The Opera took out Meilum, but wimped out of facing Kahrk for now. A much easier injection of XP was gained by trapping Elminster for a cool 26k.
They did a bit of work in the Cloud Peaks before picking up Samuel and setting out for the FAI. I deliberately allowed them to travel there at a time when a bandit ambush was possible - thinking to test the newly learned dimension door abilities both sorcerers had taken for their last levels. That has a casting time of 1 and says that using it will make missiles miss even if they are already en route. Testing the spell proved fatal though. I reacted quickly when the ambush triggered, but even so the arrows from nearby bandits arrived before Aspire could complete his spell. The others tried to distract bandits from finishing the job, but SCS bandits do love targeting mages ...
Well, before getting into details, I'll say it fast so that we can move onto more interesting things: JC Denton is now in SoA. Or more like, he beat Sarevok and is sitting there waiting for me to go to SoA cause I'm writing this, but you get the idea.
Now, onto the details. First, I have to say this: this run was succesful because I made no mistakes (actually, I did two, but they didn't got me killed so they don't count, and there was no chance I could have gotten killed either). My last runs were filled of them, but since I'm on holidays now I thought out everything before actually doing it. This led to only two strategies worth mentioning (yes, only two. The sad truth of playing a Wizard Slayer. Fights against Mages could be interesting if it wasn't so easy to run up to them and sack them to the ground with your melee weapon of choice).
The first one, is the Palace fight. Normally, I rely a lot on consumables and spells on this one, and try to get them off the Dukes. But the only consumables I can use are Protection scrolls and magic protection potions. So I dropped two PfM scrolls I happened to have left from having no need for them after finding Balduran's Cloak (SCS mages won't nuke you if you have over 50% MR. JC has almost 30% innate MR right now, and this also means that you can achieve the same effect by drinking one potion of Magic Resistance, or however they're called) on the Shaman and Mage Dopplegangers. The result? I won. Or at least I like to believe this changed the entire fight. From their scripts, the Mage casts Chaos, and the Shaman can use Slay Living, which are both definitely not good news, besides, they lose all means to protect themselves, and the Mage started running around instead of hitting anyone, which was great. I just tanked Sarevok while I prayed he wouldn't score many critical hits and continuosly wasted Extra-healing potions to escape with just 78 hitpoints out of the 129 I believe that were our maximum at the moment.
The second one is my general strategy against Wizards, which is very obvious. I just pelt them with Bolts of Lightning (Wizard Slayers are the wealthiests of all characters, since you can sell basically everything you find), and when their Stoneskin wears off I toss a couple of Bolts of Biting at them. Sometimes they die with the Bolts of Lightning, sometimes I spend fifteen minutes trying to bring them down, some other times they just walk up to me, and, face to face with despair, die to my trustworthy morningstar +1. My general rule with enemy Warriors is, if I can deal more damage than them, I go melee them to death, use potions if necessary. If I don't deal more damage than them, I kite them. This ended up resulting in an almost 45 minutes battle against Sarevok (mainly because I made a mistake. I moved too far and triggered Sarevok to ran to me instead of just Angelo, so I had to bring Angelo, Semaj AND Sarevok with the crossbow. Diarmid had already fallen to my Bolts of Biting, while Tazok had gotten a good taste of my Bolts +2 until he got killed by the 15 points of damage from the Berkserker Rage innate. Truly a most saddening story).
The other mistake was trying to engage the Sirines early on. I just went back at them later and obliterated the poor, unsuspecting, unnatural creatures. I did both the Ice Island and the Werewolf Island as well, besides other stuff I had left like the Kozah guardian, which we missed to fight because I forgot Charleston Nib took the icon with himself when you talked to him, but it's just about 5k of experiece I lost, which isn't so much of a deal. Atop the Iron Throne we found the STR Tome, that left us at 19, which I'm very happy with.
Now I'll be killing Ankhegs to get a few Cleric levels and then I'm off to SoA. Edit: I also need to go look around for the WIS tomes. Had forgotten about that. There's many encounters such as the Iron Throne sorceress with the Golems and the Undercity mercenary group that I skipped in favour of not risking losing when I was so close to finishing the game. Honestly, it wouldn't have changed anything since I doubt they would have any items we could have made use of, and the XP both encounters give, which we don't need, isn't enough to convince me.
Quick report. Have been distracted by World Cup, roguelikes etc. Completed Durlag's for the first time in awhile, with Lyran at around 135,000 XP. No particular scares, or even any casualties. Unsure if we'll try Ulgoth's next, or do the Gate a bit more.
After completing most of the quests in the city (Being mostly paladins we avoided the thief quests) we returned to Candlekeep which proved to be straightforward. We are now in the process of trying to recover the Stone of Askavar. I and Imoen have levelled up in the process.
Alright, that was very a shortlived SoA run. I ended up recruiting Jaheira and Minsc, because these Tactics Druegar were kicking my ass, and then the Illyich encounter somehow triggered itself (I believe a war dog Jaheira had summoned might have run up there, chasing a Mephit, but this is just theory since I clearly wasn't looking when it happened), and JC got ambushed by the Fallen Deva, which I didn't see was standing next to him because I had put him somewhere relatively safe (or so I thought) while I took down the Otyugh with Minsc and Jaheira. I didn't imagine it would be there, I thought they summoned the Deva, alright, whatever, but for the Deva to run over half of the map to chunk him in two hits? Well, I... Didn't have that option in my bag.
Thankfully, my new install doesn't have Tactics nor HardTimes, although it has item and spell Revisions (and I also made a mistake when installing the item randomiser, so most items aren't actually being randomized), which I'm not used to at all, so I'll be playing a bit more of no-reload through it to check if there are any bugs and learn a bit more about SCS SR enemies.
Here's my next PC. I'll install level1npcs, finish SoA on my testing run and then I'll probably start playing.
The kit is from Song and Silence. If anyone wants to take a look, I dropped my WeiDU.log on dropbox.
Trio session 1 2 Nettle. Female LE halfling assassin (Gate70) Teers. Male CN elf sorcerer (Grond0) April. Female NE human berserker (Corey_Russell)
Our second session with these three had a few hiccups at the start but smoothed out as the game progressed. The mad arcand was no trouble at all, neither was Thalantyr at High Hedge when we traded a few items. The gnolls outside were relieved of Perdue's sword and we headed into Beregost
April was keen to pull some spider legs, and although we managed to do so successfully our berserker had been poisoned with no antidote to hand. She glugged several healing potions and all looked well - until her berserker rage expired. That was enough to make her unconscious and another tick of poison expired her too. We spent 200gp in a temple and got her back into action.
Nettle grabbed Zhurlong's boots and decided to keep them for herself. As for Perdue's sword, well we appear to have sold it so there goes our 50gp. At Nashkel carnival we played a quick game of exploding an ogre followed by another quick game of killing Vitiare.
On to the basilisks - Nettle asking if Teers had purchased a scroll. No, came the reply, we'll cower behind Korax. OK then.
The full loop of the rock garden later, Korax was still on our side despite our sorcerer thinking he would have uncharmed himself by then. A safe outing - right up until Nettle threw a dagger at Korax while standing amidst entangles. Teers sighed and acted as the elven shield, getting paralysed by the once-friendly ghoul and rapidly expiring. He'd bought Nettle enough time to make her escape though, so 400gp in a temple seemed fair enough.
An ankheg nest was next - April announcing her eagerness as only she can Needle "Do you feel up to the ankhegs" April "You're the party leader if you want to try it"
...Teers "You need to be closer" (as the first ankheg mauls April who is attacking from full two-handed range. Getting up close works and the remaining ankhegs barely land a scratch)
We pick off the Doomsayer on our way back, April asking why Teers is so keen to deal with this enemy - the answer being 4000xp.
Sirines and flesh golems were next - Nettle handing several buffing potions to April and helping out where possible.
Nashkel Mine is next, Mulahey being caught unawares...
The group of amazons outside the mine are no match for an enraged April so we courteously assassinate and sorcerate them too. Nimbul and Tranzig are cut down to size and we're ready to seek out a bandit camp in a week or so.
We have returned the Stone of Askavar and will now continue to fulfil other tasks which we have been given.
The road to get here below.
The section HQ in Beregost is beckoning, but so are other quests. However, first I will have to sell items in my bag of holding to make room for more loot.
Quick update on Thrasher the human cleric: Traveling with: Kagain, Minsc, Kivan, Imoen, Dynaheir
Still making progress - I've cleared most of the chapter 3 areas (not counting TotSC areas) - we have a few areas in the east to mop up, such as Pelvale, Larswood, Wizards of Thay area, then we will venture into the Cloakwood. Party is well equipped and well armored, haven't had much trouble since last update. Will keep at it.
I'm toying with the idea of being solo in BG 2 - we'll see how that goes...
So I reinstalled IA on top of v2.5 and I hope it will all work out alright. I added the no-locks and no-traps mod such that I do not need to have a thief in my party in the early game (which is more interesting to play with).
The third noreload IA Tails Three started as an avenger with proficiencies in scimitar and clubs. Strangely she still found the Gravebinder dagger as special BG1 item...
I paired up with Jaheira, Minsc, Nalia and Korgan and tackled some easy quests. The Circus is not improved and some of the simple things around town are also nice to do. I got more than I anticipated for when I tackled Baron Ployer since the fight ran a bit long and both rages from Korgan and Minsc as well as the chaotic commands on Tails Three and Jaheira ran out making them susceptible to the annoying confusion-type spells that every wizard casts. An oversight from my account, but I managed to save Tails a few times from death and I lost Jaheira and Korgan in the fight. Luckily Tails Three prevailed, but when we went into the Graveyard district to solve some of the quests there I misclicked on the Tomb of the Crypt King and that is a souped up fight for which my party was not ready yet.
End of the adventures of Tails Three.
Okay, maybe Tails Four needs to be more damage dealer or something. At least two avengers in the early game is not efficient enough. I overestimated the damage output there, especially with underdeveloped normal fighters in the party as well. I guess I am having early game balance issues vs IA.
1. Tails Three! 2. contagion having been cast onto Ployer 3. an emergency invisibility potion that Tails is swallowing to hide from the Skeleton Warrior 4. poison being cast on Terrence 5. Crypt King and Crypt Queen plowing through the party
All right, I'm once again posting a new run. This one was played a couple of days ago, on core rules difficulty.
After some recent failures and about a dozen undocumented solo runs which all ended somewhere in BG1 (with the most sucessful bhaalspawn being killed by Semaj), I've decided that, as both a goodbye to the current patch and a way to prove to myself that I can still actually do well in the unmodded game (I plan to install mods again when 2.5 is released for BG1+SoD), I would run a kind of very efficient, fast and safe run using all of my accumulated knowledge. While this isn't any kind of attempt at a real speedrun, I'm trying not to waste any time while still playing very safe, so large parts of this run will be played solo in order to gain experience as quickly as possible, while party members will only be picked up when I see their addition as time-efficient and providing important additional safety (Note: This is NOT a solo run and shouldn't be counted as one).
I've also decided that, for this run, I want to basically take anything the game throws at me, no matter how strange: No use of the console under any circumstances, not even to fix gamebreaking bugs, no reloads even if death occured thanks to an unavoidable and obvious bug, no exploits (well, I don't really use those anyway) etc.
My bhaalspawn is a male half-elven totemic druid with 10/18/16/11/18/18 stats called Rikai, starting with *Sling, *Dart. I chose this kit because its the one I'm most comfortable with for soloing while still staying safe. I won't go into detail regarding tactics unless something out of the ordinary happens: I plan to do only standard stuff, as in using mostly summons and buffs, with some ranged damage support and, later on, some efficient offensive spells like insect plague or nature's beauty.
I had a simple plan for the early game, which I executed without any major issues: - Kill Shoal to get to level 3 - Use the level 3 spirit wolf and its immunity to petrification to go basilisk hunting, getting at least level 5 - Use charm-immune spirit lions to go for the sirens - at this point, level 6 should easily be reached - With level 6, two spirit lions are available, which should allow the totemic druid to basically clear wilderness areas at will
After that, priority nr. 1 were high xp targets, priority nr. 2 was getting reputation to 20 and priority nr. 3 was going for valuable items and selling them - while totemic druids really don't need any items, I did plan to buy some stuff later on in the game. One of my early purchases was the wand of the heavens which allowed me to kill the battle horrors at Durlag's without much trouble. I was quickly gaining levels, making my way to the ever-important level 10. The only serious mistake I made was against Molkar's party, where I was just in range of an enemy horror spell, and since I couldn't protect myself against fear as a druid yet (or so I thought - I should have used my clarity potion here when I saw the horror spell), this was the one thing to really avoid:
However, as you can see, my summons held their ground in between Rikai and his foes, and Rikai wandered off to the west, far away from any enemies, while the forest beings and spirit animals took down the hostile group. No damage taken, but still an unneccessary mistake. Finally reaching level 10 allowed my spirit lions to hit with magical claws. I used this opportunity to go to the flesh golem cave in order to get Relair's Mistake, an item which finally allowed me to get to a higher strength score at any point and carry more valuable items to sell. After that, I saw no reason to delay the main quest any further and quickly made my way through the Nashkel mines, the bandit camp and the iron mines without any further troubles. With two level 10 spirit lions, three forest beings, chaotic commands and insect plague at my command, there was little that could go wrong.
While in Cloakwood, I prepared the first NPC I wanted to hire - Coran - by recruiting him, doing his quest and taking him to FAI before dismissing him again. I had been gathering some useful items for him, mainly to improve his thac0. After getting all the tomes, including in Baldur's Gate City, I dealt with the iron throne party by luring them downstairs to my summons. I recruited Coran once again before making my way to Candlekeep - he was used for easy access to all the treasures in the crypts. Pixie Dust provided a way out of there without any significant combat.
Back in the city, I dealt with the assassins, bought scrolls of greater malison and chaos and recruited a random arcane spellcaster - in this case, Garrick - in preparation of the ducal palace event. Second big mistake of my run right here: I should have recruited a full party at this point, including a second arcane spellcaster in case the first one would get targeted by doppelgangers, and I should've also bought some scrolls with protection spells like mirror image. In fact, I should really have recruited Quayle, who would've given me access to cleric buffs as well. As you can imagine, my plan for the palace was to get greater malison + chaos going in order to scatter the greater doppelgangers, while summons and Coran would be dealing the damage. I really underestimated my foes here, and my run almost came to an end: Garrick was targeted right away, and since I didn't have him cast any protection spells, I was lucky that he even managed to use the greater malison scroll before his death:
Rikai's insect plague in combination with greater malison did help a lot and provided Belt with some time to breathe (Liia was already dead at this point), as almost all foes got affected by the fear effect. However, that didn't last very long, and soon, enemies were swarming Belt again. Targeting is very random in this battle, and nobody was interested in attacking Rikai. Second big mistake: Once I had realised that things would be very close, I should've had Coran switch to dispelling arrows to at least remove the haste effect from the greater doppelgangers. However, since I had a very specific purpose for those dispelling arrows in mind, I saved them for later, which could've costed me the game. In the end, Belt was near death when the final foe dropped:
Really close call here.
I made final purchases (rebuying the wand of the heavens, getting all available arrows of detonation and arrows of dispelling), dismissed Garrick (now I feel bad for not even resurrecting him, but oh well) and invisibly made my way through the labyrinth and the undercity right to Sarevok, skipping all encounters on the way. This was the time for Coran to shine: I had him use dispelling arrows on both Semaj and Sarevok, removing the mage's defensive buffs and the main villain's haste, making this battle a piece of cake for Rikai's summons:
Here are Rikai's items at the end of BG1: Ankheg Plate Mail, Hands of Takkok, Helm of Balduran, Greenstone Amulet, Club +1, Sling +1 (I didn't bother to get any better weapons because Rikai doesn't attack all that often, and the better ones in SoD are easy to get), Darts of Wounding/Stunning, Buckler, The Guard's Ring +2, Batalista's Passport, Cloak of Balduran, Boots of Speed, Elve's Bane, Wand of the Heavens and a bunch of protective items and potions in the gem bag and the potion bag.
Coran really was very useful for the BG1 endgame, but he still had a role to play: My SoD opening dungeon strategy also revolved around him. I cleared the first level with summons, rested while invisible and used invisibility potions and protection from undead scrolls to skip the second level and get to Korlasz right away. Coran was disarming all the traps on the way (the last one, the one which dispels magic, being the most important). Now, all he had to do was hit Korlasz with another dispelling arrow to allow the summons to easily take her down:
Korlasz surrendered, I took some of Coran's equipment and he left me. In SoD, the city quests were quickly completed. Surprisingly, I did encounter another somewhat (but not really) troubling situation when fighting the previously imprisoned Korlasz once again, as she managed affect Rikai with horror (once again, should've used a clarity poition - I had lots of these at this point), but there wasn't really any followup - the opponent was busy dealing with flaming fist soldiers and summons:
I made my way to the Coast Way Crossing, "won" the bridge battle by staying invisible and completed the various sidequests in the area without any trouble, with the lich failing to do anything after "The Secret Revealed" had been used. At this point, I was nearing the experience cap, so I skipped most battles during the next chapter, though I did kill the dragon with a throwing dagger and cleared most of the Temple of Bhaal with my summons (though I ignored the shadows aspect and the mind flayer). I ended up surrendering Bridgefort (because I wanted Khalid to stay alive for later) and did some coalition camp sidequests (to get the Medal of Valor and the Commander's Chain Mail +3 for later), obtained a Seal of Caelar at the underground river and did two quests in the Dragonspear Courtyard (to get Corinth's Bow and the Ring of the Crusade), bought a ton of items from the genie in the camp and made my way once again to the underground river. Here, I skipped any and all sidequests and avoidable battles to get to the basement right away. Summons took down the first group, I poisoned the supplies, Hephernaan showed up and I didn't stay to fight, running away while invisible. Back in camp, I finally picked up a full party for the Siege and Belhifet: Corwin (to use my arrows of dispelling and detonation), Khalid (as a somewhat useless tank, but capable of using a good +3 weapon), Glint (for cleric buffs and traps), Jaheira (for additional tanking power) and Voghiln (to boost the entire party with his song and cast enchant weapon from his spellbook and from scrolls). The attack on the camp was solved via the usual fireballs (I had some necklaces of missles saved up), though the final wave was a bit more dangerous for Khalid, as he was affected by a confusion spell. No danger to Rikai, though, and insect plague was able to solve almost all problems here. The siege went rather well early on, with arrows of detonation doing most of the work. Eventually, though, Corwin got hit by a hold spell, and I had to use the other characters a bit more - still, there were enough missle necklaces and summons left to clear the defenders and summon Ashatiel. I agreed to duel her, protecting Rikai with a protection from magic scroll. I was surprised to find myself unable to stun her with my darts, but they still ended up dealing significant damage in the end - though I had to drink a couple of healing potions. Eventually, Ashatiel used sanctuary, but while attacking her was no longer possible, I could still finish her using the wand of the heavens:
In Avernus, the party skipped the first area, buffed for the second and made their way to the elevator, where all the previously gathered scrolls and potions were used to gain immunity to basically anything Belhifet and his summons could do - well, except for physical damage of course. Corwin had those Void-tipped arrows at the ready, Voghiln used enchant weapon on Jaheira and Corwin (in case the latter would run out of the +3 arrows), Glint had +3 bullets, Khalid bargained for the +3 sword from the devil in front of the elevator, Voghiln was singing and my main character wasn't going to really join the fray anyway. By now, I'm rather comfortable with the Belhifet battle, and we didn't encounter any trouble:
Here are Rikai's items at the end of SoD: Ankheg Plate Mail, Hands of Takkok, Helm of Balduran, Medal of Valor, Dervish Crescent +2, Biter +2, Darts of Wounding/Stunning, Buckler of the Fist +2, Ring of the Crusade, The Guard's Ring +2, Cloak of Balduran, Boots of Speed, Cloverleaf, Wand of the Heavens and an even bigger bunch of situational protective items in the gem bag, the bag of holding and the potion bag.
All in all, it took me pretty much one full day of playing to get from Candlekeep to Athkatla - a pretty good time, and faster than I expected. I know it's possible to get there much faster, but considering that I always took the time to get to the xp cap, get most of the useful defensive items, sometimes recruit a party and play things save with additional resting and buffing, I'm happy with my performance - and as I said, this is not supposed to be some kind of speedrun, it's just a quick and efficient regular no-reload run with a couple of optimizations.
@Enuhal: Very efficient indeed. One question: Why not use an Invisibility scroll on Liia Jannath, or maybe Pixie Dust before resting and returning to the palace?
@semiticgod Well, the easy answer would be: I simply forgot about that strategy
Then again, while I've read about it many times, I've actually never used it myself - after the EE-changes to the ducal palace event, maximum damage aided by greater malison + chaos (and other cc) has always been my go-to strategy, and before that, if I recall correctly, I used to go for the wand of sleep.
So, does Liia simply do nothing at all if affected by invisibility? Won't she try to attack the doppelgangers and reveal herself again? Obviously not, otherwise people wouldn't be using this strategy all the time, but it seems a bit strange to me. Since I have somewhat of an aversion to testruns, I rarely try strategies that are new to me, since there's always a risk involved. That's why there are some common no-reload approaches to several encounters that I've actually never tried at all.
@Enuhal: In SCS at least, Liia Jannath does not attack, whether she is invisible or not. It's always worked for me. Without SCS, or with other mods, it's possible that she will break invisibility.
One of the things I've done is charm Ithtyl from the nearby inn and use her to cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath, which also allows me to avoid triggering the cutscene conversation, ensuring that my mage's aura is clear when combat begins. Ithtyl also has some high-level spells at her disposal, so she's very useful even if you don't use her to hide Liia.
For SoA, I once again had a specific plan in mind for the beginning of the run. My first stops right out of the dungeon were the party in the sewers below the temple district and Mencar's crew, easily taken down by the unstoppable combination I used for most of SoA - 2 fire elementals, 3 spirit lions, insect plague and, as defensive buffs, ironskin, deathward and chaotic commands.
Several strength of one spells had been prepared to carry their loot and sell it, allowing me to get the belt of hill giant strength right away - I wanted to get this one early to alleviate the carrying capacity problem as soon as possible.
After that, I made some more money via a couple of small city quests and payed Gaelan to get access to Aran's trinkets. With those at the ready, I decided to speed up gameplay even more by going for the boots of speed. The Warden, however, is one of the few foes in chapters 2/3 who can deal with summons, and even though I made him waste his death spell, this fight was a little bit close - right as my last summon went down, Rikai in turn defeated him with his nonmagical sling and nonmagical bullets (I hadn't bothered to buy the Biter +2 yet):
Oh, and this time I did in fact pick up his key before freeing the actors.
As I continued to complete city quests (mostly for the experience), I didn't encounter any further trouble until the final one I planned to do - the Unseeing Eye. Counting the two times I was hit by horror spells in BG1 and SoD plus the very close ducal palace fight as the first three big mistakes ot this run, the following was certainly the fourth, and by far the biggest. There's the web trap in the old tunnels which will also summon a couple of ettercaps - a trap which I'm well aware off and which had already given me problems in a previous solo run. I knew exactly where the trap was, and for some reaons, my brain decided that instead of preparing for it (for example by buying a potion of freedom from the nearby Roger the Fence), it would be a good idea to just... walk into the trap without any plan and see what happens, I guess. Really, this was just me not thinking clearly, or rather not thinking at all. Predictably, I failed my first save and ettercaps started attacking:
This could heave easily been the end of my run. Granted, I was getting statistically unlucky, failing the save over and over again, but only I was to blame for my situation, and having to rely on making a save is never a sound strategy for a no-reload run. However, I did end up finally succeeding on the saving throw before Rikai was killed, thus saving this run from a rather embarassing game over:
By the way, I skipped both the lich battle and the beholders during the remaining Unseeing Eye quest, given that I didn't have access to a Deva yet (which would turn the lich into just a minor distraction) and that beholders are one of the worst enemies a solo druid can face, so avoiding them is always the recommended strategy.
Eventually, I made my way out of the city, completed the Trademeet quests (where I used pixie dust do skip straight to Faldorn), De'Arnise Keep, the Windspear Dungeon (skipping Firkraag at this point) etc. - you might find the Umar Hills missing from this list, and it's true: This was the time my rule of not ever using the console for this run came back with a vengeance. This might be some new bug with 2.5... I was completely unable to add the Temple Ruins to my world map. I certainly picked up Merellas Journal and Mazzy's Letter, talked to Minister Lloyd about it (though I did things in the wrong order, picking up those things before talking to the ogres)... but still, no Temple Ruins - which also meant no Shadow Dragon Armor to use against Draconis, and no Crom Faeyr for a potential future party in ToB. Not the biggest loss, but a bit annoying (especially since the temple ruins would be easy XP at this point, since I had access to a Deva by now).
By the way, the second major bug I encountered (which might also be new to 2.5) was that, after confronting Rejiek in the bridge district, I ran down to the second basement level before he could leave the first one - and when I went back upstairs after finishing the fight, Rejiek wouldn't leave, instead he would attack me and start chasing me all over the bridge district:
This might've also resulted in the followup quest in Trademeet not triggering.
Anyway, with most of the accessible quests done for now, I hunted for some high value targets: Liches were killed by Devas, mind flayers died to a Deva protected by cc, the Guarded Compound was cleared... I skipped the Twisted Rune (there's a beholder involved, after all, and I really don't need the SotM, not even for ToB) - oh, and I recruited a party member for the first and only time during SoA - Anomen got to kill Kangaxx' demi-lich form for me using the iMoD +2 after my Deva failed to hurt him (it takes ages to try and kill him with weapon damage as a single-class druid due to his regeneration)
While Rikai wasn't all that close to the XP cap at this point, I had gained all the significant spellslots needed for the remainder of the game, and there were no more items to gather, so I moved on to Spellhold. Not much to say here, summons still took care of everything. After obtaining the Cloak of Mirroring, I started skipping basically all Underdark sidequests - after clearing the Kua-Toa caves (except for the beholders) for the blood and the Demon Knight's loot, I went straight to Ust'Natha, followed Phaere's questline without allowing for any distractions, swapped the eggs and fled the city right away. I didn't need any items from the beholder caves or the illithid city, and I had already decided early on to get my experience during the easy chapter 2/3 quests rather than taking any risky underdark battles (though there would be more experience to gain down there, safety is still a primary concern).
Back at the surface, I had Cromwell forge some items. I also killed Firkraag (I had forgotten him earlier on, and since I planned to pick up Keldorn during ToB, Carsomyr was an important item to pick up), dealt with Bodhi once again (easy work for another Deva) - and even reading the books about vampirism stashed in her lair didn't add the Temple Ruins to the map. No time to waste - Suldanessellar was cleared (at the cost of Demin's life during battle), the dragon didn't give my HLA summons any trouble - Elemental Prince + Deva aided by a Druid + Simmy using Energy Blades is still very strong in late SoA. Deva + Elemental Prince also took down Jon at the tree:
The hell trials were completed the good way (though beholders were once again skipped - a Deva using remove fear was enough to get past the fear trial), and Jon returned. Summons quickly took down his allies, he himself quickly lost Hp and I really thought I had him:
But he just wouldn't go down - mabye due to a common bug during this fight. Eventually, all my HLA summons ran out, and while Jon regenerated, I called in some more low level summons and used an oil of speed to improve Rikai's dps with the Firetooth Dagger. The second time was the charm, this time victory was mine:
SoA went well except for the whole web trap debacle, pretty much as expected (this is the part of the game were I have the most experience with solo totemic druids) - though the run was actually faster than anticipated: It took me less than a day of playing to get from the opening dungeon to hell, making this a shorter experience compared to BG1+SoD. Basically, the only tactics added since SoD were the addition of SotA to my usual buffs (at least against spellcasters and for certain traps) and the important addition of the Deva (and, almost more importantly, her remove fear spell), the Elemental Prince and some more occasional offensive spells (I really didn't end up casting Nature's Beauty despite having it memorized a lot, but Energy Blades were used a bit).
This was Rikai's equipment at the end of SoA: Ankheg Plate Mail, Legacy of the Masters, Helm of Balduran, Amulet of Power, Blackblood +3, Firetooth +3, Biter +2, Shield of the Lost +2 (which the EE allows druids to use, propably because the description states that it isn't made of metal), Ring of Gaxx, The Guard's Ring +2, Cloak of Mirroring, Boots of Speed, Girdle of Frost Giant Strength, Golden Lion Figurine, Black Spider Figurine, Rod of Resurrection, a ton of extra utility and protective items in various bags, also some weapons for future ToB companions.
I didn't need any items from the beholder caves or the illithid city, and I had already decided early on to get my experience during the easy chapter 2/3 quests rather than taking any risky underdark battles (though there would be more experience to gain down there, safety is still a primary concern).
Impressive stuff @Enuhal. I was thinking that as a solo you might have some problems without the Greenstone Amulet, but while writing this I realized you said you were expecting to recruit NPCs for ToB .
FYI now that it's Friday I'll be able to get some real progress on my human cleric run (Thrasher) - will work on him tonight after work. Been pretty busy this week.
Nigretta's Run was shelved due to RL. The arrival of a gorgeous grandson, my first.
When I returned to it, I had forgotten that I needed to empty my bag of holding and sell the stuff to make room for more stuff from The Section HQ in Beregost.
Sneaked in using invisibility 10'. Killed numerous section operatives and Elite forces. Tried to collect all the loot but no room in the bag. Therefore dropped cheap equipment and picked up the expensive stuff.
Went to the surface and sold a LOT of equipment. Now to explore the section HQ again.
I mentioned that I planned to recruit a full party for ToB. Here are the reasons: a) I already know that I can't beat Amelyssan solo as a totemic druid; b) Several other fights, like Draconis and Abazigal, might also be close or at least take a lot of time and nerves; c) fights last a lot longer compared to SoA - it takes quite a while to take some enemies down solo, so party play might actually speed up the game at several points.
As for who would be joing this party: I think that fighter-types are the most useful when it comes to increased pace of play - they don't need much micromanagement, they don't need to rest very often, all you have to do is point them at a target and sometimes activate GWW or drink a potion. This is why I recruited Sarevok and Korgan (the most effective fighter-types) and, as a third, Keldorn (for his ability to wield Carsomyr, which utterly destroys most mages in vanilla). My next addition was Anomen: Buffing the entire party with deathward + chaotic commands just with one divine spellcaster is a huge timesink - having two will save a lot of time, and Anomen adds cleric buffs into the mix - plus he can fight. Finally, I added Imoen for traps and arcane spells (especially haste and improved haste).
An additional timesaving measure was the equipment I gave my new party - for example, the Silver Sword for Sarevok gave him two ways to instantly take out enemies (the other one being his deathbringer assault); Korgan would later on pick up the Axe of the Unyielding.
Anyway, after killing Ilasera and recruiting my party, I entered Saradush and bought all the spellcrolls Imoen would need. The sidequests were all completed and Gromnir was easily dealt with. My next step was Watcher's Keep, which I didn't touch at all in SoA. Nothing of note happened in the first two levels and most of the third - but at the end, when trying to gamble for Spectral Brand (which I failed to get, by the way), I ended up drawing a card that spawned a bunch of high level thieves who managed to kill Sarevok with instant backstabs:
However, he didn't get chunked and was easily resurrected after the battle.
Level 4 was easily completed again, and so was most of level 5 until I got to the guardians of the final seal - the Aurumach Rilmani managed to cast timestop, attacking Korgan and casting Cone of Cold a lot - Korgan was dead shortly before the timestop ended:
However, I used the RoR right away to get back my berserker - he almost died again a short while later, but the party managed to take out all foes before that would be the case. The other guardians failed to pose much of a challenge (the lich even got instantly killed by the Deva's iMoD+2), and I used Helm's scroll instead of taking on the Demogorgon.
With some much needed experience for my new party under my belt, I took care of the Yaga-Shura questline, sometimes adding protection from fire to my buffs (which, thanks to Anomen, now also included PfE 10' radius and remove fear). I generally tried to rest as little as possible, as any rest would result in me having to rebuff the entire party with DW and CC, which was a huge timesink. Instead, I used lots of healing potions and made sparing use of actual spells, mostly relying on a couple of efficient summons (like 1 mordy sword distracting a huge group of fire giants). Yaga-Shura was eventually GWW'd down before his followers managed to cast any relevant spells, and I made my way to Amkethran.
The only dangerous sidequest there is the fight against Vongoethe, but I know this battle quite well, which is why I added protection from fire here once again - a very good idea, because the lich used is Dragon's Breath HLA pretty much right away, and my party was immune:
At Sendai's Lair, mindless enemy hordes couldn't stop my party; I got more and more vorpal hits by now, with a first-attack vorpal strike against Diaytha's Hive Mother being a highlight:
The battle against Sendai was propably the fastest one I ever had - Keldorn is really good at dealing with most of her versions, and her final form didn't last long enough to heal herself even once:
Draconis was a bit more challenging, as he managed to evade my planned timestop + IA combo by going invisible right before my timestop hit. Luckily, his first and only acid breath only hit my melee fighters and didn't do much damage at all. He was finished off by regular GWW's, since my prepared strategies failed to do anything - same for his father, Abazigal. Interestingly, the blue dragon failed to dispel my buffs, which is something he usually does quite frequently:
There isn't much to say about Balthazar - he was his usual weak self compared to the two previously fought dragons. The Ravager turned out to be much more challenging: I didn't bother to prepare the harm-combo I usually use to take him out, and the damage output of him + his bone blades was really high, forcing me to even use RoR charges for healing purposes to keep my party alive - it took a while, but eventually he was taken down:
For the throne, I prepared a bunch of wondrous recalls to get back crucial buffs in case of dispels. Otherwise, nothing much changed, though Imoen tried her luck with some wish spells (which ended up doing basically nothing). A chain contingency with 3 AHWs turned out to be enough, combined with quick melee attacks, to take out the first version of Mel:
As you can see, Mel did in fact start dispelling buffs - something she would continue to do during all phases of this fight. I did eventually use a couple of wondrous recalls to get back my defensive buffs. First things first, though, Melissan's second form was quickly destroyed, with me being careful about preserving some GWWs for later. I did go all out for her third form, chasing after her right away and using several HLAs. Luckily, the Slayer Shadows mostly converged on Imoen, who was not only immune to level drain thanks to the AoP but als protected via defensive mage spells.
The Fallen Solar was lured back to the party to seperate him from his allies a bit (since he's much faster compared to them). Since I still had enough deathwards for everyone, he didn't pose much of a threat and was quickly taken down:
I used my remaining HLA summons for Melissan's final form, plus the remaining GWWs. She did use a pretty effective dispel magic and dealt some significant damage to Sarevok, but that was all she could muster - during the entire throne chapter, Rikai never lost his buff, always staying at a safe distance, so there wasn't any real danger of defeat:
While I certainly did make a couple of mistakes in ToB, their impact was lessened by playing with a full party, and since Rikai was always kept away from danger, this part of the run was the safest overall (solo play really does increase the risk of freak accidents). I'm happy with my decision to pick up a party, though gameplay might've been sped up by skipping a couple of encounters (my ToB run was essentially a completionist run) - I simply wanted my new party to gain enough experience to get them a solid amount of HLAs. ToB did take a bit less than a day to complete - propably around the same time as SoA. Of course, usually ToB is much shorter, but the difference in playstyle had a significant impact. Still, it took me 3 days to get through the entire saga from Candlekeep to Throne, which is certainly the fastest run I've ever had, and it was a no-reload success too, with Rikai only getting really close to death 2 times (the ducal palace fight and the web trap in the old tunnels).
I won't make an item list for my entire party this time; Just the weapons for my fighter types. Sarevok ended up using the Ravager +6, Keldorn went with Carsomyr +6, Korgan was a beast with unbuffed 5 APR using the Axe of the Unyielding +5 and Kundane +2, Anomen smashed his foes with the Runehammer +5 and the Defender of Easthaven +3.
Now, I'm really looking forward to 2.5 for BG1 and SoD getting released!
Regarding 1) My IWD ended months ago shortly after my first update in this run.
Things where going well. The undead mopped up the lizard men, and when I got the Aerial servants things really began to pick up.. alas I foolishly tried to do some melee work myself - 2 crits from a tough lizard man sealed the deal (they do pack a punch when they hit!)
Later I tried facing X......, and the Aerial servants actually killed her them selves. They truly rock.
Regarding 2) My BG saga ended yesterday.
I was in Baldurs gate and was awaiting the 2.5 patch and the boost to potion of speed. The potion of speed isnt coming so I decided to proceed. I was picking up some XP, gold and Tomes when I decided to do the Iron Throne unbuffed and with regular ammo.. I had become overreliant on stealth sniping enemies, and hybris showed it self.
Now I have no no-reloads active. Careless playing got the better of me - again
Unfortunately I didn't make quite as much progress as I had hoped, as I got a crash while trying to play Thrasher (my human cleric). BG 1 EE definitely seems less stable than vanilla BG 1. A little annoying. But in any case, Thrasher and gang did mop up Pelvale, Larswood and the Wizards of Thay area, with a few deaths along the way. Web traps are vicious to this party.
Next session, will finally brave the Cloakwood Forest.
I ran a half-elf fighter mage with very good stats, the assassins in Candlekeep having the usual better equipment that I have given them (+2 armour and swords/daggers) The result was a VERY short game. There are only two changes in tactics that I can make. 1) instead of having two longswords have a longsword and shield.
2) Ensure that he/she is under the influence of the oil of speed from the training room. I didn't do the latter as I thought that the effect might wear off before meeting Mendas who was quite tough even before I beefed him up.
Any suggestions? Would having a shield instead of a second sword be more effective?
Any suggestions? Would having a shield instead of a second sword be more effective?
Probably, but kiting them round the house while shooting them would be more effective still .
Unfair tactics! But effective! However, particularly with Mendas, you have to keep him in sight otherwise he hides and backstabs very effectively. I actually like that improvement. He actually uses his thieving skills!!
My run with Nigretta is awaiting the solution of a bug.
Unfair tactics! But effective! However, particularly with Mendas, you have to keep him in sight otherwise he hides and backstabs very effectively. I actually like that improvement. He actually uses his thieving skills!!
Agreed. In vanilla it's easier to just lead him out of the house to kite him, but with SCS a hidden thief coming after you with a poisoned backstab is definitely risky. However, there is enough room in the house to allow you to run round while taking the odd pot shot ...
Unfair tactics! But effective! However, particularly with Mendas, you have to keep him in sight otherwise he hides and backstabs very effectively. I actually like that improvement. He actually uses his thieving skills!!
Agreed. In vanilla it's easier to just lead him out of the house to kite him, but with SCS a hidden thief coming after you with a poisoned backstab is definitely risky. However, there is enough room in the house to allow you to run round while taking the odd pot shot ...
In a recent game I was surrounded by rats which protected me from Mendas. I was able to wound him badly using my bow, but he then moved out of eyesight, the rats stopped me moving, he then hid and later backstabbed me. Fortunately I wasn't poisoned. However with that one blow I was reduced to 1 HP. Fortunately that 1 point was sufficient to survive. Far too risky!!
Burned out from Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, but still hooked on no-reload runs, I've decided to try my hand at playing one of my favorite games no-reload: Morrowind. This run will end when the main quest with Dagoth Ur is complete.
I have no idea what the Morrowind Rebirth and Morrowind Advanced mods do, but they appear to make lots of changes to gameplay and content and make things a little harder, to boot. So this run will be partly blind.
For those who aren't familiar with Morrowind, the gameplay revolves around attributes (like D&D ability scores) and skills. There's a skill for everything from punching people to blowing stuff up to jumping really high, and the more you do it, the better you get. There's a class system, but all classes can practice the same skills. Your class just gives you bonuses to certain skills and makes them increase faster.
Our Charname is a Breton mage-type character named Frost. Bretons are half-elves with some nice defensive abilities and bonuses to magic skills. We start out in a swampy village named Seyda Neen, best known for its mushrooms, pond scum, and that one guy that plummets from the sky and dies screaming right in front of you. If you loot his corpse, you get a funny hat to wear!
While Morrowind is a 3D game, it's infamous for using a complex version of to-hit rolls, and because Frost is a clumsy doofus, she struggles to slay a single rat without using her spells. As many Morrowind players have complained, she can swing a weapon right through an enemy over and over, missing every time.
First order of business is collecting gold. By killing the murderer of a tax collector, looting the abovementioned flying dude's corpse, and stealing everything that's not under constant supervision, we can afford a very special spell:
As the name might suggest, Fortify Intelligence makes you smarter, and one of the notable benefits is that it makes any potions you create stronger. I don't plan on abusing "super potions," which is when you create potions that fortify your Intelligence, then use the Intelligence boosts to create even stronger potions of the same type to create exponentially more powerful potions, but I do plan on using custom spells to make potions stronger.
"Super potions" can give you infinite regeneration, speed boosts strong enough to let you clip through walls, and strength boosts strong enough to one-shot any enemy with a simple Iron Dagger, effects which can last for in-game days depending on how much you abuse the trick. They play a big role in Morrowind speed runs. This is why I won't be using them--though I will still create the potions necessary for the trick, just because I think it's cool to have super-intelligence potions on hand if I want to screw around. Knowing me, I'll probably just let them sit in my inventory forever.
To get rich, we first head to the Mages Guild in the riverside town of Balmora, sign up, and report to Ajira, the resident furry, who tells us to go fetch her some mushrooms and flowers, among other little fetch quests. This lets us pay for a custom Fortify Intelligence spell to crank up our Intelligence by 100 for a single second, which is enough to last for a whole session of potion brewing (the game is paused while you use Alchemy). Stronger potions sell for more money, which lets us create a stronger Fortify Intelligence spell (350 points, only possible because one of my mods uncapped it from 100), which in turn gives us even stronger and more valuable potions.
We buy useless ingredients from Ajira, turn them into fairly strong but useless potions, and sell them for all that she's worth: nearly 800 gold.
Morrowind players will notice that my encumbrance is a maximum 1600, a ludicrous value 10 times higher than normal. Apparently one of my mods changed this for the player's convenience.
With our money in hand, the Mages Guild is of little further use to us. We need better allies. So, we teleport to the other side of the continent and join House Telvanni!
House Telvanni is a xenophobic, racist, and extremely violent cartel of wizard lords who live in gigantic mushrooms far from civilization. Enthusiastic about slavery and ethnic supremacism, and deeply suspicious of outsiders and the concept of rational discussion, they prefer to resolve disagreements by killing each other. Imagine a gang of 500-year-old sorcerers suffering from severe dementia and squabbling over blobs of magic goo.
Why are we joining House Telvanni? Well, they have good services, the best of all the Great Houses (and we can only join one). Cosmopolitan House Hlaalu might be more friendly and the honorable House Redoran might be more reasonable, but if we want to buy the best blobs of magic goo in the country, we have to go to the Telvanni.
I grind Alchemy a little more to get more money to learn spells and create custom spells. There's one very special spell that I'm looking for: Chameleon.
Chameleon makes your character blurry and harder to see, and Oblivion players may know that 100% Chameleon makes you completely untouchable. Unlike Invisibility, Chameleon doesn't vanish the moment you grab an item, open a door, cast a spell, or throw a punch. But 100% Chameleon is extremely difficult to cast because it costs more magicka than Invisibility, and high-magicka spells suffer from spell failure (!) depending on your magic skills.
Worse yet, 100% Chameleon doesn't actually make you undetectable in Morrowind. It just adds a flat percentile bonus to your chance of being detected while sneaking around, and for characters with low Sneak, you can't really steal stuff unless the owners are far away. The owners, of course, keep a close eye on their best loot.
But you can stack Chameleon over 100 with multiple spells--and thanks to one of my mods, I can bump the magnitude up to a ludicrous 200% Chameleon. It only lasts for a couple seconds, but it gives me a 100% chance of snatching pretty much any item. I can steal priceless items right off the shelves of local merchants while the shop owner and the local guard are staring right at me!
I can't sell those items back to the original owners, since they'll report me to the guard and I'll instantly get caught (which leaves me with the ugly option of fighting a guard who's far stronger than me, or surrendering all stolen goods on my person), but I can sell the stuff to anyone else. And in Ghorak Manor in the mining city of Caldera, there's a creepy little critter named Creeper who will buy gear at full price.
I now have thousands of gold at my disposal and the ability to steal pretty much anything. What's the next step?
Well, I happen to have a strong soul gem on hand after robbing one of my fellow guildmates back in Balmora. And if I use a custom Fortify Intelligence spell, I can use that soul gem to enchant a glass shield with a powerful offensive enchantment.
Normally, enchanting is extremely dicey, and the odds of success are especially low for stronger enchantments. Even with reloads, some enchantments are actually impossible without high enough stats! You can have an NPC create the enchantment with a 100% success rate, but the price for that service is so incredibly high that no one ever uses it.
Also, enchantments are limited by the quality of the item and the power of the soul gem. If you enchant some peasant's shirt with the soul of a sick rat, it'll be able to deal only a few points of fire damage (say) a few times a day. But shields have great potential for enchantments, glass armor is especially strong, and our new enchanted glass shield can deal a massive 45 cold damage from long range.
Plus, enchanting an item removes the "stolen" flag, which means that if we get caught stealing something, the guards won't take away our shiny new shield!
I use the fast-travel options to tour the cities of Morrowind, stealing valuable gear from every major vendor in the country. To my dismay, I discover that digging up a yam from a plot of dirt is not only extremely illegal, it also gets me kicked out of the Tribunal Temple (which I only joined to make religious people like me more). An Ordinator--a kind of elven police officer famous for their aggressive demeanor, freaky masks, and cool skirts--charges over to threaten me with hard labor for stealing a potato.
But since 200% Chameleon is rock-solid when I remember to use it, I go right back to stealing the moment I pay my one-coin fine. I nab a longbow with a nice-looking price tag from a mod-introduced vendor outside of the floating city of Vivec.
I apologize to the nearest priest to get reinstated into the Temple, then spend our newfound wealth on better gear and new spells. We're only at level 4 and have terrible stats, but we have an Ebony Tanto (a high-end stabby weapon that Frost can barely use), several new enchanted items that can shoot lightning bolts and heal us and stuff, some overpowered potions (not "super potions," but very strong ones), lots of spells, lots of money, and some shiny new equipment, including the long, weird-looking Telvanni Cephalopod Helm. Here's Frost, chilling in Caldera after making some deals with Creeper.
Best of all, we now have the Boots of Blinding Speed, earned by escorted a known criminal to a safe location. The boots grant an amazing +200 to the Speed attribute, which is extremely useful in a game like Morrowind, where movement rates are intentionally sluggish in order to force the player to enjoy the scenery. The drawback is that the boots also impose 100% Blind, which darkens the screen to black and makes you miss pretty much every attack.
But as a Breton, Frost has an innate 50% Resist Magicka effect, which means she only suffers 50% Blind. It's enough to cripple her already poor combat abilities, but it lets us see. And since Levitate spells scale beautifully with Speed to compensate for not scaling at all with Athletics (a skill that also boosts movement rate), we can fly around the map at a remarkable speed just by casting a cheap 1-point Levitate spell.
We have lots of money, some strong options, garbage stats, and amazing mobility. This will make everything proceed much more smoothly.
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The Opera took out Meilum, but wimped out of facing Kahrk for now. A much easier injection of XP was gained by trapping Elminster for a cool 26k.
They did a bit of work in the Cloud Peaks before picking up Samuel and setting out for the FAI. I deliberately allowed them to travel there at a time when a bandit ambush was possible - thinking to test the newly learned dimension door abilities both sorcerers had taken for their last levels. That has a casting time of 1 and says that using it will make missiles miss even if they are already en route. Testing the spell proved fatal though. I reacted quickly when the ambush triggered, but even so the arrows from nearby bandits arrived before Aspire could complete his spell. The others tried to distract bandits from finishing the job, but SCS bandits do love targeting mages ...
I'll leave this party for a while now.
Now, onto the details. First, I have to say this: this run was succesful because I made no mistakes (actually, I did two, but they didn't got me killed so they don't count, and there was no chance I could have gotten killed either). My last runs were filled of them, but since I'm on holidays now I thought out everything before actually doing it. This led to only two strategies worth mentioning (yes, only two. The sad truth of playing a Wizard Slayer. Fights against Mages could be interesting if it wasn't so easy to run up to them and sack them to the ground with your melee weapon of choice).
The first one, is the Palace fight. Normally, I rely a lot on consumables and spells on this one, and try to get them off the Dukes. But the only consumables I can use are Protection scrolls and magic protection potions. So I dropped two PfM scrolls I happened to have left from having no need for them after finding Balduran's Cloak (SCS mages won't nuke you if you have over 50% MR. JC has almost 30% innate MR right now, and this also means that you can achieve the same effect by drinking one potion of Magic Resistance, or however they're called) on the Shaman and Mage Dopplegangers. The result? I won. Or at least I like to believe this changed the entire fight. From their scripts, the Mage casts Chaos, and the Shaman can use Slay Living, which are both definitely not good news, besides, they lose all means to protect themselves, and the Mage started running around instead of hitting anyone, which was great. I just tanked Sarevok while I prayed he wouldn't score many critical hits and continuosly wasted Extra-healing potions to escape with just 78 hitpoints out of the 129 I believe that were our maximum at the moment.
The second one is my general strategy against Wizards, which is very obvious. I just pelt them with Bolts of Lightning (Wizard Slayers are the wealthiests of all characters, since you can sell basically everything you find), and when their Stoneskin wears off I toss a couple of Bolts of Biting at them. Sometimes they die with the Bolts of Lightning, sometimes I spend fifteen minutes trying to bring them down, some other times they just walk up to me, and, face to face with despair, die to my trustworthy morningstar +1. My general rule with enemy Warriors is, if I can deal more damage than them, I go melee them to death, use potions if necessary. If I don't deal more damage than them, I kite them. This ended up resulting in an almost 45 minutes battle against Sarevok (mainly because I made a mistake. I moved too far and triggered Sarevok to ran to me instead of just Angelo, so I had to bring Angelo, Semaj AND Sarevok with the crossbow. Diarmid had already fallen to my Bolts of Biting, while Tazok had gotten a good taste of my Bolts +2 until he got killed by the 15 points of damage from the Berkserker Rage innate. Truly a most saddening story).
The other mistake was trying to engage the Sirines early on. I just went back at them later and obliterated the poor, unsuspecting, unnatural creatures. I did both the Ice Island and the Werewolf Island as well, besides other stuff I had left like the Kozah guardian, which we missed to fight because I forgot Charleston Nib took the icon with himself when you talked to him, but it's just about 5k of experiece I lost, which isn't so much of a deal. Atop the Iron Throne we found the STR Tome, that left us at 19, which I'm very happy with.
Now I'll be killing Ankhegs to get a few Cleric levels and then I'm off to SoA. Edit: I also need to go look around for the WIS tomes. Had forgotten about that.
There's many encounters such as the Iron Throne sorceress with the Golems and the Undercity mercenary group that I skipped in favour of not risking losing when I was so close to finishing the game. Honestly, it wouldn't have changed anything since I doubt they would have any items we could have made use of, and the XP both encounters give, which we don't need, isn't enough to convince me.
Quick report. Have been distracted by World Cup, roguelikes etc.
Diary of Nigretta
After completing most of the quests in the city (Being mostly paladins we avoided the thief quests) we returned to Candlekeep which proved to be straightforward. We are now in the process of trying to recover the Stone of Askavar. I and Imoen have levelled up in the process.Thankfully, my new install doesn't have Tactics nor HardTimes, although it has item and spell Revisions (and I also made a mistake when installing the item randomiser, so most items aren't actually being randomized), which I'm not used to at all, so I'll be playing a bit more of no-reload through it to check if there are any bugs and learn a bit more about SCS SR enemies.
Here's my next PC. I'll install level1npcs, finish SoA on my testing run and then I'll probably start playing.
Nettle. Female LE halfling assassin (Gate70)
Teers. Male CN elf sorcerer (Grond0)
April. Female NE human berserker (Corey_Russell)
Our second session with these three had a few hiccups at the start but smoothed out as the game progressed. The mad arcand was no trouble at all, neither was Thalantyr at High Hedge when we traded a few items. The gnolls outside were relieved of Perdue's sword and we headed into Beregost
April was keen to pull some spider legs, and although we managed to do so successfully our berserker had been poisoned with no antidote to hand. She glugged several healing potions and all looked well - until her berserker rage expired. That was enough to make her unconscious and another tick of poison expired her too. We spent 200gp in a temple and got her back into action.
Nettle grabbed Zhurlong's boots and decided to keep them for herself. As for Perdue's sword, well we appear to have sold it so there goes our 50gp. At Nashkel carnival we played a quick game of exploding an ogre followed by another quick game of killing Vitiare.
On to the basilisks - Nettle asking if Teers had purchased a scroll. No, came the reply, we'll cower behind Korax. OK then.
The full loop of the rock garden later, Korax was still on our side despite our sorcerer thinking he would have uncharmed himself by then. A safe outing - right up until Nettle threw a dagger at Korax while standing amidst entangles. Teers sighed and acted as the elven shield, getting paralysed by the once-friendly ghoul and rapidly expiring. He'd bought Nettle enough time to make her escape though, so 400gp in a temple seemed fair enough.
Needle "Do you feel up to the ankhegs"
April "You're the party leader if you want to try it"
...Teers "You need to be closer"
(as the first ankheg mauls April who is attacking from full two-handed range. Getting up close works and the remaining ankhegs barely land a scratch)
Sirines and flesh golems were next - Nettle handing several buffing potions to April and helping out where possible.
Diary of Nigretta
We have returned the Stone of Askavar and will now continue to fulfil other tasks which we have been given.The road to get here below.
The section HQ in Beregost is beckoning, but so are other quests.
However, first I will have to sell items in my bag of holding to make room for more loot.
Traveling with: Kagain, Minsc, Kivan, Imoen, Dynaheir
Still making progress - I've cleared most of the chapter 3 areas (not counting TotSC areas) - we have a few areas in the east to mop up, such as Pelvale, Larswood, Wizards of Thay area, then we will venture into the Cloakwood. Party is well equipped and well armored, haven't had much trouble since last update. Will keep at it.
I'm toying with the idea of being solo in BG 2 - we'll see how that goes...
The third noreload IA Tails Three started as an avenger with proficiencies in scimitar and clubs. Strangely she still found the Gravebinder dagger as special BG1 item...
I paired up with Jaheira, Minsc, Nalia and Korgan and tackled some easy quests. The Circus is not improved and some of the simple things around town are also nice to do.
I got more than I anticipated for when I tackled Baron Ployer since the fight ran a bit long and both rages from Korgan and Minsc as well as the chaotic commands on Tails Three and Jaheira ran out making them susceptible to the annoying confusion-type spells that every wizard casts. An oversight from my account, but I managed to save Tails a few times from death and I lost Jaheira and Korgan in the fight. Luckily Tails Three prevailed, but when we went into the Graveyard district to solve some of the quests there I misclicked on the Tomb of the Crypt King and that is a souped up fight for which my party was not ready yet.
End of the adventures of Tails Three.
Okay, maybe Tails Four needs to be more damage dealer or something. At least two avengers in the early game is not efficient enough. I overestimated the damage output there, especially with underdeveloped normal fighters in the party as well. I guess I am having early game balance issues vs IA.
1. Tails Three!
2. contagion having been cast onto Ployer
3. an emergency invisibility potion that Tails is swallowing to hide from the Skeleton Warrior
4. poison being cast on Terrence
5. Crypt King and Crypt Queen plowing through the party
All right, I'm once again posting a new run. This one was played a couple of days ago, on core rules difficulty.
After some recent failures and about a dozen undocumented solo runs which all ended somewhere in BG1 (with the most sucessful bhaalspawn being killed by Semaj), I've decided that, as both a goodbye to the current patch and a way to prove to myself that I can still actually do well in the unmodded game (I plan to install mods again when 2.5 is released for BG1+SoD), I would run a kind of very efficient, fast and safe run using all of my accumulated knowledge. While this isn't any kind of attempt at a real speedrun, I'm trying not to waste any time while still playing very safe, so large parts of this run will be played solo in order to gain experience as quickly as possible, while party members will only be picked up when I see their addition as time-efficient and providing important additional safety (Note: This is NOT a solo run and shouldn't be counted as one).
I've also decided that, for this run, I want to basically take anything the game throws at me, no matter how strange: No use of the console under any circumstances, not even to fix gamebreaking bugs, no reloads even if death occured thanks to an unavoidable and obvious bug, no exploits (well, I don't really use those anyway) etc.
My bhaalspawn is a male half-elven totemic druid with 10/18/16/11/18/18 stats called Rikai, starting with *Sling, *Dart. I chose this kit because its the one I'm most comfortable with for soloing while still staying safe. I won't go into detail regarding tactics unless something out of the ordinary happens: I plan to do only standard stuff, as in using mostly summons and buffs, with some ranged damage support and, later on, some efficient offensive spells like insect plague or nature's beauty.
I had a simple plan for the early game, which I executed without any major issues:
- Kill Shoal to get to level 3
- Use the level 3 spirit wolf and its immunity to petrification to go basilisk hunting, getting at least level 5
- Use charm-immune spirit lions to go for the sirens - at this point, level 6 should easily be reached
- With level 6, two spirit lions are available, which should allow the totemic druid to basically clear wilderness areas at will
After that, priority nr. 1 were high xp targets, priority nr. 2 was getting reputation to 20 and priority nr. 3 was going for valuable items and selling them - while totemic druids really don't need any items, I did plan to buy some stuff later on in the game. One of my early purchases was the wand of the heavens which allowed me to kill the battle horrors at Durlag's without much trouble. I was quickly gaining levels, making my way to the ever-important level 10. The only serious mistake I made was against Molkar's party, where I was just in range of an enemy horror spell, and since I couldn't protect myself against fear as a druid yet (or so I thought - I should have used my clarity potion here when I saw the horror spell), this was the one thing to really avoid:
However, as you can see, my summons held their ground in between Rikai and his foes, and Rikai wandered off to the west, far away from any enemies, while the forest beings and spirit animals took down the hostile group. No damage taken, but still an unneccessary mistake.
Finally reaching level 10 allowed my spirit lions to hit with magical claws. I used this opportunity to go to the flesh golem cave in order to get Relair's Mistake, an item which finally allowed me to get to a higher strength score at any point and carry more valuable items to sell. After that, I saw no reason to delay the main quest any further and quickly made my way through the Nashkel mines, the bandit camp and the iron mines without any further troubles. With two level 10 spirit lions, three forest beings, chaotic commands and insect plague at my command, there was little that could go wrong.
While in Cloakwood, I prepared the first NPC I wanted to hire - Coran - by recruiting him, doing his quest and taking him to FAI before dismissing him again. I had been gathering some useful items for him, mainly to improve his thac0. After getting all the tomes, including in Baldur's Gate City, I dealt with the iron throne party by luring them downstairs to my summons. I recruited Coran once again before making my way to Candlekeep - he was used for easy access to all the treasures in the crypts. Pixie Dust provided a way out of there without any significant combat.
Back in the city, I dealt with the assassins, bought scrolls of greater malison and chaos and recruited a random arcane spellcaster - in this case, Garrick - in preparation of the ducal palace event. Second big mistake of my run right here: I should have recruited a full party at this point, including a second arcane spellcaster in case the first one would get targeted by doppelgangers, and I should've also bought some scrolls with protection spells like mirror image. In fact, I should really have recruited Quayle, who would've given me access to cleric buffs as well.
As you can imagine, my plan for the palace was to get greater malison + chaos going in order to scatter the greater doppelgangers, while summons and Coran would be dealing the damage. I really underestimated my foes here, and my run almost came to an end: Garrick was targeted right away, and since I didn't have him cast any protection spells, I was lucky that he even managed to use the greater malison scroll before his death:
Rikai's insect plague in combination with greater malison did help a lot and provided Belt with some time to breathe (Liia was already dead at this point), as almost all foes got affected by the fear effect. However, that didn't last very long, and soon, enemies were swarming Belt again. Targeting is very random in this battle, and nobody was interested in attacking Rikai. Second big mistake: Once I had realised that things would be very close, I should've had Coran switch to dispelling arrows to at least remove the haste effect from the greater doppelgangers. However, since I had a very specific purpose for those dispelling arrows in mind, I saved them for later, which could've costed me the game.
In the end, Belt was near death when the final foe dropped:
Really close call here.
I made final purchases (rebuying the wand of the heavens, getting all available arrows of detonation and arrows of dispelling), dismissed Garrick (now I feel bad for not even resurrecting him, but oh well) and invisibly made my way through the labyrinth and the undercity right to Sarevok, skipping all encounters on the way. This was the time for Coran to shine: I had him use dispelling arrows on both Semaj and Sarevok, removing the mage's defensive buffs and the main villain's haste, making this battle a piece of cake for Rikai's summons:
Here are Rikai's items at the end of BG1:
Ankheg Plate Mail, Hands of Takkok, Helm of Balduran, Greenstone Amulet, Club +1, Sling +1 (I didn't bother to get any better weapons because Rikai doesn't attack all that often, and the better ones in SoD are easy to get), Darts of Wounding/Stunning, Buckler, The Guard's Ring +2, Batalista's Passport, Cloak of Balduran, Boots of Speed, Elve's Bane, Wand of the Heavens and a bunch of protective items and potions in the gem bag and the potion bag.
Coran really was very useful for the BG1 endgame, but he still had a role to play: My SoD opening dungeon strategy also revolved around him. I cleared the first level with summons, rested while invisible and used invisibility potions and protection from undead scrolls to skip the second level and get to Korlasz right away. Coran was disarming all the traps on the way (the last one, the one which dispels magic, being the most important). Now, all he had to do was hit Korlasz with another dispelling arrow to allow the summons to easily take her down:
Korlasz surrendered, I took some of Coran's equipment and he left me. In SoD, the city quests were quickly completed. Surprisingly, I did encounter another somewhat (but not really) troubling situation when fighting the previously imprisoned Korlasz once again, as she managed affect Rikai with horror (once again, should've used a clarity poition - I had lots of these at this point), but there wasn't really any followup - the opponent was busy dealing with flaming fist soldiers and summons:
I made my way to the Coast Way Crossing, "won" the bridge battle by staying invisible and completed the various sidequests in the area without any trouble, with the lich failing to do anything after "The Secret Revealed" had been used. At this point, I was nearing the experience cap, so I skipped most battles during the next chapter, though I did kill the dragon with a throwing dagger and cleared most of the Temple of Bhaal with my summons (though I ignored the shadows aspect and the mind flayer). I ended up surrendering Bridgefort (because I wanted Khalid to stay alive for later) and did some coalition camp sidequests (to get the Medal of Valor and the Commander's Chain Mail +3 for later), obtained a Seal of Caelar at the underground river and did two quests in the Dragonspear Courtyard (to get Corinth's Bow and the Ring of the Crusade), bought a ton of items from the genie in the camp and made my way once again to the underground river.
Here, I skipped any and all sidequests and avoidable battles to get to the basement right away. Summons took down the first group, I poisoned the supplies, Hephernaan showed up and I didn't stay to fight, running away while invisible. Back in camp, I finally picked up a full party for the Siege and Belhifet: Corwin (to use my arrows of dispelling and detonation), Khalid (as a somewhat useless tank, but capable of using a good +3 weapon), Glint (for cleric buffs and traps), Jaheira (for additional tanking power) and Voghiln (to boost the entire party with his song and cast enchant weapon from his spellbook and from scrolls).
The attack on the camp was solved via the usual fireballs (I had some necklaces of missles saved up), though the final wave was a bit more dangerous for Khalid, as he was affected by a confusion spell. No danger to Rikai, though, and insect plague was able to solve almost all problems here. The siege went rather well early on, with arrows of detonation doing most of the work. Eventually, though, Corwin got hit by a hold spell, and I had to use the other characters a bit more - still, there were enough missle necklaces and summons left to clear the defenders and summon Ashatiel. I agreed to duel her, protecting Rikai with a protection from magic scroll. I was surprised to find myself unable to stun her with my darts, but they still ended up dealing significant damage in the end - though I had to drink a couple of healing potions. Eventually, Ashatiel used sanctuary, but while attacking her was no longer possible, I could still finish her using the wand of the heavens:
In Avernus, the party skipped the first area, buffed for the second and made their way to the elevator, where all the previously gathered scrolls and potions were used to gain immunity to basically anything Belhifet and his summons could do - well, except for physical damage of course. Corwin had those Void-tipped arrows at the ready, Voghiln used enchant weapon on Jaheira and Corwin (in case the latter would run out of the +3 arrows), Glint had +3 bullets, Khalid bargained for the +3 sword from the devil in front of the elevator, Voghiln was singing and my main character wasn't going to really join the fray anyway. By now, I'm rather comfortable with the Belhifet battle, and we didn't encounter any trouble:
Here are Rikai's items at the end of SoD: Ankheg Plate Mail, Hands of Takkok, Helm of Balduran, Medal of Valor, Dervish Crescent +2, Biter +2, Darts of Wounding/Stunning, Buckler of the Fist +2, Ring of the Crusade, The Guard's Ring +2, Cloak of Balduran, Boots of Speed, Cloverleaf, Wand of the Heavens and an even bigger bunch of situational protective items in the gem bag, the bag of holding and the potion bag.
All in all, it took me pretty much one full day of playing to get from Candlekeep to Athkatla - a pretty good time, and faster than I expected. I know it's possible to get there much faster, but considering that I always took the time to get to the xp cap, get most of the useful defensive items, sometimes recruit a party and play things save with additional resting and buffing, I'm happy with my performance - and as I said, this is not supposed to be some kind of speedrun, it's just a quick and efficient regular no-reload run with a couple of optimizations.
Enuhal
Then again, while I've read about it many times, I've actually never used it myself - after the EE-changes to the ducal palace event, maximum damage aided by greater malison + chaos (and other cc) has always been my go-to strategy, and before that, if I recall correctly, I used to go for the wand of sleep.
So, does Liia simply do nothing at all if affected by invisibility? Won't she try to attack the doppelgangers and reveal herself again? Obviously not, otherwise people wouldn't be using this strategy all the time, but it seems a bit strange to me. Since I have somewhat of an aversion to testruns, I rarely try strategies that are new to me, since there's always a risk involved. That's why there are some common no-reload approaches to several encounters that I've actually never tried at all.
One of the things I've done is charm Ithtyl from the nearby inn and use her to cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath, which also allows me to avoid triggering the cutscene conversation, ensuring that my mage's aura is clear when combat begins. Ithtyl also has some high-level spells at her disposal, so she's very useful even if you don't use her to hide Liia.
BG1+SoD can be found here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/994086/#Comment_994086
For SoA, I once again had a specific plan in mind for the beginning of the run. My first stops right out of the dungeon were the party in the sewers below the temple district and Mencar's crew, easily taken down by the unstoppable combination I used for most of SoA - 2 fire elementals, 3 spirit lions, insect plague and, as defensive buffs, ironskin, deathward and chaotic commands.
Several strength of one spells had been prepared to carry their loot and sell it, allowing me to get the belt of hill giant strength right away - I wanted to get this one early to alleviate the carrying capacity problem as soon as possible.
After that, I made some more money via a couple of small city quests and payed Gaelan to get access to Aran's trinkets. With those at the ready, I decided to speed up gameplay even more by going for the boots of speed. The Warden, however, is one of the few foes in chapters 2/3 who can deal with summons, and even though I made him waste his death spell, this fight was a little bit close - right as my last summon went down, Rikai in turn defeated him with his nonmagical sling and nonmagical bullets (I hadn't bothered to buy the Biter +2 yet):
Oh, and this time I did in fact pick up his key before freeing the actors.
As I continued to complete city quests (mostly for the experience), I didn't encounter any further trouble until the final one I planned to do - the Unseeing Eye. Counting the two times I was hit by horror spells in BG1 and SoD plus the very close ducal palace fight as the first three big mistakes ot this run, the following was certainly the fourth, and by far the biggest. There's the web trap in the old tunnels which will also summon a couple of ettercaps - a trap which I'm well aware off and which had already given me problems in a previous solo run. I knew exactly where the trap was, and for some reaons, my brain decided that instead of preparing for it (for example by buying a potion of freedom from the nearby Roger the Fence), it would be a good idea to just... walk into the trap without any plan and see what happens, I guess. Really, this was just me not thinking clearly, or rather not thinking at all. Predictably, I failed my first save and ettercaps started attacking:
This could heave easily been the end of my run. Granted, I was getting statistically unlucky, failing the save over and over again, but only I was to blame for my situation, and having to rely on making a save is never a sound strategy for a no-reload run. However, I did end up finally succeeding on the saving throw before Rikai was killed, thus saving this run from a rather embarassing game over:
By the way, I skipped both the lich battle and the beholders during the remaining Unseeing Eye quest, given that I didn't have access to a Deva yet (which would turn the lich into just a minor distraction) and that beholders are one of the worst enemies a solo druid can face, so avoiding them is always the recommended strategy.
Eventually, I made my way out of the city, completed the Trademeet quests (where I used pixie dust do skip straight to Faldorn), De'Arnise Keep, the Windspear Dungeon (skipping Firkraag at this point) etc. - you might find the Umar Hills missing from this list, and it's true: This was the time my rule of not ever using the console for this run came back with a vengeance. This might be some new bug with 2.5... I was completely unable to add the Temple Ruins to my world map. I certainly picked up Merellas Journal and Mazzy's Letter, talked to Minister Lloyd about it (though I did things in the wrong order, picking up those things before talking to the ogres)... but still, no Temple Ruins - which also meant no Shadow Dragon Armor to use against Draconis, and no Crom Faeyr for a potential future party in ToB. Not the biggest loss, but a bit annoying (especially since the temple ruins would be easy XP at this point, since I had access to a Deva by now).
By the way, the second major bug I encountered (which might also be new to 2.5) was that, after confronting Rejiek in the bridge district, I ran down to the second basement level before he could leave the first one - and when I went back upstairs after finishing the fight, Rejiek wouldn't leave, instead he would attack me and start chasing me all over the bridge district:
This might've also resulted in the followup quest in Trademeet not triggering.
Anyway, with most of the accessible quests done for now, I hunted for some high value targets: Liches were killed by Devas, mind flayers died to a Deva protected by cc, the Guarded Compound was cleared... I skipped the Twisted Rune (there's a beholder involved, after all, and I really don't need the SotM, not even for ToB) - oh, and I recruited a party member for the first and only time during SoA - Anomen got to kill Kangaxx' demi-lich form for me using the iMoD +2 after my Deva failed to hurt him (it takes ages to try and kill him with weapon damage as a single-class druid due to his regeneration)
While Rikai wasn't all that close to the XP cap at this point, I had gained all the significant spellslots needed for the remainder of the game, and there were no more items to gather, so I moved on to Spellhold. Not much to say here, summons still took care of everything. After obtaining the Cloak of Mirroring, I started skipping basically all Underdark sidequests - after clearing the Kua-Toa caves (except for the beholders) for the blood and the Demon Knight's loot, I went straight to Ust'Natha, followed Phaere's questline without allowing for any distractions, swapped the eggs and fled the city right away. I didn't need any items from the beholder caves or the illithid city, and I had already decided early on to get my experience during the easy chapter 2/3 quests rather than taking any risky underdark battles (though there would be more experience to gain down there, safety is still a primary concern).
Back at the surface, I had Cromwell forge some items. I also killed Firkraag (I had forgotten him earlier on, and since I planned to pick up Keldorn during ToB, Carsomyr was an important item to pick up), dealt with Bodhi once again (easy work for another Deva) - and even reading the books about vampirism stashed in her lair didn't add the Temple Ruins to the map. No time to waste - Suldanessellar was cleared (at the cost of Demin's life during battle), the dragon didn't give my HLA summons any trouble - Elemental Prince + Deva aided by a Druid + Simmy using Energy Blades is still very strong in late SoA. Deva + Elemental Prince also took down Jon at the tree:
The hell trials were completed the good way (though beholders were once again skipped - a Deva using remove fear was enough to get past the fear trial), and Jon returned. Summons quickly took down his allies, he himself quickly lost Hp and I really thought I had him:
But he just wouldn't go down - mabye due to a common bug during this fight. Eventually, all my HLA summons ran out, and while Jon regenerated, I called in some more low level summons and used an oil of speed to improve Rikai's dps with the Firetooth Dagger. The second time was the charm, this time victory was mine:
SoA went well except for the whole web trap debacle, pretty much as expected (this is the part of the game were I have the most experience with solo totemic druids) - though the run was actually faster than anticipated: It took me less than a day of playing to get from the opening dungeon to hell, making this a shorter experience compared to BG1+SoD. Basically, the only tactics added since SoD were the addition of SotA to my usual buffs (at least against spellcasters and for certain traps) and the important addition of the Deva (and, almost more importantly, her remove fear spell), the Elemental Prince and some more occasional offensive spells (I really didn't end up casting Nature's Beauty despite having it memorized a lot, but Energy Blades were used a bit).
This was Rikai's equipment at the end of SoA: Ankheg Plate Mail, Legacy of the Masters, Helm of Balduran, Amulet of Power, Blackblood +3, Firetooth +3, Biter +2, Shield of the Lost +2 (which the EE allows druids to use, propably because the description states that it isn't made of metal), Ring of Gaxx, The Guard's Ring +2, Cloak of Mirroring, Boots of Speed, Girdle of Frost Giant Strength, Golden Lion Figurine, Black Spider Figurine, Rod of Resurrection, a ton of extra utility and protective items in various bags, also some weapons for future ToB companions.
Enuhal
When I returned to it, I had forgotten that I needed to empty my bag of holding and sell the stuff to make room for more stuff from The Section HQ in Beregost.
Sneaked in using invisibility 10'. Killed numerous section operatives and Elite forces. Tried to collect all the loot but no room in the bag.
Went to the surface and sold a LOT of equipment. Now to explore the section HQ again.
BG1+SoD can be found here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/994086/#Comment_994086
BG2 can be found here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/994376/#Comment_994376
I mentioned that I planned to recruit a full party for ToB. Here are the reasons: a) I already know that I can't beat Amelyssan solo as a totemic druid; b) Several other fights, like Draconis and Abazigal, might also be close or at least take a lot of time and nerves; c) fights last a lot longer compared to SoA - it takes quite a while to take some enemies down solo, so party play might actually speed up the game at several points.
As for who would be joing this party: I think that fighter-types are the most useful when it comes to increased pace of play - they don't need much micromanagement, they don't need to rest very often, all you have to do is point them at a target and sometimes activate GWW or drink a potion. This is why I recruited Sarevok and Korgan (the most effective fighter-types) and, as a third, Keldorn (for his ability to wield Carsomyr, which utterly destroys most mages in vanilla). My next addition was Anomen: Buffing the entire party with deathward + chaotic commands just with one divine spellcaster is a huge timesink - having two will save a lot of time, and Anomen adds cleric buffs into the mix - plus he can fight. Finally, I added Imoen for traps and arcane spells (especially haste and improved haste).
An additional timesaving measure was the equipment I gave my new party - for example, the Silver Sword for Sarevok gave him two ways to instantly take out enemies (the other one being his deathbringer assault); Korgan would later on pick up the Axe of the Unyielding.
Anyway, after killing Ilasera and recruiting my party, I entered Saradush and bought all the spellcrolls Imoen would need. The sidequests were all completed and Gromnir was easily dealt with. My next step was Watcher's Keep, which I didn't touch at all in SoA. Nothing of note happened in the first two levels and most of the third - but at the end, when trying to gamble for Spectral Brand (which I failed to get, by the way), I ended up drawing a card that spawned a bunch of high level thieves who managed to kill Sarevok with instant backstabs:
However, he didn't get chunked and was easily resurrected after the battle.
Level 4 was easily completed again, and so was most of level 5 until I got to the guardians of the final seal - the Aurumach Rilmani managed to cast timestop, attacking Korgan and casting Cone of Cold a lot - Korgan was dead shortly before the timestop ended:
However, I used the RoR right away to get back my berserker - he almost died again a short while later, but the party managed to take out all foes before that would be the case. The other guardians failed to pose much of a challenge (the lich even got instantly killed by the Deva's iMoD+2), and I used Helm's scroll instead of taking on the Demogorgon.
With some much needed experience for my new party under my belt, I took care of the Yaga-Shura questline, sometimes adding protection from fire to my buffs (which, thanks to Anomen, now also included PfE 10' radius and remove fear). I generally tried to rest as little as possible, as any rest would result in me having to rebuff the entire party with DW and CC, which was a huge timesink. Instead, I used lots of healing potions and made sparing use of actual spells, mostly relying on a couple of efficient summons (like 1 mordy sword distracting a huge group of fire giants). Yaga-Shura was eventually GWW'd down before his followers managed to cast any relevant spells, and I made my way to Amkethran.
The only dangerous sidequest there is the fight against Vongoethe, but I know this battle quite well, which is why I added protection from fire here once again - a very good idea, because the lich used is Dragon's Breath HLA pretty much right away, and my party was immune:
At Sendai's Lair, mindless enemy hordes couldn't stop my party; I got more and more vorpal hits by now, with a first-attack vorpal strike against Diaytha's Hive Mother being a highlight:
The battle against Sendai was propably the fastest one I ever had - Keldorn is really good at dealing with most of her versions, and her final form didn't last long enough to heal herself even once:
Draconis was a bit more challenging, as he managed to evade my planned timestop + IA combo by going invisible right before my timestop hit. Luckily, his first and only acid breath only hit my melee fighters and didn't do much damage at all. He was finished off by regular GWW's, since my prepared strategies failed to do anything - same for his father, Abazigal. Interestingly, the blue dragon failed to dispel my buffs, which is something he usually does quite frequently:
There isn't much to say about Balthazar - he was his usual weak self compared to the two previously fought dragons. The Ravager turned out to be much more challenging: I didn't bother to prepare the harm-combo I usually use to take him out, and the damage output of him + his bone blades was really high, forcing me to even use RoR charges for healing purposes to keep my party alive - it took a while, but eventually he was taken down:
For the throne, I prepared a bunch of wondrous recalls to get back crucial buffs in case of dispels. Otherwise, nothing much changed, though Imoen tried her luck with some wish spells (which ended up doing basically nothing). A chain contingency with 3 AHWs turned out to be enough, combined with quick melee attacks, to take out the first version of Mel:
As you can see, Mel did in fact start dispelling buffs - something she would continue to do during all phases of this fight. I did eventually use a couple of wondrous recalls to get back my defensive buffs. First things first, though, Melissan's second form was quickly destroyed, with me being careful about preserving some GWWs for later. I did go all out for her third form, chasing after her right away and using several HLAs. Luckily, the Slayer Shadows mostly converged on Imoen, who was not only immune to level drain thanks to the AoP but als protected via defensive mage spells.
The Fallen Solar was lured back to the party to seperate him from his allies a bit (since he's much faster compared to them). Since I still had enough deathwards for everyone, he didn't pose much of a threat and was quickly taken down:
I used my remaining HLA summons for Melissan's final form, plus the remaining GWWs. She did use a pretty effective dispel magic and dealt some significant damage to Sarevok, but that was all she could muster - during the entire throne chapter, Rikai never lost his buff, always staying at a safe distance, so there wasn't any real danger of defeat:
While I certainly did make a couple of mistakes in ToB, their impact was lessened by playing with a full party, and since Rikai was always kept away from danger, this part of the run was the safest overall (solo play really does increase the risk of freak accidents). I'm happy with my decision to pick up a party, though gameplay might've been sped up by skipping a couple of encounters (my ToB run was essentially a completionist run) - I simply wanted my new party to gain enough experience to get them a solid amount of HLAs.
ToB did take a bit less than a day to complete - propably around the same time as SoA. Of course, usually ToB is much shorter, but the difference in playstyle had a significant impact. Still, it took me 3 days to get through the entire saga from Candlekeep to Throne, which is certainly the fastest run I've ever had, and it was a no-reload success too, with Rikai only getting really close to death 2 times (the ducal palace fight and the web trap in the old tunnels).
I won't make an item list for my entire party this time; Just the weapons for my fighter types. Sarevok ended up using the Ravager +6, Keldorn went with Carsomyr +6, Korgan was a beast with unbuffed 5 APR using the Axe of the Unyielding +5 and Kundane +2, Anomen smashed his foes with the Runehammer +5 and the Defender of Easthaven +3.
Now, I'm really looking forward to 2.5 for BG1 and SoD getting released!
Good luck to everyone else,
Enuhal
The tragic deaths of Archy and HHH
I have had 2 no reloads going:1) my IWD HoF run with HHH the Half-Orc F/C
And
2) my BG saga run with Archy the elf archer.
Regarding 1)
My IWD ended months ago shortly after my first update in this run.
Things where going well. The undead mopped up the lizard men, and when I got the Aerial servants things really began to pick up.. alas I foolishly tried to do some melee work myself - 2 crits from a tough lizard man sealed the deal (they do pack a punch when they hit!)
Later I tried facing X......, and the Aerial servants actually killed her them selves. They truly rock.
Regarding 2)
My BG saga ended yesterday.
I was in Baldurs gate and was awaiting the 2.5 patch and the boost to potion of speed. The potion of speed isnt coming so I decided to proceed. I was picking up some XP, gold and Tomes when I decided to do the Iron Throne unbuffed and with regular ammo.. I had become overreliant on stealth sniping enemies, and hybris showed it self.
Now I have no no-reloads active. Careless playing got the better of me - again
Next session, will finally brave the Cloakwood Forest.
I ran a half-elf fighter mage with very good stats, the assassins in Candlekeep having the usual better equipment that I have given them (+2 armour and swords/daggers) The result was a VERY short game. There are only two changes in tactics that I can make.
1) instead of having two longswords have a longsword and shield.
2) Ensure that he/she is under the influence of the oil of speed from the training room. I didn't do the latter as I thought that the effect might wear off before meeting Mendas who was quite tough even before I beefed him up.
Any suggestions? Would having a shield instead of a second sword be more effective?
My run with Nigretta is awaiting the solution of a bug.
Frost: No-Reload Morrowind Run
Part 1
Burned out from Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, but still hooked on no-reload runs, I've decided to try my hand at playing one of my favorite games no-reload: Morrowind. This run will end when the main quest with Dagoth Ur is complete.Notable Plugins:
Tribunal
Bloodmoon
Morrowind Rebirth
Morrowind Advanced
I have no idea what the Morrowind Rebirth and Morrowind Advanced mods do, but they appear to make lots of changes to gameplay and content and make things a little harder, to boot. So this run will be partly blind.
For those who aren't familiar with Morrowind, the gameplay revolves around attributes (like D&D ability scores) and skills. There's a skill for everything from punching people to blowing stuff up to jumping really high, and the more you do it, the better you get. There's a class system, but all classes can practice the same skills. Your class just gives you bonuses to certain skills and makes them increase faster.
Our Charname is a Breton mage-type character named Frost. Bretons are half-elves with some nice defensive abilities and bonuses to magic skills. We start out in a swampy village named Seyda Neen, best known for its mushrooms, pond scum, and that one guy that plummets from the sky and dies screaming right in front of you. If you loot his corpse, you get a funny hat to wear!
While Morrowind is a 3D game, it's infamous for using a complex version of to-hit rolls, and because Frost is a clumsy doofus, she struggles to slay a single rat without using her spells. As many Morrowind players have complained, she can swing a weapon right through an enemy over and over, missing every time.
First order of business is collecting gold. By killing the murderer of a tax collector, looting the abovementioned flying dude's corpse, and stealing everything that's not under constant supervision, we can afford a very special spell:
As the name might suggest, Fortify Intelligence makes you smarter, and one of the notable benefits is that it makes any potions you create stronger. I don't plan on abusing "super potions," which is when you create potions that fortify your Intelligence, then use the Intelligence boosts to create even stronger potions of the same type to create exponentially more powerful potions, but I do plan on using custom spells to make potions stronger.
"Super potions" can give you infinite regeneration, speed boosts strong enough to let you clip through walls, and strength boosts strong enough to one-shot any enemy with a simple Iron Dagger, effects which can last for in-game days depending on how much you abuse the trick. They play a big role in Morrowind speed runs. This is why I won't be using them--though I will still create the potions necessary for the trick, just because I think it's cool to have super-intelligence potions on hand if I want to screw around. Knowing me, I'll probably just let them sit in my inventory forever.
To get rich, we first head to the Mages Guild in the riverside town of Balmora, sign up, and report to Ajira, the resident furry, who tells us to go fetch her some mushrooms and flowers, among other little fetch quests. This lets us pay for a custom Fortify Intelligence spell to crank up our Intelligence by 100 for a single second, which is enough to last for a whole session of potion brewing (the game is paused while you use Alchemy). Stronger potions sell for more money, which lets us create a stronger Fortify Intelligence spell (350 points, only possible because one of my mods uncapped it from 100), which in turn gives us even stronger and more valuable potions.
We buy useless ingredients from Ajira, turn them into fairly strong but useless potions, and sell them for all that she's worth: nearly 800 gold.
Morrowind players will notice that my encumbrance is a maximum 1600, a ludicrous value 10 times higher than normal. Apparently one of my mods changed this for the player's convenience.
With our money in hand, the Mages Guild is of little further use to us. We need better allies. So, we teleport to the other side of the continent and join House Telvanni!
House Telvanni is a xenophobic, racist, and extremely violent cartel of wizard lords who live in gigantic mushrooms far from civilization. Enthusiastic about slavery and ethnic supremacism, and deeply suspicious of outsiders and the concept of rational discussion, they prefer to resolve disagreements by killing each other. Imagine a gang of 500-year-old sorcerers suffering from severe dementia and squabbling over blobs of magic goo.
Why are we joining House Telvanni? Well, they have good services, the best of all the Great Houses (and we can only join one). Cosmopolitan House Hlaalu might be more friendly and the honorable House Redoran might be more reasonable, but if we want to buy the best blobs of magic goo in the country, we have to go to the Telvanni.
I grind Alchemy a little more to get more money to learn spells and create custom spells. There's one very special spell that I'm looking for: Chameleon.
Chameleon makes your character blurry and harder to see, and Oblivion players may know that 100% Chameleon makes you completely untouchable. Unlike Invisibility, Chameleon doesn't vanish the moment you grab an item, open a door, cast a spell, or throw a punch. But 100% Chameleon is extremely difficult to cast because it costs more magicka than Invisibility, and high-magicka spells suffer from spell failure (!) depending on your magic skills.
Worse yet, 100% Chameleon doesn't actually make you undetectable in Morrowind. It just adds a flat percentile bonus to your chance of being detected while sneaking around, and for characters with low Sneak, you can't really steal stuff unless the owners are far away. The owners, of course, keep a close eye on their best loot.
But you can stack Chameleon over 100 with multiple spells--and thanks to one of my mods, I can bump the magnitude up to a ludicrous 200% Chameleon. It only lasts for a couple seconds, but it gives me a 100% chance of snatching pretty much any item. I can steal priceless items right off the shelves of local merchants while the shop owner and the local guard are staring right at me!
I can't sell those items back to the original owners, since they'll report me to the guard and I'll instantly get caught (which leaves me with the ugly option of fighting a guard who's far stronger than me, or surrendering all stolen goods on my person), but I can sell the stuff to anyone else. And in Ghorak Manor in the mining city of Caldera, there's a creepy little critter named Creeper who will buy gear at full price.
I now have thousands of gold at my disposal and the ability to steal pretty much anything. What's the next step?
Well, I happen to have a strong soul gem on hand after robbing one of my fellow guildmates back in Balmora. And if I use a custom Fortify Intelligence spell, I can use that soul gem to enchant a glass shield with a powerful offensive enchantment.
Normally, enchanting is extremely dicey, and the odds of success are especially low for stronger enchantments. Even with reloads, some enchantments are actually impossible without high enough stats! You can have an NPC create the enchantment with a 100% success rate, but the price for that service is so incredibly high that no one ever uses it.
Also, enchantments are limited by the quality of the item and the power of the soul gem. If you enchant some peasant's shirt with the soul of a sick rat, it'll be able to deal only a few points of fire damage (say) a few times a day. But shields have great potential for enchantments, glass armor is especially strong, and our new enchanted glass shield can deal a massive 45 cold damage from long range.
Plus, enchanting an item removes the "stolen" flag, which means that if we get caught stealing something, the guards won't take away our shiny new shield!
I use the fast-travel options to tour the cities of Morrowind, stealing valuable gear from every major vendor in the country. To my dismay, I discover that digging up a yam from a plot of dirt is not only extremely illegal, it also gets me kicked out of the Tribunal Temple (which I only joined to make religious people like me more). An Ordinator--a kind of elven police officer famous for their aggressive demeanor, freaky masks, and cool skirts--charges over to threaten me with hard labor for stealing a potato.
But since 200% Chameleon is rock-solid when I remember to use it, I go right back to stealing the moment I pay my one-coin fine. I nab a longbow with a nice-looking price tag from a mod-introduced vendor outside of the floating city of Vivec.
I apologize to the nearest priest to get reinstated into the Temple, then spend our newfound wealth on better gear and new spells. We're only at level 4 and have terrible stats, but we have an Ebony Tanto (a high-end stabby weapon that Frost can barely use), several new enchanted items that can shoot lightning bolts and heal us and stuff, some overpowered potions (not "super potions," but very strong ones), lots of spells, lots of money, and some shiny new equipment, including the long, weird-looking Telvanni Cephalopod Helm. Here's Frost, chilling in Caldera after making some deals with Creeper.
Best of all, we now have the Boots of Blinding Speed, earned by escorted a known criminal to a safe location. The boots grant an amazing +200 to the Speed attribute, which is extremely useful in a game like Morrowind, where movement rates are intentionally sluggish in order to force the player to enjoy the scenery. The drawback is that the boots also impose 100% Blind, which darkens the screen to black and makes you miss pretty much every attack.
But as a Breton, Frost has an innate 50% Resist Magicka effect, which means she only suffers 50% Blind. It's enough to cripple her already poor combat abilities, but it lets us see. And since Levitate spells scale beautifully with Speed to compensate for not scaling at all with Athletics (a skill that also boosts movement rate), we can fly around the map at a remarkable speed just by casting a cheap 1-point Levitate spell.
We have lots of money, some strong options, garbage stats, and amazing mobility. This will make everything proceed much more smoothly.