I decided it was time to get in touch with my inner rage again. I had though to re-roll Bash to a v2.5 character and decided to change him from a fighter/mage to a fighter/illusionist in the process.
He's still not allowed to be responsible for enemy deaths except through the use of Brage's berserking sword. Operating in an SCS installation will make that a bit harder.
Bash had an unfortunate childhood. He's supposedly a gnome, but his appearance suggests the possibility that perhaps his mother lay under the wrong blanket at one point. From an early age he was teased mercilessly by other children and his personality has warped under the strain. At this point it's a toss-up whether he will be thrown out of Candlekeep before storming off by himself. He has a huge amount of rage pent-up inside him and is just searching for the right tool that could let it out ...
After quickly finishing the Brynnlaw quests, we made our way to Spellhold, mainly letting skeleton warriors deal with any yuan-ti mages there. As you can imagine, the first significant encounter was the lich. He was smart enough to ignore my skeletons, cast timestop and, despite my party being far away, walk up to me and dimension door right up to Nabatil (though at this point, his timestop was luckily pretty much over):
A very scary situation, especially since I hadn't buffed for a straight up lich battle - I was planning to dodge my foe and was surprised that he was able to make his way to the party that quickly. Luckily, his first spell was remove magic, and I was able to cast haste and run to the south, getting out of his sight again before he used another spell:
Then, things got really weird. The lich not only cast another timestop, but he also used improved alacrity. This is NOT supposed to happen! I specifically chose the SCS option only allowing certain mages in ToB to get HLAs. Definitely a bug. Luckily, for some reason, this time the lich was not smart enough to walk up to my party again (I guess his script doesn't want him to waste time while he is under IA, and he propably only has one dimension door anyway) - so he wasted all of his spells on skeletons:
He didn't stop trying to blast the almost magic immune skeletons, eventually dealing heavy damage to them via his own summons. I had Ayla, protected by the level 20 skald song, test the waters, and she returned when his final PFMW was gone. It took a few attempts, but Azuredge did the job:
Potentially a very dangerous battle there. Could've gone much worse.
The next significant fight was against Jon himself. This time, I had all my buffs ready, and I was able to protect them relatively well, quickly taking down the clones. The most annoying thing were multiple spheres of chaos (some by Wanev) flying around in the room - almost everywhere. I had to stay at very specific positions or risk some kind of death, since I didn't have the time to apply death ward to my remaining party to deal with disintegration effect (and I couldn't get the spell saves low enough for everyone, though I propably should've done a bit more in that regard). Luckily, Jon did step close enough to Ayla, which allowed her to use one of the five dispelling arrows we just picked up in the northern room - Without protections, Jon was done:
I killed Yoshimo and moved on to the City of Caverns (no Cloak of Mirroring for me thanks to SCS) and the Underdark. The level 20 skald song is great against mind flayers - free stun and charm protection for everyone! This does save a lot of buffing time, I don't have to apply CC on the whole party after every rest. I did the minor quests on the main map, with the drow battle being a bit difficult (they are very good at dealing with skeletons, so my party had to do most of the fighting). Most significant battle here: The balor. I didn't remember all the abilities SCS grants these guys and had to run out of a meteor swarm right away. Constantly getting hit by remove magic didn't help, though Nabatil had his buffs protected with SI:A and managed to keep them. Because of the vorpal hit chance (and the aura of flaming death), I had to avoid melee combat, and because of his other abilities, I had to try and keep the bard song active at all times. This ended up being somewhat of a kiting match:
When the demon forced me to separate my party, I was almost sure that someone would die, but with improved haste (which I had to rebuff multiple time thanks to constantly getting it dispelled), Ayla was able to win the battle for me before anything really bad could happen:
Next time, we will got into even more dangerous territorry and explore the three side areas.
So, I continued my playthrough. So far so good, I had a few issues inside the gnoll fortress.
First, I was surrounded by Xvart...
Then Imoen took two bad hits in a row
Same scenery happened in the next cavern. This time I was forced to let Minsc go berserk!
Kept exploring but the whole ordeal was grim. Minsc got badly hit too, this time by the berserk going off
But I was lucky and I found three potions together with the tome ready to be gulped by Minsc. We kept exploring and I levelled.
Found dynhaeir and trying to flee we risked life once again
I, then discovered that scrolls give us a tons of xp. Woah
I had thought how much bad it is to have so much xp by scrolls and locks. But given that I'm not abusing either system, nor exping by resting, I guess it is still ok. Also there is no reload involved when dynaheir fails scribing the scrolls.
Now a few questions;
1) does anyone know a good UI for a 1280x1024 monitor? Because the UI is really bad on my monitor.
Nice to see you back @Scourge! Dynaheir's lost diary is a BG1 NPC Project feature. A colleague of Dario's should help Dynheir get her diary back, I think in one of the areas east of the gnoll stronghold, maybe the one with the archaeological site or the one with the dryad and the dead cat.
Alright, let's push on. The party delves back into Durlag's Tower. As we recall, there are three underground levels yet to clear. The only issue with the first level is the shapechanging Greater Dopplegangers. The Durlag form hits with pretty much every swing for 25ish damage and has lots of HP and excellent AC, the Islanne form has Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Confusion etc available, the Kiel form has some Cleric spells, and Fuernebol (if that's the spelling) is by far the easiest, having poor AC and not dealing much damage.
There are two spawns of the shapechanging Greater Dopplegangers. The first one consisting of two such creatures choose the forms of Islanne and Fuernebol. Fuernebol drops quickly, Islanne deals a little damage but leads with Spider Spawn, which is much easier to deal with than Confusion. As Islanne is about to drop, she changes into Durlag. So, Yeslick takes a real beating, but we are able to bring Durlag down with several Scorcher charges. And upon death, Durlag yields a Full Plate Armor for Jaheira.
We loop around the western side of the area, clearing Ghasts and Dwarven Doomguards with ease. The second spawn of shapechangers choose Fuernebol, Islanne and Fuernebol again... Islanne drops fast, and the two Fuernebols are just hopelessly outmatched. We descend the stairs to the next level.
We head west to start with, recruit the five heroes, and all but the Sirine fall fighting the Greater Wyverns (we thank the Sirine for her service by putting her out of her misery). Tarnor gives up yet another Full Plate Armor, and with Khalid, Yeslick and Jaheira already having a set, it goes to Hubblepot.
I always go after the Skeleton Archers in the center of the area: They have around 15 Arrows of Dispelling as well as tons of other good magical ammunition, and they're easy to clear out before they squander any of their lovely arrows by liberal application of a Wand of Fire's Fireball. The area with Ashirukurus and Greater Ghouls are handled by Khalid and Yeslick gulping a Potion of Freedom each, with Coran tagging along to clear traps and provide ranged support. I always leave my squishier party members out of the maze, or the Ashirukuru can do a real number on them if they get two backstabs in a row.
Finally, we deal with the four themed rooms. Potion of Fire Resistance and Scroll of Protection from Fire allows Khalid to deal with the Phoenix Guard on his own. The Air Aspect and its attendant Invisible Stalkers are just rushed and dealt with via standard attacks. Khalid dons the Belt of Antipode and, thus protected, leads the charge against Kaldran and its Winter Wolves. Finally, there's the Fission Slime. I allow for the possibility that the bug wherein you are not automatically teleported after clearing all four rooms has been fixed, and so everyone in the party gets 100% Electricity Resistance via potions/scrolls, just to be on the safe side. A prudent precaution, as it turns out.
We enter the last room, the Fission Slime is Scorcher'ed to death, and the party is immediately teleported to the chess room. Of course, with our Electricity Resistance, we are free to move around the chess board at will, which is quite helpful. Not much for tactics here, there's way too many enemies to take the risk of being honourable, and so said enemies are treated to a barrage of six Fireballs from varying sources.
Both Bishops survive, as they start Hasted and immediately rush after the protagonist. However, Hubblepot has donned Full Plate Armor, and the Bishops struggle to land a hit. The enemy King comes limping in at Near Death, but proves a nuisance with his Stoneskins, Mirror Images and Invisibility sequencer. However, he simply cannot turn the tide on his own, and soon falls to concentrated attacks.
The party descends further. This level is almost devoid of noteworthy fights. We move slowly, with Coran taking the lead and disarming traps. The vast numbers of Greater Ghouls and Crypt Crawlers in the southern acid caverns are handled via Potions of Freedom for Khalid/Yeslick, and a few Wand of Fire charges (we have so many Wands now that we'll struggle to use up even half of the charges by the end of the game, so why not use them to expedite matters).
We haven't rested since we started, but still have a round of buffs and three Animate Dead available. We employ said spellworks before fighting Grael, and a Greater Malison/Slow combo ensures a flawless victory.
With Grael gone, there are only minor enemies left on this level. We clear out all remaining Greater Ghouls, then take on the nest of spiders to the west, and that's all she wrote. By now we are quite weighed down with loot, but it's a pleasant burden. As always, the party opts not to bother with the Demon Knight, for the same reason that Kahrk is still alive: Low reward, high risk (though the Demon Knight isn't that dangerous, it's just pointless, as we do not need the experience at this stage). We take Islanne up on her offer and are teleported outside. Though said Demon Knight still lives, I'd call this as Durlag's Tower successfully cleared! No deaths, not even any close calls, though in fairness we were very high-level for it.
There's not much left to do. We could go for Balduran's Isle, but again, we need neither the loot nor the experience. Better I think to just finish BG1 and move on to SoD. The party takes one last look at every store outside Baldur's Gate to ensure there is nothing left we need (we pick up some magical ammunition and protection scrolls, though we could've just as well have purchased such at Sorcerous Sundries), and then heads to the Elfsong Tavern.
We prepare extensively: The entire party will sneak past the enemy group under Invisibility, and set up shop in the back room. From there, we shall first send an initial wave of five Skeleton Warriors with an assortment of buffs, under the invisible overseeing of Coran. Once this first wave is defeated, we'll conjure up another two Skeleton Warriors and two Nymphs, apply another round of buffs (we have 3 divine and 2 arcane casters, after all), then charge, with the fresh wave of summons leading the way. Simple, but effective. I may opt to use a few charges of our Wands of Monster Summoning, if the first wave dies off before absorbing the most dangerous enemy spells. If any stray spell looks in danger of landing on Hubblepot, he'll have a Potion of Magic Blocking in a quickslot.
Fully rested and ready, the party begins the climb. The Iron Throne guards are hopelessly outclassed by now: Nortuary on the third floor tries to take on the entire party, alone, with nothing but defensive buffs and a Shortsword. Points for self-confidence, I guess. He lasts almost two rounds.
As planned, the entire party turns invisible, using up almost all our L2 arcane spell slots, and sneaks into the back room on the top floor. Skeleton Warriors are summoned, thoroughly buffed, and sent into action. Unfortunately, the results are somewhat dismal: They succeed only in killing the Doppleganger. However, I figure we're high enough level that we can handle a bit of rough-housing. The second wave of summons is brought forth, buffs are re-applied, and the entire party charges in!
The Skeleton Warriors and Nymphs are of course targetted by a multitude of Confusion and Chaos, which is to be expected. The rest of the party zeros in on Alai, who has the misfortune of being closest to us. Under combined attacks, he folds within moments. Notice that a Nymph managed to Hold Aasim, nice!
As you'll note in the above screenshot, Female Shennara got a Backstab in on Jaheira. Female Shennara soon regrets this, as she immediately falls to a well-placed swipe from Khalid (it seems the first wave of Skeleton Warriors did do some damage, even though they failed to kill off anyone important). Gardush also died somewhere around here (he was irrelevant anyway, as he broke both his weapons fighting the first Skeleton Warrior wave...).
With the meddlesome Female Shennara out of the picture, the party swiftly dispatches the still held Aasim. Diyab, lacking arcane defensive buffs, falls almost immediately afterwards. We haven't even cast a single offensive spell yet, mass ranged fire is more than enough to get us through this.
Naaman, with Stoneskin and Mirror Image, lasts a bit longer, but he seems to be out of Confusion/Chaos, and so is no longer much of a threat. Male Shennara proves he's not out of the picture yet, with a minor Backstab on Coran! We respond in kind: Greater Malison, Doom and Blind ensures Male Shennara meets the same fate as his female accomplice.
Only Zhalimar remains. Of course, I forget to swap Coran back to a ranged weapon, whereupon Zhalimar crits the archer for 30 (!) damage. Thankfully, Coran survives and is rapidly told to fall back and engage from a safer distance. Zhalimar can bear the brunt of our onslaught for only so long, and we have victory!
We gather all the lovely loot (I really only care about the scrolls of Vocalize and Minor Sequencer, but as long as the loot's just laying there...), and make our exit, to identify and heal up a bit. Another fine battle, although Coran came a bit too close to a possible chunking for my tastes (one more solid swing from Zhalimar would've probably done it). Still, Hubblepot was never in any danger.
Next on the agenda: Bringing the Iron Throne and by extension, that fiend Sarevok, to heel! But that is for next time. For now, the party can be found toasting their good fortunes at the Elfsong Tavern, Hubblepot regaling the crowd with tales of his derring-do directing the furious battle from the back. Far, far back.
Hubblepot is now a L7/L7 Gnome Cleric/Illusionist.
Frost the Breton Mage: No-Reload Legendary Mode Run of Skyrim Redone
Part 9
To Bleak Falls Barrow! Early game strategy in Legendary mode before you get a high armor rating tends to involve sniping people while a conjured critter (in our case, a wolf familiar) distracts the enemy.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean we're completely safe from arrows, and there's an archer hiding out in the tower. He nearly slays us with a single arrow when we wander into his line of fire.
I heal up with some potions and drink a Slow Time potion; we need to put that archer down before another arrow threatens the fate of the run. I approach the archer, but he's hiding behind a wall and I'm a little anxious to get closer, because he might hit me with an arrow if I move too far to the left. I try shooting his hand, but the hitbox is either very small or nonexistent; I can't hit him.
Eventually I have no choice but to cross his line of fire, but fortunately, he couldn't react fast enough (relative to the archer, I'm moving at lightning speed while Slow Time is active) and he fires the arrow at thin air. Once that shot is wasted, we stun-lock him with a flurry of arrows.
Frost's Marksmanship hits 50 and we pick a few new perks, one of which deals 25% extra damage when shooting at an enemy's side or back (very easy under Slow Time). Maximizing damage is important because our skill growth is based on damage output rather than number of arrows fired. We start making use of the new perk right away on another bandit.
We use Slow Time to bring down the rest of the bandits around Bleak Falls Barrow, but the process is very inefficient. We need two whole potions just to kill two bandits.
One of our other nice options is Twin Summoning, or whatever it's called, a Skyrim Redone greater power exclusive to Bretons that lets us bypass the summoning limit at the cost of health damage over time. I've mentioned this before, but the effect is actually kind of disappointing: we can summon a bunch of ghostly wolves at once, but they get in each other's way, and only a tiny fraction of them can attack at a time.
Worse yet, wolf familiars in my install aren't very aggressive. Often, they'll run away for a few seconds before re-engaging the enemy, which means they spend a fair amount of time not actually attacking any enemies.
We're not even halfway through Bleak Falls when we run low on arrows. We have no choice but to leave the dungeon and go buy and craft some more. We buy a few new spells, including a stronger wolf familiar and Breath Ward (an expensive but powerful defensive option that blocks 90% of spells and Shouts, outgoing and ingoing).
We head back and find the bandits have respawned, so we use Slow Time again and drink some Fortify Marksman potions to speed up our skill growth while we pluck away at our shortbow. Shortly into the dungeon, we find a new potion: the pre-made Slow Time potions, which are so ridiculously weak that they seem completely useless even if you don't compare them to our longer-lasting custom potions.
Thanks to the Thief Stone and our Fortify Marksman potions, we start making even faster progress on our Marksmanship skill. We've been investing in new perks that increase our damage.
One of the nice things about Slow Time is that it lets you easily dodge even very fast-moving attacks and spells. Here's Frost quickly stepping out of the way of an Unrelenting Force Shout.
Finally we reach the dungeon boss, who has no more defense against Slow Time than any other individual draugr. Without allies, he cannot move fast enough to pressure us.
We're inches away from 80 Marksmanship, so I hike out towards Rorikstead to catch butterflies and hunt the local bandits and wolves and saber cats. Finally we hit 80, and immediately choose the most important perk of this run.
Here's the thing about the Arrowhail perk: that extra 10 damage per consecutive hit is cumulative. So if you deal 60 base damage, your first hit will do 60, your second will deal 70, your third will deal 80, and so on. But that's not all.
The extra damage bypasses the Legendary mode penalty. It even appears to bypass damage resistances; it's a flat 10. I don't know if there's a time limit attached to it, but even if there is, Slow Time will make it all but irrelevant.
Now, in this run, Legendary mode and damage resistances make me do only about 10 damage per hit against enemies with damage reduction. That's what I've been working with so far. So, if I fire 10 arrows, I deal 100 damage or so.
Now, with this perk, I deal 10+20+30+40+50+60+70+80+90+100 damage, or 550 damage.
That's 5 times as much damage as I normally would, and the impact of the perk only increases when I'm dealing with tougher enemies that take more arrows to bring down.
A creature with 1,000 health would only take 14 arrows before dying. With 2,000 health, it's only 20. With 5,000 health, it's only 32.
Against the strongest critters in the game, this Arrowhail perk means I'm actually dealing significantly more damage in Legendary mode than a normal character would deal in Adept mode, the average difficulty. And I'm not even using Smithing to improve Frost's bow. We just have a normal Orcish Shortbow with Iron Arrows.
We can actually solo dragons now. It requires some potions, though; dragons can turn their heads fast enough (and their breath attacks have a wide enough range) that I'd need to sprint to avoid their Shouts, which means I need to burn healing potions and Resist Fire potions to stay healthy against Mirmulnir, the first dragon fight of the run.
The Arrowhail perk gives me exponentially increasing damage as the fight goes on. As Mirmulnir loses health, he dies faster and faster. Here's the difference in his health bar between just 5 arrows near the end of the fight.
We buy a bunch of new spells, including a self-targeted Conjuration spell that summons three wolf familiars and Ocato's Recital, a contingency-type spell that casts up to three different self-targeted non-concentration spells every time you enter combat without costing any magicka. We also recruit Lydia as our new follower.
We now have a sturdy tank, a contingency spell that automatically summons wolves and casts an armor spell at the start of every fight for free, and exponentially increasing bow damage that lets us take down dragons within the space of a single Slow Time spell.
We'll need all of it. Now that we've completed the Dragon Rising quest, dragons will start spawning randomly all across Skyrim, and we've grinded Alchemy, Alteration, and Marksmanship so much that all the enemies will be very high level from now on.
After a great deal of preparation, completing tedious but safe tasks Aekona committed to ending Neb's evil reign as his first test of fortitude. A long, drawn out battle of attrition ensued, with all 12 potions of extra healing required to survive. It was nearly over, with Aekona level drained to infancy, trapped behind the kitchen table and attacked on two ends by Neb and a child spirit. Fortunately, two consecutive critical hits ended Neb’s life, eliminating the spirits and saving Aekona to fight another day. Looting the house, he located a trap behind a painting. Being a veritable trap expert (score 100), he confidently attempted to disarm it. The trap sprung, killing Aekona instantly. Neb smiled from Hell.
Henae knew there was great treasure to be found in a guarded compound, so shortly after emerging from the dungeon she made her way to the Temple district. Sneaking past a dangerous armed party, she cased the joint and beat a hasty retreat. But a trap sprung on the way out, releasing a menagerie of foes. Henae watched them tear eachother apart from afar before attempting to escape, but the victor, a mighty Glabrezu, followed her out of the compound. For hours, Henae was tailed by the demon as it devoured random commoners and story-essential characters indiscriminately. No guard dared approach and offer aid. Presently, Henae gave up and was eviscerated
Thinking it was time to rekindle an old love, the mage -> fighter Dual. I rolled a 95 stat mage, destined to become an early dual - her name is Maggy F: pips in daggers and LN (for the pickpocketing ferret).
Maggy started out doing the usual: killing shoal for that sweet 5.000 xp and a dual to figther. From there it was Beregost quests, the flamedance ring quest and Tenyas bowl. Easy as pie... Well actually I had some problems with the startup and regaining my mage levels after the dual. But after 3 restarts I got underway doing the above
As a fighter I took 2 pips in staff and 2 in two handed weapon style. She will be epic when (if) I get the staff of the magi
Getting a magical staff, was just a matter of killing Silke - which meant my fourth restart. But from then on it was smooth sailing.
The most exiciting in the first part of the was the many mishaps my ferret did whilst trying to pickpocket some stuff
A crucial part of my BG1 run is using wands. Luckily the wands and the high yielding xp areas coincide: WoParalyzation = sirene area, WoFire = Ankheg cave, WoMonsterS = valley of tombs WoFrost = found in tree (no it doesnt fit in). So some wand searching was next:
The Ankheg area was cleared first with a wand of sleep, giving me a wand of fire. Everything else was cleared with fire.
The western wilderness provided loot and xp
The wand of frost opened Durlags tower, and getting me a nice tome. I nearly Got petrified by the basilisk on the roof having only a blue scroll of protection and no potions - I managed to get the scroll off in the last minute. Exiciting and stupid
But another level
Once level 7 is in the belt, I start the main quest. With wands its easy
The Naskel mines where easy - the bandit camp as well. The cloakwood mine actually as well
Even Daveorn was easy. His spells baited out by summons. I buffed with 100% fire and electricity, shield amulet and greenstone amulet and faced him... in melee. He had no spells left and we duked it out with staves.
BG city is next. With wands it will be easy - everything is awesome with wands in BG1
Tried running a mage dualled to fighter at level 2. Wasn't sure whether to dual at 2 or 3. After killing an ankheg using sleep, she levelled to 2 and dualled to fighter. She then killed another ankheg and would have levelled up if she had killed two more. It was not to be. The ankheg got a critical hit and that was the end.
Points of interest. Shank had saved against her sleep spell and followed her outside only to be killed by the watchers. Clearly they are of more use than a bundle of sticks!
Using sleep she killed both Carbos and Mendas despite them being given extra arms and armour as per usual in my set up.
The kuo-toa caves were made easier when I finally got my first HLAs half way in - including a planetar for Thallian. The awesomeness of SCS Planetars allowed for a quick takedown of the demon knights:
Next up: Beholder hive. I started with my party and a planetar for the groups involving drow and mind flayers, accidentally adding some actual beholders into the mix (though they didn't manage to hurt my party):
The primary battle against the big cluster of beholders and elder orbs to the south-east, however, was dealt with via kiting them across the whole map, spamming cloudkill wand charges and the incendiary cloud spell, with the two doing the kiting, Thallian and Sarastro, always staying off screen:
The illithid city turned out to be super easy. In fact, I'd say that this was the fastest and safest run through this area I have ever done - despite this being SCS mind flayers (though without the extra damage resistance). This was mainly due to the power of the skald song and and my new HLA summons (first a deva, next a planetar) - mind flayers would dimension door to my party and die almost instantly:
The Master Brain was able to dispel my buffs (I didn't know it would do that), but that didn't matter, as the level 20 skald song (now slightly upgraded to improved bard song, though this is mostly a defensive improvement for Nabatil himself) protects against anything but the relatively weak direct damage abilities SCS grants to mind flayers:
On my way outside, I had a VERY strange encounter. Suddenly, there was a sauaghin prince + bodyguard standing at the exit, almost killing the unbuffed Thallian. I was caught off guard and just saw this in time to save him via invisibility potion + antidote:
Aren't these guys usually trapped in one of the mind flayer cells? Anyway, I made my way to the drow city, saving Phaere via death spell. Soon, I had to kill Quile (which was easy, as I had saved my planetar summon for this). The next few drow quests aren't worth mentioning, but shortly before being done with Ust'Natha, there was, of course, the Deirex battle. My strategy: Buff up, enter and run the hasted party as far away from the lich as possible right away. Send a deva and some skeletons to distract him. Wait out his PFMWs. As soon as none are left, Ayla gets to deal the finishing blow via Azuredge:
House Jae'llat was completely destroyed and we swapped the eggs, left the city and had a surprisingly hard battle at the underdark exit (Adalon for some reason didn't really help the party). Finally, we made it outside and back to Athkatla - where we had to defend ourselves against the githyanki right away:
That's it for now. Next time, we will try to hunt some liches, dragons, mind flayers and high level mages. I'm a bit surprised that I've made it past the Underdark. I really love the undispellable safety provided by the bard song. Oh, and with UAI, Nabatil can now use the shield of harmony, so in addition to the bard song, he has numerous item-based immunities.
Tried running another mage intending to dual to fighter at level 3.
Shank had yet again saved against her sleep spell and followed her outside only to be killed by the watchers.
Carbos also saved against sleep spell but didn't follow her outside so Helma slept and returned. This time Carbos slept and as a result died. Using sleep she then killed Mendas.
Upon leaving Candlekeep she returned a ring to Joia.
And then went on to help Mellicamp.
She then took a book to Firebead.
before going ogre hunting.
When she took some Guril berries to Thalantyr she levelled up.
and with the potion Thalantyr gave her, she helped Tonder to get back into shape.
As a result she was given a half decent sword.
She then took a letter that she had found to Mirianne,
before helping Eltoth get back into shape.
Whilst helping Kessy she found some boots.
By now she has become a fully fledged heroine.
She then used sleep to help Arabelle.
She got badly hurt when ambushed by goblins, but one of them got killed!
She agreed to find Albert's dog, but thought that she would do that after dualling to a fighter.
She then took on Zal and was winning until he took a potion of hill giant strength. That turned the tide of the battle so she fled.
However she had no difficulty in killing Caldo and Krumm.
She then returned to fight Zal once more as his potion would have worn off. Sadly however she was spotted by a kobold commando and one arrow was all that it took to bring this intrepid heroine's saga to an unfortunate end. Towards the end she was trying to set up easy experiance for after dualling. She didn't claim the reward for saving Aabelle or the dryad, and left finding Rufie to be done later. However she never did get to dual-class.
Some quick things to do upon returning from the Underdark: Get Mazzy's sword for Nabatil (he can use it with UAI, so he now has even more options for item-based immunities), go on a huge shopping spree and complete the gong quest. Next, I killed the two pre-kangaxx liches with traps before facing the shadow dragon. No special approach here, a pretty straightforward battle (I had traps in place as a safety mechanism, but they weren't needed):
Next, I went after the sewer illithids. The alhoon was slowly taken down by my planetar, so nothing noteworthy to mention here. The guarded compound was next - I engaged and ran downstairs, with the thief and the mage following me. The thief died to traps, the mage got hit by spellstrike after I removed his spellshield. With those two gone, it was easy to go upstairs and kill the others. Next up: The battle that ended my previous and only time so far I've tried no-reloading BG2 with SCS, the bridge district lich. I thought about how to approach this fight for quite a while, since waiting off screen while skeletons draw out the PFMWs doesn't work in a confined space - so I had to make sure I was protected against everything this lich could throw at me (and in SCS, a forcefield blocks the way out during this battle). This is why I decided to only go in with one party member - in this case, Thallian, because he would be able to put up the most spell protections. I decided on a strategy regarding which prebuffs to use, which spells to throw at the lich in which order and how to counter specific moves I've seen SCS liches do in the past. I also planned to give a detailled round by round recap and analysis of the battle (since it might be the only real 1 on 1 wizard chess of entire run), but...:
Turns out my initial ADHW chain contingency killed him immediately. Next on my list was Firkraag (where I forgot to buff my party with protection from fire, which is why Sarastro and Ayla took a bunch of damage):
For Kangaxx, I used a strategy I read about on this forum: Kill his first form with spike traps and his true form with a sunray right away - he didn't get to cast a single spell:
I used spike traps once again for the twisted rune to deal with the inital lich. Also, Thallian threw incendiary clouds into the room before we started the battle, though they turned out to be rather ineffective. I made a couple of mistakes during this fight, one of which got Ayla killed by a death ray:
While instant death effects are somewhat rare in SCS, once I lose by buffs, they do get past the bard song and item-based protections that I mostly rely on. Luckily, a planetar and skeletons were able to clear the rest of the room:
Finally, we had to deal with Bodhi. Sunrays helped in clearing the main room, and we had all of the anti-undead weapons ready by now. A quick rest later, I buffed for Bodhi. Her second version forced another reload during my previous run, so I prepared some additional stuff - she has some kind of cold-based ADHW, so I had bought protection potions and scrolls for this fight. I opened by using the holy water, casting dragon's breath and getting my fighters into position for some sunrays:
This turned out to be super effective, ending the battle in a couple of seconds:
While Bodhi healed herself, she died for a second time during that same round. Time to move on to the elven city!
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 163 session 1-234 5 Dohzer (human male Abjurer, Gate70); Frei (dwarf male fighter, Grond0)
We make our way into Baldur's Gate and crack on with the tasks. Ogre mage in the sewers, brawlers of Undermountain, Degrodel and a group of statues. Jalantha Mistmyr. Ramazith. Marek and Lothander.
We're making good headway and move into the Iron Throne HQ where three of four casters are blinded and two stinking clouds are present. Dohzer tries to cast Improved Invisibility on Frei but he is already invisible. She casts two Cloudkills instead, Frei briefly showing himself so he could have been made invisible once more and be given a benefit to saving throws.
Dohzer is about to Skulltrap when Alai shrugs off all the clouds and stands up. His next move is to complete his casting which takes less than a second - having completed much of it before the fumes had got to him. Dohzer tries to retreat but is too slow and we are both in the spell effect area.
We are both confused but Frei is focused on an enemy. Dohzer moves in and attacks Frei, at which point there is some retaliation despite the miss. Dohzer moves away but Frei keeps pace and does what dwarves do best.
Hubblepot Gogglebur, Gnome Cleric/Illusionist, BG1EE Update 8 BG1EE Updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 First SoD update found here
Alright, Hubblepot is on the home stretch. We prepare pretty standard spell selections: Animate Dead, buffs, Invisibility, a few Confusion/Chaos (on Imoen) etc, then it's off to Duke Eltan. We are teleported into the midst of 5 Ogre Mages (but only 4 turn hostile, as usual). The probability of Hubblepot surviving a full party scuffle with 4 Ogre Mages tends to 1... but better safe than sorry, and so Hubblepot pops an Invisibility/Resist Fear sequencer, staying out of the fight entirely.
As predicted, the Ogre Mages are woefully inadequate. They get a single hit on Yeslick, and Khalid fails his save against Hold Person, but that's it. We move into Candlekeep proper, talk to everyone outside the central keep, and rest at the inn to regain spells. Next, we move inside the central keep, looting (by force of habit, not necessity) every single floor. Hubblepot graciously opts against attacking Rieltar and his cronies, even having to talk Yeslick out of doing so. Nevertheless, we are arrested and subsequently sprung.
The first and second Catacombs are entirely uneventful. Even Greater Doppelgangers are no problem at all by now. The worst that happens is three Phase Spiders teleporting on top of Hubblepot, but since they have a brief delay before they start attacking, Hubblepot merely trots off, leaving Khalid, Yeslick and Jaheira to battle the dumbfounded spiders.
Other than that, an eerie, high-pitched, power-mad cackle is heard throughout the Catacombs on two occasions, mysteriously coinciding with Hubblepot discovering and subsequently using a Manual of Gainful Exercise and Tome of Understanding.
In the caverns, invisible Coran de-traps the entire area before we do anything. Prat and company are handled via Skeleton Warriors and Web, with an invisible Yeslick (equipping the Ring of Free Action) overseeing. The skeletons do very well; they are able to bring low everyone but Prat himself, and by the time Prat has cut through all but one of the skeletons, it is safe to send in Khalid and Yeslick to assist.
By some remarkable inventory shuffling, we are able to pick up almost all the loot, leaving behind a mere scroll of Chromatic Orb. We clear the remaining spiders, and Khalid (under a Protection from Petrification from Imoen) assisted by our last Skeleton Warrior clears the two Greater Basilisks. We exit the caverns, pumping Diarmid for some information along the way.
A quick stop at the FAI sees us, once again and for no good reason other than habit, sell off our plunder and rest to change our spell selection. Back to Baldur's Gate!
We start by storming the Flaming Fist compound. Of course, low-level Cleric spells (most of the enemies opted to try casting Doom...) are precisely zero threat to us, and we show our disdain by clearing most of the mercenaries with a few Wand of Fire charges. Duke Eltan is rescued and delivered to the harbor master.
Next, we go after Cythandria. Even with two Stone Golems, she cannot hope to stand against us for long: Skeleton Warriors absorb the initial blows while her Golems are pelted to death, and Cythandria herself only has so many Stoneskins and Mirror Images. We pick up Sarevok's Diary and head for the Undercellar, resting at the Blushing Mermaid Inn on the way.
Slythe and Krystin turn out to be absolute pushovers. Slythe falls in 2 rounds to mass Skeleton Warriors, and, lacking Death Spell, Krystin is all but helpless before them as well. The rest of the party just sits back and watches the futile struggle (with some glee, as Slythe and Krystin are very far from sympathetic characters).
Ducal Palace... should be easy, but can turn ugly if the damnable Doppelganger Mage and ditto Shaman are left alive to dispense unpleasantness in the form of Enchantment spells. I am uncertain if this is still the case in v2.5, but previously, if any of your party got Confused by the Mage and thus attacked a Flaming Fist or Duke, the game would end. I operate under the assumption that this is still the case. Therefore, any summons vulnerable to Confusion are strictly prohibited, and all characters need a Potion of Magic Blocking in their inventory, should they come under such assault.
The entire party bunches up against the south-eastern wall to prepare. We conjure up our patented wall of Skeleton Warriors, buff to the hilt (even splurging on a few of the good Strength potions for Khalid, Yeslick and Jaheira), and move to engage!
Surprisingly, everything goes swimmingly. We immediately target the Doppelganger Mage, and I guess he didn't even have time to fire up his defenses, because he literally drops in 2 seconds. The Shaman has nothing protecting him apart from a Blur effect, and likewise does not get a single spell off.
With the spell-casters done for, the remaining Greater Doppelgangers can only mildly annoy us. Once they fall, Sarevok goes on a rampage, killing a Skeleton Warrior and getting a solid hit in on Belt (which had me a little worried...), but he is eventually teleported out, and we dutifully follow. Note that, despite reports to the contrary, in my install Liia still did absolutely nothing to defend herself: No Stoneskin, Mirror Image, not even attacking with her paltry dagger. Good thing no Doppelgangers could reach her, what with our wall-o'-bones in the way.
The maze is swept clean. Nothing to report really, a few Skeleton Warriors (the hostile kind) get some hits in, but we've got 60+ healing potions to deal with that. Once in the Undercity, we opt for minimal effort against Rahvin and his gang of merry cutthroats. They are treated to six Fireballs, with only the archers and Gorf surviving (and they die quickly to standard attacks).
18 charisma Imoen (+2 from the Nymph Cloak) and 19 reputation is enough to talk Tamoko out of fighting us. If she gave Full Plate +3 or better, maybe.. but Full Plate +1 < Full Plate and a Ring of Protection, after all. We also pick up the Magma Bulwark, even though we'll have no use for it (Coran is the most lightly armoured and he has the Practical Defense +3).
The final battle looms. Combing through our inventory, we have sufficient resources for what is basically a fool-proof approach: Fighters with Protection from Magic and more potions than you can shake a +2 stick at will kill everything but Sarevok. Then the casters (who will be standing by under Invisibility) will simply swamp our antagonist in summons, while everyone pelts the dread Bhaal-spawn to death. It's not very heroic for Hubblepot to spend almost the entire final fight hidden invisibly in a corner, but low-level arcane/cleric spells just aren't very helpful in this fight, and Hubblepot must survive.
So, we proceed with the plan. Hubblepot and Yeslick summon the customary five Skeleton Warriors, and our fighters (Khalid/Yeslick/Jaheira/Coran) proceed with gulping down what was undoubtedly 50k+ in potions and scrolls: Protection from Magic (Yeslick got a Potion of Genius first thing so he could use such a scroll), Potion of Fortitude, Potion of Agility for those that did not already have 18+ DEX, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Defense/Potion of Invulnerability for a tiny boost to AC, Potion of Power, Potion of Storm Giant Strength, Oil of Speed.. anything that gives us an edge. Every single fighter now has at least 3 attacks per round, with THAC0's at or below 0. By contrast, Hubblepot and Imoen apply a few basic buffs to our Skeleton Warriors, then turn invisible. To the clattering of bones and the muted clanking of heavy armor, our fighters charge!
The Skeleton Warriors hold off Sarevok for the time being. Coran immediately lands an Arrow of Dispelling, removing Sarevok's haste. Diarmid teleports in, and is cut down in moments by our super-charged fighters.
Coran tries and repeatedly fails to land an Arrow of Dispelling on either Semaj or Angelo, so we turn our attention to the entirely unprotected Tazok. The dread Half-Ogre cannot stand against such mythical might as ours for long, and meets his very deserved end. A Hasted Angelo is running around, landing potshots, but it's nothing we can't potion through.
After some more running around to avoid having to fight Sarevok in melee (we're down to one Skeleton Warrior operational), Coran does land an Arrow of Dispelling on Angelo. Goodbye, Angelo.
With much less melee pressure on the field, we mop up the Skeletons that have spawned, while Coran succeeds in dispelling Semaj's protections. Semaj, being a pure Mage, has the hitpoints to survive for all of a few moments.
With naught but Sarevok remaining in the way of enemies, the outcome is not in doubt. We spend a solitary charge of our Wand of Monster Summoning, and pelt Sarevok to death.
Unfortunately, the game bugged out. Sarevok is very clearly dead, as are all his acolytes and Skeletons, but the game won't end. I tried a bit of googling and setting some globals, but nothing worked. However, I shall not hesitate to call this a splendid victory.
Hooray, hooray, hooray! Hubblepot Gogglebur, champion of Gnomes, Halflings and similar small folk everywhere, stands victorious! From humble beginnings as a mere neophyte in the world of magics both arcane and divine, he now stands tall (for a Gnome) as a master of mighty spellworks, a paragon of evil-pelting pebbles, a spreader of buttery goodness over the vile, dry toast of wickedness!
A raciously rumbunctious celebration is called at the Elfsong Tavern, with visiting wanderers from all over the Sword Coast. Hubblepot dances his famous jigg-bugg-waltz to equal parts amusement and horror in the unwilling onlookers, several boars are roasted whole over the fire while being basted in the finest Dwarven Mead, and the air is filled with a sense of anxiety undone and yes, of good triumphing over evil. The celebrations continue well into the night.
The party has retired onto a small balcony. Hubblepot asked the Grand Dukes for a favour, and they have obliged: A small cask of the same fine pipeweed our heroes enjoyed before assaulting the Iron Throne, as well as no less than two (!) bottles of Gnome's Choice Turnip Brandy have been delivered. The party enjoys these gifts in the brisk night air, talking amongst themselves for a few hours.
Eventually, a messenger arrives, with a request that Hubblepot assist the city once again. Apparently, there are followers of Sarevok still at large. What is worse, there are rumors of some kind of crusade to the north. It seems our stalwarth hero may be needed again in the near future...
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 164 (1st and final update) Attitude (human female Cavalier, Grond0); Guji (human female totemic druid, Gate70)
With our previous run having taken an early bath we had time to make a start on another one - as it turned out we had time to finish that as well .
Things didn't start too promisingly when Xzar and Montaron made much shorter work of a totemic summons than Guji expected and L1 protection failed to help as she was hit by a critical by a diseased gibberling attracted by the commotion.
A visit to Beregost temple put that right though and the duo picked up a level each from Shoal before returning to Beregost to see what else there was to do. Silke seemed like an obvious target and another spirit snake tried to attack her as she went hostile. Knowing she would be trying a lightning bolt, Attitude was scared about the possibility of that bouncing off the spirit snake and rebounding to hit him. Therefore as soon as she had fired and missed with an opening sling shot she moved well away out of the line of fire. Of course when it comes to lightning bolts, predicting the line of fire is easier said than done and this one went on a killing spree ...
Frost the Breton Mage: No-Reload Legendary Mode Run of Skyrim Redone
Part 10
We buy Detect Life and grind Alteration to 70 so we can get the Ebonyflesh spell and the third rank of Mage Armor for 69% damage reduction. It's time to make our way to the Greybeards at High Hrothgar, which means traveling through some wilderness.
On the way, I spot a new type of enemy I don't recognize. Only when I see the name do I remember it from the Dawnguard expansion: a Gargoyle.
Gargoyles are extremely resistant to damage, it seems, but the Arrowhail perk grants exponentially increasing damage per arrow, so they fall within a single Slow Time potion. A mob of vampires attacks soon after, but I maintain a respectful distance while firing away under Slow Time.
Notice the lady in her underwear being brought back to life. Unlike in other Elder Scrolls titles, reanimating the dead actually requires a corpse. And this particular corpse got resurrected after I looted her gear, so... yeah.
Speaking of resurrecting critters, there's a necromancer on the way to High Hrothgar, and while the fight isn't interesting, the aftermath is.
When all that purplish misty magicky stuff fades from the necromancer, you see several chickens walking around with that misty stuff around them. Apparently this necromancer has achieved immortality by turning his chickens into Horcruxes and now lives on inside them.
After speaking with the Greybeards, we stop by Whiterun, where some cultists from the Dragonborn expansion ambush us. Nothing new here. Slow Time is the answer to all riddles.
We also get attacked by a "Challenger," some random mage who apparently thinks he needs to prove himself by fighting you. He's actually pretty tough in a normal run, but again... Slow Time and Arrowhail.
I do some more crafting and grinding (which is very addictive and hard to avoid doing) before proceeding to Ustengrav, the next dungeon of the main quest. The enemies are mostly just swarms of draugr, but Conjuration and Slow Time keep us safe as long as we're careful about traps.
The Whirlwind Sprint Shout is key to completing this dungeon (unless you use certain mods), and it also lets you access a secret alcove that appears inaccessible, as you first see it blocked off by a bunch of rubble.
You're supposed to use Whirlwind Sprint to jump across some broken bridges to reach the alcove, but I didn't know that at the time. Instead, I use a mod-introduced spell, Phase Shift, to teleport through the gap. I realize that I can teleport a little higher and even go out of bounds!
There's no boss to this dungeon, so we hurry on to the next step in the main questline: slaying Salohknir, a newly risen dragon resurrected by Alduin. Thanks to Arrowhail, we can slay him with only 17 arrows, easily fitting inside a single Slow Time potion.
We use the dragon's soul to unlock the Become Ethereal Shout, which will let us attain invincibility for a few seconds (I think four). It's a nice escape option that can also be used to avoid damage from traps.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 165 (164) Lunkh (human male Inquisitor, Gate70); Sparky (gnome female Cleric of Talos, Grond0) Having died twice, we rolled up a new duo and saved. No more deaths yesterday, and today was another day.
We scooted around Candlekeep although Sparky almost died there. Command is not party-friendly so be careful not to cast it on allies, or yourself.
Then we hunted down Shoal the Nereid before entering Beregost. Firebead, Neera (dead = bag) and Marl were all dealt with so we could head south to Nashkel and then track back to relieve Arghain of his magical two handed sword +1.
Silke had a big grin on her face so that had to be dealt with. Sparky could buff against lightning but Lunkh chose to use true sight and a healthy dose of random luck.
Then an early trip to the basilisk map went well - Sparky taking pity on the intellectually sub-par Lunkh to use a scroll of protection from petrification on him. The adventurers there found silence and hold quite annoying but could have caused us some grief if we hadn't invited a couple of skeletons along.
We then found time to deal help Samuel before emptying an ankheg nest - one of them being commanded while underground, a second fighting Lunkh while using multiplayer skills so Sparky could not see it and several others eating away at the inquisitor. He gulped several blue healing potions to stay alive and after returning a body to Farmer Brun we dropped in on Tenya to hand a bowl back.
Further to the south we located Ruffie for a small child and killed Zal and Vax. Then we stopped before either of us died. (plenty of time for that later)
So Maggy found herself in the city. Doing the usual. Looting and getting some tomes.
The iron throne was done with wands and dodging the fight via stairs
In ck Maggy looted all she could - killing Rieltar and Prat.
Recharging wands is costly - and Maggy is gready for those wands... and a facepalm moment fueled the need a bit - recharging 3 wands without the nymph cloak and casting friend is a costly mistake.
After CK Maggy wanted to do Durlags tower. The traps ser vicious, but not if you are buffed
No worries
Actually my buffing was so good, Maggy never broke a sweat. I was thinking how awesome I was at no reloading, when I opened a chest with a dire charm trap
I had a fully charged greenstone amulet, but had forgotten to activate... she had a lot of bling, but no brain. Back to scratch
Actually my buffing was so good, Maggy never broke a sweat. I was thinking how awesome I was a no reloading, when I opened a chest with a dire charm trap
Hard luck @StummvonBordwehr - you've probably noticed though that a lot of us finish our no-reload runs in an equally awesome fashion .
Plurem the Half-Orc Kensai - update somthing or other (I forgot the #, been a while since my last post) Traveling with 2 other berserkers and Kensai/thief (MP characters)
I had the day off, so thought it's high time to work on Plurem. Chapter 7 was pretty uneventful. April softened up the Undercity Iron Throne party with arrows of detonation and then the party moved up to help mop the enemies up. This worked well.
As for the final battle, I think that deserves a video, so here ya guys go. It's not too long, about 5 1/2 minutes.
Plurem the half-orc Kensai and gang have made it out of the Irenicus' dungeon. We also solved the circus problem, and freed Hendak. We also did the Lilacor quest to get Itwibemine her upgraded two hand sword. We will attempt to take on the slavers in the moored ship. In case people forgot my party members:
Wertle - Dwarven berserker (***** in long sword) April - Gnomish berserker (**** in quarterstaff) Itwibemine - Gnomish ensai (***** in two hand sword) Trapper - level 7 kensai/level 10 thief (**** in daggers) Plurem - Half-orc Kensai (***** in axes)
@StummvonBordwehr Hard luck. However you won't make that mistake again. Probably. Or at least not for a while.
Starting a new run with a gnomish fighter/thief. Normally the extra weaponry that I give the assassins in Candlekeep makes the game a bit harder as it is mainly only usable by thieves. However as this character IS a thief, then if he defeats them, then this time the game will be a little easier.
Diary of Shifty
Against the assassins in Candlekeep I used backstab to great effect.
It was also effective against hobgoblins and ogrillons.
Upon arrival in Nashkel, my refusal of the reward that was due to Greywolf caused my popularity to rise.
as did returning Joia's ring.
and taking Samuel to the FAI
The ogre with the belt fetish was the next to fall.
After acquiring Perdue’s short sword, I returned it to its owner and at the same time acquired a potion to restore Alanna’s neighbour.
Taking a book to Firebead helped my popularity to rise as did helping Melicamp get back into shape.
Thalantyr then made a potion out of guril berries for me to help a werewolf.
With backstab I killed a spider which enabled me to help Tonder.
As a result, I was given a very good quality +1 long sword.
Upon being sent to kill Bassilus, I charmed him with a cloak that I had pick-pocketted. He killed Zargal for me but got poisoned by Geltik. However, though it was Geltik that brought him to the point of death, I made quite sure that I landed the killing blow.
I then took the symbol of Bassilus to the Morning Lord temple.
At the carnival Aerie asked me to help Bemtha against the evil mage Zordral. I tried to backstab him but was unsucessful. He tried to cast sleep on me but I avoided the spell just in time.
I hid in the shadows and tried once more to backstab him but once again failed. However, I did hurt him.
Zordral followed me outside whereupon I used Algernon's Cloak to procure the help of the Great Gazib. When I returned to take on Zordral, I was put to sleep. The Great Gazib was on the point of death when he finally prevailed against Zordral. However, prevail he did.
The Great Gazib and I then went kobold hunting and prevailed. Sadly however, the Great Gazib did not survive the encounter.
Bentha then gave me a useful potion for helping her. I then went to help Samuel, but in transit was assaulted by bandits. I only just survived so spent some time at the FAI recovering.
Backstab then prevailed against Tarnesh.
To the north of the FAI I killed a zombie who was causing distress to his widow.
After that I went ankheg hunting. Some of them hurt me badly, but I prevailed and when I left, not one of them was still alive.
I then took on Tristan and Isolde and won due to a potion that I had taken.
I then headed east where I helpred Corianna by saving her from petrification.
and I then took on some wolves.
I charmed Zargos Flintblade who helped in the fight against Greywolf, but sadly he demised shortly before I killed Greywolf myself.
I then helped Rufie find his owner.
Ithen killed Zal and his friend.
and then killed Krumm and Caldo.
After which my reputation increased once more, as it did when I reunited Drienne with her cat.
I then used stealth combined with the necklace of missiles to kill some adventurers who attacked me.
I used a scroll of protection from petrification before taking on many basilisks and medusae an finally Mutamin.
Finally I went to Durlag's Tower and defeated everything except that I didn't give Love any wine. I am now enjoying a well-earned rest at the Carnival. I think that perhaps it is now time to select a party with which to finally defeat the murderers of Gorion.
@Wise_Grimwald: Do you know how reliable those guril berries are for the purposes of the werewolf quest? I've tried them several times and after failing each one, I assumed the chance of success was extremely small if not nonexistent.
@Wise_Grimwald: Do you know how reliable those guril berries are for the purposes of the werewolf quest? I've tried them several times and after failing each one, I assumed the chance of success was extremely small if not nonexistent.
I don't know, but would guess 50% from my experience. I do wonder if there is something that makes success more likely, charisma or something like that. By the time I do that, I usually have Lord Foreshadow's ring that boosts charisma to 18. That is pure guesswork though.
After my latest mishap I decided to play it safe. I rolled a 91 half orc beserker.. for the lack of novelty I named him “Porgy and...” and gave his skin a shining red color. He started out with two pips in twohanded fighting and twohanded sword.
Out of candlekeep and a brief visit to Shoal, I decided to get the sword I needed
And some bracers
Time for some chunking!
But first an unexpected bandit ambush. 3 shots and 3 critical misses gave Porgy safe passage
The basilisk area reminded me how potent the basilisk are in melee
But after some leveling up, the thaco and damage output was so massive, that Porgy pretty much chunked the sword coast... beware: gore is coming up - and it aint Al
Porgy got the tomes, loot and xp to safely start the main quest. Sadly Porgy failed against Mulahey
He didnt chunk him...
The various bounty hunters, Tranzig and the bandit camp was another matter..
The lightning trap caused serious pain, because of a double dip..
Max HP at level up saved the day.
Cloakwoad secured a fine sword and the final level in BG1
The mine went fairly well. Resting to get horror put P in a tight spot - but the failed rest did give him horror, which was used prudently
Daveorn was killed but not chunked, and the city is next. Traveling from the mine to FAI was done without an ambush - first time ever methinks..
I will do some rep quests before I chunk the city..
I went to Ulgoth's Beard where I agreed to return to Durlag's Tower. This led to Thorin agreeing to join me as a level 7 Dwarven Defender with **** in axes and ** in sword and shield style. I spent a lot of my gold to give him better equipment, but it was only when he killed an ogre carrying bracers of dexterity and an assassin carrying a +3 axe that I felt that he had reached his full potential. We now go through enemies like a dose of salts!
Hmmm not sure that I like the fact that headings are no longer coloured. It doesn't make them really stand out any more.
Alright, Suldanessellar! Clearing the city turned out to be relatively simple, with golems unable to get past my defenses and a planetar taking care of hostile spellcasters. For the dragon battle, I went for a simple aggressive strategy with some additional potion buffs. Everyone had great saving throws, so the one time the dragon actually managed to use his breath weapon, not a lot of harm was done:
I had prepared the spike trap special to avoid having to fight Irenicus at the tree:
Hell trials were complete the good way. Hell Irenicus doesn't die to traps (at least he never did when I tried it in the past), so I placed two groups of traps to the southwest and southeast, planning to lure his demon friends into those. This allowed me to take care of the balors, which was great, because they are the more dangerous ones anyway. At the same time, I lost my unprotected buffs to Jon's first spell:
My party took out the glabrezus while Thallian used spellstrike and breach to remove buffs. My foe summoned a dark planetar, who was trying to chase down and kill Valeria, so she drank an oil of speed and started running:
Jon, having lost his buffs, quickly went to near death:
Though it took quite a while for him to actually go down. This happens a lot in the EE - he should be dead, but his transformation doesn't trigger for many, many rounds for some reason:
SoA: Done! Certainly my best SCS playthrough. I can't remember a time where I felt very threatened during this run so far. Things are going well. Or, at least, they were going well - until ToB started.
Well, the first of the five wasn't too much of a problem - I was prepared for Ilasera, with traps for her minions, even a 3xADHW CC at the ready and tons of buffs:
With the help of a planetar, it was easy to take her down:
I also closed the vacancy my party had ever since losing Cadrax by adding in Sarevok.
However, during the first pocket plane challenge things went horribly awry. Why? Well, the primary reason is because I didn't look up which specific spellcasters actually get access to HLAs in my SCS installation. I remembered that the version of Irenicus showing up during this challenge usually uses low level spells in vanilla, so thought I wouldn't have to buff up as I'd do for an actual boss battle even with SCS. Boy was I wrong... This screenshot here is about when I realized that I had made a huge mistake:
There are multiple HLA's in action here: IA (combined with timestop, of course), a dark planetar, comet, and, though you can't see it yet, a dragon's breath (not to mention energy blades) - and now, look at my buffs: Basically nothing, except for Nabatil himself. So, my first order of business once the timestop ended: Look through my bag of holding and swap around fire protection items to avoid getting multiple party members chunked due to fire spells right away. That did work - nobody died to those. However, with anyone who still had any buffs (once again, except for Nabatil) losing these as well, I had to spend my time errecting defenses, so I was unable to get any meaningful damage out, allowing my foes to act at will. Even worse, to get defenses up, one usually has to stand still, and an unprotected immobile party member is easy pickings for a) a planetar with his vorpal blade or b) Bodhi with her huge level drain abilities - and Bodhi wouldn't leave the one party member who could maybe turn this around, Thallian, in peace, constantly going after him - pictured in her dire wolf form here:
Eventually, Thallian was able to get enough space to attempt a timestop - it still was risky, but possible. He made it just in time. He used IA and tried to focus all of his damage (first having to dispel buffs, though) on Jon, who I thought was the most dangerous foe - and was able to take him down (thanks to SCS we don' have the Rob of Vecna, so I didn't have time to go after anyone else):
However, at this point the dark planetar really started to wreak havoc amongst my party. With insect plagues going out and no one with an active death ward, anyone who got too close to the (permahasted) being was in grave danger. While trying to take down Bodhi with sunrays, Sarastro was hit by an attack and a globe of blades trigger - and got chunked right away:
With no remove fear effect up and Nabatil being too scared to get close to the other party members to provide them all with bard song's fear resistance, the insect plague was even more dangerous. Thallian, unprotected as he was, was frightened and ran right into the dark planetar. Vorpal hit, instant chunking:
Meanwhile, Sarevok was hit by level drain enough times to die as well (no chunking, though). At this point, I was quite sure that I'd never been able to keep enough buffs around to face the planetar in combat, so I planned to try to kite it until its summoning duration would end. However, kiting two foes is much more difficult than one, and Bodhi was still around. So I went for a very aggressive move, trying to use Ayla to kill Bodhi with a GWW. This exposed her to dark planetar attacks, but she got lucky and survived:
Now, trying to run from the dark planetar turned out to be very difficult as well - insect plague was still making my life miserable, and now the thing started spamming its meteor swarm ability all over the map, with no place being truly safe. Nabatil was able to reach item-based fire immunity, but the others couldn't get there. The very wounded Valeria ended up dying to the meteor swarm (though she's close to the dark planetar in the screenshot, that's not what killed her) - no chunking, though:
With the combination of boots of speed + oil of speed plus some healing potions for Ayla, I was finally able to run around in circles until the long-awaited "unsummoned" message appeared:
What a slaughter. We are down to three of our original party members. The reason it's been a week since the last update is because I thought about just stopping there, ending the run - but that's not really my style. I go on until my main character dies, that's how I've always done it. So I recruited replacements. For Thallian, my sorcerer, the only somewhat adequate replacement would be Edwin. For Sarastro, there really is no good option, but since Sarastro was mainly meant to be a tanky fighter with the ability to protect his buffs via arcane spells, Haer'Dalis seemed to be the next best thing. I recruited these two and went on a scroll-shopping extravaganza in Saradush, did a couple of minor quests there and had Ayla take down the vampires:
Ayla was very helpful during the Kiser quest, as these mages are relatively low level and can be dispelled even by the nerfed inquisitor dispel magic, allowing for an easy takedown:
Now, if only I can make it past the Gromnir battle (I checked this time, the mages there most certainly have HLAs), I have a decent chance to get my three new party members to HLA levels - which would be crucial, especially for Edwin. However, I think that my chances to actually complete this run (though, to be fair, they were never high in the first place, since this is only my second time experiencing SCS+Ascension ToB) are close to zero right now.
And, good work surviving that Pocket Plane challenge ! You pulled through, even if it’s by the skin of your teeth ! It makes me feel like it’s one of my own playthrough...
Comments
I decided it was time to get in touch with my inner rage again. I had though to re-roll Bash to a v2.5 character and decided to change him from a fighter/mage to a fighter/illusionist in the process.
He's still not allowed to be responsible for enemy deaths except through the use of Brage's berserking sword. Operating in an SCS installation will make that a bit harder.
Bash had an unfortunate childhood. He's supposedly a gnome, but his appearance suggests the possibility that perhaps his mother lay under the wrong blanket at one point. From an early age he was teased mercilessly by other children and his personality has warped under the strain. At this point it's a toss-up whether he will be thrown out of Candlekeep before storming off by himself. He has a huge amount of rage pent-up inside him and is just searching for the right tool that could let it out ...
Previous updates:
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005776/#Comment_1005776
Update 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005931/#Comment_1005931
Update 4: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1006256/#Comment_1006256
Update 5: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007209/#Comment_1007209
Update 6: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007536/#Comment_1007536
Update 7: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007802/#Comment_1007802
Update 8: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1009955/#Comment_1009955
Update 9: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1010800/#Comment_1010800
Update 10: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011493/#Comment_1011493
Update 11: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011845/#Comment_1011845
After quickly finishing the Brynnlaw quests, we made our way to Spellhold, mainly letting skeleton warriors deal with any yuan-ti mages there. As you can imagine, the first significant encounter was the lich. He was smart enough to ignore my skeletons, cast timestop and, despite my party being far away, walk up to me and dimension door right up to Nabatil (though at this point, his timestop was luckily pretty much over):
A very scary situation, especially since I hadn't buffed for a straight up lich battle - I was planning to dodge my foe and was surprised that he was able to make his way to the party that quickly. Luckily, his first spell was remove magic, and I was able to cast haste and run to the south, getting out of his sight again before he used another spell:
Then, things got really weird. The lich not only cast another timestop, but he also used improved alacrity. This is NOT supposed to happen! I specifically chose the SCS option only allowing certain mages in ToB to get HLAs. Definitely a bug. Luckily, for some reason, this time the lich was not smart enough to walk up to my party again (I guess his script doesn't want him to waste time while he is under IA, and he propably only has one dimension door anyway) - so he wasted all of his spells on skeletons:
He didn't stop trying to blast the almost magic immune skeletons, eventually dealing heavy damage to them via his own summons. I had Ayla, protected by the level 20 skald song, test the waters, and she returned when his final PFMW was gone. It took a few attempts, but Azuredge did the job:
Potentially a very dangerous battle there. Could've gone much worse.
The next significant fight was against Jon himself. This time, I had all my buffs ready, and I was able to protect them relatively well, quickly taking down the clones. The most annoying thing were multiple spheres of chaos (some by Wanev) flying around in the room - almost everywhere. I had to stay at very specific positions or risk some kind of death, since I didn't have the time to apply death ward to my remaining party to deal with disintegration effect (and I couldn't get the spell saves low enough for everyone, though I propably should've done a bit more in that regard). Luckily, Jon did step close enough to Ayla, which allowed her to use one of the five dispelling arrows we just picked up in the northern room - Without protections, Jon was done:
I killed Yoshimo and moved on to the City of Caverns (no Cloak of Mirroring for me thanks to SCS) and the Underdark. The level 20 skald song is great against mind flayers - free stun and charm protection for everyone! This does save a lot of buffing time, I don't have to apply CC on the whole party after every rest. I did the minor quests on the main map, with the drow battle being a bit difficult (they are very good at dealing with skeletons, so my party had to do most of the fighting). Most significant battle here: The balor. I didn't remember all the abilities SCS grants these guys and had to run out of a meteor swarm right away. Constantly getting hit by remove magic didn't help, though Nabatil had his buffs protected with SI:A and managed to keep them. Because of the vorpal hit chance (and the aura of flaming death), I had to avoid melee combat, and because of his other abilities, I had to try and keep the bard song active at all times. This ended up being somewhat of a kiting match:
When the demon forced me to separate my party, I was almost sure that someone would die, but with improved haste (which I had to rebuff multiple time thanks to constantly getting it dispelled), Ayla was able to win the battle for me before anything really bad could happen:
Next time, we will got into even more dangerous territorry and explore the three side areas.
First, I was surrounded by Xvart...
Then Imoen took two bad hits in a row
Same scenery happened in the next cavern. This time I was forced to let Minsc go berserk!
Kept exploring but the whole ordeal was grim. Minsc got badly hit too, this time by the berserk going off
But I was lucky and I found three potions together with the tome ready to be gulped by Minsc. We kept exploring and I levelled.
Found dynhaeir and trying to flee we risked life once again
I, then discovered that scrolls give us a tons of xp. Woah
I had thought how much bad it is to have so much xp by scrolls and locks. But given that I'm not abusing either system, nor exping by resting, I guess it is still ok. Also there is no reload involved when dynaheir fails scribing the scrolls.
Now a few questions;
1) does anyone know a good UI for a 1280x1024 monitor? Because the UI is really bad on my monitor.
2) Does anyone know where dynhaier's diary is?
BG1EE Updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Alright, let's push on. The party delves back into Durlag's Tower. As we recall, there are three underground levels yet to clear. The only issue with the first level is the shapechanging Greater Dopplegangers. The Durlag form hits with pretty much every swing for 25ish damage and has lots of HP and excellent AC, the Islanne form has Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Confusion etc available, the Kiel form has some Cleric spells, and Fuernebol (if that's the spelling) is by far the easiest, having poor AC and not dealing much damage.
There are two spawns of the shapechanging Greater Dopplegangers. The first one consisting of two such creatures choose the forms of Islanne and Fuernebol. Fuernebol drops quickly, Islanne deals a little damage but leads with Spider Spawn, which is much easier to deal with than Confusion. As Islanne is about to drop, she changes into Durlag. So, Yeslick takes a real beating, but we are able to bring Durlag down with several Scorcher charges. And upon death, Durlag yields a Full Plate Armor for Jaheira.
We loop around the western side of the area, clearing Ghasts and Dwarven Doomguards with ease. The second spawn of shapechangers choose Fuernebol, Islanne and Fuernebol again... Islanne drops fast, and the two Fuernebols are just hopelessly outmatched. We descend the stairs to the next level.
We head west to start with, recruit the five heroes, and all but the Sirine fall fighting the Greater Wyverns (we thank the Sirine for her service by putting her out of her misery). Tarnor gives up yet another Full Plate Armor, and with Khalid, Yeslick and Jaheira already having a set, it goes to Hubblepot.
I always go after the Skeleton Archers in the center of the area: They have around 15 Arrows of Dispelling as well as tons of other good magical ammunition, and they're easy to clear out before they squander any of their lovely arrows by liberal application of a Wand of Fire's Fireball.
The area with Ashirukurus and Greater Ghouls are handled by Khalid and Yeslick gulping a Potion of Freedom each, with Coran tagging along to clear traps and provide ranged support. I always leave my squishier party members out of the maze, or the Ashirukuru can do a real number on them if they get two backstabs in a row.
Finally, we deal with the four themed rooms. Potion of Fire Resistance and Scroll of Protection from Fire allows Khalid to deal with the Phoenix Guard on his own. The Air Aspect and its attendant Invisible Stalkers are just rushed and dealt with via standard attacks. Khalid dons the Belt of Antipode and, thus protected, leads the charge against Kaldran and its Winter Wolves. Finally, there's the Fission Slime.
I allow for the possibility that the bug wherein you are not automatically teleported after clearing all four rooms has been fixed, and so everyone in the party gets 100% Electricity Resistance via potions/scrolls, just to be on the safe side. A prudent precaution, as it turns out.
We enter the last room, the Fission Slime is Scorcher'ed to death, and the party is immediately teleported to the chess room. Of course, with our Electricity Resistance, we are free to move around the chess board at will, which is quite helpful. Not much for tactics here, there's way too many enemies to take the risk of being honourable, and so said enemies are treated to a barrage of six Fireballs from varying sources.
Both Bishops survive, as they start Hasted and immediately rush after the protagonist. However, Hubblepot has donned Full Plate Armor, and the Bishops struggle to land a hit. The enemy King comes limping in at Near Death, but proves a nuisance with his Stoneskins, Mirror Images and Invisibility sequencer.
However, he simply cannot turn the tide on his own, and soon falls to concentrated attacks.
The party descends further. This level is almost devoid of noteworthy fights. We move slowly, with Coran taking the lead and disarming traps. The vast numbers of Greater Ghouls and Crypt Crawlers in the southern acid caverns are handled via Potions of Freedom for Khalid/Yeslick, and a few Wand of Fire charges (we have so many Wands now that we'll struggle to use up even half of the charges by the end of the game, so why not use them to expedite matters).
We haven't rested since we started, but still have a round of buffs and three Animate Dead available. We employ said spellworks before fighting Grael, and a Greater Malison/Slow combo ensures a flawless victory.
With Grael gone, there are only minor enemies left on this level. We clear out all remaining Greater Ghouls, then take on the nest of spiders to the west, and that's all she wrote. By now we are quite weighed down with loot, but it's a pleasant burden.
As always, the party opts not to bother with the Demon Knight, for the same reason that Kahrk is still alive: Low reward, high risk (though the Demon Knight isn't that dangerous, it's just pointless, as we do not need the experience at this stage).
We take Islanne up on her offer and are teleported outside. Though said Demon Knight still lives, I'd call this as Durlag's Tower successfully cleared! No deaths, not even any close calls, though in fairness we were very high-level for it.
There's not much left to do. We could go for Balduran's Isle, but again, we need neither the loot nor the experience. Better I think to just finish BG1 and move on to SoD.
The party takes one last look at every store outside Baldur's Gate to ensure there is nothing left we need (we pick up some magical ammunition and protection scrolls, though we could've just as well have purchased such at Sorcerous Sundries), and then heads to the Elfsong Tavern.
We prepare extensively: The entire party will sneak past the enemy group under Invisibility, and set up shop in the back room. From there, we shall first send an initial wave of five Skeleton Warriors with an assortment of buffs, under the invisible overseeing of Coran.
Once this first wave is defeated, we'll conjure up another two Skeleton Warriors and two Nymphs, apply another round of buffs (we have 3 divine and 2 arcane casters, after all), then charge, with the fresh wave of summons leading the way. Simple, but effective. I may opt to use a few charges of our Wands of Monster Summoning, if the first wave dies off before absorbing the most dangerous enemy spells.
If any stray spell looks in danger of landing on Hubblepot, he'll have a Potion of Magic Blocking in a quickslot.
Fully rested and ready, the party begins the climb. The Iron Throne guards are hopelessly outclassed by now: Nortuary on the third floor tries to take on the entire party, alone, with nothing but defensive buffs and a Shortsword. Points for self-confidence, I guess. He lasts almost two rounds.
As planned, the entire party turns invisible, using up almost all our L2 arcane spell slots, and sneaks into the back room on the top floor. Skeleton Warriors are summoned, thoroughly buffed, and sent into action.
Unfortunately, the results are somewhat dismal: They succeed only in killing the Doppleganger. However, I figure we're high enough level that we can handle a bit of rough-housing.
The second wave of summons is brought forth, buffs are re-applied, and the entire party charges in!
The Skeleton Warriors and Nymphs are of course targetted by a multitude of Confusion and Chaos, which is to be expected. The rest of the party zeros in on Alai, who has the misfortune of being closest to us.
Under combined attacks, he folds within moments. Notice that a Nymph managed to Hold Aasim, nice!
As you'll note in the above screenshot, Female Shennara got a Backstab in on Jaheira. Female Shennara soon regrets this, as she immediately falls to a well-placed swipe from Khalid (it seems the first wave of Skeleton Warriors did do some damage, even though they failed to kill off anyone important).
Gardush also died somewhere around here (he was irrelevant anyway, as he broke both his weapons fighting the first Skeleton Warrior wave...).
With the meddlesome Female Shennara out of the picture, the party swiftly dispatches the still held Aasim. Diyab, lacking arcane defensive buffs, falls almost immediately afterwards. We haven't even cast a single offensive spell yet, mass ranged fire is more than enough to get us through this.
Naaman, with Stoneskin and Mirror Image, lasts a bit longer, but he seems to be out of Confusion/Chaos, and so is no longer much of a threat. Male Shennara proves he's not out of the picture yet, with a minor Backstab on Coran! We respond in kind: Greater Malison, Doom and Blind ensures Male Shennara meets the same fate as his female accomplice.
Only Zhalimar remains. Of course, I forget to swap Coran back to a ranged weapon, whereupon Zhalimar crits the archer for 30 (!) damage. Thankfully, Coran survives and is rapidly told to fall back and engage from a safer distance. Zhalimar can bear the brunt of our onslaught for only so long, and we have victory!
We gather all the lovely loot (I really only care about the scrolls of Vocalize and Minor Sequencer, but as long as the loot's just laying there...), and make our exit, to identify and heal up a bit.
Another fine battle, although Coran came a bit too close to a possible chunking for my tastes (one more solid swing from Zhalimar would've probably done it). Still, Hubblepot was never in any danger.
Next on the agenda: Bringing the Iron Throne and by extension, that fiend Sarevok, to heel!
But that is for next time. For now, the party can be found toasting their good fortunes at the Elfsong Tavern, Hubblepot regaling the crowd with tales of his derring-do directing the furious battle from the back. Far, far back.
Hubblepot is now a L7/L7 Gnome Cleric/Illusionist.
Frost the Breton Mage: No-Reload Legendary Mode Run of Skyrim Redone
Part 9
To Bleak Falls Barrow! Early game strategy in Legendary mode before you get a high armor rating tends to involve sniping people while a conjured critter (in our case, a wolf familiar) distracts the enemy.Unfortunately, that doesn't mean we're completely safe from arrows, and there's an archer hiding out in the tower. He nearly slays us with a single arrow when we wander into his line of fire.
I heal up with some potions and drink a Slow Time potion; we need to put that archer down before another arrow threatens the fate of the run. I approach the archer, but he's hiding behind a wall and I'm a little anxious to get closer, because he might hit me with an arrow if I move too far to the left. I try shooting his hand, but the hitbox is either very small or nonexistent; I can't hit him.
Eventually I have no choice but to cross his line of fire, but fortunately, he couldn't react fast enough (relative to the archer, I'm moving at lightning speed while Slow Time is active) and he fires the arrow at thin air. Once that shot is wasted, we stun-lock him with a flurry of arrows.
Frost's Marksmanship hits 50 and we pick a few new perks, one of which deals 25% extra damage when shooting at an enemy's side or back (very easy under Slow Time). Maximizing damage is important because our skill growth is based on damage output rather than number of arrows fired. We start making use of the new perk right away on another bandit.
We use Slow Time to bring down the rest of the bandits around Bleak Falls Barrow, but the process is very inefficient. We need two whole potions just to kill two bandits.
One of our other nice options is Twin Summoning, or whatever it's called, a Skyrim Redone greater power exclusive to Bretons that lets us bypass the summoning limit at the cost of health damage over time. I've mentioned this before, but the effect is actually kind of disappointing: we can summon a bunch of ghostly wolves at once, but they get in each other's way, and only a tiny fraction of them can attack at a time.
Worse yet, wolf familiars in my install aren't very aggressive. Often, they'll run away for a few seconds before re-engaging the enemy, which means they spend a fair amount of time not actually attacking any enemies.
We're not even halfway through Bleak Falls when we run low on arrows. We have no choice but to leave the dungeon and go buy and craft some more. We buy a few new spells, including a stronger wolf familiar and Breath Ward (an expensive but powerful defensive option that blocks 90% of spells and Shouts, outgoing and ingoing).
We head back and find the bandits have respawned, so we use Slow Time again and drink some Fortify Marksman potions to speed up our skill growth while we pluck away at our shortbow. Shortly into the dungeon, we find a new potion: the pre-made Slow Time potions, which are so ridiculously weak that they seem completely useless even if you don't compare them to our longer-lasting custom potions.
Thanks to the Thief Stone and our Fortify Marksman potions, we start making even faster progress on our Marksmanship skill. We've been investing in new perks that increase our damage.
One of the nice things about Slow Time is that it lets you easily dodge even very fast-moving attacks and spells. Here's Frost quickly stepping out of the way of an Unrelenting Force Shout.
Finally we reach the dungeon boss, who has no more defense against Slow Time than any other individual draugr. Without allies, he cannot move fast enough to pressure us.
We're inches away from 80 Marksmanship, so I hike out towards Rorikstead to catch butterflies and hunt the local bandits and wolves and saber cats. Finally we hit 80, and immediately choose the most important perk of this run.
Here's the thing about the Arrowhail perk: that extra 10 damage per consecutive hit is cumulative. So if you deal 60 base damage, your first hit will do 60, your second will deal 70, your third will deal 80, and so on. But that's not all.
The extra damage bypasses the Legendary mode penalty. It even appears to bypass damage resistances; it's a flat 10. I don't know if there's a time limit attached to it, but even if there is, Slow Time will make it all but irrelevant.
Now, in this run, Legendary mode and damage resistances make me do only about 10 damage per hit against enemies with damage reduction. That's what I've been working with so far. So, if I fire 10 arrows, I deal 100 damage or so.
Now, with this perk, I deal 10+20+30+40+50+60+70+80+90+100 damage, or 550 damage.
That's 5 times as much damage as I normally would, and the impact of the perk only increases when I'm dealing with tougher enemies that take more arrows to bring down.
A creature with 1,000 health would only take 14 arrows before dying. With 2,000 health, it's only 20. With 5,000 health, it's only 32.
Against the strongest critters in the game, this Arrowhail perk means I'm actually dealing significantly more damage in Legendary mode than a normal character would deal in Adept mode, the average difficulty. And I'm not even using Smithing to improve Frost's bow. We just have a normal Orcish Shortbow with Iron Arrows.
We can actually solo dragons now. It requires some potions, though; dragons can turn their heads fast enough (and their breath attacks have a wide enough range) that I'd need to sprint to avoid their Shouts, which means I need to burn healing potions and Resist Fire potions to stay healthy against Mirmulnir, the first dragon fight of the run.
The Arrowhail perk gives me exponentially increasing damage as the fight goes on. As Mirmulnir loses health, he dies faster and faster. Here's the difference in his health bar between just 5 arrows near the end of the fight.
We buy a bunch of new spells, including a self-targeted Conjuration spell that summons three wolf familiars and Ocato's Recital, a contingency-type spell that casts up to three different self-targeted non-concentration spells every time you enter combat without costing any magicka. We also recruit Lydia as our new follower.
We now have a sturdy tank, a contingency spell that automatically summons wolves and casts an armor spell at the start of every fight for free, and exponentially increasing bow damage that lets us take down dragons within the space of a single Slow Time spell.
We'll need all of it. Now that we've completed the Dragon Rising quest, dragons will start spawning randomly all across Skyrim, and we've grinded Alchemy, Alteration, and Marksmanship so much that all the enemies will be very high level from now on.
Henae knew there was great treasure to be found in a guarded compound, so shortly after emerging from the dungeon she made her way to the Temple district. Sneaking past a dangerous armed party, she cased the joint and beat a hasty retreat. But a trap sprung on the way out, releasing a menagerie of foes. Henae watched them tear eachother apart from afar before attempting to escape, but the victor, a mighty Glabrezu, followed her out of the compound. For hours, Henae was tailed by the demon as it devoured random commoners and story-essential characters indiscriminately. No guard dared approach and offer aid. Presently, Henae gave up and was eviscerated
Maggy F - an early dual
Thinking it was time to rekindle an old love, the mage -> fighter Dual. I rolled a 95 stat mage, destined to become an early dual - her name is Maggy F: pips in daggers and LN (for the pickpocketing ferret).Maggy started out doing the usual: killing shoal for that sweet 5.000 xp and a dual to figther. From there it was Beregost quests, the flamedance ring quest and Tenyas bowl. Easy as pie... Well actually I had some problems with the startup and regaining my mage levels after the dual. But after 3 restarts I got underway doing the above
As a fighter I took 2 pips in staff and 2 in two handed weapon style. She will be epic when (if) I get the staff of the magi
Getting a magical staff, was just a matter of killing Silke - which meant my fourth restart. But from then on it was smooth sailing.
The most exiciting in the first part of the was the many mishaps my ferret did whilst trying to pickpocket some stuff
A crucial part of my BG1 run is using wands. Luckily the wands and the high yielding xp areas coincide:
WoParalyzation = sirene area,
WoFire = Ankheg cave,
WoMonsterS = valley of tombs
WoFrost = found in tree (no it doesnt fit in).
So some wand searching was next:
The Ankheg area was cleared first with a wand of sleep, giving me a wand of fire. Everything else was cleared with fire.
The western wilderness provided loot and xp
The wand of frost opened Durlags tower, and getting me a nice tome. I nearly Got petrified by the basilisk on the roof having only a blue scroll of protection and no potions - I managed to get the scroll off in the last minute. Exiciting and stupid
Once level 7 is in the belt, I start the main quest. With wands its easy
The cloakwood mine actually as well
Even Daveorn was easy. His spells baited out by summons. I buffed with 100% fire and electricity, shield amulet and greenstone amulet and faced him... in melee. He had no spells left and we duked it out with staves.
BG city is next. With wands it will be easy - everything is awesome with wands in BG1
After killing an ankheg using sleep, she levelled to 2 and dualled to fighter.
She then killed another ankheg and would have levelled up if she had killed two more.
It was not to be. The ankheg got a critical hit and that was the end.
Points of interest. Shank had saved against her sleep spell and followed her outside only to be killed by the watchers. Clearly they are of more use than a bundle of sticks!
Using sleep she killed both Carbos and Mendas despite them being given extra arms and armour as per usual in my set up.
Previous updates:
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005776/#Comment_1005776
Update 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005931/#Comment_1005931
Update 4: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1006256/#Comment_1006256
Update 5: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007209/#Comment_1007209
Update 6: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007536/#Comment_1007536
Update 7: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007802/#Comment_1007802
Update 8: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1009955/#Comment_1009955
Update 9: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1010800/#Comment_1010800
Update 10: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011493/#Comment_1011493
Update 11: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011845/#Comment_1011845
Update 12: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012013/#Comment_1012013
The kuo-toa caves were made easier when I finally got my first HLAs half way in - including a planetar for Thallian. The awesomeness of SCS Planetars allowed for a quick takedown of the demon knights:
Next up: Beholder hive. I started with my party and a planetar for the groups involving drow and mind flayers, accidentally adding some actual beholders into the mix (though they didn't manage to hurt my party):
The primary battle against the big cluster of beholders and elder orbs to the south-east, however, was dealt with via kiting them across the whole map, spamming cloudkill wand charges and the incendiary cloud spell, with the two doing the kiting, Thallian and Sarastro, always staying off screen:
The illithid city turned out to be super easy. In fact, I'd say that this was the fastest and safest run through this area I have ever done - despite this being SCS mind flayers (though without the extra damage resistance). This was mainly due to the power of the skald song and and my new HLA summons (first a deva, next a planetar) - mind flayers would dimension door to my party and die almost instantly:
The Master Brain was able to dispel my buffs (I didn't know it would do that), but that didn't matter, as the level 20 skald song (now slightly upgraded to improved bard song, though this is mostly a defensive improvement for Nabatil himself) protects against anything but the relatively weak direct damage abilities SCS grants to mind flayers:
On my way outside, I had a VERY strange encounter. Suddenly, there was a sauaghin prince + bodyguard standing at the exit, almost killing the unbuffed Thallian. I was caught off guard and just saw this in time to save him via invisibility potion + antidote:
Aren't these guys usually trapped in one of the mind flayer cells?
Anyway, I made my way to the drow city, saving Phaere via death spell. Soon, I had to kill Quile (which was easy, as I had saved my planetar summon for this). The next few drow quests aren't worth mentioning, but shortly before being done with Ust'Natha, there was, of course, the Deirex battle. My strategy: Buff up, enter and run the hasted party as far away from the lich as possible right away. Send a deva and some skeletons to distract him. Wait out his PFMWs. As soon as none are left, Ayla gets to deal the finishing blow via Azuredge:
House Jae'llat was completely destroyed and we swapped the eggs, left the city and had a surprisingly hard battle at the underdark exit (Adalon for some reason didn't really help the party). Finally, we made it outside and back to Athkatla - where we had to defend ourselves against the githyanki right away:
That's it for now. Next time, we will try to hunt some liches, dragons, mind flayers and high level mages. I'm a bit surprised that I've made it past the Underdark. I really love the undispellable safety provided by the bard song. Oh, and with UAI, Nabatil can now use the shield of harmony, so in addition to the bard song, he has numerous item-based immunities.
Using sleep she then killed Mendas.
Upon leaving Candlekeep she returned a ring to Joia.
By now she has become a fully fledged heroine.
Towards the end she was trying to set up easy experiance for after dualling. She didn't claim the reward for saving Aabelle or the dryad, and left finding Rufie to be done later. However she never did get to dual-class.
Previous updates:
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005776/#Comment_1005776
Update 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005931/#Comment_1005931
Update 4: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1006256/#Comment_1006256
Update 5: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007209/#Comment_1007209
Update 6: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007536/#Comment_1007536
Update 7: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007802/#Comment_1007802
Update 8: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1009955/#Comment_1009955
Update 9: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1010800/#Comment_1010800
Update 10: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011493/#Comment_1011493
Update 11: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011845/#Comment_1011845
Update 12: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012013/#Comment_1012013
Update 13: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012543/#Comment_1012543
Some quick things to do upon returning from the Underdark: Get Mazzy's sword for Nabatil (he can use it with UAI, so he now has even more options for item-based immunities), go on a huge shopping spree and complete the gong quest. Next, I killed the two pre-kangaxx liches with traps before facing the shadow dragon. No special approach here, a pretty straightforward battle (I had traps in place as a safety mechanism, but they weren't needed):
Next, I went after the sewer illithids. The alhoon was slowly taken down by my planetar, so nothing noteworthy to mention here. The guarded compound was next - I engaged and ran downstairs, with the thief and the mage following me. The thief died to traps, the mage got hit by spellstrike after I removed his spellshield. With those two gone, it was easy to go upstairs and kill the others.
Next up: The battle that ended my previous and only time so far I've tried no-reloading BG2 with SCS, the bridge district lich. I thought about how to approach this fight for quite a while, since waiting off screen while skeletons draw out the PFMWs doesn't work in a confined space - so I had to make sure I was protected against everything this lich could throw at me (and in SCS, a forcefield blocks the way out during this battle). This is why I decided to only go in with one party member - in this case, Thallian, because he would be able to put up the most spell protections. I decided on a strategy regarding which prebuffs to use, which spells to throw at the lich in which order and how to counter specific moves I've seen SCS liches do in the past. I also planned to give a detailled round by round recap and analysis of the battle (since it might be the only real 1 on 1 wizard chess of entire run), but...:
Turns out my initial ADHW chain contingency killed him immediately.
Next on my list was Firkraag (where I forgot to buff my party with protection from fire, which is why Sarastro and Ayla took a bunch of damage):
For Kangaxx, I used a strategy I read about on this forum: Kill his first form with spike traps and his true form with a sunray right away - he didn't get to cast a single spell:
I used spike traps once again for the twisted rune to deal with the inital lich. Also, Thallian threw incendiary clouds into the room before we started the battle, though they turned out to be rather ineffective. I made a couple of mistakes during this fight, one of which got Ayla killed by a death ray:
While instant death effects are somewhat rare in SCS, once I lose by buffs, they do get past the bard song and item-based protections that I mostly rely on. Luckily, a planetar and skeletons were able to clear the rest of the room:
Finally, we had to deal with Bodhi. Sunrays helped in clearing the main room, and we had all of the anti-undead weapons ready by now. A quick rest later, I buffed for Bodhi. Her second version forced another reload during my previous run, so I prepared some additional stuff - she has some kind of cold-based ADHW, so I had bought protection potions and scrolls for this fight. I opened by using the holy water, casting dragon's breath and getting my fighters into position for some sunrays:
This turned out to be super effective, ending the battle in a couple of seconds:
While Bodhi healed herself, she died for a second time during that same round. Time to move on to the elven city!
Dohzer (human male Abjurer, Gate70); Frei (dwarf male fighter, Grond0)
We make our way into Baldur's Gate and crack on with the tasks. Ogre mage in the sewers, brawlers of Undermountain, Degrodel and a group of statues. Jalantha Mistmyr. Ramazith. Marek and Lothander.
We're making good headway and move into the Iron Throne HQ where three of four casters are blinded and two stinking clouds are present. Dohzer tries to cast Improved Invisibility on Frei but he is already invisible. She casts two Cloudkills instead, Frei briefly showing himself so he could have been made invisible once more and be given a benefit to saving throws.
Dohzer is about to Skulltrap when Alai shrugs off all the clouds and stands up. His next move is to complete his casting which takes less than a second - having completed much of it before the fumes had got to him. Dohzer tries to retreat but is too slow and we are both in the spell effect area.
BG1EE Updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
First SoD update found here
Alright, Hubblepot is on the home stretch. We prepare pretty standard spell selections: Animate Dead, buffs, Invisibility, a few Confusion/Chaos (on Imoen) etc, then it's off to Duke Eltan.
We are teleported into the midst of 5 Ogre Mages (but only 4 turn hostile, as usual). The probability of Hubblepot surviving a full party scuffle with 4 Ogre Mages tends to 1... but better safe than sorry, and so Hubblepot pops an Invisibility/Resist Fear sequencer, staying out of the fight entirely.
As predicted, the Ogre Mages are woefully inadequate. They get a single hit on Yeslick, and Khalid fails his save against Hold Person, but that's it. We move into Candlekeep proper, talk to everyone outside the central keep, and rest at the inn to regain spells.
Next, we move inside the central keep, looting (by force of habit, not necessity) every single floor. Hubblepot graciously opts against attacking Rieltar and his cronies, even having to talk Yeslick out of doing so. Nevertheless, we are arrested and subsequently sprung.
The first and second Catacombs are entirely uneventful. Even Greater Doppelgangers are no problem at all by now. The worst that happens is three Phase Spiders teleporting on top of Hubblepot, but since they have a brief delay before they start attacking, Hubblepot merely trots off, leaving Khalid, Yeslick and Jaheira to battle the dumbfounded spiders.
Other than that, an eerie, high-pitched, power-mad cackle is heard throughout the Catacombs on two occasions, mysteriously coinciding with Hubblepot discovering and subsequently using a Manual of Gainful Exercise and Tome of Understanding.
In the caverns, invisible Coran de-traps the entire area before we do anything.
Prat and company are handled via Skeleton Warriors and Web, with an invisible Yeslick (equipping the Ring of Free Action) overseeing. The skeletons do very well; they are able to bring low everyone but Prat himself, and by the time Prat has cut through all but one of the skeletons, it is safe to send in Khalid and Yeslick to assist.
By some remarkable inventory shuffling, we are able to pick up almost all the loot, leaving behind a mere scroll of Chromatic Orb. We clear the remaining spiders, and Khalid (under a Protection from Petrification from Imoen) assisted by our last Skeleton Warrior clears the two Greater Basilisks. We exit the caverns, pumping Diarmid for some information along the way.
A quick stop at the FAI sees us, once again and for no good reason other than habit, sell off our plunder and rest to change our spell selection.
Back to Baldur's Gate!
We start by storming the Flaming Fist compound. Of course, low-level Cleric spells (most of the enemies opted to try casting Doom...) are precisely zero threat to us, and we show our disdain by clearing most of the mercenaries with a few Wand of Fire charges. Duke Eltan is rescued and delivered to the harbor master.
Next, we go after Cythandria. Even with two Stone Golems, she cannot hope to stand against us for long: Skeleton Warriors absorb the initial blows while her Golems are pelted to death, and Cythandria herself only has so many Stoneskins and Mirror Images. We pick up Sarevok's Diary and head for the Undercellar, resting at the Blushing Mermaid Inn on the way.
Slythe and Krystin turn out to be absolute pushovers. Slythe falls in 2 rounds to mass Skeleton Warriors, and, lacking Death Spell, Krystin is all but helpless before them as well. The rest of the party just sits back and watches the futile struggle (with some glee, as Slythe and Krystin are very far from sympathetic characters).
Ducal Palace... should be easy, but can turn ugly if the damnable Doppelganger Mage and ditto Shaman are left alive to dispense unpleasantness in the form of Enchantment spells.
I am uncertain if this is still the case in v2.5, but previously, if any of your party got Confused by the Mage and thus attacked a Flaming Fist or Duke, the game would end. I operate under the assumption that this is still the case. Therefore, any summons vulnerable to Confusion are strictly prohibited, and all characters need a Potion of Magic Blocking in their inventory, should they come under such assault.
The entire party bunches up against the south-eastern wall to prepare. We conjure up our patented wall of Skeleton Warriors, buff to the hilt (even splurging on a few of the good Strength potions for Khalid, Yeslick and Jaheira), and move to engage!
Surprisingly, everything goes swimmingly. We immediately target the Doppelganger Mage, and I guess he didn't even have time to fire up his defenses, because he literally drops in 2 seconds.
The Shaman has nothing protecting him apart from a Blur effect, and likewise does not get a single spell off.
With the spell-casters done for, the remaining Greater Doppelgangers can only mildly annoy us. Once they fall, Sarevok goes on a rampage, killing a Skeleton Warrior and getting a solid hit in on Belt (which had me a little worried...), but he is eventually teleported out, and we dutifully follow.
Note that, despite reports to the contrary, in my install Liia still did absolutely nothing to defend herself: No Stoneskin, Mirror Image, not even attacking with her paltry dagger. Good thing no Doppelgangers could reach her, what with our wall-o'-bones in the way.
The maze is swept clean. Nothing to report really, a few Skeleton Warriors (the hostile kind) get some hits in, but we've got 60+ healing potions to deal with that.
Once in the Undercity, we opt for minimal effort against Rahvin and his gang of merry cutthroats.
They are treated to six Fireballs, with only the archers and Gorf surviving (and they die quickly to standard attacks).
18 charisma Imoen (+2 from the Nymph Cloak) and 19 reputation is enough to talk Tamoko out of fighting us. If she gave Full Plate +3 or better, maybe.. but Full Plate +1 < Full Plate and a Ring of Protection, after all. We also pick up the Magma Bulwark, even though we'll have no use for it (Coran is the most lightly armoured and he has the Practical Defense +3).
The final battle looms. Combing through our inventory, we have sufficient resources for what is basically a fool-proof approach: Fighters with Protection from Magic and more potions than you can shake a +2 stick at will kill everything but Sarevok. Then the casters (who will be standing by under Invisibility) will simply swamp our antagonist in summons, while everyone pelts the dread Bhaal-spawn to death.
It's not very heroic for Hubblepot to spend almost the entire final fight hidden invisibly in a corner, but low-level arcane/cleric spells just aren't very helpful in this fight, and Hubblepot must survive.
So, we proceed with the plan. Hubblepot and Yeslick summon the customary five Skeleton Warriors, and our fighters (Khalid/Yeslick/Jaheira/Coran) proceed with gulping down what was undoubtedly 50k+ in potions and scrolls: Protection from Magic (Yeslick got a Potion of Genius first thing so he could use such a scroll), Potion of Fortitude, Potion of Agility for those that did not already have 18+ DEX, Potion of Mind Focusing, Potion of Defense/Potion of Invulnerability for a tiny boost to AC, Potion of Power, Potion of Storm Giant Strength, Oil of Speed.. anything that gives us an edge. Every single fighter now has at least 3 attacks per round, with THAC0's at or below 0.
By contrast, Hubblepot and Imoen apply a few basic buffs to our Skeleton Warriors, then turn invisible. To the clattering of bones and the muted clanking of heavy armor, our fighters charge!
The Skeleton Warriors hold off Sarevok for the time being. Coran immediately lands an Arrow of Dispelling, removing Sarevok's haste. Diarmid teleports in, and is cut down in moments by our super-charged fighters.
Coran tries and repeatedly fails to land an Arrow of Dispelling on either Semaj or Angelo, so we turn our attention to the entirely unprotected Tazok. The dread Half-Ogre cannot stand against such mythical might as ours for long, and meets his very deserved end. A Hasted Angelo is running around, landing potshots, but it's nothing we can't potion through.
After some more running around to avoid having to fight Sarevok in melee (we're down to one Skeleton Warrior operational), Coran does land an Arrow of Dispelling on Angelo. Goodbye, Angelo.
With much less melee pressure on the field, we mop up the Skeletons that have spawned, while Coran succeeds in dispelling Semaj's protections. Semaj, being a pure Mage, has the hitpoints to survive for all of a few moments.
With naught but Sarevok remaining in the way of enemies, the outcome is not in doubt. We spend a solitary charge of our Wand of Monster Summoning, and pelt Sarevok to death.
Unfortunately, the game bugged out. Sarevok is very clearly dead, as are all his acolytes and Skeletons, but the game won't end. I tried a bit of googling and setting some globals, but nothing worked.
However, I shall not hesitate to call this a splendid victory.
Hooray, hooray, hooray! Hubblepot Gogglebur, champion of Gnomes, Halflings and similar small folk everywhere, stands victorious! From humble beginnings as a mere neophyte in the world of magics both arcane and divine, he now stands tall (for a Gnome) as a master of mighty spellworks, a paragon of evil-pelting pebbles, a spreader of buttery goodness over the vile, dry toast of wickedness!
A raciously rumbunctious celebration is called at the Elfsong Tavern, with visiting wanderers from all over the Sword Coast. Hubblepot dances his famous jigg-bugg-waltz to equal parts amusement and horror in the unwilling onlookers, several boars are roasted whole over the fire while being basted in the finest Dwarven Mead, and the air is filled with a sense of anxiety undone and yes, of good triumphing over evil.
The celebrations continue well into the night.
The party has retired onto a small balcony. Hubblepot asked the Grand Dukes for a favour, and they have obliged: A small cask of the same fine pipeweed our heroes enjoyed before assaulting the Iron Throne, as well as no less than two (!) bottles of Gnome's Choice Turnip Brandy have been delivered.
The party enjoys these gifts in the brisk night air, talking amongst themselves for a few hours.
Eventually, a messenger arrives, with a request that Hubblepot assist the city once again. Apparently, there are followers of Sarevok still at large. What is worse, there are rumors of some kind of crusade to the north. It seems our stalwarth hero may be needed again in the near future...
Hubblepot will return in Siege of Dragonspear.
Attitude (human female Cavalier, Grond0); Guji (human female totemic druid, Gate70)
With our previous run having taken an early bath we had time to make a start on another one - as it turned out we had time to finish that as well
Things didn't start too promisingly when Xzar and Montaron made much shorter work of a totemic summons than Guji expected and L1 protection failed to help as she was hit by a critical by a diseased gibberling attracted by the commotion.
A visit to Beregost temple put that right though and the duo picked up a level each from Shoal before returning to Beregost to see what else there was to do. Silke seemed like an obvious target and another spirit snake tried to attack her as she went hostile. Knowing she would be trying a lightning bolt, Attitude was scared about the possibility of that bouncing off the spirit snake and rebounding to hit him. Therefore as soon as she had fired and missed with an opening sling shot she moved well away out of the line of fire. Of course when it comes to lightning bolts, predicting the line of fire is easier said than done and this one went on a killing spree ...
Frost the Breton Mage: No-Reload Legendary Mode Run of Skyrim Redone
Part 10
We buy Detect Life and grind Alteration to 70 so we can get the Ebonyflesh spell and the third rank of Mage Armor for 69% damage reduction. It's time to make our way to the Greybeards at High Hrothgar, which means traveling through some wilderness.On the way, I spot a new type of enemy I don't recognize. Only when I see the name do I remember it from the Dawnguard expansion: a Gargoyle.
Gargoyles are extremely resistant to damage, it seems, but the Arrowhail perk grants exponentially increasing damage per arrow, so they fall within a single Slow Time potion. A mob of vampires attacks soon after, but I maintain a respectful distance while firing away under Slow Time.
Notice the lady in her underwear being brought back to life. Unlike in other Elder Scrolls titles, reanimating the dead actually requires a corpse. And this particular corpse got resurrected after I looted her gear, so... yeah.
Speaking of resurrecting critters, there's a necromancer on the way to High Hrothgar, and while the fight isn't interesting, the aftermath is.
When all that purplish misty magicky stuff fades from the necromancer, you see several chickens walking around with that misty stuff around them. Apparently this necromancer has achieved immortality by turning his chickens into Horcruxes and now lives on inside them.
After speaking with the Greybeards, we stop by Whiterun, where some cultists from the Dragonborn expansion ambush us. Nothing new here. Slow Time is the answer to all riddles.
We also get attacked by a "Challenger," some random mage who apparently thinks he needs to prove himself by fighting you. He's actually pretty tough in a normal run, but again... Slow Time and Arrowhail.
I do some more crafting and grinding (which is very addictive and hard to avoid doing) before proceeding to Ustengrav, the next dungeon of the main quest. The enemies are mostly just swarms of draugr, but Conjuration and Slow Time keep us safe as long as we're careful about traps.
The Whirlwind Sprint Shout is key to completing this dungeon (unless you use certain mods), and it also lets you access a secret alcove that appears inaccessible, as you first see it blocked off by a bunch of rubble.
You're supposed to use Whirlwind Sprint to jump across some broken bridges to reach the alcove, but I didn't know that at the time. Instead, I use a mod-introduced spell, Phase Shift, to teleport through the gap. I realize that I can teleport a little higher and even go out of bounds!
There's no boss to this dungeon, so we hurry on to the next step in the main questline: slaying Salohknir, a newly risen dragon resurrected by Alduin. Thanks to Arrowhail, we can slay him with only 17 arrows, easily fitting inside a single Slow Time potion.
We use the dragon's soul to unlock the Become Ethereal Shout, which will let us attain invincibility for a few seconds (I think four). It's a nice escape option that can also be used to avoid damage from traps.
Next, we need to infiltrate the Thalmor embassy.
Lunkh (human male Inquisitor, Gate70); Sparky (gnome female Cleric of Talos, Grond0)
Having died twice, we rolled up a new duo and saved. No more deaths yesterday, and today was another day.
We scooted around Candlekeep although Sparky almost died there. Command is not party-friendly so be careful not to cast it on allies, or yourself.
Then we hunted down Shoal the Nereid before entering Beregost. Firebead, Neera (dead = bag) and Marl were all dealt with so we could head south to Nashkel and then track back to relieve Arghain of his magical two handed sword +1.
Silke had a big grin on her face so that had to be dealt with. Sparky could buff against lightning but Lunkh chose to use true sight and a healthy dose of random luck.
Then an early trip to the basilisk map went well - Sparky taking pity on the intellectually sub-par Lunkh to use a scroll of protection from petrification on him. The adventurers there found silence and hold quite annoying but could have caused us some grief if we hadn't invited a couple of skeletons along.
We then found time to deal help Samuel before emptying an ankheg nest - one of them being commanded while underground, a second fighting Lunkh while using multiplayer skills so Sparky could not see it and several others eating away at the inquisitor. He gulped several blue healing potions to stay alive and after returning a body to Farmer Brun we dropped in on Tenya to hand a bowl back.
Further to the south we located Ruffie for a small child and killed Zal and Vax. Then we stopped before either of us died.
(plenty of time for that later)
Maggy F - and all that bling
PreviouslySo Maggy found herself in the city. Doing the usual. Looting and getting some tomes.
The iron throne was done with wands and dodging the fight via stairs
In ck Maggy looted all she could - killing Rieltar and Prat.
Recharging wands is costly - and Maggy is gready for those wands... and a facepalm moment fueled the need a bit - recharging 3 wands without the nymph cloak and casting friend is a costly mistake.
After CK Maggy wanted to do Durlags tower. The traps ser vicious, but not if you are buffed
Actually my buffing was so good, Maggy never broke a sweat. I was thinking how awesome I was at no reloading, when I opened a chest with a dire charm trap
I had a fully charged greenstone amulet, but had forgotten to activate... she had a lot of bling, but no brain.
Back to scratch
Traveling with 2 other berserkers and Kensai/thief (MP characters)
I had the day off, so thought it's high time to work on Plurem. Chapter 7 was pretty uneventful. April softened up the Undercity Iron Throne party with arrows of detonation and then the party moved up to help mop the enemies up. This worked well.
As for the final battle, I think that deserves a video, so here ya guys go. It's not too long, about 5 1/2 minutes.
Plurem's battle with Sarevok (5 1/2 minute video)
Wertle - Dwarven berserker (***** in long sword)
April - Gnomish berserker (**** in quarterstaff)
Itwibemine - Gnomish ensai (***** in two hand sword)
Trapper - level 7 kensai/level 10 thief (**** in daggers)
Plurem - Half-orc Kensai (***** in axes)
Will keep at it. It's been fun so far.
Starting a new run with a gnomish fighter/thief.
Diary of Shifty
Against the assassins in Candlekeep I used backstab to great effect.As a result, I was given a very good quality +1 long sword.
At the carnival Aerie asked me to help Bemtha against the evil mage Zordral. I tried to backstab him but was unsucessful. He tried to cast sleep on me but I avoided the spell just in time.
Bentha then gave me a useful potion for helping her. I then went to help Samuel, but in transit was assaulted by bandits. I only just survived so spent some time at the FAI recovering.
I then headed east where I helpred Corianna by saving her from petrification.
I charmed Zargos Flintblade who helped in the fight against Greywolf, but sadly he demised shortly before I killed Greywolf myself.
After which my reputation increased once more, as it did when I reunited Drienne with her cat.
I used a scroll of protection from petrification before taking on many basilisks and medusae an finally Mutamin.
Finally I went to Durlag's Tower and defeated everything except that I didn't give Love any wine. I am now enjoying a well-earned rest at the Carnival. I think that perhaps it is now time to select a party with which to finally defeat the murderers of Gorion.
Porgy and ... the chunkynator
After my latest mishap I decided to play it safe. I rolled a 91 half orc beserker.. for the lack of novelty I named him “Porgy and...” and gave his skin a shining red color. He started out with two pips in twohanded fighting and twohanded sword.Out of candlekeep and a brief visit to Shoal, I decided to get the sword I needed
And some bracers
Time for some chunking!
But first an unexpected bandit ambush. 3 shots and 3 critical misses gave Porgy safe passage
The basilisk area reminded me how potent the basilisk are in melee
But after some leveling up, the thaco and damage output was so massive, that Porgy pretty much chunked the sword coast... beware: gore is coming up - and it aint Al
Porgy got the tomes, loot and xp to safely start the main quest. Sadly Porgy failed against Mulahey
The various bounty hunters, Tranzig and the bandit camp was another matter..
The lightning trap caused serious pain, because of a double dip..
Cloakwoad secured a fine sword and the final level in BG1
The mine went fairly well. Resting to get horror put P in a tight spot - but the failed rest did give him horror, which was used prudently
Daveorn was killed but not chunked, and the city is next. Traveling from the mine to FAI was done without an ambush - first time ever methinks..
I will do some rep quests before I chunk the city..
Diary of Shifty
I went to Ulgoth's Beard where I agreed to return to Durlag's Tower. This led to Thorin agreeing to join me as a level 7 Dwarven Defender with **** in axes and ** in sword and shield style. I spent a lot of my gold to give him better equipment, but it was only when he killed an ogre carrying bracers of dexterity and an assassin carrying a +3 axe that I felt that he had reached his full potential. We now go through enemies like a dose of salts!Hmmm not sure that I like the fact that headings are no longer coloured. It doesn't make them really stand out any more.
Previous updates:
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005776/#Comment_1005776
Update 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1005931/#Comment_1005931
Update 4: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1006256/#Comment_1006256
Update 5: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007209/#Comment_1007209
Update 6: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007536/#Comment_1007536
Update 7: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1007802/#Comment_1007802
Update 8: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1009955/#Comment_1009955
Update 9: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1010800/#Comment_1010800
Update 10: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011493/#Comment_1011493
Update 11: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1011845/#Comment_1011845
Update 12: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012013/#Comment_1012013
Update 13: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012543/#Comment_1012543
Update 14: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1012801/#Comment_1012801
Alright, Suldanessellar! Clearing the city turned out to be relatively simple, with golems unable to get past my defenses and a planetar taking care of hostile spellcasters. For the dragon battle, I went for a simple aggressive strategy with some additional potion buffs. Everyone had great saving throws, so the one time the dragon actually managed to use his breath weapon, not a lot of harm was done:
I had prepared the spike trap special to avoid having to fight Irenicus at the tree:
Hell trials were complete the good way. Hell Irenicus doesn't die to traps (at least he never did when I tried it in the past), so I placed two groups of traps to the southwest and southeast, planning to lure his demon friends into those. This allowed me to take care of the balors, which was great, because they are the more dangerous ones anyway. At the same time, I lost my unprotected buffs to Jon's first spell:
My party took out the glabrezus while Thallian used spellstrike and breach to remove buffs. My foe summoned a dark planetar, who was trying to chase down and kill Valeria, so she drank an oil of speed and started running:
Jon, having lost his buffs, quickly went to near death:
Though it took quite a while for him to actually go down. This happens a lot in the EE - he should be dead, but his transformation doesn't trigger for many, many rounds for some reason:
SoA: Done! Certainly my best SCS playthrough. I can't remember a time where I felt very threatened during this run so far. Things are going well. Or, at least, they were going well - until ToB started.
Well, the first of the five wasn't too much of a problem - I was prepared for Ilasera, with traps for her minions, even a 3xADHW CC at the ready and tons of buffs:
With the help of a planetar, it was easy to take her down:
I also closed the vacancy my party had ever since losing Cadrax by adding in Sarevok.
However, during the first pocket plane challenge things went horribly awry. Why? Well, the primary reason is because I didn't look up which specific spellcasters actually get access to HLAs in my SCS installation. I remembered that the version of Irenicus showing up during this challenge usually uses low level spells in vanilla, so thought I wouldn't have to buff up as I'd do for an actual boss battle even with SCS. Boy was I wrong... This screenshot here is about when I realized that I had made a huge mistake:
There are multiple HLA's in action here: IA (combined with timestop, of course), a dark planetar, comet, and, though you can't see it yet, a dragon's breath (not to mention energy blades) - and now, look at my buffs: Basically nothing, except for Nabatil himself. So, my first order of business once the timestop ended: Look through my bag of holding and swap around fire protection items to avoid getting multiple party members chunked due to fire spells right away. That did work - nobody died to those. However, with anyone who still had any buffs (once again, except for Nabatil) losing these as well, I had to spend my time errecting defenses, so I was unable to get any meaningful damage out, allowing my foes to act at will. Even worse, to get defenses up, one usually has to stand still, and an unprotected immobile party member is easy pickings for a) a planetar with his vorpal blade or b) Bodhi with her huge level drain abilities - and Bodhi wouldn't leave the one party member who could maybe turn this around, Thallian, in peace, constantly going after him - pictured in her dire wolf form here:
Eventually, Thallian was able to get enough space to attempt a timestop - it still was risky, but possible. He made it just in time. He used IA and tried to focus all of his damage (first having to dispel buffs, though) on Jon, who I thought was the most dangerous foe - and was able to take him down (thanks to SCS we don' have the Rob of Vecna, so I didn't have time to go after anyone else):
However, at this point the dark planetar really started to wreak havoc amongst my party. With insect plagues going out and no one with an active death ward, anyone who got too close to the (permahasted) being was in grave danger. While trying to take down Bodhi with sunrays, Sarastro was hit by an attack and a globe of blades trigger - and got chunked right away:
With no remove fear effect up and Nabatil being too scared to get close to the other party members to provide them all with bard song's fear resistance, the insect plague was even more dangerous. Thallian, unprotected as he was, was frightened and ran right into the dark planetar. Vorpal hit, instant chunking:
Meanwhile, Sarevok was hit by level drain enough times to die as well (no chunking, though). At this point, I was quite sure that I'd never been able to keep enough buffs around to face the planetar in combat, so I planned to try to kite it until its summoning duration would end. However, kiting two foes is much more difficult than one, and Bodhi was still around. So I went for a very aggressive move, trying to use Ayla to kill Bodhi with a GWW. This exposed her to dark planetar attacks, but she got lucky and survived:
Now, trying to run from the dark planetar turned out to be very difficult as well - insect plague was still making my life miserable, and now the thing started spamming its meteor swarm ability all over the map, with no place being truly safe. Nabatil was able to reach item-based fire immunity, but the others couldn't get there. The very wounded Valeria ended up dying to the meteor swarm (though she's close to the dark planetar in the screenshot, that's not what killed her) - no chunking, though:
With the combination of boots of speed + oil of speed plus some healing potions for Ayla, I was finally able to run around in circles until the long-awaited "unsummoned" message appeared:
What a slaughter. We are down to three of our original party members. The reason it's been a week since the last update is because I thought about just stopping there, ending the run - but that's not really my style. I go on until my main character dies, that's how I've always done it. So I recruited replacements. For Thallian, my sorcerer, the only somewhat adequate replacement would be Edwin. For Sarastro, there really is no good option, but since Sarastro was mainly meant to be a tanky fighter with the ability to protect his buffs via arcane spells, Haer'Dalis seemed to be the next best thing. I recruited these two and went on a scroll-shopping extravaganza in Saradush, did a couple of minor quests there and had Ayla take down the vampires:
Ayla was very helpful during the Kiser quest, as these mages are relatively low level and can be dispelled even by the nerfed inquisitor dispel magic, allowing for an easy takedown:
Now, if only I can make it past the Gromnir battle (I checked this time, the mages there most certainly have HLAs), I have a decent chance to get my three new party members to HLA levels - which would be crucial, especially for Edwin. However, I think that my chances to actually complete this run (though, to be fair, they were never high in the first place, since this is only my second time experiencing SCS+Ascension ToB) are close to zero right now.
And, good work surviving that Pocket Plane challenge ! You pulled through, even if it’s by the skin of your teeth ! It makes me feel like it’s one of my own playthrough...