As some of you may know, I recently finished a SCS/Ascension solo no reload with my F/M, Arcadia. I deliberately completed the final Ascension battle in a way which illustrates certain features of the fight that permit safe passage for no reloaders. I intend to post on the battle at the Bioware forums, but I thought I might post here as well, if there is interest. Let me know.
@semiticgod I'm enjoying reading your run and it's quite insightful too for me. I'll just comment on a few things.
I see you are using the old SRV3, would you like to try V4 instead? It's better refined, more balanced, and fully compatible with EE.
I see for example that you complain about V3 huge save penalties on many spells...well, V4 drastically changed that, going back to a more AD&D style (save penalty not strictly tied to spell lvl) and never going above -4 penalty (-5 and -6 were really insane, back then I was too much 3E oriented).
When it comes to the new Iron Golem form something wrong must be going on and I'd like to make sure it doesn't happen on any install. What other sources of physical damage resistance do you have on?
P.S Thanks for pointing out the Rod of Resurrection shapeshift bug, I guess I'll have to fix that for IR.
@Demivrgvs: You don't need to nerf the Iron Golem form. The only reason it gives Yi Grovana such insane resistances is because she already has innate resistances by virtue of being a randomized character (the party's stats are all randomly generated). It's not unbalanced for a normal character, I think.
It would be sad to see the Rod of Resurrection trick go away. I'm rather fond of these exploits, even if I don't end up using them. Still, the Iron Golem form is outrageously powerful if you get it at such a low level. I've tested the form with a Fighter/Mage/Cleric and several other characters and found that it greatly simplifies the gameplay if you're using it on a class that can't normally cast Shapechange.
I'll install v4 and mention the content changes in my posts.
There are a lot of changes in between the version of SR I was using and v4. Also lots of new changes now that I've installed Item Revisions.
Long story, a lot of my plans no longer work. But I've found some new tricks in their place.
One notable change is that the Robe of Vecna is now wearable by Wizard Slayers, while the Wand of Lightning is not. Unfortunately, the Robe of Vecna has been moved (I believe to the bottom of Watcher's Keep, since that's where SCS2 puts it and I heard somewhere SCS2 got that idea from IR), so Imber is not going to be able to get it for a very, very, very, VERY long time. I was looking forward to using that. Imber would have had a -1 bonus to casting speed with that, and her spellpower would have increased dramatically.
The Wand of Lightning has also been tweaked to only fire three lightning bolts, instead of the normal six, diminishing the power of the Wand of Lightning trick. I didn't plan on using the trick, except maybe to slay Thaxll'ssillyia for giggles, but I did keep the wand around, and now nobody in the party can use it. Rius and Imber are Wizard Slayers, and though IR allows thieves like Yi Grovana to use wands, you still need 12 INT, which neither Grovana nor Poppy possess. Only after UAI will Poppy be able to use it, to triple the effect of her Poison Weapon Ability.
So why don't I just have Rius drink a Potion of Genius, so she could use it triple her Called Shot ability? Well, Potions of Genius no longer exist. They have been replaced by Vocalize potions. So, for the rest of the game, until we find an item that boosts her Intelligence, Rius will be stuck at 11 INT, with a 45% chance of scribing scrolls and a max spell level of 5.
Oh... and Carsomyr no longer gives 50 MR. That has been reduced to MR. Yi Grovana can no longer reach 96 MR. Right after we get Carsomyr, we find it gives us less than half the bonus we expected.
But no matter. I have found an even stronger source of MR, which can cover everyone in the party except for Yi Grovana: Spell Immunity, which in the previous version of SR gave +20 to saving throws for 5 rounds, and was named Wizard Spell Immunity, has once again become an entirely new spell.
Now it's called Dispelling Screen. It makes you immune to Breach (the spell itself and its variants, including the Wand of Spell Striking) as well as the Dispel Magic effect. So it's basically SI: Abjuration, without the immunity to beneficial spells.
But Dispelling Screen also comes with a 50% bonus to magic resistance. And it lasts 5 turns, rather than 1 turn as the description says. And it's flagged as undispellable.
And it stacks.
Rius still only has one 5th-level spell slot, but with Carsomyr, even in nerfed form, she can achieve 100 MR. The others can hit 100 MR with two castings of the spell. We're not immune to all spells, but we can resist almost anything.
I decide to test it out on the Shade Lich.
Unfortunately, traps aren't really conducive to long battles. Yi Grovana wins the fight only a couple rounds in.
Instead, I will test out Dispelling Screen on the Beholders right before the ruined temple of Amaunator. Imber and Poppy get hit by Anti-Magic Rays.
But when I check the Record screen, their MR is still at 100! It didn't break it down!
At least, not until the Beholders used the ray a second time. Then my party's MR started to drop. It still gave us enough time to make a dent in the Beholders, but we got a little overwhelmed. Rius got hit by Telekinesis and was about to get swarmed by Shadows when she recovered, but she was able to Dimension Door to safety.
I'm quite pleased with that spell. This is the first time I've used it, and though it didn't hurt any enemies, it forced the Shadows to attack from a convenient choke point, the stairs off the platform.
Around here, I noticed that Improved Haste no longer doubles attacks. Now it gives a normal Haste effect, plus some bonuses to THAC0 and saves vs. breath, does not cause fatigue, lasts 1 turn, and has an area effect. The 3rd-level haste spell, meanwhile, only affects one critter, and has nasty fatigue penalties right afterward. I'm not sure the 3rd-level version is worth it anymore. Without Protection from Fire, and with Skull Trap and Haste nerfed, 3rd-level spells are pretty weak on the whole.
Anyway, I headed to Ghoul Town and thankfully did not have to deal with a Lich. Just normal undead grunts. We finally get a hold of the Gauntlets of Dexterity, but now they only grant +2 to DEX instead of setting it to 18. Yi Grovana gets 1 extra AC from it in Salamander form, but otherwise it is useless to this party. Rius can use it, since IR allows Kensais to wear bracers, but her DEX is 10. No bonuses going from 10 to 12.
Yi Grovana also tried on the Skin of the Ghoul. Turns out it didn't quite fit her.
The Skin of the Ghoul now gives a -2 penalty to CHA. Guess how much CHA Yi Grovana has?
I pull out the Rod of Resurrection to bring her back. In IR, the rod doesn't heal the target; it merely raises the dead and starts them at 1 HP. The charges have also been revamped: now it can be used two times per day, and recharges. Since it's usable by Wizard Slayers, Imber uses the rod to bring back her sister. It doesn't quite work out.
Somehow, she was still wearing the Skin of the Ghoul when she was revived. With her CHA drained back down to zero, she instantly died.
I try again and finally she gets up. I was afraid I'd rendered her unrecoverable.
Now we have some more Beholders to take down. And now we know our MR is not unassailable. First, I send in Imber, invisible and heavily buffed, to take down the Blind Priests. She chain-casts Sunfire. The results are grim.
Sunfire isn't safe to use on the Beholders, though. If Imber gets too close, she might get her MR dispelled before the Beholders are dead, and though Enrage would keep her from getting paralyzed, she could still get messed up with spell damage. Instead, I turn to my old mainstay: summoning monsters, turning invisible, and letting my summons do the work.
It seems the Efreeti has received some buffs, I believe due to IR... it's not the same as it was in my other SCS2 runs. Aside from a slightly different spell set, this Efreeti apparently will revert to gaseous form, just like a real Efreeti, when it is injured, and regenerate while it is invulnerable.
The number of MR checks here is just absurd. Beholders can spam their way through almost anything. And since SCS2 Beholders have a 30% chance PER RAY of dispelling spell protections, we don't have a lot of options at our disposal.
There is, of course, an install option in which Beholder rays don't break down spell protections. If there's something you don't like about SCS2, there's probably an install option to remove it. But I have the nastier option installed, so Dispelling Screen won't be enough to make me immune.
I clear the dungeon of Beholders. All that's left is the Unseeing Eye.
The thing about the Unseeing Eye in Sword Coast Stratagems is that SCS2 makes it almost impossible to kill without the Rift Device. How does it do this? It gives it a special item named DW#UNSEE.
What does this item do? This item gives it immunity to all spell levels, 1 to 9, as well as immunity to the elements, immunity to poison, immunity to +3 weapons and below, and 95% resistance to physical damage. Yes, better than Kangaxx.
But the Rift Device doesn't kill the Unseeing Eye, right? It only weakens it, by dropping its HP to 40. So how does the Rift Device make this thing killable?
It does this by removing the DW#UNSEE item. The Rift Device removes that item when it hits.
Well... I didn't know this at the time, but it looks like Item Revisions edits the Rift Device. Which would explain why the Rift Device, according to my files, no longer removes the DW#UNSEE item.
What does this mean? This means that when the SCS2 Unseeing Eye gets hit by a non-SCS2 Rift Device, the Unseeing Eye gets reduced to 40 HP... but still retains those crazy resistances.
I limit myself to one day's worth of traps laid in advance. This means Yi lays 3 traps, while Imber lays 2 (out of the three that she tried to lay). I summon some spiders and spirit animals after bringing up Dispelling Screen for the MR, and Spell Shield to ward of dispelling attacks. I march my summons over to the Unseeing Eye's spawning point and pick up the second half of the device, triggering the enemy to spawn in.
It triggers some of our traps, but not all, since I laid them in a line up the hall, rather than in a cluster. I use the Rift Device and immediately activate Enrage to make sure Imber is functional in case she needs to turn invisible and escape the battle.
The Unseeing Eye hits Badly Injured and its Chain Contingency triggers, spawning in two Death Tyrants. One of them sets off a trap. We single it out as the weak link and attack it.
Poppy's MR buffs get dispelled, despite having Spell Shield active. I try to have her re-cast Dispelling Screen--it should come out quickly, since she has a bonus to casting speed--but the Unseeing Eye tosses out Web. Despite her remaining 21 MR and excellent saves, Poppy gets webbed.
Poppy recovers but fails to renew her defenses. One Death Tyrant has fallen. We bring down the second one, since the Unseeing Eye still has PFMW active and, to my surprise, it was also immune to nonmagical darts. By the time the second Death Tyrant falls, the Unseeing Eye's PFMW spell runs out.
It has more.
I have already tried to hit it with spells, using two Secret Word spells (which in SR have a casting time of 1, and can be spammed by Imber) to take down its Spell Deflection pre-buff, but even then, my single-target spells have no effect. It is impervious to both spells and weapons.
Then things start going downhill.
Not a good sign. Notice we have just been hit with Greater Malison--in SCS2, a sure prelude to some very dangerous spells.
Notice also that there is another PFMW spell activating via Contingency. We have to wait even longer to begin breaking down its Stoneskins. While we're waiting, I have Imber run away and try to lay some more traps from a distance, but only one of them succeeds. I try to hit it with Sunfire, too, only to see it has magic resistance.
Rius gets imprisoned, but since SR tweaks Imprisonment, she does not vanish from the party. This prevents Imprisonment from screwing up romances and such.
Poppy gets blinded. Imber's Enrage runs out. She can no longer venture into the Unseeing Eye's line of sight safely, so she hangs back until she can cast Enrage again.
Finally the Unseeing Eye's PFMW spells wear off, and only its Stoneskins are left. Imber's fatigue wears off, so she activates Enrage and returns to the fray. Our Wizard Slayer levels start taking a toll on the enemy.
That was a long-duration Transmutation spell, directed at Imber, probably a Ruby Ray of Reversal. Imber will be able to hold onto her 100 MR.
But the Unseeing Eye has more than wizard spells at its disposal. The fight is not over.
We struggle to harm the Unseeing Eye. It still has many Stoneskins left. And without Rius, we have a considerable disadvantage in APR. Our summons, too, are nearly all gone.
Worse yet, only Imber remains with her MR intact. The others are vulnerable to spells. We fail a save.
Then another. And another.
I bring them back with the Rod of Resurrection. While Imber is healing Yi Grovana and feeding her potions, Poppy fails another save. An important one.
Meanwhile, Imber is saddled with some unwanted Minute Meteors. I only just find out the Unseeing Eye is immune to them. I tried to get rid of them, but still have a few left. I can't start hurting the Unseeing Eye, or even tacking on spell failure, until I get rid of them. And I'm not willing to use them on Yi Grovana. We're weak enough as it is.
Oddly enough, the fog of war in the hallway, where Poppy stands petrified, is clear, as though Poppy were still alive. And despite Yi Grovana and Imber both hiding out in the eastern chamber, out of the Unseeing Eye's line of sight, it manages to track us down.
I split a couple of Potions of Invisibility between Yi and Imber. They're usable by all classes, including Wizard Slayers, and I remember being able to escape this battle once with invisiblity.
The Unseeing Eye is not fooled. It teleports over to us and promptly targets Yi Grovana. Since all Beholders have constant effect Improved Alacrity, just like Imber (but without the casting speed penalty), it can immediately cast its next spell. It also triggers one of Yi Grovana's pre-set traps, but its Stoneskin blocks the damage.
Grovana fails her save.
Meanwhile, Imber's rage has worn off, and she won't be able to use it for a few more seconds. She has no immunities left, and her MR can be dispelled within seconds. And the Unseeing Eye can see through her invisibility.
She starts to flee, hoping the Unseeing Eye won't be able to disable her. She is the only party member left, and the Unseeing Eye still has Stoneskins left. I have been considering stacking Called Shot to kill it with STR drain, but I need to get rid of my Minute Meteors first, and I need a decoy if I am to hit the Unseeing Eye safely.
Then a breakthrough happens. The Unseeing Eye collapses, felled by the lingering damage from Yi Grovana's traps, mere moments before.
The beast is dead. Now I just have to get back my party members.
The Ring of Earth Control can't cast Stone to Flesh in IR, but we do have a scroll of Stone to Flesh tucked away in Imber's Scroll Case for precisely this occasion. Poppy rejoins the party and gathers her equipment, only to end up getting chased around by a still-hostile Yi Grovana.
She's unarmed, but Poppy casts Stoneskins just in case.
I collect the group and start to head out--we need to buy a scroll of Freedom for Rius--but get stopped along the way.
I forgot that Imprisonment in SR has been replaced with a Maze effect. Instead of removing the party member from the group, or killing the main character, it simply sets the target's INT to 1 and Mazes the target a couple seconds later, ensuring a lengthy but non-permanent Maze effect. I rest, Rius returns, and we head to the temple of Amaunator to return the Rift Device.
Except, we don't have it. Normally the Rift Device, when activated, removes itself from your inventory and adds in a depleted version instead. They're two separate items, but somehow, we have neither. We lost the Rift Device but failed to get the expended Rift Device. Nor did Imber drop it: I check back on the hallway where she used it and the expended Rift Device is nowhere in sight. And since we only rested less than a day, it can't have vanished.
I cheat in the expended version and turn it in. On the way out, we pounce on Gaal. Once Yi Grovana casts True Sight, he is doomed.
After a blissful week in the country Blackraven got back home, and back to Baldur's Gate. It didn't take the game very long to duly consign any romantic notions of completing a roleplayed, full party no-reload trilogy run to the junkyard.
Lenhardt and company cleared the Cloudpeak areas, freed Dynaheir, acquired what spells were for sale (or for the taking, thanks to Alora) and scribed them into their books (thanks to Gellana's potions). They cleared the Nashkel Mines without incident, and even survived two consecutive ambushes in Beregost. The first battle against Molkar and co, went swell with Officer Vai, two Flaming Fist, and even injured Bjornin helping out, even though Dynaheir, Xan (who had taken Kivan's place, for an arcane-heavy crew) and Quayle flirted with death.
The second ambush caused a lot more trouble. Right after the first ambush (i.e. without any healing or resting), the party went to the Thunderhammer Smithy to sell some loot. When they left the smithy, Lamalha and friends appeared.
Three party members weren't fit for battle: Dynaheir, Quayle, and Xan. They quaffed potions of invisibility. Imoen, Alora, and Lenhardt went back to the Jovial Juggler where they hoped Bjornin and the Flaming Fists officers would come to their aid. Lenhardt threw a Web on the ambushers (and others), but Alora, Immy and the Gnome were outside the spell's AoE. At a certain point one of the priestesses successfully cast Rigid Thinking on Alora, causing the Halfling to slay at least one commoner.
The whole inn, including Jessa Vai, Bjornin and the two Fist, went hostile. Reputation plummeted to 6. Alora was killed by a summoned Skeleton, Imoen left the inn, and Lenhardt and his invisible companions went upstairs where the companions would block any pursuers, allowing the Gnome to finish them off.
Lenhardt managed to pick up Alora's loot downstairs, and the crew left the inn. Thousands of GP that had been reserved for a Robe of the Neutral Archmagi for Xan, were spent on temple donations before the party went questing for reputation rewards. One such quest was depetrifying the woman in the Basilisk area. However, when they reached the corresponding area, one of Xan's quests triggered. I hadn't played it before; it was about dealing with three Calishite merchants that had bought three female Elven slaves. The men had six mailclad bodyguards defending them. My party was unbuffed, and Imoen was still injured from a previous area transition ambush. A Phase Spider dimension doored right into the middle of our party.
The companions would have nuked their opponents, but the Elves were too closeby. The party therefore retreated, but not fast enough to keep Xan out of harm's way. He was felled by darts of wounding from the merchants. Soon after Dynaheir was stunned, again by darts,
and Quayle was poisoned by the Phase Spider. Lenhardt called his Fairy Dragon to cast Invibility 10' Radius in hopes of rendering the survivors invisible and figuring out a strategy. He cured Quayle's poison just in time, and engaged the Phase Spider. The Fairy Dragon turned Quayle invisible right before the older Gnome's morale broke. The others too were rendered invisible, but not Lenhardt. Somehow he had walked out of the Invisibility 10' Radius AoE, probably in pursuit of a foe. He was soon stunned by a dart of stunning, and with Quayle panicked, Dynaheir still stunned as well, and Xan dead, there was nothing Imoen (who was a low level Mage after her dual from Thief at level 7) or Alora could do to help Lenhardt. I didn't even wait for him to die...
This isn't the first time I find myself going out of my way to keep party members alive - I've mentioned before that I tend to consider any party runs in which NPCs die repeatedly as failures - only to see it end in Charname's death.
Since I still want to become more adept with both arcane and divine magic, I rolled a new Cleric/Illusionist, Kathlen.
(Extra HPs are thanks to her Rabbit familiar, Nippy). She has the exact same, lovely stats as Lenhardt had, though they took quite a bit longer to roll. Unlike Lenhardt, Kathlen is more of a loner: I intend her to be a solo character for most of the game except perhaps ToB stages. She'll probably interact with NPCs in SoA if she makes it there, so that their joining her in ToB will make sense. She serves Baravar Cloakshadow, is True Neutral (with Good tendencies, but too noncommittal to actually be good). She is modest, inquisitive, upbeat, furtive, and - hopefully - careful; all qualities that befit a good Gnome.
@semiticgod nasty fight with the unseeing eye. Sorry to see the rift device not working but afaik Item Revision does not touch it. I'll double check if any patching component touches it by mistake but it's unlikely.
Btw, you cannot imagine how useful you are, a bunch of posts and you already pointed out 2-3 things I need to fix (e.g. Dispelling Screen, aka SI:Abj, should not stack; Wizard Slayer should not be able to use "Robe of Vecna" or similar stuff - Kit Revisions make it use any magic item but that's not in your game; etc.)
Is the Dimension Door you used the short range 1st lvl version added by SR or did you managed to find the disabled 4th lvl one?
Haste has been made single target because it was considered OP by 99% of SR players, but it now grants +2 thac0/AC/reflex saves bonuses (matching Slow ones to perfectly counter each other), and do not forget that it now always give a full +1 apr, unlike vanilla Haste which assigned only +1/2 apr to creatures with 3/2, 5/2 or 7/2 apr. Last but not least, SR's fatigue effect is temporary and short lasting, vanilla spell had a much worse hidden and permanent fatigue penalty.
The Efreeti using gaseous form is Revisions stuff yes, IR if it's the one from the bottle, SR for the summoned ones. Both Efreeti and Djinni have expanded and hopefully appropriate "spellbooks" now.
Glad to see SR's Imprisonment "fix" is working as intended.
@Blackraven: I'm sorry for your loss. I don't really see what you could have done after all those things went wrong, one after another. Good luck with your Cleric/Illusionist run! I love Cleric/Mages, and it would be interesting to see how one would handle BG1 (which I barely ever play).
@Demivrgvs: The Rift Device might just be some weird fluke. Either way, the Unseeing Eye is killable even with the DW#UNSEE item still in place.
I'm using the 4th level Dimension Door. I wasn't sure what the disable certain spells component of SR was, so I didn't install it, hence having the 4th level one. If you're telling me it's possible to get a level 1 version... where can I find it? Because that would be amazing.
@Blackraven: I'm sorry for your loss. I don't really see what you could have done after all those things went wrong, one after another. Good luck with your Cleric/Illusionist run! I love Cleric/Mages, and it would be interesting to see how one would handle BG1 (which I barely ever play).
Hey @semiticgod, thank you for your sympathies. I was a bit annoyed when Lenhardt fell, because of the time and energy I had invested in the party and the roleplaying. But not anymore, Kathlen looks to be a promising successor. Nice to see you make such good progress in this playthrough which really forces you to think outside the box.
Kathlen, Gnome Cleric/Illusionist (1st update)
[Note: in my previous post I introduced Kathlen as a Cleric of Garl Glittergold. But I discovered that unfortunately her True Neutrality doesn't allow her to, an oversight on my part, to which I have the following solutuion: instead of following Garl Glittergold, Kathlen worships Baravar Cloakshadow. That deity does have TN priests, and is also appropriate because he's the preeminent Gnome god of magic. I've corrected my previous post.]
Save for the company of Nippy, your trusty rabbit companion, you find yourself on your own with Gorion's sad death and Imoen's return to Candlekeep (after she had been so sweet but also unwise to follow you around) barely behind you. You decide against visiting the FAI. Hopefully doing the non-obvious will shake off any bounty hunters. You travel south to Beregost, where you help what people you can with simple chores, not necessarily because you're such a neighborly type but rather because you're in need of coin. You even kill some Spiders and Ogrillons by putting them to Sleep, and Skeletons near High Hedge by Shielding yourself and clubbing them down. South of the High Hedge you rescue Melicamp, a mage apprentice-turned-chicken, from a Wolf. Thalantyr the Conjurer impresses you by restoring Melicamp's human form, an advanced type of transmutation magic you can only hope to possess once you become more skilled in the arcane art.
On the southcoast you come upon an excavation site. Charleston Nib the archaeologist asks you to stand guard while he and his crew enter an ancient settlement they have just laid bare. You get a big scare when suddenly all the diggers go berserk and attack you. You find it impossible to dodge their collective attacks and you've only downed two when you find yourself gasping for breath, severely injured. A Hold Person freezes the remaining diggers, and with a sense of regret, you finish them off using your Sling.
You've barely recovered when near the excavation site, you run into another berserker. Thankfully you manage to calm him, and he asks you to escort him to the Temple of Helm in Nashkel, a request you humor. The Nashkel mayor wants you to investigate corrupted iron ore and disappearances of people in the Nashkel Mines, and you tell him you will. When you reach the Mines you learn that Kobolds have assumed control of the area, including the mines. You know that Kobolds tend to operate in large groups, communities, and reckon they might be a bit too much to handle for you at this stage. You have your hands full staying out of trouble as it is, with the memories of the bounty hunters still fresh on your mind. Therefore you finally decide to travel to the FAI. On your way you are given a green scroll of PfMagic, take a Flaming Fist deserter (Samuel) with you, receive a charisma-enhancing ring from Lord Foreshadow, Sleep and slay a rogue Ogre with a belt fetish as well as numerous Hobgoblins, and find a ring that increases the number of spells you can cast. At the entrance to the inn a shady character, a wizard, gets very upset when you attempt, unsuccessfully, to Silence him from too close a range to remain unseen. He knows who you are and begs you to hold still. He then treats you to a Melf's Acid Arrow. It causes you to flee into the Temple of Garl Glittergold, run by Gellana Mirrorshade (in whose care you leave Samuel the deserter).
As you Protect yourself from Fear and Shield yourself against Magic Missiles, you wonder whether the wizard would enter a holy place to finish his job. The answer is yes, but before he can do anything to hurt you, you freeze him with a Hold Person, allowing yourself an easy kill.
The lands north of the FAI are replete with Ankhegs, but that doesn't stop you from casting Sanctuary and helping yourself to the creatures' treasure hoard. In the same area, three fishermen ask you to dispatch Tenya, a young and supposedly evil priestess. Evil she seems to be, for she attacks you after you ask her for her side of the story. You Hold her and sling some bullets at her, but you decide not to kill her because she's only a young girl. When the Hold effect wears off you see, much to your horror, a Hold Person coming your way. How is it possible that none of the sling bullets has interrupted Tenya's casting? You run, hoping to get inside Tenya's land home, but you're not fast enough. You get Held and now dread Tenya's repercussions: will she take your life? Ah, what relief, she won't. She merely asks you to retrieve a bowl for her from the fishermen, which you do as soon as the Hold effect ends.
With the Unseeing Eye fallen, we are free to collect our reward from Higher Watcher Oisig, but I don't do so because I forgot. Instead, I visit Watcher's Keep. I'm not ready to take on all the Statues, but I can deal with the first four: two fighters and two clerics. The hard thing about the clerics is that they come pre-buffed with both Physical Mirror and Blade Barrier, which means I have to risk taking damage if I want to try and disrupt their spellcasting.
Worse yet, in SR, Globe of Blades bypasses MR and forces a save vs. breath rather than a save vs. spell, and the save is at -6. Nobody in my party has good saves vs. breath. Rius in particular is vulnerable to SR area effect damage.
She has a guaranteed failed save against Globe of Blades. And she has -50% vulnerability to slashing damage, so she's basically doomed if the clerics get too close to her.
Also notice she has 1 Constitution. Shadowkeeper bumped it up to 2, but only fairly recently did I correct it and drop it down to 1. Also notice her 14 Charisma: in IR, the Ring of Human Influence boosts your CHA by 2 rather than setting it to 18. Many IR items operate like this, and it's very bad for this party, because our base stats are all over the place. Yi Grovana in particular will suffer, since the only means of getting her STR above 10, without which she is pinned to the ground, is for her to shapeshift or to have somebody use the Strength spell on her.
Anyway, we lay some traps (Imber fails all three times; Yi Grovana succeed), summons some summons, and bring out our buffs. We encounter a peculiar bug.
If you pause at just the right moment, then a Blade Barrier or Globe of Blades spell, whether it belongs to you or to the enemy, will fire repeatedly during the pause, potentially dozens of times before you can react fast enough to unpause it. And everyone in range can get hit dozens of times during the pause, and take dozens or hundreds of damage in the process.
Turns out Poppy's MR was able to block it. I didn't realize this at the time, but it seems that SR does not affect all of the spells that SCS2 mages use. SCS2 mages use entirely different spell files for the enemies, which means that Imber is using SR spells, while the enemy is using SCS2 spells.
Imber pesters the clerics with Minute Meteors while the others mob the fighter Statues. Minute Meteors bypass Physical Mirror, and are therefore my only safe option for disrupting the clerics' spells. Bear in mind, I didn't realize my MR made me immune to their Blade Barrier spells until long afterwards.
Poppy's Breach fails to affect either of the clerics, though I don't pay close enough attention to figure out why (a sudden Sanctuary spell? Poppy retargeting?). I keep Imber out of the way of the clerics, but the second fighter Statue will not stay at bay. Not sure how to deal with him, since the other party members are busy working on the other fighter, I trap him with Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.
The first fighter falls, leaving the rest of the party to attack the dwarven cleric Statue. The human cleric Statue, meanwhile, follows Imber to the southeast. I keep a safe distance and pelt her with Minute Meteors.
The Statue still manages to cast a Heal spell, but it's not a major setback. Imber is trying to disrupt, not to kill.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party is trying to figure out how to deal with the other cleric. None of them has Minute Meteors, and the Statue's Physical Mirror is still active. Our spells aren't affecting him, and we're not willing to engage in melee combat.
Then I remember Yi Grovana is an Inquisitor, and Rius is wielding Carsomyr. We cast Dispel Magic.
Imber finishes off the human cleric Statues with the Flesh Golem's assistance and rushes over to help out the party. The second cleric collapses, unable to cast spells.
Seconds after we kill off the cleric's summoned snakes (an SR innovation?), the second fighter breaks out of his shell. All we had time to do was summon a single critter.
It mattered not. Our party was well-buffed and healthy. His party was dead.
We have no more business in WK for the time being, so we traveled to the Umar Hills, slew Valygar's buddies, and then slew the Stalker himself so we could haul his corpse to the Slums.
I'd come up with a roleplaying justification but... whatever.
After going through the party's inventory to make sure we had everything we needed for the Planar Sphere, I noticed we had been carrying the Cloak of the Sewers for days without every doing anything with it. Yi Grovana puts it, nearly dying from CHA drain (she went from 2 down to 1, an IR tweak to the cloak), and tests out the abilities. The Troll form is gone, but the jelly form now gives immunity to stun, hold I, hold II, charm, and confusion, for whatever reason. The rat form, as before, grants 90% physical damage resistance, which stacks with Yi Grovana's already crazy resistance for total immunity to physical damage.
One of the Halfling cannibals kills himself on her Fire Shield. She still gets the Fire Shield effect from holding the Salamander token in her off hand.
The thing about the IR Cloak of the Sewers is that the Rat Form's abilities come from the rat's paw, not from shapeshifting. Shapeshifting mods in general tend to replace shapeshifting spells with items that change the wielder's stats and appearance while equipped. The rat's paw can't be dispelled, and even if I did remove it, I'd lose the physical damage resistance.
Paladins aren't supposed to be able to wear the Cloak of the Sewers in IR. But Yi Grovana is a Paladin/Thief, so it's not clear if she should really have to abstain from it. Unfortunately, it's also not equippable by Wizard Slayers, so if I restrict our three Paladins from using it, then the only one left is a Wizard Slayer, Imber, who also can't use it. And I don't want to have to discard the thing entirely until Yi and Poppy get UAI. Plus, Yi Grovana is already a master of shapeshifting, being an Avenger with the Shapechange abilities on top of her normal shapeshifts. Maybe I'll keep the cloak around for special occasions.
Rat form drops Yi's STR back down to 3 or so, so she can't walk in rat form, but if I re-equip the Salamander token, her stats and appearance will be reset as the Salamander's, but with the rat's resistances tacked on. Not sure if I want to abuse that or not. It's a cute trick, but might be too game-breaking, since the duration of rat form is a ludicrous 20 rounds.
I continue on to Togan and the other cannibals. After failing to dispel the enemy's initial buffs, Yi Grovana wades into the fray with Rius and our summons to take down Entu and Togan. Mogadish is protected by Physical Mirror and Blade Barrier, so Imber tosses some Minute Meteors his way to fustigate his spellcasting. Kayardi, meanwhile, is protected by PFMW, though it takes me a moment to realize I can still break through his immunities with nonmagical darts. Poppy screws up his spellcasting. Wizard Slayers are awfully underrated, I think.
PFMW, Stoneskin, and all manner of spell protections, and Poppy is still able to disrupt Kayardi's spells. The only other thing that can do that is Firetooth with normal bolts, and Firetooth's fire damage can be blocked with Spell Deflection and Spell Turning as well as magic resistance.
Incidentally, has anyone ever thought Kayardi was female, just because of the name? I've checked the files and the only female among the halflings is Taibela.
The battle is uneventful. Togan and Entu were unbuffed and helpless, Mogadish had no defense against Minute Meteors, and Kayardi was quickly crippled by spell failure. His attempts to hide were also foiled by Yi Grovana's True Seeing ability. Taibela and Necre suffered the same fate, wasting their spells on magic-immune characters, and then failing their spells under pressure from Wizard Slayers throwing darts.
I have long been wary of Lavok, ever since getting trounced in a no-reload, no-prebuffing, roleplaying SCS2 run with a single-classed wizard (slain by Comet and Dragon's Breath), but Lavok is actually not too dangerous depending on your install options. SCS2 can grant HLAs to all spellcasters or only some of them, and Lavok is curiously excluded if you choose to limit HLAs to the bigger, badder mages of SoA (namely, Liches).
I line up a pair of Acid Fog spells for this fight. Acid Fog, the SR version of Death Fog, deals 10 acid damage per round and decreases the movement rate of everyone in the cloud by 50%. As a 6th-level spell, it will bypass GOI, but will not harm my magic-immune frontliners. Rius has only just gained access to 6th-level spells, having reached level 16 after killing Valygar's paranoid guards, and unlike Poppy and Imber, she does not have a penalty to her 6th-level spell slots. In fact, she gets a bonus, and already has 4 spell slots for level 6 spells. She memorizes a PFMW spell for emergencies (I'm still worried Lavok's going to pull out a Fallen Planetar with their crazy vorpal strikes), plus a Protection from Magical Energy spell to compensate for Yi Grovana's less than perfect MR, and uses the remaining two slots for Acid Fog.
But since I want to keep around my summons, I don't use Acid Fog right away. Instead, I attack Lavok directly... who, oddly enough, activates NO weapon immunity spells. His first spell is Remove Magic, on Yi Grovana. I send her running from the battle to make sure the others aren't affected.
I figure sustained pressure from our two Wizard Slayers will be sufficient to keep Lavok from casting any spells, but he manages to get a Time Stop off the ground despite being pelted by our darts for two whole rounds. He doesn't use anything big on us--he merely takes down Poppy's Spell Shield.
Then, for some reason, Lavok goes blind.
Nobody cast any such spell. And none of my summons and none of my weapons should be capable of blinding anything on hit. Nevertheless, he is blinded.
Regardless of the cause, the blindness has little time to show an effect. Lavok's Stoneskins spells finally run out.
Kind of boring, actually.
The Tanar'ri outside the Sphere isn't much more interesting.
At level 16, Rius' Kensai kit has finally overcome her innate penalties to damage, hence the heavy critical on the Tanar'ri. It wasn't able to do much in the little time it had. Our 100 MR blocks its Death Gaze and Silence 15' Radius spells entirely.
You know what's funny? I've been ruling out the Iron Golem form on the grounds that 100 MR is unbalancing. But I've been gleefully cranking my MR up to 100 with Dispelling Screen for every mage battle with no apparent sense of irony.
@semiticgod you are my worst enemy, a "fu**ing cheesy exploiter"!
A few things: - is SCS installed after SR? Because that's mandatory if you want SCS to actually take into account SR changes (SCS has specific checks for SR). If not, the game will work but SCS will assume spells work as per vanilla and does not skip a few spell tweaks on its own (which are skipped when SR is detected). - summoned snakes are from Animal Summoning V (druids have an AS spell at each lvl now) - I think you should read again how Physical Mirror works now - jelly form immunities are as per PnP, the troll form has been moved to an appropriate ioun stone
The only obstacle left is Tolgerias and his friend.
Before the battle, I send out Yi Grovana to backstab the elven mage. She can't deal any damage, since the mage has Stoneskin already active, but it apparently breaks through enough of her Stoneskins to let Poppy get a direct hit within the second round of battle.
Notice that Yi Grovana has already been removed of her buffs and hit by Slow immediately after. She lost her Remove Fear spell, the Improved Haste, and even her True Seeing spell, though I didn't notice the last one was missing until later.
Despite being hit by lots of nonmagical darts with a Wizard Slayer behind them, Tolgerias, like Lavok, manages to cast his Time Stop just fine, along with all the spells he casts during the Time Stop.
I read somewhere that spell failure doesn't always work against SCS2 mages, since they sometimes cast spells via scripts, and spell failure has no impact on their success.
In any case, we now have two Glabrezus to deal with. Tolgerias is using exactly the same strategy we've all used for so long: summoning in some monsters in the hopes that the enemy will attack them instead of us. Well, that's not how I order my priorities. I want Tolgerias dead a lot more than his summons, as troublesome as SCS2 demons can be.
Yi Grovana has re-cast True Seeing to reveal Tolgerias, after I belatedly realized it had been dispelled. The elven mage is soon slain by Poppy's darts, leaving only Tolgerias and his demons.
Rius, who has no spell slots left for Spell Shield (3 bonus spell slots for level 6, but 1 less for level 5), is relieved of her buffs, both her immunity to magic as well as her AC buffs and her Stoneskin. The Glabrezus quickly take advantage of her newfound vulnerability.
Her aura is clear, allowing her to drink a potion and flee. The Glabrezus do not give pursuit, preferring to target Yi Grovana instead. Notice the Teleport Field that Tolgerias has set up. SCS2 enemies assume the player is using mostly melee weapons, and Teleport Field is great at frustrating melee attacks. Also notice Imber has only just now activated Enrage, as I heard an Enchantment spell being cast and wanted to be extra sure she was safe, despite her already having 100 MR and a Spell Shield to back it up.
Tolgerias discovers a weak point. Rius has been busy restoring her defenses, but Yi Grovana, the only other party member without 100 MR, is within Tolgerias' range.
Yi Grovana is doomed. I do not bother fretting about her safety. Even if the Rod of Resurrection could still heal her, it would not be enough to keep her alive. Instead, I let the Glabrezus busy themselves with chewing her up, and focus on Tolgerias instead.
I hear his Stoneskin vanish, his last defense against poison. Poppy activates Poison Weapon and hits him with a dart.
I spend a few more seconds attacking him, just in case the poison was not sufficient to finish him off. Rius has rejoined the battle, but without her buffs, her saving throws are terrible. She fails a save against one of the Glabrezu's many Confusion spells, but not before she gets in a critical hit.
Poppy hurries over to cast Break Enchantment, returning Rius to my control. SR replaces Remove Curse with Break Enchantment, which cures confusion, unconsciousness (finally an answer to Emotion, though Emotion in SR no longer knocks anyone out), and Feeblemind. It also removes a secondary type, Disabling magic, but I've encountered at least one disabler that apparently wasn't tagged as such (I forget where), so Break Enchantment won't remove all disablers.
It takes time for Poppy to reach Rius, since the Teleport Field switches them around. Her effort was in vain, however, as Rius was hit by another Confusion spell within the next round.
One of the Glabrezus has a Mirror Image effect active. I don't like that. But Carsomyr is no longer under our control, and without Yi Grovana, we have no True Seeing spells. Imber raises Grovana with the Rod of Resurrection (usable by Wizard Slayers, conveniently for us), only for the Glabrezus to spot the weak link. One of them teleports over to Yi Grovana, but loses interest after she flees its grasp.
Soon I discover that Yi Grovana has already spent her last True Seeing spell. She only has 2, which I believe is an error. Since she can't dispel the Glabrezu's Mirror Image, I send herout to fetch her equipment while her friends handle the demons. By the time she gets there, the last Glabrezu has already fallen.
Lavok thanks us for letting him see the light of day, and gives the Sphere to Imber. He drops a Ring of Acuity, which in IR grants an extra 5th, 6th, and 7th level spell... but is unusable by Wizard Slayers, and therefore both Imber and Poppy. Only Rius can wear it, and as a Paladin/Bard, she will never learn 7th-level spells. But it does give her an extra Dispelling Screen spell and PFMW spell, allowing her to renew her defenses should they be dispelled. Rius, unfortunately, suffers from a -1 penalty to casting speed, so PFMW will not have an instant casting time for her, and can be disrupted. But like the rest of the party, she has a bonus to movement speed and can run away if she needs time to cast it.
Imber also hits level 14, gaining her first 7th-level spell, though she has a -2 penalty to her level 7 spell slots. She picks Project Image, since I'm not sure what else to choose. Ruby Ray of Reversal is certainly useful, since Poppy, being a Paladin/Sorceror/Bard, won't get 7th-level spells until she hits 4.5 million XP, but so far we've been able to break through enemy weapon immunities without Breach, and we have precious little need for direct damage spells, with Imber's damage bonuses as they are.
Summon Death Knight is another interesting choice, the SR version of Cacofiend, as the Death Knight is quite strong, and I've never summoned one before. But I wasn't sure if I really needed another good summons, since I don't seem to have the summoning cap removed anymore and I'm not sure if I'll remove it again. Summon Hakeashar is also quite appealing, as it hits the target with Feeblemind on a failed save vs. spell, and with two Archers in the group, we can cause some very hefty save penalties if we want to. Finally, we also have Power Word: Stun, which in SR stuns any critter for at least 1 round, regardless of its hit points. And with its casting time of 1, and Imber's Improved Alacrity, she could stun-lock a fair number of critters. But bosses will be immune, it'll be blocked by spell protections, and it doesn't bypass MR.
This party is going to have very limited spell selection at high levels. Poppy won't get high-level spells until long after she's already casting Hardiness and setting Time Traps. Rius won't get high-level spells at all. And Imber, being a sorceror, can only choose so many. Sorcerers get up to 4 spell picks for the higher-level spells, but it takes time to get them.
@Demivrgvs: I do in fact have SR installed after SCS2. I thought SCS2 would override the SR files, so I made sure to install SR second. I'll go back and reinstall SCS2 so they take into account the SR spells.
It's nice to see Physical Mirror has seen some buffs. With a Mirror Image effect, priests finally have a way of avoiding spell disruption, at least half of the time. I notice the Cloak of Mirroring has a similar effect.
The cheese, the exploits... I've mentioned elsewhere that I tend to think more about how the game can be played than how it should be played. I just want to pick apart the system and see how it works. I have no real preference for how the game is supposed to be played.
Usually I fall in love with a particular exploit, use it a while, and then move on to a new fling. You get to see so many more things that way.
@semiticgod I was joking, feel free to use exploits, just expect me to try blocking most of them when possible.
- Break Enchantment counters ALL disabling enchantments including Charm, Confusion, Emotion, Feeblemind and Domination, but also Doom, Silence and Greater Malison. If you see an effect which should be countered by it but it isn't, let me know please. - yes, Cloak of Mirroring works as a permanent single mirror image which means you have a permanent 50% chance to avoid direct attacks, but for both balance and concept reasons SR's True Seeing will temporary disable the cloak.
You return to the FAI where you recruit Gorion's friends Khalid and Jaheira, accept their potions, and respectfully dismiss them with the message that you prefer to find your own way in life. Gellana Mirrorshade sells you a couple of blue and purple concoctions that temporarily increase the consumer's intelligence. With these potions you travel to Thalantyr. You buy a scroll of Friends, quaff some of the potions and scribe the spell into your spellbook. You then rest and memorize Friends. When you get up, you find your intelligence still higher than usual as you immediately identify a bunch of enchanted darts you had taken from the Ankheg hoard. You cast Friends on yourself, buy about fifteen scrolls, quaff another INT potion, and copy your spells (inclusing those from scrolls you've found elsewhere) into your spellbook. You can now memorize such spells as Burning Hands, Chromatic Orb, Grease, Magic Missile, Protection from Petrification, Spook, Invisibility, Luck (to enhance Nippy's trap finding skills), Mirror Image, PW: Sleep, Ray of Enfeeblement, Strength, Dire Charm, Flame Arrow, Ghost Armor, and Minor Spell Deflection. You also buy the Claw of Kazgaroth from Thalantyr and, after recasting Friends, a Helmet of Charm Protection at the smithy in Beregost.
Southwest of Beregost, close to where you rescued Melicamp, you run into the wicked priest Bassilus. He's standing amidst an army of Zombies and Skeletons he addresses as if they're his family members. You had heard of Bassilus back in Beregost, and of the 5000 GP bounty on his head. You want that reward. A Silence 15' Radius shuts him up, but he saves against two Hold Persons,
and approaches to deal with you in melee. Fortunately a Blindness does prove effective.
With your sling you're too slow and insufficiently damaging to finish the blinded priest off before he gets his voice back. Sensing your presence, Bassilus cleverly tries to injure you with Unholy Blights cast on self, but that spell has no effect on you.
With a Wand of Fire you found amongst the Ankheg treasure, you end up toasting the priest.
His holy symbol and an enchanted axe as well as several weapons from the Skeletons go into your wolfskin bag before you continue your exploration of the Red Canyons. You run into three Hobgoblin bandits, but they can't touch you thanks to two well-placed Sleeps. On the corpse of one of the bandits you find an enchanted short sword. It's not a weapon you have any use for, but you keep so that you can sell it later.
You travel further west, leaving the Red Canyons behind, and traverse the grassy low lands for hours until you feel almost too weary to continue. But then the rustle of waves startles you. You've reached the shores of the Sword Coast. In the distance you discern a lighthouse. The area seems quiet, so you let Nippy out of your pack. However, just to be safe you cast Invisibility on your familiar and on yourself. The lighthouse seems abandoned but for three Worgs you choose to ignore. Further down the shoreline you spot three Sirines, but they can't see you or Nippy. You take your boots off and paddle northward along the coastline. Nippy on the other hand keeps to the beach. You spot more Sirines and a Nereid, beautiful creatures, but very territorial you know. They appear to be guarding the entrance of a cave. Overcome by curiosity you slip past the fey creatures and enter the cave. It looks to be abandoned, but Nippy knows better. Your rabbit jumps against your thigh, beckoning you to stop, before it starts disarming various traps.
There are three Flesh Golems strutting around a shallow pool. You take a closer look and see a chest below the surface of the water. When the Golems are away from the chest you take it out of the pool and empty its contents into your pack. You identify various valuable items such as a Manual of Bodily Health, a Cloak of the Wolf and several elixirs. Sanctuaried, you leave the premises with your still invisible familiar beside you, and you make your way past the Sirines. Contentedly, you find a quiet spot to rest, and then travel back to Beregost.
The reward for taking down Bassilus and the sale of miscellaneous treasure allows you to purchase the Robe of the Neutral Archmagi. It's somehow short though as you put it on; it doesn't even fully cover your knees. You decide to wear a pair of pantaloons below the robe, even if it changes your clerical appearance into a more roguish look. With still a few thousand gold to dispose of, you ask Thalantyr if he has any protective cloaks for sale. He tells you he hasn't, and refers you to the Sorcerous Sundries in Baldur's Gate and to the Ulgoth's Beard Inn. Upon arrival, the city of Baldur's Gate proves inaccessible as the Dukes have decided to close the gates until the bandit plague has been contained. With your wand of fire you make a modest contribution to that cause.
(You expend two wand charges rather than one here, because your first charge was an Aganazzar's Scorcher rather than the Fireball you had in mind.) In Ulgoth's Beard you were luckier in your search for a good protective cloak: the innkeeper sells you a Cloak of Displacement for little more than 3000 GP.
You wander back to Beregost, the geographical heart of the Sword Coast, asking yourself what the next days have in store for you. On the one hand you feel contentment about your attainments and excitement about the unpredictability of your future, but on the other hand you struggle with the apparent purposelessness of your life. Yes, you have your arcane studies, and your devotion to Baravar Cloakshadow, but is that it? Or are you supposed to do something in particular with your talents?
In Beregost some of the townspeople speak of the Firewine Ruins as a place with riches for those who dare to venture there. You decide to check the place out for yourself, and also to visit nearby Durlag's Tower that a guy named Ike wanted to sell you a tour to in Ulgoth's Beard. Thus you travel east from Beregost. Your journey is uneventful until you reach an area of barren land inhabited by Basilisks. Thankfully you are invisible when you first notice them. The creatures can't perceive you. You retreat to a quiet spot where a Ghoul offers to serve you. You accept the offer, remembering that Ghouls and most (if not all) undead are immune to gaze attacks. You animate two Skeletons, and turn invisible again. The undead clear the area of ten Basilisks, and of their evident master, a Gnome wizard like yourself, albeit it one with much darker motives than you.
Further to the south, Durlag's Tower is your destination. The area is dark and unwelcoming notwithstanding the presence of a friendly roguish merchant. You turn invisible to sneak past two Battle Horrors on a narrow bridge. Inside, Nippy detects a number of snares for you; the place seems littered with them. Regrettably your familiar isn't capable of disarming all the traps even when you cast Luck on him. On the top floor Nippy and you spot a demoness disguised as a Dryad. Your seeing through the illusion and your refusal to "accompany" the creature causes it to go hostile. You summon two Skeletons to deal with her but she keeps going ethereal, so you decide to leave her to her own devices.
The third floor is safer. An altar contains a Tome of Understanding. Reading it improves your divine spell casting ability. On the second and last floor you explore, you're up against a multitude of Ghasts. With the help of three or four summoned Skeletons, and a few other tricks, you manage to defeat the creatures.
You use Minor Spell Deflection to protect yourself against a trap detected (but not disarmed) by Nippy, and climb a narrow stairway that leads to two roof terraces inhabited by (yet more) Basilisks. Relying on Protection from Petrification, summoned Skeletons, and your sling bullets you slay the creatures, before you decide to leave the desolate tower behind.
You them travel to the Firewine Ruins, but when you encounter the area replete with Kobolds, you lose much of your curiosity since you're sure the treacherous, smelly creatures will have taken what treasure the ruins might have contained. Nevertheless, visiting the Firewine Ruins doesn't turn out to be a complete waste of time: your Skeletons dispatch an evil brawler for you, allowing you to take the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise from his corpse.
You trek to Nashkel to see if the town still needs someone to investigate the Nashkel Mines. Maybe a good deed for the people of Nashkel will give you more of a sense of purpose. Berrun Ghastkill tells you that the mysterious events in the mines remain unsolved. He appears disappointed by the fact that you haven't done anything to help yet. To make good you promise him to go there shortly. You enter the Nashkel inn to rest and prepare for your expedition to the mines but have a change of heart when you face another bounty hunter, a priestess. You Hold her and take her down with your sling,
a simple victory, yet it doesn't make you feel good. After about two tendays of relative peace, the event in the inn warns you that you'll still have to be very careful, that someone still wants you dead. You would like to put this bounty business to an end, but you have no idea where to go or whom to deal with. You make a stop at the Nashkel Carnival to look for useful wares, only to step inside the wrong tent at the the wrong time. You expect to meet a merchant but witness one wizard killing another one, and then turning to you with the same purpose. Two Minor Spell Deflections, two Magic Missiles and a Wand of Fire-cast Aganazzar's Scorcher later, the wizard lies dead at your feet.
You set up camp at the Carnival and after a not so restful night, you travel to the Nashkel Mines. Exploration of the area reveals that there are still small packs of Kobolds roaming about, and you meet the famous sculptor Prism, known all over the Sword Coast for his spectacular rock carvings. He asks you to stand guard while he finishes his current work, a bust of Queen Ellesime of the Elves. Bounty hunters are after him because he has stolen two emeralds from a noblewoman with the intention to use them for Ellesime's eyes. Impressed with the splendor of Prism's work, you oblige. Before long a bounty hunter appears indeed, a burly man by the name of Greywolf. You try to reason with him, telling him that waiting for Prism to finish his work won't do any harm, but this only enrages the man. He charges at you with a shiny, enchanted long sword forcing you to defend yourself. You Hold him and order your Skeletons to deal with the man.
When you're done with Greywolf, a contented Prism mutters something about finally having finished his work, and then collapses from apparent exhaustion. You check on him, and find that he's dead. In one of his pockets you encounter the emeralds he had spoken off. You try to place them in Ellesime's eye sockets but have no idea how to keep them in place. You keep the emeralds and curse yourself for barely being worth the name Rock Gnome as you pick up Greywolf's sword and strut off to to the mine entrance.
Anyway, I decided to try and kill Kangaxx. But first, we had an Elemental Lich to take care of.
After having reinstalled SCS2 on top of SR, we find that the Elemental Lich is now using SR spells.
It doesn't know Dispelling Screen stacks, of course, but I'm not yet willing to use Acid Fog on it to disrupt its spells anyway, because it also has Protection from Acid active. We don't have the high-level debuffs to break down its defenses, so instead we'll have to wait things out. It casts its first Time Stop undisturbed and removes Rius' defenses with Spellstrike.
SCS2 liches are aware of the fact that their spells lose duration during Time Stop, so they make sure to renew PFMW before they become vulnerable again.
Rius flees to renew some of her defenses, while I buff up Imber's Project Image clone. The Lich nearly kills my Skeleton Warrior (I got Rius to scribe a Summon Skeleton Warrior spell, despite her awful 45% chance of success), so I hit it with Resilient Sphere. Oddly enough, the Skeleton Warrior is not pinned by the spell, but it does seem to get the immunities the spell grants.
Our MR isn't all at 100 anymore, since Poppy stops buffing at 72, so the Lich's multiple Sphere of Chaos spells actually manage to harm us. Meanwhile, it keeps renewing its defenses, just in case one of us tries to hit it.
Finally it gets around to actually attacking us. With our terrible saves vs. breath, we are in no shape to handle a direct hit from Cone of Cold.
Soon after that, however, its defenses wear off. No PFMW basically means death.
We grab the Golden Torso and cheat in the Golden Arm and Leg instead of going back to fetch them from the tomb of the Shade Lich, whom I destroyed earlier on.
Now we have to fight Kangaxx. But first, there's a pretty nasty battle on the first floor because of the Tactics mod, one I'm not very familiar with. I don't have great confidence in my success, but I'm not really afraid of failing the run.
In this fight, we face two Liches and a bunch of fighter types, all at once, in a very tiny space. I decide to tank out the Liches as before, and concentrate on killing the fighters. Poppy gets nailed by a damage spell, and nearly dies.
That's not actually 1 HP. She at 5 or so. Her minimum HP limit is not why she lived.
I decide to turn Yi Grovana into a rat to hold off the fighters so Poppy can heal herself and cast Stoneskin (which I forgot to cast before the battle began). The Liches begin casting Time Stop. One of them does something I've never seen an enemy do before: it spawns in a clone.
Yi Grovana, of course, dispels the clone immediately with her already active True Sight. Tactics enemies aren't quite so bright, actually. But then, I'm comparing them to SCS2 enemies, who are quite brilliant.
The other Lich conjures a Hakeashar--very bad news.
Aside from draining spells, Hakeashars in SR also can hit their targets with Feeblemind. I've been trying to slay a dwarven fighter over the past several rounds, but divert my attention to the Hakeashar instead. Also notice Poppy is now truly at 1 HP, and only alive thanks to her minimum HP limit. I only noticed she was missing a Stoneskin spell after she hit 1 HP.
Meanwhile, the enemy grunts keep hacking away at Yi Grovana, despite her immunity to physical damage.
Notice the undead summons that the Liches are starting to bring out. They have many such spells, and soon the screen gets filled with them. Imber hurries over to kill them with Sunfire.
The Lich to the left appears to have a clone, which must have appeared after Yi Grovana's True Seeing spell ran out.
There's only so much I can do against so many enemies. Imber spawns in a clone to save on Sunfire spells, but a hostile Dispel Magic spell dispels both the Lich's clone and Imber's.
Worse yet, Yi Grovana's rat attack has been dispelled, despite the effect being tagged as non-dispellable. She now only has her normal resistances, which are nowhere near sufficient to survive the enemy fighters.
I have Yi turn into an Iron Golem, but her huge circle teleports her behind Rius and Poppy, preventing her from acting as a tank. I run outside to change our position. The enemies flood out of the door.
Seconds after leaving the room, Imber suddenly dies.
Turns out that that dwarf had a vorpal sword. It had a 15% chance per hit of forcing a save vs. death at -2 or killing the target, an effect which bypasses magic resistance. So why didn't we notice that earlier? Why didn't any of my other characters get killed by the sword, after so many rounds had passed?
Well, if the party is fully buffed, then everyone in the group except for Imber has a pretty excellent save vs. death. If the dwarf ever hit them with the vorpal effect, they must have made their saves.
I didn't want to quit the game without at least trying to win the fight. This time, I had Rius cast a couple of Acid Fog spells, and absolutely trounced the enemy, despite Yi Grovana dying in the first round against a vorpal strike. Turns out the Liches not only had no Protection from Acid spell active; they were also too stupid to walk 10 feet away to escape the cloud. This, combined with a PFMW spell on Rius and a Defensive Spin for Poppy to protect them from the vorpal, allowed me to concentrate my energy on killing the dwarf. Once the dwarf was down, I cleared up the remaining melee enemies. Shortly before I finished off the last Minotaur, one of the Liches died from acid damage, while the other managed to cast Heal on itself. But it had no PFMW spell active after that whole business was over, allowing me to slay it within a couple rounds.
Foreknowledge makes such a big difference. I've only fought that battle once before, and never noticed the dwarf had a vorpal sword. That one detail ended the game for me. But when I knew the dwarf could kill me despite my Stoneskins and MR, and I knew the Liches had no immunity to acid damage, the fight was a cakewalk.
The miners have little information as to numbers and whereabouts of the Kobolds. They actually think the creatures are demons. The first level is safe thanks to the Amnish military men guarding it. The same cannot be said about the second and lower levels. You try to remain invisible, but some of the corridors are so crowded with Kobolds that you literally have to blast our way through with the wand of fire (WoF).
Four levels below ground you enter, invisibly, a closed area containing three separate chambers. One is empty, and in the other you encounter four snoozing Kobolds and a despondent-looking Elf. The third, furnished chamber appears to be the lair of the leader of the Kobolds, a Half-Orc priest standing next to a small throne. You return to the middle chamber and start Animating Dead. The dozing Kobolds take no notice of you, but the Half-Orc must have overheard your incantations. He appears, surprised at your presence. He believes you've come to deal with him on instructions of one Tazok.
He's right about the first part, but not the second of course. You repeat the name Tazok to yourself, in hopes of remembering it. You have four Skeletons to aid you and keep the enemy busy while you prepare for battle with a Minor Spell Deflection and debilitate the priest with a Blindness.
The strongly outnumbered Skeletons are no match for the Half-Orc and his minions, although they do kill and injure a few foes before they fall. You step in with a WoF-Fireball to fry most of the minions.
The priest himself succumbs to a Magic Missile,
while the others fall to a WoF-Agannazar's Scorcher and melee attacks.
As you rummage through the priest's belongings you find correspondence between him, Mulahey, and this Tazok he mentioned. The latter appears to be the leader of the bandits that plague the Sword Coast. You store useful-looking loot and leave the mines through a long passageway. When you see the sky above you again, you find yourself in an area you haven't visited before. Its dry topography and the presence of three burial mounds tell you that you find yourself in the Valley of the Tombs southeast of the mines. Under the cover of Sanctuary, you loot the tombs, thus avoiding having to deal with the various types of Undead inhabiting them.
Next to a ring of stones, a ritual site you assume, you meet a wizard busily writing notes in his spellbook. He startles when he sees you, telling you he's just discovered a spell that allows the caster to summon and control Slimes and Jellies. This spell interests you. You ask him if you can copy the spell into your spellbook, but this offends him deeply. Clearly not all Mages are equally collegial. He summons two Mustard Jellies and triggers various spell protections (Shield, Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Protection from Normal Missiles). You hastily cast Remove Fear and Minor Spell Deflection, one of your favorite spells, on yourself so as to buy you some time to summon your own minions: four Skeletons. While the Skeletons are pounding away at the Jellies, you try to provoke the wizard into wasting most of his dangerous spells on you.
After a good while the Skeletons dispatch the Jellies and the wizard has wasted most of his spells (you had to refresh MSD for that to happen though). With your Skeletons you strip the wizard of his Stoneskins. He falls soon after.
Back in Nashkel you report the liquidation of Mulahey and his Kobolds to Berrun Ghastkill who thanks you heartily (and with 900 GP) on behalf of the town. One man isn't as happy with you as the rest of the town. He introduces himself as Nimbul and claims to be 'Death, come for thee.' Before you know it he disappears, attacks you from behind with his axe, and pelts you with sequencered Magic Missiles. This move leaves you battered in the blink of an eye.
Your response is to go invisible, not by casting the spell because you consider your deadly foe capable of interrupting your casting, but by quaffing a potion. You then heal, buff with MSD, and summon Skeletons. Together you defeat your opponent.
On the assassin's body you find a letter signed by Tazok according to which Nimbul was to eliminate you for Tazok: the organization behind both the iron crisis and the bandit plague is also the organization that wants you dead! The letter mentions a contact named Tranzig who's supposed to be staying at Feldepost's Inn, so that's where you head.
At Feldepost's Tranzig recognizes you. He doesn't want to talk, so you Hold him and finish him off with a Skeleton by your side.
Another letter reveals to you the location of Tazok's bandit camp in the Wood of Sharp Teeth. When you leave the inn you are accosted by a group of four assassins out for your blood. Having wasted few spells on Tranzig, you manage to dispatch them upstairs (where the risk of collateral damage is much smaller), relying heavily on WoF Aganazzar's Scorchers and on your Skeletons.
Only their Dwarf refuses to follow you upstairs, but he receives the same recipe (Skellies and Scorchers) in the tavern kitchen.
The violence at Feldepost's makes you decide to relocate to another inn, the Red Sheaf, but there too a bounty hunter awaits you, a Dwarven fighter. You Blind him and have little difficulty dealing with him after that. The Jovial Juggler is quiet, much to your relief. This probably has to do with the presence of Flaming Fist officers that offer you 50 GP for every bandit scalp you bring them and of a Paladin named Bjornin. He asks you to slay four Half-Ogres that injured him south, south-west of Beregost. Glad with this reason to be away from Beregost and hopefully from any assassins or bounty hunters, you promise Bjornin to perform this task for him before you start your search of the Bandit Camp.
I'm sorry about the Imber's demise @semiticgod. But those were some epic Lich battles there... I had never seen (let alone played) the Tactics pre-Kangaxx battle. You actually did very well. It's evident that Imber wouldn't have fallen had you known about the Dwarf's vorpal blade.
@Blackraven: I have already designed some new randomly-generated characters to start a new game, and am deciding which to pick. An interesting possibility is a Halfling Jon Irenicus Cleric/Thief.
Incidentally... I have a rather interesting character who unfortunately is suffering from opcode 165, which pauses the target, a very rare paralyzing effect. Does anybody know if there's a way to un-pause a character? The opcode for un-pausing something is 270, but I don't know if I've ever seen any spell or item that actually used it.
In the area that Bjornin indicated on your map, you have a run-in with three bandits: a mage, a fighter and a Hobgoblin archer (fortunately no bounty hunters or assassins this time). You rely again on MSD and summoned Skeletons to deal with them.
The Half-Ogres are rendered defenseless with two Sleeps before you and your Skeletons finish them.
You also meet Drizzt, the famed Drow Ranger, and help him slay a pack of Gnolls. When you return to Beregost yet another group of Assassins 'welcomes' you: two priestesses and two female rogues that disappear right after you spot them.
You rush inside the Jovial Juggler where you quaff a potion of freedom, cast MSD and alarm Officer Vai and her Flaming Fist colleagues. They come quickly to your aid, but they can't prevent one of the rogues from injuring you with a vicious backstab.
Invisibility, another staple in your spellbook, is your friend once again. You heal yourself and together with your friends from the Fist you dispatch the amazons using your club and damage spells.
You then travel to the Bandit Camp, insinuating into the bandits' ranks via a fellow named Raiken. The camp consists of about seven or so tents, and is replete with bandits, some running errands, many just hanging around. You get to meet Tazok, who initially seems more eager to kill you than to have you at the camp. (At least he doesn't recognize you.) You manage to convince him of your worth by telling him that dungeon crawling is fool's work and that it's better to have too many recruits than too few. Tazok leaves for 'the mine', he tells you, making you wonder what mine he's referring to.
You're allowed some time to look around at the camp, time that you use to speak with some of the bandits for information, and to look for letters that might give you clues. Most of the bandits seem to know little however, and the majority of the chests are locked. You do learn that the largest tent is Tazok's tent. Any import documents are likely to be found there. You sneak into the tent invisibly, and praise yourself for your carefulness when you find many bandits gathered there. In a corner, behind a large barrel you buff yourself (Shield, MSD) and you even manage to summon a few Skeletons before hostilities break out. As before you decide to rely on your WoF, trying to aim your Fireballs at as many bandits as possible without exposing yourself or your Skeletons to the fire. This doesn't work out too well with the first Fireball: it hurts your Skeletons and kills a roguish figure whose allegiance you were unsure off (he hadn't attacked you unlike the others).
Note: the accidental killing of Ender Sai brought Kathlen's reputation down to 10. This is inconvenient with an eye to prospective purchases in Baldur's Gate, but it does help Kathlen in the right direction for the 5th and 6th Bhaalpower: aTweaks' Divine Wrath. Subsequent Fireballs and Scorchers gradually thin the ranks of the bandits, until only their spokesman, a man named Raemon, and a wizard remain. Your Skeleton and you finish them off without using any more fireworks.
Nippy disarms a trap on a chest containing thousands of gold, a number of scrolls, and correspondence indicating that the architects of the iron crisis and the bandit plague are the Iron Throne, with a hidden base in Cloakwood.
Before traveling there, you take lodgings at the FAI for a night. In the privacy of your room, and with your intelligence enhanced thanks to Gellana's potions, you scribe a variety of new spells into your spellbook: Charm Person, Color Spray, Aganzzar's Scorcher, Glitterdust, Stinking Cloud, Web, Detect Illusion, Lightning Bolt, and Spell Thrust.
Edit: @semiticgod, I don't think 'pause' is an in-game effect. It's something only the player can do no? I'd be surprised if you found an item or spell capable of unpausing... Either way good luck with little Irenicus! (I love traditional Cleric/Thieves, though I have no idea how yours is going to be.)
@Blackraven: Pause is indeed an in-game effect, though it might not be identical to the normal pause. It's the effect that prevents you from doing anything when you're casting Burning Hands or Aganazzar's Scorcher.
Anyway... There's still another question I need to answer. Two of my characters have an effect that basically means they change into another .cre file, but this is not a polymorph effect. It replaces the creature, but since it kills the original creature, I have interpreted it to mean that the character changes into the new creature. I believe the change should make the original character adopt the new creature's ability scores and appearance, but I don't know about class or level. Should the character adopt its transformation's class and level, or retain its own?
@Blackraven: Pause is indeed an in-game effect, though it might not be identical to the normal pause. It's the effect that prevents you from doing anything when you're casting Burning Hands or Aganazzar's Scorcher.
Hm ok. Still, is there anything that undoes the pause, other than the lapse of time involved in the casting of the spell?
Should the character adopt its transformation's class and level, or retain its own?
Transformation's a very interesting effect. I have again no answer to your question. Since the original creature dies, I'd say the character should get all the characteristics of the new form, including class and level. However I don't know whether that's desirable from a mechanical point of view.
@Blackraven: All I know is that there's an opcode for un-pausing a target. I don't know if anything in the vanilla game ever uses it, though. The engine permits it, but there might not exist a method of doing it in the game.
As for the transformation... well, then we'd be looking at a level 29/30 halfling mage with nice stats and some absolutely crazy bonuses to spell slots. The only downside is that it would start with an empty spellbook, and it would only be able to pick 2 HLAs, at over 7 million XP.
But if we DON'T take on the critter's class and level, then the other character is a bard with Improved Alacrity and a -3 bonus to casting time, albeit with 1 INT, no Potions of Wisdom, and some screwy spell slots. Either way, it would unbalance the early game. Do I pick the level 30 wizard or the bard who can deal 48d6 area effect fire damage in one round?
@semiticgod@Blackraven Really appreciate your holding up the torch for this thread while I got bogged down with Real Life out there. (Khael the FMC is still on hold...)
And bummer on the passing of Lenhardt essentially due to a friendly-fire scuffle, . Those assassins have cost me games in the past as well. (The original game did not have seek you out in town; the newer SCS version of the fight taking place on a separate map makes it a bit easier.) Hope Kathlen will have better luck.
@Alesia_BH Congratulations on your newly finished run. We would love to hear about it if you were to repost it here. I think the collective wisdom of the EE boards here have much to catch up to yet on the no-reload adventures on the Bioware forums. Thanks in advance.
Comments
As some of you may know, I recently finished a SCS/Ascension solo no reload with my F/M, Arcadia. I deliberately completed the final Ascension battle in a way which illustrates certain features of the fight that permit safe passage for no reloaders. I intend to post on the battle at the Bioware forums, but I thought I might post here as well, if there is interest. Let me know.
Good hunting everyone!
Best,
A.
Also, congrats on beating the game once more, Alesia_BH!
I see you are using the old SRV3, would you like to try V4 instead? It's better refined, more balanced, and fully compatible with EE.
I see for example that you complain about V3 huge save penalties on many spells...well, V4 drastically changed that, going back to a more AD&D style (save penalty not strictly tied to spell lvl) and never going above -4 penalty (-5 and -6 were really insane, back then I was too much 3E oriented).
When it comes to the new Iron Golem form something wrong must be going on and I'd like to make sure it doesn't happen on any install. What other sources of physical damage resistance do you have on?
P.S Thanks for pointing out the Rod of Resurrection shapeshift bug, I guess I'll have to fix that for IR.
It would be sad to see the Rod of Resurrection trick go away. I'm rather fond of these exploits, even if I don't end up using them. Still, the Iron Golem form is outrageously powerful if you get it at such a low level. I've tested the form with a Fighter/Mage/Cleric and several other characters and found that it greatly simplifies the gameplay if you're using it on a class that can't normally cast Shapechange.
I'll install v4 and mention the content changes in my posts.
I have installed SR v4 as well as Item Revisions. I just looked at some of the new items.
This changes everything.
Long story, a lot of my plans no longer work. But I've found some new tricks in their place.
One notable change is that the Robe of Vecna is now wearable by Wizard Slayers, while the Wand of Lightning is not. Unfortunately, the Robe of Vecna has been moved (I believe to the bottom of Watcher's Keep, since that's where SCS2 puts it and I heard somewhere SCS2 got that idea from IR), so Imber is not going to be able to get it for a very, very, very, VERY long time. I was looking forward to using that. Imber would have had a -1 bonus to casting speed with that, and her spellpower would have increased dramatically.
The Wand of Lightning has also been tweaked to only fire three lightning bolts, instead of the normal six, diminishing the power of the Wand of Lightning trick. I didn't plan on using the trick, except maybe to slay Thaxll'ssillyia for giggles, but I did keep the wand around, and now nobody in the party can use it. Rius and Imber are Wizard Slayers, and though IR allows thieves like Yi Grovana to use wands, you still need 12 INT, which neither Grovana nor Poppy possess. Only after UAI will Poppy be able to use it, to triple the effect of her Poison Weapon Ability.
So why don't I just have Rius drink a Potion of Genius, so she could use it triple her Called Shot ability? Well, Potions of Genius no longer exist. They have been replaced by Vocalize potions. So, for the rest of the game, until we find an item that boosts her Intelligence, Rius will be stuck at 11 INT, with a 45% chance of scribing scrolls and a max spell level of 5.
Oh... and Carsomyr no longer gives 50 MR. That has been reduced to MR. Yi Grovana can no longer reach 96 MR. Right after we get Carsomyr, we find it gives us less than half the bonus we expected.
But no matter. I have found an even stronger source of MR, which can cover everyone in the party except for Yi Grovana: Spell Immunity, which in the previous version of SR gave +20 to saving throws for 5 rounds, and was named Wizard Spell Immunity, has once again become an entirely new spell.
Now it's called Dispelling Screen. It makes you immune to Breach (the spell itself and its variants, including the Wand of Spell Striking) as well as the Dispel Magic effect. So it's basically SI: Abjuration, without the immunity to beneficial spells.
But Dispelling Screen also comes with a 50% bonus to magic resistance. And it lasts 5 turns, rather than 1 turn as the description says. And it's flagged as undispellable.
And it stacks.
Rius still only has one 5th-level spell slot, but with Carsomyr, even in nerfed form, she can achieve 100 MR. The others can hit 100 MR with two castings of the spell. We're not immune to all spells, but we can resist almost anything.
I decide to test it out on the Shade Lich.
Unfortunately, traps aren't really conducive to long battles. Yi Grovana wins the fight only a couple rounds in.
Instead, I will test out Dispelling Screen on the Beholders right before the ruined temple of Amaunator. Imber and Poppy get hit by Anti-Magic Rays.
But when I check the Record screen, their MR is still at 100! It didn't break it down!
At least, not until the Beholders used the ray a second time. Then my party's MR started to drop. It still gave us enough time to make a dent in the Beholders, but we got a little overwhelmed. Rius got hit by Telekinesis and was about to get swarmed by Shadows when she recovered, but she was able to Dimension Door to safety.
I'm quite pleased with that spell. This is the first time I've used it, and though it didn't hurt any enemies, it forced the Shadows to attack from a convenient choke point, the stairs off the platform.
Around here, I noticed that Improved Haste no longer doubles attacks. Now it gives a normal Haste effect, plus some bonuses to THAC0 and saves vs. breath, does not cause fatigue, lasts 1 turn, and has an area effect. The 3rd-level haste spell, meanwhile, only affects one critter, and has nasty fatigue penalties right afterward. I'm not sure the 3rd-level version is worth it anymore. Without Protection from Fire, and with Skull Trap and Haste nerfed, 3rd-level spells are pretty weak on the whole.
Anyway, I headed to Ghoul Town and thankfully did not have to deal with a Lich. Just normal undead grunts. We finally get a hold of the Gauntlets of Dexterity, but now they only grant +2 to DEX instead of setting it to 18. Yi Grovana gets 1 extra AC from it in Salamander form, but otherwise it is useless to this party. Rius can use it, since IR allows Kensais to wear bracers, but her DEX is 10. No bonuses going from 10 to 12.
Yi Grovana also tried on the Skin of the Ghoul. Turns out it didn't quite fit her.
The Skin of the Ghoul now gives a -2 penalty to CHA. Guess how much CHA Yi Grovana has?
I pull out the Rod of Resurrection to bring her back. In IR, the rod doesn't heal the target; it merely raises the dead and starts them at 1 HP. The charges have also been revamped: now it can be used two times per day, and recharges. Since it's usable by Wizard Slayers, Imber uses the rod to bring back her sister. It doesn't quite work out.
Somehow, she was still wearing the Skin of the Ghoul when she was revived. With her CHA drained back down to zero, she instantly died.
I try again and finally she gets up. I was afraid I'd rendered her unrecoverable.
Now we have some more Beholders to take down. And now we know our MR is not unassailable. First, I send in Imber, invisible and heavily buffed, to take down the Blind Priests. She chain-casts Sunfire. The results are grim.
Sunfire isn't safe to use on the Beholders, though. If Imber gets too close, she might get her MR dispelled before the Beholders are dead, and though Enrage would keep her from getting paralyzed, she could still get messed up with spell damage. Instead, I turn to my old mainstay: summoning monsters, turning invisible, and letting my summons do the work.
It seems the Efreeti has received some buffs, I believe due to IR... it's not the same as it was in my other SCS2 runs. Aside from a slightly different spell set, this Efreeti apparently will revert to gaseous form, just like a real Efreeti, when it is injured, and regenerate while it is invulnerable.
The number of MR checks here is just absurd. Beholders can spam their way through almost anything. And since SCS2 Beholders have a 30% chance PER RAY of dispelling spell protections, we don't have a lot of options at our disposal.
There is, of course, an install option in which Beholder rays don't break down spell protections. If there's something you don't like about SCS2, there's probably an install option to remove it. But I have the nastier option installed, so Dispelling Screen won't be enough to make me immune.
I clear the dungeon of Beholders. All that's left is the Unseeing Eye.
The Unseeing Eye.
The thing about the Unseeing Eye in Sword Coast Stratagems is that SCS2 makes it almost impossible to kill without the Rift Device. How does it do this? It gives it a special item named DW#UNSEE.
What does this item do? This item gives it immunity to all spell levels, 1 to 9, as well as immunity to the elements, immunity to poison, immunity to +3 weapons and below, and 95% resistance to physical damage. Yes, better than Kangaxx.
But the Rift Device doesn't kill the Unseeing Eye, right? It only weakens it, by dropping its HP to 40. So how does the Rift Device make this thing killable?
It does this by removing the DW#UNSEE item. The Rift Device removes that item when it hits.
Well... I didn't know this at the time, but it looks like Item Revisions edits the Rift Device. Which would explain why the Rift Device, according to my files, no longer removes the DW#UNSEE item.
What does this mean? This means that when the SCS2 Unseeing Eye gets hit by a non-SCS2 Rift Device, the Unseeing Eye gets reduced to 40 HP... but still retains those crazy resistances.
That's not the fight I was prepared for.
It triggers some of our traps, but not all, since I laid them in a line up the hall, rather than in a cluster. I use the Rift Device and immediately activate Enrage to make sure Imber is functional in case she needs to turn invisible and escape the battle.
The Unseeing Eye hits Badly Injured and its Chain Contingency triggers, spawning in two Death Tyrants. One of them sets off a trap. We single it out as the weak link and attack it.
Poppy's MR buffs get dispelled, despite having Spell Shield active. I try to have her re-cast Dispelling Screen--it should come out quickly, since she has a bonus to casting speed--but the Unseeing Eye tosses out Web. Despite her remaining 21 MR and excellent saves, Poppy gets webbed.
Poppy recovers but fails to renew her defenses. One Death Tyrant has fallen. We bring down the second one, since the Unseeing Eye still has PFMW active and, to my surprise, it was also immune to nonmagical darts. By the time the second Death Tyrant falls, the Unseeing Eye's PFMW spell runs out.
It has more.
I have already tried to hit it with spells, using two Secret Word spells (which in SR have a casting time of 1, and can be spammed by Imber) to take down its Spell Deflection pre-buff, but even then, my single-target spells have no effect. It is impervious to both spells and weapons.
Then things start going downhill.
Not a good sign. Notice we have just been hit with Greater Malison--in SCS2, a sure prelude to some very dangerous spells.
Notice also that there is another PFMW spell activating via Contingency. We have to wait even longer to begin breaking down its Stoneskins. While we're waiting, I have Imber run away and try to lay some more traps from a distance, but only one of them succeeds. I try to hit it with Sunfire, too, only to see it has magic resistance.
Rius gets imprisoned, but since SR tweaks Imprisonment, she does not vanish from the party. This prevents Imprisonment from screwing up romances and such.
Poppy gets blinded. Imber's Enrage runs out. She can no longer venture into the Unseeing Eye's line of sight safely, so she hangs back until she can cast Enrage again.
Finally the Unseeing Eye's PFMW spells wear off, and only its Stoneskins are left. Imber's fatigue wears off, so she activates Enrage and returns to the fray. Our Wizard Slayer levels start taking a toll on the enemy.
That was a long-duration Transmutation spell, directed at Imber, probably a Ruby Ray of Reversal. Imber will be able to hold onto her 100 MR.
But the Unseeing Eye has more than wizard spells at its disposal. The fight is not over.
Worse yet, only Imber remains with her MR intact. The others are vulnerable to spells. We fail a save.
Then another. And another.
I bring them back with the Rod of Resurrection. While Imber is healing Yi Grovana and feeding her potions, Poppy fails another save. An important one.
Meanwhile, Imber is saddled with some unwanted Minute Meteors. I only just find out the Unseeing Eye is immune to them. I tried to get rid of them, but still have a few left. I can't start hurting the Unseeing Eye, or even tacking on spell failure, until I get rid of them. And I'm not willing to use them on Yi Grovana. We're weak enough as it is.
Oddly enough, the fog of war in the hallway, where Poppy stands petrified, is clear, as though Poppy were still alive. And despite Yi Grovana and Imber both hiding out in the eastern chamber, out of the Unseeing Eye's line of sight, it manages to track us down.
I split a couple of Potions of Invisibility between Yi and Imber. They're usable by all classes, including Wizard Slayers, and I remember being able to escape this battle once with invisiblity.
The Unseeing Eye is not fooled. It teleports over to us and promptly targets Yi Grovana. Since all Beholders have constant effect Improved Alacrity, just like Imber (but without the casting speed penalty), it can immediately cast its next spell. It also triggers one of Yi Grovana's pre-set traps, but its Stoneskin blocks the damage.
Grovana fails her save.
Meanwhile, Imber's rage has worn off, and she won't be able to use it for a few more seconds. She has no immunities left, and her MR can be dispelled within seconds. And the Unseeing Eye can see through her invisibility.
She starts to flee, hoping the Unseeing Eye won't be able to disable her. She is the only party member left, and the Unseeing Eye still has Stoneskins left. I have been considering stacking Called Shot to kill it with STR drain, but I need to get rid of my Minute Meteors first, and I need a decoy if I am to hit the Unseeing Eye safely.
Then a breakthrough happens. The Unseeing Eye collapses, felled by the lingering damage from Yi Grovana's traps, mere moments before.
The beast is dead. Now I just have to get back my party members.
The Ring of Earth Control can't cast Stone to Flesh in IR, but we do have a scroll of Stone to Flesh tucked away in Imber's Scroll Case for precisely this occasion. Poppy rejoins the party and gathers her equipment, only to end up getting chased around by a still-hostile Yi Grovana.
She's unarmed, but Poppy casts Stoneskins just in case.
I collect the group and start to head out--we need to buy a scroll of Freedom for Rius--but get stopped along the way.
I forgot that Imprisonment in SR has been replaced with a Maze effect. Instead of removing the party member from the group, or killing the main character, it simply sets the target's INT to 1 and Mazes the target a couple seconds later, ensuring a lengthy but non-permanent Maze effect. I rest, Rius returns, and we head to the temple of Amaunator to return the Rift Device.
Except, we don't have it. Normally the Rift Device, when activated, removes itself from your inventory and adds in a depleted version instead. They're two separate items, but somehow, we have neither. We lost the Rift Device but failed to get the expended Rift Device. Nor did Imber drop it: I check back on the hallway where she used it and the expended Rift Device is nowhere in sight. And since we only rested less than a day, it can't have vanished.
I cheat in the expended version and turn it in. On the way out, we pounce on Gaal. Once Yi Grovana casts True Sight, he is doomed.
The cult has fallen.
Lenhardt and company cleared the Cloudpeak areas, freed Dynaheir, acquired what spells were for sale (or for the taking, thanks to Alora) and scribed them into their books (thanks to Gellana's potions). They cleared the Nashkel Mines without incident, and even survived two consecutive ambushes in Beregost. The first battle against Molkar and co, went swell with Officer Vai, two Flaming Fist, and even injured Bjornin helping out, even though Dynaheir, Xan (who had taken Kivan's place, for an arcane-heavy crew) and Quayle flirted with death.
Thousands of GP that had been reserved for a Robe of the Neutral Archmagi for Xan, were spent on temple donations before the party went questing for reputation rewards. One such quest was depetrifying the woman in the Basilisk area. However, when they reached the corresponding area, one of Xan's quests triggered. I hadn't played it before; it was about dealing with three Calishite merchants that had bought three female Elven slaves. The men had six mailclad bodyguards defending them. My party was unbuffed, and Imoen was still injured from a previous area transition ambush. A Phase Spider dimension doored right into the middle of our party.
This isn't the first time I find myself going out of my way to keep party members alive - I've mentioned before that I tend to consider any party runs in which NPCs die repeatedly as failures - only to see it end in Charname's death.
Since I still want to become more adept with both arcane and divine magic, I rolled a new Cleric/Illusionist, Kathlen.
She serves Baravar Cloakshadow, is True Neutral (with Good tendencies, but too noncommittal to actually be good). She is modest, inquisitive, upbeat, furtive, and - hopefully - careful; all qualities that befit a good Gnome.
Is the Dimension Door you used the short range 1st lvl version added by SR or did you managed to find the disabled 4th lvl one?
Haste has been made single target because it was considered OP by 99% of SR players, but it now grants +2 thac0/AC/reflex saves bonuses (matching Slow ones to perfectly counter each other), and do not forget that it now always give a full +1 apr, unlike vanilla Haste which assigned only +1/2 apr to creatures with 3/2, 5/2 or 7/2 apr. Last but not least, SR's fatigue effect is temporary and short lasting, vanilla spell had a much worse hidden and permanent fatigue penalty.
The Efreeti using gaseous form is Revisions stuff yes, IR if it's the one from the bottle, SR for the summoned ones.
Glad to see SR's Imprisonment "fix" is working as intended.
@Demivrgvs: The Rift Device might just be some weird fluke. Either way, the Unseeing Eye is killable even with the DW#UNSEE item still in place.
I'm using the 4th level Dimension Door. I wasn't sure what the disable certain spells component of SR was, so I didn't install it, hence having the 4th level one. If you're telling me it's possible to get a level 1 version... where can I find it? Because that would be amazing.
Nice to see you make such good progress in this playthrough which really forces you to think outside the box.
Kathlen, Gnome Cleric/Illusionist (1st update)
[Note: in my previous post I introduced Kathlen as a Cleric of Garl Glittergold. But I discovered that unfortunately her True Neutrality doesn't allow her to, an oversight on my part, to which I have the following solutuion: instead of following Garl Glittergold, Kathlen worships Baravar Cloakshadow. That deity does have TN priests, and is also appropriate because he's the preeminent Gnome god of magic. I've corrected my previous post.]
Save for the company of Nippy, your trusty rabbit companion, you find yourself on your own with Gorion's sad death and Imoen's return to Candlekeep (after she had been so sweet but also unwise to follow you around) barely behind you. You decide against visiting the FAI. Hopefully doing the non-obvious will shake off any bounty hunters. You travel south to Beregost, where you help what people you can with simple chores, not necessarily because you're such a neighborly type but rather because you're in need of coin. You even kill some Spiders and Ogrillons by putting them to Sleep, and Skeletons near High Hedge by Shielding yourself and clubbing them down. South of the High Hedge you rescue Melicamp, a mage apprentice-turned-chicken, from a Wolf. Thalantyr the Conjurer impresses you by restoring Melicamp's human form, an advanced type of transmutation magic you can only hope to possess once you become more skilled in the arcane art.
On the southcoast you come upon an excavation site. Charleston Nib the archaeologist asks you to stand guard while he and his crew enter an ancient settlement they have just laid bare. You get a big scare when suddenly all the diggers go berserk and attack you. You find it impossible to dodge their collective attacks and you've only downed two when you find yourself gasping for breath, severely injured. A Hold Person freezes the remaining diggers, and with a sense of regret, you finish them off using your Sling.
The Nashkel mayor wants you to investigate corrupted iron ore and disappearances of people in the Nashkel Mines, and you tell him you will. When you reach the Mines you learn that Kobolds have assumed control of the area, including the mines. You know that Kobolds tend to operate in large groups, communities, and reckon they might be a bit too much to handle for you at this stage. You have your hands full staying out of trouble as it is, with the memories of the bounty hunters still fresh on your mind. Therefore you finally decide to travel to the FAI. On your way you are given a green scroll of PfMagic, take a Flaming Fist deserter (Samuel) with you, receive a charisma-enhancing ring from Lord Foreshadow, Sleep and slay a rogue Ogre with a belt fetish as well as numerous Hobgoblins, and find a ring that increases the number of spells you can cast.
At the entrance to the inn a shady character, a wizard, gets very upset when you attempt, unsuccessfully, to Silence him from too close a range to remain unseen. He knows who you are and begs you to hold still. He then treats you to a Melf's Acid Arrow. It causes you to flee into the Temple of Garl Glittergold, run by Gellana Mirrorshade (in whose care you leave Samuel the deserter).
Worse yet, in SR, Globe of Blades bypasses MR and forces a save vs. breath rather than a save vs. spell, and the save is at -6. Nobody in my party has good saves vs. breath. Rius in particular is vulnerable to SR area effect damage.
She has a guaranteed failed save against Globe of Blades. And she has -50% vulnerability to slashing damage, so she's basically doomed if the clerics get too close to her.
Also notice she has 1 Constitution. Shadowkeeper bumped it up to 2, but only fairly recently did I correct it and drop it down to 1. Also notice her 14 Charisma: in IR, the Ring of Human Influence boosts your CHA by 2 rather than setting it to 18. Many IR items operate like this, and it's very bad for this party, because our base stats are all over the place. Yi Grovana in particular will suffer, since the only means of getting her STR above 10, without which she is pinned to the ground, is for her to shapeshift or to have somebody use the Strength spell on her.
Anyway, we lay some traps (Imber fails all three times; Yi Grovana succeed), summons some summons, and bring out our buffs. We encounter a peculiar bug.
If you pause at just the right moment, then a Blade Barrier or Globe of Blades spell, whether it belongs to you or to the enemy, will fire repeatedly during the pause, potentially dozens of times before you can react fast enough to unpause it. And everyone in range can get hit dozens of times during the pause, and take dozens or hundreds of damage in the process.
Turns out Poppy's MR was able to block it. I didn't realize this at the time, but it seems that SR does not affect all of the spells that SCS2 mages use. SCS2 mages use entirely different spell files for the enemies, which means that Imber is using SR spells, while the enemy is using SCS2 spells.
Imber pesters the clerics with Minute Meteors while the others mob the fighter Statues. Minute Meteors bypass Physical Mirror, and are therefore my only safe option for disrupting the clerics' spells. Bear in mind, I didn't realize my MR made me immune to their Blade Barrier spells until long afterwards.
Poppy's Breach fails to affect either of the clerics, though I don't pay close enough attention to figure out why (a sudden Sanctuary spell? Poppy retargeting?). I keep Imber out of the way of the clerics, but the second fighter Statue will not stay at bay. Not sure how to deal with him, since the other party members are busy working on the other fighter, I trap him with Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.
The first fighter falls, leaving the rest of the party to attack the dwarven cleric Statue. The human cleric Statue, meanwhile, follows Imber to the southeast. I keep a safe distance and pelt her with Minute Meteors.
The Statue still manages to cast a Heal spell, but it's not a major setback. Imber is trying to disrupt, not to kill.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party is trying to figure out how to deal with the other cleric. None of them has Minute Meteors, and the Statue's Physical Mirror is still active. Our spells aren't affecting him, and we're not willing to engage in melee combat.
Then I remember Yi Grovana is an Inquisitor, and Rius is wielding Carsomyr. We cast Dispel Magic.
Imber finishes off the human cleric Statues with the Flesh Golem's assistance and rushes over to help out the party. The second cleric collapses, unable to cast spells.
Seconds after we kill off the cleric's summoned snakes (an SR innovation?), the second fighter breaks out of his shell. All we had time to do was summon a single critter.
It mattered not. Our party was well-buffed and healthy. His party was dead.
We have no more business in WK for the time being, so we traveled to the Umar Hills, slew Valygar's buddies, and then slew the Stalker himself so we could haul his corpse to the Slums.
I'd come up with a roleplaying justification but... whatever.
One of the Halfling cannibals kills himself on her Fire Shield. She still gets the Fire Shield effect from holding the Salamander token in her off hand.
The thing about the IR Cloak of the Sewers is that the Rat Form's abilities come from the rat's paw, not from shapeshifting. Shapeshifting mods in general tend to replace shapeshifting spells with items that change the wielder's stats and appearance while equipped. The rat's paw can't be dispelled, and even if I did remove it, I'd lose the physical damage resistance.
Paladins aren't supposed to be able to wear the Cloak of the Sewers in IR. But Yi Grovana is a Paladin/Thief, so it's not clear if she should really have to abstain from it. Unfortunately, it's also not equippable by Wizard Slayers, so if I restrict our three Paladins from using it, then the only one left is a Wizard Slayer, Imber, who also can't use it. And I don't want to have to discard the thing entirely until Yi and Poppy get UAI. Plus, Yi Grovana is already a master of shapeshifting, being an Avenger with the Shapechange abilities on top of her normal shapeshifts. Maybe I'll keep the cloak around for special occasions.
Rat form drops Yi's STR back down to 3 or so, so she can't walk in rat form, but if I re-equip the Salamander token, her stats and appearance will be reset as the Salamander's, but with the rat's resistances tacked on. Not sure if I want to abuse that or not. It's a cute trick, but might be too game-breaking, since the duration of rat form is a ludicrous 20 rounds.
I continue on to Togan and the other cannibals. After failing to dispel the enemy's initial buffs, Yi Grovana wades into the fray with Rius and our summons to take down Entu and Togan. Mogadish is protected by Physical Mirror and Blade Barrier, so Imber tosses some Minute Meteors his way to fustigate his spellcasting. Kayardi, meanwhile, is protected by PFMW, though it takes me a moment to realize I can still break through his immunities with nonmagical darts. Poppy screws up his spellcasting. Wizard Slayers are awfully underrated, I think.
PFMW, Stoneskin, and all manner of spell protections, and Poppy is still able to disrupt Kayardi's spells. The only other thing that can do that is Firetooth with normal bolts, and Firetooth's fire damage can be blocked with Spell Deflection and Spell Turning as well as magic resistance.
Incidentally, has anyone ever thought Kayardi was female, just because of the name? I've checked the files and the only female among the halflings is Taibela.
The battle is uneventful. Togan and Entu were unbuffed and helpless, Mogadish had no defense against Minute Meteors, and Kayardi was quickly crippled by spell failure. His attempts to hide were also foiled by Yi Grovana's True Seeing ability. Taibela and Necre suffered the same fate, wasting their spells on magic-immune characters, and then failing their spells under pressure from Wizard Slayers throwing darts.
I have long been wary of Lavok, ever since getting trounced in a no-reload, no-prebuffing, roleplaying SCS2 run with a single-classed wizard (slain by Comet and Dragon's Breath), but Lavok is actually not too dangerous depending on your install options. SCS2 can grant HLAs to all spellcasters or only some of them, and Lavok is curiously excluded if you choose to limit HLAs to the bigger, badder mages of SoA (namely, Liches).
I line up a pair of Acid Fog spells for this fight. Acid Fog, the SR version of Death Fog, deals 10 acid damage per round and decreases the movement rate of everyone in the cloud by 50%. As a 6th-level spell, it will bypass GOI, but will not harm my magic-immune frontliners. Rius has only just gained access to 6th-level spells, having reached level 16 after killing Valygar's paranoid guards, and unlike Poppy and Imber, she does not have a penalty to her 6th-level spell slots. In fact, she gets a bonus, and already has 4 spell slots for level 6 spells. She memorizes a PFMW spell for emergencies (I'm still worried Lavok's going to pull out a Fallen Planetar with their crazy vorpal strikes), plus a Protection from Magical Energy spell to compensate for Yi Grovana's less than perfect MR, and uses the remaining two slots for Acid Fog.
But since I want to keep around my summons, I don't use Acid Fog right away. Instead, I attack Lavok directly... who, oddly enough, activates NO weapon immunity spells. His first spell is Remove Magic, on Yi Grovana. I send her running from the battle to make sure the others aren't affected.
I figure sustained pressure from our two Wizard Slayers will be sufficient to keep Lavok from casting any spells, but he manages to get a Time Stop off the ground despite being pelted by our darts for two whole rounds. He doesn't use anything big on us--he merely takes down Poppy's Spell Shield.
Then, for some reason, Lavok goes blind.
Nobody cast any such spell. And none of my summons and none of my weapons should be capable of blinding anything on hit. Nevertheless, he is blinded.
Regardless of the cause, the blindness has little time to show an effect. Lavok's Stoneskins spells finally run out.
Kind of boring, actually.
The Tanar'ri outside the Sphere isn't much more interesting.
At level 16, Rius' Kensai kit has finally overcome her innate penalties to damage, hence the heavy critical on the Tanar'ri. It wasn't able to do much in the little time it had. Our 100 MR blocks its Death Gaze and Silence 15' Radius spells entirely.
You know what's funny? I've been ruling out the Iron Golem form on the grounds that 100 MR is unbalancing. But I've been gleefully cranking my MR up to 100 with Dispelling Screen for every mage battle with no apparent sense of irony.
- is SCS installed after SR? Because that's mandatory if you want SCS to actually take into account SR changes (SCS has specific checks for SR). If not, the game will work but SCS will assume spells work as per vanilla and does not skip a few spell tweaks on its own (which are skipped when SR is detected).
- summoned snakes are from Animal Summoning V (druids have an AS spell at each lvl now)
- I think you should read again how Physical Mirror works now
- jelly form immunities are as per PnP, the troll form has been moved to an appropriate ioun stone
Before the battle, I send out Yi Grovana to backstab the elven mage. She can't deal any damage, since the mage has Stoneskin already active, but it apparently breaks through enough of her Stoneskins to let Poppy get a direct hit within the second round of battle.
Notice that Yi Grovana has already been removed of her buffs and hit by Slow immediately after. She lost her Remove Fear spell, the Improved Haste, and even her True Seeing spell, though I didn't notice the last one was missing until later.
Despite being hit by lots of nonmagical darts with a Wizard Slayer behind them, Tolgerias, like Lavok, manages to cast his Time Stop just fine, along with all the spells he casts during the Time Stop.
I read somewhere that spell failure doesn't always work against SCS2 mages, since they sometimes cast spells via scripts, and spell failure has no impact on their success.
In any case, we now have two Glabrezus to deal with. Tolgerias is using exactly the same strategy we've all used for so long: summoning in some monsters in the hopes that the enemy will attack them instead of us. Well, that's not how I order my priorities. I want Tolgerias dead a lot more than his summons, as troublesome as SCS2 demons can be.
Yi Grovana has re-cast True Seeing to reveal Tolgerias, after I belatedly realized it had been dispelled. The elven mage is soon slain by Poppy's darts, leaving only Tolgerias and his demons.
Rius, who has no spell slots left for Spell Shield (3 bonus spell slots for level 6, but 1 less for level 5), is relieved of her buffs, both her immunity to magic as well as her AC buffs and her Stoneskin. The Glabrezus quickly take advantage of her newfound vulnerability.
Her aura is clear, allowing her to drink a potion and flee. The Glabrezus do not give pursuit, preferring to target Yi Grovana instead. Notice the Teleport Field that Tolgerias has set up. SCS2 enemies assume the player is using mostly melee weapons, and Teleport Field is great at frustrating melee attacks. Also notice Imber has only just now activated Enrage, as I heard an Enchantment spell being cast and wanted to be extra sure she was safe, despite her already having 100 MR and a Spell Shield to back it up.
Tolgerias discovers a weak point. Rius has been busy restoring her defenses, but Yi Grovana, the only other party member without 100 MR, is within Tolgerias' range.
Yi Grovana is doomed. I do not bother fretting about her safety. Even if the Rod of Resurrection could still heal her, it would not be enough to keep her alive. Instead, I let the Glabrezus busy themselves with chewing her up, and focus on Tolgerias instead.
I hear his Stoneskin vanish, his last defense against poison. Poppy activates Poison Weapon and hits him with a dart.
I spend a few more seconds attacking him, just in case the poison was not sufficient to finish him off. Rius has rejoined the battle, but without her buffs, her saving throws are terrible. She fails a save against one of the Glabrezu's many Confusion spells, but not before she gets in a critical hit.
Poppy hurries over to cast Break Enchantment, returning Rius to my control. SR replaces Remove Curse with Break Enchantment, which cures confusion, unconsciousness (finally an answer to Emotion, though Emotion in SR no longer knocks anyone out), and Feeblemind. It also removes a secondary type, Disabling magic, but I've encountered at least one disabler that apparently wasn't tagged as such (I forget where), so Break Enchantment won't remove all disablers.
It takes time for Poppy to reach Rius, since the Teleport Field switches them around. Her effort was in vain, however, as Rius was hit by another Confusion spell within the next round.
One of the Glabrezus has a Mirror Image effect active. I don't like that. But Carsomyr is no longer under our control, and without Yi Grovana, we have no True Seeing spells. Imber raises Grovana with the Rod of Resurrection (usable by Wizard Slayers, conveniently for us), only for the Glabrezus to spot the weak link. One of them teleports over to Yi Grovana, but loses interest after she flees its grasp.
Soon I discover that Yi Grovana has already spent her last True Seeing spell. She only has 2, which I believe is an error. Since she can't dispel the Glabrezu's Mirror Image, I send herout to fetch her equipment while her friends handle the demons. By the time she gets there, the last Glabrezu has already fallen.
Lavok thanks us for letting him see the light of day, and gives the Sphere to Imber. He drops a Ring of Acuity, which in IR grants an extra 5th, 6th, and 7th level spell... but is unusable by Wizard Slayers, and therefore both Imber and Poppy. Only Rius can wear it, and as a Paladin/Bard, she will never learn 7th-level spells. But it does give her an extra Dispelling Screen spell and PFMW spell, allowing her to renew her defenses should they be dispelled. Rius, unfortunately, suffers from a -1 penalty to casting speed, so PFMW will not have an instant casting time for her, and can be disrupted. But like the rest of the party, she has a bonus to movement speed and can run away if she needs time to cast it.
Imber also hits level 14, gaining her first 7th-level spell, though she has a -2 penalty to her level 7 spell slots. She picks Project Image, since I'm not sure what else to choose. Ruby Ray of Reversal is certainly useful, since Poppy, being a Paladin/Sorceror/Bard, won't get 7th-level spells until she hits 4.5 million XP, but so far we've been able to break through enemy weapon immunities without Breach, and we have precious little need for direct damage spells, with Imber's damage bonuses as they are.
Summon Death Knight is another interesting choice, the SR version of Cacofiend, as the Death Knight is quite strong, and I've never summoned one before. But I wasn't sure if I really needed another good summons, since I don't seem to have the summoning cap removed anymore and I'm not sure if I'll remove it again. Summon Hakeashar is also quite appealing, as it hits the target with Feeblemind on a failed save vs. spell, and with two Archers in the group, we can cause some very hefty save penalties if we want to. Finally, we also have Power Word: Stun, which in SR stuns any critter for at least 1 round, regardless of its hit points. And with its casting time of 1, and Imber's Improved Alacrity, she could stun-lock a fair number of critters. But bosses will be immune, it'll be blocked by spell protections, and it doesn't bypass MR.
This party is going to have very limited spell selection at high levels. Poppy won't get high-level spells until long after she's already casting Hardiness and setting Time Traps. Rius won't get high-level spells at all. And Imber, being a sorceror, can only choose so many. Sorcerers get up to 4 spell picks for the higher-level spells, but it takes time to get them.
It's nice to see Physical Mirror has seen some buffs. With a Mirror Image effect, priests finally have a way of avoiding spell disruption, at least half of the time. I notice the Cloak of Mirroring has a similar effect.
The cheese, the exploits... I've mentioned elsewhere that I tend to think more about how the game can be played than how it should be played. I just want to pick apart the system and see how it works. I have no real preference for how the game is supposed to be played.
Usually I fall in love with a particular exploit, use it a while, and then move on to a new fling. You get to see so many more things that way.
- yes, Cloak of Mirroring works as a permanent single mirror image which means you have a permanent 50% chance to avoid direct attacks, but for both balance and concept reasons SR's True Seeing will temporary disable the cloak.
You return to the FAI where you recruit Gorion's friends Khalid and Jaheira, accept their potions, and respectfully dismiss them with the message that you prefer to find your own way in life. Gellana Mirrorshade sells you a couple of blue and purple concoctions that temporarily increase the consumer's intelligence.
With these potions you travel to Thalantyr. You buy a scroll of Friends, quaff some of the potions and scribe the spell into your spellbook. You then rest and memorize Friends. When you get up, you find your intelligence still higher than usual as you immediately identify a bunch of enchanted darts you had taken from the Ankheg hoard. You cast Friends on yourself, buy about fifteen scrolls, quaff another INT potion, and copy your spells (inclusing those from scrolls you've found elsewhere) into your spellbook. You can now memorize such spells as Burning Hands, Chromatic Orb, Grease, Magic Missile, Protection from Petrification, Spook, Invisibility, Luck (to enhance Nippy's trap finding skills), Mirror Image, PW: Sleep, Ray of Enfeeblement, Strength, Dire Charm, Flame Arrow, Ghost Armor, and Minor Spell Deflection.
You also buy the Claw of Kazgaroth from Thalantyr and, after recasting Friends, a Helmet of Charm Protection at the smithy in Beregost.
Southwest of Beregost, close to where you rescued Melicamp, you run into the wicked priest Bassilus. He's standing amidst an army of Zombies and Skeletons he addresses as if they're his family members. You had heard of Bassilus back in Beregost, and of the 5000 GP bounty on his head. You want that reward.
A Silence 15' Radius shuts him up, but he saves against two Hold Persons,
You travel further west, leaving the Red Canyons behind, and traverse the grassy low lands for hours until you feel almost too weary to continue. But then the rustle of waves startles you. You've reached the shores of the Sword Coast. In the distance you discern a lighthouse. The area seems quiet, so you let Nippy out of your pack. However, just to be safe you cast Invisibility on your familiar and on yourself. The lighthouse seems abandoned but for three Worgs you choose to ignore. Further down the shoreline you spot three Sirines, but they can't see you or Nippy. You take your boots off and paddle northward along the coastline. Nippy on the other hand keeps to the beach. You spot more Sirines and a Nereid, beautiful creatures, but very territorial you know. They appear to be guarding the entrance of a cave. Overcome by curiosity you slip past the fey creatures and enter the cave. It looks to be abandoned, but Nippy knows better. Your rabbit jumps against your thigh, beckoning you to stop, before it starts disarming various traps.
The reward for taking down Bassilus and the sale of miscellaneous treasure allows you to purchase the Robe of the Neutral Archmagi. It's somehow short though as you put it on; it doesn't even fully cover your knees. You decide to wear a pair of pantaloons below the robe, even if it changes your clerical appearance into a more roguish look. With still a few thousand gold to dispose of, you ask Thalantyr if he has any protective cloaks for sale. He tells you he hasn't, and refers you to the Sorcerous Sundries in Baldur's Gate and to the Ulgoth's Beard Inn.
Upon arrival, the city of Baldur's Gate proves inaccessible as the Dukes have decided to close the gates until the bandit plague has been contained. With your wand of fire you make a modest contribution to that cause.
In Ulgoth's Beard you were luckier in your search for a good protective cloak: the innkeeper sells you a Cloak of Displacement for little more than 3000 GP.
You wander back to Beregost, the geographical heart of the Sword Coast, asking yourself what the next days have in store for you. On the one hand you feel contentment about your attainments and excitement about the unpredictability of your future, but on the other hand you struggle with the apparent purposelessness of your life. Yes, you have your arcane studies, and your devotion to Baravar Cloakshadow, but is that it? Or are you supposed to do something in particular with your talents?
In Beregost some of the townspeople speak of the Firewine Ruins as a place with riches for those who dare to venture there. You decide to check the place out for yourself, and also to visit nearby Durlag's Tower that a guy named Ike wanted to sell you a tour to in Ulgoth's Beard.
Thus you travel east from Beregost. Your journey is uneventful until you reach an area of barren land inhabited by Basilisks. Thankfully you are invisible when you first notice them. The creatures can't perceive you. You retreat to a quiet spot where a Ghoul offers to serve you. You accept the offer, remembering that Ghouls and most (if not all) undead are immune to gaze attacks. You animate two Skeletons, and turn invisible again. The undead clear the area of ten Basilisks, and of their evident master, a Gnome wizard like yourself, albeit it one with much darker motives than you.
On the top floor Nippy and you spot a demoness disguised as a Dryad. Your seeing through the illusion and your refusal to "accompany" the creature causes it to go hostile. You summon two Skeletons to deal with her but she keeps going ethereal, so you decide to leave her to her own devices.
You them travel to the Firewine Ruins, but when you encounter the area replete with Kobolds, you lose much of your curiosity since you're sure the treacherous, smelly creatures will have taken what treasure the ruins might have contained. Nevertheless, visiting the Firewine Ruins doesn't turn out to be a complete waste of time: your Skeletons dispatch an evil brawler for you, allowing you to take the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise from his corpse.
You make a stop at the Nashkel Carnival to look for useful wares, only to step inside the wrong tent at the the wrong time. You expect to meet a merchant but witness one wizard killing another one, and then turning to you with the same purpose. Two Minor Spell Deflections, two Magic Missiles and a Wand of Fire-cast Aganazzar's Scorcher later, the wizard lies dead at your feet.
She died! HAHAHA!
Anyway, I decided to try and kill Kangaxx. But first, we had an Elemental Lich to take care of.
After having reinstalled SCS2 on top of SR, we find that the Elemental Lich is now using SR spells.
It doesn't know Dispelling Screen stacks, of course, but I'm not yet willing to use Acid Fog on it to disrupt its spells anyway, because it also has Protection from Acid active. We don't have the high-level debuffs to break down its defenses, so instead we'll have to wait things out. It casts its first Time Stop undisturbed and removes Rius' defenses with Spellstrike.
SCS2 liches are aware of the fact that their spells lose duration during Time Stop, so they make sure to renew PFMW before they become vulnerable again.
Rius flees to renew some of her defenses, while I buff up Imber's Project Image clone. The Lich nearly kills my Skeleton Warrior (I got Rius to scribe a Summon Skeleton Warrior spell, despite her awful 45% chance of success), so I hit it with Resilient Sphere. Oddly enough, the Skeleton Warrior is not pinned by the spell, but it does seem to get the immunities the spell grants.
Our MR isn't all at 100 anymore, since Poppy stops buffing at 72, so the Lich's multiple Sphere of Chaos spells actually manage to harm us. Meanwhile, it keeps renewing its defenses, just in case one of us tries to hit it.
Finally it gets around to actually attacking us. With our terrible saves vs. breath, we are in no shape to handle a direct hit from Cone of Cold.
Soon after that, however, its defenses wear off. No PFMW basically means death.
We grab the Golden Torso and cheat in the Golden Arm and Leg instead of going back to fetch them from the tomb of the Shade Lich, whom I destroyed earlier on.
Now we have to fight Kangaxx. But first, there's a pretty nasty battle on the first floor because of the Tactics mod, one I'm not very familiar with. I don't have great confidence in my success, but I'm not really afraid of failing the run.
In this fight, we face two Liches and a bunch of fighter types, all at once, in a very tiny space. I decide to tank out the Liches as before, and concentrate on killing the fighters. Poppy gets nailed by a damage spell, and nearly dies.
That's not actually 1 HP. She at 5 or so. Her minimum HP limit is not why she lived.
I decide to turn Yi Grovana into a rat to hold off the fighters so Poppy can heal herself and cast Stoneskin (which I forgot to cast before the battle began). The Liches begin casting Time Stop. One of them does something I've never seen an enemy do before: it spawns in a clone.
Yi Grovana, of course, dispels the clone immediately with her already active True Sight. Tactics enemies aren't quite so bright, actually. But then, I'm comparing them to SCS2 enemies, who are quite brilliant.
The other Lich conjures a Hakeashar--very bad news.
Aside from draining spells, Hakeashars in SR also can hit their targets with Feeblemind. I've been trying to slay a dwarven fighter over the past several rounds, but divert my attention to the Hakeashar instead. Also notice Poppy is now truly at 1 HP, and only alive thanks to her minimum HP limit. I only noticed she was missing a Stoneskin spell after she hit 1 HP.
Meanwhile, the enemy grunts keep hacking away at Yi Grovana, despite her immunity to physical damage.
Notice the undead summons that the Liches are starting to bring out. They have many such spells, and soon the screen gets filled with them. Imber hurries over to kill them with Sunfire.
The Lich to the left appears to have a clone, which must have appeared after Yi Grovana's True Seeing spell ran out.
There's only so much I can do against so many enemies. Imber spawns in a clone to save on Sunfire spells, but a hostile Dispel Magic spell dispels both the Lich's clone and Imber's.
Worse yet, Yi Grovana's rat attack has been dispelled, despite the effect being tagged as non-dispellable. She now only has her normal resistances, which are nowhere near sufficient to survive the enemy fighters.
I have Yi turn into an Iron Golem, but her huge circle teleports her behind Rius and Poppy, preventing her from acting as a tank. I run outside to change our position. The enemies flood out of the door.
Seconds after leaving the room, Imber suddenly dies.
Turns out that that dwarf had a vorpal sword. It had a 15% chance per hit of forcing a save vs. death at -2 or killing the target, an effect which bypasses magic resistance. So why didn't we notice that earlier? Why didn't any of my other characters get killed by the sword, after so many rounds had passed?
Well, if the party is fully buffed, then everyone in the group except for Imber has a pretty excellent save vs. death. If the dwarf ever hit them with the vorpal effect, they must have made their saves.
I didn't want to quit the game without at least trying to win the fight. This time, I had Rius cast a couple of Acid Fog spells, and absolutely trounced the enemy, despite Yi Grovana dying in the first round against a vorpal strike. Turns out the Liches not only had no Protection from Acid spell active; they were also too stupid to walk 10 feet away to escape the cloud. This, combined with a PFMW spell on Rius and a Defensive Spin for Poppy to protect them from the vorpal, allowed me to concentrate my energy on killing the dwarf. Once the dwarf was down, I cleared up the remaining melee enemies. Shortly before I finished off the last Minotaur, one of the Liches died from acid damage, while the other managed to cast Heal on itself. But it had no PFMW spell active after that whole business was over, allowing me to slay it within a couple rounds.
Foreknowledge makes such a big difference. I've only fought that battle once before, and never noticed the dwarf had a vorpal sword. That one detail ended the game for me. But when I knew the dwarf could kill me despite my Stoneskins and MR, and I knew the Liches had no immunity to acid damage, the fight was a cakewalk.
The miners have little information as to numbers and whereabouts of the Kobolds. They actually think the creatures are demons. The first level is safe thanks to the Amnish military men guarding it. The same cannot be said about the second and lower levels. You try to remain invisible, but some of the corridors are so crowded with Kobolds that you literally have to blast our way through with the wand of fire (WoF).
As you rummage through the priest's belongings you find correspondence between him, Mulahey, and this Tazok he mentioned. The latter appears to be the leader of the bandits that plague the Sword Coast. You store useful-looking loot and leave the mines through a long passageway. When you see the sky above you again, you find yourself in an area you haven't visited before. Its dry topography and the presence of three burial mounds tell you that you find yourself in the Valley of the Tombs southeast of the mines. Under the cover of Sanctuary, you loot the tombs, thus avoiding having to deal with the various types of Undead inhabiting them.
At Feldepost's Tranzig recognizes you. He doesn't want to talk, so you Hold him and finish him off with a Skeleton by your side.
Any ideas on what's next?
In the area that Bjornin indicated on your map, you have a run-in with three bandits: a mage, a fighter and a Hobgoblin archer (fortunately no bounty hunters or assassins this time). You rely again on MSD and summoned Skeletons to deal with them.
When you return to Beregost yet another group of Assassins 'welcomes' you: two priestesses and two female rogues that disappear right after you spot them.
You're allowed some time to look around at the camp, time that you use to speak with some of the bandits for information, and to look for letters that might give you clues. Most of the bandits seem to know little however, and the majority of the chests are locked. You do learn that the largest tent is Tazok's tent. Any import documents are likely to be found there. You sneak into the tent invisibly, and praise yourself for your carefulness when you find many bandits gathered there. In a corner, behind a large barrel you buff yourself (Shield, MSD) and you even manage to summon a few Skeletons before hostilities break out. As before you decide to rely on your WoF, trying to aim your Fireballs at as many bandits as possible without exposing yourself or your Skeletons to the fire. This doesn't work out too well with the first Fireball: it hurts your Skeletons and kills a roguish figure whose allegiance you were unsure off (he hadn't attacked you unlike the others).
Subsequent Fireballs and Scorchers gradually thin the ranks of the bandits, until only their spokesman, a man named Raemon, and a wizard remain. Your Skeleton and you finish them off without using any more fireworks.
Before traveling there, you take lodgings at the FAI for a night. In the privacy of your room, and with your intelligence enhanced thanks to Gellana's potions, you scribe a variety of new spells into your spellbook: Charm Person, Color Spray, Aganzzar's Scorcher, Glitterdust, Stinking Cloud, Web, Detect Illusion, Lightning Bolt, and Spell Thrust.
Edit: @semiticgod, I don't think 'pause' is an in-game effect. It's something only the player can do no? I'd be surprised if you found an item or spell capable of unpausing... Either way good luck with little Irenicus! (I love traditional Cleric/Thieves, though I have no idea how yours is going to be.)
Anyway... There's still another question I need to answer. Two of my characters have an effect that basically means they change into another .cre file, but this is not a polymorph effect. It replaces the creature, but since it kills the original creature, I have interpreted it to mean that the character changes into the new creature. I believe the change should make the original character adopt the new creature's ability scores and appearance, but I don't know about class or level. Should the character adopt its transformation's class and level, or retain its own?
As for the transformation... well, then we'd be looking at a level 29/30 halfling mage with nice stats and some absolutely crazy bonuses to spell slots. The only downside is that it would start with an empty spellbook, and it would only be able to pick 2 HLAs, at over 7 million XP.
But if we DON'T take on the critter's class and level, then the other character is a bard with Improved Alacrity and a -3 bonus to casting time, albeit with 1 INT, no Potions of Wisdom, and some screwy spell slots. Either way, it would unbalance the early game. Do I pick the level 30 wizard or the bard who can deal 48d6 area effect fire damage in one round?
Really appreciate your holding up the torch for this thread while I got bogged down with Real Life out there. (Khael the FMC is still on hold...)
And bummer on the passing of Lenhardt essentially due to a friendly-fire scuffle, . Those assassins have cost me games in the past as well. (The original game did not have seek you out in town; the newer SCS version of the fight taking place on a separate map makes it a bit easier.) Hope Kathlen will have better luck.
@Alesia_BH
Congratulations on your newly finished run. We would love to hear about it if you were to repost it here. I think the collective wisdom of the EE boards here have much to catch up to yet on the no-reload adventures on the Bioware forums. Thanks in advance.