Heh, well, it's more a case of slaughtering the one or two adversaries who follow you outside while their pals don't follow. Admittedly the feigned retreat was a favourite tactic of the Mongols but it does look a little odd when their pals should be within call... It just feels a bit immersion breaking, though a bit more appropriate for a Blackguard like Lyran who doesn't care as much for a fair fight!
When last we saw our intrepid party, they were carefully planning an assault on the Nashkel Mines. A minutely prepared spell selection is required in order to minimize time spent resting. Then again, some spells are simply much more general purpose than others, and we end up going with what always works: Command, CLW (to save on potions), Remove Fear (for the Kobold Shaman and Nimbul), Hold Person, Chant, Silence 15' Radius, Sleep and Blindness. Good stuff.
Apparently, if you pick the second option with Greywolf in 2.5, he'll give his threatening speech, but not actually attack.. we had to manually attack him. Fine by me, Greywolf gets a Command and a big ol' blast of Scorcher.
We fight our way down the mines, with little to report. Khalid simply cannot die to mere Kobolds at this stage, and they in turn can only hit him on a 20. Of course there are occasional criticals, but that's why we got several CLW's. The Kobold Chieftain deals a little damage, but falls quickly. Remove Fear means the Kobold Shaman has no cards to play. We soon reach Mulahey, who is simply shot down, his summoned reinforcements being treated to our Wand of Fire.
We make it back to Nashkel without any ambush, and head straight for Nimbul. I buff with Chant and Luck of battle, certain Nimbul will try to dispel (so that we can in turn apply Remove Fear, negating the Horror he almost certainly has prepared), but Nimbul fails his save against a Silence 15' Radius, and is shortly after Doomed and Blinded. Goodbye Nimbul, we hardly knew ye (and that's probably just as well).
We actually still have a Remove Fear available... which means we hightail it to Beregost and hit Tranzig. Again, I apply Chant, certain Tranzig will dispel it, so we can apply Remove Fear and nullify his Horror... but Tranzig instead leads with a Sleep, which Khalid resists, and then a Vampiric Touch for a mighty 9 damage. Vampiric Touch just isn't a very good pick, Tranzig. He soon panics and falls.
Things are proceeding nicely! A quick rest later, the party heads north to the crossroads, kills some bandits, then heads east into Larswood, where we make quick work of the local bandits: Hold Person does for the leader, and the rest just can't seem to hit us. Osmadi and Corsone are handled via Wand of Fire Scorcher (I love the Wand of Fire... makes our lives so much easier). We proceed north, into Peldvale.
Immediately upon arrival, we stumble on a Giant Spider, providing just enough experience for Imoen to hit Thief level 5. She has thus reached 100% Detect Illusions, and I dual-class her. For spells, Imoen picks Identify and Friends (we'll be doing a bit of shopping at High Hedge soon, and 16 CHA + 6 from Friends = 22, where maximum CHA discount hits at 20). Immediately afterwards, Hubblepot hits Illusionist level 3. Very good! Since we are doing so well on time (we've got something like 5 days before Kivan leaves), Hubblepot will pop the Red Potion at the Bandit Camp and scribe some scrolls, including the delectable Web. We'll then rest for 24 hours so he gets rid of the STR and (more importantly) WIS penalty, and memorize some Identify meanwhile to catch up on our backlog of unidentified items. Anyway, as for encounters in this area, a single Command spells the end of Raiken, with his hopeless bandit buddies falling immediately after. We of course save and subsequently rebuff Viconia, and the Plate Mail goes to Kivan. We press north, to the Bandit Ca-
Holy crud! I had hoped to avoid the two ambushes until we had at least grabbed Coran, but it seems I am denied. All hands on deck! This is NOT a drill!
Alright, let's see. As the portraits indicate, we did not rest at the previous area, and so are a bit light on spells... but we should still be fine. Hubblepot and Branwen still sport a couple Command and Hold Person between them. We go on the offensive: Khalid, Kivan, Branwen and Jaheira start pelting the closest Cleric (whose name escapes me.. the one wearing Splint Mail). Meanwhile, Hubblepot and Imoen drop a Wand of Fire/The One Gift Lost double Fireball aimed at the Plate Mail Cleric and the farthest thief. Plate Mail Cleric is interrupted, as is Splint Mail Cleric. Both thieves stealth, but for some reason the combat log does not display who they are targetting.
I become slightly paranoid, as Hubblepot only has 30 HP. Hubblepot initiates a daring series of evasive manoeuvers and even tosses a Scorcher at Splint Mail Cleric, hoping to catch the two thieves in the stream. However, this turns out to be unnecessary: The thieves, probably dismayed by Hubblepot having a respectable AC thanks to wearing Splint Mail, instead go after Imoen. Only one backstab lands, and then only for 16 HP (the other one is just a regular attack for 4 HP). Pfeh. Once revealed, Hold Person spells the thieves' doom.
I am so used to playing pure arcane casters that I always dread this particular ambush, given that the two thieves can easily backstab such a protagonist to death. No such danger this time around! We greedily help ourselves to the would-be assassins belongings, and arrive uneventfully at the Bandit Camp. As alluded to earlier, we spend roughly one day in the aftermath of the Red Potion identifying items. With Hubblepot back to full STR and WIS, we prepare our spells for the onslaught...
Key picks are what you'd expect: Web is by far the most important, but Entangle, Command and Hold Person are all valuable as well. With 2x Web from Hubblepot, the battle is almost over as soon as it begins. A Kivan under Oil of Speed attacks the closest bandit and triggers the camp-wide alarm, and some 40-odd enemies happily run straight into our kill zone. They are so concentrated all but 2 of them are within the radius of the same Fireball. The only damage done to us: A Blacktalon Elite somehow makes several saves in a row, and manages to hit Imoen twice (she survives comfortably), and Taugosz gets a swing off at Khalid before succumbing to Hold Person.
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! We clear the camp of hostiles (a spawn of Hobgoblin Elites never join in the mass assault for some reason, and the enemies inside buildings/the cave likewise stay put), but leave the containers for now, as we'll return later with Coran to loot properly. We successfully travel to the FAI, where we spend a sleep cycle identifying and healing. Afterwards, Imoen with Friends does some shopping: All the Intelligence-boosting potions from the FAI Temple, as well as a visit to Thalantyr, where we indulge in anti-magic potions and the scroll, a few Potions of Explosion, as well as scrolls of Invisibility and Mirror Image (which Hubblepot can and does scribe without risk of failure).
The party returns to the FAI without incident, where they are taking a much-needed break in preparation of their exploration of the Cloakwood Forest, where certainly new enemies and allies alike lie in wait... Hubblepot is now a L4/L3 Gnome Cleric/Illusionist.
Frost the Breton Mage: No-Reload Legendary Mode Run of Skyrim Redone
Part 2
To survive stray hits in Legendary mode in Skyrim, we need a high armor rating, and the only way to get a high armor rating without shelling out gobs of gold for training or getting hit a bunch of times and risking instant death is to grind Alteration.
We can grind Alteration using the Detect Life spell, but we can't buy that until our Alteration skill reaches 40. The only way to get it that high without paying for expensive training is to cast armor spells in-combat.
Luckily, there are some fights that are very safe, which will let us cast those spells without encounter massive danger. All we have to do is piss off some mudcrubs near the city of Morthal and use arrows and a summoned wolf to bring them down before they can reach us.
I stop for a moment to grind Alchemy a little more and get it all the way to 100, which is not actually the cap in my install--skills can actually scale beyond 150 in my install. I activate the Mage Stone to increase our skill growth for Alteration (the previous bonus, the Thief Stone, helped us grind Alchemy earlier) and go back to Morthal to hassle more mudcrabs. I even rest at an inn beforehand to get the Well Rested bonus for 15% faster skill gains. Our Alteration starts climbing fast.
Morthal is a swampy backwater, but it's also home to some very precious ingredients that can get us some very powerful potions and poisons. Swamp Fungal Pods have Restore Health and Resist Shock effects as well as the highly valuable paralysis effect; Giant Lichen can generate powerful poisons with Ravage Health; Deathbells can be mixed with Salt Piles for high-value Slow poisons; and most importantly, Canis Roots can be used for Paralysis poisons and Fortify Marksman and Fortify One-Handed potions, though the Canis Roots and Giant Lichen are both hard to spot against the gray background.
The Canis Roots are especially important for Paralysis poisons because, unlike the Swamp Fungal Pods, they don't have a Restore Health effect--which means that, if we mix Swamp Fungal Pods with Imp Stool fungi, our resulting Paralysis poison will also heal the target.
Healing effects aren't affected by difficulty, which means we could craft a Paralysis poison that healed the enemy for more damage than we could deal during the Paralysis effect!
Morthal offers us a chance to both collect highly valuable ingredients as well as train Alteration. We keep hassling the mudcrabs until we can cast Oakflesh enough times to get Alteration all the way up to 40.
I invest all level ups in Health. Having more Magicka and Stamina would be nice, but we can use potions to restore all three of those stats--the only difference is that only low Health can get us killed. If we need extra Magicka or Stamina, we can just use potions. But in an environment when a single bad hit could end the run, we can't rely on potions to keep our Health high.
We use a Fortify Barter potion to lower store prices before purchasing the Detect Life spell tome from Tolfdir. Now all we have to do is head over to Whiterun, where there are a lot of living people to detect using Detect Life (training skills requires valid targets, and Detect Life fortunately doesn't have to be used in-combat). Detect Life gives skill experience for each detected target, so we can maximize our skill growth by resting at the inn and then standing on the nearby steps, where we can detect people from two heavily populated centers in the city.
Whenever we run out of magicka, we just use the Wait function to restore it. Finally, I get Alteration high enough to get the third rank of the Mage Armor perk.
Once we buy Ebonyflesh from Tolfdir, we'll have an armor spell that can give us 690 armor, which is Skyrim Redone amounts to 69% damage reduction. We can't tank, but we're less likely to instantly die.
We can now buy some higher-end spells from Tolfdir, but spell tomes are expensive in Skyrim Redone, so we need to gather some more gold. Back to grinding Alchemy! We have some really tough poisons and powerful potions now--our Ravage Health poisons deal 290 damage over 10 seconds, our Restore Health potions heal over 130 damage, and all the Canis Roots we collected around Morthal give us a bunch of long-lasting Paralysis poisons.
It takes more than one circuit around Skyrim to get enough gold, but we manage to afford a suite of new Alteration spells: Paralyze will disable a target for 3 seconds; Deep Storage gives us an infinitely large container to stash stuff in wherever we go; and Spell Twine lets us bind some minor effects to three spells of our choice.
Spell Twine has some interesting options. If we bind a "Flow" effect to a cheap Sparks spell, we can get a 20% reduction in all spell costs for a few seconds just by briefly casting Sparks. We can also get a few seconds of immunity to fall damage--although, unfortunately, we can't cast spells in midair, so if we start falling off a cliff, we only have a fraction of a second to cast that spell and protect ourselves from fall damage. The other options aren't quite as interesting.
With 69% damage reduction, Alchemy over 120, a perk that lets our poisons last for multiple hits, and a hoard of potions and poisons so large it almost breaks our carrying capacity, we are ready to take on real fights.
I think we're ready for Bleak Falls Barrow. First, though, we have to deal with some bandits outside. There's a trio of them by a nearby tower, so I test Frost's strength against them before we dealing with the multiple archers by the dungeon entrance. Sniping them still deals crap damage if we don't apply poisons, of course--that's Legendary mode for you.
We can't deal enough damage to bring down the bandits quickly, so we actually spend much of the fight running away so we can summon more wolves to distract the enemy. We pick them off one at a time.
Even then, it takes ages. Bandits are leveled, and we've gained a bunch of levels by grinding Alchemy and Alteration, which translates into extra health for bandits. One of them chases me all the way to Riverwood, and while I can hit him with Paralyze, the spell only lasts a few seconds.
Since that's not enough time for us to get very far away or fire more than a single arrow--and since landing a hit is harder at long distances--I engage the bandit leader with a dagger, using Paralyze to lock him down.
It's rough, but we manage to win the fight using only a few healing potions. I run out to Bleak Falls Barrow and fire arrows from afar, but the enemy here also has ranged weapons, and they hit pretty hard.
But the more distant archers have pretty lousy aim, and our wolf can distract the nearby one, which is close enough for us to hit reliably. When we engage the enemy fighter, we lock him down with Paralyze and very slowly deal damage with our dagger, training Alteration and Light Weaponry at the same time.
Things are a little rough, and they're going to get rougher. Our survival will depend on our potions. Problem is, I need to press the Tab button to access our potions, which requires me to move my pinky finger about an inch away from its normal place on the Shift key--or else move my whole hand so I can press Tab with my ring finger. That might not seem like much, but the pinky is a weak and clumsy finger, and moving to press Tab takes a fraction of a second and slightly messes with our movement.
Death can come within that window, and when you combine it with my reaction time and the fact that a "finishing move" could kill me when my health is still north of 20% maximum, high-pressure and confusing situations could be dangerous. I need to make sure I don't get surrounded or overwhelmed.
Mothryn, my Beserker/Thief Elf has arrived at the Nashkel mines where he charmed Galtek. Galtek then whittled down Greywolf's HP bringing him near to death whilst Greywolf followed Mothryn about whilst landing very few blows. However it was Mothryn who landed the killing blow! Very satisfying. Galtek helped against some kobolds as well before joining the fray against Zargos Flintblade. The two of them were quite evenly matched but Galtek was killed. However, before Zargos had time to turn to face Mothryn, Mothryn landed the killer blow! It couldn't have worked out better. Bassilus was charmed with Algernon's Cloak and he killed Zargal and Malkax. A ghoul held Bassilus and Mothryn had designs on delivering the killing blow but it was not to be. The Aerial Servant then wiped out the ghouls. Mothryn then went to collect the reward. All in all, a successful outcome. Now time for bed as Zebedee used to say.
EDIT
The current ankheg population has been annihilated and the gold gained by that will be used to give Mothryn better equipment: necklace of missiles, wand of sleep and the like. Perhaps a better bow as well. Images Below.
EDIT After buying equipment went to Durlag's Tower where he was doing really well. Upstairs there were only the basilisks and ghost left. He had no intention of taking on the ghost, but had a potion of mirrored eyes and a potion of oil of speed. He used them and took on the basilisks. All but one were dead and that one was on the point of death! Then the potion of mirrored eyes ran out... VERY FRUSTRATING
In the city it was all about quests that gave money, loot or tomes
The quests didnt give FD any trouble. The main quest on the other hand did cause some...
at the Iron Throne the foe was dragged down stairs as per usual standard. The last of the opposition managed to get some spells off and kill my nymphs. Even in my confusion I managed to kill them and the merchants (and not the bartender) for no rep loss. A lucky and fortunate win
CK was skipped by invisibility after I had the tomes in my bag pack
Next up was the tower and a goblet/helmet.
The traps nearly killed me many a time, and it depleated my stock of healing potions and spell (I dont like resting in the tower).
The four warders did as well
But much like Beyonce, FD shines in the middle while the back up chorus (the nymphs) took the beating. They sure saved my life.
One floor below I just picked up the goblet and helmet - and ran for it
Back in the city I rushed for the palace
At the palace I had a ten man backing group, and got off to a super start - just letting the AI do its thing. But out of the blue the flaming fist turned on me
But we cleaned the floor - and the fist. Both dukes survived, but my rep didnt..
After a visit to a temple, we went of to the temple of Bhall. With the Durlags goblet and 6 nymphs, FD 95 made a clean sweep - killing everybody, and even letting 3 nymphs survive the proces.
...All but one were dead and that one was on the point of death! Then the potion of mirrored eyes ran out... VERY FRUSTRATING...
Mirror eyes only lasts 10 rounds. It's not terribly long. Even with haste, I wouldn't try to take on more than 2 basilisks with that potion. To make sure it's fully refreshed, I will wait out of sight of the basilisk after having killed two, then when it wears out, refresh with another mirror eyes potion then take on two more basilisks. You might note there are 4 basilisks at Durlag's Tower roof, and 4 mirror eyes potions at Ulgoth's Beard merchant, and both are TotSC content.
Just for the sake of comparison, the PfP spell protects for 4 turns (40 rounds). It depends on your game speed, but normally one round is 6 seconds, which means if it's getting close to a minute might be a good idea to refresh, or withdraw, wait till it expires, refresh and re-engage.
Moving on to the Planar Prison the druids cleared that systematically - including the cells that I don't normally bother with playing solo. The normal combinations of summons, insect plagues and invisibility for positioning was generally all that was needed there. I did though misjudge the length of werewolves reach over invisible blockers in one cell and Bremen had to use a potion of invisibility to survive.
The Guarded Compound was done by dragging enemies downstairs into summons or insect plagues. The druids then took a reputation hit by seeking a ransom for a kidnapped lady. Some tasks for Aran Linvail were enough to see them up to level 14, but they didn't immediately take ship as Allanon was summoned to the Grove to challenge for the position of Great Druid - Insect Plague soon provided him with that title. While in the Grove the druids also did some tasks for the Spirit of the Grove. The usual elementals and insects sorting out Nilthiri and then Chaos. The latter battle provided a Golden Lion figurine - not that the druids were exactly short of summons already!
Back in Athkatla the druids tried to get into the Twisted Rune, but were unable to break down the door. Instead they travelled to the Windspear Hills where they were finally able to find a good home for some acorns. More importantly they also killed an ankheg there and went to make some more armor from its shell. Back at the dungeon they surrounded Chief Digdag to try and prevent him running away. The shaman was just quick enough to hold Walker Boh before insects struck, but no-one was able to attack him. However, Digdag just disappeared instantly in response to not being able to run awqay normally.
Inside, they worked their way through everything to find Firkraag. As with Thaxy they tried casting magic resistance at him at the start of the battle and again that seemed to be useless, with 3 out of 4 insect plagues being diverted by magic resistance. After initial attacks and drawing out a remove magic all the other druids retreated to cast protection from fire. Walker Boh stayed closer to Firkraag though as one of the 5 initial insect plagues seemed to have got confused and had not yet caught up with him. He also tried to cast protection from fire, but I realised after a second that he had targeted that at someone else and was moving towards them (one of the annoying things about v2.5 is that the casting icon does not disappear after a spell is cast, meaning it's less obvious whether a spell has started or a click hasn't taken - clicking on another character in the latter instance will target a spell at them). As he hadn't actually started casting the spell he tried again, but the delay in that was bad news. Everyone else had finished their spells, but Walker Boh had not quite done so when the dragon fire descended on his totally unprotected body.
Edit: I wondered whether the magic resistance spell was no longer able to be used offensively. To check that I loaded the autosave and confirmed by adding Firkraag to the party that the magic resistance spell was working on him. I then tried twice casting 5 lots of Insect Plague at him - on both occasions 4 out of 5 worked, so it looks like the initial attacks on him and Thaxy were just both very unlucky.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 163 session 1-2 3 Dohzer (human male Abjurer, Gate70); Frei (dwarf male fighter, Grond0)
After the usual what game are we in and who is hosting (this sounds bad but 160 odd games in and it becomes challenging to recall), we find our characters are in Ulgoth's Beard. Our reputation is not up to scratch though so we sell a few items and move on to the rock garden.
Basilisks are safely negotiated while Mutamin gets the chance to cast a few spells onto Frei but nothing fatal. Baerin is blinded but as Dohzer moves to seek out more of Kirian's gang, Frei moves into sight and Kirian gets the fight going. Dohzer gets another blind in and a stinking cloud but Frei has taken some rigid thinking and attacks Korax the ghoul.
Korax fights back and paralyzes Frei so Dohzer uses a sling. Frei sqeaks a suggestion about spells or wands. Dohzer is out of suitable spells so uses a wand of missiles and down goes Korax. Dohzer switches back to the blinded Kirian and makes almost no impression for a few rounds until Frei recovers and hurls axes with pent-up vengeance.
With that battle finally tied up, we move on and clear out the gnoll fortress. Caldo and Krumm are dealt with on the way while we find we have stared at a drowned cat without actually picking it up so may return later. Albert and Rufie have been helped, while Zal and Vax took blindness to defeat.
...All but one were dead and that one was on the point of death! Then the potion of mirrored eyes ran out... VERY FRUSTRATING...
Mirror eyes only lasts 10 rounds. It's not terribly long. Even with haste, I wouldn't try to take on more than 2 basilisks with that potion. To make sure it's fully refreshed, I will wait out of sight of the basilisk after having killed two, then when it wears out, refresh with another mirror eyes potion then take on two more basilisks. You might note there are 4 basilisks at Durlag's Tower roof, and 4 mirror eyes potions at Ulgoth's Beard merchant, and both are TotSC content.
Just for the sake of comparison, the PfP spell protects for 4 turns (40 rounds). It depends on your game speed, but normally one round is 6 seconds, which means if it's getting close to a minute might be a good idea to refresh, or withdraw, wait till it expires, refresh and re-engage.
I agree. I have beaten all of them using this tactic with a pure fighter, but clearly the timing is a bit risky. Killing 3 is easy, so I should have not been greedy for points, just kill the three and grab the scimitar would have been wiser.
With no small amount of trembles and trepidation, we venture into the Cloakwood. Kivan surrenders all his equipment (retiring to the FAI to, supposedly, spend the rest of his days in the merry company of Xzar and Montaron) and is replaced by Coran. I had prepared 2x Slow Poison since we have no antidotes, but they run out in the first Ettercap ambush, meaning we have to do some undignified shuffling along with Command when a few Phase Spiders teleport in upon our entry to the second Cloakwood area (their poison is very difficult to heal through with just a few CLW at hand).
We press on through the area still, carefully ensuring that we don't trigger a Web trap while enemies are in sight, given that Coran starts with 20 Find Traps and thus cannot disarm (we of course go south first to pick up the Scimitar +2, which sadly no one will use... Jaheira spent her L3 Fighter pip on Sling). We make it through, and head for the next a-
Well, that was hardly unexpected. You'll note a stark difference in tone compared to when we had the Amazon ambush; this group is just much less dangerous. While they have an arcane caster, he is so very low-level that he does not get to save against Command. This encounter got a whole lot easier when I realized that (if you don't disable Halacan immediately, he'll pop a Sleep scroll, which can certainly be very dangerous at this stage of the game). So we Command Halacan, and he dies quickly. The Cleric is easy to keep interrupted, which leaves two melee grunts... and as we know, melee grunts are (almost) never a concern. With Halacan and the Cleric dead, the grunts are treated to Blindness and Hold Person respectively. Victory!
We loot, and head for the Wyvern Cave, which we clear without much fuss. From here on out, we are no longer hunted, and so can finally relax a tad. We head back to Beregost to turn in the Wyvern Head (so Coran won't leave). Thereafter, we swing by Valley of the Tombs strictly to pick up the Wand of Monster Summoning (Hubblepot under Sanctuary nips in and grabs it). I'm planning ahead a little here: Normally, Animate Dead is a big part of how I deal with the more dangerous aspects of the Cloakwood Mines (defusing Natasha's Evocations and forming an undead bulwark against Davaeorn's endlessly spawning reinforcements). However, Hubblepot is some 10k experience away from Cleric level 5, and we'll replace Branwen with Yeslick, who will similarly be too low level to muster even a few Skeletons. So, the Wand will have to do as a replacement.
We also swing by High Hedge yet again to pick up some spells for Imoen, as she hit Mage level 3 a while back and can now start contributing to the party again. Not that a few Blindness coupled with dart throwing isn't contributing, but I'll take a single Web over that any day. She quaffs a couple Intelligence potions and gets to scribin'. Finally, we make sure everyone is well stocked on ammo, and ID everything we've picked up. Preparations completed, we again brave the dark forest.
Arriving at the Mines is uneventful, but being quite fatigued from traversing all of Cloakwood Forest without resting, we clear the two guards at the bridge and fall back to the previous area to set up our spellwork for the trials ahead. To my great shame, I go with what always works: Lots of Web/Entangle, followed by Fireball bombardment. With our current levels, the battle with the mercenaries is just too dangerous for "fair" tactics: Both their Mages are entirely immune to our magic (we have no L3 arcane slots and so cannot do anything about their MGoI), have devastating magics of their own including high-level Evocations and Enchantments, and the fighter with the Boots of Speed always leads by quaffing a Potion of Magic Protection, followed by a Potion of Frost Giant Strength... So, we end up just lobbing area-of-effect spells at them from out of sight. Screw honour, we want to live.
We push into the mines, clear the top level, and swing around the eastern pathways of the second level to recruit Yeslick. Branwen joins the Retired Adventurer's Lodge at the FAI, whilst the party ducks back to the previous area. Yeslick will be wielding Ashideena +2 and probably Buckley's Buckler to boost his saves even more (with Gauntlets of Dexterity and eventually Full Plate, his AC will be more than sufficient anyway). Around here, we went hunting around the Mine exterior for enemies before falling back, and garnered just about enough experience for Imoen and Hubblepot to both hit L4 Mage/Illusionist. Extra L2 slots, yes please.
Spells are carefully selected, as always. We intend to clear the big guard room on the second level, then proceed to clear the third level as well, nip down to Davaeorn's level and remove his personal guard, then head back out to prepare for the final showdown. The gaggle of guards and their pet Mage will be dealt with by Web (shameful display!) and Fireball. Natasha will have to contend with oodles of summons courtesy of the Wand of Monster Summoning, and the Ogre Mage is actually low-level enough that you can just charge him.
Once more unto the breach... before initiating our long-range bombardment, we as always attempt to save Cook by charming her, and as always a guard immediately spots and shoots her. Heartless bastard. We repay him in kind via a barrage of Web and Fireball. Killing Hareishan is what's important here; the rest of them are mere nuisances.
Onto the third level. The melee grunts and their ranged compatriots (the latter being exclusively hobgoblins) are swiftly dispatched. The Ogre Mage falls to a Command, his sole spell beforehand being a failed Charm Person. Even Natasha fails to make much of an impression: We send Hobgoblins and Gnolls after her, and she only has the arcane muscles to take down 8 of them before resorting to her dagger, at which point the party moves in and finishes the job.
Good stuff! We clear the rest of the level, nip downstairs to take out Davaeorn's personal guard, then once more head back to the previous area to rest up before the final confrontation. The plan is, more or less, the same as always. Khalid will pop our solitary scroll of Protection from Magic, then quaff a few good potions, and proceed to soak up D's spells while first killing off his attendant Battle Horrors, then focusing on the Mage himself.
The rest of the party will turn invisible and loiter around the entrance to the level. Hopefully, D will blow his most devastating spells before his reinforcements start turning up. Once they do, the party sans Khalid will move to engage the reinforcements, holding them off so Khalid can finish the job. Jaheira and Yeslick will physically block the entranceway, Imoen and Hubblepot each have a Wand of Fear, which tends to work rather well against the low-level humanoid guards, and Coran will be allowed to use the good arrows for once.
If D teleports into the north while we're fighting guards there, things may turn ugly, but we have a few anti-magic potions available if we need them, as well as two Invisibility potions if things turn really hairy. We'll be alright! Spell-wise, all L2 arcane slots go to Invisibility, and the rest is just a spread of things useful against melee/ranged grunts: Bless, Command, Hold Person, Chant, DUHM, Blindness, Spook. We'll rely on our, by now quite substantial, potion reserves for healing. Alright, let's do this.
We return to D's lair. An invisible and non-detectable (thanks to Gurke's cloak) Coran disarms the traps along the hallway. Everyone but Khalid turns invisible and sits by the entrance. Khalid activates Protection from Magic, Potion of Cloud Giant Strength, Potion of Heroism and Oil of Speed in that order. Time to gaze into the abyss...
Khalid races south, D's multitude of defenses immediately fire, and his two attendant Battle Horrors move to engage. But they are helpless against mighty Khalid; one Battle Horror lasts a scant three rounds before succumbing to his wounds. Meanwhile, D is teleporting around, slinging spells (we make certain Khalid is always in his line of sight right after he teleports, to dissuade him from dispelling our other party members' invisibility and targetting them). The second Battle Horror holds out much longer, but it is a purely defensive holdout: It lands a single hit on Khalid for 4(!) damage in the entire time it stays alive.
Finally, Khalid kills the second Battle Horror. D seems to be mostly out of spells (and has stopped teleporting around), but we've got problems. Khalid has to cut through D's defenses, but reinforcements have started pouring in. A quick prayer to any deities that might be listening, and the rest of the party moves to attack position!
The first enemy wave is held at bay by a combination of Hold Person, the determined duo Yeslick and Jaheira blocking their way, and Coran deftly landing arrow after arrow. However, the second wave appears at the very northernmost part of the entrance, leaving their two Blacktalon Elites free to open fire! Hubblepot and Imoen fire off a dual Horror from their Wands of Fear, but both Blacktalon Elites make their saves. Even a Hold Person from Yeslick has no effect. The Blacktalon Elites are hurting both Jaheira and Yeslick, and the horror-stricken melee guards are blocking us from reaching the archers. We must hold! We must buy Khalid the time he needs to-
Well aren't you the Half-Elf of the hour Khalid! That is quite a devastating critical! Usually you have to whittle D down for a good 10-15 rounds before he runs out of both Stoneskin and Mirror Image, but Khalid ain't got time for that. The guards flee in absolute panic, and the chapter cutscene plays. The horrific Archmage lies defeated! Hooray, hooray, hooray!
We swipe everything that isn't nailed down, including D's treasures guarded by the Mustard Jelly, then take the lift back up. The mine is flooded, and finally, finally, all is well. No assassins are chasing us, no timer is threatening to take one of our party members away if we don't finish a quest on time, and we have the party we'll be using for the rest of the game. Awesomesauce.
We return to the previous area. We'll clear the Cloakwood Forest of all evildoers on our way out, but that is for next time. For now, the party gathers around a great bonfire upon which a few pheasants caught by Coran are roasting, and we break out a bottle of Gnome's Choice Turnip Brandy Hubblepot had been saving for a special occasion. Savor the victory!
Hubblepot is now a L5/L4 Gnome Cleric/Illusionist.
Impressive work @aldain, to tackle the Cloakwood areas with such a low level party! I can't remember ever having such an inexperienced party beat those nasty Spiders, assassins, and Davaeorn!
Yeslick will be wielding Ashideena +2 and probably Buckley's Buckler to boost his saves even more (with Gauntlets of Dexterity and eventually Full Plate, his AC will be more than sufficient anyway).
Note that CON bonuses from items do not improve shorty saves, though they do only increase HPs. Only permanent CON stat increases will improve shorty saves (upon leveling up).
Impressive work @aldain, to tackle the Cloakwood areas with such a low level party! I can't remember ever having such an inexperienced party beat those nasty Spiders, assassins, and Davaeorn!
Yeslick will be wielding Ashideena +2 and probably Buckley's Buckler to boost his saves even more (with Gauntlets of Dexterity and eventually Full Plate, his AC will be more than sufficient anyway).
Note that CON bonuses from items do not improve shorty saves, though they do only increase HPs. Only permanent CON stat increases will improve shorty saves (upon leveling up).
Ah, they fixed that then? I seem to recall it worked with CON boosting items once upon a time, but that's fair. A regular shield for Yeslick it is then, the minor HP boost from Buckley's Buckler isn't worth it on its own (though Dwarven Cleric with Warhammer and Buckler looks pretty cool...).
@StummvonBordwehr, and congrats to you. Nicely solo'd, well done especially at the Ducal Palace with the Nymphs. Tricky for solo runs...
I've had some time to play being ill in the past few weeks (doing better now). A rather casual run. If I make some more progress, will post here.
In any case nice to see the thread alive as always
@Blackraven We are all extremely pleased to see you back. We hope to see you post something soon.
Yours and Grond0’s runs in BG1 have modelled my own runs, so you are missed (off course glad to see Grond0 still alive). I sincerly hope you will take on SoD as well in a new run. I am sure you will do great - and you C/T charnames will surely do great.
The thread is alive - but the characters seem to have the indecency of dying, so no changes in all.
I have learnt the difficulty of the ducal palace fight the hard way. So I summoned 5 nymphs, Ramizath (picking the RoP +2 from his corpse), the sorcerer barmaid, two rogue types from the bar and the priest of helm. Just to even the odds a bit... It is borderline cheating, but the fight is too tricky for me if I dont.
Btw the latest patch has given Llia a brain, and she now cast mirror image and such - so in all the fight is a bit easier.
Trio Update Yeldon - half-elf cleric/ranger, protagonist (Corey_Russell) Denko - human dark moon monk (Gate70) Keras - dwarven kensai (Grond0)
The party breezed through the Cloakwood, such as Yeldon holding a bunch of guards, making that encounter easy.
So the Trio found themselves on Davaeorn's level. For some reason Denko moved ahead and triggered all the battle horrors and Davaoern. But they didn't spot him, so Yeldon carefully pulled just the battle horrors. Thanks to the wand heavens, plus our hard hitting kensai, the battle horrors didn't last long. Keras was given a potion of magic blocking and duly destroyed Davaoern.
So as is the custom, when we got to the City of Baldur's Gate, we worked on the poison quest right away. We were able to get some boots of speed for Yeldon from Lothander. Marek was destroyed but did manage to confuse Denko. Yeldon stood close to him so our rep doesn't go down. Yeldon will become fallen if the reputation gets too low.
There wasn't a lot to say about the rest of the quests, they all went pretty much to plan. We carefully pulled the guardians in the NE corner of the city (forget the mage's name) and that went well. We also battled the Mountain Maulers to get the +2 axe for Keras - with skeleton distractions and silences, this went great.
There were no deaths this session. We find ourselves at the Iron Throne and will venture into the HQ next session.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 163 session 1-23 4 Dohzer (human male Abjurer, Gate70); Frei (dwarf male fighter, Grond0)
Our adventure starts in silence, and after a couple of minutes voice connectivity is restored. Frei has decided a potion of clarity needs to be used so we hunt sirines and flesh golems at the seaside. Ardrouine pretends not to notice her son is safe so we move on to the dig site, deal with the Doomsayer (LMD fails to do anything so Frei takes a chance against a blinded opponent as Dohzer consumes a wand of missiles plus a couple of wand of fire scorchers). Then we hitch a ride back to town with Brage.
A reputation boost takes us to 19 or 20, meaning Dohzer feels comfortable purchasing a few potions (genius and mind focusing), scrolls, items (Ulgoths Beard staff +3, greenstone amulet and cloak of displacement). The amulet will no doubt remain worn but unused during our travels.
It is time to head south and investigate Nashkel Mine. Frei is happy to go underground and has little need of Dohzer's assistance but spells such as sleep and oh skulltrap soon land around the stocky fighter. Mulahey calls for his guards after a skulltrap and Dohzer sees this as a sign to throw more skulls around.
With the half-orc cleric dead we make our escape through a one-way passage and blind three amazons before a skulltrap -> malison -> skulltrap -> skulltrap casting leaves Lamahla badly wounded and unable to fend off our brief attack.
Nimbul and Tranzig are cut down before we move on to the bandit camp. Frei clears a path as Dohzer uses a few spells to skulltrap enemies. Mr Khosann shrugs off several attempts at blinding him but is unable to keep axes out of his armour (and Frei finds it fits perfectly with just a 90 degree rotation from tall to wide).
Invisibility allows us into the main bandit tent and blindness affects everyone except Raemon. Frei takes exceptional advantage of this. He even manages to spring a lightning trap without it hitting anything - the luck is strong with this one.
After looting the tent we find guidance about a secret mine in Cloakwood so head straight there. Frei is turned invisible and stomps around several traps before stomping on spiders and ettercaps. Inside Centeol's lair Frei puts up a good show while Dohzer sadly is targeted. Human abjurers know the routine though and drag enemies around inside without stepping out to be chased to death. The enemies all fall for this and congregate around Frei who shouts that it seems a good time to throw in a skulltr... bang!
A second skulltrap lands, killing all the enemies and leaving Frei mildly wounded. Dohzer congratulates his buddy and suggests a few hours of travel will work with high constitution (20) to heal those scratches. We make our way to Cloakwood mine without further ado, Frei relieving the guards at the bridge.
Drasus must know something is up when Kysus and Genthore start rubbing their eyes. If not, the skulltrap was a wake-up call and malison should really have had him on his feet but no. Rezdan is a brighter button though and teleports to Genthore with mirror images active. We shoot him down and Frei moves in to hack Drasus down before Dohzer can get him blinded. The dwarf is quick, more so when he swaps boots to use the ones recently emptied of Drasus.
Dohzer reaches the mine entrance by following bodies. It's a similar story inside with the axe-hacked corpses showing where Frei has stepped. Davaeorn has a pair of un-natural assistants but blind and axe deals with them and Davaeorn is mostly un-guarded. This proves to be very bad for his health and it is all we can do to try and get him to drink some water but in the end we leave the mine and confirm to the slaves that they are now free. We head to the edge of the map and call it a day - for us this should be fairly clear that we are on our way out rather than on our way in, and that Baldur's Gate (a fine city) is next.
Frost the Breton Mage: No-Reload Legendary Mode Run of Skyrim Redone
Part 3
Bleak Falls Barrow is going to be dangerous. This is the first time we're going to have to deal with lots of enemies in close quarters. If I get in trouble, running away will be a little harder. Careful positioning is key in Legendary mode. I dispatch the scattered bandits by burning some poisons and letting our wolf familiar distract them. To deal with a batch of skeevers (the giant rats of Skyrim, which look like frazzled ferrets), I summon a Flame Atronach and then pull a lever to trap the enemy behind a gate.
Against the giant spider, I avoid its powerful attacks and poison by hiding behind a doorway and letting our Flame Atronach do most of the work.
Using the environment to our advantage is very important when we can die so incredibly quickly. The first big enemy coming up is a Restless Draugr, who has frost spells and much more health than a normal draugr. However, he comes right after a rather high-damage trap, and we can make sure he gets hit by it by nailing him with Paralyze at just the right time (undead, surprisingly, are vulnerable to paralysis effects). He falls right on top of the pressure plate and a wall of spikes swings out and flings him across the room.
Since we're pretty high level for the first real dungeon of the game, we come across more Restless Draugr than we normally would, and we even run into some Draugr Wights, who are even harder to kill. I lock them down with Paralyze and attack them while they're down with a high-damage Orcish Broadsword I found. Our wolf familiar chips in (and probably does most of the damage, since Legendary mode doesn't cripple summons like it does the player).
We hit level 28 and run into a Frost Troll, who normally doesn't appear in this dungeon. I lock it down with Paralyze and start chopping away at it. You don't need to use fire to finish off trolls in the Elder Scrolls games (though they do suffer extra damage from it), but they do have high regeneration.
In fact, they regenerate so fast that Frost (our Charname; I suppose her name can be confusing in a game where the word "frost" is common) can't deal enough damage to kill them on her own. Legendary mode cuts all of our damage output by 75%, and winning wars of attrition against trolls is generally not feasible.
Even when I deploy poisons, I can't overcome the troll's regeneration--or at least, it's taking a really long time. Then I realize something.
I can use this troll to grind our Light Weaponry skill.
Thanks to our high Alteration skill, we can actually lock the troll down indefinitely with Paralyze, as the magicka cost of Paralyze is low enough that we can regenerate our magicka. Since we're on a sloping area, we can buy more time to regenerate magicka by retreating up the slope before paralyzing the troll, who will then roll down in the incline and give us even more time to regenerate magicka. This ensures that we never run low on Paralyze spells.
I pin the troll down and hack away at the poor monster over and over, slowly increasing our skill with one-handed weapons. I almost die when the troll nails me for 240 damage, but by saving our level ups, we're able to heal ourselves to 100% instantly by leveling up when we're in danger. I spend much of the time slashing a gorilla's butt, but our Light Weaponry skill is already over 40. We're making good progress.
Finally I let the poor creature die and proceed to the next area. The second-to-last boss of this dungeon is a Draugr Scourge, another upgrade from the Draugr Wight, but we have cheap Paralyze spells and some decent damage output. I discover that if you paralyze a target who's already been staggered by a physical attack, the spell will fling the target in a random direction and make them spin around in midair. Here's the nearly-dead Draugr Scourge wildly spinning around as it flies to the ceiling.
We use a Slow Time potion to safely bypass some swinging blade traps and fight our way to the final boss, a Draugr Scourge Lord. This dude has much more health than even the Draugr Scourge, and he has a wicked Shout that can disarm you (and it's very easy to lose track of your weapon once it falls), but he comes alone, so we can lock him down with Paralyze.
It takes a really long time to bring him down, but by the time he falls, our Light Weaponry skill is almost 60. We find a really nice item, the Leather Bracers of the Fatespinner, which gives a light discount on Illusion spells and gives us a chance of ignoring all weapon damage from enemy strikes. While we can't wear any armor without crippling our armor spells (even a pair of leather bracers will disable our Mage Armor perks), we can enchant a pair of gloves for a similar effect. Better still, the enchantment is bugged: only the weaker part of the enchantment scales with the Enchant skill; the chance to avoid melee damage is fixed, which means we can get a powerful new pair of gloves even though our Enchant skill is at a measly 21.
In fact, the chance to avoid melee damage is even higher than it was on the bracers.
With the Dragonstone from Bleak Falls Barrow in hand, we can proceed to Whiterun to truly begin the main questline. The Jarl sends us out to go fight a dragon, and while the city guard is helping us and can actually handle the dragon on their own, I take the opportunity to train our Marksmanship skill.
The dragon has lots of other targets to deal with, so we're in little danger of getting roasted as long as we keep our distance. Note that dragons are unfortunately completely immune to paralysis, so we can't lock them down (and Skyrim Redone nerfs the Impact perk, which would have let us stun-lock dragons with dual-cast Destruction spells).
Once the dragon is dead, the Jarl declares us Thane and assigns us a housecarl. If you translate all the silly Nord words, this means we're a local hero and we're entitled to a bodyguard, Lydia.
Lydia is an invaluable asset in any fight, as she will gleefully run ahead to get punched in the face so we don't have to.
Once our Alteration is at 90, I head off to Tolfdir to start the Alteration master quest, which will give us the last and strongest armor spell in the game, Dragonflesh. It'll involve delving into a tough dungeon and killing a dragon, but it'll bump our physical damage reduction from 69% to 88%, so instead of taking 31 damage from a 100-damage hit, we only take 12--more than doubling our current durability.
The dungeon is pretty close to Kynesgrove, where Jazbay Grapes are growing all over the ground. It's a valuable source of ingredients for Ravage Health poisons, the highest-damage poison type in the game.
We run into a bunch of Cave Bears and Frostbite spiders out in the wilderness, who prove very tough. We burn some poisons and Slow Time potions to bring them down, but it takes work to get through all that HP, even with Lydia helping us out.
The next dungeon is Forelhorst, where we should find the dagger we need to completely Tolfdir's new quest and get that powerful new Dragonflesh spell. A guy outside talks to us about the dungeon and says he needs help, but at the end of the dialogue, I discover that he's not going to come in to help us deal with the dungeon--he's gonna let us do all the work.
Worse yet, he's asking us to retrieve a mask, and there's only one kind of mask in all of Skyrim.
A Dragon Priest Mask, worn by a set of powerful undead mages scattered across the world. This dungeon isn't just going to be a bunch of basic draugr; we're going to have to deal with the Skyrim equivalent of a lich, and they can spam lots of high-powered Destruction spells against which we have little defense.
Thanks to Skyrim Redone, we only have 15% magic resistance as a Breton. We are very, very vulnerable to spell damage.
I never use it, but if I recall correctly there are ways to make yourself immune against pretty much all of its negative effects before giving it a try. Someone might be able to dig up the post where all of these are summarized (not sure which thread this was in, but I distinctly remember it - it included multiple uses of different Spell Immunities).
The Hard Hitters - Update 6 The group of 2 kensais and 2 berserkers and a kensai dualed to thief
Just a quick update. We breezed through most of Chapter 5 this morning. Not much of note happened so far. Our party hits so hard and has so many attacks, mages just get torn up. Melees don't do much better and for the same reason. The only special battle was against the 5 ogre mages in a house in South Baldur's Gate area, I had just the berserkers show themselves and load up on a potion of magic blocking each, then they tore through those ogre mages - they even managed to do it before the potion expired. Would have been a very dangerous fight otherwise, what with their horror and confusion spells and considerable direct damage.
We will deal with Degrodel and his minions, then it will be time to deal with the Iron Throne HQ. Then it will be off to Candlekeep. Feel good about the party. Would have liked to get my thief to level 8 to unlock his kensai skills, but think I need too much experience. Ah well, it's not like this party is hurting for DPS...
As Enuhal has mentioned, if you intend to try the Deck of many things, you need to protect yourself from all the bad effects best you can. I can say a number of runs have ended to that deck - the bhaalspawn in those runs just couldn't resist trying their luck, and as Thalantyr would say, their luck ran out...
Personally, I don't bother even getting that far in Watcher's Keep. The first level is doable in SCS if you have some reasonably high levels and the right kind of preparation, and the second level is a little easier overall, but the third level is very dangerous, especially for magic-heavy parties like those I run. There are lots of very sturdy demons with nonmagical disablers, and the anti-magic areas take away all your defenses. For characters without undispellable immunities or rock-solid saves, it's a very unsafe environment, and the rewards aren't worth the risk--the items you get from the areas below the second level don't decrease the risk of main quest fights enough to counter the increased risk of death in Watcher's Keep itself.
Even in ToB, I generally don't bother with level 3 and below, since the main game already has plenty of resources to pave the way to Melissan.
@semiticgod I've never completed Watcher's Keep (only the 1st level). Is there any item in level 3 or below that a particular class might want to get in no-reload context?
@Corey_Russell: Depending on your install options, SCS might move the Robe of Vecna to Azamantes, so a character or party who desperately needs the robe (like a solo mage) for Improved Alacrity might deem it worth the risk.
Otherwise, the benefits are just bigger numbers. The Axe of the Unyielding, the Ravager, the Staff of the Ram, the Purifier, and the bonuses from the Machine of Lum the Mad can make party members slightly stronger, but otherwise don't open up any truly new possibilities. The Ravager is an exception: upgraded, its 10% vorpal strike chance (which, unlike the Silver Sword or Axe of the Unyielding, offers no save) could be a major game-changer for a solo run or a Legacy of Bhaal mode run.
@semiticgod sounds like you saying that in context of no-reload, level 3 or deeper in Watcher's Keep just isn't worth the risk. As you say, you can beat Melissan without the items you find below. And a great number of no-reloaders have indeed died in Watcher's Keep! It must be quite a sight, with all those no-reloader corpses lying around down there, probaly as many there as Duchal Palace...
It's the same reason I don't fuss with the Planar Prison, at least not until the party is very high level. Both areas have some nice items, but none of them are game-changers on the scale of the Flail of Ages or Cloak of the Stars, and many of the effects of the good items can be found elsewhere (Belm can replace Kundane; the Silver Sword can replace the Ravager). I prefer to focus on only the quests I need to gain a few levels in early Chapter 2, then pick out the items I want for Spellhold and finally the endgame. Anything that increases the party's numbers but offers no new options can generally be avoided unless the fights are truly safe.
It's the same reason I don't fuss with the Planar Prison, at least not until the party is very high level. Both areas have some nice items, but none of them are game-changers on the scale of the Flail of Ages or Cloak of the Stars, and many of the effects of the good items can be found elsewhere (Belm can replace Kundane; the Silver Sword can replace the Ravager). I prefer to focus on only the quests I need to gain a few levels in early Chapter 2, then pick out the items I want for Spellhold and finally the endgame. Anything that increases the party's numbers but offers no new options can generally be avoided unless the fights are truly safe.
The problem is that some of us are ultra-completionists. It probably means that we will probably never beat ToB. However, we ARE having loads of fun.
EDIT
Tried a hammer of Boradin for the first time and was finding it so powerful that I tried fighting Karlat at level one. Big mistake! The end.
Tried another one being a bit wiser:
Images below tell the story.
He has now picked up the ankheg armour. Now he MIGHT be able to take on Karlat. Due to his magical resistance he was able to take on Tarnesh and win quite easily. The only spell that Tarnesh used that was at all dangerous was magic missile. That was his last spell before dying.
Item Randomiser changes the calculation of what's worthwhile a little, but ultimately if you were able to beat level 3 you were probably already strong enough to reach the end of the game . I'm usually too terrified of misclicking on the choose-your-own adventure spirit warrior challenge to bother!
Radin's "Hammer of Moradin innate spell disappeared when he levelled up to 4 after killing a lot of ankheg. At level 4 he should have had 2 spells/day but levelling up has reduced number of castings/day to zilch. In EE Keeper everything LOOKS fine, but it isn't.
Due to the above bug, Radin's Epic Adventure has been put on hold until the bug is sorted out. I therefore chose another kit combination that I have never used before. It is a Svirfneblin called Winker who is a Thief/Cleric details below. Since svirfneblin have the innate ability to go invisible, he used it to avoid paying the 1gp fine. He forgot to sleep before fighting Shank so h went outside and enlisted the aid of the watchers. He started the fight against Mendas buffed by Canderous (Bless and Protection from Evil, but those spells wore off before Mendas bit the dust. As can be seen, Mendas was fairly well equipped, but command more than compensated. He was able to help Mellicamp but not Aiwell. He fled from the werewolf safely using an invisibility spell. After killing many ankheg he took on Karlat. It was as well that Finch was on hand to help as he would otherwise have had to flee, rest, and return after Karlat's potion had worn off.
Comments
BG1EE Updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
When last we saw our intrepid party, they were carefully planning an assault on the Nashkel Mines.
A minutely prepared spell selection is required in order to minimize time spent resting. Then again, some spells are simply much more general purpose than others, and we end up going with what always works: Command, CLW (to save on potions), Remove Fear (for the Kobold Shaman and Nimbul), Hold Person, Chant, Silence 15' Radius, Sleep and Blindness. Good stuff.
Apparently, if you pick the second option with Greywolf in 2.5, he'll give his threatening speech, but not actually attack.. we had to manually attack him. Fine by me, Greywolf gets a Command and a big ol' blast of Scorcher.
We fight our way down the mines, with little to report. Khalid simply cannot die to mere Kobolds at this stage, and they in turn can only hit him on a 20. Of course there are occasional criticals, but that's why we got several CLW's. The Kobold Chieftain deals a little damage, but falls quickly. Remove Fear means the Kobold Shaman has no cards to play. We soon reach Mulahey, who is simply shot down, his summoned reinforcements being treated to our Wand of Fire.
We make it back to Nashkel without any ambush, and head straight for Nimbul. I buff with Chant and Luck of battle, certain Nimbul will try to dispel (so that we can in turn apply Remove Fear, negating the Horror he almost certainly has prepared), but Nimbul fails his save against a Silence 15' Radius, and is shortly after Doomed and Blinded. Goodbye Nimbul, we hardly knew ye (and that's probably just as well).
We actually still have a Remove Fear available... which means we hightail it to Beregost and hit Tranzig. Again, I apply Chant, certain Tranzig will dispel it, so we can apply Remove Fear and nullify his Horror... but Tranzig instead leads with a Sleep, which Khalid resists, and then a Vampiric Touch for a mighty 9 damage. Vampiric Touch just isn't a very good pick, Tranzig. He soon panics and falls.
Things are proceeding nicely! A quick rest later, the party heads north to the crossroads, kills some bandits, then heads east into Larswood, where we make quick work of the local bandits: Hold Person does for the leader, and the rest just can't seem to hit us. Osmadi and Corsone are handled via Wand of Fire Scorcher (I love the Wand of Fire... makes our lives so much easier). We proceed north, into Peldvale.
Immediately upon arrival, we stumble on a Giant Spider, providing just enough experience for Imoen to hit Thief level 5. She has thus reached 100% Detect Illusions, and I dual-class her. For spells, Imoen picks Identify and Friends (we'll be doing a bit of shopping at High Hedge soon, and 16 CHA + 6 from Friends = 22, where maximum CHA discount hits at 20).
Immediately afterwards, Hubblepot hits Illusionist level 3. Very good! Since we are doing so well on time (we've got something like 5 days before Kivan leaves), Hubblepot will pop the Red Potion at the Bandit Camp and scribe some scrolls, including the delectable Web. We'll then rest for 24 hours so he gets rid of the STR and (more importantly) WIS penalty, and memorize some Identify meanwhile to catch up on our backlog of unidentified items.
Anyway, as for encounters in this area, a single Command spells the end of Raiken, with his hopeless bandit buddies falling immediately after. We of course save and subsequently rebuff Viconia, and the Plate Mail goes to Kivan. We press north, to the Bandit Ca-
Holy crud! I had hoped to avoid the two ambushes until we had at least grabbed Coran, but it seems I am denied. All hands on deck! This is NOT a drill!
Alright, let's see. As the portraits indicate, we did not rest at the previous area, and so are a bit light on spells... but we should still be fine. Hubblepot and Branwen still sport a couple Command and Hold Person between them. We go on the offensive: Khalid, Kivan, Branwen and Jaheira start pelting the closest Cleric (whose name escapes me.. the one wearing Splint Mail). Meanwhile, Hubblepot and Imoen drop a Wand of Fire/The One Gift Lost double Fireball aimed at the Plate Mail Cleric and the farthest thief. Plate Mail Cleric is interrupted, as is Splint Mail Cleric. Both thieves stealth, but for some reason the combat log does not display who they are targetting.
I become slightly paranoid, as Hubblepot only has 30 HP. Hubblepot initiates a daring series of evasive manoeuvers and even tosses a Scorcher at Splint Mail Cleric, hoping to catch the two thieves in the stream. However, this turns out to be unnecessary: The thieves, probably dismayed by Hubblepot having a respectable AC thanks to wearing Splint Mail, instead go after Imoen. Only one backstab lands, and then only for 16 HP (the other one is just a regular attack for 4 HP). Pfeh. Once revealed, Hold Person spells the thieves' doom.
I am so used to playing pure arcane casters that I always dread this particular ambush, given that the two thieves can easily backstab such a protagonist to death. No such danger this time around!
We greedily help ourselves to the would-be assassins belongings, and arrive uneventfully at the Bandit Camp. As alluded to earlier, we spend roughly one day in the aftermath of the Red Potion identifying items.
With Hubblepot back to full STR and WIS, we prepare our spells for the onslaught...
Key picks are what you'd expect: Web is by far the most important, but Entangle, Command and Hold Person are all valuable as well. With 2x Web from Hubblepot, the battle is almost over as soon as it begins. A Kivan under Oil of Speed attacks the closest bandit and triggers the camp-wide alarm, and some 40-odd enemies happily run straight into our kill zone. They are so concentrated all but 2 of them are within the radius of the same Fireball. The only damage done to us: A Blacktalon Elite somehow makes several saves in a row, and manages to hit Imoen twice (she survives comfortably), and Taugosz gets a swing off at Khalid before succumbing to Hold Person.
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! We clear the camp of hostiles (a spawn of Hobgoblin Elites never join in the mass assault for some reason, and the enemies inside buildings/the cave likewise stay put), but leave the containers for now, as we'll return later with Coran to loot properly.
We successfully travel to the FAI, where we spend a sleep cycle identifying and healing. Afterwards, Imoen with Friends does some shopping: All the Intelligence-boosting potions from the FAI Temple, as well as a visit to Thalantyr, where we indulge in anti-magic potions and the scroll, a few Potions of Explosion, as well as scrolls of Invisibility and Mirror Image (which Hubblepot can and does scribe without risk of failure).
The party returns to the FAI without incident, where they are taking a much-needed break in preparation of their exploration of the Cloakwood Forest, where certainly new enemies and allies alike lie in wait...
Hubblepot is now a L4/L3 Gnome Cleric/Illusionist.
Frost the Breton Mage: No-Reload Legendary Mode Run of Skyrim Redone
Part 2
To survive stray hits in Legendary mode in Skyrim, we need a high armor rating, and the only way to get a high armor rating without shelling out gobs of gold for training or getting hit a bunch of times and risking instant death is to grind Alteration.We can grind Alteration using the Detect Life spell, but we can't buy that until our Alteration skill reaches 40. The only way to get it that high without paying for expensive training is to cast armor spells in-combat.
Luckily, there are some fights that are very safe, which will let us cast those spells without encounter massive danger. All we have to do is piss off some mudcrubs near the city of Morthal and use arrows and a summoned wolf to bring them down before they can reach us.
I stop for a moment to grind Alchemy a little more and get it all the way to 100, which is not actually the cap in my install--skills can actually scale beyond 150 in my install. I activate the Mage Stone to increase our skill growth for Alteration (the previous bonus, the Thief Stone, helped us grind Alchemy earlier) and go back to Morthal to hassle more mudcrabs. I even rest at an inn beforehand to get the Well Rested bonus for 15% faster skill gains. Our Alteration starts climbing fast.
Morthal is a swampy backwater, but it's also home to some very precious ingredients that can get us some very powerful potions and poisons. Swamp Fungal Pods have Restore Health and Resist Shock effects as well as the highly valuable paralysis effect; Giant Lichen can generate powerful poisons with Ravage Health; Deathbells can be mixed with Salt Piles for high-value Slow poisons; and most importantly, Canis Roots can be used for Paralysis poisons and Fortify Marksman and Fortify One-Handed potions, though the Canis Roots and Giant Lichen are both hard to spot against the gray background.
The Canis Roots are especially important for Paralysis poisons because, unlike the Swamp Fungal Pods, they don't have a Restore Health effect--which means that, if we mix Swamp Fungal Pods with Imp Stool fungi, our resulting Paralysis poison will also heal the target.
Healing effects aren't affected by difficulty, which means we could craft a Paralysis poison that healed the enemy for more damage than we could deal during the Paralysis effect!
Morthal offers us a chance to both collect highly valuable ingredients as well as train Alteration. We keep hassling the mudcrabs until we can cast Oakflesh enough times to get Alteration all the way up to 40.
I invest all level ups in Health. Having more Magicka and Stamina would be nice, but we can use potions to restore all three of those stats--the only difference is that only low Health can get us killed. If we need extra Magicka or Stamina, we can just use potions. But in an environment when a single bad hit could end the run, we can't rely on potions to keep our Health high.
We use a Fortify Barter potion to lower store prices before purchasing the Detect Life spell tome from Tolfdir. Now all we have to do is head over to Whiterun, where there are a lot of living people to detect using Detect Life (training skills requires valid targets, and Detect Life fortunately doesn't have to be used in-combat). Detect Life gives skill experience for each detected target, so we can maximize our skill growth by resting at the inn and then standing on the nearby steps, where we can detect people from two heavily populated centers in the city.
Whenever we run out of magicka, we just use the Wait function to restore it. Finally, I get Alteration high enough to get the third rank of the Mage Armor perk.
Once we buy Ebonyflesh from Tolfdir, we'll have an armor spell that can give us 690 armor, which is Skyrim Redone amounts to 69% damage reduction. We can't tank, but we're less likely to instantly die.
We can now buy some higher-end spells from Tolfdir, but spell tomes are expensive in Skyrim Redone, so we need to gather some more gold. Back to grinding Alchemy! We have some really tough poisons and powerful potions now--our Ravage Health poisons deal 290 damage over 10 seconds, our Restore Health potions heal over 130 damage, and all the Canis Roots we collected around Morthal give us a bunch of long-lasting Paralysis poisons.
It takes more than one circuit around Skyrim to get enough gold, but we manage to afford a suite of new Alteration spells: Paralyze will disable a target for 3 seconds; Deep Storage gives us an infinitely large container to stash stuff in wherever we go; and Spell Twine lets us bind some minor effects to three spells of our choice.
Spell Twine has some interesting options. If we bind a "Flow" effect to a cheap Sparks spell, we can get a 20% reduction in all spell costs for a few seconds just by briefly casting Sparks. We can also get a few seconds of immunity to fall damage--although, unfortunately, we can't cast spells in midair, so if we start falling off a cliff, we only have a fraction of a second to cast that spell and protect ourselves from fall damage. The other options aren't quite as interesting.
With 69% damage reduction, Alchemy over 120, a perk that lets our poisons last for multiple hits, and a hoard of potions and poisons so large it almost breaks our carrying capacity, we are ready to take on real fights.
I think we're ready for Bleak Falls Barrow. First, though, we have to deal with some bandits outside. There's a trio of them by a nearby tower, so I test Frost's strength against them before we dealing with the multiple archers by the dungeon entrance. Sniping them still deals crap damage if we don't apply poisons, of course--that's Legendary mode for you.
We can't deal enough damage to bring down the bandits quickly, so we actually spend much of the fight running away so we can summon more wolves to distract the enemy. We pick them off one at a time.
Even then, it takes ages. Bandits are leveled, and we've gained a bunch of levels by grinding Alchemy and Alteration, which translates into extra health for bandits. One of them chases me all the way to Riverwood, and while I can hit him with Paralyze, the spell only lasts a few seconds.
Since that's not enough time for us to get very far away or fire more than a single arrow--and since landing a hit is harder at long distances--I engage the bandit leader with a dagger, using Paralyze to lock him down.
It's rough, but we manage to win the fight using only a few healing potions. I run out to Bleak Falls Barrow and fire arrows from afar, but the enemy here also has ranged weapons, and they hit pretty hard.
But the more distant archers have pretty lousy aim, and our wolf can distract the nearby one, which is close enough for us to hit reliably. When we engage the enemy fighter, we lock him down with Paralyze and very slowly deal damage with our dagger, training Alteration and Light Weaponry at the same time.
Things are a little rough, and they're going to get rougher. Our survival will depend on our potions. Problem is, I need to press the Tab button to access our potions, which requires me to move my pinky finger about an inch away from its normal place on the Shift key--or else move my whole hand so I can press Tab with my ring finger. That might not seem like much, but the pinky is a weak and clumsy finger, and moving to press Tab takes a fraction of a second and slightly messes with our movement.
Death can come within that window, and when you combine it with my reaction time and the fact that a "finishing move" could kill me when my health is still north of 20% maximum, high-pressure and confusing situations could be dangerous. I need to make sure I don't get surrounded or overwhelmed.
Galtek then whittled down Greywolf's HP bringing him near to death whilst Greywolf followed Mothryn about whilst landing very few blows.
Galtek helped against some kobolds as well before joining the fray against Zargos Flintblade. The two of them were quite evenly matched but Galtek was killed. However, before Zargos had time to turn to face Mothryn, Mothryn landed the killer blow! It couldn't have worked out better.
Bassilus was charmed with Algernon's Cloak and he killed Zargal and Malkax. A ghoul held Bassilus and Mothryn had designs on delivering the killing blow but it was not to be. The Aerial Servant then wiped out the ghouls. Mothryn then went to collect the reward. All in all, a successful outcome. Now time for bed as Zebedee used to say.
EDIT
The current ankheg population has been annihilated and the gold gained by that will be used to give Mothryn better equipment: necklace of missiles, wand of sleep and the like. Perhaps a better bow as well.Images Below.
EDIT
After buying equipment went to Durlag's Tower where he was doing really well. Upstairs there were only the basilisks and ghost left. He had no intention of taking on the ghost, but had a potion of mirrored eyes and a potion of oil of speed. He used them and took on the basilisks. All but one were dead and that one was on the point of death! Then the potion of mirrored eyes ran out... VERY FRUSTRATING
FD 95 - Destinys Child of Bhall
Previouslyhttps://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007770/#Comment_1007770
In the city it was all about quests that gave money, loot or tomes
The quests didnt give FD any trouble. The main quest on the other hand did cause some...
at the Iron Throne the foe was dragged down stairs as per usual standard. The last of the opposition managed to get some spells off and kill my nymphs. Even in my confusion I managed to kill them and the merchants (and not the bartender) for no rep loss. A lucky and fortunate win
CK was skipped by invisibility after I had the tomes in my bag pack
Next up was the tower and a goblet/helmet.
The traps nearly killed me many a time, and it depleated my stock of healing potions and spell (I dont like resting in the tower).
The four warders did as well
But much like Beyonce, FD shines in the middle while the back up chorus (the nymphs) took the beating. They sure saved my life.
One floor below I just picked up the goblet and helmet - and ran for it
Back in the city I rushed for the palace
At the palace I had a ten man backing group, and got off to a super start - just letting the AI do its thing. But out of the blue the flaming fist turned on me
But we cleaned the floor - and the fist. Both dukes survived, but my rep didnt..
After a visit to a temple, we went of to the temple of Bhall. With the Durlags goblet and 6 nymphs, FD 95 made a clean sweep - killing everybody, and even letting 3 nymphs survive the proces.
We shall see if FD can cut it in SoD..
...All but one were dead and that one was on the point of death! Then the potion of mirrored eyes ran out... VERY FRUSTRATING...
Mirror eyes only lasts 10 rounds. It's not terribly long. Even with haste, I wouldn't try to take on more than 2 basilisks with that potion. To make sure it's fully refreshed, I will wait out of sight of the basilisk after having killed two, then when it wears out, refresh with another mirror eyes potion then take on two more basilisks. You might note there are 4 basilisks at Durlag's Tower roof, and 4 mirror eyes potions at Ulgoth's Beard merchant, and both are TotSC content.
Just for the sake of comparison, the PfP spell protects for 4 turns (40 rounds). It depends on your game speed, but normally one round is 6 seconds, which means if it's getting close to a minute might be a good idea to refresh, or withdraw, wait till it expires, refresh and re-engage.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1006819/#Comment_1006819
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1006960/#Comment_1006960
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007148/#Comment_1007148
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007456/#Comment_1007456
Moving on to the Planar Prison the druids cleared that systematically - including the cells that I don't normally bother with playing solo. The normal combinations of summons, insect plagues and invisibility for positioning was generally all that was needed there. I did though misjudge the length of werewolves reach over invisible blockers in one cell and Bremen had to use a potion of invisibility to survive.
The Guarded Compound was done by dragging enemies downstairs into summons or insect plagues. The druids then took a reputation hit by seeking a ransom for a kidnapped lady. Some tasks for Aran Linvail were enough to see them up to level 14, but they didn't immediately take ship as Allanon was summoned to the Grove to challenge for the position of Great Druid - Insect Plague soon provided him with that title. While in the Grove the druids also did some tasks for the Spirit of the Grove. The usual elementals and insects sorting out Nilthiri and then Chaos. The latter battle provided a Golden Lion figurine - not that the druids were exactly short of summons already!
Back in Athkatla the druids tried to get into the Twisted Rune, but were unable to break down the door. Instead they travelled to the Windspear Hills where they were finally able to find a good home for some acorns. More importantly they also killed an ankheg there and went to make some more armor from its shell. Back at the dungeon they surrounded Chief Digdag to try and prevent him running away. The shaman was just quick enough to hold Walker Boh before insects struck, but no-one was able to attack him. However, Digdag just disappeared instantly in response to not being able to run awqay normally.
Inside, they worked their way through everything to find Firkraag. As with Thaxy they tried casting magic resistance at him at the start of the battle and again that seemed to be useless, with 3 out of 4 insect plagues being diverted by magic resistance. After initial attacks and drawing out a remove magic all the other druids retreated to cast protection from fire. Walker Boh stayed closer to Firkraag though as one of the 5 initial insect plagues seemed to have got confused and had not yet caught up with him. He also tried to cast protection from fire, but I realised after a second that he had targeted that at someone else and was moving towards them (one of the annoying things about v2.5 is that the casting icon does not disappear after a spell is cast, meaning it's less obvious whether a spell has started or a click hasn't taken - clicking on another character in the latter instance will target a spell at them). As he hadn't actually started casting the spell he tried again, but the delay in that was bad news. Everyone else had finished their spells, but Walker Boh had not quite done so when the dragon fire descended on his totally unprotected body.
Edit: I wondered whether the magic resistance spell was no longer able to be used offensively. To check that I loaded the autosave and confirmed by adding Firkraag to the party that the magic resistance spell was working on him. I then tried twice casting 5 lots of Insect Plague at him - on both occasions 4 out of 5 worked, so it looks like the initial attacks on him and Thaxy were just both very unlucky.
Dohzer (human male Abjurer, Gate70); Frei (dwarf male fighter, Grond0)
After the usual what game are we in and who is hosting (this sounds bad but 160 odd games in and it becomes challenging to recall), we find our characters are in Ulgoth's Beard. Our reputation is not up to scratch though so we sell a few items and move on to the rock garden.
Basilisks are safely negotiated while Mutamin gets the chance to cast a few spells onto Frei but nothing fatal. Baerin is blinded but as Dohzer moves to seek out more of Kirian's gang, Frei moves into sight and Kirian gets the fight going. Dohzer gets another blind in and a stinking cloud but Frei has taken some rigid thinking and attacks Korax the ghoul.
Korax fights back and paralyzes Frei so Dohzer uses a sling. Frei sqeaks a suggestion about spells or wands. Dohzer is out of suitable spells so uses a wand of missiles and down goes Korax. Dohzer switches back to the blinded Kirian and makes almost no impression for a few rounds until Frei recovers and hurls axes with pent-up vengeance.
With that battle finally tied up, we move on and clear out the gnoll fortress. Caldo and Krumm are dealt with on the way while we find we have stared at a drowned cat without actually picking it up so may return later. Albert and Rufie have been helped, while Zal and Vax took blindness to defeat.
BG1EE Updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
With no small amount of trembles and trepidation, we venture into the Cloakwood. Kivan surrenders all his equipment (retiring to the FAI to, supposedly, spend the rest of his days in the merry company of Xzar and Montaron) and is replaced by Coran. I had prepared 2x Slow Poison since we have no antidotes, but they run out in the first Ettercap ambush, meaning we have to do some undignified shuffling along with Command when a few Phase Spiders teleport in upon our entry to the second Cloakwood area (their poison is very difficult to heal through with just a few CLW at hand).
We press on through the area still, carefully ensuring that we don't trigger a Web trap while enemies are in sight, given that Coran starts with 20 Find Traps and thus cannot disarm (we of course go south first to pick up the Scimitar +2, which sadly no one will use... Jaheira spent her L3 Fighter pip on Sling).
We make it through, and head for the next a-
Well, that was hardly unexpected. You'll note a stark difference in tone compared to when we had the Amazon ambush; this group is just much less dangerous. While they have an arcane caster, he is so very low-level that he does not get to save against Command. This encounter got a whole lot easier when I realized that (if you don't disable Halacan immediately, he'll pop a Sleep scroll, which can certainly be very dangerous at this stage of the game). So we Command Halacan, and he dies quickly. The Cleric is easy to keep interrupted, which leaves two melee grunts... and as we know, melee grunts are (almost) never a concern.
With Halacan and the Cleric dead, the grunts are treated to Blindness and Hold Person respectively. Victory!
We loot, and head for the Wyvern Cave, which we clear without much fuss. From here on out, we are no longer hunted, and so can finally relax a tad. We head back to Beregost to turn in the Wyvern Head (so Coran won't leave).
Thereafter, we swing by Valley of the Tombs strictly to pick up the Wand of Monster Summoning (Hubblepot under Sanctuary nips in and grabs it). I'm planning ahead a little here: Normally, Animate Dead is a big part of how I deal with the more dangerous aspects of the Cloakwood Mines (defusing Natasha's Evocations and forming an undead bulwark against Davaeorn's endlessly spawning reinforcements).
However, Hubblepot is some 10k experience away from Cleric level 5, and we'll replace Branwen with Yeslick, who will similarly be too low level to muster even a few Skeletons. So, the Wand will have to do as a replacement.
We also swing by High Hedge yet again to pick up some spells for Imoen, as she hit Mage level 3 a while back and can now start contributing to the party again. Not that a few Blindness coupled with dart throwing isn't contributing, but I'll take a single Web over that any day. She quaffs a couple Intelligence potions and gets to scribin'. Finally, we make sure everyone is well stocked on ammo, and ID everything we've picked up. Preparations completed, we again brave the dark forest.
Arriving at the Mines is uneventful, but being quite fatigued from traversing all of Cloakwood Forest without resting, we clear the two guards at the bridge and fall back to the previous area to set up our spellwork for the trials ahead. To my great shame, I go with what always works: Lots of Web/Entangle, followed by Fireball bombardment. With our current levels, the battle with the mercenaries is just too dangerous for "fair" tactics: Both their Mages are entirely immune to our magic (we have no L3 arcane slots and so cannot do anything about their MGoI), have devastating magics of their own including high-level Evocations and Enchantments, and the fighter with the Boots of Speed always leads by quaffing a Potion of Magic Protection, followed by a Potion of Frost Giant Strength...
So, we end up just lobbing area-of-effect spells at them from out of sight. Screw honour, we want to live.
We push into the mines, clear the top level, and swing around the eastern pathways of the second level to recruit Yeslick. Branwen joins the Retired Adventurer's Lodge at the FAI, whilst the party ducks back to the previous area. Yeslick will be wielding Ashideena +2 and probably Buckley's Buckler to boost his saves even more (with Gauntlets of Dexterity and eventually Full Plate, his AC will be more than sufficient anyway).
Around here, we went hunting around the Mine exterior for enemies before falling back, and garnered just about enough experience for Imoen and Hubblepot to both hit L4 Mage/Illusionist. Extra L2 slots, yes please.
Spells are carefully selected, as always. We intend to clear the big guard room on the second level, then proceed to clear the third level as well, nip down to Davaeorn's level and remove his personal guard, then head back out to prepare for the final showdown.
The gaggle of guards and their pet Mage will be dealt with by Web (shameful display!) and Fireball. Natasha will have to contend with oodles of summons courtesy of the Wand of Monster Summoning, and the Ogre Mage is actually low-level enough that you can just charge him.
Once more unto the breach... before initiating our long-range bombardment, we as always attempt to save Cook by charming her, and as always a guard immediately spots and shoots her. Heartless bastard.
We repay him in kind via a barrage of Web and Fireball. Killing Hareishan is what's important here; the rest of them are mere nuisances.
Onto the third level. The melee grunts and their ranged compatriots (the latter being exclusively hobgoblins) are swiftly dispatched. The Ogre Mage falls to a Command, his sole spell beforehand being a failed Charm Person. Even Natasha fails to make much of an impression: We send Hobgoblins and Gnolls after her, and she only has the arcane muscles to take down 8 of them before resorting to her dagger, at which point the party moves in and finishes the job.
Good stuff! We clear the rest of the level, nip downstairs to take out Davaeorn's personal guard, then once more head back to the previous area to rest up before the final confrontation.
The plan is, more or less, the same as always. Khalid will pop our solitary scroll of Protection from Magic, then quaff a few good potions, and proceed to soak up D's spells while first killing off his attendant Battle Horrors, then focusing on the Mage himself.
The rest of the party will turn invisible and loiter around the entrance to the level. Hopefully, D will blow his most devastating spells before his reinforcements start turning up. Once they do, the party sans Khalid will move to engage the reinforcements, holding them off so Khalid can finish the job. Jaheira and Yeslick will physically block the entranceway, Imoen and Hubblepot each have a Wand of Fear, which tends to work rather well against the low-level humanoid guards, and Coran will be allowed to use the good arrows for once.
If D teleports into the north while we're fighting guards there, things may turn ugly, but we have a few anti-magic potions available if we need them, as well as two Invisibility potions if things turn really hairy.
We'll be alright! Spell-wise, all L2 arcane slots go to Invisibility, and the rest is just a spread of things useful against melee/ranged grunts: Bless, Command, Hold Person, Chant, DUHM, Blindness, Spook. We'll rely on our, by now quite substantial, potion reserves for healing. Alright, let's do this.
We return to D's lair. An invisible and non-detectable (thanks to Gurke's cloak) Coran disarms the traps along the hallway. Everyone but Khalid turns invisible and sits by the entrance.
Khalid activates Protection from Magic, Potion of Cloud Giant Strength, Potion of Heroism and Oil of Speed in that order. Time to gaze into the abyss...
Khalid races south, D's multitude of defenses immediately fire, and his two attendant Battle Horrors move to engage. But they are helpless against mighty Khalid; one Battle Horror lasts a scant three rounds before succumbing to his wounds. Meanwhile, D is teleporting around, slinging spells (we make certain Khalid is always in his line of sight right after he teleports, to dissuade him from dispelling our other party members' invisibility and targetting them). The second Battle Horror holds out much longer, but it is a purely defensive holdout: It lands a single hit on Khalid for 4(!) damage in the entire time it stays alive.
Finally, Khalid kills the second Battle Horror. D seems to be mostly out of spells (and has stopped teleporting around), but we've got problems. Khalid has to cut through D's defenses, but reinforcements have started pouring in. A quick prayer to any deities that might be listening, and the rest of the party moves to attack position!
The first enemy wave is held at bay by a combination of Hold Person, the determined duo Yeslick and Jaheira blocking their way, and Coran deftly landing arrow after arrow.
However, the second wave appears at the very northernmost part of the entrance, leaving their two Blacktalon Elites free to open fire! Hubblepot and Imoen fire off a dual Horror from their Wands of Fear, but both Blacktalon Elites make their saves. Even a Hold Person from Yeslick has no effect. The Blacktalon Elites are hurting both Jaheira and Yeslick, and the horror-stricken melee guards are blocking us from reaching the archers. We must hold! We must buy Khalid the time he needs to-
Well aren't you the Half-Elf of the hour Khalid! That is quite a devastating critical! Usually you have to whittle D down for a good 10-15 rounds before he runs out of both Stoneskin and Mirror Image, but Khalid ain't got time for that. The guards flee in absolute panic, and the chapter cutscene plays. The horrific Archmage lies defeated! Hooray, hooray, hooray!
We swipe everything that isn't nailed down, including D's treasures guarded by the Mustard Jelly, then take the lift back up. The mine is flooded, and finally, finally, all is well. No assassins are chasing us, no timer is threatening to take one of our party members away if we don't finish a quest on time, and we have the party we'll be using for the rest of the game. Awesomesauce.
We return to the previous area. We'll clear the Cloakwood Forest of all evildoers on our way out, but that is for next time. For now, the party gathers around a great bonfire upon which a few pheasants caught by Coran are roasting, and we break out a bottle of Gnome's Choice Turnip Brandy Hubblepot had been saving for a special occasion. Savor the victory!
Hubblepot is now a L5/L4 Gnome Cleric/Illusionist.
I've had some time to play being ill in the past few weeks (doing better now). A rather casual run. If I make some more progress, will post here.
In any case nice to see the thread alive as always
We are all extremely pleased to see you back. We hope to see you post something soon.
Yours and Grond0’s runs in BG1 have modelled my own runs, so you are missed (off course glad to see Grond0 still alive). I sincerly hope you will take on SoD as well in a new run. I am sure you will do great - and you C/T charnames will surely do great.
The thread is alive - but the characters seem to have the indecency of dying, so no changes in all.
I have learnt the difficulty of the ducal palace fight the hard way. So I summoned 5 nymphs, Ramizath (picking the RoP +2 from his corpse), the sorcerer barmaid, two rogue types from the bar and the priest of helm. Just to even the odds a bit... It is borderline cheating, but the fight is too tricky for me if I dont.
Btw the latest patch has given Llia a brain, and she now cast mirror image and such - so in all the fight is a bit easier.
Yeldon - half-elf cleric/ranger, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Denko - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Keras - dwarven kensai (Grond0)
The party breezed through the Cloakwood, such as Yeldon holding a bunch of guards, making that encounter easy.
So the Trio found themselves on Davaeorn's level. For some reason Denko moved ahead and triggered all the battle horrors and Davaoern. But they didn't spot him, so Yeldon carefully pulled just the battle horrors. Thanks to the wand heavens, plus our hard hitting kensai, the battle horrors didn't last long. Keras was given a potion of magic blocking and duly destroyed Davaoern.
So as is the custom, when we got to the City of Baldur's Gate, we worked on the poison quest right away. We were able to get some boots of speed for Yeldon from Lothander. Marek was destroyed but did manage to confuse Denko. Yeldon stood close to him so our rep doesn't go down. Yeldon will become fallen if the reputation gets too low.
There wasn't a lot to say about the rest of the quests, they all went pretty much to plan. We carefully pulled the guardians in the NE corner of the city (forget the mage's name) and that went well. We also battled the Mountain Maulers to get the +2 axe for Keras - with skeleton distractions and silences, this went great.
There were no deaths this session. We find ourselves at the Iron Throne and will venture into the HQ next session.
Dohzer (human male Abjurer, Gate70); Frei (dwarf male fighter, Grond0)
Our adventure starts in silence, and after a couple of minutes voice connectivity is restored. Frei has decided a potion of clarity needs to be used so we hunt sirines and flesh golems at the seaside. Ardrouine pretends not to notice her son is safe so we move on to the dig site, deal with the Doomsayer (LMD fails to do anything so Frei takes a chance against a blinded opponent as Dohzer consumes a wand of missiles plus a couple of wand of fire scorchers). Then we hitch a ride back to town with Brage.
A reputation boost takes us to 19 or 20, meaning Dohzer feels comfortable purchasing a few potions (genius and mind focusing), scrolls, items (Ulgoths Beard staff +3, greenstone amulet and cloak of displacement). The amulet will no doubt remain worn but unused during our travels.
It is time to head south and investigate Nashkel Mine. Frei is happy to go underground and has little need of Dohzer's assistance but spells such as sleep and oh skulltrap soon land around the stocky fighter. Mulahey calls for his guards after a skulltrap and Dohzer sees this as a sign to throw more skulls around.
With the half-orc cleric dead we make our escape through a one-way passage and blind three amazons before a skulltrap -> malison -> skulltrap -> skulltrap casting leaves Lamahla badly wounded and unable to fend off our brief attack.
Nimbul and Tranzig are cut down before we move on to the bandit camp. Frei clears a path as Dohzer uses a few spells to skulltrap enemies. Mr Khosann shrugs off several attempts at blinding him but is unable to keep axes out of his armour (and Frei finds it fits perfectly with just a 90 degree rotation from tall to wide).
Invisibility allows us into the main bandit tent and blindness affects everyone except Raemon. Frei takes exceptional advantage of this. He even manages to spring a lightning trap without it hitting anything - the luck is strong with this one.
After looting the tent we find guidance about a secret mine in Cloakwood so head straight there. Frei is turned invisible and stomps around several traps before stomping on spiders and ettercaps. Inside Centeol's lair Frei puts up a good show while Dohzer sadly is targeted. Human abjurers know the routine though and drag enemies around inside without stepping out to be chased to death. The enemies all fall for this and congregate around Frei who shouts that it seems a good time to throw in a skulltr... bang!
A second skulltrap lands, killing all the enemies and leaving Frei mildly wounded. Dohzer congratulates his buddy and suggests a few hours of travel will work with high constitution (20) to heal those scratches. We make our way to Cloakwood mine without further ado, Frei relieving the guards at the bridge.
Drasus must know something is up when Kysus and Genthore start rubbing their eyes. If not, the skulltrap was a wake-up call and malison should really have had him on his feet but no. Rezdan is a brighter button though and teleports to Genthore with mirror images active. We shoot him down and Frei moves in to hack Drasus down before Dohzer can get him blinded. The dwarf is quick, more so when he swaps boots to use the ones recently emptied of Drasus.
Dohzer reaches the mine entrance by following bodies. It's a similar story inside with the axe-hacked corpses showing where Frei has stepped. Davaeorn has a pair of un-natural assistants but blind and axe deals with them and Davaeorn is mostly un-guarded. This proves to be very bad for his health and it is all we can do to try and get him to drink some water but in the end we leave the mine and confirm to the slaves that they are now free. We head to the edge of the map and call it a day - for us this should be fairly clear that we are on our way out rather than on our way in, and that Baldur's Gate (a fine city) is next.
Frost the Breton Mage: No-Reload Legendary Mode Run of Skyrim Redone
Part 3
Bleak Falls Barrow is going to be dangerous. This is the first time we're going to have to deal with lots of enemies in close quarters. If I get in trouble, running away will be a little harder. Careful positioning is key in Legendary mode. I dispatch the scattered bandits by burning some poisons and letting our wolf familiar distract them. To deal with a batch of skeevers (the giant rats of Skyrim, which look like frazzled ferrets), I summon a Flame Atronach and then pull a lever to trap the enemy behind a gate.Against the giant spider, I avoid its powerful attacks and poison by hiding behind a doorway and letting our Flame Atronach do most of the work.
Using the environment to our advantage is very important when we can die so incredibly quickly. The first big enemy coming up is a Restless Draugr, who has frost spells and much more health than a normal draugr. However, he comes right after a rather high-damage trap, and we can make sure he gets hit by it by nailing him with Paralyze at just the right time (undead, surprisingly, are vulnerable to paralysis effects). He falls right on top of the pressure plate and a wall of spikes swings out and flings him across the room.
Since we're pretty high level for the first real dungeon of the game, we come across more Restless Draugr than we normally would, and we even run into some Draugr Wights, who are even harder to kill. I lock them down with Paralyze and attack them while they're down with a high-damage Orcish Broadsword I found. Our wolf familiar chips in (and probably does most of the damage, since Legendary mode doesn't cripple summons like it does the player).
We hit level 28 and run into a Frost Troll, who normally doesn't appear in this dungeon. I lock it down with Paralyze and start chopping away at it. You don't need to use fire to finish off trolls in the Elder Scrolls games (though they do suffer extra damage from it), but they do have high regeneration.
In fact, they regenerate so fast that Frost (our Charname; I suppose her name can be confusing in a game where the word "frost" is common) can't deal enough damage to kill them on her own. Legendary mode cuts all of our damage output by 75%, and winning wars of attrition against trolls is generally not feasible.
Even when I deploy poisons, I can't overcome the troll's regeneration--or at least, it's taking a really long time. Then I realize something.
I can use this troll to grind our Light Weaponry skill.
Thanks to our high Alteration skill, we can actually lock the troll down indefinitely with Paralyze, as the magicka cost of Paralyze is low enough that we can regenerate our magicka. Since we're on a sloping area, we can buy more time to regenerate magicka by retreating up the slope before paralyzing the troll, who will then roll down in the incline and give us even more time to regenerate magicka. This ensures that we never run low on Paralyze spells.
I pin the troll down and hack away at the poor monster over and over, slowly increasing our skill with one-handed weapons. I almost die when the troll nails me for 240 damage, but by saving our level ups, we're able to heal ourselves to 100% instantly by leveling up when we're in danger. I spend much of the time slashing a gorilla's butt, but our Light Weaponry skill is already over 40. We're making good progress.
Finally I let the poor creature die and proceed to the next area. The second-to-last boss of this dungeon is a Draugr Scourge, another upgrade from the Draugr Wight, but we have cheap Paralyze spells and some decent damage output. I discover that if you paralyze a target who's already been staggered by a physical attack, the spell will fling the target in a random direction and make them spin around in midair. Here's the nearly-dead Draugr Scourge wildly spinning around as it flies to the ceiling.
We use a Slow Time potion to safely bypass some swinging blade traps and fight our way to the final boss, a Draugr Scourge Lord. This dude has much more health than even the Draugr Scourge, and he has a wicked Shout that can disarm you (and it's very easy to lose track of your weapon once it falls), but he comes alone, so we can lock him down with Paralyze.
It takes a really long time to bring him down, but by the time he falls, our Light Weaponry skill is almost 60. We find a really nice item, the Leather Bracers of the Fatespinner, which gives a light discount on Illusion spells and gives us a chance of ignoring all weapon damage from enemy strikes. While we can't wear any armor without crippling our armor spells (even a pair of leather bracers will disable our Mage Armor perks), we can enchant a pair of gloves for a similar effect. Better still, the enchantment is bugged: only the weaker part of the enchantment scales with the Enchant skill; the chance to avoid melee damage is fixed, which means we can get a powerful new pair of gloves even though our Enchant skill is at a measly 21.
In fact, the chance to avoid melee damage is even higher than it was on the bracers.
With the Dragonstone from Bleak Falls Barrow in hand, we can proceed to Whiterun to truly begin the main questline. The Jarl sends us out to go fight a dragon, and while the city guard is helping us and can actually handle the dragon on their own, I take the opportunity to train our Marksmanship skill.
The dragon has lots of other targets to deal with, so we're in little danger of getting roasted as long as we keep our distance. Note that dragons are unfortunately completely immune to paralysis, so we can't lock them down (and Skyrim Redone nerfs the Impact perk, which would have let us stun-lock dragons with dual-cast Destruction spells).
Once the dragon is dead, the Jarl declares us Thane and assigns us a housecarl. If you translate all the silly Nord words, this means we're a local hero and we're entitled to a bodyguard, Lydia.
Lydia is an invaluable asset in any fight, as she will gleefully run ahead to get punched in the face so we don't have to.
Once our Alteration is at 90, I head off to Tolfdir to start the Alteration master quest, which will give us the last and strongest armor spell in the game, Dragonflesh. It'll involve delving into a tough dungeon and killing a dragon, but it'll bump our physical damage reduction from 69% to 88%, so instead of taking 31 damage from a 100-damage hit, we only take 12--more than doubling our current durability.
The dungeon is pretty close to Kynesgrove, where Jazbay Grapes are growing all over the ground. It's a valuable source of ingredients for Ravage Health poisons, the highest-damage poison type in the game.
We run into a bunch of Cave Bears and Frostbite spiders out in the wilderness, who prove very tough. We burn some poisons and Slow Time potions to bring them down, but it takes work to get through all that HP, even with Lydia helping us out.
The next dungeon is Forelhorst, where we should find the dagger we need to completely Tolfdir's new quest and get that powerful new Dragonflesh spell. A guy outside talks to us about the dungeon and says he needs help, but at the end of the dialogue, I discover that he's not going to come in to help us deal with the dungeon--he's gonna let us do all the work.
Worse yet, he's asking us to retrieve a mask, and there's only one kind of mask in all of Skyrim.
A Dragon Priest Mask, worn by a set of powerful undead mages scattered across the world. This dungeon isn't just going to be a bunch of basic draugr; we're going to have to deal with the Skyrim equivalent of a lich, and they can spam lots of high-powered Destruction spells against which we have little defense.
Thanks to Skyrim Redone, we only have 15% magic resistance as a Breton. We are very, very vulnerable to spell damage.
It's a shame one can't reload for that particular instance ahah
The group of 2 kensais and 2 berserkers and a kensai dualed to thief
Just a quick update. We breezed through most of Chapter 5 this morning. Not much of note happened so far. Our party hits so hard and has so many attacks, mages just get torn up. Melees don't do much better and for the same reason. The only special battle was against the 5 ogre mages in a house in South Baldur's Gate area, I had just the berserkers show themselves and load up on a potion of magic blocking each, then they tore through those ogre mages - they even managed to do it before the potion expired. Would have been a very dangerous fight otherwise, what with their horror and confusion spells and considerable direct damage.
We will deal with Degrodel and his minions, then it will be time to deal with the Iron Throne HQ. Then it will be off to Candlekeep. Feel good about the party. Would have liked to get my thief to level 8 to unlock his kensai skills, but think I need too much experience. Ah well, it's not like this party is hurting for DPS...
As Enuhal has mentioned, if you intend to try the Deck of many things, you need to protect yourself from all the bad effects best you can. I can say a number of runs have ended to that deck - the bhaalspawn in those runs just couldn't resist trying their luck, and as Thalantyr would say, their luck ran out...
Even in ToB, I generally don't bother with level 3 and below, since the main game already has plenty of resources to pave the way to Melissan.
Otherwise, the benefits are just bigger numbers. The Axe of the Unyielding, the Ravager, the Staff of the Ram, the Purifier, and the bonuses from the Machine of Lum the Mad can make party members slightly stronger, but otherwise don't open up any truly new possibilities. The Ravager is an exception: upgraded, its 10% vorpal strike chance (which, unlike the Silver Sword or Axe of the Unyielding, offers no save) could be a major game-changer for a solo run or a Legacy of Bhaal mode run.
EDIT
Tried a hammer of Boradin for the first time and was finding it so powerful that I tried fighting Karlat at level one. Big mistake! The end.Tried another one being a bit wiser:
Images below tell the story.
He has now picked up the ankheg armour. Now he MIGHT be able to take on Karlat.
Due to his magical resistance he was able to take on Tarnesh and win quite easily. The only spell that Tarnesh used that was at all dangerous was magic missile. That was his last spell before dying.
In EE Keeper everything LOOKS fine, but it isn't.
Due to the above bug, Radin's Epic Adventure has been put on hold until the bug is sorted out.
I therefore chose another kit combination that I have never used before. It is a Svirfneblin called Winker who is a Thief/Cleric details below.
Since svirfneblin have the innate ability to go invisible, he used it to avoid paying the 1gp fine.
He forgot to sleep before fighting Shank so h went outside and enlisted the aid of the watchers.
He started the fight against Mendas buffed by Canderous (Bless and Protection from Evil, but those spells wore off before Mendas bit the dust. As can be seen, Mendas was fairly well equipped, but command more than compensated.
He was able to help Mellicamp but not Aiwell. He fled from the werewolf safely using an invisibility spell.
After killing many ankheg he took on Karlat. It was as well that Finch was on hand to help as he would otherwise have had to flee, rest, and return after Karlat's potion had worn off.