The Hard Hitters Update Plurem - half-orc kensai (protagonist) Mazzy - halfling "fighter" Wertle - dwarven berserker April - gnomish berserker Trapper - human level 7 kensai dualed to thief Imoen - human thief dualed to mage
This is a massive update with a lot of screenshots - I made huge progress with my party - so putting the update itself in a spoiler for the sake of those cell phone users of this site:
The Planar Sphere and Planar Prison were cleared out by the team - we did quite well. Two berserkers leading the way, with two kensais adding their damage, the fights went pretty well.
We decided we were ready to deal with Bodhi and get to Brynnlaw. Since we were planning on getting Imoen, we let Yoshimo join briefly and we sub him for Imoen in Spellhold. Traps made short work of Bodhi.
Spellhold was pretty straightforward.
The fish city was really easy for the team. We only bother with this portion for the reflection cloak - it is just so useful against beholders.
Once we finally get to the Underdark, we save the gnome village. Even with 1/2 the team stunned, we still crushed the demon.
We then worked on clearing out the 3 lairs - Kua-Toas, Beholders and Illithids. By this point, both Mazzy and Wertle had negative saves vs. spells, which means if they have high AC and buffed INT (potions of genius), then they can take the attention of the enemies with everyone else supporting with ranged fire. This worked great for the Illithid City.
We did not clear out the whole Beholder lair (didn't want to deal with imprisonment), so instead just cleared it partially.
Kua Toas went pretty well, except for Trapper getting charmed and killed. The Demon Knights went much, much better than usual, as finally I took @Grond0 's advice and started clearing them from the bottom. Doing it this way, the party just destroyed them.
Finally time for the Ust Natha quests. They went well.
Once out of the Underdark, we cleared out Firkraag's lair. We got beat up, but we did clear it.
We absolutely destroyed Firkraag, in possibly just 2 rounds.
We made a mistake, and forgot that we had dispelling arrows equipped so wasted quite a few. Oops.
We also made a visit to the Shadow Dragon at the Old Temple - surprisingly, it fell almost immediately.
We then went after Bodhi to get Imoen's soul back. We had no problem with that.
Suldanesslar went smoothly. The black dragon wasn't too hard for the party, we hit just so hard, hence our name of "hard hitters".
Hard Hitters micro-update (Plurem and his gang of fighters)
Irenicus has been defeated at the Tree of life. He did manage to kill Imoen in an ice storm, but that was about it before he was sent to Hell. Since I want to keep using Azuredge, I did all the good challenges. Also, no one really can use the blackrazor effectively in my group.
By the point the battle with Irenicus and his demons started, we did have WW, so we used those. Before the battle, I had used potions of invulnerability on all our characters (well except Imoen of course), and that seemed to help. Irenicus eventually teleported to three snares, and combined with our melee/ranged attacks, that was enough to force him to give it up.
1st TOB Update: ****************
Illsaera was defeated, as expected. First pocket plane challenge was easy for 6 fighters. By this point, we subbed Sarevok for Imoen. We have completed all Saradush quests except penetrating Gromnir's place, the vampires, and of course Gromnir himself. We are gulping lots of heal potions, but fortunately those are in good supply in ToB. We'll keep at it.
I'm pretty busy today with work and chess club, so likely will be able to make good progress on my run tomorrow night (PST).
Frisky Bits is back, this time as a half-elven Fighter/Mage/Cleric, with the same portrait from dreamy94 over at tumblr. We got lucky early on with a strong stat roll after just a dozen or so re-rolls.
Ideally, we'd have used CHA as a dump stat to max out WIS, but that didn't make much RP sense for this character, so we'll have very few cleric spell slots in BG1.
The early game went very smoothly, with several failed saves on the Beregost spiders against Sleep, a good backstab from Montaron on Tarnesh (I prefer using Xzar and Monty as disposable characters for this fight), and a Silence 15' Radius spell on Mutamin that let Korax survive long enough to paralyze him.
We hit level 4/4/4 after Mutamin's garden and can now cast Invisibility. Unfortunately, our options are a bit constrained, as Item Randomizer has been robbing us of certain important items, notably wands.
Not all items are randomized in my install (I think I set it to a 50% chance of randomization), and we manage to find the Wand of Lightning in the Beregost mansion, letting us take down Bassilus and get his +2 hammer.
Once we hit cleric level 5, we use Sanctuary to grab the Wand of Fire from the Ulcaster Ruins, tanking the Fireball traps with Protection from Fire. Since we're well over 10,000 XP, we go to the Larswood/Peldvale to grab Baeloth, whose Fireballs clear the way through the Gnoll Fortress and save Dynaheir, who also starts with Fireball thanks to our high levels.
Next, we recruit Tenya, who is a joinable NPC in my install. Tenya has four water-themed mephit spells, three of which can stun on a failed save, two of which are area-effect (and one of which is party-friendly!), and one of which can blind on a failed save. She's actually pretty overpowered.
We ditch Minsc and Dynaheir, who don't really match up to Baeloth and Tenya, and sneak through the Nashkel mines with Invisibility. Mulahey proves helpless against Tenya's mephit spells.
Normally I use Invisibility to skip the Molkar and Maneira ambushes, but I kind of want to see if they have any valuable randomized loot, so I re-recruit Dynaheir and Minsc and add on Xan as well for some extra power and safety. I still enter the first fight during Invisibility, allowing us to get the drop on the first ambush. Tenya's Boiling Rainstorm stuns the enemy, Baeloth's Web holds them, and Dynaheir's Stinking Cloud knocks them unconscious, allowing us to bomb them to death.
For the second ambush, I accidentally arrive without Invisibility, but by carefully positioning our party members, we avoid heavy pressure: Minsc charges the cleric with rage active to block the cleric's opening Enchantment spell, Tenya stuns Halacan long enough for Frisky Bits to slay him with bullets, and Xan runs from the two melee attackers while Dynaheir burns a charge from the Wand of Fire.
The party is at level 5 and 6, but I think we have enough wand charges to deal with the bandit camp more or less safely. Rather than steal the documents under Sanctuary with a Potion of Absorption to block the Lightning Bolt trap, we attack the enemies outside, using Stinking Cloud to hold off incoming enemies from the east.
Venkt approaches with the other high-end enemies from the tent, but Tenya stuns him with Salt Crystals and Baeloth bombs the group while it struggles to get past Dynaheir's Stinking Cloud.
Ardenor Crush and Toggy Kroshka both fail saves against Hold Person, sealing their fate, and without them, the enemy no longer poses a serious threat. Tenya uses Storm Shield (1 round per level of 100% resistance to fire, cold, and electricity, plus immunity to normal missiles!) to tank the Lightning Bolt trap. With the bandit camp done, we ditch Minsc and Dynaheir once again and head out to the Cloakwood, where Coran joins the team as our new archer.
Normally I don't fight the spiders here, either, but since this is no longer a solo run, we can actually tackle them okay. Fireballs are enough to break the difficulty.
We use our high damage output (Coran is a monster, and Baeloth has lots of damage spells) to farm wyverns until Coran and Tenya gain a level. Turns out Drasus and company have little defense against Web spells and Fireballs.
Shortly into the Cloakwood mines, Baeloth hits level 7 and learns Invisibility. We can now rest and travel anywhere without worrying about ambushes.
Yeslick joins the team. We already have enough clerics, but Yeslick's Dispel Magic has a 100% chance of working regardless of spell level (it would actually be pretty useless otherwise), which gives us a spectacular anti-magic option. Tenya distracts a few guards, losing her buffs to Hareishan's Dispel Magic but buying Yeslick enough time to debuff Hareishan.
Tenya barely clings to life using potions and we take down guards using Fireball, but we don't act quickly enough to kill Hareishan. Luckily, only Yeslick fails a save against Chaos, so most of the party stays functional long enough to finish off Hareishan. We move faster against Natasha, who didn't get a chance to bomb us before collapsing.
Frisky Bits nearly dies against Davaeorn when I let them approach the Battle Horrors alongside a summoned skeleton. Frisky Bits fails multiple saves against Web and Stinking Cloud, and since the skeleton was fully visible, Davaeorn is able to bomb both of them.
I had intended to use Yeslick's Dispel Magic to debuff Davaeorn, but I am forced to use it to rescue Frisky Bits.
Frisky Bits downs a Potion of Magic Blocking to ward off any more damage spells and the Web and Stinking Cloud. A healing potion might have seemed more intuitive since their HP was at 11, but since the Battle Horrors have no ranged attacks, Frisky Bits is able to simply run away and buy time to heal with other potions.
Yeslick drinks a Potion of Cloud Giant Strength and we make progress on the Battle Horrors with help from Baeloth's damage spells. Meanwhile, Coran, still hiding behind Invisibility, keeps an eye on Davaeorn.
Once Davaeorn's MGOI wears off, Xan removes his Mirror Images with Detect Illusions, but with guards coming in from the northwest to distract us, we can't get through the mage's Stoneskins fast enough to stop a Cone of Cold spell. The Belt of Antipode keeps Coran perfectly safe, however.
We can't spare the attacks per round to kill Davaeorn, so Frisky Bits resorts to using the Wand of Fire to get through his Stoneskins. Tenya pitches in to make sure Davaeorn doesn't blast us with anything.
To the northwest, Baeloth bombs the incoming guards with Fireballs. Xan dies to Arrows of Ice, but the guards finally go down, and while Davaeorn deals lots of damage to Frisky Bits with Magic Missiles, Coran manages to shoot him down while Frisky Bits hides behind Invisibility.
We buy some wands over at Baldur's Gate and slay Ragefast and Ramazith using Yeslick's Dispel Magic. Coran leaves the party due to a mod encounter of some sort when we visit the Firewine Ruins...
...but he never comes back, and he doesn't show up anywhere on the map. It seems like a bug, which would make a reload or console command acceptable, but I can't tell if it is. This might be intended behavior, though I'd severely question the judgment of a modder who made an NPC permanently leave the party based on an innocuous dialog option.
We didn't just lose a party member. He also took a suit of full plate mail with him, the Longbow of Marksmanship, the Bracers of Archery, and Spider's Bane, plus the Belt of Antipode and a Cloak of Protection.
We really do need an archer, so we grab the mod NPC Indira from inside the Firewine ruins, a Fighter/Mage with an illegal number of pips in shortbows and two pips in Single Weapon Style, but no pips in any melee weapons. It's actually a huge waste of the Fighter/Mage class, as it means that she can't use Mirror Image to tank enemies and still fight competently. Her role will mostly just be an archer who can use wands on the side.
Deeper in the ruins, Baeloth uses his MR and Yeslick uses his high HP to tank Lendarn until his MGOI wears off and we can hit him with Command. Once he's gone, Baeloth sneaks up on the Ogre Mage with Invisibility and nets the enemy with Web, allowing him to bomb the Ogre Mage safely.
I do some research and apparently a woman named Amelia is supposed to appear in the area, which means I might be able to get Coran back if I do her quest. We end up fighting Amelia, who is a demon with some very nasty powers, including high MR and immunity to normal weapons! Frisky Bits hides from her Energy Drain spells while the rest of the party tries to tack on damage.
It takes a very long time and Xan dies to repeated Energy Drain spells, but we manage to get her defenses and take her down.
But even after the quest is over, Coran doesn't show up anywhere, and I don't know if he's supposed to. We therefore have to continue the game without him.
I don't normally take on the Iron Throne fight, but with a full party, it seems doable. We enter under Invisibility and a lot of buffs and open with Fireballs. I position Indira poorly and get her killed, but the enemy suffers far worse.
We follow up with a Dispel Magic from Yeslick to remove pre-buffs, a Detect Illusions spell from Xan to remove a Mirror Image that didn't get caught by the Dispel Magic (I had to position it so Frisky Bits didn't lose their buffs), and a Slow spell from Baeloth to frustrate the enemy fighters. Shortly after, Xan landed an Emotion: Hopelessness spell against the already-crippled survivors.
Zhalimar Cloudwulfe survived it all and dealt heavy damage to the party, but without any allies, he wasn't able to bring anyone down. Gardush lingered even longer, but since he had no ranged weapons, we could simply run away from him.
Frisky Bits has been by far the biggest damage dealer, taking more than 40% of the kills in this chapter alone. Baeloth has more than 20% in the same period simply because of his Fireballs.
We head to Candlekeep, where Yeslick rescues us with a Remove Fear spell until we can flee the area and return under Invisibility. Without MGOI, the Ogre Magi are pretty vulnerable to spells.
Baeloth deployed more Webs and Fireballs against Rieltar's group, netting us a Wand of Monster Summoning--our first and only one, I think.
In the catacombs, we miss out on a Cloak of Protection +2 and lose 14 reputation by accidentally killing Arkanis and his buddy with a stray Fireball. Prat's company suffers badly under pressure from Fireballs and Tenya's Boiling Rainstorm spell, but Prat somehow survives and flee under Invisibility.
While wandering around looking for him, we get in a fight with some Phase Spiders, and a line in the dialog box reveals Prat's location: he got caught in a Web trap. Xan hurries over to reveal him and we put him down with the help of a Command spell when he briefly escapes the Web.
We restore our reputation with lots of donations at the Beregost temple and head back to the Iron Throne headquarters. I try to take down Cythandria's buffs with Yeslick's Dispel Magic, but she moves out of the way, and Indira ends up getting crushed in spite of her best attempts to run around and heal herself with potions.
But Cythandria foolishly teleports over to us and wastes a round Breaching Baeloth, allowing us to tear away her Stoneskins. Frisky Bits' Minor Spell Deflection blocks her Lightning Bolt, and she doesn't deal a single point of damage to us before we break through her defenses. She spends her last rounds struggling to maintain her Stoneskins.
I follow the standard procedure for Slythe and Kristin: charm Quenash to trigger Kristin's pre-buffs, let Slythe chunk her, and then bait the enemy with summons. The moment Kristin's opening PFMW wears off, Indira lands an Arrow of Dispelling on her, forcing her to cast a Stoneskin spell that we can easily bypass using Acid Arrows.
We keep up the pressure on Kristin, ignoring Slythe since he's focusing his attention on Tenya, who isn't really critical to this fight. He ends up chunking her on the second backstab.
This is a bug--chunking from physical damage is supposed to be impossible with my SCS install--but I don't really need Tenya that much these days anyway. I won't be bringing her back.
But Slythe's damage output is worrying me, so I have Yeslick break invisibility to debuff him. Baeloth has to spend a round re-casting Stoneskin since he also loses his buffs, but the Dispel Magic was worth it: we manage to nail Slythe with a Wand of Paralyzation charge.
We trample Slythe, and while Kristin manages to land a Skull Trap on us after escaping via invisibility, she falls soon after to Acid Arrows.
I consider my options and eventually decide to replace Tenya with Alora. Alora's rabbit foot is bugged in my install--the description says it gives +2 to AC and saving throws as well as some skill bonuses, but it only grants +2 to luck--but she can wear plate mail in my install, making her a decent tank despite her extremely low HP. This gives us another good archer, and a valuable thief shortly before the Undercity maze traps.
She also has a high enough pickpocket skill to steal Algernon's Cloak. I avoided killing him for RP reasons, which means we had been operating without it for the whole run. We now have both the Nymph Cloak and Algernon's Cloak.
I don't plan on using them to turn the Undercity party against Sarevok, since that seems a bit silly, but I am willing to use it on Ithtyl to get an extra sorcerer in the Ducal Palace fight. We open with a Dispel Magic from Yeslick, removing the enemies' buffs, but they make several important saving throws against the Wand of Paralyzation, and Liia Jannath ends up dead shortly into the fight.
I thought she'd be pre-buffing in this fight, but it seems her script is still broken.
We manage to pin down the Doppelganger Assassin using the Wand of Paralyzation, and while the mage gets Remove Magic off the ground, it targets Alora, who can draw the spell away from the rest of the party by running to a side room before it hits, preserving our buffs.
Unwilling to let the mage do any more mischief, we hit it with an Arrow of Dispelling, and when it goes invisible, Xan reveals it with Detect Illusions.
We mob Sarevok and keep Belt alive until Sarevok flees. We do some last minute shopping and get some new mod-introduced magical shortbows for Indira and Alora, just for some slight bonuses to their damage output. Alora deals with the traps in the maze, we fight our way through, and then we slip past the Undercity party using Invisibility. I've been going after a lot of optional fights in this run, but I don't want to deal with the Undercity party; I remember getting blasted by a stream of Fireballs when I last fought them years ago in BGTutu.
Here we are at the end of the game. Baeloth is level 8, Xan is level 7 (Alora hits level 7 shortly after these screenshots), and everyone else is level 6.
Since I haven't been recharging wands in this install and Item Randomizer took at least two wands away from us, we have rather few wand charges for Sarevok.
Unlike in my solo runs, we won't be using the AI trick to isolate Angelo and bomb Sarevok's group from afar. We're going to fight them all at once without waiting out Diarmid's Protection from Magic scroll. Alora rushes forward, but since Tazok starts out the fight invisible, she gets hit really hard early on. Ultimately, she doesn't make it, but Yeslick does manage to land a Dispel Magic on Angelo and Tazok in the process.
We narrowly missed Semaj, however, who was just out of reach.
With Tazok and Angelo highly vulnerable, we deploy Potions of Firebreath and Wands of Fire to deal some quick damage. Potions of Firebreath, notably, can go right through Semaj's MGOI and Diarmid's Protection from Magic scroll. Unfortunately, I forgot that Potions of Firebreath have a range of 1, which means we have to get into touch range to use them. I screw up the positioning and let Xan get far too close to Sarevok.
Xan is immune to fire thanks to his pre-buffs, but his aura is fogged and he has no Mirror Images left. He escapes Sarevok's reach, but he can't escape Diarmid.
Regardless, Angelo is down, and Tazok and Diarmid are both in terrible condition. Semaj wastes a round Breaching Baeloth, just like Cythandria did, and some careful positioning and movement let us bring down Diarmid with ranged attacks.
Diarmid is an important target. Without his arrows, the enemy is reduced to melee combat and spells, which makes kiting much more effective.
I catch Semaj casting an Enchantment spell at Frisky Bits, which turns out to be Chaos. But since I keep Frisky Bits' aura clear whenever I can, they can easily run away and drink a Potion of Magic Shielding, keeping the Chaos spell from affecting anyone in the party.
It's about time I got rid of Semaj. Indira equips some Arrows of Dispelling, but gets hurt in the process when I let Sarevok wander too close. I haven't been paying much attention to the south, so Yeslick has also taken a lot of damage while running away from Sarevok.
Semaj gets Sunfire off the ground, but no one is hurt besides Indira, who only takes 10 damage thanks to her buffs. Indira is struggling to land hits with Arrows of Dispelling, so she switches to Acid Arrows to help Baeloth finish off Tazok.
Semaj keeps casting damage spells, but the party is too well-buffed and too spread out for him to make any real progress, and Sarevok and the Skeleton Warriors have no ranged weapons, allowing us to kite them indefinitely. Indira finally lands an Arrow of Dispelling on Semaj, but he goes invisible, so we turn our attention to breaking down the skeletons.
Semaj reappears to cast Confusion, but Yeslick blocks it with a Potion of Invulnerability, and Indira puts down the mage with another Arrow of Dispelling and a Wand of Fire charge.
We burn down the remaining skeletons while Baeloth distracts Sarevok, running away and re-casting Mirror Image and Stoneskin. The rest of the party is free to attack Sarevok from afar.
Sarevok survives an unnaturally long time, and CTRL-M reveals that he is stuck at 1 HP, still clinging on to his MONHP1 item that was supposed to vanish via script. We use a workaround to get past the bug (I save the game, edit nonmagical bullets so they remove the MONHP1 item on hit, and then return to the game to finish him off) and proceed to Siege of Dragonspear.
The SoD prologue saw a standard approach of persuading Porios to surrender, then using a scroll of PfU and fireballs to clear the way to Korlaz. She was dispelled and tried to surrender after being shot with a bolt of lightning - but she didn't get far.
In Baldur's Gate I robbed various items from NPCs and picked up the Spectacles and Battle Tankard in quests. With a bag of holding resolving inventory problems I went looking for a vampire. After agreeing to help it, Ikros was affected by a bolt of biting before his buffs fired and eventually died of that without casting any spells.
Isabella was soon chopped down in order to get a regeneration ioun stone as a prize.
With no need for XP or items, I skipped all the rest of the content at the Coast Way and just hid behind the tent until Caelar called a parley at the bridge. I also stealthed through Troll Claw Woods to get to the Forest of Wyrms. More stealth there took me through the temple to find Ziatar and I shut the door to the room to stop any nosy guards appearing while cutting her down.
A potion of invulnerability and PfP scroll had already been applied for Ziatar and they should have made the Neothelid easy. However, with it at near death it disappeared underground for ages - long enough that I didn't notice invulnerability had actually worn off and that was possibly what triggered it to surface again, even though it would have been far better off staying submerged and continuing to cast spells.
A few exploding arrows discouraged Darskhelin's supporters and they didn't last long after the mindflayer was shot down.
Akanna's aerial servants were then tackled individually before a stone form potion protected against the greater command the cleric has got me with before.
On the way out I beat up some invisible stalkers guarding a chest with some throwing daggers in. I buffed up in the bugbear cave before throwing those at Morentherene and the third of those struck home to give me an 11th thief level.
Incidentally, though I've been surprised a couple of times about the dragon waking on the way into the temple, if you tackle it on the way out it always seems to give you plenty of time to throw daggers.
At Boareskyr Bridge the dragon scales were turned into a shield. Vichand was backstabbed, without setting off traps,
before I surrendered the fort. That still left the mage on the bridge, but several of his guards died in traps, while dispelling arrows quickly made him vulnerable.
At the Coalition Camp I bought a few things from a wandering genie before going to rescue Skie from Dragonspear. Then it was off to the Underground River after a quick run through Dead Man's Pass under stealth. A potion of clarity allowed a myconid sac to be obtained safely and some traps laid under a cyclops' feet gave quick access to a Seal.
Rather than waste time with the guards I just used one of my numerous invisibility potions to move to the underground entrance. Inside there I placed the Bwoosh and then blagged my way into the inner sanctum to stealthily poison the food and water - hitting the XP cap and getting my final SoD level there.
The alarm was raised just before I got back to the exit, so I used another invisibility potion to make sure of a safe exit.
Back at the Camp invasion was imminent. Exploding arrows did most of the hard work against the waves, with a few myconids joining in for the final battle. Swift Rabbit got one backstab in there, so to play safe I used a potion of invisibility and regenerated before showing myself again.
At the Castle I went straight to find Ashatiel. He was a bit slow reacting to lightning bolts and died before he could even finish a sanctuary.
Moving on into hell, I ran through the first area before tackling Thrix's allies. A potion of invulnerability was used to protect against non-magical charm and fear and Thrix soon offered a longsword on the way to meet his master.
Fire, lightning and poison protection scrolls were used before taking the lift and various potions added on the way up to confront Belhifet. I switched between melee and ranged attack against him, while keeping Caelar going with 3 restoration scrolls. That combination worked through Belhifet's HPs pretty quickly, though it was actually his own Hamutula that finished him off.
There were no errors in the epilogue and I remembered to take the pantaloons out of the bag of holding so that they will import into BG2.
Nothing special in the starting dungeon. After intimidating Porios using our high STR score, Frisky Bits took a lot of damage from the Shadowed Souls, but it was nothing that we couldn't shrug off with some healing potions and running away. Korlasz fell to Arrows of Dispelling, same as always, and we migrate all of our equipment onto Frisky Bits so we don't lose anything valuable when Alora, Yeslick, Baeloth, and Xan leave the party. Indira stays, however, apparently because she's a mod-introduced NPC who didn't have any script to make her leave the group, so she should make a decent tank once she gets enough levels to learn Stoneskin and put pips in longswords.
We sell off a lot of extra loot (luckily we got a Bag of Holding in BG1) and buy some wands and arrows from Sorcerous Sundries before heading out. We build up a new party largely based on powergaming lines: Edwin for access to lots of high-level mage spells (and greater diversity of spell picks than Baeloth has), Corwin for her incredible damage output (she actually has more potential than Dorn by the end of the game), and M'Khiin, just because late-game Insect Plague spells might be nice. SoD being SoD, of course, Edwin's Fireballs break most fights for us. When Fireball isn't enough, M'Khiin's Spirit Fire is.
For RP reasons, we side with the Dwarves of Dumathoin instead of the lich. In my first run of SoD, I had to fight the lich without the Secret Revealed, but these days I know to get the Secret Revealed first. The little gem takes down all of the lich's defenses, paving the way for an easy kill.
We use Invisibility 10' Radius to avoid the fight with Elwood Dowser, just because the fight doesn't yield much interesting loot. By the end of the area, both Indira and Frisky Bits have hit mage level 7, giving us two tanks that can cast Stoneskin and Mirror Image. With Corwin backing us up, that gives us more than enough damage output to safely deal with ordinary fights even without using Fireballs.
Voghiln joins the party. He's nothing special, but his bard song will give us a slight bonus, and it's not like he'll be a major XP drain as our 6th party member. You don't gain many levels in SoD no matter how many party members you have.
As for Morentherene, the v2.5 patch finally fixed Protection from Poison scrolls, so we can tackle the dragon safely. Or at least, Frisky Bits and Edwin can.
Morentherene doesn't last long enough to finish everyone off. Corwin and Frisky Bits just hit really hard. Ziatar, the Neothelid, and Akanna face the same fate: overwhelming damage output from a thoroughly-buffed, fighter-heavy party.
Darskhelin and his gang of diverse enemy humanoids are a bit more complicated to deal with. We can buff the party with near-immunity to Darskhelin's psionics, but since Darskhelin can wipe us out with some lucky critical hits thanks to his INT drain attack, we need to rush in fast and take him out early. We rush in while hasted, sacrificing a good chokepoint and exposing ourselves to enemy attack in order to quickly crush a key enemy.
The enemy mage can cause a problem here, but we have two excellent archers with Arrows of Dispelling on hand, so his defenses are moot. All the enemies crumple in seconds, largely thanks to Corwin and a DUHM-buffed Frisky Bits.
We stop by the spider cave on the way out. All we have to do is lure the spiders to a single location and bomb them.
In the fight at Bridgefort, we let the Flaming Fist do the work for several rounds while we buff the party. When we finally join the battle, we enter at full strength and open with multiple disablers.
Vichand tries to remove our buffs with Remove Magic, but Corwin helps put an end to that. Frisky Bits tanks the remaining enemies while Corwin nails the mages with more Arrows of Dispelling.
The fight on the bridge plays out the same way. Corwin rolls a 4 and still hits the mage with an Arrow of Dispelling. Her THAC0 is just that good.
Corwin is honestly the most powerful NPC in SoD. She has such incredible damage output, strikes so fast and so reliably, and she can use Arrows of Dispelling. Other characters like Edwin are better for bombing basic hordes, but for high-difficulty fights like mages and bosses, Corwin is so much more impactful.
At the Coalition Camp, we reveal Nazramu and pawn off all the random crap we've been collecting up to this point. We start with 4,700 gold, then gain 17,000 from selling off spare ammunition, 48,000 from gems, and another 48,000 from weapons and armor. We buy everything we could possibly want and still have tens of thousands of gold to spare. Nazramu's prices are just that generous.
We skip the dead magic zone and head on over to the Underground River. I'm impatient to get to BG2, so I've been skipping a lot of side quests and so forth--I don't even visit the snared druids nearby; I just go up to the cyclops and have M'Khiin zap him.
M'Khiin is deceptively strong. Shamans aren't conventionally powerful characters, but Call Lightning is great in SoD; there are so many aboveground areas where you can use it, and the damage is marvelous.
In the tunnels themselves, I skip every optional fight except for Strunk, since he's an easy kill and it removes a few tough enemies from the fight at Dragonspear Castle.
We're probably more than capable of defeating Hephernaan in a fair fight (though his Physical Mirror would stop any Arrows of Dispelling we might fire at him), but I see no reason to do so. I just have Frisky Bits and Edwin sneak over to Hephernaan's room once he walks out so we can grab the loot with a Knock spell, using a couple Potions of Magic Protection to block the Maze trap (which I failed to realize could be blocked with Chaotic Commands, which Frisky Bits always has active).
We then break invisibility by grabbing the magical plate mail on the way out, and the moment Hephernaan initiates dialogue, we use a Potion of Invisibility to escape.
We can now flee down the elevator and hurry outside. I've already poisoned the supplies (there's no Geneva Convention in Faerun) and placed the Barrel of Bwoosh, so the siege should be pretty simple.
The Coalition Camp invasion can be very messy, but I've gotten accustomed to it and I know what to do (never retreat southward; never use confusion or fear effects; be generous with resources and use Dosia to rest the party). The first fight is a simple batch of melee enemies we can simply blast with Fireballs and Call Lightning spells.
The second fight can be much trickier. Fortunately, we still have lots of Arrows of Dispelling thanks to hoarding them in BG1, which means Corwin can fire off four of them every round (now at level 9, she just got Grandmastery in longbows). Frisky Bits does get Slowed and Breached against the odds, but by the time that's happened, our Wizard Slayer and Inquisitor allies have already engaged in melee, allowing Frisky Bits to fall back a little.
The third fight is a very high-pressure encounter with some very tough paladins bolstered by clerics, but a mage in the party can break it with the right preparation: before the fight begins (and before you speak to Andrus after the mage fight), just throw out a bunch of Skull Trap and Web spells. The enemy will spawn right on top of them, and those that don't die will still get snared. I think it was @Harpagornis who invented this strategy.
I heard that you no longer get immortal allies in the final wave in v2.5, so I make a point of playing a bit more aggressively against Bird-Dog and the others. With Corwin and Indira firing arrows at high APR and Frisky Bits dealing high damage with DUHM and slings, we can make progress without even getting close to melee combat.
A few more Arrows of Dispelling and the mages are broken. The enemy crumples in short order.
Finally, the siege of Dragonspear Castle! We have four characters who can use wands, so the first wave of enemies doesn't really stand a chance.
We blast our way to Ashatiel, tacking on new buffs all the way, and Frisky Bits challenges her to a duel. Wands also break this encounter; you can target Ashatiel with wands in spite of her Sanctuary spell.
When she finally breaks invisibility, Frisky Bits disrupts one of her spells through Stoneskin using the fire damage from the Firefly +2 sling. Ashatiel doesn't last long after that.
Done! We stomp the demons in Avernus, pick a fight with Thrix's goons rather than answer his riddle (I know the answer, but a single missed click would end the run), and prepare for the final fight. Frisky Bits is level 8/8/8, Indira is 8/9, Corwin is 9, and M'Khiin and Edwin are 10 (though a single fight away from level 11), and Voghiln is 11. Here we are at the end of SoD:
Those fully-charged wands aren't the result of recharging; we got them from Nazramu already at 50 charges.
We make fast progress early in the fight with Belhifet, slaying Hephernaan in seconds with missile fire. Notice M'Khiin's pre-cast Static Charge spell from IWDification taking down an abishai in one hit.
Frisky Bits tries to land a hit on Belhifet, but gets the "Weapon Ineffective" message even though Edwin buffed her with Enchanted Weapon. Apparently I have the Better Enchanted Weapon mod installed, one of my own design, which makes the enchantment bonus from Enchanted Weapon equal to the caster's level divided by 4. Edwin cast it before he hit level 11 in the elevator, which means that even with the Cloak of Minor Arcana, his caster level was still 11, giving a bonus of +2.
But since Edwin is now 11, and the cloak bumps his caster level up to 12, we can give Frisky Bits a +3 enchantment by re-casting it. Frisky Bits and Corwin tear Belhifet apart, though Caelar steals the final blow.
Siege of Dragonspear is over! I won't be smuggling any gear into SoD, since this is an exploit-free run, so when we get back from Avernus, I don't store it away. We'll be entering BG2 completely broke, as intended.
I forgot to post this earlier: attached is my WeiDU log. Notably missing is the Better Enchanted Weapon mod, which I think got copied over from an override folder by accident. It's a pretty plain SCS install with a few extra rule tweaks from CDTweaks and so forth, but otherwise no major content additions beyond Ascension. The main difference between this install and a bare-bones SCS install is the presence of IWD spells due to IWDification.
Before starting the main questline, the following goals had to be achieved in the wilderness areas: a) get to 20 reputation b) get some gold c) get as much experience as possible d) get the three available tomes
This was easily accomplished, mostly thanks to casting sleep on some ankhegs to get access to a wand of fire, which allowed me to kill some relatively powerful enemies, such as battle horrors. I was able to rely on minor spell deflection for most of my defense against spellcasters, only having to use the greenstone amulet three times for the three siren groups in the sword coast areas. Once I had wands of frost, fire, paralyzation and monster summoning, I cast invisibility to run directly to Mulahey and take him down. I pretended to join the bandits to get access to Tazok's tent, buffed up and killed everyone within:
Because I wanted both his weapon and his armor, I also lured Taurgosz out of the camp, eventually managing to hit him with hold person:
I made my way through Cloakwood invisibly and challenged Drasus, using an oil of speed. A wand of fire hit and a charge from the victor took down both mages, and Drasus himself was hit with the paralyzation wand:
Davaeorn was taken down via PfM, and I gathered some items and tomes in the City of Baldur's Gate. I also did some quests for money, though I didn't need any experience, having already hit the xp cap while clearing Tazok's tent. Eventually, the Iron Throne party was taken down by luring them downstairs, summoning some monsters to distract them and beating them to death:
Combat was skipped in Candlekeep, I only made sure to get the tomes. Back in BG, Slythe was taken down via paralyzation wand:
For the ducal palace event, I used some damage-improving potions and the greater malison + chaos combo. While it did affect every doppelganger, they didn't really stop attacking Belt:
This turned out to be somehwat close: Belt died, and I was lucky that the two remaining doppelgangers didn't decide to randomly attack Liia:
Still, victory was ours:
I snuck through the thieve's maze and made my way to Sarevok. The lure via arrow of dispelling was a sucess, though with a bunch of spells from Semaj flying at me, I had no choice but to use a potion of magic blocking while hitting the mage with more dispelling arrows:
Semaj ended up dimension dooring away and never rejoining combat. All I had to do was to kite Sarevok and shoot him until he was dead. I eventually got bored of this and used some monster summoning wand charges to speed up the process:
Time to move on to SoD!
This was Arinja's equipment at the end of BG1: Robe of the Neutral Archmagi, Legacy of the Masters, Helm of Balduran, Greenstone Amulet, Ahsideena +2, The Dead Shot +2, Shield of the Falling Stars +1, The Guard's Ring +2, Evermemory, Cloak of Balduran, The Paws of the Cheetah, Golden Girdle of Urnst - plus various rings and amulets in my gem back, tons of potions, some green scrolls, a full plate, Elve's Bane and the Destroyer of the Hills, Talos's Gift, a War Hammer +1 and a buch of different wands and arrows for certain situations.
I used a PfU scroll to clear Korlasz's tomb, with wand of fire charges added for the few humanoid opponents. She herself was hit by dispelling arrows and surrendered. After doing all the BG quests, Coast Way Crossing was cleared. This time, I made sure to stay away from any gargantuan spiders. I killed the vampire, using a greenstone amulet charge for protection, and helped the dwarves by using two more PfU scrolls. Coldhearth was taken down with The Secret Revealed.
I didn't fight anything in the Troll Claw Woods and moved on to the Dragon (killed via throwing daggers) and the Temple of Bhaal. Protection from Poison was used against Ziatar and the Neothelid - I also added a clarity potion for that one:
After getting access to the wardstone, I completed Wynan's quest to gain the 80 void-tipped arrows before surrendering the fort. I buffed up for the battle of the bridge (including getting to 25 agility for the best possible ranged thac0) and indeed was able to interrupt the mage with dispelling arrows:
Moving on to the Coalition Camp, I did some quests to get access to important items and moved on to the Underground River, where the cyclops was killed with some kiting and wand charges. I skipped the remaining foes by running through the enemy lines invisibly:
Inside, I made sure to kill Strunk before placing the barrel, looting some +3 arrows and buffing up before taking down the first group in the basement:
I had tons of potions at this point, so I was able to use a lot of them for every single remaining encounter, making this relatively easy. I poisoned the supplies and ran away from Hephernaan before returning to the camp. Now, time for detonation arrows - all three waves were taken down with these during the camp defense, and the final group was weakened by them as well, with Arinja finishing the job via dispelling arrows and melee attacks:
With APR improved by an oil of speed, the siege was handled with detonation arrows as well:
I was prepared to use a PfM scroll for Ashatiel (which is why I had my full plate equipped), but I didn't need to - dispelling arrows interrupted all of her attempts to cast anything and took her down very quickly:
I entered Avernus, skipped the first area and made sure to have defensive buffs such as clarity active against the first two devil groups. Buffing for big B, I also included magic shielding - I hadn't needed any of these potions during the playthrough so far, so I was able to keep them up at all times for maximum security. I first took down a group of summons and Hephernaan, staying at range and on the move at all times:
It took some time before Belhifet summoned his next group of allies - after the were taken down, he was at about half of his health:
Three more enemy groups appeared before Belhifet fell, though I ended up ignoring the third one:
I played through the Epilogue and entered SoA.
These are the equipment upgrades I got during SoD (only listing main equipment, not additional situational protective stuff, as that list would be very long): Medal of Valor, Corinth's Bow +2, Dragonscale Shield +3, Ring of the Crusade (instead of Evermemory), Cloverleaf.
Arriving in Amn it didn't take long to clear Jun's dungeon. A fairly wimpy backstab on Ulvaryl left her alive, but a firebreath prevented her from running away. The order of business after that this morning was: - using stealth in the circus. - traps ensured Brennan Riesling wouldn't run away with my magic ring. - I changed into Mencar's plate armor before backstabbing the beastmaster at the Copper Coronet (picking up a 12th thief level there). - the invisibility ring was used in the Suna Seni ambush on the way to Watcher's Keep. I was hoping to get a nice weapon there to suit my scimitar proficiency, but vampiric wraiths were waiting and even 7 traps did little damage to them. - coming back to the City, Renfeld was saved and Prebek & Sanasha were enough for fighter level 10. - while in the Docks I did Mae'Var's tasks. Rayic's buffs protected him from initial trap damage, but he died of the ongoing poison effect. The last of the tasks got me thief level 13, though there was plenty more XP for finishing off Mae'Var himself. I turned down the opportunity to form my own guild. - clearing the upper Graveyard, mainly with backstabs, gained me an 11th fighter level. With stealth now pushing up towards guaranteed success in dark areas, stealth attacks are a lot easier and quicker than they were just a few levels ago. Going downstairs, I got level drained in the Southern Tombs, but was able to put on the Helm of Charm Protection in order to safely deal with the Vampyre (@Corey_Russell would have been proud of me ).
I had actually closed the game there, but after doing one piece of work I thought I had time before my main task for the day to just finish off the Southern tombs and tick off the Graveyard as complete for now. I opened the game without looking what I was doing though and just clicking randomly to clear any opening messages - and picked up a closing message instead ...
We say our goodbyes to Minsc and Dynaheir: Just in case the unspeakably horrible occurs (again...) and we shall require new companions, we leave them with some basic gear. Navigating invisibly along the main road, we stumble upon Jaheira and Voghiln, inducting both into our ranks: Jaheira now has two casts per day of 5th level spells (Iron Skins are a strong contender given that she is our primary tank), and we saved the bard-only items from previously for Voghiln, greatly increasing his spells-per-day for 1st, 2nd and 3rd level.
Voghiln starts with + in Axes, Bastard Swords, Sword and Shield Style, and Two-Weapon Style. We put his level-up proficiency in Longbows, which turns out to be a total waste: If Voghiln changes his wielded weapon (even if he switches to another one-hander) it counts as him unequipping and re-equipping Reed of Echoes in the off-hand.. causing him to lose the bonus spells it grants. Poop. It's the same problem as M'Khiin has if you have her switch weapons, whereupon she loses the 10 HP her buckler grants. I guess Voghiln'll just stand around wielding a melee weapon and singing, occasionally stopping to take a swing.
We'll need to think about how to spend Jaheira's final proficiency point, which she'll only get right before the end. Since her proficiencies start so spread out, the only real options are Sling (eh...), Scimitar and Quarterstaff. But that's for later.
With a partially-new party, we work out the kinks by clearing the map. I will have Jaheira in Full Plate, even though she really doesn't have the Strength to pull it off: Once we get Khalid I'll give her the 18/00 Strength bracers, but until then she'll just have to watch her encumbrance and not carry too many potions. Full Plate, 17 Dexterity and the Suncatcher +2 makes it extremely difficult for even Trolls to hit her, and together with Cloudkills, Fireballs, Webs and the like, we make rapid progress. A little too rapid, as we accidentally (I didn't know it was possible) kill one of the Half-Orc irregulars in the duel, leading to the other two running away. Unfortunate.
We push into the Troll Cave. Even utterly surrounded by Trolls, Jaheira has no trouble holding the line. We clear the vile creatures out and help ourselves to the Locket of Embracing, going to Glint.
With the map cleared (we picked up the Glimmer of Hope +2 for Glint), we retire to the camp to prepare for our journey to Bridgefort. Jaheira comes with the Ring of Holiness, now also going to Glint. He thus has a fair number of spell slots available, which is good as he'll be our only Cleric.
Now, Voghiln's intelligence (or rather, his lack thereof) will be a slight problem... 14 Intelligence. He will need 3x Potions of Genius to attain 100% scribing rate, regardless of whether he wields the Gemblade +2 or not. However, Cassius has a delectable 19 Intelligence, raised to 20 with the Gemblade +2, and so requires only a single Potion of Genius to attain 100% scribing rate. There are 5x Potions of Genius for sale by Belegarm, and the alchemist inside Bridgefort sells (if memory serves) an additional 15 such potions. We'll have more than enough, then. Good! As an aside, Jaheira also came with the Nymph's Cloak, which Cassius can equip to attain 21 Charisma. So we can now shop at will, not relying on the 1/day Friends ability of Brevin's Quarterstaff being available (or having remembered to memorize Friends ourselves). Also good!
We rest up, and head for Bridgefort.
Excellent! There's loot to be had here: A scroll of Lower Resistance, Longsword +2: Spellbreaker and some Elven Chain for Voghiln. We clear a whole tribe of Goblins with a single cloudkill, and descend into the pit. Jaheira pops a charge of the Greenstone Amulet (not entirely in vain: Her helmet grants immunity to Confusion, but the Blue Myconids can cause short-duration Feeblemind, which she is now protected against) and we proceed to clean house, looting as we go.
That done with, we arrive at Bridgefort, and are of course not allowed in. We clear the local scrubs (Hobgoblins and Goblins) using Cloudkill and Stinking Cloud, the latter as Voghiln does not come with Web. The Goblins inside the cave are all but terrified to a Goblin when hit by three simultaneous charges of Wands of Fear, rendering them easy pickings (which they were anyway.. they're just Goblins).
We embark for the Forest of Wyrms. En route we get the Green Dragon Wyrmling ambush. Also nice! We opt to save the Wyrmling and so recieve the Red Ioun Stone (Khalid will want that later), and some gems. Heading east, a Hill Giant and his guardian Dire Wolves are dispatched, rendering us a pair of +1 Dexterity gauntlets (again, will go to Khalid later, but for now Corwin gladly makes use of them). I was a little worried about the Greater Wyverns here, but turns out that Corwin's fantastic damage output is even more impressive when augmented by the Skald Song... she pretty much only misses on a natural 1, so we make do just fine with some Spirit Animals holding the Wyverns off as they are mercilessly cut down by Corwin.
Glint had three 4th level slots, all of which he spent on Free Action. This turns out to be a good thing, as it allows Jaheira, Corwin and a singing Voghiln to tackle the Spider Cave, while the rest of the party sits back invisibly. Free Action runs out before we can engage the final group of Spiders, but we have a scroll of it for Jaheira to use, and Corwin/Voghiln pop Invisibility potions if they are targetted by the single Gargantuan Spider's Web Tangle.
We clear the Phase Spiders (no Gargantuan Spider => No Web Tangle => No problem) and the regular ol' Bugbears blocking the path, and ascend the cliff face. Before entering we put up Remove Fear just in case, but we are fortunate: Jaheira lands a critical with some Throwing Daggers and Morentherene never wakes up.
We loot the Scales, the Sable Cloak and some gems, and press on. Cassius pops a charge of his Wand of Summoning as you are mobbed immediately upon entry, and the Bugbears happily oblige by killing the fodder while we shoot at them.
Surprisingly, the rest of the Bugbear caves are easier than the first fight. Spirit Animals are sufficient to tank (supported by Corwin), and the worst that happens is a backstab by a Bugbear Stalker reducing Corwin to about 40 HP. We loot and move on into the temple proper.
The Cultists are cleared from the side rooms as we advance upon the den of Ziatar. Most of these groups are very easy, with an exception for the last one, containing a couple of fairly well-buffed Fighter/Mages wielding Crossbows. We pop four Skeleton Warriors and an Insect Plague. To their credit, the cultists take down the gaggle gang, but are in turn slain without accomplishing much else.
Cassius pops another charge of the Wand of Summoning gifted to us by Ammon (now down to 1 charge) for some fodder, we apply Cleric buffs, and charge Ziatar. Insect Plague absolutely devastates her and her Mage guards: The Mages just die without doing anything, and after failing to heal herself while in Sanctuary three times, Ziatar gives up, quaffs a potion and tries to melee Jaheira. With predictable results. I think one Dire Wolf got reduced to Injured, and that's about it.
Neothelid time. As we have a few of them lying around, Jaheira pops a scroll of Protection from Poison, just so she can move freely during the fight, followed by a charge of the Greenstone Amulet. The Neothelid tries and fails to affect Jaheira with any psionics, summons two Magical Swords (that Cassius and Voghiln bring down with Magic Missiles), then surfaces for one round. One round is all we need.
Akanna and her two Aerial Servants did not even merit a screenshot: Cassius forced her to reveal herself with Detect Invisibility, and she was shot down before getting a second action. Her Aerial Servants locked onto Jaheira and were simply kited around the room as Corwin killed them.
All that remains is the Mind Flayer and (if we feel like it) the Shadow Aspect. Darskhelin first! Cassius has a 2x Web Sequencer we've been saving for this, and Jaheira pops the second-to-last charge of the Greenstone Amulet, so we should be fine.
Oooh, the poor positioning.. Darskhelin of course led with a Mind Blast, which caught (among others) Cassius, who failed his save! Voghiln reacted with lightning speed, whipping out a scroll of Invisibility 10' Radius as Corwin got to work clearing the foe. Darskhelin thankfully died before he could reach Cassius and drain his brains, but we're not out of the woods yet: Jhan Redmoons has MGoI up, and unaffected by Web, he dispels our Invisibility! Thankfully Corwin, by equal parts skill and desperation, manage to tear through his Stoneskins and fell the dread Mage.
Happy I am that the AI isn't ruthless: If that Umber Hulk and Mohad Flintborn had just ignored Jaheira and gunned for Cassius, that might well have meant the end of the run. As it is, Jaheira holds them off while Corwin kills them, and we are victorious. Phew. I'm not sure why Cassius was near the front lines... I think I wanted a good place to cast his Sequencer from. But still, that was damn stupid. Let's avoid such silliness from now on.
In contrast, the Shadow Aspect is a total pushover. Jaheira had Iron Skins and True Sight running, along with a Potion of Frost Giant Strength, and Corwin joined in with Acid Arrows +1. The Mislead clone dies in two hits.. and so does the Shadow Aspect. Hooray! Never mind that Voghiln tripped a trap and got Confused.
We pick up the Fractal Blade +3, and depart, freeing the Priestess on the way out (be good from now on!) as well as Keherrem. At long last, we return to the Flaming Fist camp to rest up.
Once rested, we return to Bridgefort and enter the Crusader camp momentarily: Dorn is freed (we take his gear as payment...), and Kharm rewards us with 250 gold pieces. Next, we head into the Fort proper. Jegg prepares Dragonscale Shield +3 and Rhino Beetle Plate for us, and we finish off the little quests here (fixing the Level Drain stone, and exposing Junia). To my great sorrow, Hoach fails to properly repair the Boot and a Half of Speed: They disintegrate after having given Corwin a run for her money. So no Boots of Speed this time around, unfortunately.
We talk with Khalid (after having bought out the 15 Potions of Genius from Thirrim.. most likely overkill, but I don't play the odds when it comes to spell scribing, especially with Voghiln requiring three such potions every time he wants to scribe), and convince him that we should attack the Crusade after Flaming Fist backing has been secured. On our return to the encampment, we procure such backing, opting to fight alongside the Bridgefort defenders, as otherwise Khalid may simply die in the battle (given that we then do not get to control him). We prepare thoroughly: Voghiln finally gets an upgrade of his spellbook, as spells for 7000 gold are purchased and, with the aid of three Potions of Genius, are all successfully scribed. Cassius likewise indulges in purchasing a single scroll of Oracle, and scribes it (along with Breach and Lower Resistance) with the aid of the Gemblade +2 and a solitary Potion of Genius.
The main battle isn't that important: There are plenty of friendly NPC's you can fall back on if necessary. However, once the main battle is won, we need to rush to the west and destroy the damnable Mage before he (she? Can't rightly remember) manages to open a portal, or things will become much more difficult. So, we'll save one each of Oracle, Breach and Haste in order to assist us with this. Every other spell slot is fair game for helping with the main battle: An extra Breach, Emotion: Hopelessness, Slow, Fireball, Haste, Call Lightning/True Sight/Iron Skins on Jaheira... anything that'll help.
We arrive at Bridgefort, dismiss Corwin after relieving her of her items (she keeps her personal bow and armour), and have Khalid join us for the assault: With the bracers, the Red Ioun Stone and Archer's Eyes, he jumps up to 19 Dexterity, and even wielding a standard Longbow +1 has a very respectable THAC0 (he leveled up and so got a third + in Longbow). Glint summoned a quintet of Skeleton Warriors before we spoke with Khalid, and we have enough time to apply some long-duration buffs before the drawbridge is lower (PfE 10' Radius, Shield for Cassius and Voghiln, Protection from Lightning for Jaheira). Voghiln, sing us a song of battle! No, not about wine. No, not about women either! Ah, you have another song... it's about wine and women, isn't it? Forget it.
Cassius, Voghiln, M'Khiin... make it rain.
Not much to report: A few initial Fireballs were quite helpful, as was an Insect Plague by M'Khiin. Coupled with Call Lightning and Slow, we carried the day with ease, only taking minimal damage when M'Khiin and Jaheira took a few potshots. Once the Flaming Fist Mage informs us of nefarious activity to the west, we stop only long enough to apply a Haste, then rush to the bridge. We've saved an Oracle, which comes in handy, even though the enemy Mage cheats and somehow applies more defensive Illusions immediately after we dispel the first ones. Such dishonourable tactics shall not avail you!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Bridgefort is liberated and we finally have our party in place (though Khalid comes in at 250k experience and so is about 80k behind everyone else). A grand victory! We scoop up the loot, head over the bridge, have a nasty vision, and finish the area by clearing the Well Elemental (getting a Battle Axe +1... eh). Onward to the coalition camp!
We arrive uneventfully, and have a talk with Nederlok, De Lancie and Stonehand. Following this, we pull the Genie merchant into the Prime, and sell off a fair bit of loot: We end up at about 150k gold. Items are shuffled around (Khalid exchanges his Full Plate Mail with Rhino Beetle Plate, purely for weight reasons), and we are now properly equipped all over. Ready for adventure!
Next time, we'll tackle the silly FedEx-quests in the camp, then depart for the Underground River and what diabolical machinations lie therein. Cassius remains a L10 Elf Diviner, though a significant jump in power draws near.
Hey there, hi there, everyone! I have a little announcement. Serg and I are in the process of founding a Pillars of Eternity No Reload Challenge over in the Obsidian forums. That challenge will never, and could never, replace this one: Pillars of Eternity is not Baldur's Gate. Nonetheless, it'll be nice to have a community to share with if and when any of us feel like a change of pace.
We're currently ironing out the rule set in preparation for the founding post. If you'd like to be a part of that conversation, please stop by! Any and all feedback will be appreciated. That discussion can be found here:
Best wishes to all the current BG NR Challengers! And a warm welcome in advance to anyone who decides to join us in the new challenge!
A.
NW: In the interest of minimizing traffic bleed, I'll be cross-posting my run in BelgarathMTH's Pillars of Eternity Minimal and No Reload Thread, found on our forums, in the off-topic section. I'll encourage Serg to do the same. Note, though, that the rule establishment and foundation discussion is taking place, and will take place, over on the other side, at the link above.
As I mentioned before, there's a bug in my EET install in which you arrive at Chateau Irenicus with extremely high fatigue, presumably because the game thinks you walked all the way from Baldur's Gate to Athkatla. Also, mephits in my install have different abilities: the Lightning Mephit has a new kind of lightning bolt spell that can't be dodged. Combined with our high fatigue, that means maximum damage from an unstoppable spell every round.
I thought I was going to die, but we manage to bring it down. Careful resource management allows us to take down almost everything in the dungeon with only our one rest period, though I skip the area with the Girdle of Bluntness (too much danger for an item I can easily buy in the Temple District) and the optional tank room on the first level. Item Randomizer robs us of the Helm of Balduran.
To concentrate our XP on Frisky Bits, I kick everyone out of the party except Jaheira once we get outside. Druids have some nice new options in my install thanks to IWDification: Jaheira has new summons from Giant Insect, a revised (and mostly nerfed) Call Woodland Beings, and Static Charge for a random but extremely powerful single-target damage spell.
Frisky Bits can run past the deadly Prismatic Spray trap using Haste, at which point our Spell Immunity buffs can frustrate the low-end mages in the slaver stockade.
I grab Jan so we can loot a few chests in Watcher's Keep (we find little of interest) and run into Suna Seni on the way back to Athkatla. We have a pretty low-powered party of three, but basic disablers can cover that weakness in the early game.
I always travel with Invisibility on the entire party, so getting caught off-guard isn't a possibility.
We raise a few thousand gold, but unfortunately, the Robe of Vecna is not for sale. Since we also missed out on the Ring of Human Influence from the circus quest, I burn a lot of gold to purchase the Nymph Cloak from Gorch in the Mae'Var questline and the Sensate Amulet for extra CHA bonuses to stack with Friends. Normally I consider the Sensate Amulet a waste of money, but without the Ring of Human Influence for 18 CHA on a mage who can cast Friends, the amulet is a good long-term investment.
We take on Rayic Gethras despite being low-level and only having three party members. I don't want to use the Fireball trap trick to kill him (the Fireball trap in his room can be triggered repeatedly), so I just hit him with a Wand of Lightning charge and Melf's Acid Arrow. Turns out that's enough to get through his HP.
By immense luck, we find the Boots of Speed in Mae'Var's guild shortly after recruiting Edwin. Mae'Var crumples under pressure from a stream of disablers.
Frisky Bits hits cleric level 9 and finally gains access to Chaotic Commands (back in SoD, we had to get it from M'Khiin).
Jaheira leaves the party and comes back soon after, which means it's time to take on Galvarey. Unfortunately, we make the mistake of casting Shield before the fight, which is our second offense. The Cowled Wizards descend upon us, but IWDification really screws up certain mages in my install: some mages use Malavon's Rage as a pre-buff, which is a party-unfriendly spell!
Despite our attempts to slip away, one of the wizards pursues us during Time Stop and kills both Edwin and Jan with Comet.
They're not very mobile, however, so we escape the area successfully, though we don't have the inventory slots to keep all of Jan's gear. By the time we raise Jan and Edwin and get back to the docks, the Cowled Wizards are gone, but so is Jan's equipment.
No worries. We only want Jan for a few specific purposes, anyway; he's not going to be a permanent party member. We use him as a decoy in the Galvarey fight, having him break invisibility first so that only he gets hit by Remove Magic. This gives us enough time to get some key disablers off the ground.
Once the enemy's functioning is impaired, we can switch to damage spells and crush the remaining opposition.
Once we do Jan's quest, we kick him out of the party and head to the Umar Hills to grab Mazzy. The Tuigan Bow didn't get randomized, so she'll have rather impressive damage output with Emotion: Hope and Emotion: Rage as pre-buffs.
This is when I discover that Mazzy's innate Strength spell gives an extra +4 bonus to hit and lasts for 30 rounds--she's even more useful than I realized; she can dual-wield effectively without even needing any pips in Two Weapon Fighting! But for now, the Tuigan Bow is her primary weapon, and an Enchanted Weapon spell from Edwin lets her damage critters immune to normal weapons.
The loot is terrible thanks to Item Randomizer, but we at least get the Sunstone Bullets to destroy the Shadow Altar in one hit. We use Secret Word to remove the Shade Lord's Spell Deflection spell, and Jaheira manages to nail him with Insect Plague and even Call Lightning in spite of his 50% MR.
We head off to the Windspear Hills. As always, we go invisible before resting at Garren's place to make sure Plath Rededge can't give us too much grief (if you have 60 HP or less, you have to have Death Ward, SI: Conjuration, or subzero saving throws, because she can cast Symbol, Death). After crushing the Vampiric Mists with considerable difficulty (it's difficult to time spells when they go invisible so often), we follow our normal strategy with the Ruhk Transmuter: bomb his kobolds from afar, then bait him with summons while hiding behind invisibility until he finally runs out of PFMW spells.
The rakshasa has really low AC, but Mazzy has subzero THAC0 when full buffed despite being rather low-level.
I'm not sure how we'll do against the rest of Firkraag's dungeon, so once we grab the plate mail and Arrows of Fire from the orc archers in the first room of the second level, we leave the area and head to Trademeet. Boxing in the djinni outside the tent keeps him from running away, and buffing the whole party with Protection from Petrification means we're safe from the djinn's Flesh to Stone spells.
I don't normally bring Cernd into the party, but I figure it's safer to keep him around. Besides, since this isn't a solo run, I can get him to win the fight with Faldorn without using the console. It turns out to be a good idea; we get ambushed by trolls far from the area they normally spawn and lose two party members to the Spirit Trolls' Greater Command spells.
Frisky Bits stays safe, however; we always buff them with Chaotic Commands and Protection from Fire, which neutralize the enemy's Greater Command and Flame Strike spells. The trolls can still hit her with physical attacks, STR drain, and Unholy Blight, but Frisky Bits has great combat stats when fully buffed, and she helps bring down the trolls before they can kill anyone else.
Once everyone is raised, we proceed with a different strategy: this time, I just buff everyone with Protection from Fire and let Edwin blast everything with Sunfire.
It's simple and it's safe.
Item Randomizer lets us keep Gnasher, but it takes away Belm, the much more valuable item. We also lose the Bracers of Archery, though Mazzy hardly needs them, and the Spear of the Unicorn, replaced by a Cursed Scroll of Petrification. Item Randomizer is not being kind to us; the only real boon has been the Boots of Speed.
Since we recruited Cernd at high XP, he is already level 13 and therefore can use Greater Werewolf form, which proves more than capable of slaying Faldorn when we cover him with lots of pre-buffs.
Back in Athkatla, we try our hand at Draug Fea and the Sewer Dwellers. Turns out they don't move fast enough to survive Death Fog and Spike Growth spells.
We find the Ring of Human Influence among the loot, making the Sensate Amulet mostly a waste. We alos find the Robe of the Good Archmagi, a very lovely gift from Item Randomizer.
Keldorn joins the team (his Dispel Magic is nerfed to 1.5x strength in my install, still powerful but not completely broken) and we purchase the Sling of Everard so we have an item that can strike as a +5 weapon besides the darts from the Cloak of Stars. The Shield of Reflection missing, as is the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, so we just buy the Shield of Balduran and some Arrows of Dispelling. SCS beholders aren't dumb enough to kill themselves on the Shield of Balduran, but it does keep Frisky Bits briefly safe, allowing Edwin and Jaheira to kill the beholders of the Unseeing Eye quest using Death Fog and Spike Growth.
Beholders should really be immune to Spike Growth, and they definitely should be able to cross the bridge and obliterate us, but they aren't and they can't, and that's good enough for me.
We go to the Pit of the Faithless, but find no Gauntlets of Dexterity. Keldorn is going to have very, very bad AC in this game.
The beholders in the hive are more mobile than the ones by the bridge, so we can't attack from afar and expect them not to retaliate. However, we do have the Raise Dead spell and some Wand of Fire charges, so... we can torch them from behind Invisibility even if it does occasionally get Edwin killed.
We find the Mace of Disruption alongside the Rift Device, a very lovely find considering Frisky Bits has two pips in maces. The Unseeing Eye can be a nightmare in SCS even with the Rift Device, but some pre-cast Death Fog spell bring it down soon after we use the device on it. The Death Tyrants fall to pre-cast Skull Traps and Spike Growth spells.
I accidentally screw up Keldorn's personal quest and get his wife imprisoned and her lover hanged. Oops.
Normally I let him stay with his family for a few weeks before bringing him back into the party, but now he has no family to return to. I don't like how it turned out, but now there is no reason not to keep him in the party. We head out immediately, hoping to give Keldorn something to think about besides his ruined personal life.
At least he's doing good work. Even with the more modest SCS nerf to his Dispel Magic, he has a high chance of dispelling enemy defenses; his Dispel Magic casts at level 21 right now (he's level 11). Combined with Mazzy's incredibly high APR, we can easily break through the defenses of enemy mages. The next Harper Hold fight is a cakewalk.
We kill Neb, use the illithium ore to upgrade the Mace of Disruption, purchase a magic license so we don't get roasted by the Cowled Wizards again, and recruit Valygar.
It's time to head to the Planar Sphere. There's some valuable loot there, and even if it gets randomized, we might get something very useful. Normally this area is extremely dangerous in SCS, but with Mazzy's 9 APR and Keldorn's high-level Dispel Magic, we should be able to handle the mages in the sphere.
I made my way through the opening dungeon, getting ready to travel to my first area of interest: The druid grove. Since I knew to expect an ambush, I travelled under invisibility, which proved very helpful, allowing me to summon allies and buff up when meeting Suna Seni:
Fighting my way through the druid grove, I had Cern take care of Faldorn. More importantly, I took down the three rakshasas - the first one died to traps, the second one was killed while still in nobleman-form, the third one was able to cast cloudkill, but I lured him out of the spell radius and took him down with Ashideena:
This allowed me to acquire the reason for coming here so very early: The shield of harmony, which will protect me against my own carelessness by preventing all kinds of crowd control effects. With all the gold in my pockets, I was also able to buy the Robe of Vecna.
Now, I started doing the easier quests around the city - basically anything non-stronghold related. The final encounter of this type was against the sewer party - they were distracted by skeletons and unable to get through my defensive buffs:
After that, I made my way to the temple ruins. I had enough experience at this point to encounter liches, but due to being triple class, not the usual high level spells to easily deal with them, so I had to get a bit creative. The first one was lured into the laval field by summons, and didn't move away after combat was over, so I just had to wait (though I didn't get any experience for the kill):
The second one I was able to hit with a sunray (via a stolen Daystar) before his buffs fired. He was apparently blinded by this and started following Arinja around instead of casting spells right away, so I was able to finish him by kiting and shooting him with magical arrows:
After that, taking down the shade lord was relatively simple:
De'Arnise keep, my choice of stronghold for this character, was next. I had death spell at this point, which kills almost anything in this place right away, so there isn't much to report on. Tor'Gal didn't really stand a chance:
Around this point, Arinja gained access to UAI, expanding her item pool. I picked up the Dwarven Thrower, the Scarlet Ninja-To and the Sword of Arvoreen right away. I also acquired the iMoD +2 and killed Bodhi via traps. Vampires aren't very threatening with buffs, the amulet of power and the shield of harmony for protection. After dealing with Mae'Var, I moved on to the Guarded Compound, luring my foes downstairs into waiting summons and traps - much like a high level version of the Iron Throne encounter:
Next up was the Unseeing Eye, where I used the Shield of Balduran for beholders and a PfU scroll for the undead village. The self-proclaimed god was destroyed via rift-device and a simple attack:
After trapping some liches, I used PfM and iMoD +2 to deal with Kangaxx and acquire that precious ring:
The Planar Prison was next on my list. Here, I used the combination of improved invisibility + SI: Divination to neutralize enemy spellcasters and quickly clear out most of the area. I sent some skeletons at the warden, and he wasn't really able to deal with them very well. After his most dangerous spells were spent, I used the ranged version of the dwarven thrower to take him down from a distance:
Travelling to the Windspear Hills, I was able to get rid of adamantite golems with the dwarven thrower and used a fire protection scroll + potion to complete the tomb quest. Firkraag was killed via traps, as was the shadow dragon. Tazok's key granted me access to the mind flayer hideout. Here, the very defensive combination of Sword of Arvoreen + Shield of Harmony was used to prevent any mind flayer stuff from affecting me, while hasted skeleton warriors (at this point, I had reached mage level 15) did most of the damage. I also used some traps, death spell and sunfire spells here. The planar sphere wasn't much of a problem either. Once again, II+SI:D helped against Tolgerias:
I did do WKI+II (I won't be doing any more WK in this playthrough after this - it's just too risky) at some earlier point, so now the only content still available in Chapter 3 was the Twisted Rune. I wanted that staff, mostly for the spell trap. No PfM abuse this time, this character can do without that. The lich was killed by traps, some skeletons were sent to the beholder + vampire + fighter, and so was a simmy (summoned via spell, not via Vhailor's). Two skeletons died to a death ray, but Shield of Balduran + Dwarven Thrower and a GWW used by the simmy were enough to take down the beholder. Meanwhile, Layene cast her time stop:
After taking down vampire + fighter, I used the berserker horn to draw some spells from Layene. Interestingly enough, I got a glimpse of her and saw that she was under a fear effect, propably from her own pit fiend, though she was protected from evil. Seeing this, I decided to lay more traps in case she would wander next to me, and sure enough, she did:
I cast PfE on myself and left the zone, now ready to move on to Brynnlaw.
Here are my basic strategies for Arinja so far: a) let skeleton warriors (possibly hasted) handle things, maybe assist either via dwarven thrower of longbow b) take care of things myself by buffing up and attacking (my buffs include: PfE, MI, Blur, Resist Fear, Minor Spell Deflection, Haste, Stoneskin, Spirit Armor, Improved Invisibility and often some kind of spell immunity (typically abjuration or divination), sometimes PFMW) - with the SotM now available, spell trap will be added to this list c) always make sure to have the correct combination of defensive items equipped if needed. At this point, I use Scarlet Ninja-To + Belm for pure offense (with iHaste from the Ring of Gaxx, that's 10 APR already), but often, Shield of Harmony, Sword of Arvoreen or both are added in, other items are also sometimes changed. I tend to be very careful with this - high damage is rarely needed at this point d) use lots of traps - they are a big reason I chose this multiclass
So far, so good. After getting to SoA, the run has been going very well - but that's nothing unusual, early SoA is rarely the problem for solo characters. Let's see what challenges Spellhold and the Underdark will hold.
Gilyn and his special missions unit continue their thorough work in Chapter 10. A shadowy figure and his cohorts meet an untimely end at the hands of the elven rogue.
Some costless shopping at the coalition camp yielded the party a third ring of protection +2 and unlimited +1 bolts from Torcin de Lancie, among other things.
Without the seal of Calear, the crew bluff their way into the Dragonspear courtyard.
Didn't even know that was possible. Viconia slays the Sentry of Tempus. The companions pick up its shield as well as other valuables in the area before moving making their way to the Underground River. They buff up big time in anticipation of a battle at the entrance to the crusader-controlled area, only to observe how Gilyn's silver tongue obviates fisticuffs. The unit does not run into much trouble. A barrel of bwoosh is placed in the right spot, and Gilyn slays Zhadroth under PfU and using a charge of the keeper of secrets under the mountain. Spell-buffed to the max again, and aided by bounty hunter snares, skeletal summons and a fire elemental from Jaheira, the companions shred the mages.
The battle with Kerrusk and his corrupted monsters does not go as smoothly. Jaheira gets boxed in after dropping Jamven and Chorster's acorn but she stands her ground against a few ankhegs. Vicona on the other hand gets webbed by a gargantuan spider and slain by shambling mounds before Baeloth can cast Invisibility on her.
Ferrusk has already been Held by a nymph at that point. The remaining companions prevail with brute force over the druid's abominations.
The castle basement initially sees some backstabbing action from Gilyn to thin crusader ranks.
The party does not get to fight Hephernaan and his aides. They simply disappear after Gilyn's retreat following their first encounter. With full buffs and summons, the company dispatches all the crusaders.
Food and water supplies are poisoned and the journey leads back to the coalition camp.
Caelar has her crusaders attack, but neither trolls (fireballs, archer aid) nor wizards (traps + fireballs, wizard slayer aid) nor paladins and clerics (traps, backstabber aid) manage to breach the coalition's defenses. This screenshot shows almost all paladins/clerics are held by Gilyn's special snares. Easy pickings for the party and the rogues.
A concerted coalition effort breaks the last wave of attackers too.
Chapter 11-12
The party moves back to the Dragonspear courtyard, where my last run ended. Gilyn accepts Ashatiel's challenge, but realizes that's a mistake as he enters the fight unbuffed, whereas his opponent does not. She hits hard and without much room to maneuver Gilyn ends up quaffing an invisibility potion, followed by some buffing potions (magic protection, defense). All this takes too long for Ashatiel's taste, so she calls Gilyn out for being a cheat. A long and massive battle against the crusaders ensues. The companions make liberal use of snares, spells, scrolls, and potions, and never get into trouble.
This requires focus on my part though. It's Gilyn's longest battle uso far. At one point Ashatiel apparently falls, none of the companions notice, and this causes the remaining crusaders to retreat.
From the castle they follow Caelar into Avernus. The devils they encounter look scary but fall easily.
Finally, to battle Belhifet for the first time! In the elevator the party buffs with about everything they have. Gilyn even quaffs the violet potion from the Nashkel Carnival. But everyone's protections are removed by a dispel, not the best start. Caelar joins and occupies Belhifet. The companions dispatch Hephernaan with elemental missile attacks.
The battle against Belhifet and aides remains very much a physical one. Baeloth basically stays behind so he can cast emergency spells and Detect Invisibility. Voghiln's (Rogue Rebalancing) song protects the party from fear and confusion. Gear and potions protect the others from charms. Viconia casts True Seeing too. The summons are attacked mostly by Viconia and Jaheira, while Corwin keeps the pressure on Belhifet. Gilyn alternates between those targets. Voghiln gets Commanded once, but he survives. Corwin deservedly gets the kill on Belhifet.
I found this battle less tricky than the one in the courtyard with so many crusaders appearing from everywhere, lots of different enemy types (archers, melee warriors, rogues, mages).
Now onward to Amn! (First time since late 2015 I believe!)
Alright, the plan was to head for the Underground River, and we shall! But there are a few minor areas (Dead Man's Pass, Bloodbark Grove), so let's clear them first.
En route to Dead Man's Pass, we are intercepted by a Shadowy Figure. He can be a real nuisance what with constantly backstabbing your Mages that can't get their Stoneskins up as it's a Dead Magic Zone.. but turns out three simultaneous strikes from Wands of the Heavens and a Scorcher from a Wand of Fire is just enough to bring him down. His Shortsword isn't much use to us, but Glint happily snatches up the Shadow Armor.
The trash mobs in Dead Man's Pass aren't much to write home about. Web, Fireball, a few simultaneous Confusion from Nymphs with occasional free meatshields from M'Khiin settle most accounts here (with a couple Cloudkill thrown in against Hobgoblins/Displacer Beasts), and Jaheira/M'Khiin get some good mileage out of Call Lightning against the tougher enemies. I'm quite liking Khalid as a replacement for Corwin: Obviously his ranged damage doesn't measure up, but it's still good, and unlike Corwin he has the melee THAC0 and AC to stand his ground against anything foolish enough to close to melee distance with him.
We enter the Killer Mimic's cave. As always, something goes wrong: The plan was for Jaheira and Khalid, both under Free Action, to handle the encounter while the rest of the party waited invisibly. Unfortunately, I managed to activate Voghiln's Bard Song.. which breaks Invisibility. And of course, he failed his save against the Killer Mimic's initial attack. But despite having a Save vs Death of 9, Voghiln makes that save 4 (!) times in a row against the poison of the various Phase Spiders that converge upon him, and we are able to clear them out with a Scorcher charge. Hooray! Voghiln's beard is smoldering slightly, but he's a good sport about it.
As is undoubtedly known to all, Khalid sports a measly Strength of 15, meaning he cannot use Composite Bows. So, he'll be using our new-found Bow of the Banshee +2 for most of the game. For truly major fights, I'll let him quaff a Strength potion and equip Corinth's Bow +2 when we get it, but the Bow of the Banshee is actually quite decent... the Cloak of Fear procs often, and it usually affects 1-2 enemies, making fights against trash easier.
M'Khiin gets her final SoD level, 11, around here. I went with the following new spells: Charm Person or Mammal: The other options are even worse. Protection from Fire: Making Jaheira immune to Fire damage and sending her as the focal point of Fireballs is (almost) never a bad idea. Neutralize Poison: I had trouble finding something worthwhile. If this was SoA I'd have gone Death Ward, but there's almost no such effects in SoD (a Mage somewhere with Chromatic Orb at most). This is alright if you're desperate for a quick heal (10 HP, casting time 1) and it does clear up Poison as well as Disease. True Seeing: I agonized over whether to go with this or Chaotic Commands. I finally figured that there are scrolls of Chaotic Commands, but none of True Seeing, but it was 50/50. Iron Skins is cool but M'Khiin tends to hang out far to the back (especially since I gave her Fleshripper +2, which gives her serious mobility and thus the ability to avoid getting hit).
On to Bloodbark grove! After retreating and resting, of course.. no need to be heroic. There aren't many encounters here (it's a small area) and what few there are get resolved by area-of-effect damage spells, Web and Major Spirit Animals. We had a scroll of Protection from Petrification so apply it to Khalid and let him handle the Greater Basilisk. Finally, we descend into the dark cellars to do battle with a Vampire! Fortunately only a Fledgling one, and not the SCS version either. He gets quite a few Wolves of varying shapes and sizes, but they're mostly harmless. Jaheira and Khalid get Chaotic Commands (Jaheira has two 5th level slots) and Negative Plane Protection, and go to work. Once the Vampire drops, everyone joins in and the Wolves are swiftly put down.
Unfortunately, no one has need of the Sundermaul +3. Maybe I should've given Glint Warhammer proficiency (I gave him Maces for some reason...) but I get the feeling we'll be alright anyway against Big B. We depart for another well-earned rest, and then move to the Underground River exterior.
Fortunately we remembered to have Jaheira memorize 2x Chaotic Commands, so the Myconid encounter to the east is painless. The trash mobs are handled as previously, via damaging and debilitating spells.
We run into what I'd call either a bug or a strange feature here: Apparently, the first character that speaks with the Ogres is the designated champion, should you choose to fight for Murs. Since invisible Glint was the first one that spoke to them, when I have Cassius engage Arbinge and the other Ogre, almost the entire camp goes hostile (they interpret it as the duel having been violated). I considered reloading, but decided against it since I don't know if this is a feature or a bug.. and even if it is a bug, it can hardly be called game-ending; you can still save Slug for Murs.
Alright, slightly disappointing, but everything is cleared.. time to move into the cave system. Another interesting behaviour: Invisible Glint moves close to the Cyclops, which (despite not being able to see him) goes hostile and starts searching for the party along with the rest of the Crusaders. Pfeh. I think they started searching because a pair of stealthed Crusader Scouts could see the rest of the party, but still.
We end up having to buff and summon on the fly, but still carry the day: The Crusaders get some reinforcements, including two Mages, but they're quite low-level, and seem to have made the classic mistake of going too heavy on defense and too light on offense. Note the Crusader Scout in the first screenshot taking a swing at Cassius just as his Stoneskin goes up: The combat log does not show it, but that was a triple backstab with critical damage! He most likely would've survived, but it was stupid to (almost) take the risk. Let's keep Stoneskin active whenever we're in a hostile area from now on.
We leave Rigah and Julann for now (I'll bring Minsc and Dynaheir to see them before we advance to the next chapter). Into the caves we go. Jaheira under Chaotic Commands handles the first group of Myconids on her own, but then comes a small tactical blunder. There are two groups of Gargantuan Spiders, Shambling Mounds, Dark Treants and Hamadryads/Nymphs rather close to each other here. And somehow (don't ask) we manage to be seen by both... Glint has just enough time to cast Free Action on Jaheira, and Khalid quaffs a potion of the same. Unfortunately, that means 2/3 of the party are unprotected. Voghiln, M'Khiin and Glint are all Web Tangled at the same time! There's too darn many Gargantuan Spiders running about. Cassius was staying in the back, but rushes in and drops an Invisibility 10' Radius in the nick of time.
Things actually look pretty bleak for a while: Khalid gets Dominated by the Nymph several times, turning his not-so-tender mercies on Jaheira, who remains the only party member with immunity to all effects currently in play (what with Free Action and Chaotic Commands up). She quaffs a fair few Potions of Extra Healing, and after a few rounds, is ordered to quaff a Potion of Fire Resistance: Cassius has decided that the events warrant a Sunfire. It deals a fair bit of damage (and does not reveal Cassius), and Jaheira eventually manages to put down the Gargantuan Spiders. With the threat of Web Tangle and certain death to follow removed from the equation, the rest of the party joins in, Khalid being Charmed back onto our side, and victory is ours! Huzzah!
That was a lot of nasty status effects (Web, Domination, Entangle) at once. But the day is not over yet. We stumble upon the oozing Crusaders, trade our Myconid Bloom Sac to Ferrusk for a potion, and rescue them. We then return to Ferrusk, intent on dealing with him. But... one of the allies he summons is a Gargantuan Spider. Yeah, you can figure out what happens (don't worry, it's not Cassius that bites it).
I think it's safe to say that I hate Gargantuan Spiders. It's a strong word, but there it is. M'Khiin fails her save against that damnable Web Tangle and is beaten into the ground as everything in the chamber homes in on her. Fortunately the damage isn't enough to chunk her. With the major threat removed (the Gargantuan Spider.. grr) Ferrusk is sent to fertilize the ground. We loot up, retreat to the camp, rest, have Jaheira Raise M'Khiin and return, reporting our success to the Druids outside on the way in. Root of the Problem says that it's +3 against unnatural creatures... I wonder if it works on Big B? I'd wager no, but I think I'll try it.
There are two nasty spawns left (Myconids/Umber Hulks and another group of Gargantuan Spiders/Dark Treants/Shambling Mounds/Nymphs), but with both Chaotic Commands and Free Action available, we push through. Into Kanaglym!
This time I remember that there is a very large Undead spawn to the east, and prepare accordingly. A few Cleric buffs (including Strength of One) to soup up our five Skeleton Warriors lets them last quite a long time, and a couple of Skull Traps clears out the annoying enemy Skeleton Archers and Shadowed Souls. We proceed across the bridge, after encouraging M'Khiin to use the Robe and Staff found in the trash pile.
We've been saving our Haste for the Mages here, and it works splendidly in conjunction with M'Khiin's True Seeing: The grand total of spells the enemy Mages get off are 1x Detect Invisibility... and that's it. They fall swiftly to Khalid and M'Khiin pelting them with Arrows of Ice/Acid. We do not press Halatathlaer for a reward, and as such she tells us to seek out Daeros Dragonspear (who will reward us with a fine suit of magical armour).
On our way out, we use our last charge of the Spectacles of Spectacle (we previously rescued the Tiefling and got her ring as a reward) to pull Zadroth into the Prime and, using The Secret Revealed, promptly kill him for his incredible treasures: A Ring of Regeneration (1 HP/round) and a Robe that allows us to cast Spell Sequencer 1/day. Now granted only Cassius can use the Robe, but still: Instant triple Skull Trap, or a triple Slow, or a triple Confusion... it's all good, there are limitless excellent choices. The Endless Watcher at the exit cannot be talked out of a fight, and so unfortunately must be killed as well (yielding a Crossbow we'll just sell).
Though we're quite low on spells, we press on. After popping an Invisibility 10' Radius, we enter the cave filled with spectral Undead. Cassius leads with a Sunfire, causing the Undead to scatter in all directions (it did kill most of them). Jaheira attacks a Shadow and is thus exposed, so Cassius can cast Detect Invisibility unmolested: This reveals the Wraiths, so we can focus them down before they have a chance to Level Drain Jaheira, as we did not have a Negative Plane Protection available. The undead cleared, we help out the trapped spirits by dropping their remains in the portal to the Fugue Plane back in Kanaglym.
This time I remember the unpleasant Hold effect that the Albino Wyrmlings can induce (or was it Paralyze? Either way, Free Action protects against it). Jaheira and Khalid under Free Action clear the cave, while the rest of the party is invisible and/or under Sanctuary.
We've almost cleared the interior! Further west we run into Strunk, and end up in a brawl. Strunk gets his defenses up, but we have both True Seeing and Breach still available. The would-be elemental-enslaver soon falls, and we are rewarded with a fancy Ioun Stone by a Nereid, as not a single Water Elemental died in the fight (good to not have them show up at the actual siege later.. one of them hit Jaheira for 37 damage!).
Finally, we have a chat with the Ettin Ghost farther west. After returning to the cave with the spectral Undead, we find that the Ettin corpse is now searchable, yielding a club which we are all too happy to return to the Ettin itself. We are less happy about recieving its somewhat odorous loincloth as a reward, but c'est la vie.
Now, before we push further and advance the plot, we'll circle back to Dragonspear Castle proper and do the quests in the courtyard (we now have the requisite Seal of Caelar). Also, we could do with a rest and a full set of spells, in case things go wrong when we infiltrate Hephernaan's chambers.
The questing in the courtyard goes off without a hitch. We declare Corinth innocent, his accuser attacks and is killed, and Corinth rewards us with his bow, going to Khalid (for use with a Strength potion when the situation warrants it). We also shuffle back and forth to the coalition camp, getting stone shards blessed and dealing with the Sentry (whose Large Shield +2 with Fire Resistance also goes to Khalid). Finally, Glint quaffs 6x Potions of Master Thievery and successfully pickpockets a Token of Faith.
Since we're finishing off little odds and ends, we also bring Dynaheir and Minsc to see their Rashemen counterparts. And yet another bug: M'Khiin disappears from the game, despite being told to wait in camp. Sigh. I reload (this is clearly a bug, and I certainly don't intend to let a bug that's not even got anything to do with combat destroy my intended party) and have Jaheira and Khalid wait at camp instead of M'Khiin and Voghiln, and it works better. Hopefully there's no horrible side-effect in wait further down the road. Cassius stores the Dragon Blade +3 in the stash, for later importing into SoA.
We make our way back into the Underground River interior, and talk our way into the Warrens. Slug is freed, we loot, buy anything and everything that might be useful off Crusader Priest Polvi here (we did the same with the potion vendor in the previous area), then Glint gets Rhonda to talk the Ogres into hauling us up into the basement.
Upon arrival in the basement, Belben and his merry band assault us. A simple dual Web sorts them out.
Again, we loot (it's an obsession...). Then, we apply only long-duration buffs in case something goes terribly wrong, pop Invisibility 10' Radius, and move to listen in on Hephernann. Everyone has 2x Potions of Invisibility just in case. I'd rather not fight here, as last time things nearly turned quite sour due to the unending reinforcements (we could've lost Dynaheir to a chunking).
My plan was to listen invisibly to Hephernaan, steal everything in his room, loot the magical Full Plate Mail on the way out, then give Hephernaan a little tap and escape. Unfortunately, there are a fair few Mages and Clerics here, and they all have multiple castings of Detect Invisibility/Invisibility Purge. We are spotted several times, and apparently a single Magic Missile from the dito wand is not enough to cause Hephernaan to flee. We throw caution to the wind, engage him in earnest, and soon thereafter are able to retreat down the elevator. But in the midst of combat we forgot to loot the magical Full Plate Mail! We'll get it when we invade the Castle, if it's still there... if not, eh.
On the way out, we sneak invisibly by the (still neutral) Crusaders in the Warrens. However, someone spots us in the Underground River, turning all Crusaders there hostile. Fine by me... they lack any significant Mage/Cleric support, and so are entirely vulnerable to our mighty spellworks. We carve our way out.
We actually have to go back and fetch the Ogre's cache in here (Glint gets the Flail +2). While back, we talk to Slug in the Ogre Camp and get a Ring of Fire Resistance. Good stuff! We now do a tour of shopping: Onoroth and every single merchant in camp recieves a visit. After buying everything that might concievably be useful, we still have 100000 gold... next time through SoD I'll probably refrain from selling items to the Genie, he pays way too much.
And here we shall leave our heroes for now. We are expected at Dead Man's Pass to take part in negotitations, but will do so only once we've given our spell selection some thought. The final chapters await us. Cassius is now a L11 Elf Diviner.
Cassius, Elf Diviner, SoD Update 4 BG1EE updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4 First BG2EE SoA update found here
Following a (as it turns out, not entirely optimal) careful spell selection, we head out for negotations. They soon break down and we must defend the camp!
Wave 1 is handled with the help of Archers, but to be fair, they don't need to do much: Khalid had a few Arrows of Detonation, and in conjunction with something as simple as 2x Fireballs from Wands of Fire, we immediately kill off 90% of the enemy wave, leaving only a few Trolls that are quickly mopped up.
For Wave 2 we enlist the aid of Wizard Slayers, but again, the party does most of the work: A triple Dispel from Cassius/Voghiln/Jaheira surprisingly does rather well, knocking out most enemy defenses, and an Insect Plague from M'Khiin seals the deal.
Wave 3 is met by War Wizards, and yet again, the party does all the work: Greater Command surprisingly knocks out half the enemy force, and the remainder are undone by a combination of Insect Plague, Slow, Web and Entangle (!).
Finally, Grimgor and cronies arrive. And are entirely undone by all manner of disablers, chiefly Insect Plague. It's not even a contest.
We rest up and head for Dragonspear Castle. We spend a fair bit of time before engaging the Crusader's buffing (chiefly so that Cassius gets protection from all manner of elemental damage). Eventually we intervene, things go a bit haphazard (both M'Khiin and Glint get focused at various times and take heavy damage, but pull through), and eventually Ashatiel shows. We accept your duel, you holier-than-thou cheating chicken!
That was the killing stroke after about 20 rounds of back and forth. I overthought this something dire, and yet somehow forgot she wears a Ring of Free Action (so Slow was not a great pick). It would've been better to just tear down her defenses, pop a charge of the Wand of Summoning, then hit her with Wand of Paralyzation until she failed the save. I did interrupt her healing in Sanctuary several times with Wands of Frost.
We head north and clear the last elite remnants of Crusaders out. Not much to report, except Khalid ate a 66 damage backstab! He has HP to spare though.
We have another rest before pushing into Avernus. Here, our enormous collection of scrolls and potions are at last put to use: Everyone is constantly under Free Action and either Potion of Clarity or Chaotic Commands (Glint wears the Commander's Mail +3 which provides Fear immunity to all within visual range). We rampage through the hordes of foes (seriously, Lemures? They literally die in one hit. Even M'Khiin managed to kill one in melee!). Still, we take no chances with Thrix's summoned cronies: Four 7HD Skeleton Warriors courtesy of Cassius take the fore, and we prevail with exceptional speed. There's really nothing to it: None of the Devils can dispel our protections. The worst they can do is teleport around a bit and turn invisible... annoying, but not dangerous.
We solve Thrix's riddle (I always play on a stationary computer, so I use the keyboard when picking conversation options that can end the game if you misclick), and take the Tongue of Acid +3 as our prize, which naturally goes to Khalid.
I've never had a Cornugon cast Lightning Bolt on me, but that may be because I tend to prioritize them when they show up. So, it's probably best to prepare for it. We rest, setting up spells: Cassius gets 4x Lower Resistance and 1x Spell Immunity (to block Big B's initial move). Otherwise, it's a few Slow, some Vampiric Touch (I would go Lightning Bolt but am worried I'll fry Kaelar), defenses, Magic Missile and even a few Dire Charm/Charm Person in case someone somehow gets Charmed. Voghiln gets much the same. Jaheira goes all in on Iron Skins and a Harm, and Glint spends his solitary L5 slot on True Sight (in case M'Khiin somehow dies and we need to dispel Illusions).
Spells in order, we buff extensively. Everyone gets immunity to poison, as well as 100% resistance to Fire and Lightning via protection scrolls (as they last so long). Likewise, we bump everyone up to 24 Dexterity with Potions of Mind Focusing, and of course everyone gets a Chaotic Commands as well (we have about 20 scrolls of it). Long-term buffs applied, we get on the elevator.
During the ride, we apply potions: Storm Giant Strength/Power/Defense/Invulnerability/Heroism/Regeneration/Freedom... we chug it all. Finally, the lift grinds to a halt.
Today I learned something new: Either I am just too slow to pause, or it is not possible to cast SI: Abjuration before Belhifet dispels you if you do not have -1 casting time from the Wizzard Hat. Fortunately, as he was the only one in range, only Cassius gets all his buffs removed.
So, we have to spend a few actions early on renewing Cassius' buffs. But that's fine, Khalid takes the time to clear out the Devils running around, and Glint (wearing the Battle Tankard for fatigue immunity) makes sure Caelar stays alive by periodic application of Greater Restoration via scrolls. Oh: Turns out that the Root of the Problem does work on Big B! Hooray!
With his allies gone, Big B crumples very quickly under concerted pressure. We do not even have time to fully strip his Magic Resistance and start debuffing him... he just dies. How inconsiderate.
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! And then the game crashed. Since there was no save made, I had to replay the battle, but it went much the same (Belhifet died, none on our side did) and this time no crash! We get the hell out of, well, hell, with Caelar staying behind to close the portal. And that's all she wrote.
Almost. Skie dies, we're framed, but since we're such darn totin' good people, Belt springs us from jail, and we are reunited with Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc and Dynaheir. Hooray! But suddenly we're feeling very tired...
Cassius awakens on a grated metal floor, the taste of blood and dirt in his mouth. He is tortured repeatedly by the Hooded Man. But all is not lost: With the demise of the Devil, Cassius' preternatural sight was restored to him. He still cannot discern the identity or intentions of the Hooded Man (far too powerful wards are in place), but there are things he can see: A true Diviner needs not physical access to his spellbook to memorize spells, he can merely view them from afar with a simple cantrip (which Cassius knows by rote)!
His power restored to him, our mighty Diviner bides his time, his patience rewarded when Imoen frees him from his confines. With allies and enemies both near at hand, Cassius must maneuver carefully. For this, he is uniquely equipped: He shall bend the laws of probability, send his mind hurtling along each infinite thread of possible reality until he discovers the singular path upon which lies what he seeks. Freedom for himself, Imoen, and all his old friends. And vengeance for the fallen.
I made my way through Brynnlaw and entered Spellhold - there, I reached the experience cap. I used another PfU scroll to deal with the lich and challenged Irenicus, taking him to one HP in the first round with a GWW and running away, waiting for Wanev's timestop to finish and Irenicus' dialogue to trigger:
In the City of Caverns, I acquired the cloak of mirroring and the wave blade (an important piece for ToB) before moving on. Now, I was finally able to start skipping lots of content, only going for important items, such as the Greenstone Amulet (switching between SotM and Shield of Balduran to sneak in there and steal it), the girdle of frost giant strength (traps, skeletons and an attacking simmy) and some potions from Ust'Natha (that vendor has a great selection). I ignored all sidequests in the drow city and rushed through the main path very quickly, leaving the Underdark behind me. At this point, I was starting to figure out how powerful the unnerfed SotM truly is when playing a solo character (all my previous solo attempts that had gotten this far were with characters who couldn't use that item). In any case, I quickly forged Crom Faeyr and The Wave, killed the mage in the north forest via flaming cloud spells (I want all the available timestop scrolls, since I can't cast the spell myself with no access to 9th level spells) and destroyed Bodhi, with no special tactics needed.
I skipped combat in the elven city, only acquiring the plot-related items. I did have to fight the black dragon, though. In the end, I lured him into a bunch of traps while staying protected from everything except for his breath weapon thanks to defensive spells:
Tree-Irenicus was trapped to death, and I completed the hell trials the good way. Jon's final form took a bit more time. I lured two demons into traps, the other two were killed by summons and some careful attacking from afar. With true sight, I was able to find Jon (who had teleported away) and hit him with the SotM, staying away for a bit to make sure he wasn't casting anything too dangerous:
When I realized that even my summons were easily able to disrupt any attempts at spellcasting, I rushed into melee combat and achieved victory:
Compared to early SoA, I only added a few spells to my regular buffs: Mostly I made more liberal use of spell immunity (since less 5th level spell slots were needed for skeletons) and sometimes summoned a simulacrum (very powerful for a F/M/T, as it can add tons of utility). Mordy swords were added to skeletons as my summons of choice, and I changed some of my equipment. This is the stuff I mostly ended up using at the end of SoA: Robe of Vecna, Bracers of AC3, Helm of Balduran, Amulet of Power, Crom Faeyr, Scarlet Ninja-To, SotM, The Guards Ring, Ring of Gaxx, Cloak of the Sewers/Cloak of Mirroring, Paws of the Cheetah, Belt of Inertial Barrier, sometimes adding Dwarven Thrower, Shield of Harmony or Sword of Arvoreen (and rarely some other items with resistances or immunities). Time for ToB. I have specific strategies prepared for each of the encounters that have previously ended one of my solo attempts, but we shall see if they work out.
Hi, all! One more announcement. The Pillars of Eternity No Reload Challenge is now open. I hope to start posting soon. Check it out! And by all means, feel free to enter: everyone is welcome!
Returning to BG after a break Lyran was able to steer his way through the main quest to defeat Sarevok, with only a few brief interruptions. The first was our mistaken visit to the northwest district, which led to Eldoth eloping to the Elfsong with Skie to live out his destiny as a parasite. We replaced him with Drake, rather optimistically hoping to stay on the straight and narrow and gain the respect of the masses for long enough to supplant Sarevok. This plan held together through Candlekeep but came disastrously undone once we returned to the city. First Xzar dumped a pot of slime on Zizi the Lovebundle, and then Monty blew his attempts at pickpocketing a dwarvish artifact from a wizard for the cult of Abbathor (ironically in a bid to avoid murdering the lady...). As a result Drake stormed off with tens of thousands of gp's worth of equipment... and Lyran decided to stop playing Mr. nice guy. After picking up Faldorn we murdered Thalantyr and Keddeth (for the first time I think), and headed up to the Gate to slaughter anything else that stood in our path. Slythe, Sarevok's girlfriend and a bunch of dopples were quickly despatched, and the Undercity also provided few obstacles. The man himself was shot down like a dog in multiple clouds. Happily Angelo survived so he can be used in BG2 I think.
For reference this was a specially modified SCS + revisions run on Hard with all classed enemies being higher in level using the level adder utility. Due to bugs wands and many other quickslot items couldn't be used as well. Can't head into Dragonspear with this save from the beta though I think, so straight to Amn we shall go... Though I guess I'll wait for the new SCS.
Ilasera died to spike traps, and I forged the wondrous gloves - as my last major item upgrade, not counting the juggernaut golem manual (the bracers of ac3 really didn't do anything for me, as I was almost always fighting with spirit armor active anyway). In Saradush, I quickly solved the missing spellbook mystery and ignored all the other sidequests. I bought many different scrolls, mostly for learning, but also some for later use (most importantly, chain contingencies, PFMW, spell shield, spell immunity and more timestops - I now had 6 of them - maybe there are more in the game, but that seemed to be enough to me). After gaining access to the prison, I also forged the circlet of nesseril (I needed that one to have 3 ADHW in my spellbook for use with my chain contingency scrolls - for combat, I was still using the Helm of Balduran). I ignored the remaining vampires and snuck through directly to Gromnir under SotM invisibility. The Gromnir battle was rather easy, with the SotM allowing me to trick the mages into starting with true sight, dispelling their buffs with a quick hit and taking them down with my 8 APR. All the combat protections made it impossible for the remaining foes to deal any damage ro Arinja:
I used my last PfU scroll to clear the Temple of Bhaal before moving on to Yaga-Shura's Lair, where I skipped the initial group invisibly. A potion and scroll provided immunity to fire damage, and a mordy sword helped tank the north-eastern group. I ended up not fighting any of the foes that appeared after looting the various wardstones, instead distracting them with a summon and running away invisibly. I did end up having to fight Berenn, but the battle was rather easy, as he was unable to get through my spell trap. With the two hearts, Nyalee removed her son's invincibilty before dying to traps, and I moved on to meet the giant. At this point, I started adding some of the potions I had gathered in SoA to my buffs, mostly heroism, invulnerability and oil of speed. Yaga Shura, once he re-appeared, fell to a single GWW:
The oasis was skipped invisibly, and I ignored sidequests in Amkethran, only getting the gargoyle boots for the fourth pocket plane challenge (just in case). At Sendai's, I only killed the drow captain, going invisible and rushing into the enclave right after that. I also skipped almost all combat inside the building, only getting the key to the tunnels with a quick GWW and taking down the lich by drawing out his death spell with a skeleton warrior and summoning more of them after that. Ogremoch was unable to get through my protections, and I set up a bunch of traps for the Diaytha battle, intending to lure my foes into them. However, my simmy ended up basically taking down the entire group of opponents with her own GWWs. That was a pleasant surprise:
The mind flayers stood no chance against my protective items, and I buffed for Sendai. Once again, I made heavy use of my simulacrum, often having one of us taking down the spawning drow while the other one took care of the most recent Sendai clone. This ended up working very well:
With both of us being able to switch to the SotM at will, we were always able to dispel any annoying buffs, taking down the original Sendai with her only getting to use one implosion spell - so I moved on to Draconis. Once again, I set up traps to lure the dragon form of my foe into. SotM dispel on hit made it really easy to take down the human version:
When Draconis transformed, I realized that Arinja was basically stuck inside him, unable to move - one of the movement bugs introduced with 2.5. This prevented me from luring him into my waiting traps, so I had to go for direct combat damage. I summoned a simmy and had her cast protection from acid on herself (original Arinja had already gained immunity with 2 green scrolls), starting to go after my foe with many GWWs. I renewed combat protections now and then, eventually going for PFMW. Draconis died rather quickly:
After taking down the initial guards, I skipped some combat in Abazigal's Lair. Skeletons helped to take down the kuo-toa, and the cloak of mirroring helped greatly with the floating eyes. I got the colossus golem page for my manual and entered Abazigal's domain. Now, I started running around fully buffed with The Wave, killing all of the salamanders. This was important, because I planned to distract Abazigal with a mordy sword while laying a bunch of traps a couple of screens away. Also, I made sure to keep SI:Abjuration and SI:Conjuration active - Abazigal's maze spell has ended two of my failed solo attempts, and while I also had spell trap, I wanted to stay very, very safe:
My tactic worked just as I drew it up: I returned to help my mordy sword with taking down Abazigal's human form. He transformed, and I had my simmy lure him back towards the traps - once he got there, the outcome was obvious:
One big hurdle on my way to the throne gone. The next would be Balthazar. Saemon helped me to get past the gates, and after destroying the initial group, I finally made use of the greenstone amulet - my most recent solo failure, a dwarven defender, was destroyed by Balthazar's ability to deliver a stun effect with no save allowed. As I made sure to renew the greenstone effect every couple of rounds, I felt very safe, and Balthazar didn't last long:
Now, I took on the remaining pocket plane challenges. Challenges 3 and 4 aren't worth mentioning. Challenge 2 I approached well-prepared, but I didn't expect to get all of my buffs dispelled on hit by the evil Arinja clone! I actually took some significant damage, but was able to retaliate with my simmy, and after healing up, GWW down the clone. The other foes were already either gone or insigificant at this point. For the Ravager, I had a Lower Resistance spell trigger, a 3*ADHW chain contingency, a 3*skull trap sequencer and the like prepared. However, once I entered his area with my usual buffs (which include improved invisibility), the encounter didn't start... So I found myself with time to set up a bunch of traps:
This turned out to be crucial, as a) the lower resistances didn't seem to work for some reason, making my prepared magic damage spells useless and b) the ravager ended up dispelling all of my buffs with a single hit. Luckily, he was near death thanks to the traps, and a couple of hits with Crom Faeyr were enough to take him down:
I feel like I got lucky with this one. My original strategy completely failed, and I should propably learn a bit more about this encounter. In any case, now only the throne was left, and since I had specifically created this character to take down the three later versions of Mel with my 12 spike traps (four per spawn), I only really had to worry about meeting Mel the first time and killing the pool guardians. Once again, I opened with a chain contingency with 3 ADHW's and a lower resistance trigger. Arinja used a PFWM scroll and added greenstone amulet stun protection during the battle. I was very happy to see Mel's first summon, a death tyrant, die to ADHW before it was able to shoot an anti-magic ray at me (or do much of anything, really):
Two GWWs later, and the first verion of Mel was done:
My buffs were still active, so I took down the first group of pool guardians with ease. 4 traps, and Mel 2 was gone. However, this time, she ended up taking my buffs with her. I rebuffed for the second group of guardians, though with no more cold resistance scrolls or potions left. Still, Arinja was strong enough to take them down:
Four more traps, and Mel 3 was gone. Time for the final group of pool guardians. The fallen solar with his vorpal attacks (and me having no death ward and the like) seemed very scary, which is why I had gathered timestop scrolls - specificall for this encounter. They were also going to be my back up plan for Abazigal, but since I didn't end up needing one, I still had all 6 with me. I opened with the limited wish timestop and continued to attack while renewing the spell with my scrolls:
6 scrolls were more than enough. Now, I only had to set up my last four spike traps and wait for the end:
Success! Finally, after many attempts over the years, I've managed to find a way to complete a solo run. Granted, it took playing with one of the most if not the most powerful solo class in the game and abusing both spike traps and the SotM, but I'm still very happy to have finally done this - it's been gnawing at me for a while now.
I will be back at some point (maybe I'll try my hand at a PoE1 run first), propably with another attempt at the meatgrinder challenge. If I manage to complete that one, I will (hopefully) finally feel like I can move on to new challenges. Good luck to everyone else!
I was intending a couple of days ago to continue with run number 20 that I put on hold in SoD, but appear to have over-ridden the save - so the Crew had to start again from Candlekeep. I was intending to try and get them back to where they had been in SoD and just do a summary post to that stage. They had been doing pretty well, with no party deaths to date (though one stoning in a basilisk ambush). However, the final sentence below reveals one of many reasons why it's so long since I've completed the game .
Level 2 - charming sirines from Beregost temple. Level 3 - shooting down Drizzt. Level 4 - various reputation quests led up to Greywolf triggering the level. Level 5 - after clearing all the Cloud Peaks areas they got their next level at the Valley of the Tombs. Level 6 - there was a potentially costly mis-click early on, but fortunately I noticed in time to redirect fire on a suddenly wealthy bandit.
The ankhegs were destroyed (getting reputation up to 20 there) and Korax helped them clear the basilisk area. That left the next level not too far off and the battle horrors and a couple of ghasts at Durlag's Tower filled the gap. Level 7 - completed a few more wilderness areas, including the Lighthouse to get a constitution tome for Vito. Mulahey was no threat and I played it safe at the Bandit Camp by running away several times to break the fight up into segments. Up to this point there had been no near casualties, but there was a first worrying moment against Amarande when pathfinding problems meant they couldn't run from a chaos and everyone but Vito succumbed to that - fortunately they didn't prove that good at hitting each other and no-one got too low on hits. The Crew were nearly up to their next level at the bottom of the mine and I deliberately allowed Davaeorn to summon his additional guards rather than using a charmed guard to kill him in order to trigger that. Level 8 - I did all the City encounters, starting with acquiring the Helm of Glory. Up to that point the only purchases made had been mundane ammunition and the potion case, but with 20/20 available the purse strings were released. There was another mistake when I mis-clicked on the dialogue for Cloak of Balduran and lost the chance to pick that up peacefully at that stage. Then I did all the remaining wilderness areas, though that cost one petrification when I was surprized by an unexpected basilisk ambush. The final area was Shoal's and I managed to survive against her for the first time while still getting the helmet (made possible by v2.5). That still left the Crew just short of level 8 and I hadn't finally decided whether to do a bit of TotSC work or just go to Candlekeep anyway. The decision was taken out of my hands though when I returned to the game some hours after a previous session only to find I apparently had not paused it ...
Longtooth, after going to the med to see how the Hospitallers are doing against the Corsairs returned to find 128 unread posts in this thread alone. I'm afraid half-orcs aren't able to read that amount of literrature, good though it may be.
Upon returning to the Sword Coast he took on Gnarl and Hairtooth and prevailed. He then started to leave and as he did so, discovered that Garrat an invisible thief was trying to attack him. He will just have to wait for me to get a bit stronger before Longtooth fights him.
Longtooth then went to kill Sonner and friends before killing the ankheg who ate Nester.
Importing from Siege of Dragonspear into BG2EE Shadows of Amn. Difficulty: Core rules, max HP on level-up. Self-imposed restrictions: No using unidentified items, no recharging items by selling and buying them back. Mods: SCS v31 including full pre-buffs for Mages and Priests, see spoiler for WeiDU.
Initialise mod (all other components require this): v31 Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v31 Allow Spellstrike to take down a Protection from Magic scroll: v31 More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v31 Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v31 Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v31 Modify the Harm spell so it does damage rather than reducing target to 1 hp -> Enemy and player Harm spells both do 150 hp of damage: v31 Allow individual versions of Spell Immunity to be placed into Contingencies and Spell Triggers: v31 Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures: v31 Cap damage done by Skull Trap at 12d6: v31 Make Power-Word: Blind single-target: v31 Make Minute Meteors into +2 weapons: v31 Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): v31 Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v31 Slightly increase the power of Mantle, Improved Mantle, and Absolute Immunity: v31 Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v31 Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls: v31 True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness: v31 Prevent Simulacra and Projected Images from using magical items: v31 Replace +1 arrows with nonmagical "fine" ones: v31 Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: v31 Remove the Shield of Balduran from the game: v31 Remove the invisibility power of the Staff of the Magi: v31 Move Vhailor's Helm into Throne of Bhaal: v31 Move the Cloak of Mirroring: v31 Move the Robe of Vecna into Throne of Bhaal: v31 Make the healing and resurrection powers of the Rod of Resurrection into separate abilities: v31 Change Carsomyr so that its Dispel on contact power grants a saving throw: v31 Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v31 Improved shapeshifting: v31 Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: v31 Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla: v31 Make Freedom scrolls available earlier: v31 Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: v31 Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from certain areas -> Only remove nonmagical ammo from random containers: v31 Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v31 Ease-of-use party AI: v31 Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v31 Remove animation from the Cloak of Mirroring (leave it for other spells and effects that use the same graphic): v31 Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v31 Smarter general AI: v31 Better calls for help: v31 Add high-level abilities (HLAs) to spellcasters -> Only selected spellcasters in Throne of Bhaal get HLAs: v31 Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31 Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31 Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v31 Improved Spiders: v31 Improved golems: v31 Improved fiends -> Fiends have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31 Smarter genies -> Genies have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31 Smarter celestials -> Celestials have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31 Smarter dragons -> Dragons have a substantial hit point increase: v31 Smarter beholders -> Don't give beholder rays any chance of burning through spell protections; beholder antimagic blocks all spells, including harmful ones, for a round (simulates D&D rules): v31 Smarter mind flayers -> Illithids have enhanced damage resistance; Illithids cannot see invisible enemies: v31 Smarter githyanki: v31 Improved Vampires: v31 Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v31 Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v31 Improved Shade Lord: v31 Spellcasting Demiliches: v31 More resilient trolls: v31 Increase difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings -> Mildly increased difficulty: v31 Improved Random Encounters: v31 Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Enhanced spirit trolls (as in Tactics): v31 Improved Unseeing Eye: v31 Improved Bodhi (Tactics Remix) -> "Toned-down" version of the original Tactics Improved Bodhi, with SCSII scripting: v31 Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v31 Improved Sahuagin: v31 Improved Beholder hive (adapted from Quest Pack): v31 Prevent resting in the Illithid city: v31 Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences: v31 Slightly Improved Watcher's Keep: v31 Improved Fire Giant temple: v31 Enhanced Sendai's Enclave: v31 Improved Abazigal's Lair: v31 Improved Minor Encounters: v31
As can be expected, Cassius is loyal to his staunch allies. He shall gather a company of heroes in the truest sense of the word: Minsc, Jaheira, Imoen, Anomen and Mazzy. Together they shall travel the lands, righting wrongs and mopping floors with evil buttocks! But first, we must escape this dungeon.
And escape it we do. Cassius has an excellent spell selection for dealing with these dangers, and little can threaten us. The only thing of note that happens is Irenicus apparently forgetting scrolls of Spell Trap and Mordenkainen's Sword in the Mephit portal room. Heh.
Exiting into the light, Imoen is taken from us. Curses! Cassius should have foreseen this eventuality! No sense in dwelling on past mistakes however. We clear the Circus using a Remove Magic to dispense with the illusionary monsters, buy two scroll cases and a gem bag, and rest at the Den of the Seven Vales, before proceeding to the Slums.
Here, we pick up Anomen, and proceed to forcibly oust Lehtinan and his fellow slavers from the Copper Coronet, making good use of the classic "Have Jaheira with Iron Skins and Protection from Fire gather all enemies around her, then drop 2x Fireballs in the middle of them" ploy. Oh, the bouncers also dropped scrolls of Summon Efreeti and Death Spell. Not complaining, especially about the second one. We agree to carve out the corruption that is more slavers, and head into the sewers. A few Cloudkills clear the Hobgoblin spawns, Minsc gets Lilarcor, and we prepare for storming the slaver ship.
Immediately killing the Priest of Cyric is a good idea (and easy, as he for some reason wears no armor...). You'd think the rest was just mopup duty, but Captain Haegan actually quaffs his Potion of Frost Giant Strength and proceeds to beat Minsc within an inch of his life, pausing only to be a poor sport by also quaffing his two Potions of Extra Healing. Good thing we had a lot of 9 HP Potions of Healing lying around.
We clear out the remaining slavers, two Nymphs accompanied by two Skeleton Warriors spelling the end of the Slaver Wizards.
On our way back to the Copper Coronet, we enact a pleasant tradition: Unrepentant murderers Cohrvale and Bregg get to swing helplessly at a Fire Elemental. Really, it's not that wasteful, as Cohrvale can really hurt if he gets a few good hits in, and we still can't cast Mage spells in public without repercussions, so we can't just Slow them or have Cassius tank under Stoneskin + Mirror Image.
Good, that's a fair bit of cash and some experience to get us started! Next up, Government District. While certainly we need to watch our spending, not having a magic license is more or less a death sentence when I am playing a Mage (at some point, there'll be a few stealthed muggers or whatever, Cassius will cast Stoneskin to not get chunked by a backstab, and suddenly there's Pit Fiends and Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting flying around...). So, we cough up the 5000 gold, and rescue Viconia on the way out.
Alright. Next step is gathering our party! We speak with Delon before departing, drop by the Gate district, and take off for Umar Hills. So far, no ambushes, which is good, but we are always traveling under Invisibility 10' Radius just to be sure.
We arrive in Imnesvale, speak with the mayor and Madulf, get the local delinquents their weapons and alcohol, and proceed to clear the Mimic and its two room-mates, the Umber Hulks. Turns out a 12HD Fire Elemental is barely enough to kill a Mimic, as it doesn't attack so much as just automatically deal acid damage every two rounds. Our poor Fire Elemental is then pushed over the edge by the Umber Hulks, but we finish what it started. Oh, and there was also a scroll of True Seeing in the Umber Hulk's stash. Nice!
A quick rest later, we are off for the Temple Ruins. Things take a small turn for the worse when Minsc is somehow spotted by a Shadow Fiend...
But apparently, Anomen has better than straight odds to just outright destroy regular Shadows.
We head into the Ruins proper. Jaheira buffs to the gills (including Iron Skins/Protection From Fire/Resist Fire and Cold), gathers as many enemies as she can, then sits back and watches as Cassius lets loose with Sunfire.
And the path is clear to Mazzy! Hooray! She immediately gets bumped up to 500k experience and therefore jumps from level 8 to level 10. Her new proficiency goes to Axes (I am very impressed with how well she used Azuredge under Hubblepot, and Frostreaver +3 is a darn fine weapon as well), though it will of course be a while until she's good with them. We proceed with the rest of the dungeon: It's Fire Elemental time. The only thing that can harm them is the Bone Golem... and yes, it does harm them quite severely (killing one and putting the other one at Badly Injured), but once it drops, the remaining Undead have no way of winning.
We gather up the loot and open all the doors barring our path, but veer away just shy of confronting the Shade Lord. We'll be back (possibly even before we go after Imoen... but I'm still debating that). For now, we return to Imnesvale, rest up, and head back to the ci-
Normally, you'd stand a good chance of at least killing someone, Suna Seni. But we were prepared for your shenanigans this time! The party retreats to the edge of the area, conjures a Fire Elemental and Skeleton Warrior, buffs profusely, and charges into battle! Here, I took a page from semiticgod's playbook: For reasons unknown (probably stubbornness), I always just give Mazzy an appropriate melee weapon and have her wade into combat. However, turns out, against Mages with their protections dispelled, she is absolutely lethal with the Tuigan Bow and just regular arrows. As long as she can hit them (i.e. they don't have PfNM/PfNW/any of the Mantle spells up) she will hit them, and hit them often. The Slaver Wizard drops within a round of having her protections stripped, and with that, the enemy party has no plays left.
So, no sense in breaking with tradition: We're going for the De'Arnise Keep next. Not much in the way of scrolls, but some solid weapons, gold and gems... and with an exception for that horrific TorGal and his cronies, most of the fights are against very straightforward enemies. We have a chat with Nalia at the Copper Coronet. Onwards to De'Arnise K-
Fine by me, Cassius could use Xzar's Bracers of Defense AC6 (he cannot cast Armor after all, being barred from Conjuration). These fellows actually deal more damage to us than Suna Seni and friends, mostly since we don't really buff up beforehand, but we're never in real danger. We deliver Renfeld and subsequently clear out Prebek and Sanasha, the latter failing her save against Chaos and the former not buffing with PfNM (and thus being turned into a pincushion by Mazzy once his defensive Illusions were dispelled, hooray!).
We steal everything not nailed down in the Harper headquarters, similarly loot Xzar's corpse after he is assassinated, and rest at the Copper Coronet before departing once more for De'Arnise K-
Oh you poor dumb Orogs. You should've learned something from Suna Seni's demise. We conjure a few summons, buff, and charge in. Insect Plague, True Sight, Breach, Mazzy with the Tuigan Bow... it's a bad day to be a Slaver Wizard.
We finally arrive at De'Arnise Keep. After a talk with Nalia and the guard captain (to get some free Arrows of Fire) we head inside, kill a single Troll that gets in the way, and speak with Daleson. There, we should now have all the time in the world to complete the quest. We loot what we can get at without disturbing any further Trolls, and head back outside. Some spell selecting later (Chaotic Commands and Wondrous Recall (to grant us more Chaotic Commands) for coping with Spirit Trolls and their Greater Command, otherwise a lot of buffs, some heals, and a fair bit of Fire damage on Cassius), we stand ready to enter the Keep again... and this time, we're not coming out until we've burned the troll infestation out of there!
Here seems a good spot to call it a night. Next time, the Keep will be cleared (which will definitely require two assaults: I am done underestimating TorGal and his Mage backup, and will be engaging them with a full set of spells this time around). There'll be weapons of legend, hoards of gold and gemstones, and bloody battles!
@aldain I just wanted to say that I enjoy reading your recent updates quite a lot. Good luck with Cassius, we need more specialist mages in the hall! Also, we seem to have a somewhat similiar styles of playing this game, at least when it comes to strategies. When I read about your approach to specific encounters I often think "nice, I would propably do a very similiar thing".
Comments
Plurem - half-orc kensai (protagonist)
Mazzy - halfling "fighter"
Wertle - dwarven berserker
April - gnomish berserker
Trapper - human level 7 kensai dualed to thief
Imoen - human thief dualed to mage
This is a massive update with a lot of screenshots - I made huge progress with my party - so putting the update itself in a spoiler for the sake of those cell phone users of this site:
The Planar Sphere and Planar Prison were cleared out by the team - we did quite well. Two berserkers leading the way, with two kensais adding their damage, the fights went pretty well.
We decided we were ready to deal with Bodhi and get to Brynnlaw. Since we were planning on getting Imoen, we let Yoshimo join briefly and we sub him for Imoen in Spellhold. Traps made short work of Bodhi.
Spellhold was pretty straightforward.
The fish city was really easy for the team. We only bother with this portion for the reflection cloak - it is just so useful against beholders.
Once we finally get to the Underdark, we save the gnome village. Even with 1/2 the team stunned, we still crushed the demon.
We then worked on clearing out the 3 lairs - Kua-Toas, Beholders and Illithids. By this point, both Mazzy and Wertle had negative saves vs. spells, which means if they have high AC and buffed INT (potions of genius), then they can take the attention of the enemies with everyone else supporting with ranged fire. This worked great for the Illithid City.
We did not clear out the whole Beholder lair (didn't want to deal with imprisonment), so instead just cleared it partially.
Kua Toas went pretty well, except for Trapper getting charmed and killed. The Demon Knights went much, much better than usual, as finally I took @Grond0 's advice and started clearing them from the bottom. Doing it this way, the party just destroyed them.
Finally time for the Ust Natha quests. They went well.
Once out of the Underdark, we cleared out Firkraag's lair. We got beat up, but we did clear it.
We absolutely destroyed Firkraag, in possibly just 2 rounds.
We made a mistake, and forgot that we had dispelling arrows equipped so wasted quite a few. Oops.
We also made a visit to the Shadow Dragon at the Old Temple - surprisingly, it fell almost immediately.
We then went after Bodhi to get Imoen's soul back. We had no problem with that.
Suldanesslar went smoothly. The black dragon wasn't too hard for the party, we hit just so hard, hence our name of "hard hitters".
We got to the palace and saved my session here.
Irenicus has been defeated at the Tree of life. He did manage to kill Imoen in an ice storm, but that was about it before he was sent to Hell. Since I want to keep using Azuredge, I did all the good challenges. Also, no one really can use the blackrazor effectively in my group.
By the point the battle with Irenicus and his demons started, we did have WW, so we used those. Before the battle, I had used potions of invulnerability on all our characters (well except Imoen of course), and that seemed to help. Irenicus eventually teleported to three snares, and combined with our melee/ranged attacks, that was enough to force him to give it up.
1st TOB Update:
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Illsaera was defeated, as expected. First pocket plane challenge was easy for 6 fighters. By this point, we subbed Sarevok for Imoen. We have completed all Saradush quests except penetrating Gromnir's place, the vampires, and of course Gromnir himself. We are gulping lots of heal potions, but fortunately those are in good supply in ToB. We'll keep at it.
I'm pretty busy today with work and chess club, so likely will be able to make good progress on my run tomorrow night (PST).
Frisky Bits the Fighter/Mage/Cleric
Part 1: Baldur's GateFrisky Bits is back, this time as a half-elven Fighter/Mage/Cleric, with the same portrait from dreamy94 over at tumblr. We got lucky early on with a strong stat roll after just a dozen or so re-rolls.
Ideally, we'd have used CHA as a dump stat to max out WIS, but that didn't make much RP sense for this character, so we'll have very few cleric spell slots in BG1.
The early game went very smoothly, with several failed saves on the Beregost spiders against Sleep, a good backstab from Montaron on Tarnesh (I prefer using Xzar and Monty as disposable characters for this fight), and a Silence 15' Radius spell on Mutamin that let Korax survive long enough to paralyze him.
We hit level 4/4/4 after Mutamin's garden and can now cast Invisibility. Unfortunately, our options are a bit constrained, as Item Randomizer has been robbing us of certain important items, notably wands.
Not all items are randomized in my install (I think I set it to a 50% chance of randomization), and we manage to find the Wand of Lightning in the Beregost mansion, letting us take down Bassilus and get his +2 hammer.
Once we hit cleric level 5, we use Sanctuary to grab the Wand of Fire from the Ulcaster Ruins, tanking the Fireball traps with Protection from Fire. Since we're well over 10,000 XP, we go to the Larswood/Peldvale to grab Baeloth, whose Fireballs clear the way through the Gnoll Fortress and save Dynaheir, who also starts with Fireball thanks to our high levels.
Next, we recruit Tenya, who is a joinable NPC in my install. Tenya has four water-themed mephit spells, three of which can stun on a failed save, two of which are area-effect (and one of which is party-friendly!), and one of which can blind on a failed save. She's actually pretty overpowered.
We ditch Minsc and Dynaheir, who don't really match up to Baeloth and Tenya, and sneak through the Nashkel mines with Invisibility. Mulahey proves helpless against Tenya's mephit spells.
Normally I use Invisibility to skip the Molkar and Maneira ambushes, but I kind of want to see if they have any valuable randomized loot, so I re-recruit Dynaheir and Minsc and add on Xan as well for some extra power and safety. I still enter the first fight during Invisibility, allowing us to get the drop on the first ambush. Tenya's Boiling Rainstorm stuns the enemy, Baeloth's Web holds them, and Dynaheir's Stinking Cloud knocks them unconscious, allowing us to bomb them to death.
For the second ambush, I accidentally arrive without Invisibility, but by carefully positioning our party members, we avoid heavy pressure: Minsc charges the cleric with rage active to block the cleric's opening Enchantment spell, Tenya stuns Halacan long enough for Frisky Bits to slay him with bullets, and Xan runs from the two melee attackers while Dynaheir burns a charge from the Wand of Fire.
The party is at level 5 and 6, but I think we have enough wand charges to deal with the bandit camp more or less safely. Rather than steal the documents under Sanctuary with a Potion of Absorption to block the Lightning Bolt trap, we attack the enemies outside, using Stinking Cloud to hold off incoming enemies from the east.
Venkt approaches with the other high-end enemies from the tent, but Tenya stuns him with Salt Crystals and Baeloth bombs the group while it struggles to get past Dynaheir's Stinking Cloud.
Ardenor Crush and Toggy Kroshka both fail saves against Hold Person, sealing their fate, and without them, the enemy no longer poses a serious threat. Tenya uses Storm Shield (1 round per level of 100% resistance to fire, cold, and electricity, plus immunity to normal missiles!) to tank the Lightning Bolt trap. With the bandit camp done, we ditch Minsc and Dynaheir once again and head out to the Cloakwood, where Coran joins the team as our new archer.
Normally I don't fight the spiders here, either, but since this is no longer a solo run, we can actually tackle them okay. Fireballs are enough to break the difficulty.
We use our high damage output (Coran is a monster, and Baeloth has lots of damage spells) to farm wyverns until Coran and Tenya gain a level. Turns out Drasus and company have little defense against Web spells and Fireballs.
Shortly into the Cloakwood mines, Baeloth hits level 7 and learns Invisibility. We can now rest and travel anywhere without worrying about ambushes.
Yeslick joins the team. We already have enough clerics, but Yeslick's Dispel Magic has a 100% chance of working regardless of spell level (it would actually be pretty useless otherwise), which gives us a spectacular anti-magic option. Tenya distracts a few guards, losing her buffs to Hareishan's Dispel Magic but buying Yeslick enough time to debuff Hareishan.
Tenya barely clings to life using potions and we take down guards using Fireball, but we don't act quickly enough to kill Hareishan. Luckily, only Yeslick fails a save against Chaos, so most of the party stays functional long enough to finish off Hareishan. We move faster against Natasha, who didn't get a chance to bomb us before collapsing.
Frisky Bits nearly dies against Davaeorn when I let them approach the Battle Horrors alongside a summoned skeleton. Frisky Bits fails multiple saves against Web and Stinking Cloud, and since the skeleton was fully visible, Davaeorn is able to bomb both of them.
I had intended to use Yeslick's Dispel Magic to debuff Davaeorn, but I am forced to use it to rescue Frisky Bits.
Frisky Bits downs a Potion of Magic Blocking to ward off any more damage spells and the Web and Stinking Cloud. A healing potion might have seemed more intuitive since their HP was at 11, but since the Battle Horrors have no ranged attacks, Frisky Bits is able to simply run away and buy time to heal with other potions.
Yeslick drinks a Potion of Cloud Giant Strength and we make progress on the Battle Horrors with help from Baeloth's damage spells. Meanwhile, Coran, still hiding behind Invisibility, keeps an eye on Davaeorn.
Once Davaeorn's MGOI wears off, Xan removes his Mirror Images with Detect Illusions, but with guards coming in from the northwest to distract us, we can't get through the mage's Stoneskins fast enough to stop a Cone of Cold spell. The Belt of Antipode keeps Coran perfectly safe, however.
We can't spare the attacks per round to kill Davaeorn, so Frisky Bits resorts to using the Wand of Fire to get through his Stoneskins. Tenya pitches in to make sure Davaeorn doesn't blast us with anything.
To the northwest, Baeloth bombs the incoming guards with Fireballs. Xan dies to Arrows of Ice, but the guards finally go down, and while Davaeorn deals lots of damage to Frisky Bits with Magic Missiles, Coran manages to shoot him down while Frisky Bits hides behind Invisibility.
We buy some wands over at Baldur's Gate and slay Ragefast and Ramazith using Yeslick's Dispel Magic. Coran leaves the party due to a mod encounter of some sort when we visit the Firewine Ruins...
...but he never comes back, and he doesn't show up anywhere on the map. It seems like a bug, which would make a reload or console command acceptable, but I can't tell if it is. This might be intended behavior, though I'd severely question the judgment of a modder who made an NPC permanently leave the party based on an innocuous dialog option.
We didn't just lose a party member. He also took a suit of full plate mail with him, the Longbow of Marksmanship, the Bracers of Archery, and Spider's Bane, plus the Belt of Antipode and a Cloak of Protection.
We really do need an archer, so we grab the mod NPC Indira from inside the Firewine ruins, a Fighter/Mage with an illegal number of pips in shortbows and two pips in Single Weapon Style, but no pips in any melee weapons. It's actually a huge waste of the Fighter/Mage class, as it means that she can't use Mirror Image to tank enemies and still fight competently. Her role will mostly just be an archer who can use wands on the side.
Deeper in the ruins, Baeloth uses his MR and Yeslick uses his high HP to tank Lendarn until his MGOI wears off and we can hit him with Command. Once he's gone, Baeloth sneaks up on the Ogre Mage with Invisibility and nets the enemy with Web, allowing him to bomb the Ogre Mage safely.
I do some research and apparently a woman named Amelia is supposed to appear in the area, which means I might be able to get Coran back if I do her quest. We end up fighting Amelia, who is a demon with some very nasty powers, including high MR and immunity to normal weapons! Frisky Bits hides from her Energy Drain spells while the rest of the party tries to tack on damage.
It takes a very long time and Xan dies to repeated Energy Drain spells, but we manage to get her defenses and take her down.
But even after the quest is over, Coran doesn't show up anywhere, and I don't know if he's supposed to. We therefore have to continue the game without him.
Frisky Bits the Fighter/Mage/Cleric
Part 2: Baldur's GateI don't normally take on the Iron Throne fight, but with a full party, it seems doable. We enter under Invisibility and a lot of buffs and open with Fireballs. I position Indira poorly and get her killed, but the enemy suffers far worse.
We follow up with a Dispel Magic from Yeslick to remove pre-buffs, a Detect Illusions spell from Xan to remove a Mirror Image that didn't get caught by the Dispel Magic (I had to position it so Frisky Bits didn't lose their buffs), and a Slow spell from Baeloth to frustrate the enemy fighters. Shortly after, Xan landed an Emotion: Hopelessness spell against the already-crippled survivors.
Zhalimar Cloudwulfe survived it all and dealt heavy damage to the party, but without any allies, he wasn't able to bring anyone down. Gardush lingered even longer, but since he had no ranged weapons, we could simply run away from him.
Frisky Bits has been by far the biggest damage dealer, taking more than 40% of the kills in this chapter alone. Baeloth has more than 20% in the same period simply because of his Fireballs.
We head to Candlekeep, where Yeslick rescues us with a Remove Fear spell until we can flee the area and return under Invisibility. Without MGOI, the Ogre Magi are pretty vulnerable to spells.
Baeloth deployed more Webs and Fireballs against Rieltar's group, netting us a Wand of Monster Summoning--our first and only one, I think.
In the catacombs, we miss out on a Cloak of Protection +2 and lose 14 reputation by accidentally killing Arkanis and his buddy with a stray Fireball. Prat's company suffers badly under pressure from Fireballs and Tenya's Boiling Rainstorm spell, but Prat somehow survives and flee under Invisibility.
While wandering around looking for him, we get in a fight with some Phase Spiders, and a line in the dialog box reveals Prat's location: he got caught in a Web trap. Xan hurries over to reveal him and we put him down with the help of a Command spell when he briefly escapes the Web.
We restore our reputation with lots of donations at the Beregost temple and head back to the Iron Throne headquarters. I try to take down Cythandria's buffs with Yeslick's Dispel Magic, but she moves out of the way, and Indira ends up getting crushed in spite of her best attempts to run around and heal herself with potions.
But Cythandria foolishly teleports over to us and wastes a round Breaching Baeloth, allowing us to tear away her Stoneskins. Frisky Bits' Minor Spell Deflection blocks her Lightning Bolt, and she doesn't deal a single point of damage to us before we break through her defenses. She spends her last rounds struggling to maintain her Stoneskins.
I follow the standard procedure for Slythe and Kristin: charm Quenash to trigger Kristin's pre-buffs, let Slythe chunk her, and then bait the enemy with summons. The moment Kristin's opening PFMW wears off, Indira lands an Arrow of Dispelling on her, forcing her to cast a Stoneskin spell that we can easily bypass using Acid Arrows.
We keep up the pressure on Kristin, ignoring Slythe since he's focusing his attention on Tenya, who isn't really critical to this fight. He ends up chunking her on the second backstab.
This is a bug--chunking from physical damage is supposed to be impossible with my SCS install--but I don't really need Tenya that much these days anyway. I won't be bringing her back.
But Slythe's damage output is worrying me, so I have Yeslick break invisibility to debuff him. Baeloth has to spend a round re-casting Stoneskin since he also loses his buffs, but the Dispel Magic was worth it: we manage to nail Slythe with a Wand of Paralyzation charge.
We trample Slythe, and while Kristin manages to land a Skull Trap on us after escaping via invisibility, she falls soon after to Acid Arrows.
I consider my options and eventually decide to replace Tenya with Alora. Alora's rabbit foot is bugged in my install--the description says it gives +2 to AC and saving throws as well as some skill bonuses, but it only grants +2 to luck--but she can wear plate mail in my install, making her a decent tank despite her extremely low HP. This gives us another good archer, and a valuable thief shortly before the Undercity maze traps.
She also has a high enough pickpocket skill to steal Algernon's Cloak. I avoided killing him for RP reasons, which means we had been operating without it for the whole run. We now have both the Nymph Cloak and Algernon's Cloak.
I don't plan on using them to turn the Undercity party against Sarevok, since that seems a bit silly, but I am willing to use it on Ithtyl to get an extra sorcerer in the Ducal Palace fight. We open with a Dispel Magic from Yeslick, removing the enemies' buffs, but they make several important saving throws against the Wand of Paralyzation, and Liia Jannath ends up dead shortly into the fight.
I thought she'd be pre-buffing in this fight, but it seems her script is still broken.
We manage to pin down the Doppelganger Assassin using the Wand of Paralyzation, and while the mage gets Remove Magic off the ground, it targets Alora, who can draw the spell away from the rest of the party by running to a side room before it hits, preserving our buffs.
Unwilling to let the mage do any more mischief, we hit it with an Arrow of Dispelling, and when it goes invisible, Xan reveals it with Detect Illusions.
We mob Sarevok and keep Belt alive until Sarevok flees. We do some last minute shopping and get some new mod-introduced magical shortbows for Indira and Alora, just for some slight bonuses to their damage output. Alora deals with the traps in the maze, we fight our way through, and then we slip past the Undercity party using Invisibility. I've been going after a lot of optional fights in this run, but I don't want to deal with the Undercity party; I remember getting blasted by a stream of Fireballs when I last fought them years ago in BGTutu.
Here we are at the end of the game. Baeloth is level 8, Xan is level 7 (Alora hits level 7 shortly after these screenshots), and everyone else is level 6.
Since I haven't been recharging wands in this install and Item Randomizer took at least two wands away from us, we have rather few wand charges for Sarevok.
Unlike in my solo runs, we won't be using the AI trick to isolate Angelo and bomb Sarevok's group from afar. We're going to fight them all at once without waiting out Diarmid's Protection from Magic scroll. Alora rushes forward, but since Tazok starts out the fight invisible, she gets hit really hard early on. Ultimately, she doesn't make it, but Yeslick does manage to land a Dispel Magic on Angelo and Tazok in the process.
We narrowly missed Semaj, however, who was just out of reach.
With Tazok and Angelo highly vulnerable, we deploy Potions of Firebreath and Wands of Fire to deal some quick damage. Potions of Firebreath, notably, can go right through Semaj's MGOI and Diarmid's Protection from Magic scroll. Unfortunately, I forgot that Potions of Firebreath have a range of 1, which means we have to get into touch range to use them. I screw up the positioning and let Xan get far too close to Sarevok.
Xan is immune to fire thanks to his pre-buffs, but his aura is fogged and he has no Mirror Images left. He escapes Sarevok's reach, but he can't escape Diarmid.
Regardless, Angelo is down, and Tazok and Diarmid are both in terrible condition. Semaj wastes a round Breaching Baeloth, just like Cythandria did, and some careful positioning and movement let us bring down Diarmid with ranged attacks.
Diarmid is an important target. Without his arrows, the enemy is reduced to melee combat and spells, which makes kiting much more effective.
I catch Semaj casting an Enchantment spell at Frisky Bits, which turns out to be Chaos. But since I keep Frisky Bits' aura clear whenever I can, they can easily run away and drink a Potion of Magic Shielding, keeping the Chaos spell from affecting anyone in the party.
It's about time I got rid of Semaj. Indira equips some Arrows of Dispelling, but gets hurt in the process when I let Sarevok wander too close. I haven't been paying much attention to the south, so Yeslick has also taken a lot of damage while running away from Sarevok.
Semaj gets Sunfire off the ground, but no one is hurt besides Indira, who only takes 10 damage thanks to her buffs. Indira is struggling to land hits with Arrows of Dispelling, so she switches to Acid Arrows to help Baeloth finish off Tazok.
Semaj keeps casting damage spells, but the party is too well-buffed and too spread out for him to make any real progress, and Sarevok and the Skeleton Warriors have no ranged weapons, allowing us to kite them indefinitely. Indira finally lands an Arrow of Dispelling on Semaj, but he goes invisible, so we turn our attention to breaking down the skeletons.
Semaj reappears to cast Confusion, but Yeslick blocks it with a Potion of Invulnerability, and Indira puts down the mage with another Arrow of Dispelling and a Wand of Fire charge.
We burn down the remaining skeletons while Baeloth distracts Sarevok, running away and re-casting Mirror Image and Stoneskin. The rest of the party is free to attack Sarevok from afar.
Sarevok survives an unnaturally long time, and CTRL-M reveals that he is stuck at 1 HP, still clinging on to his MONHP1 item that was supposed to vanish via script. We use a workaround to get past the bug (I save the game, edit nonmagical bullets so they remove the MONHP1 item on hit, and then return to the game to finish him off) and proceed to Siege of Dragonspear.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1022956/#Comment_1022956
The SoD prologue saw a standard approach of persuading Porios to surrender, then using a scroll of PfU and fireballs to clear the way to Korlaz. She was dispelled and tried to surrender after being shot with a bolt of lightning - but she didn't get far.
In Baldur's Gate I robbed various items from NPCs and picked up the Spectacles and Battle Tankard in quests. With a bag of holding resolving inventory problems I went looking for a vampire. After agreeing to help it, Ikros was affected by a bolt of biting before his buffs fired and eventually died of that without casting any spells.
With no need for XP or items, I skipped all the rest of the content at the Coast Way and just hid behind the tent until Caelar called a parley at the bridge. I also stealthed through Troll Claw Woods to get to the Forest of Wyrms. More stealth there took me through the temple to find Ziatar and I shut the door to the room to stop any nosy guards appearing while cutting her down.
A potion of invulnerability and PfP scroll had already been applied for Ziatar and they should have made the Neothelid easy. However, with it at near death it disappeared underground for ages - long enough that I didn't notice invulnerability had actually worn off and that was possibly what triggered it to surface again, even though it would have been far better off staying submerged and continuing to cast spells.
A few exploding arrows discouraged Darskhelin's supporters and they didn't last long after the mindflayer was shot down.
On the way out I beat up some invisible stalkers guarding a chest with some throwing daggers in. I buffed up in the bugbear cave before throwing those at Morentherene and the third of those struck home to give me an 11th thief level.
At Boareskyr Bridge the dragon scales were turned into a shield. Vichand was backstabbed, without setting off traps,
At the Coalition Camp I bought a few things from a wandering genie before going to rescue Skie from Dragonspear. Then it was off to the Underground River after a quick run through Dead Man's Pass under stealth. A potion of clarity allowed a myconid sac to be obtained safely and some traps laid under a cyclops' feet gave quick access to a Seal.
Back at the Camp invasion was imminent. Exploding arrows did most of the hard work against the waves, with a few myconids joining in for the final battle. Swift Rabbit got one backstab in there, so to play safe I used a potion of invisibility and regenerated before showing myself again.
At the Castle I went straight to find Ashatiel. He was a bit slow reacting to lightning bolts and died before he could even finish a sanctuary.
Moving on into hell, I ran through the first area before tackling Thrix's allies. A potion of invulnerability was used to protect against non-magical charm and fear and Thrix soon offered a longsword on the way to meet his master.
Fire, lightning and poison protection scrolls were used before taking the lift and various potions added on the way up to confront Belhifet. I switched between melee and ranged attack against him, while keeping Caelar going with 3 restoration scrolls. That combination worked through Belhifet's HPs pretty quickly, though it was actually his own Hamutula that finished him off.
There were no errors in the epilogue and I remembered to take the pantaloons out of the bag of holding so that they will import into BG2.
F8/T11, 95 HPs, 578 kills
Frisky Bits the Fighter/Mage/Cleric
Part 3: Siege of DragonspearNothing special in the starting dungeon. After intimidating Porios using our high STR score, Frisky Bits took a lot of damage from the Shadowed Souls, but it was nothing that we couldn't shrug off with some healing potions and running away. Korlasz fell to Arrows of Dispelling, same as always, and we migrate all of our equipment onto Frisky Bits so we don't lose anything valuable when Alora, Yeslick, Baeloth, and Xan leave the party. Indira stays, however, apparently because she's a mod-introduced NPC who didn't have any script to make her leave the group, so she should make a decent tank once she gets enough levels to learn Stoneskin and put pips in longswords.
We sell off a lot of extra loot (luckily we got a Bag of Holding in BG1) and buy some wands and arrows from Sorcerous Sundries before heading out. We build up a new party largely based on powergaming lines: Edwin for access to lots of high-level mage spells (and greater diversity of spell picks than Baeloth has), Corwin for her incredible damage output (she actually has more potential than Dorn by the end of the game), and M'Khiin, just because late-game Insect Plague spells might be nice. SoD being SoD, of course, Edwin's Fireballs break most fights for us. When Fireball isn't enough, M'Khiin's Spirit Fire is.
For RP reasons, we side with the Dwarves of Dumathoin instead of the lich. In my first run of SoD, I had to fight the lich without the Secret Revealed, but these days I know to get the Secret Revealed first. The little gem takes down all of the lich's defenses, paving the way for an easy kill.
We use Invisibility 10' Radius to avoid the fight with Elwood Dowser, just because the fight doesn't yield much interesting loot. By the end of the area, both Indira and Frisky Bits have hit mage level 7, giving us two tanks that can cast Stoneskin and Mirror Image. With Corwin backing us up, that gives us more than enough damage output to safely deal with ordinary fights even without using Fireballs.
Voghiln joins the party. He's nothing special, but his bard song will give us a slight bonus, and it's not like he'll be a major XP drain as our 6th party member. You don't gain many levels in SoD no matter how many party members you have.
As for Morentherene, the v2.5 patch finally fixed Protection from Poison scrolls, so we can tackle the dragon safely. Or at least, Frisky Bits and Edwin can.
Morentherene doesn't last long enough to finish everyone off. Corwin and Frisky Bits just hit really hard. Ziatar, the Neothelid, and Akanna face the same fate: overwhelming damage output from a thoroughly-buffed, fighter-heavy party.
Darskhelin and his gang of diverse enemy humanoids are a bit more complicated to deal with. We can buff the party with near-immunity to Darskhelin's psionics, but since Darskhelin can wipe us out with some lucky critical hits thanks to his INT drain attack, we need to rush in fast and take him out early. We rush in while hasted, sacrificing a good chokepoint and exposing ourselves to enemy attack in order to quickly crush a key enemy.
The enemy mage can cause a problem here, but we have two excellent archers with Arrows of Dispelling on hand, so his defenses are moot. All the enemies crumple in seconds, largely thanks to Corwin and a DUHM-buffed Frisky Bits.
We stop by the spider cave on the way out. All we have to do is lure the spiders to a single location and bomb them.
In the fight at Bridgefort, we let the Flaming Fist do the work for several rounds while we buff the party. When we finally join the battle, we enter at full strength and open with multiple disablers.
Vichand tries to remove our buffs with Remove Magic, but Corwin helps put an end to that. Frisky Bits tanks the remaining enemies while Corwin nails the mages with more Arrows of Dispelling.
The fight on the bridge plays out the same way. Corwin rolls a 4 and still hits the mage with an Arrow of Dispelling. Her THAC0 is just that good.
Corwin is honestly the most powerful NPC in SoD. She has such incredible damage output, strikes so fast and so reliably, and she can use Arrows of Dispelling. Other characters like Edwin are better for bombing basic hordes, but for high-difficulty fights like mages and bosses, Corwin is so much more impactful.
At the Coalition Camp, we reveal Nazramu and pawn off all the random crap we've been collecting up to this point. We start with 4,700 gold, then gain 17,000 from selling off spare ammunition, 48,000 from gems, and another 48,000 from weapons and armor. We buy everything we could possibly want and still have tens of thousands of gold to spare. Nazramu's prices are just that generous.
We skip the dead magic zone and head on over to the Underground River. I'm impatient to get to BG2, so I've been skipping a lot of side quests and so forth--I don't even visit the snared druids nearby; I just go up to the cyclops and have M'Khiin zap him.
M'Khiin is deceptively strong. Shamans aren't conventionally powerful characters, but Call Lightning is great in SoD; there are so many aboveground areas where you can use it, and the damage is marvelous.
In the tunnels themselves, I skip every optional fight except for Strunk, since he's an easy kill and it removes a few tough enemies from the fight at Dragonspear Castle.
We're probably more than capable of defeating Hephernaan in a fair fight (though his Physical Mirror would stop any Arrows of Dispelling we might fire at him), but I see no reason to do so. I just have Frisky Bits and Edwin sneak over to Hephernaan's room once he walks out so we can grab the loot with a Knock spell, using a couple Potions of Magic Protection to block the Maze trap (which I failed to realize could be blocked with Chaotic Commands, which Frisky Bits always has active).
We then break invisibility by grabbing the magical plate mail on the way out, and the moment Hephernaan initiates dialogue, we use a Potion of Invisibility to escape.
We can now flee down the elevator and hurry outside. I've already poisoned the supplies (there's no Geneva Convention in Faerun) and placed the Barrel of Bwoosh, so the siege should be pretty simple.
The Coalition Camp invasion can be very messy, but I've gotten accustomed to it and I know what to do (never retreat southward; never use confusion or fear effects; be generous with resources and use Dosia to rest the party). The first fight is a simple batch of melee enemies we can simply blast with Fireballs and Call Lightning spells.
The second fight can be much trickier. Fortunately, we still have lots of Arrows of Dispelling thanks to hoarding them in BG1, which means Corwin can fire off four of them every round (now at level 9, she just got Grandmastery in longbows). Frisky Bits does get Slowed and Breached against the odds, but by the time that's happened, our Wizard Slayer and Inquisitor allies have already engaged in melee, allowing Frisky Bits to fall back a little.
The third fight is a very high-pressure encounter with some very tough paladins bolstered by clerics, but a mage in the party can break it with the right preparation: before the fight begins (and before you speak to Andrus after the mage fight), just throw out a bunch of Skull Trap and Web spells. The enemy will spawn right on top of them, and those that don't die will still get snared. I think it was @Harpagornis who invented this strategy.
I heard that you no longer get immortal allies in the final wave in v2.5, so I make a point of playing a bit more aggressively against Bird-Dog and the others. With Corwin and Indira firing arrows at high APR and Frisky Bits dealing high damage with DUHM and slings, we can make progress without even getting close to melee combat.
A few more Arrows of Dispelling and the mages are broken. The enemy crumples in short order.
Finally, the siege of Dragonspear Castle! We have four characters who can use wands, so the first wave of enemies doesn't really stand a chance.
We blast our way to Ashatiel, tacking on new buffs all the way, and Frisky Bits challenges her to a duel. Wands also break this encounter; you can target Ashatiel with wands in spite of her Sanctuary spell.
When she finally breaks invisibility, Frisky Bits disrupts one of her spells through Stoneskin using the fire damage from the Firefly +2 sling. Ashatiel doesn't last long after that.
Done! We stomp the demons in Avernus, pick a fight with Thrix's goons rather than answer his riddle (I know the answer, but a single missed click would end the run), and prepare for the final fight. Frisky Bits is level 8/8/8, Indira is 8/9, Corwin is 9, and M'Khiin and Edwin are 10 (though a single fight away from level 11), and Voghiln is 11. Here we are at the end of SoD:
Those fully-charged wands aren't the result of recharging; we got them from Nazramu already at 50 charges.
We make fast progress early in the fight with Belhifet, slaying Hephernaan in seconds with missile fire. Notice M'Khiin's pre-cast Static Charge spell from IWDification taking down an abishai in one hit.
Frisky Bits tries to land a hit on Belhifet, but gets the "Weapon Ineffective" message even though Edwin buffed her with Enchanted Weapon. Apparently I have the Better Enchanted Weapon mod installed, one of my own design, which makes the enchantment bonus from Enchanted Weapon equal to the caster's level divided by 4. Edwin cast it before he hit level 11 in the elevator, which means that even with the Cloak of Minor Arcana, his caster level was still 11, giving a bonus of +2.
But since Edwin is now 11, and the cloak bumps his caster level up to 12, we can give Frisky Bits a +3 enchantment by re-casting it. Frisky Bits and Corwin tear Belhifet apart, though Caelar steals the final blow.
Siege of Dragonspear is over! I won't be smuggling any gear into SoD, since this is an exploit-free run, so when we get back from Avernus, I don't store it away. We'll be entering BG2 completely broke, as intended.
Previous updates:
Before starting the main questline, the following goals had to be achieved in the wilderness areas:
a) get to 20 reputation
b) get some gold
c) get as much experience as possible
d) get the three available tomes
This was easily accomplished, mostly thanks to casting sleep on some ankhegs to get access to a wand of fire, which allowed me to kill some relatively powerful enemies, such as battle horrors. I was able to rely on minor spell deflection for most of my defense against spellcasters, only having to use the greenstone amulet three times for the three siren groups in the sword coast areas. Once I had wands of frost, fire, paralyzation and monster summoning, I cast invisibility to run directly to Mulahey and take him down. I pretended to join the bandits to get access to Tazok's tent, buffed up and killed everyone within:
Because I wanted both his weapon and his armor, I also lured Taurgosz out of the camp, eventually managing to hit him with hold person:
I made my way through Cloakwood invisibly and challenged Drasus, using an oil of speed. A wand of fire hit and a charge from the victor took down both mages, and Drasus himself was hit with the paralyzation wand:
Davaeorn was taken down via PfM, and I gathered some items and tomes in the City of Baldur's Gate. I also did some quests for money, though I didn't need any experience, having already hit the xp cap while clearing Tazok's tent. Eventually, the Iron Throne party was taken down by luring them downstairs, summoning some monsters to distract them and beating them to death:
Combat was skipped in Candlekeep, I only made sure to get the tomes. Back in BG, Slythe was taken down via paralyzation wand:
For the ducal palace event, I used some damage-improving potions and the greater malison + chaos combo. While it did affect every doppelganger, they didn't really stop attacking Belt:
This turned out to be somehwat close: Belt died, and I was lucky that the two remaining doppelgangers didn't decide to randomly attack Liia:
Still, victory was ours:
I snuck through the thieve's maze and made my way to Sarevok. The lure via arrow of dispelling was a sucess, though with a bunch of spells from Semaj flying at me, I had no choice but to use a potion of magic blocking while hitting the mage with more dispelling arrows:
Semaj ended up dimension dooring away and never rejoining combat. All I had to do was to kite Sarevok and shoot him until he was dead. I eventually got bored of this and used some monster summoning wand charges to speed up the process:
Time to move on to SoD!
This was Arinja's equipment at the end of BG1:
Robe of the Neutral Archmagi, Legacy of the Masters, Helm of Balduran, Greenstone Amulet, Ahsideena +2, The Dead Shot +2, Shield of the Falling Stars +1, The Guard's Ring +2, Evermemory, Cloak of Balduran, The Paws of the Cheetah, Golden Girdle of Urnst - plus various rings and amulets in my gem back, tons of potions, some green scrolls, a full plate, Elve's Bane and the Destroyer of the Hills, Talos's Gift, a War Hammer +1 and a buch of different wands and arrows for certain situations.
Previous updates:
Update 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023278/#Comment_1023278
I used a PfU scroll to clear Korlasz's tomb, with wand of fire charges added for the few humanoid opponents. She herself was hit by dispelling arrows and surrendered. After doing all the BG quests, Coast Way Crossing was cleared. This time, I made sure to stay away from any gargantuan spiders. I killed the vampire, using a greenstone amulet charge for protection, and helped the dwarves by using two more PfU scrolls. Coldhearth was taken down with The Secret Revealed.
I didn't fight anything in the Troll Claw Woods and moved on to the Dragon (killed via throwing daggers) and the Temple of Bhaal. Protection from Poison was used against Ziatar and the Neothelid - I also added a clarity potion for that one:
After getting access to the wardstone, I completed Wynan's quest to gain the 80 void-tipped arrows before surrendering the fort. I buffed up for the battle of the bridge (including getting to 25 agility for the best possible ranged thac0) and indeed was able to interrupt the mage with dispelling arrows:
Moving on to the Coalition Camp, I did some quests to get access to important items and moved on to the Underground River, where the cyclops was killed with some kiting and wand charges. I skipped the remaining foes by running through the enemy lines invisibly:
Inside, I made sure to kill Strunk before placing the barrel, looting some +3 arrows and buffing up before taking down the first group in the basement:
I had tons of potions at this point, so I was able to use a lot of them for every single remaining encounter, making this relatively easy. I poisoned the supplies and ran away from Hephernaan before returning to the camp. Now, time for detonation arrows - all three waves were taken down with these during the camp defense, and the final group was weakened by them as well, with Arinja finishing the job via dispelling arrows and melee attacks:
With APR improved by an oil of speed, the siege was handled with detonation arrows as well:
I was prepared to use a PfM scroll for Ashatiel (which is why I had my full plate equipped), but I didn't need to - dispelling arrows interrupted all of her attempts to cast anything and took her down very quickly:
I entered Avernus, skipped the first area and made sure to have defensive buffs such as clarity active against the first two devil groups. Buffing for big B, I also included magic shielding - I hadn't needed any of these potions during the playthrough so far, so I was able to keep them up at all times for maximum security. I first took down a group of summons and Hephernaan, staying at range and on the move at all times:
It took some time before Belhifet summoned his next group of allies - after the were taken down, he was at about half of his health:
Three more enemy groups appeared before Belhifet fell, though I ended up ignoring the third one:
I played through the Epilogue and entered SoA.
These are the equipment upgrades I got during SoD (only listing main equipment, not additional situational protective stuff, as that list would be very long):
Medal of Valor, Corinth's Bow +2, Dragonscale Shield +3, Ring of the Crusade (instead of Evermemory), Cloverleaf.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1022956/#Comment_1022956
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023111/#Comment_1023111
Arriving in Amn it didn't take long to clear Jun's dungeon. A fairly wimpy backstab on Ulvaryl left her alive, but a firebreath prevented her from running away. The order of business after that this morning was:
- using stealth in the circus.
- traps ensured Brennan Riesling wouldn't run away with my magic ring.
- I changed into Mencar's plate armor before backstabbing the beastmaster at the Copper Coronet (picking up a 12th thief level there).
- the invisibility ring was used in the Suna Seni ambush on the way to Watcher's Keep. I was hoping to get a nice weapon there to suit my scimitar proficiency, but vampiric wraiths were waiting and even 7 traps did little damage to them.
- coming back to the City, Renfeld was saved and Prebek & Sanasha were enough for fighter level 10.
- while in the Docks I did Mae'Var's tasks. Rayic's buffs protected him from initial trap damage, but he died of the ongoing poison effect. The last of the tasks got me thief level 13, though there was plenty more XP for finishing off Mae'Var himself. I turned down the opportunity to form my own guild.
- clearing the upper Graveyard, mainly with backstabs, gained me an 11th fighter level. With stealth now pushing up towards guaranteed success in dark areas, stealth attacks are a lot easier and quicker than they were just a few levels ago. Going downstairs, I got level drained in the Southern Tombs, but was able to put on the Helm of Charm Protection in order to safely deal with the Vampyre (@Corey_Russell would have been proud of me
I had actually closed the game there, but after doing one piece of work I thought I had time before my main task for the day to just finish off the Southern tombs and tick off the Graveyard as complete for now. I opened the game without looking what I was doing though and just clicking randomly to clear any opening messages - and picked up a closing message instead ...
BG1EE updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
We say our goodbyes to Minsc and Dynaheir: Just in case the unspeakably horrible occurs (again...) and we shall require new companions, we leave them with some basic gear.
Navigating invisibly along the main road, we stumble upon Jaheira and Voghiln, inducting both into our ranks: Jaheira now has two casts per day of 5th level spells (Iron Skins are a strong contender given that she is our primary tank), and we saved the bard-only items from previously for Voghiln, greatly increasing his spells-per-day for 1st, 2nd and 3rd level.
Voghiln starts with + in Axes, Bastard Swords, Sword and Shield Style, and Two-Weapon Style. We put his level-up proficiency in Longbows, which turns out to be a total waste: If Voghiln changes his wielded weapon (even if he switches to another one-hander) it counts as him unequipping and re-equipping Reed of Echoes in the off-hand.. causing him to lose the bonus spells it grants. Poop. It's the same problem as M'Khiin has if you have her switch weapons, whereupon she loses the 10 HP her buckler grants.
I guess Voghiln'll just stand around wielding a melee weapon and singing, occasionally stopping to take a swing.
We'll need to think about how to spend Jaheira's final proficiency point, which she'll only get right before the end. Since her proficiencies start so spread out, the only real options are Sling (eh...), Scimitar and Quarterstaff. But that's for later.
With a partially-new party, we work out the kinks by clearing the map. I will have Jaheira in Full Plate, even though she really doesn't have the Strength to pull it off: Once we get Khalid I'll give her the 18/00 Strength bracers, but until then she'll just have to watch her encumbrance and not carry too many potions.
Full Plate, 17 Dexterity and the Suncatcher +2 makes it extremely difficult for even Trolls to hit her, and together with Cloudkills, Fireballs, Webs and the like, we make rapid progress.
A little too rapid, as we accidentally (I didn't know it was possible) kill one of the Half-Orc irregulars in the duel, leading to the other two running away. Unfortunate.
We push into the Troll Cave. Even utterly surrounded by Trolls, Jaheira has no trouble holding the line. We clear the vile creatures out and help ourselves to the Locket of Embracing, going to Glint.
With the map cleared (we picked up the Glimmer of Hope +2 for Glint), we retire to the camp to prepare for our journey to Bridgefort.
Jaheira comes with the Ring of Holiness, now also going to Glint. He thus has a fair number of spell slots available, which is good as he'll be our only Cleric.
Now, Voghiln's intelligence (or rather, his lack thereof) will be a slight problem... 14 Intelligence.
He will need 3x Potions of Genius to attain 100% scribing rate, regardless of whether he wields the Gemblade +2 or not. However, Cassius has a delectable 19 Intelligence, raised to 20 with the Gemblade +2, and so requires only a single Potion of Genius to attain 100% scribing rate.
There are 5x Potions of Genius for sale by Belegarm, and the alchemist inside Bridgefort sells (if memory serves) an additional 15 such potions. We'll have more than enough, then. Good!
As an aside, Jaheira also came with the Nymph's Cloak, which Cassius can equip to attain 21 Charisma. So we can now shop at will, not relying on the 1/day Friends ability of Brevin's Quarterstaff being available (or having remembered to memorize Friends ourselves). Also good!
We rest up, and head for Bridgefort.
Excellent! There's loot to be had here: A scroll of Lower Resistance, Longsword +2: Spellbreaker and some Elven Chain for Voghiln. We clear a whole tribe of Goblins with a single cloudkill, and descend into the pit. Jaheira pops a charge of the Greenstone Amulet (not entirely in vain: Her helmet grants immunity to Confusion, but the Blue Myconids can cause short-duration Feeblemind, which she is now protected against) and we proceed to clean house, looting as we go.
That done with, we arrive at Bridgefort, and are of course not allowed in. We clear the local scrubs (Hobgoblins and Goblins) using Cloudkill and Stinking Cloud, the latter as Voghiln does not come with Web.
The Goblins inside the cave are all but terrified to a Goblin when hit by three simultaneous charges of Wands of Fear, rendering them easy pickings (which they were anyway.. they're just Goblins).
We embark for the Forest of Wyrms. En route we get the Green Dragon Wyrmling ambush. Also nice!
We opt to save the Wyrmling and so recieve the Red Ioun Stone (Khalid will want that later), and some gems.
Heading east, a Hill Giant and his guardian Dire Wolves are dispatched, rendering us a pair of +1 Dexterity gauntlets (again, will go to Khalid later, but for now Corwin gladly makes use of them).
I was a little worried about the Greater Wyverns here, but turns out that Corwin's fantastic damage output is even more impressive when augmented by the Skald Song... she pretty much only misses on a natural 1, so we make do just fine with some Spirit Animals holding the Wyverns off as they are mercilessly cut down by Corwin.
Glint had three 4th level slots, all of which he spent on Free Action. This turns out to be a good thing, as it allows Jaheira, Corwin and a singing Voghiln to tackle the Spider Cave, while the rest of the party sits back invisibly. Free Action runs out before we can engage the final group of Spiders, but we have a scroll of it for Jaheira to use, and Corwin/Voghiln pop Invisibility potions if they are targetted by the single Gargantuan Spider's Web Tangle.
We clear the Phase Spiders (no Gargantuan Spider => No Web Tangle => No problem) and the regular ol' Bugbears blocking the path, and ascend the cliff face. Before entering we put up Remove Fear just in case, but we are fortunate: Jaheira lands a critical with some Throwing Daggers and Morentherene never wakes up.
We loot the Scales, the Sable Cloak and some gems, and press on. Cassius pops a charge of his Wand of Summoning as you are mobbed immediately upon entry, and the Bugbears happily oblige by killing the fodder while we shoot at them.
Surprisingly, the rest of the Bugbear caves are easier than the first fight. Spirit Animals are sufficient to tank (supported by Corwin), and the worst that happens is a backstab by a Bugbear Stalker reducing Corwin to about 40 HP. We loot and move on into the temple proper.
The Cultists are cleared from the side rooms as we advance upon the den of Ziatar. Most of these groups are very easy, with an exception for the last one, containing a couple of fairly well-buffed Fighter/Mages wielding Crossbows.
We pop four Skeleton Warriors and an Insect Plague. To their credit, the cultists take down the gaggle gang, but are in turn slain without accomplishing much else.
Cassius pops another charge of the Wand of Summoning gifted to us by Ammon (now down to 1 charge) for some fodder, we apply Cleric buffs, and charge Ziatar. Insect Plague absolutely devastates her and her Mage guards: The Mages just die without doing anything, and after failing to heal herself while in Sanctuary three times, Ziatar gives up, quaffs a potion and tries to melee Jaheira. With predictable results.
I think one Dire Wolf got reduced to Injured, and that's about it.
Neothelid time. As we have a few of them lying around, Jaheira pops a scroll of Protection from Poison, just so she can move freely during the fight, followed by a charge of the Greenstone Amulet.
The Neothelid tries and fails to affect Jaheira with any psionics, summons two Magical Swords (that Cassius and Voghiln bring down with Magic Missiles), then surfaces for one round. One round is all we need.
Akanna and her two Aerial Servants did not even merit a screenshot: Cassius forced her to reveal herself with Detect Invisibility, and she was shot down before getting a second action.
Her Aerial Servants locked onto Jaheira and were simply kited around the room as Corwin killed them.
All that remains is the Mind Flayer and (if we feel like it) the Shadow Aspect.
Darskhelin first! Cassius has a 2x Web Sequencer we've been saving for this, and Jaheira pops the second-to-last charge of the Greenstone Amulet, so we should be fine.
Oooh, the poor positioning.. Darskhelin of course led with a Mind Blast, which caught (among others) Cassius, who failed his save! Voghiln reacted with lightning speed, whipping out a scroll of Invisibility 10' Radius as Corwin got to work clearing the foe. Darskhelin thankfully died before he could reach Cassius and drain his brains, but we're not out of the woods yet: Jhan Redmoons has MGoI up, and unaffected by Web, he dispels our Invisibility! Thankfully Corwin, by equal parts skill and desperation, manage to tear through his Stoneskins and fell the dread Mage.
Happy I am that the AI isn't ruthless: If that Umber Hulk and Mohad Flintborn had just ignored Jaheira and gunned for Cassius, that might well have meant the end of the run. As it is, Jaheira holds them off while Corwin kills them, and we are victorious. Phew. I'm not sure why Cassius was near the front lines... I think I wanted a good place to cast his Sequencer from. But still, that was damn stupid. Let's avoid such silliness from now on.
In contrast, the Shadow Aspect is a total pushover. Jaheira had Iron Skins and True Sight running, along with a Potion of Frost Giant Strength, and Corwin joined in with Acid Arrows +1.
The Mislead clone dies in two hits.. and so does the Shadow Aspect. Hooray! Never mind that Voghiln tripped a trap and got Confused.
We pick up the Fractal Blade +3, and depart, freeing the Priestess on the way out (be good from now on!) as well as Keherrem. At long last, we return to the Flaming Fist camp to rest up.
Once rested, we return to Bridgefort and enter the Crusader camp momentarily: Dorn is freed (we take his gear as payment...), and Kharm rewards us with 250 gold pieces. Next, we head into the Fort proper.
Jegg prepares Dragonscale Shield +3 and Rhino Beetle Plate for us, and we finish off the little quests here (fixing the Level Drain stone, and exposing Junia).
To my great sorrow, Hoach fails to properly repair the Boot and a Half of Speed: They disintegrate after having given Corwin a run for her money. So no Boots of Speed this time around, unfortunately.
We talk with Khalid (after having bought out the 15 Potions of Genius from Thirrim.. most likely overkill, but I don't play the odds when it comes to spell scribing, especially with Voghiln requiring three such potions every time he wants to scribe), and convince him that we should attack the Crusade after Flaming Fist backing has been secured.
On our return to the encampment, we procure such backing, opting to fight alongside the Bridgefort defenders, as otherwise Khalid may simply die in the battle (given that we then do not get to control him).
We prepare thoroughly: Voghiln finally gets an upgrade of his spellbook, as spells for 7000 gold are purchased and, with the aid of three Potions of Genius, are all successfully scribed.
Cassius likewise indulges in purchasing a single scroll of Oracle, and scribes it (along with Breach and Lower Resistance) with the aid of the Gemblade +2 and a solitary Potion of Genius.
The main battle isn't that important: There are plenty of friendly NPC's you can fall back on if necessary.
However, once the main battle is won, we need to rush to the west and destroy the damnable Mage before he (she? Can't rightly remember) manages to open a portal, or things will become much more difficult. So, we'll save one each of Oracle, Breach and Haste in order to assist us with this.
Every other spell slot is fair game for helping with the main battle: An extra Breach, Emotion: Hopelessness, Slow, Fireball, Haste, Call Lightning/True Sight/Iron Skins on Jaheira... anything that'll help.
We arrive at Bridgefort, dismiss Corwin after relieving her of her items (she keeps her personal bow and armour), and have Khalid join us for the assault: With the bracers, the Red Ioun Stone and Archer's Eyes, he jumps up to 19 Dexterity, and even wielding a standard Longbow +1 has a very respectable THAC0 (he leveled up and so got a third + in Longbow). Glint summoned a quintet of Skeleton Warriors before we spoke with Khalid, and we have enough time to apply some long-duration buffs before the drawbridge is lower (PfE 10' Radius, Shield for Cassius and Voghiln, Protection from Lightning for Jaheira).
Voghiln, sing us a song of battle! No, not about wine. No, not about women either! Ah, you have another song... it's about wine and women, isn't it? Forget it.
Cassius, Voghiln, M'Khiin... make it rain.
Not much to report: A few initial Fireballs were quite helpful, as was an Insect Plague by M'Khiin. Coupled with Call Lightning and Slow, we carried the day with ease, only taking minimal damage when M'Khiin and Jaheira took a few potshots. Once the Flaming Fist Mage informs us of nefarious activity to the west, we stop only long enough to apply a Haste, then rush to the bridge.
We've saved an Oracle, which comes in handy, even though the enemy Mage cheats and somehow applies more defensive Illusions immediately after we dispel the first ones. Such dishonourable tactics shall not avail you!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Bridgefort is liberated and we finally have our party in place (though Khalid comes in at 250k experience and so is about 80k behind everyone else). A grand victory!
We scoop up the loot, head over the bridge, have a nasty vision, and finish the area by clearing the Well Elemental (getting a Battle Axe +1... eh). Onward to the coalition camp!
We arrive uneventfully, and have a talk with Nederlok, De Lancie and Stonehand. Following this, we pull the Genie merchant into the Prime, and sell off a fair bit of loot: We end up at about 150k gold.
Items are shuffled around (Khalid exchanges his Full Plate Mail with Rhino Beetle Plate, purely for weight reasons), and we are now properly equipped all over. Ready for adventure!
Next time, we'll tackle the silly FedEx-quests in the camp, then depart for the Underground River and what diabolical machinations lie therein.
Cassius remains a L10 Elf Diviner, though a significant jump in power draws near.
We're currently ironing out the rule set in preparation for the founding post. If you'd like to be a part of that conversation, please stop by! Any and all feedback will be appreciated. That discussion can be found here:
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/106570-any-interest-in-starting-a-no-reload-challenge/
Best wishes to all the current BG NR Challengers! And a warm welcome in advance to anyone who decides to join us in the new challenge!
A.
NW: In the interest of minimizing traffic bleed, I'll be cross-posting my run in BelgarathMTH's Pillars of Eternity Minimal and No Reload Thread, found on our forums, in the off-topic section. I'll encourage Serg to do the same. Note, though, that the rule establishment and foundation discussion is taking place, and will take place, over on the other side, at the link above.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/44369/pillars-of-eternity-minimal-and-no-reload-thread-spoilers/p1
Frisky Bits the Fighter/Mage/Cleric
Part 4: Shadows of AmnAs I mentioned before, there's a bug in my EET install in which you arrive at Chateau Irenicus with extremely high fatigue, presumably because the game thinks you walked all the way from Baldur's Gate to Athkatla. Also, mephits in my install have different abilities: the Lightning Mephit has a new kind of lightning bolt spell that can't be dodged. Combined with our high fatigue, that means maximum damage from an unstoppable spell every round.
I thought I was going to die, but we manage to bring it down. Careful resource management allows us to take down almost everything in the dungeon with only our one rest period, though I skip the area with the Girdle of Bluntness (too much danger for an item I can easily buy in the Temple District) and the optional tank room on the first level. Item Randomizer robs us of the Helm of Balduran.
To concentrate our XP on Frisky Bits, I kick everyone out of the party except Jaheira once we get outside. Druids have some nice new options in my install thanks to IWDification: Jaheira has new summons from Giant Insect, a revised (and mostly nerfed) Call Woodland Beings, and Static Charge for a random but extremely powerful single-target damage spell.
Frisky Bits can run past the deadly Prismatic Spray trap using Haste, at which point our Spell Immunity buffs can frustrate the low-end mages in the slaver stockade.
I grab Jan so we can loot a few chests in Watcher's Keep (we find little of interest) and run into Suna Seni on the way back to Athkatla. We have a pretty low-powered party of three, but basic disablers can cover that weakness in the early game.
I always travel with Invisibility on the entire party, so getting caught off-guard isn't a possibility.
We raise a few thousand gold, but unfortunately, the Robe of Vecna is not for sale. Since we also missed out on the Ring of Human Influence from the circus quest, I burn a lot of gold to purchase the Nymph Cloak from Gorch in the Mae'Var questline and the Sensate Amulet for extra CHA bonuses to stack with Friends. Normally I consider the Sensate Amulet a waste of money, but without the Ring of Human Influence for 18 CHA on a mage who can cast Friends, the amulet is a good long-term investment.
We take on Rayic Gethras despite being low-level and only having three party members. I don't want to use the Fireball trap trick to kill him (the Fireball trap in his room can be triggered repeatedly), so I just hit him with a Wand of Lightning charge and Melf's Acid Arrow. Turns out that's enough to get through his HP.
By immense luck, we find the Boots of Speed in Mae'Var's guild shortly after recruiting Edwin. Mae'Var crumples under pressure from a stream of disablers.
Frisky Bits hits cleric level 9 and finally gains access to Chaotic Commands (back in SoD, we had to get it from M'Khiin).
Jaheira leaves the party and comes back soon after, which means it's time to take on Galvarey. Unfortunately, we make the mistake of casting Shield before the fight, which is our second offense. The Cowled Wizards descend upon us, but IWDification really screws up certain mages in my install: some mages use Malavon's Rage as a pre-buff, which is a party-unfriendly spell!
Despite our attempts to slip away, one of the wizards pursues us during Time Stop and kills both Edwin and Jan with Comet.
They're not very mobile, however, so we escape the area successfully, though we don't have the inventory slots to keep all of Jan's gear. By the time we raise Jan and Edwin and get back to the docks, the Cowled Wizards are gone, but so is Jan's equipment.
No worries. We only want Jan for a few specific purposes, anyway; he's not going to be a permanent party member. We use him as a decoy in the Galvarey fight, having him break invisibility first so that only he gets hit by Remove Magic. This gives us enough time to get some key disablers off the ground.
Once the enemy's functioning is impaired, we can switch to damage spells and crush the remaining opposition.
Once we do Jan's quest, we kick him out of the party and head to the Umar Hills to grab Mazzy. The Tuigan Bow didn't get randomized, so she'll have rather impressive damage output with Emotion: Hope and Emotion: Rage as pre-buffs.
This is when I discover that Mazzy's innate Strength spell gives an extra +4 bonus to hit and lasts for 30 rounds--she's even more useful than I realized; she can dual-wield effectively without even needing any pips in Two Weapon Fighting! But for now, the Tuigan Bow is her primary weapon, and an Enchanted Weapon spell from Edwin lets her damage critters immune to normal weapons.
The loot is terrible thanks to Item Randomizer, but we at least get the Sunstone Bullets to destroy the Shadow Altar in one hit. We use Secret Word to remove the Shade Lord's Spell Deflection spell, and Jaheira manages to nail him with Insect Plague and even Call Lightning in spite of his 50% MR.
We head off to the Windspear Hills. As always, we go invisible before resting at Garren's place to make sure Plath Rededge can't give us too much grief (if you have 60 HP or less, you have to have Death Ward, SI: Conjuration, or subzero saving throws, because she can cast Symbol, Death). After crushing the Vampiric Mists with considerable difficulty (it's difficult to time spells when they go invisible so often), we follow our normal strategy with the Ruhk Transmuter: bomb his kobolds from afar, then bait him with summons while hiding behind invisibility until he finally runs out of PFMW spells.
The rakshasa has really low AC, but Mazzy has subzero THAC0 when full buffed despite being rather low-level.
I'm not sure how we'll do against the rest of Firkraag's dungeon, so once we grab the plate mail and Arrows of Fire from the orc archers in the first room of the second level, we leave the area and head to Trademeet. Boxing in the djinni outside the tent keeps him from running away, and buffing the whole party with Protection from Petrification means we're safe from the djinn's Flesh to Stone spells.
I don't normally bring Cernd into the party, but I figure it's safer to keep him around. Besides, since this isn't a solo run, I can get him to win the fight with Faldorn without using the console. It turns out to be a good idea; we get ambushed by trolls far from the area they normally spawn and lose two party members to the Spirit Trolls' Greater Command spells.
Frisky Bits stays safe, however; we always buff them with Chaotic Commands and Protection from Fire, which neutralize the enemy's Greater Command and Flame Strike spells. The trolls can still hit her with physical attacks, STR drain, and Unholy Blight, but Frisky Bits has great combat stats when fully buffed, and she helps bring down the trolls before they can kill anyone else.
Once everyone is raised, we proceed with a different strategy: this time, I just buff everyone with Protection from Fire and let Edwin blast everything with Sunfire.
It's simple and it's safe.
Item Randomizer lets us keep Gnasher, but it takes away Belm, the much more valuable item. We also lose the Bracers of Archery, though Mazzy hardly needs them, and the Spear of the Unicorn, replaced by a Cursed Scroll of Petrification. Item Randomizer is not being kind to us; the only real boon has been the Boots of Speed.
Since we recruited Cernd at high XP, he is already level 13 and therefore can use Greater Werewolf form, which proves more than capable of slaying Faldorn when we cover him with lots of pre-buffs.
Back in Athkatla, we try our hand at Draug Fea and the Sewer Dwellers. Turns out they don't move fast enough to survive Death Fog and Spike Growth spells.
We find the Ring of Human Influence among the loot, making the Sensate Amulet mostly a waste. We alos find the Robe of the Good Archmagi, a very lovely gift from Item Randomizer.
Keldorn joins the team (his Dispel Magic is nerfed to 1.5x strength in my install, still powerful but not completely broken) and we purchase the Sling of Everard so we have an item that can strike as a +5 weapon besides the darts from the Cloak of Stars. The Shield of Reflection missing, as is the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, so we just buy the Shield of Balduran and some Arrows of Dispelling. SCS beholders aren't dumb enough to kill themselves on the Shield of Balduran, but it does keep Frisky Bits briefly safe, allowing Edwin and Jaheira to kill the beholders of the Unseeing Eye quest using Death Fog and Spike Growth.
Beholders should really be immune to Spike Growth, and they definitely should be able to cross the bridge and obliterate us, but they aren't and they can't, and that's good enough for me.
We go to the Pit of the Faithless, but find no Gauntlets of Dexterity. Keldorn is going to have very, very bad AC in this game.
The beholders in the hive are more mobile than the ones by the bridge, so we can't attack from afar and expect them not to retaliate. However, we do have the Raise Dead spell and some Wand of Fire charges, so... we can torch them from behind Invisibility even if it does occasionally get Edwin killed.
We find the Mace of Disruption alongside the Rift Device, a very lovely find considering Frisky Bits has two pips in maces. The Unseeing Eye can be a nightmare in SCS even with the Rift Device, but some pre-cast Death Fog spell bring it down soon after we use the device on it. The Death Tyrants fall to pre-cast Skull Traps and Spike Growth spells.
I accidentally screw up Keldorn's personal quest and get his wife imprisoned and her lover hanged. Oops.
Normally I let him stay with his family for a few weeks before bringing him back into the party, but now he has no family to return to. I don't like how it turned out, but now there is no reason not to keep him in the party. We head out immediately, hoping to give Keldorn something to think about besides his ruined personal life.
At least he's doing good work. Even with the more modest SCS nerf to his Dispel Magic, he has a high chance of dispelling enemy defenses; his Dispel Magic casts at level 21 right now (he's level 11). Combined with Mazzy's incredibly high APR, we can easily break through the defenses of enemy mages. The next Harper Hold fight is a cakewalk.
We kill Neb, use the illithium ore to upgrade the Mace of Disruption, purchase a magic license so we don't get roasted by the Cowled Wizards again, and recruit Valygar.
It's time to head to the Planar Sphere. There's some valuable loot there, and even if it gets randomized, we might get something very useful. Normally this area is extremely dangerous in SCS, but with Mazzy's 9 APR and Keldorn's high-level Dispel Magic, we should be able to handle the mages in the sphere.
Previous updates:
Update 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023278/#Comment_1023278
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023280/#Comment_1023280
I made my way through the opening dungeon, getting ready to travel to my first area of interest: The druid grove. Since I knew to expect an ambush, I travelled under invisibility, which proved very helpful, allowing me to summon allies and buff up when meeting Suna Seni:
Fighting my way through the druid grove, I had Cern take care of Faldorn. More importantly, I took down the three rakshasas - the first one died to traps, the second one was killed while still in nobleman-form, the third one was able to cast cloudkill, but I lured him out of the spell radius and took him down with Ashideena:
This allowed me to acquire the reason for coming here so very early: The shield of harmony, which will protect me against my own carelessness by preventing all kinds of crowd control effects. With all the gold in my pockets, I was also able to buy the Robe of Vecna.
Now, I started doing the easier quests around the city - basically anything non-stronghold related. The final encounter of this type was against the sewer party - they were distracted by skeletons and unable to get through my defensive buffs:
After that, I made my way to the temple ruins. I had enough experience at this point to encounter liches, but due to being triple class, not the usual high level spells to easily deal with them, so I had to get a bit creative. The first one was lured into the laval field by summons, and didn't move away after combat was over, so I just had to wait (though I didn't get any experience for the kill):
The second one I was able to hit with a sunray (via a stolen Daystar) before his buffs fired. He was apparently blinded by this and started following Arinja around instead of casting spells right away, so I was able to finish him by kiting and shooting him with magical arrows:
After that, taking down the shade lord was relatively simple:
De'Arnise keep, my choice of stronghold for this character, was next. I had death spell at this point, which kills almost anything in this place right away, so there isn't much to report on. Tor'Gal didn't really stand a chance:
Around this point, Arinja gained access to UAI, expanding her item pool. I picked up the Dwarven Thrower, the Scarlet Ninja-To and the Sword of Arvoreen right away. I also acquired the iMoD +2 and killed Bodhi via traps. Vampires aren't very threatening with buffs, the amulet of power and the shield of harmony for protection. After dealing with Mae'Var, I moved on to the Guarded Compound, luring my foes downstairs into waiting summons and traps - much like a high level version of the Iron Throne encounter:
Next up was the Unseeing Eye, where I used the Shield of Balduran for beholders and a PfU scroll for the undead village. The self-proclaimed god was destroyed via rift-device and a simple attack:
After trapping some liches, I used PfM and iMoD +2 to deal with Kangaxx and acquire that precious ring:
The Planar Prison was next on my list. Here, I used the combination of improved invisibility + SI: Divination to neutralize enemy spellcasters and quickly clear out most of the area. I sent some skeletons at the warden, and he wasn't really able to deal with them very well. After his most dangerous spells were spent, I used the ranged version of the dwarven thrower to take him down from a distance:
Travelling to the Windspear Hills, I was able to get rid of adamantite golems with the dwarven thrower and used a fire protection scroll + potion to complete the tomb quest. Firkraag was killed via traps, as was the shadow dragon. Tazok's key granted me access to the mind flayer hideout. Here, the very defensive combination of Sword of Arvoreen + Shield of Harmony was used to prevent any mind flayer stuff from affecting me, while hasted skeleton warriors (at this point, I had reached mage level 15) did most of the damage. I also used some traps, death spell and sunfire spells here.
The planar sphere wasn't much of a problem either. Once again, II+SI:D helped against Tolgerias:
I did do WKI+II (I won't be doing any more WK in this playthrough after this - it's just too risky) at some earlier point, so now the only content still available in Chapter 3 was the Twisted Rune. I wanted that staff, mostly for the spell trap. No PfM abuse this time, this character can do without that. The lich was killed by traps, some skeletons were sent to the beholder + vampire + fighter, and so was a simmy (summoned via spell, not via Vhailor's). Two skeletons died to a death ray, but Shield of Balduran + Dwarven Thrower and a GWW used by the simmy were enough to take down the beholder. Meanwhile, Layene cast her time stop:
After taking down vampire + fighter, I used the berserker horn to draw some spells from Layene. Interestingly enough, I got a glimpse of her and saw that she was under a fear effect, propably from her own pit fiend, though she was protected from evil. Seeing this, I decided to lay more traps in case she would wander next to me, and sure enough, she did:
I cast PfE on myself and left the zone, now ready to move on to Brynnlaw.
Here are my basic strategies for Arinja so far:
a) let skeleton warriors (possibly hasted) handle things, maybe assist either via dwarven thrower of longbow
b) take care of things myself by buffing up and attacking (my buffs include: PfE, MI, Blur, Resist Fear, Minor Spell Deflection, Haste, Stoneskin, Spirit Armor, Improved Invisibility and often some kind of spell immunity (typically abjuration or divination), sometimes PFMW) - with the SotM now available, spell trap will be added to this list
c) always make sure to have the correct combination of defensive items equipped if needed. At this point, I use Scarlet Ninja-To + Belm for pure offense (with iHaste from the Ring of Gaxx, that's 10 APR already), but often, Shield of Harmony, Sword of Arvoreen or both are added in, other items are also sometimes changed. I tend to be very careful with this - high damage is rarely needed at this point
d) use lots of traps - they are a big reason I chose this multiclass
So far, so good. After getting to SoA, the run has been going very well - but that's nothing unusual, early SoA is rarely the problem for solo characters. Let's see what challenges Spellhold and the Underdark will hold.
BG1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
SoD: 1
Chapter 10
Gilyn and his special missions unit continue their thorough work in Chapter 10. A shadowy figure and his cohorts meet an untimely end at the hands of the elven rogue.
Without the seal of Calear, the crew bluff their way into the Dragonspear courtyard.
They buff up big time in anticipation of a battle at the entrance to the crusader-controlled area, only to observe how Gilyn's silver tongue obviates fisticuffs.
The unit does not run into much trouble. A barrel of bwoosh is placed in the right spot, and Gilyn slays Zhadroth under PfU and using a charge of the keeper of secrets under the mountain. Spell-buffed to the max again, and aided by bounty hunter snares, skeletal summons and a fire elemental from Jaheira, the companions shred the mages.
The castle basement initially sees some backstabbing action from Gilyn to thin crusader ranks.
Caelar has her crusaders attack, but neither trolls (fireballs, archer aid) nor wizards (traps + fireballs, wizard slayer aid) nor paladins and clerics (traps, backstabber aid) manage to breach the coalition's defenses. This screenshot shows almost all paladins/clerics are held by Gilyn's special snares. Easy pickings for the party and the rogues.
Chapter 11-12
The party moves back to the Dragonspear courtyard, where my last run ended. Gilyn accepts Ashatiel's challenge, but realizes that's a mistake as he enters the fight unbuffed, whereas his opponent does not. She hits hard and without much room to maneuver Gilyn ends up quaffing an invisibility potion, followed by some buffing potions (magic protection, defense). All this takes too long for Ashatiel's taste, so she calls Gilyn out for being a cheat. A long and massive battle against the crusaders ensues. The companions make liberal use of snares, spells, scrolls, and potions, and never get into trouble.
From the castle they follow Caelar into Avernus. The devils they encounter look scary but fall easily.
Finally, to battle Belhifet for the first time! In the elevator the party buffs with about everything they have. Gilyn even quaffs the violet potion from the Nashkel Carnival. But everyone's protections are removed by a dispel, not the best start. Caelar joins and occupies Belhifet. The companions dispatch Hephernaan with elemental missile attacks.
Now onward to Amn! (First time since late 2015 I believe!)
BG1EE updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
Alright, the plan was to head for the Underground River, and we shall! But there are a few minor areas (Dead Man's Pass, Bloodbark Grove), so let's clear them first.
En route to Dead Man's Pass, we are intercepted by a Shadowy Figure. He can be a real nuisance what with constantly backstabbing your Mages that can't get their Stoneskins up as it's a Dead Magic Zone.. but turns out three simultaneous strikes from Wands of the Heavens and a Scorcher from a Wand of Fire is just enough to bring him down. His Shortsword isn't much use to us, but Glint happily snatches up the Shadow Armor.
The trash mobs in Dead Man's Pass aren't much to write home about. Web, Fireball, a few simultaneous Confusion from Nymphs with occasional free meatshields from M'Khiin settle most accounts here (with a couple Cloudkill thrown in against Hobgoblins/Displacer Beasts), and Jaheira/M'Khiin get some good mileage out of Call Lightning against the tougher enemies. I'm quite liking Khalid as a replacement for Corwin: Obviously his ranged damage doesn't measure up, but it's still good, and unlike Corwin he has the melee THAC0 and AC to stand his ground against anything foolish enough to close to melee distance with him.
We enter the Killer Mimic's cave. As always, something goes wrong: The plan was for Jaheira and Khalid, both under Free Action, to handle the encounter while the rest of the party waited invisibly.
Unfortunately, I managed to activate Voghiln's Bard Song.. which breaks Invisibility. And of course, he failed his save against the Killer Mimic's initial attack. But despite having a Save vs Death of 9, Voghiln makes that save 4 (!) times in a row against the poison of the various Phase Spiders that converge upon him, and we are able to clear them out with a Scorcher charge. Hooray! Voghiln's beard is smoldering slightly, but he's a good sport about it.
As is undoubtedly known to all, Khalid sports a measly Strength of 15, meaning he cannot use Composite Bows. So, he'll be using our new-found Bow of the Banshee +2 for most of the game. For truly major fights, I'll let him quaff a Strength potion and equip Corinth's Bow +2 when we get it, but the Bow of the Banshee is actually quite decent... the Cloak of Fear procs often, and it usually affects 1-2 enemies, making fights against trash easier.
M'Khiin gets her final SoD level, 11, around here.
I went with the following new spells:
Charm Person or Mammal: The other options are even worse.
Protection from Fire: Making Jaheira immune to Fire damage and sending her as the focal point of Fireballs is (almost) never a bad idea.
Neutralize Poison: I had trouble finding something worthwhile. If this was SoA I'd have gone Death Ward, but there's almost no such effects in SoD (a Mage somewhere with Chromatic Orb at most).
This is alright if you're desperate for a quick heal (10 HP, casting time 1) and it does clear up Poison as well as Disease.
True Seeing: I agonized over whether to go with this or Chaotic Commands. I finally figured that there are scrolls of Chaotic Commands, but none of True Seeing, but it was 50/50. Iron Skins is cool but M'Khiin tends to hang out far to the back (especially since I gave her Fleshripper +2, which gives her serious mobility and thus the ability to avoid getting hit).
On to Bloodbark grove! After retreating and resting, of course.. no need to be heroic.
There aren't many encounters here (it's a small area) and what few there are get resolved by area-of-effect damage spells, Web and Major Spirit Animals. We had a scroll of Protection from Petrification so apply it to Khalid and let him handle the Greater Basilisk.
Finally, we descend into the dark cellars to do battle with a Vampire! Fortunately only a Fledgling one, and not the SCS version either.
He gets quite a few Wolves of varying shapes and sizes, but they're mostly harmless. Jaheira and Khalid get Chaotic Commands (Jaheira has two 5th level slots) and Negative Plane Protection, and go to work.
Once the Vampire drops, everyone joins in and the Wolves are swiftly put down.
Unfortunately, no one has need of the Sundermaul +3. Maybe I should've given Glint Warhammer proficiency (I gave him Maces for some reason...) but I get the feeling we'll be alright anyway against Big B.
We depart for another well-earned rest, and then move to the Underground River exterior.
Fortunately we remembered to have Jaheira memorize 2x Chaotic Commands, so the Myconid encounter to the east is painless. The trash mobs are handled as previously, via damaging and debilitating spells.
We run into what I'd call either a bug or a strange feature here: Apparently, the first character that speaks with the Ogres is the designated champion, should you choose to fight for Murs.
Since invisible Glint was the first one that spoke to them, when I have Cassius engage Arbinge and the other Ogre, almost the entire camp goes hostile (they interpret it as the duel having been violated). I considered reloading, but decided against it since I don't know if this is a feature or a bug.. and even if it is a bug, it can hardly be called game-ending; you can still save Slug for Murs.
Alright, slightly disappointing, but everything is cleared.. time to move into the cave system.
Another interesting behaviour: Invisible Glint moves close to the Cyclops, which (despite not being able to see him) goes hostile and starts searching for the party along with the rest of the Crusaders. Pfeh.
I think they started searching because a pair of stealthed Crusader Scouts could see the rest of the party, but still.
We end up having to buff and summon on the fly, but still carry the day: The Crusaders get some reinforcements, including two Mages, but they're quite low-level, and seem to have made the classic mistake of going too heavy on defense and too light on offense.
Note the Crusader Scout in the first screenshot taking a swing at Cassius just as his Stoneskin goes up: The combat log does not show it, but that was a triple backstab with critical damage! He most likely would've survived, but it was stupid to (almost) take the risk. Let's keep Stoneskin active whenever we're in a hostile area from now on.
We leave Rigah and Julann for now (I'll bring Minsc and Dynaheir to see them before we advance to the next chapter). Into the caves we go.
Jaheira under Chaotic Commands handles the first group of Myconids on her own, but then comes a small tactical blunder.
There are two groups of Gargantuan Spiders, Shambling Mounds, Dark Treants and Hamadryads/Nymphs rather close to each other here. And somehow (don't ask) we manage to be seen by both... Glint has just enough time to cast Free Action on Jaheira, and Khalid quaffs a potion of the same.
Unfortunately, that means 2/3 of the party are unprotected. Voghiln, M'Khiin and Glint are all Web Tangled at the same time! There's too darn many Gargantuan Spiders running about. Cassius was staying in the back, but rushes in and drops an Invisibility 10' Radius in the nick of time.
Things actually look pretty bleak for a while: Khalid gets Dominated by the Nymph several times, turning his not-so-tender mercies on Jaheira, who remains the only party member with immunity to all effects currently in play (what with Free Action and Chaotic Commands up). She quaffs a fair few Potions of Extra Healing, and after a few rounds, is ordered to quaff a Potion of Fire Resistance: Cassius has decided that the events warrant a Sunfire. It deals a fair bit of damage (and does not reveal Cassius), and Jaheira eventually manages to put down the Gargantuan Spiders. With the threat of Web Tangle and certain death to follow removed from the equation, the rest of the party joins in, Khalid being Charmed back onto our side, and victory is ours! Huzzah!
That was a lot of nasty status effects (Web, Domination, Entangle) at once.
But the day is not over yet. We stumble upon the oozing Crusaders, trade our Myconid Bloom Sac to Ferrusk for a potion, and rescue them. We then return to Ferrusk, intent on dealing with him.
But... one of the allies he summons is a Gargantuan Spider. Yeah, you can figure out what happens (don't worry, it's not Cassius that bites it).
I think it's safe to say that I hate Gargantuan Spiders. It's a strong word, but there it is. M'Khiin fails her save against that damnable Web Tangle and is beaten into the ground as everything in the chamber homes in on her. Fortunately the damage isn't enough to chunk her.
With the major threat removed (the Gargantuan Spider.. grr) Ferrusk is sent to fertilize the ground.
We loot up, retreat to the camp, rest, have Jaheira Raise M'Khiin and return, reporting our success to the Druids outside on the way in. Root of the Problem says that it's +3 against unnatural creatures... I wonder if it works on Big B? I'd wager no, but I think I'll try it.
There are two nasty spawns left (Myconids/Umber Hulks and another group of Gargantuan Spiders/Dark Treants/Shambling Mounds/Nymphs), but with both Chaotic Commands and Free Action available, we push through. Into Kanaglym!
This time I remember that there is a very large Undead spawn to the east, and prepare accordingly. A few Cleric buffs (including Strength of One) to soup up our five Skeleton Warriors lets them last quite a long time, and a couple of Skull Traps clears out the annoying enemy Skeleton Archers and Shadowed Souls.
We proceed across the bridge, after encouraging M'Khiin to use the Robe and Staff found in the trash pile.
We've been saving our Haste for the Mages here, and it works splendidly in conjunction with M'Khiin's True Seeing: The grand total of spells the enemy Mages get off are 1x Detect Invisibility... and that's it. They fall swiftly to Khalid and M'Khiin pelting them with Arrows of Ice/Acid. We do not press Halatathlaer for a reward, and as such she tells us to seek out Daeros Dragonspear (who will reward us with a fine suit of magical armour).
On our way out, we use our last charge of the Spectacles of Spectacle (we previously rescued the Tiefling and got her ring as a reward) to pull Zadroth into the Prime and, using The Secret Revealed, promptly kill him for his incredible treasures: A Ring of Regeneration (1 HP/round) and a Robe that allows us to cast Spell Sequencer 1/day. Now granted only Cassius can use the Robe, but still: Instant triple Skull Trap, or a triple Slow, or a triple Confusion... it's all good, there are limitless excellent choices. The Endless Watcher at the exit cannot be talked out of a fight, and so unfortunately must be killed as well (yielding a Crossbow we'll just sell).
Though we're quite low on spells, we press on. After popping an Invisibility 10' Radius, we enter the cave filled with spectral Undead. Cassius leads with a Sunfire, causing the Undead to scatter in all directions (it did kill most of them). Jaheira attacks a Shadow and is thus exposed, so Cassius can cast Detect Invisibility unmolested: This reveals the Wraiths, so we can focus them down before they have a chance to Level Drain Jaheira, as we did not have a Negative Plane Protection available. The undead cleared, we help out the trapped spirits by dropping their remains in the portal to the Fugue Plane back in Kanaglym.
This time I remember the unpleasant Hold effect that the Albino Wyrmlings can induce (or was it Paralyze? Either way, Free Action protects against it). Jaheira and Khalid under Free Action clear the cave, while the rest of the party is invisible and/or under Sanctuary.
We've almost cleared the interior! Further west we run into Strunk, and end up in a brawl.
Strunk gets his defenses up, but we have both True Seeing and Breach still available. The would-be elemental-enslaver soon falls, and we are rewarded with a fancy Ioun Stone by a Nereid, as not a single Water Elemental died in the fight (good to not have them show up at the actual siege later.. one of them hit Jaheira for 37 damage!).
Finally, we have a chat with the Ettin Ghost farther west. After returning to the cave with the spectral Undead, we find that the Ettin corpse is now searchable, yielding a club which we are all too happy to return to the Ettin itself. We are less happy about recieving its somewhat odorous loincloth as a reward, but c'est la vie.
Now, before we push further and advance the plot, we'll circle back to Dragonspear Castle proper and do the quests in the courtyard (we now have the requisite Seal of Caelar). Also, we could do with a rest and a full set of spells, in case things go wrong when we infiltrate Hephernaan's chambers.
The questing in the courtyard goes off without a hitch. We declare Corinth innocent, his accuser attacks and is killed, and Corinth rewards us with his bow, going to Khalid (for use with a Strength potion when the situation warrants it). We also shuffle back and forth to the coalition camp, getting stone shards blessed and dealing with the Sentry (whose Large Shield +2 with Fire Resistance also goes to Khalid).
Finally, Glint quaffs 6x Potions of Master Thievery and successfully pickpockets a Token of Faith.
Since we're finishing off little odds and ends, we also bring Dynaheir and Minsc to see their Rashemen counterparts. And yet another bug: M'Khiin disappears from the game, despite being told to wait in camp.
Sigh. I reload (this is clearly a bug, and I certainly don't intend to let a bug that's not even got anything to do with combat destroy my intended party) and have Jaheira and Khalid wait at camp instead of M'Khiin and Voghiln, and it works better.
Hopefully there's no horrible side-effect in wait further down the road. Cassius stores the Dragon Blade +3 in the stash, for later importing into SoA.
We make our way back into the Underground River interior, and talk our way into the Warrens. Slug is freed, we loot, buy anything and everything that might be useful off Crusader Priest Polvi here (we did the same with the potion vendor in the previous area), then Glint gets Rhonda to talk the Ogres into hauling us up into the basement.
Upon arrival in the basement, Belben and his merry band assault us. A simple dual Web sorts them out.
Again, we loot (it's an obsession...). Then, we apply only long-duration buffs in case something goes terribly wrong, pop Invisibility 10' Radius, and move to listen in on Hephernann. Everyone has 2x Potions of Invisibility just in case. I'd rather not fight here, as last time things nearly turned quite sour due to the unending reinforcements (we could've lost Dynaheir to a chunking).
My plan was to listen invisibly to Hephernaan, steal everything in his room, loot the magical Full Plate Mail on the way out, then give Hephernaan a little tap and escape.
Unfortunately, there are a fair few Mages and Clerics here, and they all have multiple castings of Detect Invisibility/Invisibility Purge. We are spotted several times, and apparently a single Magic Missile from the dito wand is not enough to cause Hephernaan to flee. We throw caution to the wind, engage him in earnest, and soon thereafter are able to retreat down the elevator. But in the midst of combat we forgot to loot the magical Full Plate Mail! We'll get it when we invade the Castle, if it's still there... if not, eh.
On the way out, we sneak invisibly by the (still neutral) Crusaders in the Warrens. However, someone spots us in the Underground River, turning all Crusaders there hostile. Fine by me... they lack any significant Mage/Cleric support, and so are entirely vulnerable to our mighty spellworks. We carve our way out.
We actually have to go back and fetch the Ogre's cache in here (Glint gets the Flail +2).
While back, we talk to Slug in the Ogre Camp and get a Ring of Fire Resistance. Good stuff!
We now do a tour of shopping: Onoroth and every single merchant in camp recieves a visit. After buying everything that might concievably be useful, we still have 100000 gold... next time through SoD I'll probably refrain from selling items to the Genie, he pays way too much.
And here we shall leave our heroes for now. We are expected at Dead Man's Pass to take part in negotitations, but will do so only once we've given our spell selection some thought.
The final chapters await us.
Cassius is now a L11 Elf Diviner.
BG1EE updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
First BG2EE SoA update found here
Following a (as it turns out, not entirely optimal) careful spell selection, we head out for negotations. They soon break down and we must defend the camp!
Wave 1 is handled with the help of Archers, but to be fair, they don't need to do much: Khalid had a few Arrows of Detonation, and in conjunction with something as simple as 2x Fireballs from Wands of Fire, we immediately kill off 90% of the enemy wave, leaving only a few Trolls that are quickly mopped up.
For Wave 2 we enlist the aid of Wizard Slayers, but again, the party does most of the work: A triple Dispel from Cassius/Voghiln/Jaheira surprisingly does rather well, knocking out most enemy defenses, and an Insect Plague from M'Khiin seals the deal.
Wave 3 is met by War Wizards, and yet again, the party does all the work: Greater Command surprisingly knocks out half the enemy force, and the remainder are undone by a combination of Insect Plague, Slow, Web and Entangle (!).
Finally, Grimgor and cronies arrive. And are entirely undone by all manner of disablers, chiefly Insect Plague. It's not even a contest.
We rest up and head for Dragonspear Castle. We spend a fair bit of time before engaging the Crusader's buffing (chiefly so that Cassius gets protection from all manner of elemental damage). Eventually we intervene, things go a bit haphazard (both M'Khiin and Glint get focused at various times and take heavy damage, but pull through), and eventually Ashatiel shows. We accept your duel, you holier-than-thou cheating chicken!
That was the killing stroke after about 20 rounds of back and forth. I overthought this something dire, and yet somehow forgot she wears a Ring of Free Action (so Slow was not a great pick). It would've been better to just tear down her defenses, pop a charge of the Wand of Summoning, then hit her with Wand of Paralyzation until she failed the save. I did interrupt her healing in Sanctuary several times with Wands of Frost.
We head north and clear the last elite remnants of Crusaders out. Not much to report, except Khalid ate a 66 damage backstab! He has HP to spare though.
We have another rest before pushing into Avernus. Here, our enormous collection of scrolls and potions are at last put to use: Everyone is constantly under Free Action and either Potion of Clarity or Chaotic Commands (Glint wears the Commander's Mail +3 which provides Fear immunity to all within visual range). We rampage through the hordes of foes (seriously, Lemures? They literally die in one hit. Even M'Khiin managed to kill one in melee!). Still, we take no chances with Thrix's summoned cronies: Four 7HD Skeleton Warriors courtesy of Cassius take the fore, and we prevail with exceptional speed.
There's really nothing to it: None of the Devils can dispel our protections. The worst they can do is teleport around a bit and turn invisible... annoying, but not dangerous.
We solve Thrix's riddle (I always play on a stationary computer, so I use the keyboard when picking conversation options that can end the game if you misclick), and take the Tongue of Acid +3 as our prize, which naturally goes to Khalid.
I've never had a Cornugon cast Lightning Bolt on me, but that may be because I tend to prioritize them when they show up. So, it's probably best to prepare for it.
We rest, setting up spells: Cassius gets 4x Lower Resistance and 1x Spell Immunity (to block Big B's initial move). Otherwise, it's a few Slow, some Vampiric Touch (I would go Lightning Bolt but am worried I'll fry Kaelar), defenses, Magic Missile and even a few Dire Charm/Charm Person in case someone somehow gets Charmed. Voghiln gets much the same. Jaheira goes all in on Iron Skins and a Harm, and Glint spends his solitary L5 slot on True Sight (in case M'Khiin somehow dies and we need to dispel Illusions).
Spells in order, we buff extensively. Everyone gets immunity to poison, as well as 100% resistance to Fire and Lightning via protection scrolls (as they last so long). Likewise, we bump everyone up to 24 Dexterity with Potions of Mind Focusing, and of course everyone gets a Chaotic Commands as well (we have about 20 scrolls of it). Long-term buffs applied, we get on the elevator.
During the ride, we apply potions: Storm Giant Strength/Power/Defense/Invulnerability/Heroism/Regeneration/Freedom... we chug it all. Finally, the lift grinds to a halt.
Today I learned something new: Either I am just too slow to pause, or it is not possible to cast SI: Abjuration before Belhifet dispels you if you do not have -1 casting time from the Wizzard Hat.
Fortunately, as he was the only one in range, only Cassius gets all his buffs removed.
So, we have to spend a few actions early on renewing Cassius' buffs. But that's fine, Khalid takes the time to clear out the Devils running around, and Glint (wearing the Battle Tankard for fatigue immunity) makes sure Caelar stays alive by periodic application of Greater Restoration via scrolls.
Oh: Turns out that the Root of the Problem does work on Big B! Hooray!
With his allies gone, Big B crumples very quickly under concerted pressure. We do not even have time to fully strip his Magic Resistance and start debuffing him... he just dies. How inconsiderate.
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! And then the game crashed. Since there was no save made, I had to replay the battle, but it went much the same (Belhifet died, none on our side did) and this time no crash!
We get the hell out of, well, hell, with Caelar staying behind to close the portal.
And that's all she wrote.
Almost. Skie dies, we're framed, but since we're such darn totin' good people, Belt springs us from jail, and we are reunited with Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Minsc and Dynaheir. Hooray! But suddenly we're feeling very tired...
Cassius awakens on a grated metal floor, the taste of blood and dirt in his mouth.
He is tortured repeatedly by the Hooded Man. But all is not lost: With the demise of the Devil, Cassius' preternatural sight was restored to him. He still cannot discern the identity or intentions of the Hooded Man (far too powerful wards are in place), but there are things he can see: A true Diviner needs not physical access to his spellbook to memorize spells, he can merely view them from afar with a simple cantrip (which Cassius knows by rote)!
His power restored to him, our mighty Diviner bides his time, his patience rewarded when Imoen frees him from his confines. With allies and enemies both near at hand, Cassius must maneuver carefully.
For this, he is uniquely equipped: He shall bend the laws of probability, send his mind hurtling along each infinite thread of possible reality until he discovers the singular path upon which lies what he seeks. Freedom for himself, Imoen, and all his old friends. And vengeance for the fallen.
Cassius will return in Shadows of Amn.
Previous updates:
Update 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023278/#Comment_1023278
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023280/#Comment_1023280
Update 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023565/#Comment_1023565
I made my way through Brynnlaw and entered Spellhold - there, I reached the experience cap. I used another PfU scroll to deal with the lich and challenged Irenicus, taking him to one HP in the first round with a GWW and running away, waiting for Wanev's timestop to finish and Irenicus' dialogue to trigger:
In the City of Caverns, I acquired the cloak of mirroring and the wave blade (an important piece for ToB) before moving on. Now, I was finally able to start skipping lots of content, only going for important items, such as the Greenstone Amulet (switching between SotM and Shield of Balduran to sneak in there and steal it), the girdle of frost giant strength (traps, skeletons and an attacking simmy) and some potions from Ust'Natha (that vendor has a great selection). I ignored all sidequests in the drow city and rushed through the main path very quickly, leaving the Underdark behind me. At this point, I was starting to figure out how powerful the unnerfed SotM truly is when playing a solo character (all my previous solo attempts that had gotten this far were with characters who couldn't use that item). In any case, I quickly forged Crom Faeyr and The Wave, killed the mage in the north forest via flaming cloud spells (I want all the available timestop scrolls, since I can't cast the spell myself with no access to 9th level spells) and destroyed Bodhi, with no special tactics needed.
I skipped combat in the elven city, only acquiring the plot-related items. I did have to fight the black dragon, though. In the end, I lured him into a bunch of traps while staying protected from everything except for his breath weapon thanks to defensive spells:
Tree-Irenicus was trapped to death, and I completed the hell trials the good way. Jon's final form took a bit more time. I lured two demons into traps, the other two were killed by summons and some careful attacking from afar. With true sight, I was able to find Jon (who had teleported away) and hit him with the SotM, staying away for a bit to make sure he wasn't casting anything too dangerous:
When I realized that even my summons were easily able to disrupt any attempts at spellcasting, I rushed into melee combat and achieved victory:
Compared to early SoA, I only added a few spells to my regular buffs: Mostly I made more liberal use of spell immunity (since less 5th level spell slots were needed for skeletons) and sometimes summoned a simulacrum (very powerful for a F/M/T, as it can add tons of utility). Mordy swords were added to skeletons as my summons of choice, and I changed some of my equipment. This is the stuff I mostly ended up using at the end of SoA:
Robe of Vecna, Bracers of AC3, Helm of Balduran, Amulet of Power, Crom Faeyr, Scarlet Ninja-To, SotM, The Guards Ring, Ring of Gaxx, Cloak of the Sewers/Cloak of Mirroring, Paws of the Cheetah, Belt of Inertial Barrier, sometimes adding Dwarven Thrower, Shield of Harmony or Sword of Arvoreen (and rarely some other items with resistances or immunities). Time for ToB. I have specific strategies prepared for each of the encounters that have previously ended one of my solo attempts, but we shall see if they work out.
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/106596-the-pillars-of-eternity-no-reload-challenge/
Best,
A.
Btw, congrats on finishing SoA, Enuhal. I look forward to seeing ToB!
For reference this was a specially modified SCS + revisions run on Hard with all classed enemies being higher in level using the level adder utility. Due to bugs wands and many other quickslot items couldn't be used as well. Can't head into Dragonspear with this save from the beta though I think, so straight to Amn we shall go... Though I guess I'll wait for the new SCS.
Here are some pics of the carnage:
Previous updates:
Update 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023278/#Comment_1023278
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023280/#Comment_1023280
Update 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023565/#Comment_1023565
Update 4: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023764/#Comment_1023764
Ilasera died to spike traps, and I forged the wondrous gloves - as my last major item upgrade, not counting the juggernaut golem manual (the bracers of ac3 really didn't do anything for me, as I was almost always fighting with spirit armor active anyway). In Saradush, I quickly solved the missing spellbook mystery and ignored all the other sidequests. I bought many different scrolls, mostly for learning, but also some for later use (most importantly, chain contingencies, PFMW, spell shield, spell immunity and more timestops - I now had 6 of them - maybe there are more in the game, but that seemed to be enough to me). After gaining access to the prison, I also forged the circlet of nesseril (I needed that one to have 3 ADHW in my spellbook for use with my chain contingency scrolls - for combat, I was still using the Helm of Balduran). I ignored the remaining vampires and snuck through directly to Gromnir under SotM invisibility.
The Gromnir battle was rather easy, with the SotM allowing me to trick the mages into starting with true sight, dispelling their buffs with a quick hit and taking them down with my 8 APR. All the combat protections made it impossible for the remaining foes to deal any damage ro Arinja:
I used my last PfU scroll to clear the Temple of Bhaal before moving on to Yaga-Shura's Lair, where I skipped the initial group invisibly. A potion and scroll provided immunity to fire damage, and a mordy sword helped tank the north-eastern group. I ended up not fighting any of the foes that appeared after looting the various wardstones, instead distracting them with a summon and running away invisibly. I did end up having to fight Berenn, but the battle was rather easy, as he was unable to get through my spell trap. With the two hearts, Nyalee removed her son's invincibilty before dying to traps, and I moved on to meet the giant.
At this point, I started adding some of the potions I had gathered in SoA to my buffs, mostly heroism, invulnerability and oil of speed. Yaga Shura, once he re-appeared, fell to a single GWW:
The oasis was skipped invisibly, and I ignored sidequests in Amkethran, only getting the gargoyle boots for the fourth pocket plane challenge (just in case). At Sendai's, I only killed the drow captain, going invisible and rushing into the enclave right after that. I also skipped almost all combat inside the building, only getting the key to the tunnels with a quick GWW and taking down the lich by drawing out his death spell with a skeleton warrior and summoning more of them after that. Ogremoch was unable to get through my protections, and I set up a bunch of traps for the Diaytha battle, intending to lure my foes into them. However, my simmy ended up basically taking down the entire group of opponents with her own GWWs. That was a pleasant surprise:
The mind flayers stood no chance against my protective items, and I buffed for Sendai. Once again, I made heavy use of my simulacrum, often having one of us taking down the spawning drow while the other one took care of the most recent Sendai clone. This ended up working very well:
With both of us being able to switch to the SotM at will, we were always able to dispel any annoying buffs, taking down the original Sendai with her only getting to use one implosion spell - so I moved on to Draconis.
Once again, I set up traps to lure the dragon form of my foe into. SotM dispel on hit made it really easy to take down the human version:
When Draconis transformed, I realized that Arinja was basically stuck inside him, unable to move - one of the movement bugs introduced with 2.5. This prevented me from luring him into my waiting traps, so I had to go for direct combat damage. I summoned a simmy and had her cast protection from acid on herself (original Arinja had already gained immunity with 2 green scrolls), starting to go after my foe with many GWWs. I renewed combat protections now and then, eventually going for PFMW. Draconis died rather quickly:
After taking down the initial guards, I skipped some combat in Abazigal's Lair. Skeletons helped to take down the kuo-toa, and the cloak of mirroring helped greatly with the floating eyes. I got the colossus golem page for my manual and entered Abazigal's domain. Now, I started running around fully buffed with The Wave, killing all of the salamanders. This was important, because I planned to distract Abazigal with a mordy sword while laying a bunch of traps a couple of screens away. Also, I made sure to keep SI:Abjuration and SI:Conjuration active - Abazigal's maze spell has ended two of my failed solo attempts, and while I also had spell trap, I wanted to stay very, very safe:
My tactic worked just as I drew it up: I returned to help my mordy sword with taking down Abazigal's human form. He transformed, and I had my simmy lure him back towards the traps - once he got there, the outcome was obvious:
One big hurdle on my way to the throne gone. The next would be Balthazar. Saemon helped me to get past the gates, and after destroying the initial group, I finally made use of the greenstone amulet - my most recent solo failure, a dwarven defender, was destroyed by Balthazar's ability to deliver a stun effect with no save allowed. As I made sure to renew the greenstone effect every couple of rounds, I felt very safe, and Balthazar didn't last long:
Now, I took on the remaining pocket plane challenges. Challenges 3 and 4 aren't worth mentioning. Challenge 2 I approached well-prepared, but I didn't expect to get all of my buffs dispelled on hit by the evil Arinja clone! I actually took some significant damage, but was able to retaliate with my simmy, and after healing up, GWW down the clone. The other foes were already either gone or insigificant at this point.
For the Ravager, I had a Lower Resistance spell trigger, a 3*ADHW chain contingency, a 3*skull trap sequencer and the like prepared. However, once I entered his area with my usual buffs (which include improved invisibility), the encounter didn't start... So I found myself with time to set up a bunch of traps:
This turned out to be crucial, as a) the lower resistances didn't seem to work for some reason, making my prepared magic damage spells useless and b) the ravager ended up dispelling all of my buffs with a single hit. Luckily, he was near death thanks to the traps, and a couple of hits with Crom Faeyr were enough to take him down:
I feel like I got lucky with this one. My original strategy completely failed, and I should propably learn a bit more about this encounter.
In any case, now only the throne was left, and since I had specifically created this character to take down the three later versions of Mel with my 12 spike traps (four per spawn), I only really had to worry about meeting Mel the first time and killing the pool guardians. Once again, I opened with a chain contingency with 3 ADHW's and a lower resistance trigger. Arinja used a PFWM scroll and added greenstone amulet stun protection during the battle. I was very happy to see Mel's first summon, a death tyrant, die to ADHW before it was able to shoot an anti-magic ray at me (or do much of anything, really):
Two GWWs later, and the first verion of Mel was done:
My buffs were still active, so I took down the first group of pool guardians with ease. 4 traps, and Mel 2 was gone. However, this time, she ended up taking my buffs with her. I rebuffed for the second group of guardians, though with no more cold resistance scrolls or potions left. Still, Arinja was strong enough to take them down:
Four more traps, and Mel 3 was gone. Time for the final group of pool guardians. The fallen solar with his vorpal attacks (and me having no death ward and the like) seemed very scary, which is why I had gathered timestop scrolls - specificall for this encounter. They were also going to be my back up plan for Abazigal, but since I didn't end up needing one, I still had all 6 with me. I opened with the limited wish timestop and continued to attack while renewing the spell with my scrolls:
6 scrolls were more than enough. Now, I only had to set up my last four spike traps and wait for the end:
Success! Finally, after many attempts over the years, I've managed to find a way to complete a solo run. Granted, it took playing with one of the most if not the most powerful solo class in the game and abusing both spike traps and the SotM, but I'm still very happy to have finally done this - it's been gnawing at me for a while now.
I will be back at some point (maybe I'll try my hand at a PoE1 run first), propably with another attempt at the meatgrinder challenge. If I manage to complete that one, I will (hopefully) finally feel like I can move on to new challenges. Good luck to everyone else!
Arinja II, the Fighter/Mage/Thief: @Enuhal
Notable mods: None
Difficulty: Core rules
Special: Solo run
Start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1022669/#Comment_1022669 (October 2018)
Finish: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1023930/#Comment_1023930 (November 2018)
Previous run:
I was intending a couple of days ago to continue with run number 20 that I put on hold in SoD, but appear to have over-ridden the save - so the Crew had to start again from Candlekeep. I was intending to try and get them back to where they had been in SoD and just do a summary post to that stage. They had been doing pretty well, with no party deaths to date (though one stoning in a basilisk ambush). However, the final sentence below reveals one of many reasons why it's so long since I've completed the game
Level 2 - charming sirines from Beregost temple.
Level 3 - shooting down Drizzt.
Level 4 - various reputation quests led up to Greywolf triggering the level.
Level 5 - after clearing all the Cloud Peaks areas they got their next level at the Valley of the Tombs.
Level 6 - there was a potentially costly mis-click early on, but fortunately I noticed in time to redirect fire on a suddenly wealthy bandit.
Level 7 - completed a few more wilderness areas, including the Lighthouse to get a constitution tome for Vito. Mulahey was no threat and I played it safe at the Bandit Camp by running away several times to break the fight up into segments. Up to this point there had been no near casualties, but there was a first worrying moment against Amarande when pathfinding problems meant they couldn't run from a chaos and everyone but Vito succumbed to that - fortunately they didn't prove that good at hitting each other and no-one got too low on hits. The Crew were nearly up to their next level at the bottom of the mine and I deliberately allowed Davaeorn to summon his additional guards rather than using a charmed guard to kill him in order to trigger that.
Level 8 - I did all the City encounters, starting with acquiring the Helm of Glory. Up to that point the only purchases made had been mundane ammunition and the potion case, but with 20/20 available the purse strings were released. There was another mistake when I mis-clicked on the dialogue for Cloak of Balduran and lost the chance to pick that up peacefully at that stage. Then I did all the remaining wilderness areas, though that cost one petrification when I was surprized by an unexpected basilisk ambush. The final area was Shoal's and I managed to survive against her for the first time while still getting the helmet (made possible by v2.5). That still left the Crew just short of level 8 and I hadn't finally decided whether to do a bit of TotSC work or just go to Candlekeep anyway. The decision was taken out of my hands though when I returned to the game some hours after a previous session only to find I apparently had not paused it ...
Upon returning to the Sword Coast he took on Gnarl and Hairtooth and prevailed. He then started to leave and as he did so, discovered that Garrat an invisible thief was trying to attack him. He will just have to wait for me to get a bit stronger before Longtooth fights him.
Longtooth then went to kill Sonner and friends before killing the ankheg who ate Nester.
Difficulty: Core rules, max HP on level-up.
Self-imposed restrictions: No using unidentified items, no recharging items by selling and buying them back.
Mods: SCS v31 including full pre-buffs for Mages and Priests, see spoiler for WeiDU.
Initialise mod (all other components require this): v31
Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v31
Allow Spellstrike to take down a Protection from Magic scroll: v31
More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v31
Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v31
Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v31
Modify the Harm spell so it does damage rather than reducing target to 1 hp -> Enemy and player Harm spells both do 150 hp of damage: v31
Allow individual versions of Spell Immunity to be placed into Contingencies and Spell Triggers: v31
Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures: v31
Cap damage done by Skull Trap at 12d6: v31
Make Power-Word: Blind single-target: v31
Make Minute Meteors into +2 weapons: v31
Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): v31
Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v31
Slightly increase the power of Mantle, Improved Mantle, and Absolute Immunity: v31
Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v31
Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls: v31
True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness: v31
Prevent Simulacra and Projected Images from using magical items: v31
Replace +1 arrows with nonmagical "fine" ones: v31
Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: v31
Remove the Shield of Balduran from the game: v31
Remove the invisibility power of the Staff of the Magi: v31
Move Vhailor's Helm into Throne of Bhaal: v31
Move the Cloak of Mirroring: v31
Move the Robe of Vecna into Throne of Bhaal: v31
Make the healing and resurrection powers of the Rod of Resurrection into separate abilities: v31
Change Carsomyr so that its Dispel on contact power grants a saving throw: v31
Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v31
Improved shapeshifting: v31
Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: v31
Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla: v31
Make Freedom scrolls available earlier: v31
Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: v31
Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from certain areas -> Only remove nonmagical ammo from random containers: v31
Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v31
Ease-of-use party AI: v31
Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v31
Remove animation from the Cloak of Mirroring (leave it for other spells and effects that use the same graphic): v31
Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v31
Smarter general AI: v31
Better calls for help: v31
Add high-level abilities (HLAs) to spellcasters -> Only selected spellcasters in Throne of Bhaal get HLAs: v31
Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31
Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31
Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v31
Improved Spiders: v31
Improved golems: v31
Improved fiends -> Fiends have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31
Smarter genies -> Genies have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31
Smarter celestials -> Celestials have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31
Smarter dragons -> Dragons have a substantial hit point increase: v31
Smarter beholders -> Don't give beholder rays any chance of burning through spell protections; beholder antimagic blocks all spells, including harmful ones, for a round (simulates D&D rules): v31
Smarter mind flayers -> Illithids have enhanced damage resistance; Illithids cannot see invisible enemies: v31
Smarter githyanki: v31
Improved Vampires: v31
Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v31
Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v31
Improved Shade Lord: v31
Spellcasting Demiliches: v31
More resilient trolls: v31
Increase difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings -> Mildly increased difficulty: v31
Improved Random Encounters: v31
Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Enhanced spirit trolls (as in Tactics): v31
Improved Unseeing Eye: v31
Improved Bodhi (Tactics Remix) -> "Toned-down" version of the original Tactics Improved Bodhi, with SCSII scripting: v31
Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v31
Improved Sahuagin: v31
Improved Beholder hive (adapted from Quest Pack): v31
Prevent resting in the Illithid city: v31
Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences: v31
Slightly Improved Watcher's Keep: v31
Improved Fire Giant temple: v31
Enhanced Sendai's Enclave: v31
Improved Abazigal's Lair: v31
Improved Minor Encounters: v31
Protagonist: Cassius, L11 Elf Diviner.
BG1EE updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
BG2EE SoA updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
As can be expected, Cassius is loyal to his staunch allies. He shall gather a company of heroes in the truest sense of the word: Minsc, Jaheira, Imoen, Anomen and Mazzy. Together they shall travel the lands, righting wrongs and mopping floors with evil buttocks! But first, we must escape this dungeon.
And escape it we do. Cassius has an excellent spell selection for dealing with these dangers, and little can threaten us. The only thing of note that happens is Irenicus apparently forgetting scrolls of Spell Trap and Mordenkainen's Sword in the Mephit portal room. Heh.
Exiting into the light, Imoen is taken from us. Curses! Cassius should have foreseen this eventuality!
No sense in dwelling on past mistakes however. We clear the Circus using a Remove Magic to dispense with the illusionary monsters, buy two scroll cases and a gem bag, and rest at the Den of the Seven Vales, before proceeding to the Slums.
Here, we pick up Anomen, and proceed to forcibly oust Lehtinan and his fellow slavers from the Copper Coronet, making good use of the classic "Have Jaheira with Iron Skins and Protection from Fire gather all enemies around her, then drop 2x Fireballs in the middle of them" ploy. Oh, the bouncers also dropped scrolls of Summon Efreeti and Death Spell. Not complaining, especially about the second one.
We agree to carve out the corruption that is more slavers, and head into the sewers. A few Cloudkills clear the Hobgoblin spawns, Minsc gets Lilarcor, and we prepare for storming the slaver ship.
Immediately killing the Priest of Cyric is a good idea (and easy, as he for some reason wears no armor...).
You'd think the rest was just mopup duty, but Captain Haegan actually quaffs his Potion of Frost Giant Strength and proceeds to beat Minsc within an inch of his life, pausing only to be a poor sport by also quaffing his two Potions of Extra Healing. Good thing we had a lot of 9 HP Potions of Healing lying around.
We clear out the remaining slavers, two Nymphs accompanied by two Skeleton Warriors spelling the end of the Slaver Wizards.
On our way back to the Copper Coronet, we enact a pleasant tradition: Unrepentant murderers Cohrvale and Bregg get to swing helplessly at a Fire Elemental. Really, it's not that wasteful, as Cohrvale can really hurt if he gets a few good hits in, and we still can't cast Mage spells in public without repercussions, so we can't just Slow them or have Cassius tank under Stoneskin + Mirror Image.
Good, that's a fair bit of cash and some experience to get us started! Next up, Government District.
While certainly we need to watch our spending, not having a magic license is more or less a death sentence when I am playing a Mage (at some point, there'll be a few stealthed muggers or whatever, Cassius will cast Stoneskin to not get chunked by a backstab, and suddenly there's Pit Fiends and Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting flying around...). So, we cough up the 5000 gold, and rescue Viconia on the way out.
Alright. Next step is gathering our party! We speak with Delon before departing, drop by the Gate district, and take off for Umar Hills. So far, no ambushes, which is good, but we are always traveling under Invisibility 10' Radius just to be sure.
We arrive in Imnesvale, speak with the mayor and Madulf, get the local delinquents their weapons and alcohol, and proceed to clear the Mimic and its two room-mates, the Umber Hulks.
Turns out a 12HD Fire Elemental is barely enough to kill a Mimic, as it doesn't attack so much as just automatically deal acid damage every two rounds. Our poor Fire Elemental is then pushed over the edge by the Umber Hulks, but we finish what it started. Oh, and there was also a scroll of True Seeing in the Umber Hulk's stash. Nice!
A quick rest later, we are off for the Temple Ruins. Things take a small turn for the worse when Minsc is somehow spotted by a Shadow Fiend...
But apparently, Anomen has better than straight odds to just outright destroy regular Shadows.
We head into the Ruins proper. Jaheira buffs to the gills (including Iron Skins/Protection From Fire/Resist Fire and Cold), gathers as many enemies as she can, then sits back and watches as Cassius lets loose with Sunfire.
And the path is clear to Mazzy! Hooray! She immediately gets bumped up to 500k experience and therefore jumps from level 8 to level 10. Her new proficiency goes to Axes (I am very impressed with how well she used Azuredge under Hubblepot, and Frostreaver +3 is a darn fine weapon as well), though it will of course be a while until she's good with them. We proceed with the rest of the dungeon: It's Fire Elemental time.
The only thing that can harm them is the Bone Golem... and yes, it does harm them quite severely (killing one and putting the other one at Badly Injured), but once it drops, the remaining Undead have no way of winning.
We gather up the loot and open all the doors barring our path, but veer away just shy of confronting the Shade Lord. We'll be back (possibly even before we go after Imoen... but I'm still debating that).
For now, we return to Imnesvale, rest up, and head back to the ci-
Normally, you'd stand a good chance of at least killing someone, Suna Seni.
But we were prepared for your shenanigans this time! The party retreats to the edge of the area, conjures a Fire Elemental and Skeleton Warrior, buffs profusely, and charges into battle!
Here, I took a page from semiticgod's playbook: For reasons unknown (probably stubbornness), I always just give Mazzy an appropriate melee weapon and have her wade into combat.
However, turns out, against Mages with their protections dispelled, she is absolutely lethal with the Tuigan Bow and just regular arrows. As long as she can hit them (i.e. they don't have PfNM/PfNW/any of the Mantle spells up) she will hit them, and hit them often. The Slaver Wizard drops within a round of having her protections stripped, and with that, the enemy party has no plays left.
So, no sense in breaking with tradition: We're going for the De'Arnise Keep next. Not much in the way of scrolls, but some solid weapons, gold and gems... and with an exception for that horrific TorGal and his cronies, most of the fights are against very straightforward enemies.
We have a chat with Nalia at the Copper Coronet. Onwards to De'Arnise K-
Fine by me, Cassius could use Xzar's Bracers of Defense AC6 (he cannot cast Armor after all, being barred from Conjuration). These fellows actually deal more damage to us than Suna Seni and friends, mostly since we don't really buff up beforehand, but we're never in real danger. We deliver Renfeld and subsequently clear out Prebek and Sanasha, the latter failing her save against Chaos and the former not buffing with PfNM (and thus being turned into a pincushion by Mazzy once his defensive Illusions were dispelled, hooray!).
We steal everything not nailed down in the Harper headquarters, similarly loot Xzar's corpse after he is assassinated, and rest at the Copper Coronet before departing once more for De'Arnise K-
Oh you poor dumb Orogs. You should've learned something from Suna Seni's demise.
We conjure a few summons, buff, and charge in. Insect Plague, True Sight, Breach, Mazzy with the Tuigan Bow... it's a bad day to be a Slaver Wizard.
We finally arrive at De'Arnise Keep. After a talk with Nalia and the guard captain (to get some free Arrows of Fire) we head inside, kill a single Troll that gets in the way, and speak with Daleson. There, we should now have all the time in the world to complete the quest. We loot what we can get at without disturbing any further Trolls, and head back outside. Some spell selecting later (Chaotic Commands and Wondrous Recall (to grant us more Chaotic Commands) for coping with Spirit Trolls and their Greater Command, otherwise a lot of buffs, some heals, and a fair bit of Fire damage on Cassius), we stand ready to enter the Keep again... and this time, we're not coming out until we've burned the troll infestation out of there!
Here seems a good spot to call it a night. Next time, the Keep will be cleared (which will definitely require two assaults: I am done underestimating TorGal and his Mage backup, and will be engaging them with a full set of spells this time around). There'll be weapons of legend, hoards of gold and gemstones, and bloody battles!
Cassius is now a L12 Elf Diviner.