knights had fallen by the time all the skellies were dead and Billy had run out of mirror images.
Fortunately, the Infinity Engine is basically bad and melee units have no real way of forcing faster units to engage. So Billy cheasily used his cheetah boots and boomerang dagger + staff of striking to alternately run away and hide for backstabs and sometimes just jog around throwing the dagger. After the knights seemed to run out of spells, anomen came in to help wielding the +2 MoD. He was probably more trouble than he was worth. His trash dexterity is really a problem for his AC because the party does not have the dex gloves yet.
After dealing with the knights, Jaheira was terribly pleased to put on the frost giant belt for permanent 21 strength. She won't really come into her own as a fighter until she gets level 12 for ** in two weapon fighting and then level 13 for another 1/2 APR, but it's still a big upgrade over the 18/50 strength she was using previously (via the strength spell). The other demon items were put in the bag of holding for later.
The party then bulldozed the rest of the fish people, and was lucky enough to find two more scrolls of spell shield. I think either SCS or BG2EE 2.X makes spell shield more easily available, but I only buy the underdark scroll as I believe that is the original game behavior. With only that scroll guaranteed available until ToB, the party is very happy to get it randomly dropped as the party has four arcane casters to cover.
After defeating the fishes, we dealt with Vithal. I read somewhere that his alignment is evil. I therefore have no qualms murdering him even though the act is otherwise highly morally suspect. He doesn't seem to prebuff even with full SCS prebuffs, so he's very easy to kill. He drops a variety of high level spells, including time stop, and a helm which provides 1/day death spell which we give to Aerie.
Still not having spoken to Adalon, we decide to deal with the Mindflayers. The Ust Natha quest timers are actually very generous, but Billy doesn't like to feel rushed.