Returning to the Graveyard, Burl ventured underground. Pai'Na failed to get a spell off before he spent a while exterminating her spiders at 1 APR.
At the Southern tombs Daystar sunrays accounted for some potential level drainers, while Kitthix immediately proved its worth on the Vampyre.
Shortly after that he hit level 15.
A bar fight saw Brennan Risling tangled up by Kitthix so he couldn't run away.
Burl's weapon speed advantage made short work of the fighters downstairs before he came back upstairs. Annoyed by some magic missiles there he picked up his first 3 figure damage hit with a critical on Pooky the familiar.
In search of more reputation, Burl ventured to Trademeet. Some genies there provided him with another summoning option, while the Shield of Harmony reduces the chance of being caught out by damage reducing his spell save. Burl still had no weapon to kill trolls, but his new efreeti companion was quite capable of stepping into that breach.
There were no troubles moving through the Grove until the final fight. I noticed there that Burl was being hit more than once by the same call lightning spell (which shouldn't happen - I also noticed that Cernd took damage, despite being blue-circled)
and he quickly ran away, went invisible and rested before coming back to finish the job.
Cernd gobbled Faldorn to allow Burl to pick up a reputation increase. Clearing the tomb and helping Tiris added 2 more, taking Burl up to 20. He bought the Blade of Roses to boost charisma to 20 and went on a spending spree with the 120k gold earned to date. I realized belatedly during that he'd got another level while returning to Trademeet to buy some things there.
Purchases included PfM scrolls and Vhailor's Helm and they were used in combination to get the berserk warrior. I wouldn't bother with Vhailor's Helm generally in SoA though - Burl's standard attacks are enough to make short work of most opponents - as Captain Dennis could have testified if he was still alive.
Progress through the de'Arnise Hold was also pretty easy. He took plenty of damage from the iron golem after deciding just to stand and melee it, but there was never any danger in killing that to get another level - the relatively low APR of the golem meant Burl never had a chance of going berserk (the chance of that increases per hit, irrespective of the size of each hit).
The only real danger was me nodding off, but I managed to avoid doing that when groups of enemies were around and eventually TorGal found himself badly outmatched.
Burl accepted the Stronghold, though I don't suppose he will go back there again to check how it's getting on.
Now with a weapon doing acid damage available, Burl returned to Watcher's Keep and fought through a few more enemies to get another level.
The aim of the visit though was to recover the poison head for the FoA.
Having purchased the Shield of Balduran, Burl thought he might as well get some use out of it and started the Unseeing Eye quest. He had another of his stand-up fights there with a greater mummy - getting a 19th level as a result.
The lich used its main spells on summons and didn't last long against a sunray and bonus damage from Daystar.
I'm not sure about deaf, but the blind priests were certainly all dumb
before the Eye closed for good.
Returning the Rift Device to Amaunator was enough to trigger a first HLA for Burl - taking permanent regeneration of 1 HP per second.
While in the Sewers, Burl did a bit of cleaning up to account for Mekrath and Tarnor's gang.
He'll be following Haer'Dalis to the Planar Prison next.
War Hulk L20, 269 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 624 kills (463 in BGEE/SoD)
Is that the end of the run? I didn't get a "you must restart" screen, but I think I'm out of options.
Since you are not dead, I would say no it isn't the end of the run. Sounds like you'll need to enable cheat mode and then do CTRL + J to hop yourself out of the jail. @Grond0 do you agree?
Note that if there is nowhere to "hop" to, then in that case you need to use the movetoarea command. Someone else will have to give the specifics on how to do that exactly.
@Corey_Russell I agree. I wouldn't reload personally, but given that Beamdog have classified that situation as a bug there would certainly be an entitlement to do so - although it looks like @Blind_Visionary wants to start again in a new installation anyway ...
@Blind_Visionary You could always use the console to move to area abc or whatever if you want to continue the game. On the other hand you ARE still alive and will be for ever it seems.
The improved thieves in Candlekeep were no match for Shadowblade's backstabs and weasels.
Tarnesh was also badly injured by a backstab. He panicked as a result and then died.
Shadowblade reputation went up and up without doing a lot of fighting.
By curing Tonder of lycanthropy she earned a decent longsword +1.
However she then had to deal with an ogre, Vax and Zal, Krumm, Caldo and four dire wolves.
Drienne's cat was then helped.
She is now resting at the Carnival EDIT Killing swarms of ankheg, pickpocketting and opening chests has brought Shadowblade's levels to thief level 4, illusionist level 3
Run came to an end against Zargos Flintblade, a powerful Dwarf with a +1 Axe who killed Shadowblade with one blow.
Shadowblade used blur and mirror image when fighting toe to toe as well as using his magic missile and chromatic orb spells. She used her invisibility spell in order to backstab him, and used the weasels to try and hinder the movement of Zargos.
Zargos ignored them so the weasels were not very effective. He also saved against web every time that he went through a web.
His speed which matched that of Shadowblade meant that Shadowblade wasn't able to hide and backstab.
Having been beaten, I have come to realise that against Zargos, replacing the summon weasel spells with magic missile spells might have been more effective as Zargos has good AI and thus summon weasels didn't work well.
The wand of frost might also have been effective.
Zargal was nearly dead when he landed the killing blow, so a bit of tweaking to my tactics will probably be sufficient.
Another blur instead of the ineffective web would also make sense.
Every time that Shadowblade sleeps, Zargal returns to full health, so wounding him, sleeping and returning to the battle is not effective.
Using Algernon's Cloak and getting him to fight Greywolf would probably have been effective, but I feel that the Cloak is still overpowered even in EE so I only tend to use it as a charisma boost. Perhaps I should stop trying to fight fairly.
EDIT
Just realised that going to Durlag's Tower first would probably have made her powerful enough to have taken Zargos on easily. Isn't hindsight wonderful?
At the Planar Prison, Burl entered invisibly in order to kill the mage before it could buff.
All but one of the rest of the greeting party also died to single hits. Single yuan-ti mages didn't do enough damage to be a real threat on their own and Burl split them up to ensure they couldn't combine forces - the end of the first group providing him with a level.
He took deathblow there, which for a War Hulk means any critical hit he makes has a chance of killing an opponent outright. A single non-critical hit was all that was needed though for the Master of Thralls.
It took a bit longer to get through the stoneskins of more yuan-ti mages and the Warden, but eventually the job was done.
Moving on to Umar Hills, a few quests around town were enough for another level and a greater deathblow.
That means opponents have to save twice against death when Burl hits with a critical - once at -6 and once at -4.
At the ruined temple Burl ground down and killed the first lich safely. I couldn't resist though just attacking the second one directly after using a Daystar sunray. Burl took a hit doing that, which made him potentially vulnerable to a stun and further hits - which could have resulted in a fatal rage spiral - however, he saved against the spell and finished off the lich.
For Thaxy, Burl was very vulnerable to his breath and used a restoration scroll at one point as his levels got critically low, rather than waiting for the level drain effect to end naturally. He used the exit to run away from spells initially before doing a spot of running and stabbing. That eventually got him through Thaxy's stoneskins and he was about to get a fatal blow in, but the efreeti got there first by turning Thaxy into a very large pile of charcoal.
When the level drain ended Burl found that Thaxy had provided him with another level and took resist magic - that gives a bonus 50% to MR (not a flat % as with the standard HLA). However, it only lasts 4 rounds. The Shade Lord then survived a Daystar sunray - but not the follow-up whack.
After slaughtering Valygar Burl returned to Athkatla to find the Planar Sphere. Probably the biggest danger there was the potential maze from Kayardi early on. Without ranged attacks Burl used Kitthix for distraction while nipping in and successfully putting Kayardi to sleep with the Pixie Prick.
The base ability only lasts 2 rounds, but another hit once more rendered him unconscious and his stoneskins expired before he had the chance to wake up. Moving on it wasn't long before some golems gave him another level and a first hardiness (same as standard HLA).
The efreeti beat up Lavok while he was still neutral before a demon lost heart.
Tolgerias resisted a Pixie Prick stab from invisibility and further attacks while Burl used the berserk warrior, efreeti and Kitthix as distractions. He was about to try that once more with a first use of the air elemental, but Tolgerias had run out of stoneskins and the elemental killed him itself.
More golems produced another level, to give Burl his first power attack ability.
This one automatically stuns and knock backs the opponent. The stun is supposed to last a round, which would suggest the possibility of multiple HLAs keeping a stun lock going. However, in my last run I found enemies would virtually always recover before the next attack was made, significantly reducing its value.
War Hulk L20, 269 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 624 kills (463 in BGEE/SoD)
I will return to Shadowblade later, but for a change I am starting a new run with Dreadnought, an Earth Genasi Knight of the Black Gauntlet. (Champion of Bane) The name came from her invulnerability to fear due to being a Champion of Bane. Backgound of the portrait is taken from a photo that I took of the Akropolis at Lindos The image of the knight has been posted dozens of times, but I couldn't find the actual artist. unless it is Katherine Nox. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/721842646496102457/ Dreadnought has got as far as Nashkel with no difficulty. I am roleplaying this rather than power-gaming so am not expecting that much success particularly as I have never played a Champion of Bane before. Power-gaming I would not have killed Fuller as the same armour can be acquired south of Beregost with no reputation loss.
The improved thieves in Candlekeep were no problem and the equipment that they carried was mostly unusable or no better than what she already had. Unlike my usual games she killed Fuller for his armour but didn't kill his room-mate as she didn't need two sets of plate armour. Images are self-explanatory, nothing very interesting.
One thing that confuses me. Oublek greets her as a fine and honest friend. However, she is Chaotic Evil with a reputation of 6 due to killing Fuller! How come? Is it because that is how he greets everyone in the paladin class even if they are anything but honest?
This is sadly the last update on Itis the halfling barbarian. She died at the hands of some ice salamanders - mostly due to sloppy gaming by my hand... So @Blackraven: yes I had a run in progress, until now at least.
Itis started out in great form in ToB, but even the first pocketplane trial called for the use of some HLA. Things got even worse, when the first crew in Saradush promted usage of the rod of ressurection and hardiness.
Itis took the sewer route in to the castle, and fought Gromnir by dodging the fight on the stairs.
The enemy used the same tactics, so it was fair game I guess..
After skipping Saradush I wanted to finish WK, at least until I got the bracers. I am comfortable with WK, but ToB is more or less a blur because restartis keeps me from going there.
The dreaded maze was not that tough.. tough but not impossible at least. Itis saves are in the negatives and her alignment meant that a crucial battle was avoided. The cambion won in the second draw and was allowed to keep his deck...
The next level wands cleared besides the demilich and Saladrex.
At the final seal before the Demogorgon, Itis opted for the bracers - which meant a very tough fight..
The fight was won, but not without dodging the fight by the stairs - and HLA’s..
As always metagaming saved the day. Skipping the final part of the keep, sent Itis towards the fire giants.
The fire giants hit hard, and even with HLA’s the figthing was tough as h... Potions of invisibility carried me through in the end.
At Nylaees place things cleared up, and Nylaee was killed without delay. The siege camp was swept clean as well
En route to Amekthran I picked up a handy sword and went straight for Abizigals lair. The FoA awaited - but first Draconis... I remember him as ind tough cookie - and buffed accordingly
Victory as the result of carefull planning...
I didnt remember the ice salamanders as tough cookies - and didnt buff accordingly...
Death as the result of no planning. I guess my metagame account just had another deposit...
I rolled a 98 undead hunter instead.... we shall see how she fares.
I took a break for a few days to prevent BG Burnout from occurring and caught up somewhat on my manga backlog. These first two screenshots are from a few days ago before the break after killing Sarevok. Then before I realized it, I took too many screenshots to fit them all into one progress update, so this will be split into two.
Wall of Moonlight definitely proved useful here as I thought. The undead were also assaulted with a couple of Arrows of Detonation and fireballs from Spaz's wands. Bruss fires an Energy Wave near Korlasz by placing an item on the ground, which is enough to defeat her.
I sell some things I'd been saving in my Bag of Holding so I could buy the Bracers of Perseverance and Sidestep Slippers for Bruss. Once we finally get turned loose on the Coast Way Crossing, we make for the forest and deal with Tsolak. The orc band to the south repeatedly hits Bruss as he charges an Energy Wave at them.
We retreat into Tsolak's cave and stake him, which earns Gaspar a level and gets Rufus a Ring of Protection +1, +3 vs. spectral Undead. Spaz also leveled up during the fight with the orcs, so he takes his level here and learns Brimstone Blast. Thanks to his hellfire sword, it will do slightly more damage than normal. However, the save for the extra burning is vs. spell and it gains an increasing save penalty of -1 for every 2 points above 17 CHA.
We rest and Bruss earns Zenkai Boost #3. He then levels up to 9 from some spiders back on the Coast Way, learning Kaioken x4.
- KAIOKEN x4: +6 THAC0/damage/AC/movement, Haste, +5% critical chance, fists count as +3; -2 to -4 CON/3 rounds (higher CON drain is due to Haste), +5 fatigue after 20 seconds, 20% damage vulnerability. Power up time: 6
Rufus earns a level from the Menhir quest. He learns Summon Nighthaunt and Shadow Screen.
-Summon Nighthaunt: Nighthaunts are fiendish undead that constantly radiate an aura that decreases the THAC0 and damage of living creatures, while undead creatures gain THAC0 and damage from the aura. Their attacks count as +4 and they drain 2 levels per hit. -Shadow Screen: As Spell Shield, but lasts for 2 hours and also protects against Dispel/Remove Magic. The screen is only expended when targeted by a specific anti-magic attack, such as Pierce Shield.
Inside the dwarven digsite, we are careful not to hit the dwarves with friendly fire, lest we suffer the fate of Spaz's first no-reload death. Wall of Moonlight and Hellfire Blade-boosted Fireballs make short work of the undead hordes, which gains Krieg and Garos a level.
The rest of the quest is finished without much incident. It's basically free XP. Later on in the Troll Claw Woods, Bruss suffers critical injuries yet again and earns Zenkai Boost #4 after we rest.
At the Forest of Wyrms, the green dragon wakes up immediately after we enter the cave. This is a bug caused by the Shadow Magic mod, as Shadow Weave users constantly and invisibly cast spells which update certain bonuses according to their ability scores (e.g. temporarily boosting CHA gives extra elemental resistance and saving throws, but the bonuses are decreased once the bonus expires). The area script for this place is pretty harsh when it comes to what is classified as a spell.
Rufus casts Sigil of Misfortune to lower the dragons' saving throws while Garos casts Insect Plague to deal constant damage over time and disperse the crowd. It's quite effective.
Morentherene still has enough composure to breathe gas on us twice more. Rufus and Gaspar come perilously close to death. Rufus sends out his wraiths so he can fight from beyond the grave if he needs to. In true DBZ style, Bruss fires a Ki Blast Volley at the dragon while being launched backwards by a wing buffet. Once the dragon's friends are killed, we concentrate on it and it falls easily. Good thing I fixed Protection from Poison scrolls to protect against poison damage, too.
The Neothelid is no trouble. Krieg and Bruss take care of it while under a Potion of Clarity while the others wait outside the doors. The Nighthaunt helps too, as it's Fireshield (Shadow) can do damage to the Neothelid while it's under the floor.
Darskhelin's group is softened up by our usual volley of Fireball+Sigil of Misfortune+Insect Plague. Rufus gains a thief level here.
We choose to surrender Bridgefort instead of fighting the siege. The bridge crusaders are destroyed as we are careful not to do any fire damage here.
It's business as usual in Dead Man's Pass. Garos levels up from some spiders. You'll notice that Gaspar has charmed several standard NPCs to help, including Khalid, Jaheira, Viconia, Minsc, and Dynaheir. They're actually not bad, considering they're only like level 3.
We bluff our way into Dragonspear's courtyard to do sidequests, which lets us past the crusaders guarding the Underground River's entrance. Bruss takes revenge on the Albino Wyrmlings that killed him last time. Dynaheir and Neera are killed by the wyrmlings' breath weapon.
The Spectacles reveal someone else in the cave. We pull him into the Prime, but we have a fight on our hands against a Shadow Chimera that was attacking the planar traveler.
Luckily, it was just a beefcake that had no dangerous powers. Our new friend Kaladan Za'al gives us a Wand of Shadow Binding (as per the spell), but since Krieg is not a Shadow Weave user, we cannot get anything more from him. If Rufus was the CHARNAME, we could've gotten some more Shadow Weave items and his help during the siege of Dragonspear.
Back in the main cave, placing the barrel of Bwoosh gets Gaspar and Spaz a level. We destroy the necromancer cabal with Halatathlaer's help and Rufus levels up yet again from poisoning the crusader's food and water. Bruss levels up to 10 as Krieg frees Daeros Dragonspear.
The siege on the coalition camp is pretty standard. Opening volley of Fireball wand+Shadowblast wand+Fury-boosted Arrows of Detonation takes the ogres down and cripples the trolls, letting the fire archers clean them up nicely.
The mages die to the same thing. The warriors, priests, and paladins are shut down with Sigil of Misfortune+Insect Plague.
We get a rest from Dosia and repeat the Sigil+Plague tactic on Grimgor and co. At the siege of Dragonspear, Garos uses Fury-boosted Arrows of Detonation while Spaz runs around the outside of the crowd using Scorcher charges from the Wand of Fire. This ends badly, as some of the mages had Minor Spell Turning up, which causes Spaz to get toasted.
Well, crap. Krieg, Garos, and Bruss finish off the last of the melee siege attackers. Crusaders start marching in from the side lanes so Rufus steps up to disarm the traps until Ashatiel appears and challenges Krieg. Krieg's first hit KO's her for a round and knocks her backwards slightly, so Krieg uses Divine Wrath to knock her forwards again. Ashatiel resorts to using Sanctuary, but the late Spaz's Firebreath potions send her packing.
After the battle is won, Garos raises Spaz with a scroll of Raise Dead.
Upon entering Avernus, Krieg and Rufus level up. Rufus learns one spell for levels 2-5, most notably Shar's Blessing and Breaching Dark.
-Shar's Blessing (4th level): For 1 round/level, gain +4 STR, Fighter THAC0, and +1 APR. At caster level 14+, APR is doubled instead. -Breaching Dark (5th level): Breach + Lower Resistance
Avernus is remarkably easy this time. At the top of the elevator, Belhifet chooses Bruss as his Remove Magic target. Everyone else scatters.
Krieg and Caelar square off against Belhifet while devils surround our backliners. Rufus casts Sigil of Misfortune and manages to cover Belhifet and the majority of the devils with it. Garos is incapacitated for a round because of his poor save vs. spell against a Command spell. He fails another save against it the next round too. It takes Bruss an agonizingly long time to power up to Kaioken x4.
Garos wakes up after the second round and Krieg passes him a potion of magic shielding to guarantee saving throws. Garos backs off and lets Caelar take care of the devils.
Bruss busily cleans up the devils and they die to him after just two hits or so. Rufus summons 3 wraiths to help. Their level drain should prove effective. Belhifet gates in reinforcements after his initial guards are killed. Caelar, Bruss, Garos, and the wraiths clear his adds while Krieg focuses on Big B, styling on him with a crit. It's down to just Belhifet again. Rufus tries Unmask from the Soulflare Candle. Big B responds with another improved invis, but he just wasted his spellcasting round because Gaspar shatters his illusion. Rufus casts Shadow Binding and it takes! It's game over for the devil. I'm so glad that Shadow Binding bypasses Magic Resistance.
Bruss and Garos absolutely lay into Belhifet since there is nothing to stop their 3 attacks/round now. Adding further insult to injury, the wraiths cast Impose on Belhifet, sending him flying toward the northeast while he's still paralyzed. Garos deals the killing blow with a Void-Tipped Arrow +3.
The last area to explore was Windspear Hills. It didn't take long for Burl to pick up a level there from some golems.
The level-draining vampires were a potential nuisance and several of those survived a sunray.
One hit Burl, but the Shield of Harmony kept him safe from domination and he anyway got immediate revenge.
With plenty of high value opponents he soon got another level.
He made short work of an ambush by Samia, racking up a new high damage score in the process.
Summons drained Conster of spells before Burl nipped in to end the contest.
Firkraag, unsurprisingly, was immune to the power attack HLA
and Burl dragged him upstairs where he could attack at his leisure - retreating after each attack to ensure his saving throws didn't get nerfed too much by damage. The length of the battle allowed Firkraag to heal himself and regain all his spells and when he was again taken to near death he did that again. That just gained him a bit of time though and, when he was once more through stoneskins, Burl this time stayed within Firkraag's sight to prevent him getting another lot of spells and gained a few style points by switching to Dragonslayer to get the kill - also picking up a level there.
Back in Athkatla Burl used Tazok's key to find some mind flayers. He tackled them all one at a time to avoid any possible problems - the flayers hit him twice, but a single hit at a time was manageable. I noticed in killing the final one that Burl had also picked up another level in the last room.
Cleaning up a few bits and pieces saw an assault on the Guarded Compound - Burl dragging enemies downstairs there. He gained another weapon option thanks to Koshi,
though the 2 rounds sleep from the Pixie Prick is normally a better prospect than the single round of stun from Celestial Fury. For the Twisted Rune I didn't want to attack Shangalar in melee as that would have led to Vaxall dispelling protection from undead. Instead Daystar and then the Ring of Energy dealt with him.
Gaxx haste and a power attack were then combined for Vaxall - but a critical miss saved it.
That did cost Burl his PfU along with a firebreath potion to follow up a hit on Vaxall.
His weapon speed was too much for Shyressa and he then waited a bit for Layene to be made vulnerable by her own summons before coming in for a single blow.
With nothing else left to do, Burl finally paid off Gaelan Bayle and ran through Aran's tasks - getting his 30th level in the process.
At the Graveyard he was drained by only the second vampire he came across and, rather than fiddling around any longer, just used a PfU scroll to clear the standard vampires. Bodhi only needed a single hit to persuade her to break off the combat.
I noticed on arrival in Brynnlaw that Burl had got another level while talking with Aran Linvail. He celebrated with a pyrotechnics display for the greeting party of vampires.
Perth had no stoneskins up and doesn't detect invisible visitors, so he was relying on Burl to get a critical miss - not a reliable tactic!
Perth's book offered up true seeing and Burl happily left it stuck there. He's just arrived at the entrance to Spellhold.
War Hulk L31, 361 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 988 kills (463 in BGEE/SoD)
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 167 (166) Thaal (female dwarf priest of Lathander, Gate70); Shane (male halfling swashbuckler, Grond0) After our last vainglorious attempt we redoubled our efforts and Melissan is starting to quake in her boots. Fear not madam, we may be some time or send our descendants if necessary.
Candlekeep, home sweet home. Apart from the likes of Shank.
It's time for us to leave so we pick on Shoal the Nereid and head south. Shane is fortunate to survive an ambush by hobgoblins.
Thaal quickly tires of Greywolf and holds his attention so we can show him our weapons.
Tarnesh starts out quietly, and finishes with a commanded nap.
Caldo and Krumm bunch up for a group hold.
The ankheg nest sees liberal uses of Command, but after three ankhegs Thaal has to resort to melee. We decide to loot the cache and leave rather than facing any more of these monsters.
Sirines are no match for our skeletons, apart from defeating the first set and forcing us to retreat a bit and rest. The second attempt works much better.
Skeletons also help with the flesh golems but we have to finish the second unsupported and press our luck with the third in what could have been a chunking situation. Another day perhaps fleshy?
Basilisks and Mutamin thin down more skeletons, and we push on against Kirian instead of resting. Her gang finish off our support so Thaal switches to melee as Shane uses a rock to sneak in and out. Kirian is fighting to stay alive until a silence wears off but we beat her into submission and with Peter already dead we tear Baerin apart and Lindin is ground down a few rounds later.
With this taking two sessions we decide to finish off by clearing Nashkel mine. All safely done but the game crashes as we are looting Mulahey's corpse. Grond0 leaves and I load the last save to make a named save, finding we have a save after the battle so nothing lost and I re-looted before saving.
@Wise_Grimwald Thanks. Rolling a 98 took about 7-8 hours and was done manually - over a couple of months .The strength is 18/07, but a nice manual will help - eventually..
@Arthas I currently have no mods installed. I play the game on my iPhone (latest iOS version), and my difficulty level was core.
Btw the halfling barbarian was and is a super choice for powergaming - the saving throws are insane. Perhaps it will fare better in the hands of a more skilled player.
Alright, I'm not quite ready to give up on the dream of a pure arcane caster.
Starting: In BG1EE. Difficulty: Core rules, max HP on level up. Self-imposed restrictions: No easter eggs (tree diamond, extra Ring of Wizardry/Ankheg Plate/Ring of Fire Resistance, gold from Firebead etc), no recharging items by selling and buying them back, no using unidentified items. Mods: SCS v31 (including full pre-buffing for mages and priests) and Tweaks Anthology (only the component to reduce chunking), 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 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 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 Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v31 Replace BG1-style elemental arrows with BG2 versions: 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 Faster Bears: 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 Ease-of-use party AI: v31 Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v31 Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v31 Smarter general AI: v31 Better calls for help: 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 Smarter sirines and dryads: v31 Slightly harder carrion crawlers: v31 Smarter basilisks: v31 Improved doppelgangers: v31 Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v31 Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v31 Dark Side-based kobold upgrade: v31 Relocated bounty hunters: v31 Improved Ulcaster: v31 Improved Balduran's Isle: v31 Improved Durlag's Tower: v31 Improved Demon Cultists: v31 Improved Cloakwood Druids: v31 Improved Bassilus: v31 Improved Drasus party: v31 Improved Red Wizards: v31 Improved Undercity party: v31 Tougher chapter-two end battle: v31 Tougher chapter-three end battle: v31 Tougher chapter-four end battle: v31 Tougher chapter-five end battle: v31 Improved final battle: v31 Improved minor encounters: v31 Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v7
Protagonist: Benedict, Human Conjurer.
The Conjurer stands at the apex of arcane power. In the long run, the only spell of note you are barred from is True Sight, and that is easily covered by the rest of the party. However, for early BG1, we'll have no access to Identify or Detect Invisibility, which will be a nuisance, but we'll manage. Other than that, there's nothing Benedict can't do: Disablers, damage, summons, protections... he's a one-stop magic shop.
Benedict shall rampage up and down the Sword Coast in the company of a classic good-aligned party: Khalid (in his traditional role as Long Sword-wielding frontliner), Jaheira (wielding a Club and Sling, and wearing the Ankheg Plate), Coran (Kivan filling in until we reach Cloakwood) for ranged support, Imoen as a T5 -> M9 (going for 100% Detect Illusions), and trusty Branwen to cover our clerical needs. Since we want Coran, and are bringing Kivan until we get him, we'll need to progress the main plot fairly early.
Benedict begins with + in Slings. For starting spells, he has selected the usual trifecta: Find Familiar, Sleep and Blindness, initially opting to memorize Find Familiar and Sleep. Sleep and Blindness are all you need for 95% of the early fights, and we'll pick up the Shield Amulet for those few times when there's a Magic Missile-casting enemy mage to worry about.
I'll refrain from massive updates for BG1EE and SoD, covering only the more interesting fights. If we do reach SoA, I probably won't be able to stop myself from over-embellishing about every encounter.
Despite not wanting to overdo it on the updates, this one turned into a bit of a mammoth, unfortunately.
Benedict, Human Conjurer, BG1EE Update 1 BG1EE updates: 1, 2
Benedict takes off to a running start, slaying Carbos and Shank with the help of his Fairy Dragon, Sir Trindlebottom. Gorion is cut down, and we are left with only Imoen for company. Let us rectify this!
Xzar and Montaron are temporarily recruited, and alas, both fall against Tarnesh, though a Sleep spell ends the wizard's life in turn. We bury them behind the FAI temple and recruit Khalid and Jaheira. An early Plate Mail would be nice... so nice that we head to Peldvale first, rescuing Viconia and looting her would-be murderer, but not recruiting the Drow Elf. That done with, we swing by the farm north of the FAI, wherein a stealthed Imoen swipes the Ankheg-guarded goods and takes off under a Potion of Invisibility. Waffles Wand of Fire, ho!
We clear the Hobgoblins around the FAI, but on our way south, suffer a Hobgoblin ambush! Upon closer inspection, only one of the Hobgoblins actually has a bow. We roll the dice, and Benedict lives. Hooray! The fetischist Ogre is taken care of on the road to Beregost. We head west towards High Hedge, recruiting Kivan and purchasing the Potion Case. South we press next, Ogrillons and Hobgoblins falling without making much trouble of themselves. Once in Nashkel, we recruit Branwen and dispose of Neira with her help, and have a well-earned rest. We'll do the same route I always do: Xvart village, the Neville/Polar Bear area, Gnoll Fortress, Caldo and Krumm's neck of the woods, and finally squaring off against Sendai and Vax & Zal.
Most encounters are handled by Sleep, Entangle and Command. The two Ogre Berserkers and three attendant Hobgoblin Elites guarding a bridge are treated to a Fireball charge, which only the Berserkers survive, followed by good old kiting (they have a predictable fondness for Benedict). Laurel breaks her weapon against the Gibberlings and dies quickly as a result, netting us another Plate Mail.
The only slight issue occurs when a souped up Branwen (Bless, Chant, Holy Power) does not have the AC to hold off Sendai as well as her two archer compatriots: Branwen approached under Sanctuary, Commanded one of the archers and engaged the other in melee (so as to allow the rest of the party to close the distance unmolested), but took a real beating and ended up having to run in circles for a little bit.
Back in Nashkel and burdened down with loot (99% of which we cannot Identify...), we're feeling good! Benedict got a level from all that gallivanting about, so we trigger Dorn's ambush without problems, gaining a third Plate Mail. While at it, we'll clear a path down to Mulahey, but first, Greywolf gets a taste of his own medicine, yielding yet another sword we cannot Identify! We begin our assault upon the mines, suffering only occasional damage, easily mended by potions. A charge of Fireball and a Remove Fear beforehand thwarts the Kobold Chieftain and his Shaman.
There is another reason to clear the mines: Branwen under Sanctuary sneaks right past Mulahey and swipes his treasures, including that key spell scroll, Web. Excellent. Benedict also made L3 from a Kobold somewhere down there, so we'll clear the Half-Ogre area and deal with Bassilus, then do a little bit of shopping at High Hedge, and finish off with a batch of scribing with the help of the Red Potion.
We travel northwest, and of course assist Drizzt in his battle, then go after the local bandits. Jemby prebuffed with PfNM, but our frontliners quickly closed the distance (she is only L5 and so highly vulnerable to Command) and chopped her down before she got any devastating spells off.
We take care of the Half-Ogres on the way north. A single Sleep spells the end of the local Hobgoblins, and we prepare to take on Bassilus. Of course, there's really not many preparations available for us yet: Bless, Chant, Resist Fear as well as Resist Fire and Cold on Khalid (Bassilus is not above casting Flame Strike) is about it. Bassilus gives us a scare when he starts casting a Conjuration spell, as dealing with an Aerial Servant would be a real headache: I imagine we could do it, but it'd take a lot of kiting and Scorcher charges, during which time we could easily attract many more monsters. However, no such shenanigans are necessary, as we interrupt him with a Fireball charge. Bassilus then fails his save against Silence 15' Radius, sealing his fate.
We press north, and Melicamp survives his transformation (hooray!). We actually got a Friends scroll from some Hobgoblin a while back, which we put to good use purchasing a bundle of scrolls for Benedict. We also invest in a single Potion of Insight: 25 Intelligence and 18 Wisdom will grant an acceptable Lore score, and we have a massive backlog of unidentified items... if we can put a dent in it, all the better. We clear out Beregost before scribing, however: Sleep does for the local Spiders, while Silke (as always) lacks the hitpoints to survive a single Scorcher charge. This is an almost 100% reliable way of killing her at no risk... unless a commoner wanders into the flame column, of course. But that only happened once!
Finally, we get to scribing. Benedict greatly expands his spell selection, but the most important additions were Invisibility and Web. We return to the Nashkel Mines (Benedict under Invisibility, what with the possibility of the Hobgoblin ambush here), and deal with Mulahey. A Fireball charge clears out his reinforcements, his tougher kobold guards are vulnerable to Sleep, and the Half-Orc himself doesn't have terrific AC.
We take no special precautions for Nimbul, apart from keeping Benedict out of the fight entirely... Nimbul has too many offensive options for us to be able to protect against them all. Eventually he runs out of spells, though Imoen was brought perilously low, as Nimbul went with 2x Magic Missile for his Minor Sequencer. We don't even rest up before taking on Tranzig, as he usually goes heavy on summons/debuffs, and very light on offense. As is the case this time: Khalid and Kivan simply beat him to death.
A quick rest later, we enter Larswood. The local banditry suffer greatly under Sleep, and Osmadi and Corsone struggle to make their save against Silence 15' Radius, giving us the time to break through their Iron Skins.
In Peldvale, Sleep again proves the downfall of local bandits. We travel north, and arrive at the Bandit Camp. With plenty of time to spare, too: Kivan won't start complaining for another 5-6 days. This is where Web shines. Of course, it shines pretty much everywhere, but especially here. 2x Web, 2x Entangle and 2x Grease (Imoen reached thief L5 and dualed but is still only a L2 mage) make for a serious killzone into which we deliver multiple Fireballs from our Wand and recently purchased Necklace of Missiles.
We clear the stragglers from the camp, but leave the loot for now, as we have no Thief to pick open the locks. This will be remedied momentarily. Khalid with Boots of Grounding triggers the chest trap, and we have access to the Cloakwood!
We immediately recruit Coran, leaving Kivan behind (sorry Kivan... we'll get revenge in your name, we promise!). Benedict triggers the Web traps in the Spider area under Invisibility, with the rest of the party fighting their way through. We of course dip south to pick up the Scimitar +2, even though no one can make good use of it: Jaheira spent her L3 pip on Sling, in accordance with her only being an off-tank.
Traveling to the Shadow Druids' neck of the woods (literally), we get the Molkar ambush. Once you figure it out, this is trivial: Halacan does not get to save against Command, so 2x of that very spell is enough to kill him, guaranteed. While that's being handled, a Scorcher charge from Benedict and a few arrows from Coran takes down the cleric, Drakar. With just two melee grunts left, there's no contest at all, Blind/Doom/Hold Person taking their inevitable toll.
We gather up the loot (Mail of the Dead +2 going to Branwen), and depart. A rest later, we clear the Wyverns for Coran. On our way back to Beregost to turn the head in, we get the Amazon ambush. I actually find the thieves more of a danger than the clerics, but that's probably because I tend to play fragile protagonists: Their magic darts/arrows can really hurt if they get a chance to use them. So, they get no such chance. It seems silly, but Imoen engages Maneira in melee (!), Jaheira keeps Telka busy, and the rest of the party deals with the clerics. Khalid gets Held and immediately after Branwen eats a Command, but with both ranged combatants occupied, there is no one to capitalize on our misfortune, and the battle soon swings in our favour.
We return to Beregost and receive our reward, clearing the Wolf pack while in the area. We also nip south to Nashkel to take care of a few things: Vitiare is punished, and Zordral dealt with. While in the general area, we head into the Valley of the Tombs. My intent is to keep pushing along the main plot, and since we'll be dealing with Natasha, a Wand of Monster Summoning will be handy. The local undead are easily dispatched (the Revenant is extremely vulnerable to fire damage and so a Scorcher charge does for him), and I finally figure out that Narcillicus is a Necromancer and so has no defensive Illusions. Tough break.
There's one more thing to do before going after the Cloakwood Mine: Getting Jaheira her armour. We clear the entire Ankheg area and give Brun the hoard to help him keep his farm, head to Beregost to get the armour started, then clear some more random crap while waiting: We do the Fishermen quest, dispose of twenty Zombies, and head back and loot the Bandit Camp etc. The armour is soon ready, and we take the opportunity to pickpocket Algernon: Coran's 40 Pickpocket + another 40 from a Potion of Master Thievery is enough, though we had a few Charm Person/Dire Charm ready to give us additional tries if needed.
Back into the Cloakwood! Jaheira's presence allows for solving the Aldeth Sashenstar quest peacefully, and we do so. We finish clearing the Spider area out: Khalid (with Protection from Fire/Resist Fire and Cold) charges in against Centeol, and we carefully aim our Fireballs to take out her many Giant Spiders. The fight goes smoothly, though Coran does take a Wand of Frost charge to the face.
The Shadow Druids are suckers for Silence 15' Radius. We leave the Shadow Archdruid alone for now, as you're confined to a rather small area when fighting him (and it's not worth the risk for a +2 Club). Ah... time for a real battle: Drasus and his gang!
We'll employ the tactics I've begun using since realizing this fight actually isn't that hard. We can summon three Skeleton Warriors as an initial distraction. The party will take out Drasus first (while Rezdan and Kysus deal with our summons). We'll then keep popping more summons with the Wand of Monster Summoning as necessary, with Coran taking potshots, until we feel comfortable charging in. This time, I change things up a tad: We employ Algernon's Cloak and successfully charm Genthore. Not bad, another distraction for the enemy mages to deal with. Drasus falls quickly, as he has... not exactly poor, but certainly not good enough AC to stand up to Coran.
Rezdan and Kysus have separated, with Rezdan moving towards us and Kysus holding his ground to the east. With nothing but 1st and 2nd level spells left, Rezdan is soon undone.
And that's the battle over with, right? Almost. Kysus will not go quietly into the night, however... so he pulls this little bit of douchebaggery out of his sleeve.
I don't really know what happened, but I can guess. I know that Genthore failed his save against Emotion: Hopelessness almost as soon as he was charmed. Rezdan then popped Teleport Field, which is why Genthore's up against the wall. I guess either he got hit by a Cone of Cold and took massive damage, or failed his save against a Chromatic Orb. Either way... no Plate Mail +1 for us. Pfeh. This is what I get for altering my tactics!
Still, we have many spells remaining. We loot the bunkhouse, then head into the mine proper. I'm a lot less fearful of Hareishan than I've been in the past: She goes heavy on Enchantment spells. Devastating if you attack her with your entire party or if she has a lot of guards as backup, quite a bit less deadly if she only has a well-armoured Fighter as target and no friends around. We bombard and shoot her guards into oblivion, and try as she might (and she does, with Khalid being Dire Charmed three times), there's little she can do on her own.
On the next level, the Ogre Mage is vulnerable to Command and so a pushover. Natasha proves troublesome, as she comes running after Coran and nails him with a Fireball: Fortunately, he makes his save and ducks into a sideroom, and eventually she exhausts her big damage spells on Wand of Monster Summoning charges. With the path to Davaeorn cleared, we retreat, rest up, and return.
This time, we'll make no attempt to hold off Davaeorn's reinforcements: It's practically a given that he'll kill them off for us anyway. Benedict, Jaheira and Branwen go invisible. Coran gets every buffing potion that might possibly help (after applying a PfM scroll), and Imoen/Khalid assist by an initial bombardment aimed at Davaeorn's two Battle Horrors. It takes Coran a little time, but he kills one Battle Horror, and as predicted, Davaeorn kills the other one. Along with several guards.
Imoen didn't have time to cast Invisibility on herself before catching the business end of a few MMM, but she quaffed a Potion of Invisibility and survived. Now, this is why I used Coran and not Khalid: Coran has a better ranged THAC0 than Khalid does melee THAC0 (even with Giant Strength Potions in play), and unlike Khalid can hit Davaeorn whenever he is in sight, not requiring him to be in melee range. Davaeorn falls very quickly once he obliges us by clearing out his own guards.
Hooray! We steal everything that isn't nailed down, flood the mines, and escape Cloakwood Forest unimpeded. We won't do a tour of Baldur's Gate proper just yet, but a few things need to happen: First, we deal with Desreta and Vay-Ya, so that Khalid can finally stop being on the verge of encumbered. Next, we do Ramazith's questline (we do the Varci Roaringhorn questline as well since it's practically on the way, and it gets Khalid a nice shield), but betray the mage and ascend his tower. Being a Necromancer, he stands literally no chance, falling in a single round to simple mass ranged fire.
Excellent! Now... to Durlag's Tower! Not the whole tower, of course, but Coran needs less heavy armour than regular Plate Mail, so we'll clear the above-ground levels as well as the one with the Warders. We take the time to go through the Basilisk Gardens on the way. Mutamin doesn't even try to dispel the PfP on Coran, making his demise a swift one. Kirian's party is, of course, woefully outmatched by now: We simply charge them, not even bothering with Web or Fireball.
So, we venture forth to Durlag's Tower. Getting inside is uneventful, as are the first two levels (and the balcony outside). However, I for some reason did not have Branwen memorize Animate Dead... so Khalid tries to deal with the Ghost. With predictable results.
Yep... he failed his save against Cloudkill. I can't complain: This is the first death so far. We bust out the Wand of Monster Summoning and bring the Ghost down, gather Khalid's equipment, rush back to Beregost and have him raised, and return to Durlag's. The remaining Ghasts aboveground are no trouble, nor is Kirinhale: We picked up the Greenstone Amulet previously, and along with Oil of Speed and Potion of Fire Giant Strength, this lets Khalid turn the Succubus into mincemeat, everyone else standing by under Invisibility.
The Warder level is entirely uneventful: The worst that happens is a Skeleton Warrior landing a few hits on Khalid. We gather the loot and make our way back to Beregost, not yet having triggered the fight with the Warders.
We might as well go for (almost) full completion. Shoal is rescued from Droth, though the dainty Coran fails his save and is revived by the Nereid. The Helmet of Defense goes to Khalid. The Sirines are handled via 2x Web, along with Improved Invisibility and Free Action on Khalid (Yep... Branwen is L7 now!). Arrows of Fire and a few MMM does for the guardian Flesh Golems, and we head towards Brage's area. The Doomsayer stands no chance, and we return Brage to the temple.
Finally, we do Arghain's area. Why not, it's there. Arghain lands a good hit on Khalid for 18 damage but really, what is he going to do... he's just a melee brute. I forget myself for a moment and allow Benedict to wander too close to the local bandits, leading to Billy getting a shot in for 11 damage, but that's nothing life-threatening by this stage. We finish the area and head for Firewine Bridge.
Coran quaffs a few Potions of Master Thievery and swipes Bentan's PfM scroll, and Meilum is rudely cut down whilst orating about his supposedly tremendous skill. Though I contemplated for once just skipping Firewine Ruins, we end up clearing them. It goes quick enough, Khalid and Coran slaying Kobold Commandos with each hit. Lendarn gets stuck in his own Web while dealing with some Skeleton Warriors and so expires much sooner than usual. We finish off the Ogre Mage and gather a small reward from Gandolar Luckyfoot. Off to Ulcaster!
The entire dungeon goes by without much issue. The Wolf of Ulcaster gets treated to all manner of spellworks: Greater Malison, Doom, Slow, Flame Arrow (from Benedict for the save penalty, of course!), with Skeleton Warriors blocking the reinforcing Dread Wolves, Remove Fear active and Free Action on Khalid (since the Wolf can Hold on hit).
The only wilderness area remaining is the one with the Red Wizards. Invisible Benedict triggers Web traps all over the place, and a Free Action ensures we can deal with a large group of Spiders, including Giant ones. Against the wizards, we employ hasted summons and basic buffs, with Benedict quite safe under MGoI and MSD. A Remove Disease is helpful to clear up Coran's sight after he failed his save against Blindness, and the wizards fall, having accomplished nothing besides somehow hitting Jaheira with MMM when she had effective AC -10.
We swing by High Hedge to offload our loot, and then turn straight back around, arriving at the Elfsong Tavern in Baldur's Gate. This is a good spot to stop for now: Next time, we'll adventure throughout the city proper, delve into the demented depths of Durlag's dread tor, cleanse the great beasts of Balduran's Isle, and possibly even aquire a scroll of Stoneskin (still debating if it's worth the risk... but a scroll of PfM should eliminate that risk).
Trio Update Yeldon - half-elf clerric/ranger, protagonist (Corey_Russell) Denko - human dark moon monk (Gate70) Keras - dwarven kensai (Grond0)
So the Trio made some good progress today. We forged the IMoD and then made our way to Brynnlaw. We helped Ginai then destroyed Perth the Adept by attacking from invisibility. Unsurprisingly, Yeldon destroyed Bhaal in melee. We then proceeded to try to clear the various levels of Spellhold. This went pretty much by the numbers like usual. Irenicus was unable to survive our assault - well actually he did, he just ran like a coward.
We then took Saemon's "ship" and found ourselves in Shark City. Mostly we wanted the Cloak of Mirroring, as well as the sweet monk gauntlets. Keras soloed some undead (why not) with a pro undead scroll.
We then found ourselves in the Underdark. We then worked on clearing out all those elementals - Denko didn't want to range attack, so paid for it with his life. We skipped the soul gems, other than freeing the gnome.
The biggest problem we had was Grond0 kept dropping from the game - at the end, he was 450k less experience than denko, though probably he is less than 50k back in reality. We might need to EE him to the correct experience.
Last big task of the day was to take on the Balor of the gnome village. Yeldon had two CC's so used them on himself and Keras. Denko duly failed his save and was stunned so had to watch while his groupmates had all the fun, with Yeldon getting the killing blow on the demon.
We ran out of time here, so will continue to Kua-toa lair next session.
We're going for another attempt, hoping to put an end to our string of unusual deaths. The rules are simple: Fully randomized party, randomized hp rolls, insane difficulty, no mods. Also, I have to continue playing no matter how many deaths and chunkings I suffer (unless the main character dies, of course) and I can't get rid of "useless" party members on purpose.
This is the party my randomization system provided me with this time:
The Bhaalspawn: Cephalus, male human lawful good beast master:
This is a pretty decent main character - the physical attributes are very nice, and we do get some extra hp from being able to summon a familiar, who will also help out with combat early on. The pip in longbow is a great start as well.
Ouranus, male gnome chaotic neutral priest of talos:
Very good dexterity, and a point in slings to go along with it. Sadly, low wisdom, but I do like having a single class cleric in the early game for command/hold person and to get early access to skeleton summons.
Once again low wisdom, but nice physical stats. The proficiencies are relatively useless here, but the class is very flexible and one of my favorite multiclass combos. Sadly, no wand of heavens usage due to low int.
This is one of these characters we don't really need. We already have a thief, and this one has very mediocre stats with nothing special to offer. He does have the best charisma score in our party, though, so he might be our face character.
Always good to have an arcane spellcaster. This one will be squishy. Luckily, 6 dexterity, while terrible, doesn't actually provide any negatives (you'd need 5 for that), and she does start with some ranged abilities. Hopefully we can keep her alive until she gets some decent defensive spells.
Kaveh, male dwarf true neutral fighter/thief
Stats: 17/13/15/17/10/7, Proficiencies: *Short Sword/*Spear/*Quarterstaff/*Sword and Shield Style
Good strength, but otherwise not the greatest. We don't need another thief, to be frank. Would've liked some kind of pure fighter here, but he will have to do.
All in all, this party is relatively average, maybe slightly above that because of its versatility. No standouts, nothing truly terrible, every role is accounted for. Certainly a party that could succeed in theory.
We start things off by doing the Candlekeep quests, picking up items from Imoen, Gorion, Xzar and Montaron and traveling right to the basilisks area, avoiding any encounters on the way. Our pseudo dragon does have immunity against petrification, so we have a backup in case something happens to Corax - the southern group of lizards is quickly dealt with:
We avoid getting too close to the adventurers in the middle of the map and take out Mutamin, who gets paralyzed before being able to finish a spell:
We get some much needed experience from this and start dealing with a few minor quests/encounters next: - Joia's ring, Tarnesh and Landrin's spiders (we do have the sleep spell for that one) - The belt ogre - Karlat, Neira and Greywolf (they all fall to hold person) - Perdue's sword, Mirianne's letter, the Colquetle family amulet - Marl and Firebead's book - Talking to Noober and Oublek for some free rep/xp - Talking to Hafiz and bringing back Samuel to the FAI (we get lucky and meet a winter wolf on the way) - Dealing with the Dorn encounter before picking up the Wand of Frost - Using said Wand of Frost to get more experience by having Ceres kill the two battle horrors at Durlag's:
- Helping out Neera with sleep and command:
Meanwhile, we've been picking up various goodies. A sling +1 was our only purchase so far - we will soon boost our reputation and get some scrolls for Ceres, though. Party levels are 2-4 right now, and all of our new profiency points have been put into ranged weapons. So far, it's all about not getting hit while applying command/hold person/sleep. Updates for this run might be a little less frequent/expansive than my usual speed, because I have a lot of RL things going on right now.
Although I'm a bit busier than some weeks ago, I still decided to give this challenge another try. Having enjoyed party play with Gilyn (and having pulled a @Grondo with a solo Transmuter on the roof of Durlag's Tower), I wanted to roll with another party. Am using a character I've run before: Addi, the gnomish Illusionist. Addi was the first character I took into SoD I think. However I discontinued that run for reasons I cannot recall. Maybe it was because I got into LoB mode. Anyhoo, I rerolled him, applying my 'no stat point redistribution' rule. Some patience was rewarded with an excellent roll:
The initial idea was to make the BG1 portion of the game an 'underused NPCs' run, but pretty early on things failed to work out as expected as I'll explain later.
Addi's starting spells are Blindness, Shield, and Sleep, and weapon prof is daggers for melee/ranged flexibility and two ranged APR.
Rules: - insane difficulty without extra damage, - items must be identified before use, - max HPs for all creatures in the game, - no potion stacking, - staying true to alignment (basically no evil actions), - a full party is to be gathered asap, so at level 1-2, - no EEKeepering of NPCs (kits, proficiencies, etc)
Mods: BGQE, BG1 NPC Project, BG1UB, RR, SCS (full), mostly convenience tweaks and cosmetic stuff from aTweaks and CDTweaks, Finch, The Calling (Beta) and some banter mods.
Addi, TN Gnomish Illusionist (1st BG1 report)
Addi does his Candlekeep chores without incident, running into prospective companion Finch while at it. Immediately moving eastward on the morning after Gorion's fall allows Addi to neither see nor hear Imoen. This helps with deciding not to have her around. Addi puts a rogue ogre to sleep, quite permanently, and traveled to the FAI where he is almost magically drawn to a hidden, enchanted ring. He approaches the inn to look for Khalid and Jaheira, but has to put another troublemaker to sleep first.
(Irresponsibly risky I reckon, but Tymora was with Addi.) The idea was then to role-play that Addi disliked Jaheira so much that he refused to travel with her, but I found that with Addi's high charisma, she was actually quite gentle. Addi wasn't considered a slight on Gorion by Jaheira, unlike less charismatic charnames. So he travels to the south with Khalid and Jaheira. Somehow it's becoming harder for me to ignore the canon NPCs.
They reach Beregost in good order and decided to check into the Red Sheaf, only to be accosted by Karlat. This encounter is hard for level 1 characters, but Addi's Blindness, cast at the still blue-circled but menacing-sounding Dwarf ("You're at the end of your rope, I'll wager!"), decides the confrontation in the party's favor. It also leads to Addi meeting Finch again. The cleric promptly joins the party, and helps out slaying the huge spiders that have taken over Landrin's home. The four then travel to Nashkel, dealing with hobgoblins, ogrillons, and Neira (Command + Blindness). Berrun Ghastkill, Khalid, and Jaheira want the party to investigate the Nashkel mines, but Addi first wants a party that he thinks covers the bases of adventuring. For instance, he wants a thief. Khalid and Jaheira (who has already started to wear on his nerves, having called him a slave driver one more than one occasion) are released of their duty to look after Addi.
Halflings tend to make good thieves, so the Addi and Finch travel to Gullykin, and they are in luck: Alora comes on board. Not much later they run into more roguish characters in and around Beregost: Tiax joins the party as do Xzar and Montaron. Lanky Xzar stands out like a sore thumb, towering over the others as he does. This gave me a dilemma: do I stick to the underused NPCs concept or am I going to make this a shorty run? After some deliberation Xzar was allowed an indefinite amount of time off to attend to some Zhentarim business, while Quayle joined the clique in his stead.
With the help of Tiax's ghast, Greywolf is defeated. Minor quests follow: Samuel, polar bear, Gnarl and Hairtooth (also with Tiax's ghast). Tiax seems to have very strict reputation requirements withe the BG1 NPC Project mod. He buggers off in the gnoll stronghold area, displeased with the party's work, while reputation is still below 19, and despite my having installed the happy patch on top of the mod. Alora knicks some of his gear before he's permanently gone. The party slowly makes their way back to Nashkel, handling Ingot, Ludrug, and Krumm and Caldo, a dead cat, Rufie, and Sendai (Hold Person) on the way. With one vacant position on the team, Kivan is temporarily recruited to trigger the Jozzi Seasnake quest. Two Sahuagin are put to sleep by Addi, while the chieftain (who has an impressive pool of 128 HPs) is repeatedly Commanded to ensure the survival of Jozzi and her elven friend, and also ensuring that Addi earns himself a +2 returning throwing dagger. Kivan is released to hunt bandits, with difficulty again, as he is in my top 5 (if not 3) of favorite NPCs.
Reputation is pushed to 20, and so the time comes for Addi (18 Charisma + Algernon's cloak) and Alora (100 pickpocket without potions) to procure some choice equipment for the party: shadow armor, neutral archmagi robe, claw of kazgaroth (for Alora), cloak of displacement, wand of the heavens, scrolls for Quayle and Addi, ring of free action, the works.
The five do some pretty much risk-free ankheg hunting, courtesy of the Sleep spell, and help Tenya so as to advance XP a bit so that Kagain joins as a level 4 fighter with an amount of XP similar to that of the others. Kagain immediately dons a suit of full plate mail, the gauntlets of dexterity, and a helm of charm protection (a BG1UB item), making him a solid tank.
Addi fails to charm Bassilus wit Algernon's cloak, so the party has to retreat when the cleric summons an aerial servant. Bassilus however teleports right into their midst. Thanks to Finch and Quayle's Commands the party can deal with him easily enough.
Zargal and co can't resist Addi's Sleep spell, and Thalantyr successfully transforms Melicamp.
Addi then copies lots of scrolls into his spellbook with the red potion from the Nashkel Carnival for guaranteed success.
Montaron loots Black Alaric's cave but sirines and golems are left alone. The party helps Charleston Nib and Brage, and then goes basilisk hunting. Kagain gets the honor of becoming the party's basilisk slayer, but he also becomes the party's first member to fall: Mutamin comes after him from behind the fog of war, fails twice to Remove his PfPetrification, but injures him with Melf's Acid Arrows and MMs, which at one point prompts the dwarf's morale to break. A black bear then kills him.
He is revived at the temple of Lathander and finishes his job the second time. The company then travels south to Durlag's Tower, where Addi dispatches two battle horrors with the wand of fire, a tome of wisdom is picked up, and Montaron becomes the party's second basilisk slayer.
Gnolls fail to kill Drizzt, and Addi is not nearly so evil as to get his party to attack the ranger, so Montaron (who had even invested a first proficiency pip in scimitars) will have to switch between a yet to acquire suit of full plate and studded leathers.
Kagain resists Shoal's kiss in that he runs off in panic after his HPs are reduced to 1, thankfully not toward the ogre-ilk. Addi Blinds Droth, making that encounter a walk in the park; Shoal is spared. Meilum and Vax and Zal are taken on for their gauntlets, before Kagain goes sirine-killing. With the light crossbow of speed and with charm protection he has little to fear from them. Flesh golems are slain as well.
The Calling, a mod in progress, that seeks to add class-specific quests to the game (in the vein of the thieving quests at the guild in BG), then takes the party to the Nashkel Mines. The mod adds a quest to find te bracers that transformed Melicamp, if the latter is saved. At one point Melicamp is supposed to be at the Nashkel Mines, so the party decide to investigate the mines after all. They search the mines very thoroughly, using lots of Sleep spells to deal with the kobolds. The kobold chieftain is felled by Montaron's backstab and Alora's arrow; the shaman is blinded by Addi. Mulahey manages to Hold Montaron, but Addi's Sleep spell and wand fireball finish off the summons, while his Blindness hits Mulahey, allowing the party to dispatch the half-orc and Monty to survive.
Questioning the miners, both before and after the fall of Mulahey, doesn't lead to any clues regarding Melicamp's whereabouts, so the companions give up on their quest for Thalantyr, but at least they had good news for Berrun Ghastkill.
Skeleton warriors provoked Nimbul into wasting his spells before the party engages him. Tranzig is subdued through brute force (his save vs spells is very good).
The Lamalha ambush followed. Addi casts a Web, hoping to get Zeela, Maneira and Telka, but only Zeela end up tangled up in it. Maneira backstabs Addi for 16 damage, so he goes invisible and heals up. Quayle Commands Maneira but suffers a ranged hit from Telka so he retreats. Finch engages Lamalha (protected by the ring of free action). Monty and Kagain injure Maneira to the point of her morale breaking, and Alora finishes her off with a poisoned arrow from the kobold chieftain. Monty and Kagain finish Zeela, and Addi Blinds Telka and Lamalha.
The party then returns once more to Mutamin's garden, to deal with Kirian and her companions. Lindin and Baerin are Held. Skeleton warriors fight Kirian and Peter in melee, and the companions finish them with ranged attacks.
Molkar and his gang track the party down as well. Molkar and Morvin only have melee weapons, so Halacan and Drakar are more dangerous. Addi uses the wand of monster summoning to place some fodder between the two casters. Quayle Commands Drakar, and Finch Flamestrikes Halacan. Drakar is finished off first, with ranged attacks from the party and a summoned ogre in melee. The other summons deal with Halacan moments later. A Command and a barrage of missiles do Molkar in, and Morvin can't do much on his own against 11 enemies.
Back in Beregost, Blindness and enchanted ammo account for Silke.
In the Wood of Sharp Teeth the companions are quite thorough. Corsone is Held by Finch, and shot down. Lots of bandits and black talons are slain using Webs, fireballs and backstabs.
(Erdane's wad of fire with 12 fireballs but only a singe scorcher, is particularly useful for this.)
The party, not far from a few level-ups (Montaron, Addi, Quayle), takes a side trip to the Ulcaster school. At the cost of 5 potions of freedom,
Addi reaches level 6, and picks quarterstaves as his second weapon proficiency. The Wolf of Ulcaster is blinded and done in with enchanted missiles.
The company infiltrates the bandit stronghold through Raiken, appeases Tazok, loots the chests, bags, and barrels, enters Tazok's tent, and kills pretty much everyone with an inferno of wand, necklace, and potion fireballs.
Sadly that includes Ender Sai. That was definitely not part of the plan. (I felt so bad about this that I considered aborting the run there and then, but then I role-played that the party didn't know that one of their victims had been an innocent. Ender Sai hadn't been bound or gagged or anything.) Britik actually survives the initial onslaught, but an acid arrow from Alora does him in. Taugosz is Commanded and Blinded. Montaron, Finch, Alora, and Kagain deal with him, while Quayle and Addi keep incoming bandits at bay with fireballs.
The party ends up clearing the entire camp, now if only they can clear their repuatation as well, because that had gone down from 20 to 10. Thankfully I'm not playing with decreased reputation gains, so Baldur's Gate should offer sufficient reputation boosts.
@Blackraven That's a brilliant roll considering that you didn't redistribute stats. I have no problem with redistributing them myself but we all play differently.
Sadly my Champion of Bane died as a result of having been put to sleep. He was doing well before that happened.
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 167 (Journal entry 1 2) Thaal (female dwarf priest of Lathander, Gate70); Shane (male halfling swashbuckler, Grond0) The one-way exit from Nashkel mine almost led us into Lamahla and her amazons. Thaal summoned up a few skeletons, aimed a Silence and Holy Smite. Then we moved in to deal with them.
Back at Nashkel Nimbul was silenced, but Tranzig in Beregost proved to be of sterner stuff and lasted several rounds. With details of how to reach a bandit camp we set off and soon had it under our control. Silence in their main tent led to a very one-sided finale so we headed off to Cloakwood full of confidence.
If you are ever asked to gather around, think twice as you may not be able to do much later.
Cloakwood mine must be of some importance, having another group of mercenaries stationed outside to protect it. Thaal repeated her Skeleton -> Silence -> Holy Smite -> attack strategy and Shane helped himself to some Boots of Speed.
Cloakwood mine itself was safely negotiated, with Thaal proving to be a sturdy defender and Shane adept at lunging out from shadows with his Varscona longsword. Eventually we reach Davaeorn and remove most of his traps. He frazzles a pair of skeletons with lightning bolts and declares his intransigence about our chances. Thaal only requires one bullet to press our point home.
The bridge to Baldur's Gate is open so we make our way across, picking up tomes for Thaal (dexterity, wisdom, intelligence) , a shortbow +2 for Shane from Marek and a ring of protection +2 from Ramazith. A quick journey to Durlag's tower sees us grab another wisdom tome and a scimitar from the roof before returning to the city.
Once again low wisdom, but nice physical stats. The proficiencies are relatively useless here, but the class is very flexible and one of my favorite multiclass combos. Sadly, no wand of heavens usage due to low int.
You could always invest a potion to allow you to equip it.
Another Champion of Bane was one-shotted by an ankheg while only at level one. I thought that you couldn't be one-shotted at level one, or have things changed? At least I wasn't far into the game. The ankheg was at death's door and if it had died my champion would have levelled up.
Another Champion of Bane was one-shotted by an ankheg while only at level one. I thought that you couldn't be one-shotted at level one, or have things changed? At least I wasn't far into the game. The ankheg was at death's door and if it had died my champion would have levelled up.
The problem with ankhegs is that their ranged attacks can deal missile and acid damage, so I'm afraid you're character was "two-shotted".
It would probably have been safer to get those first few levels elsewhere (Beregost and Nashkel and the surrounding areas).
Burl made light work of Spellhold. With critical attacks now starting to threaten double hundreds, progress didn't take long even at 1 APR.
He picked up one level from the kobolds guarding Kurtulmak,
before having to use a restoration scroll after the combat with Dace Sontan.
A further level came just before searching for the way to judgment.
Burl persuaded Lonk to release the inmates and after a single love-tap from Burl, the odds persuaded Irenicus to run away.
After a shipwreck and rescue by some sahuagins, Burl explored the City. That was done a touch hastily though and resulted in him triggering a maze trap.
I reacted quickly enough for him to save himself with a scroll of PfM, but using one of those up will make the final battle with Melissan harder (and it already seems extremely difficult). There were no further mishaps as he recovered the Cloak of Mirroring, getting another level in the process.
He then avoided playing favorites and killed the entire royal family before heading into the Underdark.
It look a little while to chew through the stoneskins of the drow mages - but then they couldn't really damage Burl, who was now wearing the Cloak of Mirroring, so that was fair enough. He used his power attack HLAs to prevent the balor from attacking.
There was now no need for the Shield of Balduran against beholders and killing a few of those in the Western Tunnels got another level.
The physical resistance and regeneration of the Prince didn't help him avoid becoming a one-shot victim.
He used invisibility to get a free attack on the Elder Orb, but failed to kill it. However, an efreeti fireball and a couple of further rounds of attacks with FoA bonus damage finished it off before it tried imprisonment.
Rather than kill the rest of the beholders he just went to collect the Greenstone Amulet.
The illithid were left in peace while Burl went to talk to Adalon and then enter Ust Natha. He didn't bother with any work there though, just buying a few things from the local merchants. Then it was back to attack Adalon. Burl nipped in and out using Soul Reaver to reduce Adalon's attack and added a potion of invulnerabilty when he was malisoned. Once stoneskins were down the dragon didn't last long and Burl picked up another level.
Burl hadn't cleared the drow from the door and had to do that to escape - finishing one of those off with his first double hundred damage hit.
He then ran outside and has just arrived back in Athkatla.
War Hulk L36, 407 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 1216 kills (463 in BGEE/SoD)
Benedict, Human Conjurer, BG1EE Update 2 BG1EE updates: 1, 2 First SoD update found here
We embark upon our adventures throughout the city. Yago is simply cut down; he's too low-level to pose a threat. Larze gets treated to a double Horror and fails both saves, though to be fair you can just kite him if you want. We of course pick up the Wisdom tome for Benedict while curing ourselves of poison (Lothander gets to live), with Marek as is customary being handled by Skeleton Warriors in case he decided to memorize Confusion. Jenkal and his employer the Ogre Mage, Ratchild and Schlumpsha are cleared from the sewers without much issue.
Niemain and his Necromancer friends are simply charged: With no Illusions, there's little they can do to save themselves from Coran's arrows, and we have many Greenstone Amulet charges remaining should they look likely to finish an Enchantment spell.
Imoen makes a mockery of Sunin: He repeatedly goes invisible and applies Mirror Image, but she just Detects all of his Illusions, and we easily finish him off once his Stoneskins give out. Branwen took a few swings from Sunin's guards, but that's about it.
Wiven and her fellow thieves are bumrushed, with Wiven herself failing her save against the Wand of Paralyzation. After suitable buffs (Bless/Chant/Haste), Jaheira and Khalid handle Degrodel's slew of monsters, with a bit of assistance from Imoen/Benedict wielding Wands of Fire. Old man Gervisse actually gets a well-targetted Confusion off, but enough of us remain unaffected that we can keep the others from attacking the twins or Voltine, and Gervisse goes the way of Wiven, failing his save against the Wand of Paralyzation (the projectile was in mid-air when the Confusion hit).
Not feeling like an honest fight, we treat Grelik and the Maulers of Undermountain to a Fireball barrage (after we make sure that the Waiter isn't in the general area before making them pop). Works wonders; I think I'll deal with them like this from now on, although they're not really that dangerous.
Khalid has pretty decent saves, so manages to tie up Drelik on his own. And even if he does get Confused, there's really not much Drelik can do. There's more that we finish up, of course, but the city goes smoothly overall. Alright, that's Baldur's Gate cleared! Except for the Iron Throne: We'll handle that after we finish TotSC content.
So... I do want that Stoneskin scroll in case something unexpected occurs, so we are teleported to the Ice Island. We only really need two scrolls of PfM for the final fight, so I indulge in having Khalid pop one, along with a plethora of potions, and go to town (invisible Coran cleared the entire dungeon of traps beforehand).
That's... that's spectacular! Andris won't attempt to cast Detect Invisibility if he can see Khalid when he teleports back in, so we make sure Khalid is together with the rest of the (invisible) party. Since Andris realizes he can't hurt Khalid, he just.. prances around the dungeon? He doesn't try casting anything, not even summons, instead opting to avoid Khalid. Which is a fool's errand, since Khalid has Boots of Speed and an Oil of Speed active. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Supercharged Khalid clears the entire dungeon on his own (though the entire party helps out against Dezkiel, as I'm worried he might use his Stoneskin scroll if we don't kill him quickly). We are never in any danger whatsoever. This is definitely how I'm doing Ice Island from now on... it's a little cheap, but so is cramming a dungeon full of nothing but mages.
Alright, we'll go for Durlag's next, chiefly for the Flametongue +1 (so we have a good way of handling Karoug). This time, all four Warders come after us, and Pride actually runs around to the south of the well, instead of going straight for our summons. We divert a few to hold him off, with the remainder shielding us from Fear.
Khalid and Jaheira are chipping away at Love, but due to its Physical Mirror, the rest of the party has to be content with combatting Fear from a distance. Avarice puts in an appearance with a 46 damage backstab on Coran: See, this is exactly why I wanted that scroll of Stoneskin! To my surprise, Fear dies before Love (this is mostly Coran's doing), but Love soon follows.
Fortunately, Avarice seems to have run out of Invisibility steam (or it's on a timer). Either way, the Warder falls swiftly once we can target him, and he never got to finish Coran off. Pride is then Blinded, Doomed and Slowed in that order, and can no longer hit anything. He soon joins his comrades.
We descend. The only issue with the third level is when an Islanne gets Confusion off: I have to stun Coran with a Wand of Paralyzation to keep him from killing someone, but otherwise, everything goes smoothly. The four Dwarven Doomguards were handled with Free Action and mass Web.
The fourth level awaits. The Greater Wyverns are handled with the help of five summoned Heroes, the remainder of which are quickly disposed of once the last Wyvern falls. As always, we swing by the Skeleton Archers and destroy them all from out of sight with Fireballs, ensuring us a small quiver of 14 Arrows of Dispelling in total (more than enough: I need only 2-3 for Coran to be able to dispel Sarevok's Haste, the rest are just a bonus to help expedite the demise of Angelo and Semaj). The endlessly invisible Ashirukurus get a few good hits in, and I am reminded that it is a necessity to have Free Action when tackling the Greater Ghouls (unsure what their THAC0 is, but they hit a lot), yet no one died.
The chessboard is as always handled by everyone gulping a Potion of Absorption beforehand, and throwing out a massive Fireball barrage. The King survives, as he usually does, but without his many allies just drops without having accomplished anything.
By comparison, the fifth level is completely uneventful. With Free Action up (and several Fireballs to speed things along) we swiftly carve a path. A few Skeleton Warriors make it easier to deal with Grael, but that's pretty much the only time we bothered to buff. Once the level is cleared, we teleport out, as there's really no need to fight the Demon Knight, and it would just make our return to Ulgoth's Beard annoying, what with the Cultists running around. Durlag's Tower, complete (well, after a fashion)!
Time for Balduran's Isle. I like importing the Chain Mail +3... it's certainly not much, but it's something, and it is moderately useful if you're bringing say Viconia along. Which I might, I haven't decided yet. Anyhow, I find out that Dradeel is a miserable old coot who will go hostile if you pick the wrong conversation option ("Perhaps using a bib could help you avoid those unsightly stains" is apparently a grievous insult), so we have to exit his cottage in a hurry, and can't finish the Dradeel's Spellbook quest. That seems rather silly, but fine. We head over to the beached vessel.
All levels before Karoug's are simply handled by Khalid (under Free Action, as there are Vampiric Wolves here) entering first, gathering all the enemies, with said enemies then succumbing to a hail of arrows and bullets courtesy of Coran and Jaheira. I figure that maybe the Karoug fight, even with Daese being a mage, isn't that bad... and I actually figure right. Daese gets off a single Confusion, but as we scattered upon entry, it only affects Benedict, and he quaffs a Potion of Magic Shielding before it hits. Branwen gets off a good Holy Smite which forces Daese into her Wolfwere form, and with only melee brutes left, the outcome is not in doubt: Karoug actually dropped very rapidly, though we did barrage him with Magic Missile to speed things along.
Time for the second slipup of this playthrough! I want to finish Delainy's quest (as well as get the Staff Mace +2), so send sanctuaried Branwen into Dradeel's cottage to loot his things. Unfortunately, the chest with items is locked... so stealthed Coran joins in to pick it open. Lockpicking reveals you, so Coran has a Potion of Invisibility. In my infinite wisdom, I decide to try and save that potion by having Coran just run for the exit once he picks the lock.
Jeeeeeez. The combat log doesn't show it, but Branwen failed her save and took 73 magic damage. Dradeel has a friggin' ADHW equivalent? I'm not tackling that headon. At least Coran lived; had he dropped as well, we would probably have had to abandon some non-critical gear. As it is, we manage to move things around to the point where stealthed Coran can shuttle Branwen's gear over to everyone else: If you're invisible but standing atop a loot pile and pick things up from inside the inventory screen, you're not revealed. We have to leave behind some masterwork ammunition and some crap we were going to sell, but everything important is still with us.
We make our way back onto the mainland, resurrecting Branwen before proceeding. The Mendas fight again doesn't prove that troublesome, altthough part of it is the fact that the fight is bugged: Baresh, upon dying, always spawns in two Loup-Garou on top of each other, which means they can't move, leaving you free to deal with Mendas. Which we do. Invisible Imoen keeps him from protecting himself with Illusions, and once there are only Loup Garous on the field, Khalid goes to work. We pick up the Chain Mail +3 and head to Baldur's Gate.
Our plan for the fight with Sarevok's acolytes is the same as always. We'll draw in the two initially hostile Shennara's using a summon as bait, and dispose of them, as the rest of the acolytes are not initially hostile and will not assist. Then, it's Skeleton Warriors + buffs time, in an effort to kill off a few key enemies and exhaust their most dangerous spells.
Everything goes off without a hitch. The Shennara's are incapable of even hitting Khalid, and drop quickly despite repeatedly going invisible. The two priests on the right make good targets for our gaggle gang, owing to their weak defenses (why are they wearing light armour?), and indeed, we manage to kill both very quickly, in large part because I also sent Khalid in. He's got decent saves, magic resistance, and if something nasty is coming his way, he can activate the Greenstone Amulet... he'll be fine.
In fact, things go so well that I don't even bother with buffing and doing an all-out charge: Khalid and Coran just quaff an Oil of Speed each, as well as a Potion of Some (I don't recall which) Giant Strength for Khalid, and proceed to clean house. 3-4 Stoneskins and as many Mirror Images won't really help when you're facing some 5x2 + 1x3 + 1x4 = 17 attacks per round, pretty much all of which are going to hit. The mages just fall without doing much of anything. Gardush puts on a good show, eventually (with some assistance) killing off four of our Skeleton Warriors, but he's no match for Khalid.
Wondering why Khalid isn't taking massive ranged damage, I look around, and it turns out Zhalimar ran out onto the roof when a Skeleton Warrior got up close and personal. Maybe enemies shouldn't change zones when running away? On his own, even Zhalimar can do little, and the last of Sarevok's acolytes fall.
We gather up the loot and, following a bit of a rest, report to Duke Eltan. As is customary, Benedict spends the fight with the Ogre Mages invisible, as they can deal surprising amounts of damage when they single someone out and mass-cast Chromatic Orb/Melf's Acid Arrow (you need to move away from the party quickly though, as the Ogre Mages are also fond of casting Glitterdust). Also customarily, the final Ogre Mage never turns hostile and so never breaks his Invisibility, but we entice him out with a few Fireballs aimed in his general direction.
We opt not to kill Rieltar and his cohorts, but they end up dead nonetheless, so we are off for the Catacombs. Nothing here can threaten us, and we soon reach Prat. Prat and Sakul are just overpowered by Skeleton Warriors, Khalid and Coran... I don't think they got any spells off apart from desperate attempts to restore their rapidly failing defenses. The archer, what's-his-face, wanders up near the rest of the group, and is summarily pelted to death. Bor is more of a curiosity than a threat, and falls in moments.
We make our way outside (having remembered to memorize 2x Protection from Petrification for dealing with the two Greater Basilisks), and have a rest at the FAI. Alright, looking good, but let's not get overconfident (or sloppy... it's not good to arrive at the coronation without damning proof in hand). So, we rescue Duke Eltan first. The Mercenaries get off two good Unholy Blights on us, doing some damage, but no one drops below half health.
Next, Cythandria: Let's not underestimate her this time. Our Skeleton Warriors and Khalid basically ignore her two Stone Golems (they are pelted to death by the rest of the party), and when focused early, Cythandria doesn't have the defenses to survive long enough to cause any serious trouble.
Slythe and Krystin are up. Slythe just drops dead from over-exposure to cold steel, and though it takes over a turn, Krystin falls to Skeleton Warriors (her wonky script makes her invisible every three seconds or so). I'd never want to fight her straight-up: This time she spent all her L3 slots on Skull Trap, it seems. Wonder how she was planning to pull that off what with Slythe getting caught in the crossfire...
Alright! A quick rest later, we're off for the coronation. Again, tactics remain unchanged. Five Skeleton Warriors will form a barrier in front of the Grand Dukes, Imoen will cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath to keep her alive, and we'll focus, in order, the Doppleganger Mage, Shaman and Assassin. Needless to say, we splurge a bit on potions, but we're saving the big guns for the final battle. Things go mostly according to plan, although Coran takes a mean backstab. Moments after this screenshot, the shaman falls (you'll note the mage is dead on the ground) and we mop up the remainder, eventually forcing Sarevok to flee with both Grand Dukes still alive. Hooray!
We speed through the maze, stopping to search for traps only when the green splotches on the wall indicate such are present. For some unfathonable reason, I decide to tackle the Undercity party head-on. This is generally a bad idea against an archer with Arrows of Detonation, at least if you didn't prebuff with Protection from Fire (we didn't).
Ick. Fortunately, Benedict is wearing Batalista's Passport, so he was not in serious danger, but still, that was an unnecessary risk. We mop up the enemy party, Shaldrissa being a royal headache by running all over the Undercity and dragging us into additional fights before we can dispose of her. We also pick up the Magma Bulwark +2... Branwen will wear it for the final battle (mostly for style as her contribution starts and ends with summoning Skeleton Warriors). She's actually spent the entire game since the Molkar ambush first in Mail of the Dead +2, then Splint Mail +1 once we looted Duke Eltan's office... and it's worked just fine! Her AC has been sufficient to keep her safe from ranged attacks, and I never send her into melee. Plus, Chain Mail looks pretty good on clerics, it's somehow fitting. Anyway, Tamoko is persuaded to stand down, and we prepare for the final battle.
Same procedure as every year, James time. We have four scrolls of PfM, but we need at most three. Khalid, Jaheira and Coran will handle the fighting, while Benedict, Imoen and Branwen wait invisibly (and under Potions of Absorption, as we shall see) for the dust to settle. PfM, Potions of Mind Focusing (Potion of Agility beforehand for Khalid), Potions of Fortitude/Giant Strength/Heroism/Power and Oils of speed. That's all you really need: Our fighters have excellent THAC0, good APR and tremendous damage. Time to end this.
Branwen (with an assist from Benedict) conjures up five Skeleton Warriors. Chant and Haste are applied, and we are off, fighters leading the charge, everyone else holding back. First, Sarevok gets an Arrow of Dispelling to remove his Haste. Our super-charged frontliners then swiftly dismantle both Diarmid (he lasts a round) and Tazok (he lasts two rounds). We have a dozen Arrows of Dispelling left, so indulge by stripping Angelo and Semaj of their carefully crafted protections, ensuring their imminent demise. It should be noted that Angelo made liberal use of his Wand of Lightning, hence why those not under PfM need 100% lightning resistance, Invisibility notwithstanding.
With only Sarevok and his own resurrected Skeleton Warriors remaining, we dismantle the enemy undead. We only need a single charge of the Wand of Monster Summoning to occupy Sarevok while everyone except Khalid joins in a ranged barrage.
Again, Sarevok just refuses to properly die, but the battle is clearly won. Baldur's Gate 1 EE, complete.
Benedict finishes the game as a L9 Human Conjurer, and will most certainly return in Siege of Dragonspear.
@aldain That is pretty much a flawless performance! As a solo player, I admire your ability to navigate through the game safely in such numbers (notwithstanding the occasional deaths). Godspeed to Benedict!
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Returning to the Graveyard, Burl ventured underground. Pai'Na failed to get a spell off before he spent a while exterminating her spiders at 1 APR.
A bar fight saw Brennan Risling tangled up by Kitthix so he couldn't run away.
In search of more reputation, Burl ventured to Trademeet. Some genies there provided him with another summoning option, while the Shield of Harmony reduces the chance of being caught out by damage reducing his spell save. Burl still had no weapon to kill trolls, but his new efreeti companion was quite capable of stepping into that breach.
There were no troubles moving through the Grove until the final fight. I noticed there that Burl was being hit more than once by the same call lightning spell (which shouldn't happen - I also noticed that Cernd took damage, despite being blue-circled)
Cernd gobbled Faldorn to allow Burl to pick up a reputation increase. Clearing the tomb and helping Tiris added 2 more, taking Burl up to 20. He bought the Blade of Roses to boost charisma to 20 and went on a spending spree with the 120k gold earned to date. I realized belatedly during that he'd got another level while returning to Trademeet to buy some things there.
Purchases included PfM scrolls and Vhailor's Helm and they were used in combination to get the berserk warrior. I wouldn't bother with Vhailor's Helm generally in SoA though - Burl's standard attacks are enough to make short work of most opponents - as Captain Dennis could have testified if he was still alive.
Progress through the de'Arnise Hold was also pretty easy. He took plenty of damage from the iron golem after deciding just to stand and melee it, but there was never any danger in killing that to get another level - the relatively low APR of the golem meant Burl never had a chance of going berserk (the chance of that increases per hit, irrespective of the size of each hit).
Now with a weapon doing acid damage available, Burl returned to Watcher's Keep and fought through a few more enemies to get another level.
Having purchased the Shield of Balduran, Burl thought he might as well get some use out of it and started the Unseeing Eye quest. He had another of his stand-up fights there with a greater mummy - getting a 19th level as a result.
While in the Sewers, Burl did a bit of cleaning up to account for Mekrath and Tarnor's gang.
War Hulk L20, 269 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 624 kills (463 in BGEE/SoD)
According to this, it's a bug that should have been fixed with the 2.5 patch. See also this dicsussion with comments by @JuliusBorisov.
Jaay the Jester was captured by the Flaming Fist under Angelo and executed. The end
Is that the end of the run? I didn't get a "you must restart" screen, but I think I'm out of options.
Since you are not dead, I would say no it isn't the end of the run. Sounds like you'll need to enable cheat mode and then do CTRL + J to hop yourself out of the jail. @Grond0 do you agree?
Note that if there is nowhere to "hop" to, then in that case you need to use the movetoarea command. Someone else will have to give the specifics on how to do that exactly.
The improved thieves in Candlekeep were no match for Shadowblade's backstabs and weasels.
Tarnesh was also badly injured by a backstab. He panicked as a result and then died.
By curing Tonder of lycanthropy she earned a decent longsword +1.
Drienne's cat was then helped.
She is now resting at the Carnival
EDIT
Killing swarms of ankheg, pickpocketting and opening chests has brought Shadowblade's levels to thief level 4, illusionist level 3
Shadowblade used blur and mirror image when fighting toe to toe as well as using his magic missile and chromatic orb spells. She used her invisibility spell in order to backstab him, and used the weasels to try and hinder the movement of Zargos.
Zargos ignored them so the weasels were not very effective. He also saved against web every time that he went through a web.
His speed which matched that of Shadowblade meant that Shadowblade wasn't able to hide and backstab.
Having been beaten, I have come to realise that against Zargos, replacing the summon weasel spells with magic missile spells might have been more effective as Zargos has good AI and thus summon weasels didn't work well.
The wand of frost might also have been effective.
Zargal was nearly dead when he landed the killing blow, so a bit of tweaking to my tactics will probably be sufficient.
Another blur instead of the ineffective web would also make sense.
Every time that Shadowblade sleeps, Zargal returns to full health, so wounding him, sleeping and returning to the battle is not effective.
Using Algernon's Cloak and getting him to fight Greywolf would probably have been effective, but I feel that the Cloak is still overpowered even in EE so I only tend to use it as a charisma boost. Perhaps I should stop trying to fight fairly.
EDIT
Just realised that going to Durlag's Tower first would probably have made her powerful enough to have taken Zargos on easily. Isn't hindsight wonderful?
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1025419/#Comment_1025419
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1025988/#Comment_1025988
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1026657/#Comment_1026657
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1026970/#Comment_1026970
At the Planar Prison, Burl entered invisibly in order to kill the mage before it could buff.
Moving on to Umar Hills, a few quests around town were enough for another level and a greater deathblow.
At the ruined temple Burl ground down and killed the first lich safely. I couldn't resist though just attacking the second one directly after using a Daystar sunray. Burl took a hit doing that, which made him potentially vulnerable to a stun and further hits - which could have resulted in a fatal rage spiral - however, he saved against the spell and finished off the lich.
For Thaxy, Burl was very vulnerable to his breath and used a restoration scroll at one point as his levels got critically low, rather than waiting for the level drain effect to end naturally. He used the exit to run away from spells initially before doing a spot of running and stabbing. That eventually got him through Thaxy's stoneskins and he was about to get a fatal blow in, but the efreeti got there first by turning Thaxy into a very large pile of charcoal.
After slaughtering Valygar Burl returned to Athkatla to find the Planar Sphere. Probably the biggest danger there was the potential maze from Kayardi early on. Without ranged attacks Burl used Kitthix for distraction while nipping in and successfully putting Kayardi to sleep with the Pixie Prick.
War Hulk L20, 269 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 624 kills (463 in BGEE/SoD)
The name came from her invulnerability to fear due to being a Champion of Bane.
Backgound of the portrait is taken from a photo that I took of the Akropolis at Lindos
The image of the knight has been posted dozens of times, but I couldn't find the actual artist.
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/721842646496102457/
Dreadnought has got as far as Nashkel with no difficulty.
I am roleplaying this rather than power-gaming so am not expecting that much success particularly as I have never played a Champion of Bane before. Power-gaming I would not have killed Fuller as the same armour can be acquired south of Beregost with no reputation loss.
The improved thieves in Candlekeep were no problem and the equipment that they carried was mostly unusable or no better than what she already had.
Unlike my usual games she killed Fuller for his armour but didn't kill his room-mate as she didn't need two sets of plate armour.
Images are self-explanatory, nothing very interesting.
One thing that confuses me. Oublek greets her as a fine and honest friend. However, she is Chaotic Evil with a reputation of 6 due to killing Fuller!
How come?
Is it because that is how he greets everyone in the paladin class even if they are anything but honest?
Itis - in ToB
Latest postThis is sadly the last update on Itis the halfling barbarian. She died at the hands of some ice salamanders - mostly due to sloppy gaming by my hand... So @Blackraven: yes I had a run in progress, until now at least.
Itis started out in great form in ToB, but even the first pocketplane trial called for the use of some HLA. Things got even worse, when the first crew in Saradush promted usage of the rod of ressurection and hardiness.
Itis took the sewer route in to the castle, and fought Gromnir by dodging the fight on the stairs.
After skipping Saradush I wanted to finish WK, at least until I got the bracers. I am comfortable with WK, but ToB is more or less a blur because restartis keeps me from going there.
The dreaded maze was not that tough.. tough but not impossible at least. Itis saves are in the negatives and her alignment meant that a crucial battle was avoided. The cambion won in the second draw and was allowed to keep his deck...
The next level wands cleared besides the demilich and Saladrex.
At the final seal before the Demogorgon, Itis opted for the bracers - which meant a very tough fight..
The fight was won, but not without dodging the fight by the stairs - and HLA’s..
As always metagaming saved the day. Skipping the final part of the keep, sent Itis towards the fire giants.
The fire giants hit hard, and even with HLA’s the figthing was tough as h... Potions of invisibility carried me through in the end.
At Nylaees place things cleared up, and Nylaee was killed without delay. The siege camp was swept clean as well
En route to Amekthran I picked up a handy sword and went straight for Abizigals lair. The FoA awaited - but first Draconis... I remember him as ind tough cookie - and buffed accordingly
I didnt remember the ice salamanders as tough cookies - and didnt buff accordingly...
I rolled a 98 undead hunter instead.... we shall see how she fares.
Flashburn's Rejects
BG1: Prologue, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7I took a break for a few days to prevent BG Burnout from occurring and caught up somewhat on my manga backlog. These first two screenshots are from a few days ago before the break after killing Sarevok. Then before I realized it, I took too many screenshots to fit them all into one progress update, so this will be split into two.
Wall of Moonlight definitely proved useful here as I thought. The undead were also assaulted with a couple of Arrows of Detonation and fireballs from Spaz's wands. Bruss fires an Energy Wave near Korlasz by placing an item on the ground, which is enough to defeat her.
I sell some things I'd been saving in my Bag of Holding so I could buy the Bracers of Perseverance and Sidestep Slippers for Bruss. Once we finally get turned loose on the Coast Way Crossing, we make for the forest and deal with Tsolak. The orc band to the south repeatedly hits Bruss as he charges an Energy Wave at them.
We retreat into Tsolak's cave and stake him, which earns Gaspar a level and gets Rufus a Ring of Protection +1, +3 vs. spectral Undead. Spaz also leveled up during the fight with the orcs, so he takes his level here and learns Brimstone Blast. Thanks to his hellfire sword, it will do slightly more damage than normal. However, the save for the extra burning is vs. spell and it gains an increasing save penalty of -1 for every 2 points above 17 CHA.
We rest and Bruss earns Zenkai Boost #3. He then levels up to 9 from some spiders back on the Coast Way, learning Kaioken x4.
Rufus earns a level from the Menhir quest. He learns Summon Nighthaunt and Shadow Screen.
-Shadow Screen: As Spell Shield, but lasts for 2 hours and also protects against Dispel/Remove Magic. The screen is only expended when targeted by a specific anti-magic attack, such as Pierce Shield.
Inside the dwarven digsite, we are careful not to hit the dwarves with friendly fire, lest we suffer the fate of Spaz's first no-reload death. Wall of Moonlight and Hellfire Blade-boosted Fireballs make short work of the undead hordes, which gains Krieg and Garos a level.
The rest of the quest is finished without much incident. It's basically free XP. Later on in the Troll Claw Woods, Bruss suffers critical injuries yet again and earns Zenkai Boost #4 after we rest.
At the Forest of Wyrms, the green dragon wakes up immediately after we enter the cave. This is a bug caused by the Shadow Magic mod, as Shadow Weave users constantly and invisibly cast spells which update certain bonuses according to their ability scores (e.g. temporarily boosting CHA gives extra elemental resistance and saving throws, but the bonuses are decreased once the bonus expires). The area script for this place is pretty harsh when it comes to what is classified as a spell.
Rufus casts Sigil of Misfortune to lower the dragons' saving throws while Garos casts Insect Plague to deal constant damage over time and disperse the crowd. It's quite effective.
Morentherene still has enough composure to breathe gas on us twice more. Rufus and Gaspar come perilously close to death. Rufus sends out his wraiths so he can fight from beyond the grave if he needs to. In true DBZ style, Bruss fires a Ki Blast Volley at the dragon while being launched backwards by a wing buffet. Once the dragon's friends are killed, we concentrate on it and it falls easily. Good thing I fixed Protection from Poison scrolls to protect against poison damage, too.
The Neothelid is no trouble. Krieg and Bruss take care of it while under a Potion of Clarity while the others wait outside the doors. The Nighthaunt helps too, as it's Fireshield (Shadow) can do damage to the Neothelid while it's under the floor.
Darskhelin's group is softened up by our usual volley of Fireball+Sigil of Misfortune+Insect Plague. Rufus gains a thief level here.
We choose to surrender Bridgefort instead of fighting the siege. The bridge crusaders are destroyed as we are careful not to do any fire damage here.
It's business as usual in Dead Man's Pass. Garos levels up from some spiders. You'll notice that Gaspar has charmed several standard NPCs to help, including Khalid, Jaheira, Viconia, Minsc, and Dynaheir. They're actually not bad, considering they're only like level 3.
We bluff our way into Dragonspear's courtyard to do sidequests, which lets us past the crusaders guarding the Underground River's entrance. Bruss takes revenge on the Albino Wyrmlings that killed him last time. Dynaheir and Neera are killed by the wyrmlings' breath weapon.
The Spectacles reveal someone else in the cave. We pull him into the Prime, but we have a fight on our hands against a Shadow Chimera that was attacking the planar traveler.
Luckily, it was just a beefcake that had no dangerous powers. Our new friend Kaladan Za'al gives us a Wand of Shadow Binding (as per the spell), but since Krieg is not a Shadow Weave user, we cannot get anything more from him. If Rufus was the CHARNAME, we could've gotten some more Shadow Weave items and his help during the siege of Dragonspear.
Continued in next post...
Flashburn's Rejects
BG1: Prologue, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6SoD: 1
Back in the main cave, placing the barrel of Bwoosh gets Gaspar and Spaz a level. We destroy the necromancer cabal with Halatathlaer's help and Rufus levels up yet again from poisoning the crusader's food and water. Bruss levels up to 10 as Krieg frees Daeros Dragonspear.
The siege on the coalition camp is pretty standard. Opening volley of Fireball wand+Shadowblast wand+Fury-boosted Arrows of Detonation takes the ogres down and cripples the trolls, letting the fire archers clean them up nicely.
The mages die to the same thing. The warriors, priests, and paladins are shut down with Sigil of Misfortune+Insect Plague.
We get a rest from Dosia and repeat the Sigil+Plague tactic on Grimgor and co. At the siege of Dragonspear, Garos uses Fury-boosted Arrows of Detonation while Spaz runs around the outside of the crowd using Scorcher charges from the Wand of Fire. This ends badly, as some of the mages had Minor Spell Turning up, which causes Spaz to get toasted.
Well, crap. Krieg, Garos, and Bruss finish off the last of the melee siege attackers. Crusaders start marching in from the side lanes so Rufus steps up to disarm the traps until Ashatiel appears and challenges Krieg. Krieg's first hit KO's her for a round and knocks her backwards slightly, so Krieg uses Divine Wrath to knock her forwards again. Ashatiel resorts to using Sanctuary, but the late Spaz's Firebreath potions send her packing.
After the battle is won, Garos raises Spaz with a scroll of Raise Dead.
Upon entering Avernus, Krieg and Rufus level up. Rufus learns one spell for levels 2-5, most notably Shar's Blessing and Breaching Dark.
-Breaching Dark (5th level): Breach + Lower Resistance
Avernus is remarkably easy this time. At the top of the elevator, Belhifet chooses Bruss as his Remove Magic target. Everyone else scatters.
Krieg and Caelar square off against Belhifet while devils surround our backliners. Rufus casts Sigil of Misfortune and manages to cover Belhifet and the majority of the devils with it. Garos is incapacitated for a round because of his poor save vs. spell against a Command spell. He fails another save against it the next round too. It takes Bruss an agonizingly long time to power up to Kaioken x4.
Garos wakes up after the second round and Krieg passes him a potion of magic shielding to guarantee saving throws. Garos backs off and lets Caelar take care of the devils.
Bruss busily cleans up the devils and they die to him after just two hits or so. Rufus summons 3 wraiths to help. Their level drain should prove effective. Belhifet gates in reinforcements after his initial guards are killed. Caelar, Bruss, Garos, and the wraiths clear his adds while Krieg focuses on Big B, styling on him with a crit. It's down to just Belhifet again. Rufus tries Unmask from the Soulflare Candle. Big B responds with another improved invis, but he just wasted his spellcasting round because Gaspar shatters his illusion. Rufus casts Shadow Binding and it takes! It's game over for the devil. I'm so glad that Shadow Binding bypasses Magic Resistance.
Bruss and Garos absolutely lay into Belhifet since there is nothing to stop their 3 attacks/round now. Adding further insult to injury, the wraiths cast Impose on Belhifet, sending him flying toward the northeast while he's still paralyzed. Garos deals the killing blow with a Void-Tipped Arrow +3.
Siege of Dragonspear Complete!
Krieg - War Hulk 10
Garos - Warhorn Shaman 11
Bruss - Saiyan Monk(ey) 10
Rufus - Thief 11/Shadow Adept 10
Spaz - Warlock 12
Gaspar - Seducer 12
Caelar - Fighter 15
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1025419/#Comment_1025419
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1025988/#Comment_1025988
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1026657/#Comment_1026657
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1026970/#Comment_1026970
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1027536/#Comment_1027536
The last area to explore was Windspear Hills. It didn't take long for Burl to pick up a level there from some golems.
Summons drained Conster of spells before Burl nipped in to end the contest.
Back in Athkatla Burl used Tazok's key to find some mind flayers. He tackled them all one at a time to avoid any possible problems - the flayers hit him twice, but a single hit at a time was manageable. I noticed in killing the final one that Burl had also picked up another level in the last room.
Cleaning up a few bits and pieces saw an assault on the Guarded Compound - Burl dragging enemies downstairs there. He gained another weapon option thanks to Koshi,
With nothing else left to do, Burl finally paid off Gaelan Bayle and ran through Aran's tasks - getting his 30th level in the process.
I noticed on arrival in Brynnlaw that Burl had got another level while talking with Aran Linvail. He celebrated with a pyrotechnics display for the greeting party of vampires.
War Hulk L31, 361 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 988 kills (463 in BGEE/SoD)
Thaal (female dwarf priest of Lathander, Gate70); Shane (male halfling swashbuckler, Grond0)
After our last vainglorious attempt we redoubled our efforts and Melissan is starting to quake in her boots. Fear not madam, we may be some time or send our descendants if necessary.
Candlekeep, home sweet home. Apart from the likes of Shank.
Skeletons also help with the flesh golems but we have to finish the second unsupported and press our luck with the third in what could have been a chunking situation. Another day perhaps fleshy?
Thanks. Rolling a 98 took about 7-8 hours and was done manually - over a couple of months
@Arthas
I currently have no mods installed. I play the game on my iPhone (latest iOS version), and my difficulty level was core.
Btw the halfling barbarian was and is a super choice for powergaming - the saving throws are insane. Perhaps it will fare better in the hands of a more skilled player.
Starting: In BG1EE.
Difficulty: Core rules, max HP on level up.
Self-imposed restrictions: No easter eggs (tree diamond, extra Ring of Wizardry/Ankheg Plate/Ring of Fire Resistance, gold from Firebead etc), no recharging items by selling and buying them back, no using unidentified items.
Mods: SCS v31 (including full pre-buffing for mages and priests) and Tweaks Anthology (only the component to reduce chunking), 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
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
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
Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v31
Replace BG1-style elemental arrows with BG2 versions: 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
Faster Bears: 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
Ease-of-use party AI: v31
Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v31
Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v31
Smarter general AI: v31
Better calls for help: 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
Smarter sirines and dryads: v31
Slightly harder carrion crawlers: v31
Smarter basilisks: v31
Improved doppelgangers: v31
Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v31
Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v31
Dark Side-based kobold upgrade: v31
Relocated bounty hunters: v31
Improved Ulcaster: v31
Improved Balduran's Isle: v31
Improved Durlag's Tower: v31
Improved Demon Cultists: v31
Improved Cloakwood Druids: v31
Improved Bassilus: v31
Improved Drasus party: v31
Improved Red Wizards: v31
Improved Undercity party: v31
Tougher chapter-two end battle: v31
Tougher chapter-three end battle: v31
Tougher chapter-four end battle: v31
Tougher chapter-five end battle: v31
Improved final battle: v31
Improved minor encounters: v31
Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v7
Protagonist: Benedict, Human Conjurer.
The Conjurer stands at the apex of arcane power. In the long run, the only spell of note you are barred from is True Sight, and that is easily covered by the rest of the party. However, for early BG1, we'll have no access to Identify or Detect Invisibility, which will be a nuisance, but we'll manage. Other than that, there's nothing Benedict can't do: Disablers, damage, summons, protections... he's a one-stop magic shop.
Benedict shall rampage up and down the Sword Coast in the company of a classic good-aligned party:
Khalid (in his traditional role as Long Sword-wielding frontliner), Jaheira (wielding a Club and Sling, and wearing the Ankheg Plate), Coran (Kivan filling in until we reach Cloakwood) for ranged support, Imoen as a T5 -> M9 (going for 100% Detect Illusions), and trusty Branwen to cover our clerical needs. Since we want Coran, and are bringing Kivan until we get him, we'll need to progress the main plot fairly early.
Benedict begins with + in Slings. For starting spells, he has selected the usual trifecta: Find Familiar, Sleep and Blindness, initially opting to memorize Find Familiar and Sleep. Sleep and Blindness are all you need for 95% of the early fights, and we'll pick up the Shield Amulet for those few times when there's a Magic Missile-casting enemy mage to worry about.
I'll refrain from massive updates for BG1EE and SoD, covering only the more interesting fights.
If we do reach SoA, I probably won't be able to stop myself from over-embellishing about every encounter.
Despite not wanting to overdo it on the updates, this one turned into a bit of a mammoth, unfortunately.
Benedict, Human Conjurer, BG1EE Update 1
BG1EE updates: 1, 2
Benedict takes off to a running start, slaying Carbos and Shank with the help of his Fairy Dragon, Sir Trindlebottom. Gorion is cut down, and we are left with only Imoen for company. Let us rectify this!
Xzar and Montaron are temporarily recruited, and alas, both fall against Tarnesh, though a Sleep spell ends the wizard's life in turn. We bury them behind the FAI temple and recruit Khalid and Jaheira.
An early Plate Mail would be nice... so nice that we head to Peldvale first, rescuing Viconia and looting her would-be murderer, but not recruiting the Drow Elf. That done with, we swing by the farm north of the FAI, wherein a stealthed Imoen swipes the Ankheg-guarded goods and takes off under a Potion of Invisibility.
WafflesWand of Fire, ho!We clear the Hobgoblins around the FAI, but on our way south, suffer a Hobgoblin ambush! Upon closer inspection, only one of the Hobgoblins actually has a bow. We roll the dice, and Benedict lives. Hooray!
The fetischist Ogre is taken care of on the road to Beregost. We head west towards High Hedge, recruiting Kivan and purchasing the Potion Case. South we press next, Ogrillons and Hobgoblins falling without making much trouble of themselves. Once in Nashkel, we recruit Branwen and dispose of Neira with her help, and have a well-earned rest.
We'll do the same route I always do: Xvart village, the Neville/Polar Bear area, Gnoll Fortress, Caldo and Krumm's neck of the woods, and finally squaring off against Sendai and Vax & Zal.
Most encounters are handled by Sleep, Entangle and Command. The two Ogre Berserkers and three attendant Hobgoblin Elites guarding a bridge are treated to a Fireball charge, which only the Berserkers survive, followed by good old kiting (they have a predictable fondness for Benedict).
Laurel breaks her weapon against the Gibberlings and dies quickly as a result, netting us another Plate Mail.
The only slight issue occurs when a souped up Branwen (Bless, Chant, Holy Power) does not have the AC to hold off Sendai as well as her two archer compatriots: Branwen approached under Sanctuary, Commanded one of the archers and engaged the other in melee (so as to allow the rest of the party to close the distance unmolested), but took a real beating and ended up having to run in circles for a little bit.
Back in Nashkel and burdened down with loot (99% of which we cannot Identify...), we're feeling good! Benedict got a level from all that gallivanting about, so we trigger Dorn's ambush without problems, gaining a third Plate Mail. While at it, we'll clear a path down to Mulahey, but first, Greywolf gets a taste of his own medicine, yielding yet another sword we cannot Identify! We begin our assault upon the mines, suffering only occasional damage, easily mended by potions. A charge of Fireball and a Remove Fear beforehand thwarts the Kobold Chieftain and his Shaman.
There is another reason to clear the mines: Branwen under Sanctuary sneaks right past Mulahey and swipes his treasures, including that key spell scroll, Web.
Excellent. Benedict also made L3 from a Kobold somewhere down there, so we'll clear the Half-Ogre area and deal with Bassilus, then do a little bit of shopping at High Hedge, and finish off with a batch of scribing with the help of the Red Potion.
We travel northwest, and of course assist Drizzt in his battle, then go after the local bandits.
Jemby prebuffed with PfNM, but our frontliners quickly closed the distance (she is only L5 and so highly vulnerable to Command) and chopped her down before she got any devastating spells off.
We take care of the Half-Ogres on the way north. A single Sleep spells the end of the local Hobgoblins, and we prepare to take on Bassilus. Of course, there's really not many preparations available for us yet:
Bless, Chant, Resist Fear as well as Resist Fire and Cold on Khalid (Bassilus is not above casting Flame Strike) is about it. Bassilus gives us a scare when he starts casting a Conjuration spell, as dealing with an Aerial Servant would be a real headache: I imagine we could do it, but it'd take a lot of kiting and Scorcher charges, during which time we could easily attract many more monsters. However, no such shenanigans are necessary, as we interrupt him with a Fireball charge. Bassilus then fails his save against Silence 15' Radius, sealing his fate.
We press north, and Melicamp survives his transformation (hooray!). We actually got a Friends scroll from some Hobgoblin a while back, which we put to good use purchasing a bundle of scrolls for Benedict.
We also invest in a single Potion of Insight: 25 Intelligence and 18 Wisdom will grant an acceptable Lore score, and we have a massive backlog of unidentified items... if we can put a dent in it, all the better.
We clear out Beregost before scribing, however: Sleep does for the local Spiders, while Silke (as always) lacks the hitpoints to survive a single Scorcher charge. This is an almost 100% reliable way of killing her at no risk... unless a commoner wanders into the flame column, of course. But that only happened once!
Finally, we get to scribing. Benedict greatly expands his spell selection, but the most important additions were Invisibility and Web. We return to the Nashkel Mines (Benedict under Invisibility, what with the possibility of the Hobgoblin ambush here), and deal with Mulahey. A Fireball charge clears out his reinforcements, his tougher kobold guards are vulnerable to Sleep, and the Half-Orc himself doesn't have terrific AC.
We take no special precautions for Nimbul, apart from keeping Benedict out of the fight entirely... Nimbul has too many offensive options for us to be able to protect against them all.
Eventually he runs out of spells, though Imoen was brought perilously low, as Nimbul went with 2x Magic Missile for his Minor Sequencer. We don't even rest up before taking on Tranzig, as he usually goes heavy on summons/debuffs, and very light on offense. As is the case this time: Khalid and Kivan simply beat him to death.
A quick rest later, we enter Larswood. The local banditry suffer greatly under Sleep, and Osmadi and Corsone struggle to make their save against Silence 15' Radius, giving us the time to break through their Iron Skins.
In Peldvale, Sleep again proves the downfall of local bandits. We travel north, and arrive at the Bandit Camp. With plenty of time to spare, too: Kivan won't start complaining for another 5-6 days.
This is where Web shines. Of course, it shines pretty much everywhere, but especially here.
2x Web, 2x Entangle and 2x Grease (Imoen reached thief L5 and dualed but is still only a L2 mage) make for a serious killzone into which we deliver multiple Fireballs from our Wand and recently purchased Necklace of Missiles.
We clear the stragglers from the camp, but leave the loot for now, as we have no Thief to pick open the locks. This will be remedied momentarily. Khalid with Boots of Grounding triggers the chest trap, and we have access to the Cloakwood!
We immediately recruit Coran, leaving Kivan behind (sorry Kivan... we'll get revenge in your name, we promise!). Benedict triggers the Web traps in the Spider area under Invisibility, with the rest of the party fighting their way through. We of course dip south to pick up the Scimitar +2, even though no one can make good use of it: Jaheira spent her L3 pip on Sling, in accordance with her only being an off-tank.
Traveling to the Shadow Druids' neck of the woods (literally), we get the Molkar ambush.
Once you figure it out, this is trivial: Halacan does not get to save against Command, so 2x of that very spell is enough to kill him, guaranteed. While that's being handled, a Scorcher charge from Benedict and a few arrows from Coran takes down the cleric, Drakar. With just two melee grunts left, there's no contest at all, Blind/Doom/Hold Person taking their inevitable toll.
We gather up the loot (Mail of the Dead +2 going to Branwen), and depart. A rest later, we clear the Wyverns for Coran.
On our way back to Beregost to turn the head in, we get the Amazon ambush.
I actually find the thieves more of a danger than the clerics, but that's probably because I tend to play fragile protagonists: Their magic darts/arrows can really hurt if they get a chance to use them.
So, they get no such chance. It seems silly, but Imoen engages Maneira in melee (!), Jaheira keeps Telka busy, and the rest of the party deals with the clerics. Khalid gets Held and immediately after Branwen eats a Command, but with both ranged combatants occupied, there is no one to capitalize on our misfortune, and the battle soon swings in our favour.
We return to Beregost and receive our reward, clearing the Wolf pack while in the area. We also nip south to Nashkel to take care of a few things: Vitiare is punished, and Zordral dealt with.
While in the general area, we head into the Valley of the Tombs. My intent is to keep pushing along the main plot, and since we'll be dealing with Natasha, a Wand of Monster Summoning will be handy.
The local undead are easily dispatched (the Revenant is extremely vulnerable to fire damage and so a Scorcher charge does for him), and I finally figure out that Narcillicus is a Necromancer and so has no defensive Illusions. Tough break.
There's one more thing to do before going after the Cloakwood Mine: Getting Jaheira her armour.
We clear the entire Ankheg area and give Brun the hoard to help him keep his farm, head to Beregost to get the armour started, then clear some more random crap while waiting: We do the Fishermen quest, dispose of twenty Zombies, and head back and loot the Bandit Camp etc. The armour is soon ready, and we take the opportunity to pickpocket Algernon: Coran's 40 Pickpocket + another 40 from a Potion of Master Thievery is enough, though we had a few Charm Person/Dire Charm ready to give us additional tries if needed.
Back into the Cloakwood! Jaheira's presence allows for solving the Aldeth Sashenstar quest peacefully, and we do so. We finish clearing the Spider area out: Khalid (with Protection from Fire/Resist Fire and Cold) charges in against Centeol, and we carefully aim our Fireballs to take out her many Giant Spiders.
The fight goes smoothly, though Coran does take a Wand of Frost charge to the face.
The Shadow Druids are suckers for Silence 15' Radius. We leave the Shadow Archdruid alone for now, as you're confined to a rather small area when fighting him (and it's not worth the risk for a +2 Club).
Ah... time for a real battle: Drasus and his gang!
We'll employ the tactics I've begun using since realizing this fight actually isn't that hard.
We can summon three Skeleton Warriors as an initial distraction. The party will take out Drasus first (while Rezdan and Kysus deal with our summons). We'll then keep popping more summons with the Wand of Monster Summoning as necessary, with Coran taking potshots, until we feel comfortable charging in.
This time, I change things up a tad: We employ Algernon's Cloak and successfully charm Genthore. Not bad, another distraction for the enemy mages to deal with.
Drasus falls quickly, as he has... not exactly poor, but certainly not good enough AC to stand up to Coran.
Rezdan and Kysus have separated, with Rezdan moving towards us and Kysus holding his ground to the east. With nothing but 1st and 2nd level spells left, Rezdan is soon undone.
And that's the battle over with, right? Almost. Kysus will not go quietly into the night, however... so he pulls this little bit of douchebaggery out of his sleeve.
I don't really know what happened, but I can guess. I know that Genthore failed his save against Emotion: Hopelessness almost as soon as he was charmed. Rezdan then popped Teleport Field, which is why Genthore's up against the wall. I guess either he got hit by a Cone of Cold and took massive damage, or failed his save against a Chromatic Orb. Either way... no Plate Mail +1 for us. Pfeh. This is what I get for altering my tactics!
Still, we have many spells remaining. We loot the bunkhouse, then head into the mine proper. I'm a lot less fearful of Hareishan than I've been in the past: She goes heavy on Enchantment spells. Devastating if you attack her with your entire party or if she has a lot of guards as backup, quite a bit less deadly if she only has a well-armoured Fighter as target and no friends around. We bombard and shoot her guards into oblivion, and try as she might (and she does, with Khalid being Dire Charmed three times), there's little she can do on her own.
On the next level, the Ogre Mage is vulnerable to Command and so a pushover. Natasha proves troublesome, as she comes running after Coran and nails him with a Fireball: Fortunately, he makes his save and ducks into a sideroom, and eventually she exhausts her big damage spells on Wand of Monster Summoning charges. With the path to Davaeorn cleared, we retreat, rest up, and return.
This time, we'll make no attempt to hold off Davaeorn's reinforcements: It's practically a given that he'll kill them off for us anyway. Benedict, Jaheira and Branwen go invisible. Coran gets every buffing potion that might possibly help (after applying a PfM scroll), and Imoen/Khalid assist by an initial bombardment aimed at Davaeorn's two Battle Horrors. It takes Coran a little time, but he kills one Battle Horror, and as predicted, Davaeorn kills the other one. Along with several guards.
Imoen didn't have time to cast Invisibility on herself before catching the business end of a few MMM, but she quaffed a Potion of Invisibility and survived. Now, this is why I used Coran and not Khalid: Coran has a better ranged THAC0 than Khalid does melee THAC0 (even with Giant Strength Potions in play), and unlike Khalid can hit Davaeorn whenever he is in sight, not requiring him to be in melee range. Davaeorn falls very quickly once he obliges us by clearing out his own guards.
Hooray! We steal everything that isn't nailed down, flood the mines, and escape Cloakwood Forest unimpeded. We won't do a tour of Baldur's Gate proper just yet, but a few things need to happen:
First, we deal with Desreta and Vay-Ya, so that Khalid can finally stop being on the verge of encumbered.
Next, we do Ramazith's questline (we do the Varci Roaringhorn questline as well since it's practically on the way, and it gets Khalid a nice shield), but betray the mage and ascend his tower.
Being a Necromancer, he stands literally no chance, falling in a single round to simple mass ranged fire.
Excellent! Now... to Durlag's Tower! Not the whole tower, of course, but Coran needs less heavy armour than regular Plate Mail, so we'll clear the above-ground levels as well as the one with the Warders.
We take the time to go through the Basilisk Gardens on the way. Mutamin doesn't even try to dispel the PfP on Coran, making his demise a swift one. Kirian's party is, of course, woefully outmatched by now: We simply charge them, not even bothering with Web or Fireball.
So, we venture forth to Durlag's Tower. Getting inside is uneventful, as are the first two levels (and the balcony outside). However, I for some reason did not have Branwen memorize Animate Dead... so Khalid tries to deal with the Ghost. With predictable results.
Yep... he failed his save against Cloudkill. I can't complain: This is the first death so far.
We bust out the Wand of Monster Summoning and bring the Ghost down, gather Khalid's equipment, rush back to Beregost and have him raised, and return to Durlag's. The remaining Ghasts aboveground are no trouble, nor is Kirinhale: We picked up the Greenstone Amulet previously, and along with Oil of Speed and Potion of Fire Giant Strength, this lets Khalid turn the Succubus into mincemeat, everyone else standing by under Invisibility.
The Warder level is entirely uneventful: The worst that happens is a Skeleton Warrior landing a few hits on Khalid. We gather the loot and make our way back to Beregost, not yet having triggered the fight with the Warders.
We might as well go for (almost) full completion. Shoal is rescued from Droth, though the dainty Coran fails his save and is revived by the Nereid. The Helmet of Defense goes to Khalid.
The Sirines are handled via 2x Web, along with Improved Invisibility and Free Action on Khalid (Yep... Branwen is L7 now!). Arrows of Fire and a few MMM does for the guardian Flesh Golems, and we head towards Brage's area. The Doomsayer stands no chance, and we return Brage to the temple.
Finally, we do Arghain's area. Why not, it's there.
Arghain lands a good hit on Khalid for 18 damage but really, what is he going to do... he's just a melee brute. I forget myself for a moment and allow Benedict to wander too close to the local bandits, leading to Billy getting a shot in for 11 damage, but that's nothing life-threatening by this stage.
We finish the area and head for Firewine Bridge.
Coran quaffs a few Potions of Master Thievery and swipes Bentan's PfM scroll, and Meilum is rudely cut down whilst orating about his supposedly tremendous skill. Though I contemplated for once just skipping Firewine Ruins, we end up clearing them. It goes quick enough, Khalid and Coran slaying Kobold Commandos with each hit. Lendarn gets stuck in his own Web while dealing with some Skeleton Warriors and so expires much sooner than usual. We finish off the Ogre Mage and gather a small reward from Gandolar Luckyfoot. Off to Ulcaster!
The entire dungeon goes by without much issue. The Wolf of Ulcaster gets treated to all manner of spellworks: Greater Malison, Doom, Slow, Flame Arrow (from Benedict for the save penalty, of course!), with Skeleton Warriors blocking the reinforcing Dread Wolves, Remove Fear active and Free Action on Khalid (since the Wolf can Hold on hit).
The only wilderness area remaining is the one with the Red Wizards. Invisible Benedict triggers Web traps all over the place, and a Free Action ensures we can deal with a large group of Spiders, including Giant ones.
Against the wizards, we employ hasted summons and basic buffs, with Benedict quite safe under MGoI and MSD. A Remove Disease is helpful to clear up Coran's sight after he failed his save against Blindness, and the wizards fall, having accomplished nothing besides somehow hitting Jaheira with MMM when she had effective AC -10.
We swing by High Hedge to offload our loot, and then turn straight back around, arriving at the Elfsong Tavern in Baldur's Gate. This is a good spot to stop for now: Next time, we'll adventure throughout the city proper, delve into the demented depths of Durlag's dread tor, cleanse the great beasts of Balduran's Isle, and possibly even aquire a scroll of Stoneskin (still debating if it's worth the risk... but a scroll of PfM should eliminate that risk).
Benedict is now a L7 Human Conjurer.
Yeldon - half-elf clerric/ranger, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Denko - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
Keras - dwarven kensai (Grond0)
So the Trio made some good progress today. We forged the IMoD and then made our way to Brynnlaw. We helped Ginai then destroyed Perth the Adept by attacking from invisibility. Unsurprisingly, Yeldon destroyed Bhaal in melee. We then proceeded to try to clear the various levels of Spellhold. This went pretty much by the numbers like usual. Irenicus was unable to survive our assault - well actually he did, he just ran like a coward.
We then took Saemon's "ship" and found ourselves in Shark City. Mostly we wanted the Cloak of Mirroring, as well as the sweet monk gauntlets. Keras soloed some undead (why not) with a pro undead scroll.
We then found ourselves in the Underdark. We then worked on clearing out all those elementals - Denko didn't want to range attack, so paid for it with his life. We skipped the soul gems, other than freeing the gnome.
The biggest problem we had was Grond0 kept dropping from the game - at the end, he was 450k less experience than denko, though probably he is less than 50k back in reality. We might need to EE him to the correct experience.
Last big task of the day was to take on the Balor of the gnome village. Yeldon had two CC's so used them on himself and Keras. Denko duly failed his save and was stunned so had to watch while his groupmates had all the fun, with Yeldon getting the killing blow on the demon.
We ran out of time here, so will continue to Kua-toa lair next session.
We're going for another attempt, hoping to put an end to our string of unusual deaths. The rules are simple: Fully randomized party, randomized hp rolls, insane difficulty, no mods. Also, I have to continue playing no matter how many deaths and chunkings I suffer (unless the main character dies, of course) and I can't get rid of "useless" party members on purpose.
This is the party my randomization system provided me with this time:
The Bhaalspawn:
Cephalus, male human lawful good beast master:
Stats: 14/16/15/9/17/8, Racial Enemy: Skeleton, Proficiencies: *Quarterstaff/*Longbow/*Weapon and Shield Style/*Two-Weapon Style
This is a pretty decent main character - the physical attributes are very nice, and we do get some extra hp from being able to summon a familiar, who will also help out with combat early on. The pip in longbow is a great start as well.
Ouranus, male gnome chaotic neutral priest of talos:
Stats: 15/18/12/12/12/10, Proficiencies: *Club/*Sling
Very good dexterity, and a point in slings to go along with it. Sadly, low wisdom, but I do like having a single class cleric in the early game for command/hold person and to get early access to skeleton summons.
Oedipus, male half-orc lawful evil cleric/thief:
Stats: 16/14/16/7/11/12, Proficiencies: *Mace/*Single Weapon Style
Once again low wisdom, but nice physical stats. The proficiencies are relatively useless here, but the class is very flexible and one of my favorite multiclass combos. Sadly, no wand of heavens usage due to low int.
Dumuzid, male dwarf chaotic neutral swashbuckler:
Stats: 11/11/15/10/14/15, Proficiencies: *Club/*Katana
This is one of these characters we don't really need. We already have a thief, and this one has very mediocre stats with nothing special to offer. He does have the best charisma score in our party, though, so he might be our face character.
Ceres, female half-elf chaotic neutral fighter/mage:
Stats: 16/6/11/16/12/14, Proficiencies: *Short Sword/*Flail-Morning Star/*Shortbow/*Sling
Always good to have an arcane spellcaster. This one will be squishy. Luckily, 6 dexterity, while terrible, doesn't actually provide any negatives (you'd need 5 for that), and she does start with some ranged abilities. Hopefully we can keep her alive until she gets some decent defensive spells.
Kaveh, male dwarf true neutral fighter/thief
Stats: 17/13/15/17/10/7, Proficiencies: *Short Sword/*Spear/*Quarterstaff/*Sword and Shield Style
Good strength, but otherwise not the greatest. We don't need another thief, to be frank. Would've liked some kind of pure fighter here, but he will have to do.
All in all, this party is relatively average, maybe slightly above that because of its versatility. No standouts, nothing truly terrible, every role is accounted for. Certainly a party that could succeed in theory.
We start things off by doing the Candlekeep quests, picking up items from Imoen, Gorion, Xzar and Montaron and traveling right to the basilisks area, avoiding any encounters on the way. Our pseudo dragon does have immunity against petrification, so we have a backup in case something happens to Corax - the southern group of lizards is quickly dealt with:
We avoid getting too close to the adventurers in the middle of the map and take out Mutamin, who gets paralyzed before being able to finish a spell:
We get some much needed experience from this and start dealing with a few minor quests/encounters next:
- Joia's ring, Tarnesh and Landrin's spiders (we do have the sleep spell for that one)
- The belt ogre
- Karlat, Neira and Greywolf (they all fall to hold person)
- Perdue's sword, Mirianne's letter, the Colquetle family amulet
- Marl and Firebead's book
- Talking to Noober and Oublek for some free rep/xp
- Talking to Hafiz and bringing back Samuel to the FAI (we get lucky and meet a winter wolf on the way)
- Dealing with the Dorn encounter before picking up the Wand of Frost
- Using said Wand of Frost to get more experience by having Ceres kill the two battle horrors at Durlag's:
- Helping out Neera with sleep and command:
Meanwhile, we've been picking up various goodies. A sling +1 was our only purchase so far - we will soon boost our reputation and get some scrolls for Ceres, though. Party levels are 2-4 right now, and all of our new profiency points have been put into ranged weapons. So far, it's all about not getting hit while applying command/hold person/sleep. Updates for this run might be a little less frequent/expansive than my usual speed, because I have a lot of RL things going on right now.
Addi's starting spells are Blindness, Shield, and Sleep, and weapon prof is daggers for melee/ranged flexibility and two ranged APR.
Rules:
- insane difficulty without extra damage,
- items must be identified before use,
- max HPs for all creatures in the game,
- no potion stacking,
- staying true to alignment (basically no evil actions),
- a full party is to be gathered asap, so at level 1-2,
- no EEKeepering of NPCs (kits, proficiencies, etc)
Mods: BGQE, BG1 NPC Project, BG1UB, RR, SCS (full), mostly convenience tweaks and cosmetic stuff from aTweaks and CDTweaks, Finch, The Calling (Beta) and some banter mods.
Addi, TN Gnomish Illusionist (1st BG1 report)
Addi does his Candlekeep chores without incident, running into prospective companion Finch while at it. Immediately moving eastward on the morning after Gorion's fall allows Addi to neither see nor hear Imoen. This helps with deciding not to have her around. Addi puts a rogue ogre to sleep, quite permanently, and traveled to the FAI where he is almost magically drawn to a hidden, enchanted ring. He approaches the inn to look for Khalid and Jaheira, but has to put another troublemaker to sleep first.
They reach Beregost in good order and decided to check into the Red Sheaf, only to be accosted by Karlat. This encounter is hard for level 1 characters, but Addi's Blindness, cast at the still blue-circled but menacing-sounding Dwarf ("You're at the end of your rope, I'll wager!"), decides the confrontation in the party's favor. It also leads to Addi meeting Finch again. The cleric promptly joins the party, and helps out slaying the huge spiders that have taken over Landrin's home. The four then travel to Nashkel, dealing with hobgoblins, ogrillons, and Neira (Command + Blindness).
Berrun Ghastkill, Khalid, and Jaheira want the party to investigate the Nashkel mines, but Addi first wants a party that he thinks covers the bases of adventuring. For instance, he wants a thief. Khalid and Jaheira (who has already started to wear on his nerves, having called him a slave driver one more than one occasion) are released of their duty to look after Addi.
Halflings tend to make good thieves, so the Addi and Finch travel to Gullykin, and they are in luck: Alora comes on board. Not much later they run into more roguish characters in and around Beregost: Tiax joins the party as do Xzar and Montaron. Lanky Xzar stands out like a sore thumb, towering over the others as he does. This gave me a dilemma: do I stick to the underused NPCs concept or am I going to make this a shorty run? After some deliberation Xzar was allowed an indefinite amount of time off to attend to some Zhentarim business, while Quayle joined the clique in his stead.
With the help of Tiax's ghast, Greywolf is defeated. Minor quests follow: Samuel, polar bear, Gnarl and Hairtooth (also with Tiax's ghast). Tiax seems to have very strict reputation requirements withe the BG1 NPC Project mod. He buggers off in the gnoll stronghold area, displeased with the party's work, while reputation is still below 19, and despite my having installed the happy patch on top of the mod. Alora knicks some of his gear before he's permanently gone. The party slowly makes their way back to Nashkel, handling Ingot, Ludrug, and Krumm and Caldo, a dead cat, Rufie, and Sendai (Hold Person) on the way.
With one vacant position on the team, Kivan is temporarily recruited to trigger the Jozzi Seasnake quest. Two Sahuagin are put to sleep by Addi, while the chieftain (who has an impressive pool of 128 HPs) is repeatedly Commanded to ensure the survival of Jozzi and her elven friend, and also ensuring that Addi earns himself a +2 returning throwing dagger. Kivan is released to hunt bandits, with difficulty again, as he is in my top 5 (if not 3) of favorite NPCs.
Reputation is pushed to 20, and so the time comes for Addi (18 Charisma + Algernon's cloak) and Alora (100 pickpocket without potions) to procure some choice equipment for the party: shadow armor, neutral archmagi robe, claw of kazgaroth (for Alora), cloak of displacement, wand of the heavens, scrolls for Quayle and Addi, ring of free action, the works.
The five do some pretty much risk-free ankheg hunting, courtesy of the Sleep spell, and help Tenya so as to advance XP a bit so that Kagain joins as a level 4 fighter with an amount of XP similar to that of the others. Kagain immediately dons a suit of full plate mail, the gauntlets of dexterity, and a helm of charm protection (a BG1UB item), making him a solid tank.
Addi fails to charm Bassilus wit Algernon's cloak, so the party has to retreat when the cleric summons an aerial servant. Bassilus however teleports right into their midst. Thanks to Finch and Quayle's Commands the party can deal with him easily enough.
Addi then copies lots of scrolls into his spellbook with the red potion from the Nashkel Carnival for guaranteed success.
Montaron loots Black Alaric's cave but sirines and golems are left alone. The party helps Charleston Nib and Brage, and then goes basilisk hunting. Kagain gets the honor of becoming the party's basilisk slayer, but he also becomes the party's first member to fall: Mutamin comes after him from behind the fog of war, fails twice to Remove his PfPetrification, but injures him with Melf's Acid Arrows and MMs, which at one point prompts the dwarf's morale to break. A black bear then kills him.
Gnolls fail to kill Drizzt, and Addi is not nearly so evil as to get his party to attack the ranger, so Montaron (who had even invested a first proficiency pip in scimitars) will have to switch between a yet to acquire suit of full plate and studded leathers.
Kagain resists Shoal's kiss in that he runs off in panic after his HPs are reduced to 1, thankfully not toward the ogre-ilk. Addi Blinds Droth, making that encounter a walk in the park; Shoal is spared.
Meilum and Vax and Zal are taken on for their gauntlets, before Kagain goes sirine-killing. With the light crossbow of speed and with charm protection he has little to fear from them. Flesh golems are slain as well.
The Calling, a mod in progress, that seeks to add class-specific quests to the game (in the vein of the thieving quests at the guild in BG), then takes the party to the Nashkel Mines. The mod adds a quest to find te bracers that transformed Melicamp, if the latter is saved. At one point Melicamp is supposed to be at the Nashkel Mines, so the party decide to investigate the mines after all. They search the mines very thoroughly, using lots of Sleep spells to deal with the kobolds. The kobold chieftain is felled by Montaron's backstab and Alora's arrow; the shaman is blinded by Addi.
Mulahey manages to Hold Montaron, but Addi's Sleep spell and wand fireball finish off the summons, while his Blindness hits Mulahey, allowing the party to dispatch the half-orc and Monty to survive.
Skeleton warriors provoked Nimbul into wasting his spells before the party engages him. Tranzig is subdued through brute force (his save vs spells is very good).
The Lamalha ambush followed. Addi casts a Web, hoping to get Zeela, Maneira and Telka, but only Zeela end up tangled up in it. Maneira backstabs Addi for 16 damage, so he goes invisible and heals up. Quayle Commands Maneira but suffers a ranged hit from Telka so he retreats. Finch engages Lamalha (protected by the ring of free action). Monty and Kagain injure Maneira to the point of her morale breaking, and Alora finishes her off with a poisoned arrow from the kobold chieftain. Monty and Kagain finish Zeela, and Addi Blinds Telka and Lamalha.
Molkar and his gang track the party down as well. Molkar and Morvin only have melee weapons, so Halacan and Drakar are more dangerous. Addi uses the wand of monster summoning to place some fodder between the two casters. Quayle Commands Drakar, and Finch Flamestrikes Halacan. Drakar is finished off first, with ranged attacks from the party and a summoned ogre in melee. The other summons deal with Halacan moments later. A Command and a barrage of missiles do Molkar in, and Morvin can't do much on his own against 11 enemies.
In the Wood of Sharp Teeth the companions are quite thorough. Corsone is Held by Finch, and shot down. Lots of bandits and black talons are slain using Webs, fireballs and backstabs.
The party, not far from a few level-ups (Montaron, Addi, Quayle), takes a side trip to the Ulcaster school. At the cost of 5 potions of freedom,
The company infiltrates the bandit stronghold through Raiken, appeases Tazok, loots the chests, bags, and barrels, enters Tazok's tent, and kills pretty much everyone with an inferno of wand, necklace, and potion fireballs.
Taugosz is Commanded and Blinded. Montaron, Finch, Alora, and Kagain deal with him, while Quayle and Addi keep incoming bandits at bay with fireballs.
Sadly my Champion of Bane died as a result of having been put to sleep. He was doing well before that happened.
Thaal (female dwarf priest of Lathander, Gate70); Shane (male halfling swashbuckler, Grond0)
The one-way exit from Nashkel mine almost led us into Lamahla and her amazons. Thaal summoned up a few skeletons, aimed a Silence and Holy Smite. Then we moved in to deal with them.
Back at Nashkel Nimbul was silenced, but Tranzig in Beregost proved to be of sterner stuff and lasted several rounds. With details of how to reach a bandit camp we set off and soon had it under our control. Silence in their main tent led to a very one-sided finale so we headed off to Cloakwood full of confidence.
If you are ever asked to gather around, think twice as you may not be able to do much later.
Cloakwood mine itself was safely negotiated, with Thaal proving to be a sturdy defender and Shane adept at lunging out from shadows with his Varscona longsword. Eventually we reach Davaeorn and remove most of his traps. He frazzles a pair of skeletons with lightning bolts and declares his intransigence about our chances. Thaal only requires one bullet to press our point home.
It would probably have been safer to get those first few levels elsewhere (Beregost and Nashkel and the surrounding areas).
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1025419/#Comment_1025419
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1025988/#Comment_1025988
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1026657/#Comment_1026657
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1026970/#Comment_1026970
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1027536/#Comment_1027536
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1027790/#Comment_1027790
Burl made light work of Spellhold. With critical attacks now starting to threaten double hundreds, progress didn't take long even at 1 APR.
After a shipwreck and rescue by some sahuagins, Burl explored the City. That was done a touch hastily though and resulted in him triggering a maze trap.
It look a little while to chew through the stoneskins of the drow mages - but then they couldn't really damage Burl, who was now wearing the Cloak of Mirroring, so that was fair enough. He used his power attack HLAs to prevent the balor from attacking.
He used invisibility to get a free attack on the Elder Orb, but failed to kill it. However, an efreeti fireball and a couple of further rounds of attacks with FoA bonus damage finished it off before it tried imprisonment.
The illithid were left in peace while Burl went to talk to Adalon and then enter Ust Natha. He didn't bother with any work there though, just buying a few things from the local merchants. Then it was back to attack Adalon. Burl nipped in and out using Soul Reaver to reduce Adalon's attack and added a potion of invulnerabilty when he was malisoned. Once stoneskins were down the dragon didn't last long and Burl picked up another level.
Burl hadn't cleared the drow from the door and had to do that to escape - finishing one of those off with his first double hundred damage hit.
War Hulk L36, 407 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 1216 kills (463 in BGEE/SoD)
BG1EE updates: 1, 2
First SoD update found here
We embark upon our adventures throughout the city.
Yago is simply cut down; he's too low-level to pose a threat. Larze gets treated to a double Horror and fails both saves, though to be fair you can just kite him if you want. We of course pick up the Wisdom tome for Benedict while curing ourselves of poison (Lothander gets to live), with Marek as is customary being handled by Skeleton Warriors in case he decided to memorize Confusion.
Jenkal and his employer the Ogre Mage, Ratchild and Schlumpsha are cleared from the sewers without much issue.
Niemain and his Necromancer friends are simply charged: With no Illusions, there's little they can do to save themselves from Coran's arrows, and we have many Greenstone Amulet charges remaining should they look likely to finish an Enchantment spell.
Imoen makes a mockery of Sunin: He repeatedly goes invisible and applies Mirror Image, but she just Detects all of his Illusions, and we easily finish him off once his Stoneskins give out. Branwen took a few swings from Sunin's guards, but that's about it.
Wiven and her fellow thieves are bumrushed, with Wiven herself failing her save against the Wand of Paralyzation. After suitable buffs (Bless/Chant/Haste), Jaheira and Khalid handle Degrodel's slew of monsters, with a bit of assistance from Imoen/Benedict wielding Wands of Fire. Old man Gervisse actually gets a well-targetted Confusion off, but enough of us remain unaffected that we can keep the others from attacking the twins or Voltine, and Gervisse goes the way of Wiven, failing his save against the Wand of Paralyzation (the projectile was in mid-air when the Confusion hit).
Not feeling like an honest fight, we treat Grelik and the Maulers of Undermountain to a Fireball barrage (after we make sure that the Waiter isn't in the general area before making them pop). Works wonders; I think I'll deal with them like this from now on, although they're not really that dangerous.
Khalid has pretty decent saves, so manages to tie up Drelik on his own. And even if he does get Confused, there's really not much Drelik can do. There's more that we finish up, of course, but the city goes smoothly overall. Alright, that's Baldur's Gate cleared! Except for the Iron Throne: We'll handle that after we finish TotSC content.
So... I do want that Stoneskin scroll in case something unexpected occurs, so we are teleported to the Ice Island. We only really need two scrolls of PfM for the final fight, so I indulge in having Khalid pop one, along with a plethora of potions, and go to town (invisible Coran cleared the entire dungeon of traps beforehand).
That's... that's spectacular! Andris won't attempt to cast Detect Invisibility if he can see Khalid when he teleports back in, so we make sure Khalid is together with the rest of the (invisible) party.
Since Andris realizes he can't hurt Khalid, he just.. prances around the dungeon? He doesn't try casting anything, not even summons, instead opting to avoid Khalid. Which is a fool's errand, since Khalid has Boots of Speed and an Oil of Speed active.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Supercharged Khalid clears the entire dungeon on his own (though the entire party helps out against Dezkiel, as I'm worried he might use his Stoneskin scroll if we don't kill him quickly). We are never in any danger whatsoever. This is definitely how I'm doing Ice Island from now on... it's a little cheap, but so is cramming a dungeon full of nothing but mages.
Alright, we'll go for Durlag's next, chiefly for the Flametongue +1 (so we have a good way of handling Karoug). This time, all four Warders come after us, and Pride actually runs around to the south of the well, instead of going straight for our summons. We divert a few to hold him off, with the remainder shielding us from Fear.
Khalid and Jaheira are chipping away at Love, but due to its Physical Mirror, the rest of the party has to be content with combatting Fear from a distance. Avarice puts in an appearance with a 46 damage backstab on Coran: See, this is exactly why I wanted that scroll of Stoneskin! To my surprise, Fear dies before Love (this is mostly Coran's doing), but Love soon follows.
Fortunately, Avarice seems to have run out of Invisibility steam (or it's on a timer). Either way, the Warder falls swiftly once we can target him, and he never got to finish Coran off. Pride is then Blinded, Doomed and Slowed in that order, and can no longer hit anything. He soon joins his comrades.
We descend. The only issue with the third level is when an Islanne gets Confusion off: I have to stun Coran with a Wand of Paralyzation to keep him from killing someone, but otherwise, everything goes smoothly. The four Dwarven Doomguards were handled with Free Action and mass Web.
The fourth level awaits. The Greater Wyverns are handled with the help of five summoned Heroes, the remainder of which are quickly disposed of once the last Wyvern falls. As always, we swing by the Skeleton Archers and destroy them all from out of sight with Fireballs, ensuring us a small quiver of 14 Arrows of Dispelling in total (more than enough: I need only 2-3 for Coran to be able to dispel Sarevok's Haste, the rest are just a bonus to help expedite the demise of Angelo and Semaj). The endlessly invisible Ashirukurus get a few good hits in, and I am reminded that it is a necessity to have Free Action when tackling the Greater Ghouls (unsure what their THAC0 is, but they hit a lot), yet no one died.
The chessboard is as always handled by everyone gulping a Potion of Absorption beforehand, and throwing out a massive Fireball barrage. The King survives, as he usually does, but without his many allies just drops without having accomplished anything.
By comparison, the fifth level is completely uneventful. With Free Action up (and several Fireballs to speed things along) we swiftly carve a path. A few Skeleton Warriors make it easier to deal with Grael, but that's pretty much the only time we bothered to buff. Once the level is cleared, we teleport out, as there's really no need to fight the Demon Knight, and it would just make our return to Ulgoth's Beard annoying, what with the Cultists running around. Durlag's Tower, complete (well, after a fashion)!
Time for Balduran's Isle. I like importing the Chain Mail +3... it's certainly not much, but it's something, and it is moderately useful if you're bringing say Viconia along. Which I might, I haven't decided yet.
Anyhow, I find out that Dradeel is a miserable old coot who will go hostile if you pick the wrong conversation option ("Perhaps using a bib could help you avoid those unsightly stains" is apparently a grievous insult), so we have to exit his cottage in a hurry, and can't finish the Dradeel's Spellbook quest. That seems rather silly, but fine. We head over to the beached vessel.
All levels before Karoug's are simply handled by Khalid (under Free Action, as there are Vampiric Wolves here) entering first, gathering all the enemies, with said enemies then succumbing to a hail of arrows and bullets courtesy of Coran and Jaheira. I figure that maybe the Karoug fight, even with Daese being a mage, isn't that bad... and I actually figure right. Daese gets off a single Confusion, but as we scattered upon entry, it only affects Benedict, and he quaffs a Potion of Magic Shielding before it hits.
Branwen gets off a good Holy Smite which forces Daese into her Wolfwere form, and with only melee brutes left, the outcome is not in doubt: Karoug actually dropped very rapidly, though we did barrage him with Magic Missile to speed things along.
Time for the second slipup of this playthrough! I want to finish Delainy's quest (as well as get the Staff Mace +2), so send sanctuaried Branwen into Dradeel's cottage to loot his things. Unfortunately, the chest with items is locked... so stealthed Coran joins in to pick it open. Lockpicking reveals you, so Coran has a Potion of Invisibility. In my infinite wisdom, I decide to try and save that potion by having Coran just run for the exit once he picks the lock.
Jeeeeeez. The combat log doesn't show it, but Branwen failed her save and took 73 magic damage. Dradeel has a friggin' ADHW equivalent? I'm not tackling that headon. At least Coran lived; had he dropped as well, we would probably have had to abandon some non-critical gear. As it is, we manage to move things around to the point where stealthed Coran can shuttle Branwen's gear over to everyone else: If you're invisible but standing atop a loot pile and pick things up from inside the inventory screen, you're not revealed.
We have to leave behind some masterwork ammunition and some crap we were going to sell, but everything important is still with us.
We make our way back onto the mainland, resurrecting Branwen before proceeding.
The Mendas fight again doesn't prove that troublesome, altthough part of it is the fact that the fight is bugged: Baresh, upon dying, always spawns in two Loup-Garou on top of each other, which means they can't move, leaving you free to deal with Mendas. Which we do. Invisible Imoen keeps him from protecting himself with Illusions, and once there are only Loup Garous on the field, Khalid goes to work. We pick up the Chain Mail +3 and head to Baldur's Gate.
Our plan for the fight with Sarevok's acolytes is the same as always. We'll draw in the two initially hostile Shennara's using a summon as bait, and dispose of them, as the rest of the acolytes are not initially hostile and will not assist. Then, it's Skeleton Warriors + buffs time, in an effort to kill off a few key enemies and exhaust their most dangerous spells.
Everything goes off without a hitch. The Shennara's are incapable of even hitting Khalid, and drop quickly despite repeatedly going invisible. The two priests on the right make good targets for our gaggle gang, owing to their weak defenses (why are they wearing light armour?), and indeed, we manage to kill both very quickly, in large part because I also sent Khalid in. He's got decent saves, magic resistance, and if something nasty is coming his way, he can activate the Greenstone Amulet... he'll be fine.
In fact, things go so well that I don't even bother with buffing and doing an all-out charge: Khalid and Coran just quaff an Oil of Speed each, as well as a Potion of Some (I don't recall which) Giant Strength for Khalid, and proceed to clean house. 3-4 Stoneskins and as many Mirror Images won't really help when you're facing some 5x2 + 1x3 + 1x4 = 17 attacks per round, pretty much all of which are going to hit.
The mages just fall without doing much of anything. Gardush puts on a good show, eventually (with some assistance) killing off four of our Skeleton Warriors, but he's no match for Khalid.
Wondering why Khalid isn't taking massive ranged damage, I look around, and it turns out Zhalimar ran out onto the roof when a Skeleton Warrior got up close and personal. Maybe enemies shouldn't change zones when running away? On his own, even Zhalimar can do little, and the last of Sarevok's acolytes fall.
We gather up the loot and, following a bit of a rest, report to Duke Eltan.
As is customary, Benedict spends the fight with the Ogre Mages invisible, as they can deal surprising amounts of damage when they single someone out and mass-cast Chromatic Orb/Melf's Acid Arrow (you need to move away from the party quickly though, as the Ogre Mages are also fond of casting Glitterdust).
Also customarily, the final Ogre Mage never turns hostile and so never breaks his Invisibility, but we entice him out with a few Fireballs aimed in his general direction.
We opt not to kill Rieltar and his cohorts, but they end up dead nonetheless, so we are off for the Catacombs. Nothing here can threaten us, and we soon reach Prat. Prat and Sakul are just overpowered by Skeleton Warriors, Khalid and Coran... I don't think they got any spells off apart from desperate attempts to restore their rapidly failing defenses. The archer, what's-his-face, wanders up near the rest of the group, and is summarily pelted to death. Bor is more of a curiosity than a threat, and falls in moments.
We make our way outside (having remembered to memorize 2x Protection from Petrification for dealing with the two Greater Basilisks), and have a rest at the FAI.
Alright, looking good, but let's not get overconfident (or sloppy... it's not good to arrive at the coronation without damning proof in hand). So, we rescue Duke Eltan first. The Mercenaries get off two good Unholy Blights on us, doing some damage, but no one drops below half health.
Next, Cythandria: Let's not underestimate her this time. Our Skeleton Warriors and Khalid basically ignore her two Stone Golems (they are pelted to death by the rest of the party), and when focused early, Cythandria doesn't have the defenses to survive long enough to cause any serious trouble.
Slythe and Krystin are up. Slythe just drops dead from over-exposure to cold steel, and though it takes over a turn, Krystin falls to Skeleton Warriors (her wonky script makes her invisible every three seconds or so).
I'd never want to fight her straight-up: This time she spent all her L3 slots on Skull Trap, it seems. Wonder how she was planning to pull that off what with Slythe getting caught in the crossfire...
Alright! A quick rest later, we're off for the coronation. Again, tactics remain unchanged. Five Skeleton Warriors will form a barrier in front of the Grand Dukes, Imoen will cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath to keep her alive, and we'll focus, in order, the Doppleganger Mage, Shaman and Assassin. Needless to say, we splurge a bit on potions, but we're saving the big guns for the final battle.
Things go mostly according to plan, although Coran takes a mean backstab. Moments after this screenshot, the shaman falls (you'll note the mage is dead on the ground) and we mop up the remainder, eventually forcing Sarevok to flee with both Grand Dukes still alive. Hooray!
We speed through the maze, stopping to search for traps only when the green splotches on the wall indicate such are present. For some unfathonable reason, I decide to tackle the Undercity party head-on. This is generally a bad idea against an archer with Arrows of Detonation, at least if you didn't prebuff with Protection from Fire (we didn't).
Ick. Fortunately, Benedict is wearing Batalista's Passport, so he was not in serious danger, but still, that was an unnecessary risk. We mop up the enemy party, Shaldrissa being a royal headache by running all over the Undercity and dragging us into additional fights before we can dispose of her. We also pick up the Magma Bulwark +2... Branwen will wear it for the final battle (mostly for style as her contribution starts and ends with summoning Skeleton Warriors). She's actually spent the entire game since the Molkar ambush first in Mail of the Dead +2, then Splint Mail +1 once we looted Duke Eltan's office... and it's worked just fine!
Her AC has been sufficient to keep her safe from ranged attacks, and I never send her into melee. Plus, Chain Mail looks pretty good on clerics, it's somehow fitting.
Anyway, Tamoko is persuaded to stand down, and we prepare for the final battle.
Same procedure as every
year, Jamestime. We have four scrolls of PfM, but we need at most three. Khalid, Jaheira and Coran will handle the fighting, while Benedict, Imoen and Branwen wait invisibly (and under Potions of Absorption, as we shall see) for the dust to settle.PfM, Potions of Mind Focusing (Potion of Agility beforehand for Khalid), Potions of Fortitude/Giant Strength/Heroism/Power and Oils of speed. That's all you really need: Our fighters have excellent THAC0, good APR and tremendous damage. Time to end this.
Branwen (with an assist from Benedict) conjures up five Skeleton Warriors. Chant and Haste are applied, and we are off, fighters leading the charge, everyone else holding back.
First, Sarevok gets an Arrow of Dispelling to remove his Haste. Our super-charged frontliners then swiftly dismantle both Diarmid (he lasts a round) and Tazok (he lasts two rounds). We have a dozen Arrows of Dispelling left, so indulge by stripping Angelo and Semaj of their carefully crafted protections, ensuring their imminent demise. It should be noted that Angelo made liberal use of his Wand of Lightning, hence why those not under PfM need 100% lightning resistance, Invisibility notwithstanding.
With only Sarevok and his own resurrected Skeleton Warriors remaining, we dismantle the enemy undead. We only need a single charge of the Wand of Monster Summoning to occupy Sarevok while everyone except Khalid joins in a ranged barrage.
Again, Sarevok just refuses to properly die, but the battle is clearly won. Baldur's Gate 1 EE, complete.
Benedict finishes the game as a L9 Human Conjurer, and will most certainly return in Siege of Dragonspear.