@semiticgod Good luck with your Morrowind run, though I won't be able to really follow it, having never played the game at all. Still, happy to see you return to this thread
Here's the info for Rikai's run for the Hall of Heroes:
I decide to get started on the main quest. First up is a trip to a Dwemer ruin with an unpronouncable name. Unfortunately, the various human enemies around this area are quite tough, and while I can summon a skeleton to fight them, it takes a while and they can deal respectable damage if I don't make a point of hovering out of reach.
Also, the Boots of Blinding Speed make it awfully hard to see in the dark. Sometimes I can't make out much of anything, even by adjusting the game's brightness.
That's a Centurion Spider, a tough little critter with a poison spell and resistance to my spells. Frost struggles to land a hit, and when she does land a hit, it doesn't deal much damage due to her pitiful Strength attribute.
We have to rely heavily on our summoned skeleton to deal damage. Frost distracts the enemy while the skeleton actually lands hits from behind.
Deeper in the dungeon, we have to deal with much tougher enemies--Dwemer ghosts and Centurion Spheres. I don't know how bad the former's spells are or how much damage the latter can do, so I bring out a Flame Atronach and hide behind invisibility using the Ring of Aversion (another stolen magic item) while I watch the atronach take down the ghosts.
We get all the way up to level 7, then proceed to our next dungeon. We need to retrieve a skull from a tomb so an orc will give us a history lecture. Problem is, the skeletons in the tomb are pretty wicked, and Frost nearly dies when a few quick hits drop her down to 21 Health out of 61. Only an expensive healing potion bails her out.
I make a point of relying on our enchanted items to attack the enemy from afar. The Ring of Fireballs doesn't do much damage, but you can spam a bunch of fireballs in short order.
Casting spells takes about 2 seconds each, but using an enchanted item to cast a spell is instantaneous. I can throw out fireballs as fast as I can click, though the ring runs of energy and needs to be given time to recharge itself if I burn it out.
For a while, things seem to be going great. Then I see trouble: this tomb has a Bonelord in it.
Bonelords have nasty spells and are much more dangerous than other skeletons. I run away and hide while a summoned daedroth (a humanoid demon with a crocodile head) dukes it out with the Bonelord. Note the green magic effect indicating a poison spell--daedroths aren't smart enough to not use poison attacks on undead who are immune to them.
Bonelords have powerful souls, however, and casting Soultrap on the thing before it dies gives us a very useful soul gem.
Bonewalkers are the equivalent of zombies in Morrowind, and they are my least favorite enemy. Not because some of them can damage your attributes or because they're especially dangerous, but because they're absolutely hideous. This is what a Bonewalker looks like when it's attacking you, but I wouldn't recommend clicking on the spoiler if you have a problem with zombies.
Soul gems are cheap and easy to buy in my install, which means we leave the dungeon with a whole bunch of filled soul gems ready to be used for enchanting. While I don't plan on using "super-potions" in this run, I am willing to use a bunch of Fortify Intelligence potions to help enchant some key items. Once we have some high-quality clothing that can hold a strong enchantment, we create a couple of powerful new items:
The skirt is self-explanatory: it just lets us zap critters from far away. But the enchantment on the shirt is very special. A Golden Saint is the strongest summons in the game, and while Frost's low Conjuration skill means she would struggle to summon one successfully, enchanted items have a 100% success rate--which means we can conjure a powerful ally whenever we want, very quickly and with no risk. I test it out on some goons from another dungeon, and it can easily stomp over normal enemies all by itself.
This the primary reason why we joined House Telvanni. The only way you can learn the Summon Golden Saint effect is by purchasing it from a Telvanni mage, and that mage only sells it to members.
I do some more grinding to purchase new spells, brew better potions, and collect a few Grand Soul Gems, which can hold the most powerful souls in the game. Once we're at level 10 and have a nice suite of potions and spells, we fly out to the Ashlands to meet with the Urshilaku tribe. We need the wise woman to tell us how to become the hero of certain prophecies and stuff (in Morrowind, you have to prove you're a hero before people start treating you like one).
On the way, I run into a Dwemer citadel and get attacked by a Dwemer Steam Centurion, a massive robot with a mace for a hand. Normally, they're over 6 feet high, but there's... something wrong with this one. It seems to tower over our Golden Saint.
I change positions. This isn't a Steam Centurion--this is some mod-introduced enemy that uses the same animation but is several times larger than a Steam Centurion. It's over 30 feet tall, and completely dwarfs both Frost and our Golden Saint.
It destroys our Golden Saint in short order. I decide to maintain a safe distance from the robot, and fly out of its reach to consider my options. I try firing a few spells at it, but it just deals scratch damage, and my enchanted items run out of charge while the robot is still in excellent condition.
I can always run away, but I'm not willing to give up after we've made so much progress. I down a few Fortify Magicka potions and start casting Destruction spells at it from high overhead. I make slow progress while the robot runs around, trying to figure out how to reach me.
Figuring that an enemy this big has to have a powerful soul on it, I try a Soultrap spell, only to find that the big hunk of metal is totally empty. I keep tormenting it from the sky, and in an attempt to gain altitude, the robot starts climbing up a mountain... only to get stuck on a huge pillar of rock. It can't move!
Knowing that it can't touch me, I float down to its head and slowly wear down its Health until the machine finally collapses. Frost gains a level just by all the spellcasting she did, but to my dismay...
...the "Goliath" has zero loot. All that fighting got us nothing we couldn't have gotten just by casting spells at the air.
I decide not to venture into the nearby ruins. Even if the Goliath dropped impressive loot, I do not want to have to fight another giant robot in close quarters where I can't fly away.
Before we stop by the Urshilaku camp, we pay a visit to a nearby daedric shrine (which in Morrowind is a temple for the worshippers of primarily evil gods, and populated by various dangerous demons and extraplanar critters) to kill stuff and take loot. Our Golden Saint-summoning shirt allows us to hover at a safe distance and watch our yellowy warrior chop up our enemies.
We use Soultrap on all the non-human critters to fuel new enchantments for our items. Expensive Amulets are easily the best items for enchanting, as they are lightweight, easy to find, easy to purchase, fairly cheap, and have an incredible 60 enchanting points. It's possible to impose 20 seconds of area-effect 100% spell failure several times a day just using a good soul gem and an Expensive Amulet.
Since we have a custom spell that can fortify our Intelligence by 500 for 1 second, we can easily create these items.
Then I notice something unusual after our Golden Saint flops a big fat Ogrim Titan onto its back.
The Ogrim's soul takes up a Grand Soul Gem, where I thought it occupied a Greater Soul Gem. Grand souls aren't just stronger--they allow you create a special kind of enchantment.
See, for most soul types, they just let you enchant items so you can cast a certain spell a few times a day, or make a weapon apply damage and other effects on hit. But for Grand souls, you can create constant effect enchantments--permanent enchantments that last as long as the thing is equipped. After failing to use Soultrap on my own Golden Saint (which should have a Grand soul), I was pretty sure I wouldn't get a Grand soul until much later. Having it this early is a major game-changer.
Why is this soul gem so important? Well, constant effect enchantments don't just include granting resistance to fire or fortifying your attributes or whatever. In Morrowind, you can add summoning spells as a constant effect, which means you can summon a creature just by wearing the item.
Of course, the base cost is high, and for the stronger summoning spells, normal items just don't have the capacity to hold an enchantment that large. Also, the best enchanting items are amulets, and I already use them for various other purposes. If I create an Amulet of Summon Daedroth, that daedroth will vanish the moment I use my Amulet of Lightning to zap somebody. What good is a summoning amulet if you can't use any other amulets without losing the effect?
Well, there is one really excellent helmet that can also hold big enchantments. The Telvanni Cephalopod Helm has a capacity of 100... which is enough for a constant effect Summon Golden Saint spell.
I fortify the crap out of Frost's Intelligence and we burn the Ogrim Titan's soul to create a "Cephalopod Saint Helm." We don the helm...
...and a Golden Saint appears. Since it's constant effect, the duration will never run out. But that's not all.
If I hotkey another helmet, I can banish the Golden Saint with a single button press... and then re-summon the Golden Saint at full health with another button press. This can be done an unlimited number of times per day, and the only drawback is that it breaks invisibility.
The net result?
We now have infinite Golden Saints. We can only have one active at a time, but they never run out, and even if they die, we can instantly summon a new one.
We proceed to the Urshilaku camp, and after a chat with the wise woman, the head of the tribe tells us to go to his family's ancestral tomb and beat up his grandfather's ghost to prove our awesomeness. Infinite Golden Saints do all the fighting for us, but the chief doesn't need to know that.
The Urshilaku name us their Nerevarine, which means we're destined to save Morrowind from the false gods and do other various heroic things. But we're not done--we still need to get the support of several other tribes, all of the Great Houses, and fulfill various prophecies before we can tackle Dagoth Ur, the immortal demon guy doing bad stuff in the bigass volcano in the middle of the continent.
Here's the story of Morrowind in a nutshell:
Morrowind is the ash-covered, lava-bubbling land of the dark elves, and formerly the land of the dwarves in their steampunk citadels. Way back in the day, there were a few powerful dark elves who fought together against the now-extinct dwarves: Vivec, the famous warrior-poet; Nerevar, the friendly guy that everybody liked, and Dagoth Ur, plus a couple other people who aren't as important.
Anyway, after a big battle against the dwarves at Red Mountain, they found some really powerful technology made by the dwarves. They talked about what to do with the dwarves' super technology, then Vivec and Dagoth Ur used it to make themselves immortal, while Nerever, who generally wasn't a big supporter of using evil dwarven tech, somehow ended up dead.
Maybe he tripped over a rock or something. Maybe he was betrayed by his friends and murdered for standing in between them and immortality. Who can say?
Today, Vivec lives in a temple and uses his superpowers for good. Dagoth Ur lives in a volcano, slowly going crazy and planning to conquer the world. Lately he's been using his powers to spread a horrible zombifying plague across the land and also hypnotize a bunch of people. Meanwhile, some hillbillies living in the wasteland believe that Nerevar will come back to wipe out all the foreigners, preserve slavery, force everyone to worship the same goddess, and punch Vivec in his stupid face for betraying him at Red Mountain.
You're the reincarnation of Nerevar. Or at least, it seems like you are. The Empire--a nation of money-worshipping white people who took over the world--wants you to at least pretend to be Nerevar so you can go punch Dagoth Ur and stop him from turning people into evil mutants.
Where does this leave us? Well, a secret agent of the Empire has been giving us orders, and he wants us to go beat up a bunch of Dagoth Ur's cultists who are smuggling drugs to make money. We find the cultists, we beat them up, and the cultist leader...
...infects us with the zombie disease, Corprus. Which does not make us very popular with people.
Dagoth Ur created the corprus disease. Basically, it makes you immortal. But it also slowly deforms your body and drives you insane, and as it time goes on, tumors overtake your body, you turn into a hideous monster, and you live in constant pain forever until somebody kills you.
Our buddy in the Secret Service tells us to go to a famous scientist named Divayth Fyr. We give him a cool present to bribe him into attempting to treat us, and he decides to give us a potion that will either cure our condition or just kill us. But before we drink the potion, we're going to sit on his floor and just wait for days and days and days for the disease to overtake us.
Why? Well, for every day you've got Corprus, some of your stats decrease while your Strength and Endurance increase as you become an increasingly deformed monster (visually, you stay the same). When you get cured, your Strength and Endurance stay the same, but you can heal your other stats back up to the norm.
The net result? You can crank up your stats to sky-high values infinitely, as long as you're willing to wait. I do it a few dozen times just because we can.
We then drink the potion to cure ourselves, steal an awesome set of armor from Divayth Fyr because he doesn't mind you taking it (and the trap isn't too deadly)...
...and then go about restoring our damage attributes. Now our Strength and Endurance are over 100 each (normally they max out at 100 unless you have magical modifiers on top) and we have no other drawbacks.
Since we've been finding a lot of critters with high-end souls, I decide to go grab Azura's Star, the only soul gem that can be used more than once. When we visit a shrine and talk to Azura, the goddess of twilight and traditional goddess of the dark elves, she tells us about a bet she made with the god of madness, Sheogorath.
Apparently, Sheogorath is trying to cheat by sending random monsters out to terrorize Azura's priestess, and your job is to go wipe out the monsters. We fly over to the right island and stumble upon a Harpy, a mod-introduced critter that's basically just a re-skin of the Winged Twilight demon.
I dodge the Harpy's poison spells and launch a frost spell at her from our glass shield, only to almost die when the Harpy's innate Reflect ability bounces it right back at us. I heal up Frost, improve our defenses, and then spam damage spells from our enchanted items until the Harpy goes down.
We arrive at the island, and after Frost almost gets killed by a freaking beetle of all things, we decide to go back to floating over our enemies and letting our Golden Saint do the fighting.
We return to Azura's shrine and collect our reward: a soul gem that never breaks, and which can contain any soul besides a human's.
Since that Harpy almost killed us simply because we threw a spell at a critter with Reflect active, I decide to create some new magic items to deal with that problem.
With these new items granting us immunity to shock damage, we can throw out as many lightning spells as we like, and even if they get reflected back at us, we will suffer no damage... as long as we remember to use the shock resistance items first. Also, we create a very devious new enchantment that takes advantage of a weird combat mechanic.
The Levitate effect lets you fly, but you move much slower when flying than when walking unless you have very high Speed and low Athletics (which Frost has, due to the Boots of Blinding Speed). It's a neutral effect, which means it doesn't get resisted or reflected. If you grant 1 point of Levitate on an enemy, it will move at a sluggish pace no matter what its defenses are, and the effect is very cheap.
We go back to Creeper and sell off a bunch of awesome new gear, cranking up our gold supply to over 50,000.
Then we stop by Mournhold to learn a Fortify Skill spell. If we can fortify our Enchant skill to 101 or higher, then every enchanted item we use will only use a single charge per use, which means an item that used to fire only 3 times per day could be used as many as 150 times per day instead. Unfortunately, Fortify Skill is disabled for spellmaking in my install, so this trick is not an option for Frost.
But while we're in Mournhold, which is much richer than most of Morrowind, I decide to do some shopping and collect some newer and better ingredients for potions. Since late-game enemies will be highly resistant to our spells, we need to be able to hit harder and more reliably in melee combat. By cranking up our Intelligence and mixing together Ectoplasm, Durzog Meat (lizard wolf meat), a Ghoul Heart, and some flowers, we can create a potion that will let us hit extremely hard and accurately even though Frost's combat skills are crap. And with some Void Salts, a Daedra Heart, Vampire Dust, and a mod-introduced ingredient, we can create a potion that will make Frost practically invincible for a short time.
We only have a few big fights left, and we want to make sure we don't falter. Frost has no armor skills and therefore a pathetically low Shield value, which means we take full damage from strong weapons. And since our boosted Endurance from the Corprus disease apparently does nothing to improve our Health, it would only take a few hits to bring us down.
We create a couple of new amulets that will let Frost regenerate Health (2 points per second!) and Magicka (2-3 points per second!) depending on which she equips. That will let us heal quickly in combat and also chain-cast Invisibility spells without worrying about running out of Magicka.
Frost is now at level 17, with fantastic gear, lots of powerful options, plenty of game-changing potions, crazy mobility, decent skills, and rather lousy defenses. As long as we take care to avoid direct combat, we should be safe.
While waiting for a bug to be solved in my Negrita game I started a new game with a Doomguide of Kelemvor (Fighter/Cleric.) No problems in Candlekeep. One of the assassins had stolen her moonblade, but she got it back again together with some decent studded leather armour and a poisonous dagger which only the evil can use. She reluctantly sold it, knowing that it would be deadly in the hands of an evil assassin. However, she needed the gold.
She is a Wood elf. Images self-explanatory.
At the Friendly Arms Inn I got by with a little help from my friends.
I started out with protection from fear but it wore off.
First off, congrats on everyone's runs! I keep track when I have some off time and its always insightful to watch.
I am trying a few no reloads before my classes start back and I have to go observing. I've decided to add a couple of twists to mine. In addition to scs I am running core difficulity and trying out item revisions and Item randomizer.
And I say a few reloads but I've died a whopping 3 times already yesterday. so it might be a dozen or so attempts actually
I died to the bandit ambush once. I had forgotten to equip my helmet and the one arrow that got through before I chugged my invisibility potion was of course a critical and ended that run rather quickly.
Then I was hunting basilisks with the ghoul leading the charge. I though he had both engaged and I moved up to support with range. Apparently he only had the attention of one and the other hit me with a gaze and that ended that.
After that debacle I thought to get a few quick levels against shoal. After kiting her to half life I paused to help my daughter with a project. Or at least I thought I paused. I came back to the dialogue with Shoal and was auto killed.
This current run is going pretty well so far. I am playing a Halfling fighter thief and have three levels in each class currently. I killed shoal. Wiped out monty and xzar for their potions and took everything from imoen before kicking her to the curb. With Item revisions in place it is a lot harder to predict and process my layout. I went to the mansion in beregost to get my wand of lightning to handle some of the early mobs only to find bracers of defense 8 instead. The ring in the rocks in FAI was not there nor was the Diamond in the tree. I had the star sapphire from Candlekeep though so I was doing find on money for what I needed.
Only other thing I was Kill the wizards that were after Neera. I kited the two guards away while Neera absorbed two spells from the wizard. He did not follow since I had the guards off screen. after killing them I set a trap and lured him to it and that was that.
Planning to raid all of beregost for cash where I can and do the easy around town quests for the areas surrounding it. Then I will head to FAI and address Tarnesh and the quests in that location.
Then I was hunting basilisks with the ghoul leading the charge. I though he had both engaged and I moved up to support with range. Apparently he only had the attention of one and the other hit me with a gaze and that ended that.
There are a few deaths in there I can relate to . With SCS note that enemies will tend to attack the weakest attacker rather than the closest one. That doesn't apply to really stupid enemies, but assuming you've installed the smarter basilisks (or whatever it's called) component of SCS they're not that stupid. If they're attacking someone immune they will switch their gaze to another opponent when they're given the chance - Korax of course can still defeat a lot of them by attacking while you wait just out of sight until a basilisk is paralyzed.
I was thinking of doing my first serious no reload run and documenting it here, though I have a question before I start: I noticed that the first post, (along with a lot of players here), recommend / use SCS. Is is acceptable to do a vanilla run here? I doubt my Core Difficulty self could complete a SCS run...
If not SCS, are there any mods people would recommend for a first-time runner, or is vanilla just as fine?
Thanks for the help; Zaxem the Beserker / Mage will soon show himself
@Bubb: Not all no-reload runs need to involve SCS. Many entries in the Hall of Heroes are with completely unmodded installs!
SCS is a great mod for many reasons, but if you're a first-time no-reloader, the unmodded game is probably your best bet. It'll be more fun and let you experience more of the game.
Much of the main quest in Morrowind is about gathering information and dealing with local politics instead of fetch quests and beating up monsters. It's one of the reasons why the game consistently feels very realistic; the challenges make sense in the context of the setting. Our next quest is to rescue an informant, Mehra Milo, who has been locked up in a giant floating rock because she poked her nose into too many forbidden books that the Tribunal Temple views as heresy.
We can get through this quest by butchering the religious gestapo that runs the prison, but since I'm concerned that killing law enforcement officials while staging a prison break will get Frost in trouble, I decide to just spam Invisibility spells and fly around undetected, using Open spells to deal with locks. Thanks to our Restore Magicka amulet, we can regenerate 2.5 Magicka per second, which lets us maintain Invisibility indefinitely. Normally, you'd run out of Magicka after just a few castings.
We give Mehro Milo a teleport scroll to bail her out, then teleport to a marked point. Next, we need to meet with the Dissident Priests, a group of theologists who disagree with Temple orthodoxy and therefore have to hide themselves in a secret location. Outside the door, I get into trouble with a couple of rats, and to my embarrassment, we find that two rats can actually deal a lot of damage to our level 18 character when I dare to engage in melee combat without the help of our Golden Saint!
After talking to the right people, we make our way back to the Urshilaku to consult the wise woman for advice. On the way, I pay a visit to the local daedric shrine, which has respawned its many demons and demon worshippers. I float down to a dremora (humanoid demon) under Invisibility and notice he has a special name.
A mod-introduced enemy of some kind, and there are lots of them around here. Rather than let our Golden Saint do all the work on its own, I decide to use some defensive items to increase our evasion chance and engage the enemies at melee range. I accidentally screwed up an enchantment on a sword, making it deal damage on casting instead of on hit, but I can still use it to zap critters. Daedra are vulnerable to electricity, so the shock damage enchantments I've been creating are very effective. I collect a lot of valuable souls with Soultrap.
Then I get too careless and a dremora brings Frost down to 20% of her maximum HP. I pick one of our best potions to bail her out.
With a massive HP boost and lots of healing as well as a Strength bonus, we can safely continue combat without worrying about getting bumped off. We keep fighting and the dremora gradually crumples.
We talk to the wise woman and we still need confirmation from the head of the tribe before we're truly considered the Nerevarine by the Urshilaku. Specifically, we need to prove that we're immune to corprus disease, which means collecting some goo from a corprus-infected monster and also fetching some items from a cultist stronghold.
Here's the thing about Dagoth Ur's hypnotized cultists. They start out as ordinary people who happen to be brainwashed, and while they'll attack you on sight, they look just like any normal folks.
But over time, their bodies mutate and they slowly turn into ash-colored ghouls. Eventually, they lose their features and their faces turn into distorted, eyeless trunks.
Soultrap is very productive in this area. All of these mutants have powerful souls, which means we can create all kinds of crazy new enchanted items... including a very special new sword.
What's so special about an Absorb Agility effect? Well, Agility determines three things: your ability to dodge blows, your ability to land hits, and the chance that you'll get staggered when you get hit. This enchantment will briefly transfer lots of Agility from our target to Frost, making it much easier for us to land hits and dramatically increasing the chance that we'll stagger our opponent.
A normal stagger animation lasts 1-2 seconds, but there's also a longer animation where the enemy drops to their knees, which can stun them for about 4 seconds. Since a single attack takes less than one second, we can reliably stun-lock lots of critters.
For stronger enemies who we can't always stun-lock, we float out of reach, summon a Golden Saint and maybe a Winged Twilight and Daedroth, and then spam shock damage spells from our enchanted items to deal burst damage.
By the time we clean out the dungeon and Soultrap the many mutated cultists inside, we have a suite of new enchanted items and Frost is at level 24 with maxed-out Intelligence. But there's more: when I check out Azura's Star, which has just captured a boss' soul, its gold value is far, far higher than I've ever seen it before.
This new soul has a shocking capacity of 600 enchantment points. This is too good for a constant effect enchantment; we need to turn this into some sort of offensive enchantment. But if we really want to make the most of it, we need to find an item with a similarly high capacity.
The one item I'm really looking for an Exquisite Amulet. It doesn't have the highest enchantment capacity in the game, but it's much more accessible than the alternatives, which are tower shields that are better suited for constant effect enchantments than charge spells. But there are other items we want to bolster Frost's shabby defenses, which means it's time to loot the vaults of Great House Redoran in the port city of Vivec (named after the warrior-poet god who lives nearby). We hypnotize the noble lady who's standing close to the vault's key and pull her downstairs so we can nab the key without being noticed. The guards don't mind at all if we open the vault right in front of them--as long as we have the key, it's perfectly legal.
Unfortunately, the Command Humanoid spells we used on the lady don't seem to work on the Ordinators, who are much higher level. We can't lure them away from the area so we can rob the place unmolested. We are forced to resort to Chameleon spells, which apparently aren't perfectly rock-solid when you have to work right under the noses of highly experienced guards. We get caught unlocking a chest very quickly.
The Empire's criminal justice system is very friendly to wealthy criminals like us. Everything is handled by fines. Commit murder, and you can get off with zero jail time as long as you have 1,000 gold to pay to the relevant authorities.
The guards don't even drag us out of the vault; there's no script for that. We get to keep trying to steal stuff--and once we pick a spot in the room that's far enough away from the guards, our 200% Chameleon spell is enough to let us steal anything without getting caught. This vault has some very sweet armor in it.
I understand that this area is very easy to rob in the unmodded game, so I'm guessing that the presence of the Ordinators is due to one of my mods.
Now it's time to go get that Exquisite Amulet. I've already bought the amulet and other pricy articles from various vendors, so finding an unenchanted one is hard. There is one tucked in a cupboard at the Dren Plantation, though (it's the half-moon-shaped icon below the "C" in "Closet."
We don't feel bad for robbing these people. The Dren family smuggles narcotics, holds slaves, and based on some letters, they're not above killing people, either.
We now have a high-capacity amulet with a high-capacity soul. We want a high-damage enchantment that won't backfire on us, so I design a spell with three key effects, ordered so that the cheapest effects come first to minimize the total cost.
We can only use it 7 times before it runs out of charges, and it takes days for it to recharge to full. But against a target with no base resistances, it will deal 1,337 shock damage in a single hit.
We can kill pretty much anything with this amulet. And even if it gets reflected back at us, we'll suffer zero damage because the Resist Shock effect will block everything.
We fly back out to the Ashlands. Then I see a curious new creature that looks like some sort of gigantic deer with elaborate antlers.
Upon closer inspection, it's just an extremely ugly-looking dragon with goofy horns and wings with no webbing.
Canonically, dragons don't exist in the Elder Scrolls universe during the events of Morrowind (and quite some time before and after!), but some modder saw fit to throw in a dumb-looking version of a lore-unfriendly monster.
I decide to try my hand at killing it. I summon a Golden Saint, but the dragon repeatedly crushes it, and when I try to approach the thing with high Resist Fire active, its fire breath still roasts me because apparently it has a Weakness to Fire effect tacked on to it (which my Resist Magicka effects somehow failed to block).
I bust out my enchanted items, hover over the monster's head, and start blasting it with shock damage. But my spells do practically nothing to the thing.
Worse yet, its hitbox is really screwed up, and Sparky--the amulet that does 1,337 damage--can't even touch it because Sparky's not an "on target" effect; it's short range.
I can always just hover out of reach and rely on my Restore Magicka amulet to fuel an endless string of ranged spells, but based on the dragon's massive resistances and/or massive Health, it seems like that would take forever. I float down to take a few swings at the dragon with our sword, but the dragon's screwy hit box keeps us from reaching it.
I change positions, hovering just over the dragon's head, and finally manage to hit the thing. You have to get extremely close to hurt it.
But seconds later...
...the dragon kills me in one hit.
It's frustrating, it's embarrassing, and it's completely unnecessary and pointless. Frost has just died to the dumbest-looking, most overpowered and nonsensical mod-introduced enemy in the game, for the stupidest reasons imaginable:
1. The dragon has weird hitboxes that artificially granted it immunity to my strongest attack. 2. The dragon has better stats than any other creature in the entire game, modded or otherwise. It has 75% resistance to elements, sky-high Spell Absorption, and more Health and stronger melee attacks than Vivec and Almalexia--two living gods.
I don't know why it's there. It's not even supposed to exist per Morrowind lore. And, you know, if you're going to die to something in a no-reload run, it should be something interesting and dramatic, not some inexplicable, lore-unfriendly, and frankly ugly-looking mod enemy with a generic name out in the middle of nowhere, in one hit.
It's just boring and lame.
We were on a great pace until now, poised to crush the remainder of the game with little difficulty and in little time. But thanks to that bug-ugly dragon, Frost will have to start all the way over from Seyda Neen.
Diary of Zaxem, the Beserker / Mage ; update 1 Notable Mods: None
So begins the diary of Zaxem. I chose to roll a Beserker / Mage for my first no-reload run, as the Beserker rage, along with my future mage spells, should keep poor Zaxem safe and alive under most circumstances.
I rush straight to the Friendly Arm Inn to pick up Khalid and Jaheira, as there is much-needed strength in numbers awaiting me there. This fellow called Tarnesh attacks me however, and Zaxem quickly goes into a rage. Zaxem takes Tarnesh head on while Imoen uses her bow from a distance. Imoen manages to disrupt Tarnesh's magic missile with a well-timed use of her wand, though Tarnesh manages to cast his horror spell through the party's onslaught. Zaxem's rage protects him from panicking, and Imoen luckily Saves vs. Spell. Tarnesh quickly falls to Zaxem's flails; the first dangerous encounter has been bested!
The party manages to find a magic ring while leaving the Friendly Arm Inn, I wonder what it does?
With Khalid and Jaheira in the party we head to Beregost, hoping to visit the smithy to get some proper equipment. I must admit I purposely avoided the street where the Neera encounter is, as the Red Wizard's melf's acid arrow can wreck havoc on a level 1 party. Let's pretend the party just happened to go down the safe streets...
Next we meet a fellow named Garrick. We can't pass up an offer for 300 gold pieces, so we agree to guard Silke. After seeing the obvious set-up laid before us, we turn on Silke and attack. Imoen manages to disrupt Silke's mirror image and lightning bolt with her wand; that could have gone very badly if Imoen failed to disrupt Silke! Silke eventually falls before she could manage to cast any spells, the party's second encounter is won. We shoo the damnable bard away and head to the smithy to get equipped.
The party continues their trek to Nashkel, hoping to find more friends there. Along the way we are onset by some angry ogrillions, who actually manage to do some damage to our party. Later we come a cross some Hobgoblins, but they pose no threat to the party. We meet this fellow along the way that speaks of a city to the south, I wonder if we might go there one day?
The party makes its way to Nashkel and heads to the inn for some much needed rest. We are attacked by Neira, however, who manages to avoid a spell-disruption and hold two of my party members! Luckily Zaxem's rage makes him immune to hold, and he quickly crushes Neira to bits. The party agrees to look into the iron crisis and go into the mines, while picking up Minsc (and Boo!). The mines can wait, as we desperately need a spellcaster. Zaxem's next step: the Gnoll Stronghold.
@semiticgod Tough run and I agree with the OP not canon dragon. Sadly the thing I hate the most about it is its appearance. It looks like a moth dragon hybrid. Not in a good way!
@Bubb Congratulations on joining the no reload thread! It's always nice to see new faces here! I unfortunately only get to post on slow periods since I have kids work and go to school but I do like to watch everyone's play! If you run into any problems or have questions feel free to ask. If I can't help the no reload thread is watched pretty hard by its veterans and they have very thoughtful and insightful advice.
Sometimes I even make it an hour or two into the game before I die now
Finished up around Beregost minus silke. I am going to wait till I have a little more in set traps and then take care of her. Took awhile to steal and do all quests here. I cashed in my money from this for spiffy new wand of sleep!
That is it on my part tonight. Very laid back session really.
Does anybody off the top of their head know what I need to get my find traps up to in order to avoid the biggest traps in bg 1?
@semiticgod Dang, I thought you were going to succeed for sure. I've been playing with Morrowind Rebirth for a while now and I've never seen that dragon or the giant steam centurion, so they must have come from Morrowind Advanced or another mod.
Anyway, just wanted to say that I enjoyed reading the run and seeing how you approached things. I didn't want to comment earlier because It sounded like you wanted it to be somewhat of a blind run.
I rolled another improved anvil run but I have not progressed far yet to report. I have gone life going on this week so I am not sure when I can update. Friday is lunar eclipse and since I am amateur astronomer I want to try my luck at photos. And my youngest turns one year old already on Thursday and of course we celebrate ourselves and a bigger party in the weekend.
Anyway, exciting things happening for me on gaming and non gaming fronts.
I cleared the FAI of hobgoblins before returning Joia's ring and heading south where I calmed Marl down and took a tome to Firebead. The ogrillons to the south were killed without landing a blow after which I found the rabbit belonging to a little girl. On the way I killed more hobgoblins.
I was then able to help both Mellicamp and a werewolf become human again and headed towards Nashkel picking up the Colquetle amulet and Lord Foreshadows ring on the way.
In Nashkel I founs some Ankhef armour and was relieved that I could use it as I had been dismayed that I was unable to use even chain mail.
I found a ring that protects from fire before taking Samuel to the FAI.
Upon returning the Colquetle amulet and a letter to Mirianne I retrned south and helped Rufie and Drienne's cat.
Previous incarnations had fallen at the hands of Zordral and Krumm, so they have been avoided so far.
I then went in search of the half-ogres Bjornin had told me about and whilst looking for them was attacked by a mixed party of robbers, all of whom I killed, silence making the mage ineffective.
I helped Drizzt against a party of gnolls. Drizzt did most of the killing. I helped mainly by picking up the litter afterwards.
Upon fighting skeletons I discovered that Spiritual Hammer is ineffective against them. Best to discover that now when they were few in number than in a battle with dozens!
I then headed for the xvart village as I intend on bringing my fighter level up to 3 before taking on the stronger enemies.
I got little in the way of experience though I will be able to make a substantial gooseberry pie. Ursa actually helped me against the xvarts,
Killing some gnolls, I became a level 3 fighter and improved my two weapon fighting abilities.
I then helped Charleston Nib and became a fully fledged hero.
Helped Brage. Reputation now 18. If I can get it up to 20 and somehow aquire Algernon's Cloak it may be time to go shopping. Sadly, less than 4000 gp.
The battle against Greywolf was long and hard. He used strength of stone giant, potions of healing and regeneration. I therefore had to call on help as he brought my health points down to ONE!! I therefore went to the mines where the mine guards badly injured him. By running around the hill near Prism he lost sight of me so I used potions to get back to full strength and my third gooseberry gave me regeneration. Having got back to a level playing field I was at last able to slay him.
Zordral was just as hard. He seemed to have an endless supply of spells particularly summoning monsters. However, he eventually ran out of spells after which he fell tomy blade. Again I had to use a number of healing potions. The ogrillon that he summoned did considerable damage but shortly after Zordral was killed it disappeared into the ether.
Those last two battles were CLOSE!!!
However, I am alive and my enemies dead.
My cleric level is now 4, but the spell spiritual hammer doesn't do any damage.
While I don't know the exact # needed, remember for the harder traps, if your thief isn't max you can also use things like potions of mind focusing and perception to boost trap scores.
But if solo, it is not necessary to have any traps at all to beat BG 1. You just need to protect yourself against the more dangerous traps for the few you can't avoid. For your convenience, here is that list:
1) Nashkel Mines traps (3rd level): these are only dangerous if you are a low HP character (like a mage), or you trip them when low health. Just keep your health up in a fighter, or do the level 3 spell vampiric drain? (not sure the name) - it's the one that boosts health for a time by taking it from an enemy. Helpful for a mage character. Mirror image too if mage character. 2) Bandit Camp, chest with letters - lightning trap. 100% lightning resistance makes this safe. Use boots of grounding and green scroll protection from electricity, or potion of absorption 3) Cloakwood Mines - 2nd level, go around to the far right to avoid the lightning trap in the hallway. Be prepared to deal with two ghasts. 4) Davaeorn Level - a number of traps you can't avoid here. protection from magic, or potions of magic shielding or magic protection makes some of them quite easy, as well as easier against Daveorn as well. Be prepared to deal with the two battle horror spawns. 5) Candlekeep Crypts, 1st level - either protection from magic scroll or 100% fire and ligtning resistance is what's desired here. Keep health up as some are magic missile traps. 6) Candlekeep Crypts, 2nd level - lot of fireball traps surrounding the center. Just avoid them by staying out of the center or use 100% fire resistance. 7) Thieve's Maze - When you get close to the skeleton warriors, use either green scroll of protection from magic or 100% fire and lightning resistance. 8) Undercity - Technically, the Iron Throne party here isn't a trap in the normal sense, but if solo sure feels like one. Use protection from undead scroll and go all the way down, across and up to bypass them and face Sarevok instead. 9) Final Battle - 100% lightning resistance is helpful. Stay away from edges, and avoid center as well. Go around the circle in the middle and shoot Sarevok and then fight him near the entrance so you can move around without setting off traps.
Back to Seyda Neen! This time, we'll be going with Heavy Armor as a major skill. We can use the extra defense, and since my mods make encumbrance virtually limitless and the Boots of Blinding Speed+Levitate will give us dramatic speed, there's really no reason not to use heavy armor.
Of course, at low levels, low-grade heavy armor still doesn't offer much protection. Frost nearly dies to a Scrib of all creatures at the start of the game. Here she is running away from the Scrib while struggling to heal herself.
Scribs are notable for their paralysis attack, but otherwise have poor damage output, fitting their status as a little bug. These things never pose a threat, so all that damage is really surprising.
Since our combat skills are terrible and our low Destruction skill gives our only offensive spell, Elemental Burst: Weak, a pitiful 60% success chance, I summon a skeleton to deal with Foryn Gilnith, the guy we have to kill for murdering a tax collector.
The skeleton is a low-grade summons, but it hits very reliably.
Later, while hiking near Balmora, I run into some enemy humanoids. Rather than risk a confrontation, I make a break for it, but the Nord chasing me is very fast. I see an opportunity to gain ground on him: a river, where I can use Water Walking to outpace his swimming speed.
But I'm not fast enough. The Nord catches up to me and kills me in one hit.
Making Heavy Armor a class skill and investing in a suit of iron armor was not sufficient. At low levels, we still need to stay out of combat.
@semiticgod sorry to see your opening attempt at Morrowind brought down - I was another person to read that with interest. I remember playing the game fairly soon after it came out and spending many a happy hour training my character while in combat with a rat or two - pushing up lots of skills at once, like armor, weapons, healing, jumping and probably others.
I never used mods or read anything online about the game, so probably missed lots of good tricks. I did eventually though decide to break the game by ratcheting up statistics and producing over-powered equipment. That made completing the game for the first time simple - and having done that I've never played again. Perhaps I should try and dig out my old CD and see whether that runs on a modern computer ...
For the next run, I make some modest tweaks to Frost's class. Since I'll be relying on enchanted items to deal spell damage, Destruction is no longer a class skill, and I've made Long Blade a new skill to take advantage of the numerous strong longswords in the game.
This time around, I save the Scrolls of Icarian Flight (the 1,000-point Fortify Acrobatics scrolls that let you leap across the entire continent and then die on impact unless you use another scroll or a Slowfall effect) for Creeper, earning us a little extra money. Joining the Fighter's Guild also earns us access to a supply chest with some nice loot, and by managing our money a little more carefully, we manage to get the custom spells we need early. A 200% Chameleon spell for 2 seconds will be enough to let us steal any item we want.
Unfortunately, I screwed up the spell creation process and set the Chameleon spell to "On Touch" instead of "On Self." Correcting the mistake costs us almost 300 gold, but once we fix it, we can quickly recoup the cost.
Creeper the Scamp at Ghorak Manor in Caldera buys weapons and armor and enchanted gear at full price, so even a single theft can net us thousands of gold. One of my mods nerfs his gold supply to 2,250 instead of 5,000, but by waiting 3 days (a process that takes seconds in Morrowind), we can replenish his gold supply whenever he runs out. And, by carefully trading items back and forth, we can maximize the profit from each 3-day period. Soon, we are rich--and we only robbed a single shop.
We travel to Vivec and steal some enchanted items from a mod-introduced vendor. We now have access to much faster-acting Invisibility option.
Unfortunately, I make a mistake along the way, and we get caught stealing something in Caldera. 650 gold goes down the drain.
More importantly, all of our stolen enchanted items are now lost. They're sealed up in an evidence chest somewhere. Getting them back will be extremely difficult.
First, I want to go ahead and grab the Boots of Blinding Speed. I visit Pemenie and offer to escort her to Gnaar Mok, but on the way, we get ambushed by the exact same guys who killed me in the previous run. Rather than put myself in danger, I decide to let Pemenie handle the bandits while I watch from behind Invisibility.
Pemenie has poor combat skills and dies in short order. But as it happens, she has the Boots of Blinding Speed on her person. All we have to do is grab them from her corpse, put them on, and run like hell. With Invisibility to help us, we escape the scene unharmed. With a custom Levitate spell in hand, we now have spectacular mobility and speed.
Now, though, we really need to get our stolen gear back. Problem is, the evidence chest where it's stored has a Lock level of 50, and our only Open spell has a 1 in 25 chance of unlocking it. Even if we create our own custom Open spell, opening a Lock of 50 is extremely dicey.
Plus, we have to be under 200% Chameleon when casting the spell, or else we'll get caught by the guards standing nearby. Our existing Chameleon spell only lasts long enough for us to grab something; we need a longer-duration spell in order to cast a spell without being detected. And the new spell would be so expensive and so prone to spell failure that it could take ages to finally unlock the chest.
Instead, I hunt down a scroll of Ondusi's Open Door, which has a value of 25-75 instead of 25-50. We only have three such scrolls, and if they fail, we're out, but it does give us a 50/50 chance of unlocking the chest.
It works!
I don't want to risk this happening again, so I hurry over to Creeper to sell off the stuff we don't need, then break into Hlaalo Manor in Balmora with Levitate and Open spells to find the corpse of Ralen Hlaalo.
Ralen Hlaalo is a permanent corpse, which makes him a perfectly safe, reliable, and legal storage container with an unlimited capacity. Anything we don't need to carry, we can store on him, and it will never vanish from his body.
Back to building up our strength. Thanks to robbing Galbedir during the early Mages Guild quests with Ajira, we have some soul gems on hand filled with some weak souls (in the vanilla game, the high-end gems soul gems have high-quality souls, but in my install, they're mostly empty). With a custom Fortify Intelligence 500 spell, we can start creating custom enchanted items to compensate for our poor abilities.
There's still a lot more to steal, especially from the mod-introduced vendor in Vivec, but somehow I end up getting caught in the process. If I pay the fine, I'll lose all of my stolen items again, and I'm running low on ways to get them back.
However, I now have a lovely escape option: the Amulet of Recall, which activates immediately and with a 100% success rate (unlike a spell), teleporting me right outside and avoiding the risk of dying to a single blow from an unfriendly guard.
The item I stole was so valuable that my bounty is thousands of gold. I'm so infamous that the nearby Silt Strider guy (a guy who fast-travels you to various places using a gigantic bug as a vehicle) won't offer me his services. A Charm spell fixes that, however, and once I deposit all my stolen goods on Ralen Hlaalo's body for safekeeping, I turn myself in to the authorities to pay the fine without losing any gear.
It's time to start grinding Alchemy and learning new spells. I buy a bunch of food items and other ingredients from various places to fuel potions and buy some new spells from vendors at the Temple and from some folks in Sadrith Mora after joining House Telvanni, including the Summon Golden Saint spell.
Once I have a whole bunch of ingredients on hand, I create a couple of new Fortify Intelligence spells to crank Frost's Intelligence all the way up to a ludicrous 1,150--without using a single potion to boost it. In the single second while our Intelligence is at its highest, we start making potions. A lot of the potions are useless...
...but the gold value of a potion is dependent entirely on its magnitude, which means we can sell even the useless potions for lots of money. We sell them all to Ajira, since she's nearby and already has 100 Disposition, giving us excellent prices.
She only has 800 gold at a time, but like with Creeper, we can get her to restore her supply by waiting three days. It takes numerous iterations, but by the time all the potions are created and all the useless ones are sold off, Frost is a level 4 character sitting on 50,000 gold and some really powerful potions for a rainy day.
There's only one thing to do with all this money: spend it on training to boost our level and give us the precious extra Health we need to survive a bad situation. I learn a new thing about training: since Frost's Strength is at 30, she can't train Long Blade above 30 until after she levels up.
We bump up Frost to level 6 and start hunting down animals to fill up our many soul gems and create new enchanted items to boost our Enchant skill and also give us some decent offensive options.
Even so, when we proceed with the main questline and start tackling humanoid enemies, Frost's low Shield value and low Health prove dangerous. We have to fly away to heal ourselves when we get in trouble.
In the Dwemer ruins where the Dwemer Puzzle Box (a plot coupon for the main quest) lies, we trade between three methods of attacking: using enchanted items to fire ranged spells while floating a safe distance away, engaging in melee with the Silver Longsword we stole from Ralen Hlaalo's corpse, and retreating to let our summoned skeleton do the heavy lifting.
Luckily for us, the relatively non-dangerous Dwarven Spectres in this area have Grand souls. We only have a single Grand Soul Gem on hand, stolen from Galbedir, but that's all we need. We fortify the crap out of Frost's Intelligence and re-create the strongest item we had in our previous playthrough.
Once again, we have infinite Golden Saints. As long as we play carefully and make sure not to take any unnecessary risks, this should let us trample most of the challenges of the early- and mid-game.
Now that we have the Cephalopod Saint Helm, we can bring down high-end critters provided that we have plenty of open air to fly around in and avoid getting within the enemy's range. That means we can tackle Azura's quest and get Azura's Star to better collect high-end souls. After I burn some money training the Spear skill so that Frost will get better Endurance bonuses on her next level up, we fly out to Azura's shrine, take several boat rides to Dagon Fel, and watch our Golden Saints gradually tear up a batch of daedra, ending with an underwater fight between our Golden Saint and Staada, the only daedra that actually needs to be slain on the island (and who is also a Golden Saint).
With Azura's Star in hand, we can go back to the Dwemer ruins from before and farm several Grand souls from the resident Dwarven Spectres. One of the important new enchantments is Fortify Health to compensate for our crummy 65 base Health. On the way, we run into some unusually tough Dwemer robots, and use Invisibility rather than gamble on our shoddy defenses.
The next dungeon, the tomb where we need to grab a skull to give to an orc as a present, is much easier than it was in the previous run, as we have some decent combat skills to add to the strength of our Golden Saint. The Bonelord is no longer as worrisome, and I am no longer hesitant to engage it at close range.
Later on, while hunting down informants in Vivec, I stop by another daedric shrine in search of loot. I use the extra vertical space to hover a safe distance, but one of the enemy humanoids is using ranged attacks, and he hits very hard.
For some reason, he keeps targeting me even when I go invisible! I descend to the ground to go chop him up before he can pin me down. Apparently his high damage came from a crossbow, which always does the same damage regardless of how long you hold the attack button (which means it does very damage overall).
I search the bodies and find a very, very special prize indeed.
Frost specializes in longsword, and a Daedric Longsword is the best that we can get. All we need is to get a high-capacity soul so we can add a custom Absorb Agility enchantment to the sword, and then we should be able to stun-lock all sorts of enemies.
I buy a bunch of nice jewelry. Expensive Rings and Expensive Amulets have amazing capacities, and storing a Chameleon spell in an item effect increases its duration by 1 or 2 seconds as well as making it easier for me to target stuff to steal (the camera shifts slightly when you cast spells, which can screw with your aim, but using items to cast spells doesn't do this).
It's time to go meet with the Urshilaku. Our next dungeon is another tomb, where Frost almost dies by engaging a skeleton without using items to improve her defenses.
Notice the mist around the skeleton. That's a Soultrap effect. This whole area is crawling with high-capacity souls, and one of them, a Worm Lord, gives us the charges we need to enchant our Daedric Longsword.
We promptly use it to chop up the grandfather spirit of the Urshilaku. Even ghosts can get staggered slightly.
Next up is the corprus disease questline. We're about to see another boost in Frost's personal strength (she's now at level 11), but it will require tackling some tougher critters.
Dasyra went to Farmer Brun's land and killed 17 Ankheg. Returning to Beregost, she was attacked by Silke and killed her. Whilst looking for Bassilus she was attacked by Zargal and killed him and his cohorts. He then came across Bassilus and brought him to the point of death. Unfortunately the Aerial Servant got in the killing blow first.
After picking up Minsc we head to the Nashkel shop to better equip him, but apparently the shop does not carry helmets (why in the world not?!). In order to protect Minsc from any more hits to the head we backtrack to the Beregost smithy. After getting everyone restocked and equipped it is time to head to the Gnoll fortress. The party stays along the sides of the wilderness areas inbetween to avoid danger.
After arriving at the fortress we deal with the bridge-keepers, and pick up the much needed gauntlets of dexterity. While fighting both Khalid's weapon and one of Zaxem's flails breaks, the iron crisis really is annoying! The fortress goes smooth after that complication and we rescue Dynaheir; now that we have all of our party members, it is time to go farm some XP. I think you all know where I'm going next... (the basilisk map)
The area starts off well; I have Dynaheir cast Protection from Petrification on all of my party members to protect against the basilisk's gaze, and we go on a hunt. Everything was going well... most of my party members gained 2 levels... when I accidently bumped into the human party in the area. I overestimated the power of my level 2 or 3 party and decided to attack. Welp, this was a mistake. Imoen, my scout, was almost instantly sniped, and my party took damage really fast. Fortunately all of the disabler spells were cast at my raging berserker, so my party could continue to fight. Ultimately, Minsc unexpectedly fell to the enemy party's spell caster in MELE (very embarrassing for me). As you can probably see, Zaxem was down to one hit point during the fight, a very close call because of my bad tactics.
2 party members down and I have no idea where to get the gold to revive them. This is usually the point where I would reload, but I must admit the challenge is pretty interesting. If anyone has any tips on what to do next, it would be appreciated.
2 party members down and I have no idea where to get the gold to revive them. This is usually the point where I would reload, but I must admit the challenge is pretty interesting. If anyone has any tips on what to do next, it would be appreciated.
@Grond0: Thanks for the advice! I forgot that the reward for returning his holy symbol was such a large sum of gold. I usually skip Baldur's Gate and start in Baldur's Gate II, so a lot of the details elude me.
I was also expecting the raise dead price so be in the thousands like Baldur's Gate II, but apparently the prices are adjusted for the early game. I managed to get the 400 gold I needed by selling some gems and raised my party members in the Nashkel temple. The run is back on track, and I'll make sure to be more careful moving forward...
Comments
Here's the info for Rikai's run for the Hall of Heroes:
Rikai, the Totemic Druid: @Enuhal
Notable mods: None
Difficulty: Core
BG1/SoD: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/994086/#Comment_994086
SoA: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/994376/#Comment_994376
ToB: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/994949/#Comment_994949
Frost: No-Reload Morrowind Run
Part 2
I decide to get started on the main quest. First up is a trip to a Dwemer ruin with an unpronouncable name. Unfortunately, the various human enemies around this area are quite tough, and while I can summon a skeleton to fight them, it takes a while and they can deal respectable damage if I don't make a point of hovering out of reach.Also, the Boots of Blinding Speed make it awfully hard to see in the dark. Sometimes I can't make out much of anything, even by adjusting the game's brightness.
That's a Centurion Spider, a tough little critter with a poison spell and resistance to my spells. Frost struggles to land a hit, and when she does land a hit, it doesn't deal much damage due to her pitiful Strength attribute.
We have to rely heavily on our summoned skeleton to deal damage. Frost distracts the enemy while the skeleton actually lands hits from behind.
Deeper in the dungeon, we have to deal with much tougher enemies--Dwemer ghosts and Centurion Spheres. I don't know how bad the former's spells are or how much damage the latter can do, so I bring out a Flame Atronach and hide behind invisibility using the Ring of Aversion (another stolen magic item) while I watch the atronach take down the ghosts.
We get all the way up to level 7, then proceed to our next dungeon. We need to retrieve a skull from a tomb so an orc will give us a history lecture. Problem is, the skeletons in the tomb are pretty wicked, and Frost nearly dies when a few quick hits drop her down to 21 Health out of 61. Only an expensive healing potion bails her out.
I make a point of relying on our enchanted items to attack the enemy from afar. The Ring of Fireballs doesn't do much damage, but you can spam a bunch of fireballs in short order.
Casting spells takes about 2 seconds each, but using an enchanted item to cast a spell is instantaneous. I can throw out fireballs as fast as I can click, though the ring runs of energy and needs to be given time to recharge itself if I burn it out.
For a while, things seem to be going great. Then I see trouble: this tomb has a Bonelord in it.
Bonelords have nasty spells and are much more dangerous than other skeletons. I run away and hide while a summoned daedroth (a humanoid demon with a crocodile head) dukes it out with the Bonelord. Note the green magic effect indicating a poison spell--daedroths aren't smart enough to not use poison attacks on undead who are immune to them.
Bonelords have powerful souls, however, and casting Soultrap on the thing before it dies gives us a very useful soul gem.
Bonewalkers are the equivalent of zombies in Morrowind, and they are my least favorite enemy. Not because some of them can damage your attributes or because they're especially dangerous, but because they're absolutely hideous. This is what a Bonewalker looks like when it's attacking you, but I wouldn't recommend clicking on the spoiler if you have a problem with zombies.
Soul gems are cheap and easy to buy in my install, which means we leave the dungeon with a whole bunch of filled soul gems ready to be used for enchanting. While I don't plan on using "super-potions" in this run, I am willing to use a bunch of Fortify Intelligence potions to help enchant some key items. Once we have some high-quality clothing that can hold a strong enchantment, we create a couple of powerful new items:
The skirt is self-explanatory: it just lets us zap critters from far away. But the enchantment on the shirt is very special. A Golden Saint is the strongest summons in the game, and while Frost's low Conjuration skill means she would struggle to summon one successfully, enchanted items have a 100% success rate--which means we can conjure a powerful ally whenever we want, very quickly and with no risk. I test it out on some goons from another dungeon, and it can easily stomp over normal enemies all by itself.
This the primary reason why we joined House Telvanni. The only way you can learn the Summon Golden Saint effect is by purchasing it from a Telvanni mage, and that mage only sells it to members.
I do some more grinding to purchase new spells, brew better potions, and collect a few Grand Soul Gems, which can hold the most powerful souls in the game. Once we're at level 10 and have a nice suite of potions and spells, we fly out to the Ashlands to meet with the Urshilaku tribe. We need the wise woman to tell us how to become the hero of certain prophecies and stuff (in Morrowind, you have to prove you're a hero before people start treating you like one).
On the way, I run into a Dwemer citadel and get attacked by a Dwemer Steam Centurion, a massive robot with a mace for a hand. Normally, they're over 6 feet high, but there's... something wrong with this one. It seems to tower over our Golden Saint.
I change positions. This isn't a Steam Centurion--this is some mod-introduced enemy that uses the same animation but is several times larger than a Steam Centurion. It's over 30 feet tall, and completely dwarfs both Frost and our Golden Saint.
It destroys our Golden Saint in short order. I decide to maintain a safe distance from the robot, and fly out of its reach to consider my options. I try firing a few spells at it, but it just deals scratch damage, and my enchanted items run out of charge while the robot is still in excellent condition.
I can always run away, but I'm not willing to give up after we've made so much progress. I down a few Fortify Magicka potions and start casting Destruction spells at it from high overhead. I make slow progress while the robot runs around, trying to figure out how to reach me.
Figuring that an enemy this big has to have a powerful soul on it, I try a Soultrap spell, only to find that the big hunk of metal is totally empty. I keep tormenting it from the sky, and in an attempt to gain altitude, the robot starts climbing up a mountain... only to get stuck on a huge pillar of rock. It can't move!
Knowing that it can't touch me, I float down to its head and slowly wear down its Health until the machine finally collapses. Frost gains a level just by all the spellcasting she did, but to my dismay...
...the "Goliath" has zero loot. All that fighting got us nothing we couldn't have gotten just by casting spells at the air.
I decide not to venture into the nearby ruins. Even if the Goliath dropped impressive loot, I do not want to have to fight another giant robot in close quarters where I can't fly away.
Frost: No-Reload Morrowind Run
Part 3
Before we stop by the Urshilaku camp, we pay a visit to a nearby daedric shrine (which in Morrowind is a temple for the worshippers of primarily evil gods, and populated by various dangerous demons and extraplanar critters) to kill stuff and take loot. Our Golden Saint-summoning shirt allows us to hover at a safe distance and watch our yellowy warrior chop up our enemies.We use Soultrap on all the non-human critters to fuel new enchantments for our items. Expensive Amulets are easily the best items for enchanting, as they are lightweight, easy to find, easy to purchase, fairly cheap, and have an incredible 60 enchanting points. It's possible to impose 20 seconds of area-effect 100% spell failure several times a day just using a good soul gem and an Expensive Amulet.
Since we have a custom spell that can fortify our Intelligence by 500 for 1 second, we can easily create these items.
Then I notice something unusual after our Golden Saint flops a big fat Ogrim Titan onto its back.
The Ogrim's soul takes up a Grand Soul Gem, where I thought it occupied a Greater Soul Gem. Grand souls aren't just stronger--they allow you create a special kind of enchantment.
See, for most soul types, they just let you enchant items so you can cast a certain spell a few times a day, or make a weapon apply damage and other effects on hit. But for Grand souls, you can create constant effect enchantments--permanent enchantments that last as long as the thing is equipped. After failing to use Soultrap on my own Golden Saint (which should have a Grand soul), I was pretty sure I wouldn't get a Grand soul until much later. Having it this early is a major game-changer.
Why is this soul gem so important? Well, constant effect enchantments don't just include granting resistance to fire or fortifying your attributes or whatever. In Morrowind, you can add summoning spells as a constant effect, which means you can summon a creature just by wearing the item.
Of course, the base cost is high, and for the stronger summoning spells, normal items just don't have the capacity to hold an enchantment that large. Also, the best enchanting items are amulets, and I already use them for various other purposes. If I create an Amulet of Summon Daedroth, that daedroth will vanish the moment I use my Amulet of Lightning to zap somebody. What good is a summoning amulet if you can't use any other amulets without losing the effect?
Well, there is one really excellent helmet that can also hold big enchantments. The Telvanni Cephalopod Helm has a capacity of 100... which is enough for a constant effect Summon Golden Saint spell.
I fortify the crap out of Frost's Intelligence and we burn the Ogrim Titan's soul to create a "Cephalopod Saint Helm." We don the helm...
...and a Golden Saint appears. Since it's constant effect, the duration will never run out. But that's not all.
If I hotkey another helmet, I can banish the Golden Saint with a single button press... and then re-summon the Golden Saint at full health with another button press. This can be done an unlimited number of times per day, and the only drawback is that it breaks invisibility.
The net result?
We now have infinite Golden Saints. We can only have one active at a time, but they never run out, and even if they die, we can instantly summon a new one.
We proceed to the Urshilaku camp, and after a chat with the wise woman, the head of the tribe tells us to go to his family's ancestral tomb and beat up his grandfather's ghost to prove our awesomeness. Infinite Golden Saints do all the fighting for us, but the chief doesn't need to know that.
The Urshilaku name us their Nerevarine, which means we're destined to save Morrowind from the false gods and do other various heroic things. But we're not done--we still need to get the support of several other tribes, all of the Great Houses, and fulfill various prophecies before we can tackle Dagoth Ur, the immortal demon guy doing bad stuff in the bigass volcano in the middle of the continent.
Here's the story of Morrowind in a nutshell:
Morrowind is the ash-covered, lava-bubbling land of the dark elves, and formerly the land of the dwarves in their steampunk citadels. Way back in the day, there were a few powerful dark elves who fought together against the now-extinct dwarves: Vivec, the famous warrior-poet; Nerevar, the friendly guy that everybody liked, and Dagoth Ur, plus a couple other people who aren't as important.
Anyway, after a big battle against the dwarves at Red Mountain, they found some really powerful technology made by the dwarves. They talked about what to do with the dwarves' super technology, then Vivec and Dagoth Ur used it to make themselves immortal, while Nerever, who generally wasn't a big supporter of using evil dwarven tech, somehow ended up dead.
Maybe he tripped over a rock or something. Maybe he was betrayed by his friends and murdered for standing in between them and immortality. Who can say?
Today, Vivec lives in a temple and uses his superpowers for good. Dagoth Ur lives in a volcano, slowly going crazy and planning to conquer the world. Lately he's been using his powers to spread a horrible zombifying plague across the land and also hypnotize a bunch of people. Meanwhile, some hillbillies living in the wasteland believe that Nerevar will come back to wipe out all the foreigners, preserve slavery, force everyone to worship the same goddess, and punch Vivec in his stupid face for betraying him at Red Mountain.
You're the reincarnation of Nerevar. Or at least, it seems like you are. The Empire--a nation of money-worshipping white people who took over the world--wants you to at least pretend to be Nerevar so you can go punch Dagoth Ur and stop him from turning people into evil mutants.
Where does this leave us? Well, a secret agent of the Empire has been giving us orders, and he wants us to go beat up a bunch of Dagoth Ur's cultists who are smuggling drugs to make money. We find the cultists, we beat them up, and the cultist leader...
...infects us with the zombie disease, Corprus. Which does not make us very popular with people.
Dagoth Ur created the corprus disease. Basically, it makes you immortal. But it also slowly deforms your body and drives you insane, and as it time goes on, tumors overtake your body, you turn into a hideous monster, and you live in constant pain forever until somebody kills you.
Our buddy in the Secret Service tells us to go to a famous scientist named Divayth Fyr. We give him a cool present to bribe him into attempting to treat us, and he decides to give us a potion that will either cure our condition or just kill us. But before we drink the potion, we're going to sit on his floor and just wait for days and days and days for the disease to overtake us.
Why? Well, for every day you've got Corprus, some of your stats decrease while your Strength and Endurance increase as you become an increasingly deformed monster (visually, you stay the same). When you get cured, your Strength and Endurance stay the same, but you can heal your other stats back up to the norm.
The net result? You can crank up your stats to sky-high values infinitely, as long as you're willing to wait. I do it a few dozen times just because we can.
We then drink the potion to cure ourselves, steal an awesome set of armor from Divayth Fyr because he doesn't mind you taking it (and the trap isn't too deadly)...
...and then go about restoring our damage attributes. Now our Strength and Endurance are over 100 each (normally they max out at 100 unless you have magical modifiers on top) and we have no other drawbacks.
Since we've been finding a lot of critters with high-end souls, I decide to go grab Azura's Star, the only soul gem that can be used more than once. When we visit a shrine and talk to Azura, the goddess of twilight and traditional goddess of the dark elves, she tells us about a bet she made with the god of madness, Sheogorath.
Apparently, Sheogorath is trying to cheat by sending random monsters out to terrorize Azura's priestess, and your job is to go wipe out the monsters. We fly over to the right island and stumble upon a Harpy, a mod-introduced critter that's basically just a re-skin of the Winged Twilight demon.
I dodge the Harpy's poison spells and launch a frost spell at her from our glass shield, only to almost die when the Harpy's innate Reflect ability bounces it right back at us. I heal up Frost, improve our defenses, and then spam damage spells from our enchanted items until the Harpy goes down.
We arrive at the island, and after Frost almost gets killed by a freaking beetle of all things, we decide to go back to floating over our enemies and letting our Golden Saint do the fighting.
We return to Azura's shrine and collect our reward: a soul gem that never breaks, and which can contain any soul besides a human's.
Since that Harpy almost killed us simply because we threw a spell at a critter with Reflect active, I decide to create some new magic items to deal with that problem.
With these new items granting us immunity to shock damage, we can throw out as many lightning spells as we like, and even if they get reflected back at us, we will suffer no damage... as long as we remember to use the shock resistance items first. Also, we create a very devious new enchantment that takes advantage of a weird combat mechanic.
The Levitate effect lets you fly, but you move much slower when flying than when walking unless you have very high Speed and low Athletics (which Frost has, due to the Boots of Blinding Speed). It's a neutral effect, which means it doesn't get resisted or reflected. If you grant 1 point of Levitate on an enemy, it will move at a sluggish pace no matter what its defenses are, and the effect is very cheap.
We go back to Creeper and sell off a bunch of awesome new gear, cranking up our gold supply to over 50,000.
Then we stop by Mournhold to learn a Fortify Skill spell. If we can fortify our Enchant skill to 101 or higher, then every enchanted item we use will only use a single charge per use, which means an item that used to fire only 3 times per day could be used as many as 150 times per day instead. Unfortunately, Fortify Skill is disabled for spellmaking in my install, so this trick is not an option for Frost.
But while we're in Mournhold, which is much richer than most of Morrowind, I decide to do some shopping and collect some newer and better ingredients for potions. Since late-game enemies will be highly resistant to our spells, we need to be able to hit harder and more reliably in melee combat. By cranking up our Intelligence and mixing together Ectoplasm, Durzog Meat (lizard wolf meat), a Ghoul Heart, and some flowers, we can create a potion that will let us hit extremely hard and accurately even though Frost's combat skills are crap. And with some Void Salts, a Daedra Heart, Vampire Dust, and a mod-introduced ingredient, we can create a potion that will make Frost practically invincible for a short time.
We only have a few big fights left, and we want to make sure we don't falter. Frost has no armor skills and therefore a pathetically low Shield value, which means we take full damage from strong weapons. And since our boosted Endurance from the Corprus disease apparently does nothing to improve our Health, it would only take a few hits to bring us down.
We create a couple of new amulets that will let Frost regenerate Health (2 points per second!) and Magicka (2-3 points per second!) depending on which she equips. That will let us heal quickly in combat and also chain-cast Invisibility spells without worrying about running out of Magicka.
Frost is now at level 17, with fantastic gear, lots of powerful options, plenty of game-changing potions, crazy mobility, decent skills, and rather lousy defenses. As long as we take care to avoid direct combat, we should be safe.
While waiting for a bug to be solved in my Negrita game I started a new game with a Doomguide of Kelemvor (Fighter/Cleric.) No problems in Candlekeep. One of the assassins had stolen her moonblade, but she got it back again together with some decent studded leather armour and a poisonous dagger which only the evil can use. She reluctantly sold it, knowing that it would be deadly in the hands of an evil assassin. However, she needed the gold.
She is a Wood elf. Images self-explanatory.
At the Friendly Arms Inn I got by with a little help from my friends.
I started out with protection from fear but it wore off.
I am trying a few no reloads before my classes start back and I have to go observing. I've decided to add a couple of twists to mine. In addition to scs I am running core difficulity and trying out item revisions and Item randomizer.
And I say a few reloads but I've died a whopping 3 times already yesterday. so it might be a dozen or so attempts actually
I died to the bandit ambush once. I had forgotten to equip my helmet and the one arrow that got through before I chugged my invisibility potion was of course a critical and ended that run rather quickly.
Then I was hunting basilisks with the ghoul leading the charge. I though he had both engaged and I moved up to support with range. Apparently he only had the attention of one and the other hit me with a gaze and that ended that.
After that debacle I thought to get a few quick levels against shoal. After kiting her to half life I paused to help my daughter with a project. Or at least I thought I paused. I came back to the dialogue with Shoal and was auto killed.
This current run is going pretty well so far. I am playing a Halfling fighter thief and have three levels in each class currently. I killed shoal. Wiped out monty and xzar for their potions and took everything from imoen before kicking her to the curb. With Item revisions in place it is a lot harder to predict and process my layout. I went to the mansion in beregost to get my wand of lightning to handle some of the early mobs only to find bracers of defense 8 instead. The ring in the rocks in FAI was not there nor was the Diamond in the tree. I had the star sapphire from Candlekeep though so I was doing find on money for what I needed.
Only other thing I was Kill the wizards that were after Neera. I kited the two guards away while Neera absorbed two spells from the wizard. He did not follow since I had the guards off screen. after killing them I set a trap and lured him to it and that was that.
Planning to raid all of beregost for cash where I can and do the easy around town quests for the areas surrounding it. Then I will head to FAI and address Tarnesh and the quests in that location.
If not SCS, are there any mods people would recommend for a first-time runner, or is vanilla just as fine?
Thanks for the help; Zaxem the Beserker / Mage will soon show himself
SCS is a great mod for many reasons, but if you're a first-time no-reloader, the unmodded game is probably your best bet. It'll be more fun and let you experience more of the game.
Frost: No-Reload Morrowind Run
Part 4
Much of the main quest in Morrowind is about gathering information and dealing with local politics instead of fetch quests and beating up monsters. It's one of the reasons why the game consistently feels very realistic; the challenges make sense in the context of the setting. Our next quest is to rescue an informant, Mehra Milo, who has been locked up in a giant floating rock because she poked her nose into too many forbidden books that the Tribunal Temple views as heresy.We can get through this quest by butchering the religious gestapo that runs the prison, but since I'm concerned that killing law enforcement officials while staging a prison break will get Frost in trouble, I decide to just spam Invisibility spells and fly around undetected, using Open spells to deal with locks. Thanks to our Restore Magicka amulet, we can regenerate 2.5 Magicka per second, which lets us maintain Invisibility indefinitely. Normally, you'd run out of Magicka after just a few castings.
We give Mehro Milo a teleport scroll to bail her out, then teleport to a marked point. Next, we need to meet with the Dissident Priests, a group of theologists who disagree with Temple orthodoxy and therefore have to hide themselves in a secret location. Outside the door, I get into trouble with a couple of rats, and to my embarrassment, we find that two rats can actually deal a lot of damage to our level 18 character when I dare to engage in melee combat without the help of our Golden Saint!
After talking to the right people, we make our way back to the Urshilaku to consult the wise woman for advice. On the way, I pay a visit to the local daedric shrine, which has respawned its many demons and demon worshippers. I float down to a dremora (humanoid demon) under Invisibility and notice he has a special name.
A mod-introduced enemy of some kind, and there are lots of them around here. Rather than let our Golden Saint do all the work on its own, I decide to use some defensive items to increase our evasion chance and engage the enemies at melee range. I accidentally screwed up an enchantment on a sword, making it deal damage on casting instead of on hit, but I can still use it to zap critters. Daedra are vulnerable to electricity, so the shock damage enchantments I've been creating are very effective. I collect a lot of valuable souls with Soultrap.
Then I get too careless and a dremora brings Frost down to 20% of her maximum HP. I pick one of our best potions to bail her out.
With a massive HP boost and lots of healing as well as a Strength bonus, we can safely continue combat without worrying about getting bumped off. We keep fighting and the dremora gradually crumples.
We talk to the wise woman and we still need confirmation from the head of the tribe before we're truly considered the Nerevarine by the Urshilaku. Specifically, we need to prove that we're immune to corprus disease, which means collecting some goo from a corprus-infected monster and also fetching some items from a cultist stronghold.
Here's the thing about Dagoth Ur's hypnotized cultists. They start out as ordinary people who happen to be brainwashed, and while they'll attack you on sight, they look just like any normal folks.
But over time, their bodies mutate and they slowly turn into ash-colored ghouls. Eventually, they lose their features and their faces turn into distorted, eyeless trunks.
Soultrap is very productive in this area. All of these mutants have powerful souls, which means we can create all kinds of crazy new enchanted items... including a very special new sword.
What's so special about an Absorb Agility effect? Well, Agility determines three things: your ability to dodge blows, your ability to land hits, and the chance that you'll get staggered when you get hit. This enchantment will briefly transfer lots of Agility from our target to Frost, making it much easier for us to land hits and dramatically increasing the chance that we'll stagger our opponent.
A normal stagger animation lasts 1-2 seconds, but there's also a longer animation where the enemy drops to their knees, which can stun them for about 4 seconds. Since a single attack takes less than one second, we can reliably stun-lock lots of critters.
For stronger enemies who we can't always stun-lock, we float out of reach, summon a Golden Saint and maybe a Winged Twilight and Daedroth, and then spam shock damage spells from our enchanted items to deal burst damage.
By the time we clean out the dungeon and Soultrap the many mutated cultists inside, we have a suite of new enchanted items and Frost is at level 24 with maxed-out Intelligence. But there's more: when I check out Azura's Star, which has just captured a boss' soul, its gold value is far, far higher than I've ever seen it before.
This new soul has a shocking capacity of 600 enchantment points. This is too good for a constant effect enchantment; we need to turn this into some sort of offensive enchantment. But if we really want to make the most of it, we need to find an item with a similarly high capacity.
It's time to go hunting for a very special item.
Frost: No-Reload Morrowind Run
Part 5
The one item I'm really looking for an Exquisite Amulet. It doesn't have the highest enchantment capacity in the game, but it's much more accessible than the alternatives, which are tower shields that are better suited for constant effect enchantments than charge spells. But there are other items we want to bolster Frost's shabby defenses, which means it's time to loot the vaults of Great House Redoran in the port city of Vivec (named after the warrior-poet god who lives nearby). We hypnotize the noble lady who's standing close to the vault's key and pull her downstairs so we can nab the key without being noticed. The guards don't mind at all if we open the vault right in front of them--as long as we have the key, it's perfectly legal.Unfortunately, the Command Humanoid spells we used on the lady don't seem to work on the Ordinators, who are much higher level. We can't lure them away from the area so we can rob the place unmolested. We are forced to resort to Chameleon spells, which apparently aren't perfectly rock-solid when you have to work right under the noses of highly experienced guards. We get caught unlocking a chest very quickly.
The Empire's criminal justice system is very friendly to wealthy criminals like us. Everything is handled by fines. Commit murder, and you can get off with zero jail time as long as you have 1,000 gold to pay to the relevant authorities.
The guards don't even drag us out of the vault; there's no script for that. We get to keep trying to steal stuff--and once we pick a spot in the room that's far enough away from the guards, our 200% Chameleon spell is enough to let us steal anything without getting caught. This vault has some very sweet armor in it.
I understand that this area is very easy to rob in the unmodded game, so I'm guessing that the presence of the Ordinators is due to one of my mods.
Now it's time to go get that Exquisite Amulet. I've already bought the amulet and other pricy articles from various vendors, so finding an unenchanted one is hard. There is one tucked in a cupboard at the Dren Plantation, though (it's the half-moon-shaped icon below the "C" in "Closet."
We don't feel bad for robbing these people. The Dren family smuggles narcotics, holds slaves, and based on some letters, they're not above killing people, either.
We now have a high-capacity amulet with a high-capacity soul. We want a high-damage enchantment that won't backfire on us, so I design a spell with three key effects, ordered so that the cheapest effects come first to minimize the total cost.
We can only use it 7 times before it runs out of charges, and it takes days for it to recharge to full. But against a target with no base resistances, it will deal 1,337 shock damage in a single hit.
We can kill pretty much anything with this amulet. And even if it gets reflected back at us, we'll suffer zero damage because the Resist Shock effect will block everything.
We fly back out to the Ashlands. Then I see a curious new creature that looks like some sort of gigantic deer with elaborate antlers.
Upon closer inspection, it's just an extremely ugly-looking dragon with goofy horns and wings with no webbing.
Canonically, dragons don't exist in the Elder Scrolls universe during the events of Morrowind (and quite some time before and after!), but some modder saw fit to throw in a dumb-looking version of a lore-unfriendly monster.
I decide to try my hand at killing it. I summon a Golden Saint, but the dragon repeatedly crushes it, and when I try to approach the thing with high Resist Fire active, its fire breath still roasts me because apparently it has a Weakness to Fire effect tacked on to it (which my Resist Magicka effects somehow failed to block).
I bust out my enchanted items, hover over the monster's head, and start blasting it with shock damage. But my spells do practically nothing to the thing.
Worse yet, its hitbox is really screwed up, and Sparky--the amulet that does 1,337 damage--can't even touch it because Sparky's not an "on target" effect; it's short range.
I can always just hover out of reach and rely on my Restore Magicka amulet to fuel an endless string of ranged spells, but based on the dragon's massive resistances and/or massive Health, it seems like that would take forever. I float down to take a few swings at the dragon with our sword, but the dragon's screwy hit box keeps us from reaching it.
I change positions, hovering just over the dragon's head, and finally manage to hit the thing. You have to get extremely close to hurt it.
But seconds later...
...the dragon kills me in one hit.
It's frustrating, it's embarrassing, and it's completely unnecessary and pointless. Frost has just died to the dumbest-looking, most overpowered and nonsensical mod-introduced enemy in the game, for the stupidest reasons imaginable:
1. The dragon has weird hitboxes that artificially granted it immunity to my strongest attack.
2. The dragon has better stats than any other creature in the entire game, modded or otherwise. It has 75% resistance to elements, sky-high Spell Absorption, and more Health and stronger melee attacks than Vivec and Almalexia--two living gods.
I don't know why it's there. It's not even supposed to exist per Morrowind lore. And, you know, if you're going to die to something in a no-reload run, it should be something interesting and dramatic, not some inexplicable, lore-unfriendly, and frankly ugly-looking mod enemy with a generic name out in the middle of nowhere, in one hit.
It's just boring and lame.
We were on a great pace until now, poised to crush the remainder of the game with little difficulty and in little time. But thanks to that bug-ugly dragon, Frost will have to start all the way over from Seyda Neen.
Notable Mods: None
So begins the diary of Zaxem. I chose to roll a Beserker / Mage for my first no-reload run, as the Beserker rage, along with my future mage spells, should keep poor Zaxem safe and alive under most circumstances.
I rush straight to the Friendly Arm Inn to pick up Khalid and Jaheira, as there is much-needed strength in numbers awaiting me there. This fellow called Tarnesh attacks me however, and Zaxem quickly goes into a rage. Zaxem takes Tarnesh head on while Imoen uses her bow from a distance. Imoen manages to disrupt Tarnesh's magic missile with a well-timed use of her wand, though Tarnesh manages to cast his horror spell through the party's onslaught. Zaxem's rage protects him from panicking, and Imoen luckily Saves vs. Spell. Tarnesh quickly falls to Zaxem's flails; the first dangerous encounter has been bested!
The party manages to find a magic ring while leaving the Friendly Arm Inn, I wonder what it does?
With Khalid and Jaheira in the party we head to Beregost, hoping to visit the smithy to get some proper equipment. I must admit I purposely avoided the street where the Neera encounter is, as the Red Wizard's melf's acid arrow can wreck havoc on a level 1 party. Let's pretend the party just happened to go down the safe streets...
Next we meet a fellow named Garrick. We can't pass up an offer for 300 gold pieces, so we agree to guard Silke. After seeing the obvious set-up laid before us, we turn on Silke and attack. Imoen manages to disrupt Silke's mirror image and lightning bolt with her wand; that could have gone very badly if Imoen failed to disrupt Silke! Silke eventually falls before she could manage to cast any spells, the party's second encounter is won. We shoo the damnable bard away and head to the smithy to get equipped.
The party continues their trek to Nashkel, hoping to find more friends there. Along the way we are onset by some angry ogrillions, who actually manage to do some damage to our party. Later we come a cross some Hobgoblins, but they pose no threat to the party. We meet this fellow along the way that speaks of a city to the south, I wonder if we might go there one day?
The party makes its way to Nashkel and heads to the inn for some much needed rest. We are attacked by Neira, however, who manages to avoid a spell-disruption and hold two of my party members! Luckily Zaxem's rage makes him immune to hold, and he quickly crushes Neira to bits. The party agrees to look into the iron crisis and go into the mines, while picking up Minsc (and Boo!). The mines can wait, as we desperately need a spellcaster. Zaxem's next step: the Gnoll Stronghold.
Zaxem - Beserker (to be dualed to Mage) ; Level 1 (643 / 2000)
Khalid - Fighter ; Level 1 (606 / 2000)
Minsc - Ranger ; Level 1 (258 / 2250)
Jaheira - Fighter / Druid ; Fighter Level 2 (2067 / 4000) : Druid Level 2 (2067 / 4000)
Imoen - Thief ; Level 1 (639 / 1250)
Sometimes I even make it an hour or two into the game before I die now
That is it on my part tonight. Very laid back session really.
Does anybody off the top of their head know what I need to get my find traps up to in order to avoid the biggest traps in bg 1?
Anyway, just wanted to say that I enjoyed reading the run and seeing how you approached things. I didn't want to comment earlier because It sounded like you wanted it to be somewhat of a blind run.
Anyway, exciting things happening for me on gaming and non gaming fronts.
Journal of Dasyra
I cleared the FAI of hobgoblins before returning Joia's ring and heading south where I calmed Marl down and took a tome to Firebead. The ogrillons to the south were killed without landing a blow after which I found the rabbit belonging to a little girl. On the way I killed more hobgoblins.I was then able to help both Mellicamp and a werewolf become human again and headed towards Nashkel picking up the Colquetle amulet and Lord Foreshadows ring on the way.
In Nashkel I founs some Ankhef armour and was relieved that I could use it as I had been dismayed that I was unable to use even chain mail.
I found a ring that protects from fire before taking Samuel to the FAI.
Upon returning the Colquetle amulet and a letter to Mirianne I retrned south and helped Rufie and Drienne's cat.
Previous incarnations had fallen at the hands of Zordral and Krumm, so they have been avoided so far.
I then went in search of the half-ogres Bjornin had told me about and whilst looking for them was attacked by a mixed party of robbers, all of whom I killed, silence making the mage ineffective.
I helped Drizzt against a party of gnolls. Drizzt did most of the killing. I helped mainly by picking up the litter afterwards.
Upon fighting skeletons I discovered that Spiritual Hammer is ineffective against them. Best to discover that now when they were few in number than in a battle with dozens!
I then headed for the xvart village as I intend on bringing my fighter level up to 3 before taking on the stronger enemies.
I got little in the way of experience though I will be able to make a substantial gooseberry pie. Ursa actually helped me against the xvarts,
Killing some gnolls, I became a level 3 fighter and improved my two weapon fighting abilities.
I then helped Charleston Nib and became a fully fledged hero.
Helped Brage. Reputation now 18. If I can get it up to 20 and somehow aquire Algernon's Cloak it may be time to go shopping. Sadly, less than 4000 gp.
The battle against Greywolf was long and hard. He used strength of stone giant, potions of healing and regeneration. I therefore had to call on help as he brought my health points down to ONE!! I therefore went to the mines where the mine guards badly injured him. By running around the hill near Prism he lost sight of me so I used potions to get back to full strength and my third gooseberry gave me regeneration. Having got back to a level playing field I was at last able to slay him.
Zordral was just as hard. He seemed to have an endless supply of spells particularly summoning monsters. However, he eventually ran out of spells after which he fell tomy blade. Again I had to use a number of healing potions. The ogrillon that he summoned did considerable damage but shortly after Zordral was killed it disappeared into the ether.
Those last two battles were CLOSE!!!
However, I am alive and my enemies dead.
My cleric level is now 4, but the spell spiritual hammer doesn't do any damage.
While I don't know the exact # needed, remember for the harder traps, if your thief isn't max you can also use things like potions of mind focusing and perception to boost trap scores.
But if solo, it is not necessary to have any traps at all to beat BG 1. You just need to protect yourself against the more dangerous traps for the few you can't avoid. For your convenience, here is that list:
1) Nashkel Mines traps (3rd level): these are only dangerous if you are a low HP character (like a mage), or you trip them when low health. Just keep your health up in a fighter, or do the level 3 spell vampiric drain? (not sure the name) - it's the one that boosts health for a time by taking it from an enemy. Helpful for a mage character. Mirror image too if mage character.
2) Bandit Camp, chest with letters - lightning trap. 100% lightning resistance makes this safe. Use boots of grounding and green scroll protection from electricity, or potion of absorption
3) Cloakwood Mines - 2nd level, go around to the far right to avoid the lightning trap in the hallway. Be prepared to deal with two ghasts.
4) Davaeorn Level - a number of traps you can't avoid here. protection from magic, or potions of magic shielding or magic protection makes some of them quite easy, as well as easier against Daveorn as well. Be prepared to deal with the two battle horror spawns.
5) Candlekeep Crypts, 1st level - either protection from magic scroll or 100% fire and ligtning resistance is what's desired here. Keep health up as some are magic missile traps.
6) Candlekeep Crypts, 2nd level - lot of fireball traps surrounding the center. Just avoid them by staying out of the center or use 100% fire resistance.
7) Thieve's Maze - When you get close to the skeleton warriors, use either green scroll of protection from magic or 100% fire and lightning resistance.
8) Undercity - Technically, the Iron Throne party here isn't a trap in the normal sense, but if solo sure feels like one. Use protection from undead scroll and go all the way down, across and up to bypass them and face Sarevok instead.
9) Final Battle - 100% lightning resistance is helpful. Stay away from edges, and avoid center as well. Go around the circle in the middle and shoot Sarevok and then fight him near the entrance so you can move around without setting off traps.
Frost: No-Reload Morrowind Run
Part 7
Back to Seyda Neen! This time, we'll be going with Heavy Armor as a major skill. We can use the extra defense, and since my mods make encumbrance virtually limitless and the Boots of Blinding Speed+Levitate will give us dramatic speed, there's really no reason not to use heavy armor.Of course, at low levels, low-grade heavy armor still doesn't offer much protection. Frost nearly dies to a Scrib of all creatures at the start of the game. Here she is running away from the Scrib while struggling to heal herself.
Scribs are notable for their paralysis attack, but otherwise have poor damage output, fitting their status as a little bug. These things never pose a threat, so all that damage is really surprising.
Since our combat skills are terrible and our low Destruction skill gives our only offensive spell, Elemental Burst: Weak, a pitiful 60% success chance, I summon a skeleton to deal with Foryn Gilnith, the guy we have to kill for murdering a tax collector.
The skeleton is a low-grade summons, but it hits very reliably.
Later, while hiking near Balmora, I run into some enemy humanoids. Rather than risk a confrontation, I make a break for it, but the Nord chasing me is very fast. I see an opportunity to gain ground on him: a river, where I can use Water Walking to outpace his swimming speed.
But I'm not fast enough. The Nord catches up to me and kills me in one hit.
Making Heavy Armor a class skill and investing in a suit of iron armor was not sufficient. At low levels, we still need to stay out of combat.
Back to Seyda Neen once again.
I never used mods or read anything online about the game, so probably missed lots of good tricks. I did eventually though decide to break the game by ratcheting up statistics and producing over-powered equipment. That made completing the game for the first time simple - and having done that I've never played again. Perhaps I should try and dig out my old CD and see whether that runs on a modern computer ...
Frost: No-Reload Morrowind Run
Part 8
For the next run, I make some modest tweaks to Frost's class. Since I'll be relying on enchanted items to deal spell damage, Destruction is no longer a class skill, and I've made Long Blade a new skill to take advantage of the numerous strong longswords in the game.This time around, I save the Scrolls of Icarian Flight (the 1,000-point Fortify Acrobatics scrolls that let you leap across the entire continent and then die on impact unless you use another scroll or a Slowfall effect) for Creeper, earning us a little extra money. Joining the Fighter's Guild also earns us access to a supply chest with some nice loot, and by managing our money a little more carefully, we manage to get the custom spells we need early. A 200% Chameleon spell for 2 seconds will be enough to let us steal any item we want.
Unfortunately, I screwed up the spell creation process and set the Chameleon spell to "On Touch" instead of "On Self." Correcting the mistake costs us almost 300 gold, but once we fix it, we can quickly recoup the cost.
Creeper the Scamp at Ghorak Manor in Caldera buys weapons and armor and enchanted gear at full price, so even a single theft can net us thousands of gold. One of my mods nerfs his gold supply to 2,250 instead of 5,000, but by waiting 3 days (a process that takes seconds in Morrowind), we can replenish his gold supply whenever he runs out. And, by carefully trading items back and forth, we can maximize the profit from each 3-day period. Soon, we are rich--and we only robbed a single shop.
We travel to Vivec and steal some enchanted items from a mod-introduced vendor. We now have access to much faster-acting Invisibility option.
Unfortunately, I make a mistake along the way, and we get caught stealing something in Caldera. 650 gold goes down the drain.
More importantly, all of our stolen enchanted items are now lost. They're sealed up in an evidence chest somewhere. Getting them back will be extremely difficult.
First, I want to go ahead and grab the Boots of Blinding Speed. I visit Pemenie and offer to escort her to Gnaar Mok, but on the way, we get ambushed by the exact same guys who killed me in the previous run. Rather than put myself in danger, I decide to let Pemenie handle the bandits while I watch from behind Invisibility.
Pemenie has poor combat skills and dies in short order. But as it happens, she has the Boots of Blinding Speed on her person. All we have to do is grab them from her corpse, put them on, and run like hell. With Invisibility to help us, we escape the scene unharmed. With a custom Levitate spell in hand, we now have spectacular mobility and speed.
Now, though, we really need to get our stolen gear back. Problem is, the evidence chest where it's stored has a Lock level of 50, and our only Open spell has a 1 in 25 chance of unlocking it. Even if we create our own custom Open spell, opening a Lock of 50 is extremely dicey.
Plus, we have to be under 200% Chameleon when casting the spell, or else we'll get caught by the guards standing nearby. Our existing Chameleon spell only lasts long enough for us to grab something; we need a longer-duration spell in order to cast a spell without being detected. And the new spell would be so expensive and so prone to spell failure that it could take ages to finally unlock the chest.
Instead, I hunt down a scroll of Ondusi's Open Door, which has a value of 25-75 instead of 25-50. We only have three such scrolls, and if they fail, we're out, but it does give us a 50/50 chance of unlocking the chest.
It works!
I don't want to risk this happening again, so I hurry over to Creeper to sell off the stuff we don't need, then break into Hlaalo Manor in Balmora with Levitate and Open spells to find the corpse of Ralen Hlaalo.
Ralen Hlaalo is a permanent corpse, which makes him a perfectly safe, reliable, and legal storage container with an unlimited capacity. Anything we don't need to carry, we can store on him, and it will never vanish from his body.
Back to building up our strength. Thanks to robbing Galbedir during the early Mages Guild quests with Ajira, we have some soul gems on hand filled with some weak souls (in the vanilla game, the high-end gems soul gems have high-quality souls, but in my install, they're mostly empty). With a custom Fortify Intelligence 500 spell, we can start creating custom enchanted items to compensate for our poor abilities.
There's still a lot more to steal, especially from the mod-introduced vendor in Vivec, but somehow I end up getting caught in the process. If I pay the fine, I'll lose all of my stolen items again, and I'm running low on ways to get them back.
However, I now have a lovely escape option: the Amulet of Recall, which activates immediately and with a 100% success rate (unlike a spell), teleporting me right outside and avoiding the risk of dying to a single blow from an unfriendly guard.
The item I stole was so valuable that my bounty is thousands of gold. I'm so infamous that the nearby Silt Strider guy (a guy who fast-travels you to various places using a gigantic bug as a vehicle) won't offer me his services. A Charm spell fixes that, however, and once I deposit all my stolen goods on Ralen Hlaalo's body for safekeeping, I turn myself in to the authorities to pay the fine without losing any gear.
It's time to start grinding Alchemy and learning new spells. I buy a bunch of food items and other ingredients from various places to fuel potions and buy some new spells from vendors at the Temple and from some folks in Sadrith Mora after joining House Telvanni, including the Summon Golden Saint spell.
Once I have a whole bunch of ingredients on hand, I create a couple of new Fortify Intelligence spells to crank Frost's Intelligence all the way up to a ludicrous 1,150--without using a single potion to boost it. In the single second while our Intelligence is at its highest, we start making potions. A lot of the potions are useless...
...but the gold value of a potion is dependent entirely on its magnitude, which means we can sell even the useless potions for lots of money. We sell them all to Ajira, since she's nearby and already has 100 Disposition, giving us excellent prices.
She only has 800 gold at a time, but like with Creeper, we can get her to restore her supply by waiting three days. It takes numerous iterations, but by the time all the potions are created and all the useless ones are sold off, Frost is a level 4 character sitting on 50,000 gold and some really powerful potions for a rainy day.
There's only one thing to do with all this money: spend it on training to boost our level and give us the precious extra Health we need to survive a bad situation. I learn a new thing about training: since Frost's Strength is at 30, she can't train Long Blade above 30 until after she levels up.
We bump up Frost to level 6 and start hunting down animals to fill up our many soul gems and create new enchanted items to boost our Enchant skill and also give us some decent offensive options.
Even so, when we proceed with the main questline and start tackling humanoid enemies, Frost's low Shield value and low Health prove dangerous. We have to fly away to heal ourselves when we get in trouble.
In the Dwemer ruins where the Dwemer Puzzle Box (a plot coupon for the main quest) lies, we trade between three methods of attacking: using enchanted items to fire ranged spells while floating a safe distance away, engaging in melee with the Silver Longsword we stole from Ralen Hlaalo's corpse, and retreating to let our summoned skeleton do the heavy lifting.
Luckily for us, the relatively non-dangerous Dwarven Spectres in this area have Grand souls. We only have a single Grand Soul Gem on hand, stolen from Galbedir, but that's all we need. We fortify the crap out of Frost's Intelligence and re-create the strongest item we had in our previous playthrough.
Once again, we have infinite Golden Saints. As long as we play carefully and make sure not to take any unnecessary risks, this should let us trample most of the challenges of the early- and mid-game.
Frost: No-Reload Morrowind Run
Part 9
Now that we have the Cephalopod Saint Helm, we can bring down high-end critters provided that we have plenty of open air to fly around in and avoid getting within the enemy's range. That means we can tackle Azura's quest and get Azura's Star to better collect high-end souls. After I burn some money training the Spear skill so that Frost will get better Endurance bonuses on her next level up, we fly out to Azura's shrine, take several boat rides to Dagon Fel, and watch our Golden Saints gradually tear up a batch of daedra, ending with an underwater fight between our Golden Saint and Staada, the only daedra that actually needs to be slain on the island (and who is also a Golden Saint).With Azura's Star in hand, we can go back to the Dwemer ruins from before and farm several Grand souls from the resident Dwarven Spectres. One of the important new enchantments is Fortify Health to compensate for our crummy 65 base Health. On the way, we run into some unusually tough Dwemer robots, and use Invisibility rather than gamble on our shoddy defenses.
The next dungeon, the tomb where we need to grab a skull to give to an orc as a present, is much easier than it was in the previous run, as we have some decent combat skills to add to the strength of our Golden Saint. The Bonelord is no longer as worrisome, and I am no longer hesitant to engage it at close range.
Later on, while hunting down informants in Vivec, I stop by another daedric shrine in search of loot. I use the extra vertical space to hover a safe distance, but one of the enemy humanoids is using ranged attacks, and he hits very hard.
For some reason, he keeps targeting me even when I go invisible! I descend to the ground to go chop him up before he can pin me down. Apparently his high damage came from a crossbow, which always does the same damage regardless of how long you hold the attack button (which means it does very damage overall).
I search the bodies and find a very, very special prize indeed.
Frost specializes in longsword, and a Daedric Longsword is the best that we can get. All we need is to get a high-capacity soul so we can add a custom Absorb Agility enchantment to the sword, and then we should be able to stun-lock all sorts of enemies.
I buy a bunch of nice jewelry. Expensive Rings and Expensive Amulets have amazing capacities, and storing a Chameleon spell in an item effect increases its duration by 1 or 2 seconds as well as making it easier for me to target stuff to steal (the camera shifts slightly when you cast spells, which can screw with your aim, but using items to cast spells doesn't do this).
It's time to go meet with the Urshilaku. Our next dungeon is another tomb, where Frost almost dies by engaging a skeleton without using items to improve her defenses.
Notice the mist around the skeleton. That's a Soultrap effect. This whole area is crawling with high-capacity souls, and one of them, a Worm Lord, gives us the charges we need to enchant our Daedric Longsword.
We promptly use it to chop up the grandfather spirit of the Urshilaku. Even ghosts can get staggered slightly.
Next up is the corprus disease questline. We're about to see another boost in Frost's personal strength (she's now at level 11), but it will require tackling some tougher critters.
Journal of Dasyra Last Entry
Dasyra went to Farmer Brun's land and killed 17 Ankheg. Returning to Beregost, she was attacked by Silke and killed her. Whilst looking for Bassilus she was attacked by Zargal and killed him and his cohorts. He then came across Bassilus and brought him to the point of death. Unfortunately the Aerial Servant got in the killing blow first.After picking up Minsc we head to the Nashkel shop to better equip him, but apparently the shop does not carry helmets (why in the world not?!). In order to protect Minsc from any more hits to the head we backtrack to the Beregost smithy. After getting everyone restocked and equipped it is time to head to the Gnoll fortress. The party stays along the sides of the wilderness areas inbetween to avoid danger.
After arriving at the fortress we deal with the bridge-keepers, and pick up the much needed gauntlets of dexterity. While fighting both Khalid's weapon and one of Zaxem's flails breaks, the iron crisis really is annoying! The fortress goes smooth after that complication and we rescue Dynaheir; now that we have all of our party members, it is time to go farm some XP. I think you all know where I'm going next... (the basilisk map)
The area starts off well; I have Dynaheir cast Protection from Petrification on all of my party members to protect against the basilisk's gaze, and we go on a hunt. Everything was going well... most of my party members gained 2 levels... when I accidently bumped into the human party in the area. I overestimated the power of my level 2 or 3 party and decided to attack. Welp, this was a mistake. Imoen, my scout, was almost instantly sniped, and my party took damage really fast. Fortunately all of the disabler spells were cast at my raging berserker, so my party could continue to fight. Ultimately, Minsc unexpectedly fell to the enemy party's spell caster in MELE (very embarrassing for me). As you can probably see, Zaxem was down to one hit point during the fight, a very close call because of my bad tactics.
2 party members down and I have no idea where to get the gold to revive them. This is usually the point where I would reload, but I must admit the challenge is pretty interesting. If anyone has any tips on what to do next, it would be appreciated.
I was also expecting the raise dead price so be in the thousands like Baldur's Gate II, but apparently the prices are adjusted for the early game. I managed to get the 400 gold I needed by selling some gems and raised my party members in the Nashkel temple. The run is back on track, and I'll make sure to be more careful moving forward...