Thanks @Borco - I don't usually fear SoD, having no-reloaded through it a couple of times already, including solo. The problem for this run are the settings - with my randomized characters having very little in terms of hitpoints and enemies dealing double damage thanks to insane difficulty, specific types of enemies such as thieves (who are quite smart in SoD) can instantly kill or even chunk any character with one backstab hit, including my Bhaalspawn - and that can be very scary. The only character that I can count on to survive for any amount of time once an enemy gets close to them is Ceres, provided her defensive buffs are active. Most of these problems can be solved by just firebombing most groups of enemies, but in cases where this strategy doesn't work that well or if I make a mistake, things could get quite dangerous.
@Enuhal Noted. I've never played on insane difficulty, but even with core rules, thieves can be really really scary for certain characters. Especially if they have a habit of quaffing multiple potions.
Importing from Siege of Dragonspear into BG2EE Shadows of Amn. Difficulty: Core rules, max HP on level-up. Self-imposed restrictions: No using unidentified items, no recharging items by selling and buying them back. Mods: SCS v31 including prebuffs and Tweaks anthology (only the component to reduce chunking), see spoiler for WeiDU.
Initialise mod (all other components require this): v31 Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v31 Allow Spellstrike to take down a Protection from Magic scroll: v31 More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v31 Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v31 Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v31 Modify the Harm spell so it does damage rather than reducing target to 1 hp -> Enemy and player Harm spells both do 150 hp of damage: v31 Allow individual versions of Spell Immunity to be placed into Contingencies and Spell Triggers: v31 Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures: v31 Cap damage done by Skull Trap at 12d6: v31 Make Power-Word: Blind single-target: v31 Make Minute Meteors into +2 weapons: v31 Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): v31 Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v31 Slightly increase the power of Mantle, Improved Mantle, and Absolute Immunity: v31 Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v31 Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls: v31 True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness: v31 Prevent Simulacra and Projected Images from using magical items: v31 Replace +1 arrows with nonmagical "fine" ones: v31 Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: v31 Remove the Shield of Balduran from the game: v31 Remove the invisibility power of the Staff of the Magi: v31 Move Vhailor's Helm into Throne of Bhaal: v31 Move the Cloak of Mirroring: v31 Move the Robe of Vecna into Throne of Bhaal: v31 Make the healing and resurrection powers of the Rod of Resurrection into separate abilities: v31 Change Carsomyr so that its Dispel on contact power grants a saving throw: v31 Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v31 Improved shapeshifting: v31 Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: v31 Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla: v31 Make Freedom scrolls available earlier: v31 Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: v31 Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from certain areas -> Only remove nonmagical ammo from random containers: v31 Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v31 Ease-of-use party AI: v31 Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v31 Remove animation from the Cloak of Mirroring (leave it for other spells and effects that use the same graphic): v31 Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v31 Smarter general AI: v31 Better calls for help: v31 Add high-level abilities (HLAs) to spellcasters -> Only selected spellcasters in Throne of Bhaal get HLAs: v31 Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31 Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31 Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v31 Improved Spiders: v31 Improved golems: v31 Improved fiends -> Fiends have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31 Smarter genies -> Genies have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31 Smarter celestials -> Celestials have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31 Smarter dragons -> Dragons have a substantial hit point increase: v31 Smarter beholders -> Don't give beholder rays any chance of burning through spell protections; beholder antimagic blocks all spells, including harmful ones, for a round (simulates D&D rules): v31 Smarter mind flayers -> Illithids have enhanced damage resistance; Illithids cannot see invisible enemies: v31 Smarter githyanki: v31 Improved Vampires: v31 Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v31 Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v31 Improved Shade Lord: v31 Spellcasting Demiliches: v31 More resilient trolls: v31 Increase difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings -> Mildly increased difficulty: v31 Improved Random Encounters: v31 Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Enhanced spirit trolls (as in Tactics): v31 Improved Unseeing Eye: v31 Improved Bodhi (Tactics Remix) -> "Toned-down" version of the original Tactics Improved Bodhi, with SCSII scripting: v31 Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v31 Improved Sahuagin: v31 Improved Beholder hive (adapted from Quest Pack): v31 Prevent resting in the Illithid city: v31 Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences: v31 Slightly Improved Watcher's Keep: v31 Improved Fire Giant temple: v31 Enhanced Sendai's Enclave: v31 Improved Abazigal's Lair: v31 Improved Minor Encounters: v31 Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v7
Benedict wakes up in Irenicus' dungeon, recruits Imoen, Jaheira and Minsc, and sets off!
The intended party is Imoen (Yoshimo subbing in until Spellhold), Jaheira, Minsc, Anomen and Mazzy. So, pretty much a repeat of Cassius' party... which I enjoyed, even though I only got to play the full party for a few hours until Anomen met his untimely, permanent demise. The immediate levels gained result in some proficiencies. Minsc gets + in Bastard Sword, as I really liked him wielding Jhor the Bleeder +2, and it seems a shame not to make use of Foebane +5 (which you can put together very early in ToB), should we make it that far. Jaheira gets + in Spear: Last time around, I gave her + in Quarterstaff first to reach specialization, but if you do that, it takes literally ages for her to also become specialized in Spear, and I want her wielding The Impaler +3 by the time we reach the Underdark. With her low Strength, she won't really be amazing in combat anyway until we pick up a Strength item for her (I know, buffs and potions, but it just never seems a good expenditure of resources when it comes to Jaheira... she'll have to be content with plinking away from the back row using a sling for now).
Benedict had a spell selection especially tailored for the dangers in Irenicus' dungeon, and we make swift progress while using very few healing potions. Jaheira actually lands both her memorized Charm Person or Mammal, giving us some temporary Duergar meatshields. Not much to report, really: Standard damage/disabling/summoning spells carry us through. Sadly, no high-level spell scrolls in the Mephit Portal room this time, though we did get an early Plate Mail.
We rest right before heading outside, heal up and have Imoen identify as many items as she can. Following this, Irenicus and Imoen are both whisked away, and we are on our own. We do a quick bit of shopping for scroll cases/gem bags (Benedict, of course, casting Friends in public, leading to a stern warning from the Cowled Wizards...), then head into the Circus. Again, little to report: Jaheira had True Sight memorized, so there was never any danger. We rest up at the Seven Vales.
So, here's where we deviate a little from the safest path: We go after Mencar and his gang with only four party members. Yoshimo successfully sets three traps by the stairs, while Benedict and Jaheira summon three Skeleton Warriors, a single Fire Elemental and a Nymph. Following extensive buffing (Haste/Bless/Strength of One/Defensive Harmony), the Skeleton Warriors surround Pooky while the Fire Elemental moves to block Mencar and Brennan. Jaheira moves in with True Sight running, and we are off!
Pooky's defenses do not last long. Pooky and Ammon both lead with Remove Magic aimed at Jaheira, who scuttles off to a corner and begins casting Insect Plague. Meanwhile, Minsc joins the Skeleton Warriors, Yoshimo chipping in from range, with Benedict landing Greater Malison and the Nymph following up with Confusion. And thus, the fate of Mencar Pebblecrusher and his unfortunate allies is sealed (Smaeluv under Berserk was of course immune to Confusion and got a few hits in on Minsc, but with Smaeluv's poor AC he dropped quickly regardless).
Hooray! As expected, most of the loot is trivial (though the Ring of Invisibility is handy). However, a suit of Full Plate this early on is exceedingly welcome: It will turn Minsc into much less of a punching bag. We rest up again, and head for the Slums, recruiting Anomen once we've finished dealing with Gaelan.
Now we could go straight for Mazzy... we could. Really, we should, but for some reason we opt to finish the whole Slaver questline first. One of the Copper Coronet guards drops a Protection from Magic Energy scroll, which was a nice touch. The Beastmaster is handled by clearing the four northernmost cells of their inhabitants before simply charging the remainder, and we are off into the Sewers.
The two Hobgoblin groups, as customary, get a Cloudkill each, one memorized, one from the single-charge Wand, and we have enough magic weapons by now to not have to worry about Mustard Jellies (Anomen got Mencar's War Hammer +1). Once the Sewers are clear, we buff up (Haste being key) and charge into the Slaver ship.
My intent was to handle Haegan via Doom + Rigid Thinking, but this turned out to be unnecessary: Once Doomed, we were able to just pelt him to death, while Jaheira under Iron Skins soaked up his Throwing Axes. Needless to say, the Priest of Cyric died first (Benedict helping out with some MMM's), and once joined by Haegan, the battle was essentially over: With Full Plate and a Ring of Protection +1, Minsc was almost impervious to the Slaver Guards.
Jaheira had a Flame Blade memorized, allowing us to deal with the Trolls. We summon three Skeleton Warriors and two Nymphs, and go after the Slaver Wizards and their entourage. With Insect Plague and 2x Confusion, the fight is over almost as soon as it begins.
On our way back to the Copper Coronet, we enact the time-honoured tradition of letting Cohrvale and Bregg duke it out with a Fire Elemental (though we somehow got two from a single casting). Hendak subsequently rewards us for our bravery.
Alright, what next? Magic license... definitely magic license. We're already on the Cowled Wizard radar thanks to Benedict's carelessness. We rest up, and make our way unmolested to the Government District under Invisibility 10' Radius, securing a license for the price of 5000 gold. While here, we also rescue Viconia and send her off to the Graveyard, gaining another Plate Mail in the process.
We still have an Invisibility 10' Radius, so elect to pop off to Watcher's Keep, buying yet another gem bag and that very useful potion case. A rest later, it's time to get the party together: We arrive uneventfully in Umar Hills. The Killer Mimic and its roommates the two Umber Hulks are cleared out (with the help of some Skeleton Warriors and Minsc under Free Action from Anomen), and we embark for the Temple Ruins.
Here, as has become customary, the stained glass bugs out: Minsc is sent, stealthed, to activate it. It kills a few Shadows, then Minsc tries to drag the remainder into its area of effect. And... all the shadows just clump up, apparently immune to the light. The rest of the party has to rush in (I figured this might happen so Minsc was under Free Action to prevent him being Held by the Shadow Fiends and thus killed for certain). Once Anomen Turns a few of the Shadows and they start running around, the stained glass finally kicks in.
Making our way into the Temple proper, the first room is cleared of undead by our own undead.
Once through, we recruit Mazzy... who gets bumped up to 500k experience. Yep, we really should've gone for her first thing. She'll be a bit behind now. Her resultant proficiency is put into Axe, as she's just darn impressive wielding Azuredge +3/Frostreaver +3.
We proceed through the Temple. Jaheira has two Conjure Fire Elemental prepared, but for whatever weird reason, her second casting nets her... no Fire Elemental at all (guessing it's related to the bug where she sometimes gets two Fire Elementals from one casting). Making the Bone Golem a bit more hassle, but Benedict whips out Improved Invisibility for Minsc, the latter finally gaining the upper hand against the dread construct.
Apparently the game decided to compensate us for only getting a Plate Mail in the Mephit Portal Room: Rummaging through the dropped loot, we come upon one scroll each of Khelben's Warding Whip and Ruby Ray of Reversal. I mean, I'd be ecstatic if it had been Spell Trigger, but shoot, those are pretty darn useful scrolls too.
With all enemies pretty much beaten, we gather the loot beyond the trapped alphabet-floor (including a scroll of Protection from Magical Weapons), and soon depart, given that SCS Improved Shade Lord is just stupid (and I've no intention of dying stupidly). Back in Umar Hills, we save Jermien from his own golem, with Ibratha +1 going to Mazzy for frequent use of its 1/day Mirror Image.
Having rested up, we return to Athkatla, and are immediately directed to the Delryn estate. We deal with Anomen's little sidequest, opting for the path that doesn't turn him emotionally unstable. Oh, there was also a Laeral's Tear Necklace in the estate... nice little bonus. Finally, we swing by the Docks, picking up yet another scroll case, and then return to the Copper Coronet. Still not a single ambush. We'll need to rectify that later.
With Benedict a mere 500 xp from leveling, he scribes Wyvern Call and Summon Nishruu (guaranteed success owing to 19 Intelligence and them being Conjuration scrolls), and it is enough to gain him his first SoA level. This seems a good spot to hold for now: The party is gathered, we've got some basic gear, and we have enough levels (caster-wise) to have some options available.
Next time, we'll probably rummage around Athkatla until we get a few ambushes (in particular, I want to kickstart Jaheira's quest so we can get the Ring of Reaching before departing for Brynnlaw). We also need to decide if we want to make this run a carbon copy of Cassius' dito, i.e. if we are going for the De'Arnise Keep next, or if we want to shake things up a bit. I'm almost leaning against not doing a repeat, mainly because I still do not have a safe way to tackle the Tor'Gal fight. Two (reasonably) high-level enemy mages, a Tor'Gal that makes a mockery of any summons including Fire Elementals, and a crap-ton of additional melee grunts... it's difficult. But we'll see!
I've been lurking in this thread, I used to post in the LoB SCS challenge thread. Several tactics for the ducal palace fight are discussed there @Blind_Visionary one that I find works for almost every kind of solo character is charming two of the nobels before you initiate the fight with algernon's cloak or the nymphs cloak (assuming you have this) . The charm lasts for 12 hours so you can rest in the inn and charm the other one, park the charmed nobels in the side rooms without vision and initiate the fight. This will make the fight much easier, and after you kill off thedoppelgangers just wait until the charm wears off and kill the remaining doppel mage's one at a time.
Recently I've taken up the cause of my old friend Lyran the Blackguard again, who was last seen cutting a swathe of destruction across the Sword Coast. So far he and his band of reprobates have made good progress. In the party presently are...
Adrian is the most fragile, so he may get swapped out at some point. Tiax was with us in BG1 so his mod may get a run out, especially as Faren seems like he might be a little too soft hearted. Time will tell...
The game set up is a bit odd, with a bit of depowering going on. There is an XP reduction for quests and about 1/3 of all unique magic items have been removed from the game by randomiser. On the other hand all classed enemies have been reduced by 2 levels or so. On balance this will probably increase game difficulty, as usual I'm playing with SCS, revisions mods, and as many other mods as was convenient to install on Android.
Nothing too notable happened on the early quests, now all except the mage & bard stronghold quests are done. We opted to poison the grove and a failed attempt to charm Lord Logan means we are running away from him in Trademeet for now. He will eventually meet with a swift death when it is convenient. During the Unseeing Eye quest we found a Balduran-Shield-esque item, but just as I started to feel guilty the rod failed to work! (This bug was more prevalent with other quickslot items in BG1, a few other bugs have also popped up...) Rolling with this we threw summons at the Unseeing Eye while it tried to fry them with triple abi-dalzims, finally falling to a hail of arrows. Oddly enough Lyran got the helm stronghold, but one imagines that he will lose it after advising a confused petitioner to resolve his marital difficulties Keldorn-style.
Only one or two half-dangerous moments so far... a finger of death on another party member, surprisingly running into a mod introduced basilisk... but we shall see if Lyran can make it past the Underdark while making some suboptimal evil decisions.
There's an ever-lengthening period since my last success at this challenge. That's not been helped by several recent bits of cheating by the game. The last of those followed me using a bit more buffing than usual in a blackguard run. He was making good progress through ToB this morning when Draconis decided to leap on top of him when changing to dragon form. Unable to move around I tried a slug-fest using Soul Reaver, but couldn't quite finish the dragon off before being acidified by its breath.
I'll see if I can get revenge by using low-risk tactics with another attempt at a dwarven defender. To help with that I'll limit sessions to 1 hour to try and avoid the usual downward spiral into more risky ventures.
The first hour saw: - a quick exit from Candlekeep. - travel to the coast to shoot Shoal (level 3 - +24 HPs)
- kill Algernon for his cloak - pull sirines out from Beregost temple and melee them down while protected by improved invisibility (level 4 - +13 HPs)
- travel to FAI, shooting an ogre on the way. Charm gate guards to kill Tarnesh and buy Buckley's Buckler to activate regeneration. Also charmed Jaheira to drag her outside and kill her to get an emergency invisibility potion - travel on to Ulgoth's Beard, returning a bowl to Tenya on the way (level 5 - +15 HPs)
- charm Dushai to get her away from onlookers and kill her for her ring - travel to the lakes and activate some gnolls to attack Drizzt while avoiding getting into his sight. When he was down to single figure HPs I attacked as well, but didn't have any luck early on. A potion of clarity was used to fend off charm persons and both oils of speed (from killing Imoen and Montaron) were needed before Drizzt eventually fell
- with reputation down to 3, I went to help out Ardrouine and then get a lift to Nashkel with Brage to push that up to the safety of 5. I dodged Neira's rigid thinking before beating her up while she was wasting time with hold persons (level 6 - +16 HPs).
Also grabbed the ankheg armor and another invisibility potion there before resting to get LMD - at Firewine Bridge, Bentan was charmed and sent into battle with Meilum in order to pick up the PfM scroll left behind. Meilum was then shot for his bracers. - the last 10 minutes or so were spent following Korax round killing basilisks and Mutamin. Baerin was charmed and pulled away for disposal and Kirian then paralyzed and finished off before Korax died.
By that time Peter had already used his rigid thinking so he and Lindin were safe to attack. The hour was up at this point, but as I'd spent some time writing up notes I stretched a point and spent a couple of extra minutes killing them to leave me just short of level 7
Trio Update Yeldon - half-elf cleric/ranger, protagonist (Corey_Russell) Keras - dwarven kensai (Grond0) Denko - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
We had a pretty good session, other than the lost experience because of Grond0 and Gate70 dropped connections. The first tasks were clearing out the Kuo-Toa, Beholders, and Illithid lairs. All these went quite well. We got a bit lucky as the Elder Orb's imprisonment got interrupted and thus no problems for the Trio. Yeldon tanked the Illithids with loads of genius potions and this worked great.
We then did the gopher quests in the Drow City - by the numbers and no suprises here. We eventually made it to Elhan and left for Athkatla. We encountered Drizzt - Yeldon left him alone, but Keras really wanted to tango - Keras let Yeldon have his way.
Once in the City, we collected our saved items in the chest at Waukeen's Promenade. We noticed the shadow ward stone, and decided now would be a good time to deal with that Shadow Dragon. We had a few buffs, and summons - Yeldon got a critical and his summons did nice damage, and Thaxxy died super fast.
Yeldon thought maybe we should get another dragon, but then realized the party has yet to even get to Windspear Hills. So went there and penetrated a little into Firkraag's Lair and ran out of time here.
Today's hour saw: - a couple of golems at High Hedge shot down (level 7 - +11 HPs)
- Bassilus was successful with a rigid thinking, but I was well away from trouble by the time it hit and waited out the effect before coming back to finish him off (and pick up his lovely hammer)
- now wearing the Golden Girdle and dual-wielding Twinkle, the battle horrors at Durlag's needed criticals to hit and managed only 1 between them. Inside, ghasts didn't last long, while basilisks provide some quick XP at the cost of a couple of mirrored eyes potions - a quick trip through the Cloud Peaks recovered the final girdle and the charisma tome - at the Nashkel Mine, Mulahey failed to cast a rigid thinking, so I didn't even have to run away
- the amazons outside the mine were tackled individually, but I didn't bother trying to dodge a final rigid thinking - on her own Zeela stood no chance anyway
- reporting to the mayor pushed reputation to 10 before dodging Nimbul's horror and hacking him down - in Beregost I rested to get CLW before getting caught stealing to push reputation back to 9. Tranzig did pretty well to actually manage to get a hit in after not being allowed to surrender, but that was far from well enough for him - at the Bandit Camp the bandits got a few criticals in on the way to find Taurgosz and he managed more hits, without causing any danger.
After swapping to full plate armor I rested to heal up before going in to Tazok's tent. An arrow of biting disrupted Venkt's horror spell, so I stayed in the tent to beat up all the enemies at once. If you approach the trapped chest from the side in v2.5 then you can get the lightning bolt to not only miss you, but kill Ender Sai to get a small gold bonus
- after selling surplus equipment (retaining Hakt's bow as the best non-proficient missile weapon available), I ran through the Cloakwood with only a brief detour to get a potion of invulnerability from Laskal. At the mine Genthore was charmed and helped kill Kysus. Drasus was drawn away and disposed of and Genthore followed soon after. Rezdan managed to follow me inside the guard house while casting and tag me with an acid arrow, but he paid for it shortly after as the hour mark ticked over.
Looking at my character record at the end of the session I saw I had missed the point at which I got the XP for level 8 - I suspect that was at the Bandit Camp. Levelling up here provided a nice 17 HPs. I did again cheat a bit with my timing by deciding to rest now until I got Bhaal horror (as I would probably forget to do so next time otherwise).
Sticking with the plan, the party begins travelling between Athkatla areas. It's not long before Suna Seni puts in an appearance. As we're invisible, we retreat to the north, conjure some meatshields, apply buffs, and simply charge in. No problem.
We've many spells remaining, so continue our gallivanting about town. Eventually, we stumble upon Renfeld in need of assistance, which we grant (the thugs accosting him are too low-level to even warrant buffs). We deliver Renfeld to the Harpers, then go after Sanasha and Prebek. True Sight makes a mockery of most of their defences: Sanasha didn't put up PfNM and so is simply shot down, while Prebek did, and so warrants a Breach. They accomplish nothing more than Slowing a few party members (and Benedict ate a Chromatic Orb from Sanasha... he was under Death Ward though).
The Harper compound is thus looted, and Xzar assassinated, leaving us with his items, gold and gems... it's what he would have wanted. So, what now? Not much point in trying to trigger more ambushes, as the remaining ones have trivial loot. We might as well decide on which main quest we're going to do. Regardless of what we do next, Full Plate for every frontliner would sure be helpful... and there is an enemy party that carries several such suits. Yep, we're going after Tarnor the Hatchetman and his cronies!
So, we'll be up against two strong melee grunts, a ranged grunt, two clerics and a mage (the latter with 7th level spell slots). We rest up, and head for the Temple district, accepting the Unseeing Eye quest before descending into the sewers. We clear out Roger's Sea Troll, but take care to not get caught by the Beholder and two Gauths that teleport in.
Alright, let's do this. Yoshimo manages to set four traps, we conjure a Fire Elemental and four 7HD Skeleton Warriors (Anomen is L11 now), and buff up extensively including some spell protections on Benedict. Anomen tosses out Farsight so we can keep an eye on what's going on while maintaining our distance, and the Fire Elemental is stationed next to one of the clerics. Minsc moves up just close enough to trigger the dialogue, and we then fall back outside visual range, as the enemy party goes all-out on the poor Fire Elemental.
My intent was to bait Gaius into using up his Death Spell so we could then send in our Skeleton Warriors, but he didn't fall for it. Instead, the Fire Elemental was literally beaten to death within two rounds, and we had to send in our Skeleton Warriors anyway. Benedict lead with Greater Malison, and with Anomen's follow-up Silence 15' Radius, both clerics were neutralized. Benedict's second spell was Emotion: Hopelessness, which knocked out Gallchobhair, Draug Fea and Zorl. While all this was happening, the rest of the party kept their distance.
Unfortunately, Rengaard (with Physical Mirror up) ended up triggering Yoshimo's traps, leading to Yoshimo very nearly dying (and being Held). However, our Skeleton Warriors kill off the unconscious Zorl, and with the help of a Flame Strike from Anomen, Tarnor bites the dust (the party has begun engaging at range by now).
You'll note we went from four Skeleton Warriors to one. This is because Gaius decided to use Death Spell, and managed to catch three of them. Still, we're in good shape. Draug Fea succumbs to mass ranged attacks, as Benedict starts putting out a few Invisible Stalkers to hold the line.
That Conjuration from Gaius is Summon Efreeti, which he manages to cast even though (as his Mantle has expired) he's being pelted by elemental damage ammunition. His triumph is shortlived, however, as a scant few seconds after the Efreeti enters the Prime, Gaius (in a sense) leaves it.
The Efreeti manages to fry both our Invisible Stalkers with a dual Fireball, but we're actually able to kill it at range without it turning into mist. With only an unconscious Gallchobhair left, the outcome is no longer in doubt.
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! We gather up the delicious loot, including two Small Shields +2 (one for Minsc, one for Mazzy), a Full Plate for Mazzy (recall that Minsc is already wearing one), a Full Plate +1 for Jaheira, and a Returning Throwing Axe +2 for Mazzy. That went surprisingly smoothly; the only worry was Yoshimo almost killing himself with his traps, and the Efreeti gating in. And now our frontliners have excellent AC all around!
We've got spells left, however. The Cloak of the Sewers would be nice: +1 AC is never wrong, and the Troll form saves on healing potions. We pop the Fireball charge from the Wand of Fire we're still lugging around since Irenicus' dungeon to clear the Kobolds, and then let Minsc, Mazzy and Jaheira duke it out with the Rakshasa (Anomen used True Sight to dispel its Illusions). Mazzy baited it into firing its Web/Stinking Cloud minor sequencer: She was immune to Web via equipped Arbane, and extremely likely to make (and she did make it) her save against the Stinking Cloud. The Rakshasa got off a Sunfire and Skull Trap before being brought down, but it's nothing potions can't fix.
We gather up the cloak, as well as the magical ammunition and scroll of Conjure Earth Elemental, and depart. That all went exceptionally well! And, yes... I think we're going to have to go for the De'Arnise Keep next: Frostreaver +3 for Mazzy is just too good to ignore. All of the fights apart from the last one are easily managed, and we'll just have to play TorGal by ear. I'm hoping we can drag him into seven traps and then just nova him down (Potions of Giant Strength on Minsc/Mazzy/Jaheira should help), but we'll see.
Of course, the instant the party does not travel with everyone under Invisibility 10' Radius (I figured we'd save some time and go to the Keep even though Jaheira and Benedict were visible), we get the Orog ambush. We're low on spells, but kiting the Orogs works just fine, even though the area is a bit on the small side: Jaheira turns into a Wolf and leads them around, while the rest of the party just shoots the mage down (said mage went light on defensive Illusions).
That dealt with, we arrive at the Keep, head inside to speak with Daleson, loot what we can get at, and exit. A rest later, we begin our assault in earnest. I went with four Sunfires on Benedict for offense, but otherwise it's mostly buffs. Chaotic Commands is absolutely essential, and Protection from Fire (the mage kind with 1 turn/level duration) helps as well. With our spectacular AC, we can get away without using the standard Bless/Chant/Defensive Harmony/Strength of One buff bonanza even against fairly large Troll mobs.
Protection from Fire on both Mazzy and Minsc means they can hold the line as Benedict unleashes Sunfire, and even though there's only enough Sunfires memorized for clearing two full groups, those groups drop in two rounds flat.
We make our way to the second floor. In stupidly trying to save on spells, I send a Nishruu and Mazzy in Troll form against the Yuan-Ti Mage. The hope was that the Nishruu would drain the fell wizard of spells, but it failed to make much of an impact.. I guess it had too poor THAC0 to reliably hit. We take a fair bit of damage as the mage unloads most of his arsenal on us, but Jaheira fixes us up with Wondrous Recall and a resulting 2x Mass Cure. Glaicus is also rescued from his Charmed state through a scroll of Dispel Magic. We make our way downstairs, leaving the Golems alone for now. Once we've cleared everything up to the door to TorGal's room including the Umber Hulks (and Yoshimo has successfully set three traps at the door, failing the other three attempts), we retreat back upstairs.
Benedict has two scrolls of Conjure Lesser Air Elemental, and successfully uses both. These Elementals provide a meatshield as we beat the first two duos of a Stone and Flesh Golem, although both Elementals succumb to the Golems' blows in the process. We finally use our last spells: Five Skeleton Warriors and a full round of buffs, including Haste, and Enchanted Weapon on Mazzy. Once we take the Elven Court Bow and activate the Iron and Clay Golem, Minsc (using a Mace +1) and Anomen (using The Kneecapper +1) destroy the Clay Golem with two Skeleton Warriors as distractions. Meanwhile, the other three Skeleton Warriors hold off the Iron Golem, as Mazzy plinks away at it for dear life. This turns out to be exceedingly efficient: The Iron Golem drops, having accomplished nothing more than destroying a single Skeleton Warrior.
We retreat back outside, forging the Flail of Ages +3 on the way, turn invisible, and rest. Once back outside TorGal's room, we conjure. Benedict spent his two L6 slots on Conjure Fire Elemental, and successfully summons two of them (successfully meaning they do not turn on us). Jaheira conjures another two, and we top our summoned critters off with a Skeleton Warrior. Meanwhile, Yoshimo has managed to place another four traps (Benedict threw Luck his way).
The plan is simple: TorGal has retreated into the midst of his goons. However, only TorGal can see through Invisibility... meaning an invisible party member should be able to bait him straight into the seven waiting traps. Yes, the rest of the group will follow, but we'll send a solitary Fire Elemental to kite them around for as long as possible. With the entire party as well as three Fire Elementals, all under Haste, even TorGal shouldn't be able to hold for long, especially if we land all the traps.
So, we buff (Mazzy again getting Enchanted Weapon, as she's presently much better at range than in melee), including Strength potions for Minsc and Jaheira. Invisible Yoshimo sneaks into the room along with a Fire Elemental (Anomen popped Farsight to allow for easier kiting), and... it works! Only TorGal charges after Yoshimo. The rest of his group seems confused for a round, then starts moving towards us, but are distracted by the Fire Elemental running around. Every single trap connects with TorGal, bringing him to Injured. And before any of his compatriots can even reach the site of battle, the dread Troll succumbs!
We rush into the room where our distracting Fire Elemental is all but dead. Our remaining summons hold off the melee grunts, as the party engages the Yuan-Ti Mages. They do several things, none of them successful: Breach at Benedict (blocked by Spell Shield), Remove Magic at Jaheira with no one else nearby, and Death Spell at our solitary Skeleton Warrior, which runs off to the side, keeping our Fire Elementals in the fight. By now, Benedict has successfully Breached the first Yuan-Ti Mage, and mass ranged fire spells its end. Leaving the second one only one more round, during which it accomplishes very little. Another Breach later, it too falls.
There are still plenty of Trolls and the Umber Hulk Elder left, but when the party joins the Fire Elementals in the fight (along with Insect Plague/Slow/Glitterdust), said Trolls do not last long. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! That is by far the best result I've ever had with this fight in SCS. It seems going straight for TorGal was the correct play, and little wonder: He is the most dangerous enemy combatant by far. We gather up the hidden cache, and exit the Keep. Nalia gives us a small reward and retires to a life of luxury. We apply Invisibility 10' Radius and return to the Copper Coronet, purchasing Azuredge +3 so I don't forget about it later.
Alright. As I've said, I want the Reaching Ring before we head off to Brynnlaw... those extra slots, particularly the 7th level one, makes an appreciable difference. So, we need to basically wait around for the romance talk to trigger, then rest outdoors. Might as well do another Jaheira-related task meanwhile: We'll deal with Baron Ployer. We head to the Sea's Bounty, Jaheira is Cursed, and swiftly un-Cursed: Ployer died before his hired mages could finish teleporting in. Said mages then spent most of the fight trying to Remove Magic/Breach us, while we happily took them down one by one. There's no danger tanking enemy spells if you're protected against pretty much every status effect and type of elemental damage, after all.
Still waiting... so we clear the Pirates out. We overbuffed quite severely, but eh.
Finally, we get the requisite talk ("This is a dangerous life we seem to lead..."). On our way to the De'Arnise Keep to rest, we get yet another irritating ambush. Irritating as in they've got no real loot. Also, how can the melee grunts in Plate Mail only be worth 650 experience? They hit like trucks and take ages to bring down, having oodles of Potions of Greater Healing.
Finally, we reach the Keep, and can rest. And, sure enough, the bandits spawn. I was prepared for a serious fight, but... they're ALL of them melee grunts. No caster in sight, making things very easy. Once the last one drops, Meronia comes for Jaheira, and the rest of the party heads back to the Sea's Bounty. One rest later, Jaheira returns, and we head for the Harper Hold.
Again, we grossly overbuffed. Everyone got Chaotic Commands, Protection from Fire, Protection from Lightning, a few Death Ward... we could've just gone with Haste and called it a day. Greater Malison, Insect Plague and Greater Command, with True Sight running, was all it took to clear the would-be Harpers.
We are handsomely rewarded for our patience: The Reaching Ring! +1 5th, 6th and 7th level spell slots. Glorious!
The party returns to the Copper Coronet. Again, this seems a good place to wrap things up. We have plenty of gold, plenty of gear (with +3 melee weapons for our two main fighter-types), plenty of levels. Next time, we'll deal with the Guild War by cleansing the Vampire Coven. Then, it's off to Brynnlaw, Spellhold.. and the Underdark. Perhaps we'll even live through it this time. Benedict remains a L12 Human Conjurer.
Alis started her run in a dungeon. Loads of undead and XP to boot.
Alis started her run with a pact with the undead.
Protected from undead and with the harrower in hand, the undead hunter made short work of the undead. Korlasz was dispelled twice and failed her save against poison..
In the city only Korlasz posed a threat - but failed against poison again. The shortbow prof. points paid off.
Out of the city Alis rushed for the warrens of the undead. More xp in sight.. Again Alis started with protection from the undead, and made short work of the lot.
A some point a trap confused Alis. Since Alis was close to the bronze sentry, she was in real danger, but luckily she didnt stray. Fittingly the lich gave her the ninth and final SoD level.
Not needing the xp but feeling that the vamprie quest was a must, Alis trekked to the forest with the vampire. Alis arrived at night and ses thrown into the fight without a warning.... a dire charm ended the run this time. Alis Landale II awakens..
Well, Lyran's been going on with his various quests, clearing the first level of Watcher's Keep, assassinating a number of undesirables, and even going on a pub crawl for Drini. However... incautiously Lyran enraged a Cowled Wizard during a quest from Check the Bodies. As a result the Government district is now something of a no-go area, mostly populated by Cowls who occasionally get poked by the guards or their own summons. They have some sort of irritating script that causes them to fling lots of low level spells with alacrity as well... After killing about 20 of them (poor Xan got caught in the crossfire) I have decided that this is as good a reason as any to get on a boat out of Athkatla now the city is hot, and will now take on Bodhi herself next time out. Hopefully this should cure some of my native incaution...
Another day, another hour: - hacked a way through the Cloakwood Mine to Davaeorn and used a potion of magic blocking to attack him.
Flooded the mine and rested after the reputation increase to get slow poison. - did a series of reputation quests in the wilderness areas to boost that to 20 and also picked up the pantaloons. - fireballed the Red Wizards of Thay to get the Ring of Energy. - used a potion of invulnerability and defensive stance to tank the sirines safely at the Lighthouse.
- moving on to Baldur's Gate I headed straight to get the Helm of Glory.
That provided 20 charisma to force shops to offer their best prices and trigger a spending spree. - the poison quest was completed by disrupting the 2 spells Marek tried to cast.
- with time running short I used the Greenstone Amulet for the first time to get the tome from Durlag's Tower and then punched through Ramazith's Tower to get the final tome available at this stage.
Quick note on Saoirse's game: We're currently on hold in Windspear Hills as a result of unsatisfactory performance on my end. I've made couple of mistakes, costing us vaulable resources, and ended up rest-spamming a bit in the end (which I didn't like at all). I don't want to get Saoirse killed because of my absent-mindedness and therefore I decided to suspend the run for the time being.
I'll note that I started a new solo character and - spoiler alert - we've just defeated Sarevork this morning. I hope to do the catching up before we proceed with SoA.
It seems like I'm cursed with prophetic visions of my own downfall, as some of the fears I've had about taking this party into SoD have come true. I'm immensely frustrated with my own play right now, because I knew what to expect, what to do and I still - for some insane reason - decided not to play things safe. The run is still going, but our power is greatly diminished, and so is my motivation.
We started as usual by fireballing the one group on the upper level of Korlasz' tomb that actually has to be fought, making our way downstairs before activating one of our saved-up PfU scrolls on Cephalus. To make sure he'd make good use of the scroll's duration, fire giant strength and oil of speed were added, and he started to clear the area:
The shadow group to the west includes several invisible foes, so I brought an invisible Ceres to cast detect invisibility to prevent us from getting ambushed by these guys when walking by with our full party later on:
Next up, we did have to fight the second mercenary group - a quick set of fireballs allowed us to catch all of the dangerous foes right away (it's important to catch the invisible thieves with a couple of these before they can get too close and out of the AoE):
After taking down the remaining undead with Cephalus, we prepared to fight Korlasz. My plan was to take her down with dispelling arrows while skeletons would distract her allies - this worked out very well in the beginning, her death was quick - though she didn't get the option to surrender, which I propably would've chosen (too much damage at once, apparently):
And now, witness my foolishness in action. Since Korlasz didn't surrender, I had to fight her entire party, and I knew that said party contains a few dangerous archers and thieves. As such, I was fully aware that the only reasonable approach to this battle would be to do something about the thieves (which were invisible at this point) - the safest option would be to throw six fireballs in the room, with the alternatives being a tactical retreat into some prepared traps or another casting of detect invisibility (which propably wouldn't be enough, because they typically have at least 2 invisibility potions). However, overconfidence, propably greatly increased due to my two previous successes with the SCS/Ascension run and the Solo run, got the better of me. Despite me NEVER having any money trouble in SoD at all (not even the slightest bit), I decided to "save charges" and just stood there like a fool, firing ranged projectiles at the enemy. It was as if I completely stopped thinking and just pressed attack (the A-click move, for those who play RTS games). Suddenly, the enemy cleric (who I, for some reason, didn't even focus down) had affected Dumuzid with rigid thinking, and three thieves were trying to backstab Ouranus - thankfully, his extremely low AC resulted in them missing:
One thief was taken down, the other two used their first set of invisibility potions. For some reason, I didn't realize how screwed I was at this point (remember that any backstab will likely result in a kill or chunking, thanks to insane difficulty double damage and our very low party hp - Cephalus is the only one with a chance to survive one) - of course, the SoD AI is smart enough to go after the one guy who can't defend himself: An archer started hitting Dumuzid, and the next backstab attempt against him (now already weakened) was successful - and we got our first chunking:
At this point, I didn't have any options to save Dumuzid (no invisibility spell in Ceres' spellbook, which might've maybe worked), so even if I would've woken up after the rigid thinking hit, he was propably doomed. I did get the second thief during this reveal, but the third one went after Oedipus - and managed to hit (this one was a bit less likely to happen, because Oedipus actually has very good AC - but the reasonable reaction after Dumuzid's death would've been to have everyone immediately drink an invisibility potion to avoid further deaths - which shows you that I was still not paying attention, just sleepwalking through this fight). In any case, Oedipus was of course killed by the backstab, and he was lucky not to get chunked:
The final thief didn't make it out alive after this kill, and the battle was over. Luckily, the flaming fist healer resurrected Oedipus before we made it back to the Gate.
Now, what are the consequences of Dumuzid's chunking? In all honesty, this is still kind of the best case scenario when it comes to chunking - we don't need three thieves, and Dumuzid doesn't bring much else to the table. The main problems right now are: a) Dumuzid was the only one of the three who had maxed open locks/find traps, so I hope that I'll be able to find/buy enough potions to boost Kaveh and Oedipus. b) as long as we're still in SoD, Dumuzid, as a reasonably good archer, would've been an important part of my damage and had the ability to use special ammo such as detonation/dispelling arrows. c) six party members are still over all stronger than five, and we can't replace anyone in these settings - so every loss matters quite a bit.
To make things worse, while questing in the big city, I somehow lost my full stack of dispelling arrows - most likely, Cephalus dropped it because some quest item was added into his full inventory, and I only noticed it once it was too late. This is pretty bad - dispelling arrows are at the core of my strategy for a couple of important battles. I still have a few with me, but now I will have to be super careful about using them. In any case, our greatly diminished party started clearing the coast way crossing where my terrible play continued. When fighting some spiders, I failed to notice a web tangle by a gargantuan spider approaching Ceres, not putting on one of my two rings of freedom (something I usually never fail to do). This resulted in another death, with no one being able to save her. No chunking, thankfully, and at this point, Ouranus had his first 5th level spell in order to resurrect her:
At this point I decided to just stop playing. The rest of this update was played a few days later. I was able to pull myself together and avoid further big mistakes, though my confidence in this run and my motivation have both been greatly diminished. Here's how things went: The bridge battle was won via five fireballs, and the vampire killed by traps and a few attacks:
The hidden room on the first ambush map is always tricky, because you start surrounded and can't prepare with summons. Plus, neo-otyughs are quite dangerous. I used wand summons and a buffed up Ceres (now that she has two fourth level spells, which means stoneskin + spirit armor, she is quite a good tank) to distract the opposing forces while the other party members started taking care of mustard jellies:
By re-using my summoning wand, some careful kiting and forcing enemies to switch targets I was actually able to get out of this fight without taking a single hit, which is kind of a good sign:
I made my way to the repository of undeath, once again using PfU and Cephalus to clear most of the area (two scrolls needed - now I have only one left, but there's only one more area with undead in the game anyway). For the bronze sentry, Ceres added her tanking power, and skeletons their offensive potential:
Taking down the Coldhearth Lich with the Secret Revealed was easy going from there:
The latest hour saw the stage set for a confrontation with Sarevok: - picked up the Helm & Cloak of Balduran - cleared the Seven Suns - used the stairs to break the opposition at the Iron Throne up into bite-sized chunks
- back at Candlekeep the traps were tanked without protection as usual, while a potion of cloud giant strength, topped up by DUHM, secured the tomes. A bit more area-hopping isolated Prat
- after resting to get a second DUHM, a final bit of shopping acquired some dispelling and exploding arrows - Slythe lost out in a melee contest and Krystin to elemental arrows
- at the palace I used potions of giant strength, mind focusing, power and speed topped up by DUHM. I moved to one side to try and attract dopplegangers to attack while using dispelling arrows on those going after the dukes. I was lucky that 3 of them went for me - one of which was sent running by Bhaal horror. With only 3 attackers on the dukes, that looked like being a fairly comfortable victory - and it was. Belt was pulled into the back room for safety and I decided I had more than enough money, so didn't even wait for Sarevok to kill Liia before showing myself to him.
- with buffs still running, the inhabitants of the maze didn't last long. The hour ticked over just as I had moved into position to attack the Undercity party, though with plenty of cash and XP I probably won't in fact bother with them next time.
Most of the troll claw woods are easily doable with either skeletons + ranged attacks or firebombing. The only interesting battle can be the troll cave, as the enemies are spread out (can't kill everyone with fireballs right away) and there's no way to start with summons, since luring opponents out of areas isn't possible in SoD. I was able to burst some trolls to near death with opening fireballs, but a lot of kiting had to be done to avoid damage - at one point, I had to kite with three characters at once (possible thanks to Ceres' haste, but always tricky) - in the end, Ceres was able to catch most of the trolls and tank them with her defensive buffs:
The Forest of Wyrms outside areas were once again no trouble. For the spider cave, I had my rings of freedom at the ready (this time avoiding any mistakes), and an invisible Kaveh got rid of all the traps before I started to throw fireballs and hit the spiders. Astral phase spiders are a huge threat, but I was able to avoid getting hit by any of them. Before leaving, we also took down the rhino beetle:
For the dragon, we used the throwing dagger trick before clearing the bugbear caves. Luckily, these guys aren't smart enough to carefully choose targets with their otherwise deadly thieves - they just go for the closest opponent (skeletons, in this case). In the Temple of Bhaal, most cultists were simply fireballed to death. However, the two mages in the final group survived the process, so I simply ran away, waited out their buffs invisibly (dodging a detect invisible spell in the process) and returned again with another fireball:
For Ziatar, to avoid her breath weapon, I had Ceres use a protection from poison scroll, aiding the skeletons from afar - while the party stayed at a safe distance:
No trouble here - I didn't have everyone use the protection scroll at this point because I was scared of a dispel magic, but this never happened. The other ones did end up using their scrolls for the Neothelid, though - since I was going to fight a couple of dangerous battles soon, I also added heroism and oils of speed:
Seizing the moment, I rushed into Akanna's room. I was able to hit her with a wand of paralyzation charge right as she went invisible, and some wand of the heavens charges + magic missles helped my skeletons to take down the two aerial servants:
I quickly made it to Darkshelin, using Cephalus' beastmaster spells to get some more summoned fodder (aerial servants had killed most of my skeletons) - they served as distractions for me to throw in two sets of fireballs into the room:
The mind flayer survived, but Ceres (buffed with cc as well) is perfect for tanking such a foe, so he was quickly taken down. Now, I had to rest before taking on the shadow aspect, because I didn't dare challenge him without true sight. I entered with spellbuffs, skeletons at the front, and true sight dispelled the mislead clone:
The shadow aspect didn't even get a chance to renew his mislead - this is the best I've ever done in the insane version of this battle:
So now, we made it to Boaresky Bridge, first completing all of the sidequests without any trouble (with Cephalus being a beastmater, I decided to forge the dragon scale armor for the first time). Starting the battle, we invaded the enemy camp with the flaming fist - we started with some self-buffs, most importantly oils of speed, and threw some fireballs into the battle:
Everything was going great, we took down the Bhargest and most of the enemy forces without trouble. However, then, suddenly, from off-screen, one of the enemy mages hit us with a wand of fire charge, instantly killing Ceres. Luckily, Cephalus and Kaveh, the other two who got hit, were wearing their fire resistance rings:
This is kind of annoying - since we got hit from off screen, there was barely any way to prevent this death. However, it does seem kind of fair - shooting fireballs from off screen is something our own party does to our enemies constantly, so... the game is getting its revenge. In any case, luckily, the main battle was almost over at this point - Khalid's group did rather well, and together, the remaining mages were taken down. Now, we had to fight the bridge battle. My last meatgrinder attempt ended here, thanks to the fire portal. While we were down to four, I was prepared to interrupt that mage - buffing up Cephalus' thac0 with some potions (he would use some of our precious dispelling arrows), and preparing The Victor as additional security. The initial assault worked - the mage was killed very quickly:
At this point, it was safe to retreat to our army, and we really had to - Ouranus could've died any second with some bad luck. With enough space to kite and some NPC help, we triumphed and made it to the Coalition Camp, resurrecting Ceres and doing the minor quests around there. Next time, we shall explore the surrounding areas.
The start of the next hour saw the merciless death of Sarevok's cronies by lightning (a particular advantage of doing that is to get all 8 exploding arrows from Angelo). Angelo isn't easy to hit like that and by the time he died Sarevok was already badly injured - I just went straight into melee to finish him off.
In the SoD prologue I bought some stuff from the Flaming Fist healer, before getting Porios to surrender. PfU allowed some easy XP from undead, before fireballs and melee accounted for the group guarding the final door. Arrows of dispelling and acid quickly prompted Korlasz to surrender - though she failed to get away anyway.
I didn't bother with much in the city, beyond picking up the Spectacles and Battle Tankard (I'd carried through about 60k worth of jewelry and scrolls to allow for shopping without killing any NPCs).
I typically go at the start of SoD to get the regeneration ioun stone. However, with natural regeneration, so many potions available and the very limited amount of work actually required in SoD, there's no need for that for a dwarven defender and I didn't bother this time. Instead rapid progress was made by: - hiding behind the tent until Caelar came to parley at the bridge. - running through Troll Claw Woods. - using invisibility to get into the temple without fighting at the Forest of Wyrms. - a potion of invulnerability and PfP soon saw off Ziatar and the Neothelid.
- exploding arrows softened up Darskhelin for the kill.
- the aerial servants both hit with invisible attacks, so I ran them round before coming back for Akanna (using stone form to protect against greater command there).
- at some point in the temple I'd got the XP for level 9, so took that (+13 HPs). - on the way out a second dagger thrown at Morentherene proved fatal.
- surprisingly, I arrived at Boareskyr Bridge still without having found any ambush areas yet. Exploring that will have to wait for next time though.
Ellisar failed to survive the bandit camp. The strategy was to keep CHARNAME out of the battle in the tent under invisibility. Unfortunately, Venkt got off a well-placed glitterdust. The archers then feathered CHARNAME with criticals... I had no plan B, except start the game again.
Next up was Nicros the Sorceror; Lawful Evil; traveling with Dorn, Viconia and Safana. The run was looking promising, until Silke fired off a double chromatic orb sequencer at Viconia. She was petrified and chunked, along with some of my most valuable loot. I recruited Tiax to replace her, which turned out to be ill-advised.
Nicros had Tiax summon his ghast to use as a target for Drain Life. (My evil characters often heal at the expense of summoned beasts.) Not only did that fail, but the ghast took offense at the abuse. It went straight for Nicros. The first hit paralyzed CHARNAME. There was no time to prevent the second. Never died that way before...
- at Boareskyr Bridge I wimped out of attacking Vichand (even though it's reasonably safe for a fighter to attack him if you use a potion of firebreath) and just intimidated him into giving the scroll. I killed a Greater Feyr in order to buy yet more unneeded potions before surrendering the fort. The mage on the bridge had no real chance after being hit with an initial dispelling arrow.
- a green dragon got a helping hand on the way to the Coalition Camp (I later saw the yawning pit ambush area, but not the other ones). - the Spectacles pulled a genie vendor onto the Prime Material Plane to sell me a couple of nice items - ran through Dead Man's Pass on the way to rescue Skie. - at the Underground River, beat up the cyclops
before going invisible to head underground. Blagged my way into the inner area and used a final charge of my invisibility ring to poison the food and water. Showing myself to Hephernaan open up an lift again and, with oil of speed still active, I was able to run out before anyone could react. - back at the Coalition Camp I wasn't allowed to surrender to Caelar, so decided to fight instead. Exploding arrows did most of the damage to the invading forces.
- moving on to Dragonspear, a PfM scroll was topped up with potion buffs before going to find Ashatiel. My only use of darts of stunning in the run to date tagged him with only the second hit.
- after going through a portal I ignored the first area before killing some fodder in the second. Thrix summoned some more to be quickly meleed, taking a bit of damage from the Hamatula's spikes in the process, before opening the route to follow Caelar.
- I buffed up while riding the elevator, protecting against fire, lightning and poison as well as the normal potions. - after finally catching up with Caelar I recruited her, but as always left her uncontrolled in the fight. Using the dragon shield, Twinkle and Golden Girdle, I think Belhifet needed a critical to hit (definitely at least 19). He had a clear preference to attack Caelar so I couldn't protect her entirely, but a few restorations kept her going until Big B was cut down to size.
- the hour had come up during that fight, but I decided to just run through the epilogue anyway rather than having to switch games in the next session. In doing that I realized I'd got the XP for level 10 at some point after arriving at the Siege and took that.
The first hour's work in SoA saw: - the dungeon totally cleared (getting up to level 11 in the process).
One oddity there is that I found the Horn of Kazgaroth, rather than the expected Helm of Balduran - which I would have been preferred for this character. - bought a bit of reputation before going to restore the circus. - checked in with Gaelan Bayle. - oversaw a transfer of control at the Copper Coronet.
- sent Suna Seni's gang into a panic when they realized they'd ambushed the wrong target.
- got an armor upgrade from Officer Dirth. - used the Horn to reduce saving throws against a pirate mage (also got to level 12 there).
- rescued (but not yet returned) Renfeld.
Dwarven defender L12, 135 HPs, 139 kills (+535 in BG1)
Gate70/Grond0 multiplayer attempt 167 (Journal entry 1234 5) Thaal (female dwarf priest of Lathander, Gate70); Shane (male halfling swashbuckler, Grond0) It's been a couple of weeks since Thaal and Shane were about. They are standing outside Watchers Keep and have the ammo belt plus Crimson Dart, but also a pair of slippers. Thaal also has Raise Dead memorised so perhaps Shane had died inside. Regardless, we returned and handed over the slippers before moving on.
At the Docks we witnessed the murder of Mook and fought Lassal off. Then we killed traitors and Gracen (Gravy) for Aran Linvail and agreed to do a job for Mae'Var. The second slaver ambush took place followed by Shane getting stuck into a Rune Assassin (by this, Shane was actually stuck and could not move). Needless to say the Rune Assassin got the upper hand here while Thaal was still trying to kill off the two ghasts. With Shane dead, it was fortunate for Thaal that his last act was to throw up the Berserk Warrior.
Thaal used charges from a Wand of the Heavens to kill off the Rune Assassin before the Berserk Warrior was killed, and another two charges to finish off a second Rune Assassin that had her into low hit points. Then she raised Shane.
Neera's cutscene was next, followed by another bandit ambush. Shane moved away to hide while an already-injured Thaal (had travelled with 47/90hp) took a couple of hits. A third hit failed to stop her casting Silence but the enemy mage managed to cast a Lightning Bolt as the Silence travelled. The bolt ricocheted around a few times but the first strike had finished Thaal off and brought the run to a ignominious end .
After the shocking end to our previous run we rolled up a new pairing - this time the dice returning another arcane selection.
It didn't take long to get some XP on the board, thanks to Shoal.
A visit to High Hedge provided a potion case and the bag collection was soon completed by shooting Neera and shoving a book through the wall of Firebead's house.
There was a safe trip to the FAI to get the Ring of Wizardry for Suer, but on the way back trouble struck in the form of a group of bandits. Arctica took a safety first strategy, by running immediately and letting the bandits focus on Suer. That meant that by the time Arctica released a sleep spell from a safe(ish) spot, Suer was already about to collapse from one too many arrows in the gut.
Beregost temple was happy to put Suer back together and her first level spell picks were soon being made use of - PfP to neutralize basilisk gazes and blind to prevent them switching to melee. All went well until having a go at Mutamin. His mirrors parried enough magic missiles to let him cast horror at Suer and an interfering gnoll then made it harder for Artica to finish off Mutamin by bow. By the time that was done both Arctica and Suer had been tagged with an acid arrow. That seemed unlikely to have fatal consequences - 3 lots of 2d4 damage would only average 15 and Suer had 20 HPs - but she died anyway .
Back at the temple, Arctica tried to get the priest to accept the same 200 gold that was charged the previous day, but he was having none of it and wanted triple rate. Arctica sold a bit of equipment and tried going back to the temple - only for the game to crash. We called a halt there (though I did later raise Suer using the autosave and saved the game properly to make it less likely I would lose the save).
Since the last report I did some months ago I've had a few more attempts at this challenge (as a reminder the aim is not only to do a no-reload - a potential problem as I've never completed the game under any rules - but to use only undead creatures in my army and never lose any creatures in combat): - a 283rd attempt failed again in the Secret Underground where I lost patience when the chasing beholder stack refused to lose lock in a position where I could safely loot the shrubs. - 284th saw some early carelessness when I got caught dodging a stack before having acquired any army. - 285th had been a very clean run. Eventually though I had in mind some wolves were going to attack the ancient vampires and absent-mindedly moved the cursed ghosts into range as well - the latter were attacked instead, gained extra ghosts from their retaliation to go out of control and then one-shotted the ancient vampires.
This 286th attempt is being done in between making progress with my dwarven defender to help me avoid the temptation to spend more than an hour a day on that. I've made a few little mistakes, but been lucky that none of those have proved fatal so far. The gods were smiling in the Secret Underground where I only got chased 4 times round the cave before the beholder lost lock. In the fight for the Pendant of Iron Will I was concerned when at first glance there were only evil gremlins (making it virtually impossible to win the fight without losing any creatures), but there was fortunately one good gremlin on the board (to produce summons that my ghosts could use to regenerate their losses).
I used the hypnosis scroll from the Pendant to take temporary control of enemies in the remaining battles in Arlania and then sacrificed those enemies to get additional vampires and ancient vampires - gradually pushing them up to their maximum controllable numbers (based on my amount of leadership) - that was the point I reached before making a fatal mistake in my last posted run.
With rage still high from the last of the battles to increase vampire numbers, I attacked Tiberius - he's one of the hero-led stacks that are dotted about to make things more difficult. Much of his army is undead and can't be life-drained to regenerate vampires, but by leaving the living stacks until Tiberius is out of magic and missile users there's plenty of life left to restore my army.
Another hour saw a bit of further progress: - picked up an amulet for Mae'Var, but Rayic Gethras was left for a moment. - at the Bridge District, some Rune Assassins were taken out for a reputation gain.
- I only remembered / realised at this point that I'd picked up Renfeld at the end of the previous session. Fortunately, despite resting a number of times, he was still hanging on to life. Defensive Stance and the Horn (the former reduces the HP penalty of using the latter from 10 down to 4) pushed saving throws down to 0 to tackle Prebek & Sanasha - something made easier by Prebek's willingness to play with firelightning.
Tracking down 'Montaron' then got me to level 13.
- the combination of Horn and Stance took saves to -2, making me safe from Rayic Gethras's FoD and he was duly shot down.
- after a quick trip to buy a potion case, I headed for Trademeet. Defensive Stance alone was now enough to protect against stone to flesh while killing the genies.
At the Grove the efreeti was given the job of killing all the trolls, as well as helping out with the odd stinking cloud.
- the hour was virtually up when Cernd ate Faldorn for breakfast, so pushing reputation up to its maximum will have to wait for tomorrow.
Dwarven defender L13, 138 HPs, 200 kills (+535 in BG1)
Despite my resolution to jump on the boat with Lyran, I ended up finishing most of the available quests. First we rescued Haer without difficulty, then we visited the White Queen, and finally we dealt with the Planar Sphere. High on confidence we headed off to Spellhold... after one last poke at the Cowled Wizard infestation.
At Spellhold things initially went to plan, but as usual there was a lich in Spellhold and it was ready to cause some trouble. It took revenge on my cheap trick of throwing a spell in before closing the door when it was first spotted by... hiding behind the door. It was rather disconcerting when no amount of detect illusions or other spells could locate the cowering fiend... and it was only after chopping up its cohort of Greater Mummies and Skeleton Warriors that we finally discovered where all those spells had been coming from.
Irenicus was even more troublesome. I never remember to buff before running into the crazies, and things began to go south when the Fallen Planetar showed up. It chopped up Verr and then Faren, and while they were being raised Wanev decided to call upon an Arcanaloth... which naturally targeted us as Irenicus was off murdering other crazies and our summons. Then when Korgan attempted to take care of this fresh difficulty Wanev interpreted this as an attack and proceeded to disintegrate him! From there we were forced to employ some hit and run ranged tactics to deal with the remaining threats, before Irenicus finally fell. I was strongly tempted to replace Korgan with Tiax, and even went to the extent of looking up some old 2nd ed precedents on whether a PC could get raised under these circumstances. (I've got chunking off this time, but that's more because most chunkings are caused by backstabs rather than destruction of a corpse.) In the end I just rolled a die on it, and Korgan's number came up so he'll stay on as a member of the team. Though expect more bad luck for him as Lyran has him wearing Doomplate (IR item. Bad luck for him, doom on all enemies nearby!).
Following that we proceeded on through the Sahaugin city to the Underdark, and paused. I've lost a few runs here, and will try to minimise the number of risks that we take where the rewards don't seem commensurate. Here are a few screenies of the Irenicus battle and the Cowls.
Comments
Difficulty: Core rules, max HP on level-up.
Self-imposed restrictions: No using unidentified items, no recharging items by selling and buying them back.
Mods: SCS v31 including prebuffs and Tweaks anthology (only the component to reduce chunking), see spoiler for WeiDU.
Initialise mod (all other components require this): v31
Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v31
Allow Spellstrike to take down a Protection from Magic scroll: v31
More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v31
Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v31
Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v31
Modify the Harm spell so it does damage rather than reducing target to 1 hp -> Enemy and player Harm spells both do 150 hp of damage: v31
Allow individual versions of Spell Immunity to be placed into Contingencies and Spell Triggers: v31
Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures: v31
Cap damage done by Skull Trap at 12d6: v31
Make Power-Word: Blind single-target: v31
Make Minute Meteors into +2 weapons: v31
Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at their level (not twice their level): v31
Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v31
Slightly increase the power of Mantle, Improved Mantle, and Absolute Immunity: v31
Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v31
Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls: v31
True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness: v31
Prevent Simulacra and Projected Images from using magical items: v31
Replace +1 arrows with nonmagical "fine" ones: v31
Reduce the number of Arrows of Dispelling in stores -> Remove Arrows of Dispelling from stores: v31
Remove the Shield of Balduran from the game: v31
Remove the invisibility power of the Staff of the Magi: v31
Move Vhailor's Helm into Throne of Bhaal: v31
Move the Cloak of Mirroring: v31
Move the Robe of Vecna into Throne of Bhaal: v31
Make the healing and resurrection powers of the Rod of Resurrection into separate abilities: v31
Change Carsomyr so that its Dispel on contact power grants a saving throw: v31
Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v31
Improved shapeshifting: v31
Decrease the rate at which reputation improves -> Reputation increases at about 1/4 the normal rate: v31
Allow the Cowled Wizards to detect spellcasting in most indoor, above-ground areas in Athkatla: v31
Make Freedom scrolls available earlier: v31
Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: v31
Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from certain areas -> Only remove nonmagical ammo from random containers: v31
Treat mages' and priests' High-Level Abilities as innate abilities rather than memorisable spells (each may be taken only once): v31
Ease-of-use party AI: v31
Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v31
Remove animation from the Cloak of Mirroring (leave it for other spells and effects that use the same graphic): v31
Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v31
Smarter general AI: v31
Better calls for help: v31
Add high-level abilities (HLAs) to spellcasters -> Only selected spellcasters in Throne of Bhaal get HLAs: v31
Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31
Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31
Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v31
Improved Spiders: v31
Improved golems: v31
Improved fiends -> Fiends have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31
Smarter genies -> Genies have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31
Smarter celestials -> Celestials have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31
Smarter dragons -> Dragons have a substantial hit point increase: v31
Smarter beholders -> Don't give beholder rays any chance of burning through spell protections; beholder antimagic blocks all spells, including harmful ones, for a round (simulates D&D rules): v31
Smarter mind flayers -> Illithids have enhanced damage resistance; Illithids cannot see invisible enemies: v31
Smarter githyanki: v31
Improved Vampires: v31
Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v31
Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v31
Improved Shade Lord: v31
Spellcasting Demiliches: v31
More resilient trolls: v31
Increase difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings -> Mildly increased difficulty: v31
Improved Random Encounters: v31
Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Enhanced spirit trolls (as in Tactics): v31
Improved Unseeing Eye: v31
Improved Bodhi (Tactics Remix) -> "Toned-down" version of the original Tactics Improved Bodhi, with SCSII scripting: v31
Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v31
Improved Sahuagin: v31
Improved Beholder hive (adapted from Quest Pack): v31
Prevent resting in the Illithid city: v31
Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences: v31
Slightly Improved Watcher's Keep: v31
Improved Fire Giant temple: v31
Enhanced Sendai's Enclave: v31
Improved Abazigal's Lair: v31
Improved Minor Encounters: v31
Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v7
Protagonist: Benedict, L11 Human Conjurer.
Benedict, Human Conjurer, BG2EE SoA Update 1
BG1EE updates: 1, 2
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
BG2EE SoA updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Benedict wakes up in Irenicus' dungeon, recruits Imoen, Jaheira and Minsc, and sets off!
The intended party is Imoen (Yoshimo subbing in until Spellhold), Jaheira, Minsc, Anomen and Mazzy.
So, pretty much a repeat of Cassius' party... which I enjoyed, even though I only got to play the full party for a few hours until Anomen met his untimely, permanent demise.
The immediate levels gained result in some proficiencies.
Minsc gets + in Bastard Sword, as I really liked him wielding Jhor the Bleeder +2, and it seems a shame not to make use of Foebane +5 (which you can put together very early in ToB), should we make it that far.
Jaheira gets + in Spear: Last time around, I gave her + in Quarterstaff first to reach specialization, but if you do that, it takes literally ages for her to also become specialized in Spear, and I want her wielding The Impaler +3 by the time we reach the Underdark. With her low Strength, she won't really be amazing in combat anyway until we pick up a Strength item for her (I know, buffs and potions, but it just never seems a good expenditure of resources when it comes to Jaheira... she'll have to be content with plinking away from the back row using a sling for now).
Benedict had a spell selection especially tailored for the dangers in Irenicus' dungeon, and we make swift progress while using very few healing potions. Jaheira actually lands both her memorized Charm Person or Mammal, giving us some temporary Duergar meatshields. Not much to report, really: Standard damage/disabling/summoning spells carry us through. Sadly, no high-level spell scrolls in the Mephit Portal room this time, though we did get an early Plate Mail.
We rest right before heading outside, heal up and have Imoen identify as many items as she can.
Following this, Irenicus and Imoen are both whisked away, and we are on our own.
We do a quick bit of shopping for scroll cases/gem bags (Benedict, of course, casting Friends in public, leading to a stern warning from the Cowled Wizards...), then head into the Circus.
Again, little to report: Jaheira had True Sight memorized, so there was never any danger.
We rest up at the Seven Vales.
So, here's where we deviate a little from the safest path: We go after Mencar and his gang with only four party members.
Yoshimo successfully sets three traps by the stairs, while Benedict and Jaheira summon three Skeleton Warriors, a single Fire Elemental and a Nymph. Following extensive buffing (Haste/Bless/Strength of One/Defensive Harmony), the Skeleton Warriors surround Pooky while the Fire Elemental moves to block Mencar and Brennan. Jaheira moves in with True Sight running, and we are off!
Pooky's defenses do not last long. Pooky and Ammon both lead with Remove Magic aimed at Jaheira, who scuttles off to a corner and begins casting Insect Plague. Meanwhile, Minsc joins the Skeleton Warriors, Yoshimo chipping in from range, with Benedict landing Greater Malison and the Nymph following up with Confusion. And thus, the fate of Mencar Pebblecrusher and his unfortunate allies is sealed (Smaeluv under Berserk was of course immune to Confusion and got a few hits in on Minsc, but with Smaeluv's poor AC he dropped quickly regardless).
Hooray! As expected, most of the loot is trivial (though the Ring of Invisibility is handy). However, a suit of Full Plate this early on is exceedingly welcome: It will turn Minsc into much less of a punching bag.
We rest up again, and head for the Slums, recruiting Anomen once we've finished dealing with Gaelan.
Now we could go straight for Mazzy... we could. Really, we should, but for some reason we opt to finish the whole Slaver questline first. One of the Copper Coronet guards drops a Protection from Magic Energy scroll, which was a nice touch. The Beastmaster is handled by clearing the four northernmost cells of their inhabitants before simply charging the remainder, and we are off into the Sewers.
The two Hobgoblin groups, as customary, get a Cloudkill each, one memorized, one from the single-charge Wand, and we have enough magic weapons by now to not have to worry about Mustard Jellies (Anomen got Mencar's War Hammer +1). Once the Sewers are clear, we buff up (Haste being key) and charge into the Slaver ship.
My intent was to handle Haegan via Doom + Rigid Thinking, but this turned out to be unnecessary: Once Doomed, we were able to just pelt him to death, while Jaheira under Iron Skins soaked up his Throwing Axes.
Needless to say, the Priest of Cyric died first (Benedict helping out with some MMM's), and once joined by Haegan, the battle was essentially over: With Full Plate and a Ring of Protection +1, Minsc was almost impervious to the Slaver Guards.
Jaheira had a Flame Blade memorized, allowing us to deal with the Trolls. We summon three Skeleton Warriors and two Nymphs, and go after the Slaver Wizards and their entourage. With Insect Plague and 2x Confusion, the fight is over almost as soon as it begins.
On our way back to the Copper Coronet, we enact the time-honoured tradition of letting Cohrvale and Bregg duke it out with a Fire Elemental (though we somehow got two from a single casting).
Hendak subsequently rewards us for our bravery.
Alright, what next? Magic license... definitely magic license. We're already on the Cowled Wizard radar thanks to Benedict's carelessness. We rest up, and make our way unmolested to the Government District under Invisibility 10' Radius, securing a license for the price of 5000 gold.
While here, we also rescue Viconia and send her off to the Graveyard, gaining another Plate Mail in the process.
We still have an Invisibility 10' Radius, so elect to pop off to Watcher's Keep, buying yet another gem bag and that very useful potion case. A rest later, it's time to get the party together: We arrive uneventfully in Umar Hills. The Killer Mimic and its roommates the two Umber Hulks are cleared out (with the help of some Skeleton Warriors and Minsc under Free Action from Anomen), and we embark for the Temple Ruins.
Here, as has become customary, the stained glass bugs out: Minsc is sent, stealthed, to activate it. It kills a few Shadows, then Minsc tries to drag the remainder into its area of effect. And... all the shadows just clump up, apparently immune to the light. The rest of the party has to rush in (I figured this might happen so Minsc was under Free Action to prevent him being Held by the Shadow Fiends and thus killed for certain).
Once Anomen Turns a few of the Shadows and they start running around, the stained glass finally kicks in.
Making our way into the Temple proper, the first room is cleared of undead by our own undead.
Once through, we recruit Mazzy... who gets bumped up to 500k experience. Yep, we really should've gone for her first thing. She'll be a bit behind now. Her resultant proficiency is put into Axe, as she's just darn impressive wielding Azuredge +3/Frostreaver +3.
We proceed through the Temple. Jaheira has two Conjure Fire Elemental prepared, but for whatever weird reason, her second casting nets her... no Fire Elemental at all (guessing it's related to the bug where she sometimes gets two Fire Elementals from one casting). Making the Bone Golem a bit more hassle, but Benedict whips out Improved Invisibility for Minsc, the latter finally gaining the upper hand against the dread construct.
Apparently the game decided to compensate us for only getting a Plate Mail in the Mephit Portal Room: Rummaging through the dropped loot, we come upon one scroll each of Khelben's Warding Whip and Ruby Ray of Reversal. I mean, I'd be ecstatic if it had been Spell Trigger, but shoot, those are pretty darn useful scrolls too.
With all enemies pretty much beaten, we gather the loot beyond the trapped alphabet-floor (including a scroll of Protection from Magical Weapons), and soon depart, given that SCS Improved Shade Lord is just stupid (and I've no intention of dying stupidly). Back in Umar Hills, we save Jermien from his own golem, with Ibratha +1 going to Mazzy for frequent use of its 1/day Mirror Image.
Having rested up, we return to Athkatla, and are immediately directed to the Delryn estate. We deal with Anomen's little sidequest, opting for the path that doesn't turn him emotionally unstable.
Oh, there was also a Laeral's Tear Necklace in the estate... nice little bonus.
Finally, we swing by the Docks, picking up yet another scroll case, and then return to the Copper Coronet. Still not a single ambush. We'll need to rectify that later.
With Benedict a mere 500 xp from leveling, he scribes Wyvern Call and Summon Nishruu (guaranteed success owing to 19 Intelligence and them being Conjuration scrolls), and it is enough to gain him his first SoA level. This seems a good spot to hold for now: The party is gathered, we've got some basic gear, and we have enough levels (caster-wise) to have some options available.
Next time, we'll probably rummage around Athkatla until we get a few ambushes (in particular, I want to kickstart Jaheira's quest so we can get the Ring of Reaching before departing for Brynnlaw).
We also need to decide if we want to make this run a carbon copy of Cassius' dito, i.e. if we are going for the De'Arnise Keep next, or if we want to shake things up a bit. I'm almost leaning against not doing a repeat, mainly because I still do not have a safe way to tackle the Tor'Gal fight. Two (reasonably) high-level enemy mages, a Tor'Gal that makes a mockery of any summons including Fire Elementals, and a crap-ton of additional melee grunts... it's difficult. But we'll see!
Benedict is now a L12 Human Conjurer.
Adrian M/C
Faren F/T dual
Korgan Unkitted Fighter
Angelo F/M dual
Verr'sza Nazarthene Ranger
Adrian is the most fragile, so he may get swapped out at some point. Tiax was with us in BG1 so his mod may get a run out, especially as Faren seems like he might be a little too soft hearted. Time will tell...
The game set up is a bit odd, with a bit of depowering going on. There is an XP reduction for quests and about 1/3 of all unique magic items have been removed from the game by randomiser. On the other hand all classed enemies have been reduced by 2 levels or so. On balance this will probably increase game difficulty, as usual I'm playing with SCS, revisions mods, and as many other mods as was convenient to install on Android.
Nothing too notable happened on the early quests, now all except the mage & bard stronghold quests are done. We opted to poison the grove and a failed attempt to charm Lord Logan means we are running away from him in Trademeet for now. He will eventually meet with a swift death when it is convenient. During the Unseeing Eye quest we found a Balduran-Shield-esque item, but just as I started to feel guilty the rod failed to work! (This bug was more prevalent with other quickslot items in BG1, a few other bugs have also popped up...) Rolling with this we threw summons at the Unseeing Eye while it tried to fry them with triple abi-dalzims, finally falling to a hail of arrows. Oddly enough Lyran got the helm stronghold, but one imagines that he will lose it after advising a confused petitioner to resolve his marital difficulties Keldorn-style.
Only one or two half-dangerous moments so far... a finger of death on another party member, surprisingly running into a mod introduced basilisk... but we shall see if Lyran can make it past the Underdark while making some suboptimal evil decisions.
There's an ever-lengthening period since my last success at this challenge. That's not been helped by several recent bits of cheating by the game. The last of those followed me using a bit more buffing than usual in a blackguard run. He was making good progress through ToB this morning when Draconis decided to leap on top of him when changing to dragon form. Unable to move around I tried a slug-fest using Soul Reaver, but couldn't quite finish the dragon off before being acidified by its breath.
I'll see if I can get revenge by using low-risk tactics with another attempt at a dwarven defender. To help with that I'll limit sessions to 1 hour to try and avoid the usual downward spiral into more risky ventures.
The first hour saw:
- a quick exit from Candlekeep.
- travel to the coast to shoot Shoal (level 3 - +24 HPs)
- pull sirines out from Beregost temple and melee them down while protected by improved invisibility (level 4 - +13 HPs)
- travel on to Ulgoth's Beard, returning a bowl to Tenya on the way (level 5 - +15 HPs)
- travel to the lakes and activate some gnolls to attack Drizzt while avoiding getting into his sight. When he was down to single figure HPs I attacked as well, but didn't have any luck early on. A potion of clarity was used to fend off charm persons and both oils of speed (from killing Imoen and Montaron) were needed before Drizzt eventually fell
- at Firewine Bridge, Bentan was charmed and sent into battle with Meilum in order to pick up the PfM scroll left behind. Meilum was then shot for his bracers.
- the last 10 minutes or so were spent following Korax round killing basilisks and Mutamin. Baerin was charmed and pulled away for disposal and Kirian then paralyzed and finished off before Korax died.
Dwarven defender L6, 85 HPs, 49 kills
Yeldon - half-elf cleric/ranger, protagonist (Corey_Russell)
Keras - dwarven kensai (Grond0)
Denko - human dark moon monk (Gate70)
We had a pretty good session, other than the lost experience because of Grond0 and Gate70 dropped connections. The first tasks were clearing out the Kuo-Toa, Beholders, and Illithid lairs. All these went quite well. We got a bit lucky as the Elder Orb's imprisonment got interrupted and thus no problems for the Trio. Yeldon tanked the Illithids with loads of genius potions and this worked great.
We then did the gopher quests in the Drow City - by the numbers and no suprises here. We eventually made it to Elhan and left for Athkatla. We encountered Drizzt - Yeldon left him alone, but Keras really wanted to tango - Keras let Yeldon have his way.
Once in the City, we collected our saved items in the chest at Waukeen's Promenade. We noticed the shadow ward stone, and decided now would be a good time to deal with that Shadow Dragon. We had a few buffs, and summons - Yeldon got a critical and his summons did nice damage, and Thaxxy died super fast.
Yeldon thought maybe we should get another dragon, but then realized the party has yet to even get to Windspear Hills. So went there and penetrated a little into Firkraag's Lair and ran out of time here.
Previous updates:
Today's hour saw:
- a couple of golems at High Hedge shot down (level 7 - +11 HPs)
- a quick trip through the Cloud Peaks recovered the final girdle and the charisma tome
- at the Nashkel Mine, Mulahey failed to cast a rigid thinking, so I didn't even have to run away
- in Beregost I rested to get CLW before getting caught stealing to push reputation back to 9. Tranzig did pretty well to actually manage to get a hit in after not being allowed to surrender, but that was far from well enough for him
- at the Bandit Camp the bandits got a few criticals in on the way to find Taurgosz and he managed more hits, without causing any danger.
Looking at my character record at the end of the session I saw I had missed the point at which I got the XP for level 8 - I suspect that was at the Bandit Camp. Levelling up here provided a nice 17 HPs. I did again cheat a bit with my timing by deciding to rest now until I got Bhaal horror (as I would probably forget to do so next time otherwise).
Dwarven defender L8, 113 HPs, 205 kills
BG1EE updates: 1, 2
SoD updates: 1, 2, 3, 4
BG2EE SoA updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Sticking with the plan, the party begins travelling between Athkatla areas. It's not long before Suna Seni puts in an appearance. As we're invisible, we retreat to the north, conjure some meatshields, apply buffs, and simply charge in. No problem.
We've many spells remaining, so continue our gallivanting about town. Eventually, we stumble upon Renfeld in need of assistance, which we grant (the thugs accosting him are too low-level to even warrant buffs). We deliver Renfeld to the Harpers, then go after Sanasha and Prebek. True Sight makes a mockery of most of their defences: Sanasha didn't put up PfNM and so is simply shot down, while Prebek did, and so warrants a Breach. They accomplish nothing more than Slowing a few party members (and Benedict ate a Chromatic Orb from Sanasha... he was under Death Ward though).
The Harper compound is thus looted, and Xzar assassinated, leaving us with his items, gold and gems... it's what he would have wanted.
So, what now? Not much point in trying to trigger more ambushes, as the remaining ones have trivial loot.
We might as well decide on which main quest we're going to do.
Regardless of what we do next, Full Plate for every frontliner would sure be helpful... and there is an enemy party that carries several such suits. Yep, we're going after Tarnor the Hatchetman and his cronies!
So, we'll be up against two strong melee grunts, a ranged grunt, two clerics and a mage (the latter with 7th level spell slots). We rest up, and head for the Temple district, accepting the Unseeing Eye quest before descending into the sewers. We clear out Roger's Sea Troll, but take care to not get caught by the Beholder and two Gauths that teleport in.
Alright, let's do this. Yoshimo manages to set four traps, we conjure a Fire Elemental and four 7HD Skeleton Warriors (Anomen is L11 now), and buff up extensively including some spell protections on Benedict. Anomen tosses out Farsight so we can keep an eye on what's going on while maintaining our distance, and the Fire Elemental is stationed next to one of the clerics. Minsc moves up just close enough to trigger the dialogue, and we then fall back outside visual range, as the enemy party goes all-out on the poor Fire Elemental.
My intent was to bait Gaius into using up his Death Spell so we could then send in our Skeleton Warriors, but he didn't fall for it. Instead, the Fire Elemental was literally beaten to death within two rounds, and we had to send in our Skeleton Warriors anyway. Benedict lead with Greater Malison, and with Anomen's follow-up Silence 15' Radius, both clerics were neutralized. Benedict's second spell was Emotion: Hopelessness, which knocked out Gallchobhair, Draug Fea and Zorl. While all this was happening, the rest of the party kept their distance.
Unfortunately, Rengaard (with Physical Mirror up) ended up triggering Yoshimo's traps, leading to Yoshimo very nearly dying (and being Held). However, our Skeleton Warriors kill off the unconscious Zorl, and with the help of a Flame Strike from Anomen, Tarnor bites the dust (the party has begun engaging at range by now).
You'll note we went from four Skeleton Warriors to one. This is because Gaius decided to use Death Spell, and managed to catch three of them. Still, we're in good shape. Draug Fea succumbs to mass ranged attacks, as Benedict starts putting out a few Invisible Stalkers to hold the line.
That Conjuration from Gaius is Summon Efreeti, which he manages to cast even though (as his Mantle has expired) he's being pelted by elemental damage ammunition. His triumph is shortlived, however, as a scant few seconds after the Efreeti enters the Prime, Gaius (in a sense) leaves it.
The Efreeti manages to fry both our Invisible Stalkers with a dual Fireball, but we're actually able to kill it at range without it turning into mist. With only an unconscious Gallchobhair left, the outcome is no longer in doubt.
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! We gather up the delicious loot, including two Small Shields +2 (one for Minsc, one for Mazzy), a Full Plate for Mazzy (recall that Minsc is already wearing one), a Full Plate +1 for Jaheira, and a Returning Throwing Axe +2 for Mazzy. That went surprisingly smoothly; the only worry was Yoshimo almost killing himself with his traps, and the Efreeti gating in. And now our frontliners have excellent AC all around!
We've got spells left, however. The Cloak of the Sewers would be nice: +1 AC is never wrong, and the Troll form saves on healing potions. We pop the Fireball charge from the Wand of Fire we're still lugging around since Irenicus' dungeon to clear the Kobolds, and then let Minsc, Mazzy and Jaheira duke it out with the Rakshasa (Anomen used True Sight to dispel its Illusions). Mazzy baited it into firing its Web/Stinking Cloud minor sequencer: She was immune to Web via equipped Arbane, and extremely likely to make (and she did make it) her save against the Stinking Cloud. The Rakshasa got off a Sunfire and Skull Trap before being brought down, but it's nothing potions can't fix.
We gather up the cloak, as well as the magical ammunition and scroll of Conjure Earth Elemental, and depart.
That all went exceptionally well! And, yes... I think we're going to have to go for the De'Arnise Keep next:
Frostreaver +3 for Mazzy is just too good to ignore. All of the fights apart from the last one are easily managed, and we'll just have to play TorGal by ear.
I'm hoping we can drag him into seven traps and then just nova him down (Potions of Giant Strength on Minsc/Mazzy/Jaheira should help), but we'll see.
Of course, the instant the party does not travel with everyone under Invisibility 10' Radius (I figured we'd save some time and go to the Keep even though Jaheira and Benedict were visible), we get the Orog ambush. We're low on spells, but kiting the Orogs works just fine, even though the area is a bit on the small side: Jaheira turns into a Wolf and leads them around, while the rest of the party just shoots the mage down (said mage went light on defensive Illusions).
That dealt with, we arrive at the Keep, head inside to speak with Daleson, loot what we can get at, and exit. A rest later, we begin our assault in earnest. I went with four Sunfires on Benedict for offense, but otherwise it's mostly buffs. Chaotic Commands is absolutely essential, and Protection from Fire (the mage kind with 1 turn/level duration) helps as well. With our spectacular AC, we can get away without using the standard Bless/Chant/Defensive Harmony/Strength of One buff bonanza even against fairly large Troll mobs.
Protection from Fire on both Mazzy and Minsc means they can hold the line as Benedict unleashes Sunfire, and even though there's only enough Sunfires memorized for clearing two full groups, those groups drop in two rounds flat.
We make our way to the second floor. In stupidly trying to save on spells, I send a Nishruu and Mazzy in Troll form against the Yuan-Ti Mage. The hope was that the Nishruu would drain the fell wizard of spells, but it failed to make much of an impact.. I guess it had too poor THAC0 to reliably hit.
We take a fair bit of damage as the mage unloads most of his arsenal on us, but Jaheira fixes us up with Wondrous Recall and a resulting 2x Mass Cure.
Glaicus is also rescued from his Charmed state through a scroll of Dispel Magic.
We make our way downstairs, leaving the Golems alone for now. Once we've cleared everything up to the door to TorGal's room including the Umber Hulks (and Yoshimo has successfully set three traps at the door, failing the other three attempts), we retreat back upstairs.
Benedict has two scrolls of Conjure Lesser Air Elemental, and successfully uses both. These Elementals provide a meatshield as we beat the first two duos of a Stone and Flesh Golem, although both Elementals succumb to the Golems' blows in the process.
We finally use our last spells: Five Skeleton Warriors and a full round of buffs, including Haste, and Enchanted Weapon on Mazzy.
Once we take the Elven Court Bow and activate the Iron and Clay Golem, Minsc (using a Mace +1) and Anomen (using The Kneecapper +1) destroy the Clay Golem with two Skeleton Warriors as distractions.
Meanwhile, the other three Skeleton Warriors hold off the Iron Golem, as Mazzy plinks away at it for dear life. This turns out to be exceedingly efficient: The Iron Golem drops, having accomplished nothing more than destroying a single Skeleton Warrior.
We retreat back outside, forging the Flail of Ages +3 on the way, turn invisible, and rest.
Once back outside TorGal's room, we conjure. Benedict spent his two L6 slots on Conjure Fire Elemental, and successfully summons two of them (successfully meaning they do not turn on us).
Jaheira conjures another two, and we top our summoned critters off with a Skeleton Warrior.
Meanwhile, Yoshimo has managed to place another four traps (Benedict threw Luck his way).
The plan is simple: TorGal has retreated into the midst of his goons. However, only TorGal can see through Invisibility... meaning an invisible party member should be able to bait him straight into the seven waiting traps. Yes, the rest of the group will follow, but we'll send a solitary Fire Elemental to kite them around for as long as possible. With the entire party as well as three Fire Elementals, all under Haste, even TorGal shouldn't be able to hold for long, especially if we land all the traps.
So, we buff (Mazzy again getting Enchanted Weapon, as she's presently much better at range than in melee), including Strength potions for Minsc and Jaheira. Invisible Yoshimo sneaks into the room along with a Fire Elemental (Anomen popped Farsight to allow for easier kiting), and... it works! Only TorGal charges after Yoshimo. The rest of his group seems confused for a round, then starts moving towards us, but are distracted by the Fire Elemental running around. Every single trap connects with TorGal, bringing him to Injured. And before any of his compatriots can even reach the site of battle, the dread Troll succumbs!
We rush into the room where our distracting Fire Elemental is all but dead.
Our remaining summons hold off the melee grunts, as the party engages the Yuan-Ti Mages.
They do several things, none of them successful: Breach at Benedict (blocked by Spell Shield), Remove Magic at Jaheira with no one else nearby, and Death Spell at our solitary Skeleton Warrior, which runs off to the side, keeping our Fire Elementals in the fight.
By now, Benedict has successfully Breached the first Yuan-Ti Mage, and mass ranged fire spells its end.
Leaving the second one only one more round, during which it accomplishes very little. Another Breach later, it too falls.
There are still plenty of Trolls and the Umber Hulk Elder left, but when the party joins the Fire Elementals in the fight (along with Insect Plague/Slow/Glitterdust), said Trolls do not last long.
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! That is by far the best result I've ever had with this fight in SCS.
It seems going straight for TorGal was the correct play, and little wonder: He is the most dangerous enemy combatant by far. We gather up the hidden cache, and exit the Keep. Nalia gives us a small reward and retires to a life of luxury. We apply Invisibility 10' Radius and return to the Copper Coronet, purchasing Azuredge +3 so I don't forget about it later.
Alright. As I've said, I want the Reaching Ring before we head off to Brynnlaw... those extra slots, particularly the 7th level one, makes an appreciable difference.
So, we need to basically wait around for the romance talk to trigger, then rest outdoors.
Might as well do another Jaheira-related task meanwhile: We'll deal with Baron Ployer.
We head to the Sea's Bounty, Jaheira is Cursed, and swiftly un-Cursed: Ployer died before his hired mages could finish teleporting in. Said mages then spent most of the fight trying to Remove Magic/Breach us, while we happily took them down one by one. There's no danger tanking enemy spells if you're protected against pretty much every status effect and type of elemental damage, after all.
Still waiting... so we clear the Pirates out. We overbuffed quite severely, but eh.
Finally, we get the requisite talk ("This is a dangerous life we seem to lead..."). On our way to the De'Arnise Keep to rest, we get yet another irritating ambush. Irritating as in they've got no real loot.
Also, how can the melee grunts in Plate Mail only be worth 650 experience? They hit like trucks and take ages to bring down, having oodles of Potions of Greater Healing.
Finally, we reach the Keep, and can rest. And, sure enough, the bandits spawn.
I was prepared for a serious fight, but... they're ALL of them melee grunts. No caster in sight, making things very easy. Once the last one drops, Meronia comes for Jaheira, and the rest of the party heads back to the Sea's Bounty. One rest later, Jaheira returns, and we head for the Harper Hold.
Again, we grossly overbuffed. Everyone got Chaotic Commands, Protection from Fire, Protection from Lightning, a few Death Ward... we could've just gone with Haste and called it a day.
Greater Malison, Insect Plague and Greater Command, with True Sight running, was all it took to clear the would-be Harpers.
We are handsomely rewarded for our patience: The Reaching Ring! +1 5th, 6th and 7th level spell slots. Glorious!
The party returns to the Copper Coronet. Again, this seems a good place to wrap things up.
We have plenty of gold, plenty of gear (with +3 melee weapons for our two main fighter-types), plenty of levels. Next time, we'll deal with the Guild War by cleansing the Vampire Coven. Then, it's off to Brynnlaw, Spellhold.. and the Underdark. Perhaps we'll even live through it this time.
Benedict remains a L12 Human Conjurer.
Alis - I am charmed
Previouslyhttps://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1031312/#Comment_1031312
Alis started her run in a dungeon. Loads of undead and XP to boot.
Alis started her run with a pact with the undead.
In the city only Korlasz posed a threat - but failed against poison again. The shortbow prof. points paid off.
Out of the city Alis rushed for the warrens of the undead. More xp in sight.. Again Alis started with protection from the undead, and made short work of the lot.
A some point a trap confused Alis. Since Alis was close to the bronze sentry, she was in real danger, but luckily she didnt stray. Fittingly the lich gave her the ninth and final SoD level.
Not needing the xp but feeling that the vamprie quest was a must, Alis trekked to the forest with the vampire.
Alis arrived at night and ses thrown into the fight without a warning.... a dire charm ended the run this time. Alis Landale II awakens..
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032457/#Comment_1032457
Another day, another hour:
- hacked a way through the Cloakwood Mine to Davaeorn and used a potion of magic blocking to attack him.
- did a series of reputation quests in the wilderness areas to boost that to 20 and also picked up the pantaloons.
- fireballed the Red Wizards of Thay to get the Ring of Energy.
- used a potion of invulnerability and defensive stance to tank the sirines safely at the Lighthouse.
- the poison quest was completed by disrupting the 2 spells Marek tried to cast.
Dwarven defender L8, 113 HPs, 310 kills
One or two screenies of the Cowled infestation and what happens if they notice a party member!
Will come back later and annihilate them... much later.
I'll note that I started a new solo character and - spoiler alert - we've just defeated Sarevork this morning. I hope to do the catching up before we proceed with SoA.
Regards,
B.
...we've just defeated Sarevork this morning. ...
That's a good nickname for Sarevok, "Sarevork" - rhymes with "dork". If that was his actual name, I think my PC would be far less afraid of him...
Previous updates:
Update 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1028542/#Comment_1028542
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1029429/#Comment_1029429
Update 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1030921/#Comment_1030921
Update 4: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1031740/#Comment_1031740
Update 5: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1031786/#Comment_1031786
It seems like I'm cursed with prophetic visions of my own downfall, as some of the fears I've had about taking this party into SoD have come true. I'm immensely frustrated with my own play right now, because I knew what to expect, what to do and I still - for some insane reason - decided not to play things safe. The run is still going, but our power is greatly diminished, and so is my motivation.
We started as usual by fireballing the one group on the upper level of Korlasz' tomb that actually has to be fought, making our way downstairs before activating one of our saved-up PfU scrolls on Cephalus. To make sure he'd make good use of the scroll's duration, fire giant strength and oil of speed were added, and he started to clear the area:
The shadow group to the west includes several invisible foes, so I brought an invisible Ceres to cast detect invisibility to prevent us from getting ambushed by these guys when walking by with our full party later on:
Next up, we did have to fight the second mercenary group - a quick set of fireballs allowed us to catch all of the dangerous foes right away (it's important to catch the invisible thieves with a couple of these before they can get too close and out of the AoE):
After taking down the remaining undead with Cephalus, we prepared to fight Korlasz. My plan was to take her down with dispelling arrows while skeletons would distract her allies - this worked out very well in the beginning, her death was quick - though she didn't get the option to surrender, which I propably would've chosen (too much damage at once, apparently):
And now, witness my foolishness in action. Since Korlasz didn't surrender, I had to fight her entire party, and I knew that said party contains a few dangerous archers and thieves. As such, I was fully aware that the only reasonable approach to this battle would be to do something about the thieves (which were invisible at this point) - the safest option would be to throw six fireballs in the room, with the alternatives being a tactical retreat into some prepared traps or another casting of detect invisibility (which propably wouldn't be enough, because they typically have at least 2 invisibility potions). However, overconfidence, propably greatly increased due to my two previous successes with the SCS/Ascension run and the Solo run, got the better of me. Despite me NEVER having any money trouble in SoD at all (not even the slightest bit), I decided to "save charges" and just stood there like a fool, firing ranged projectiles at the enemy. It was as if I completely stopped thinking and just pressed attack (the A-click move, for those who play RTS games). Suddenly, the enemy cleric (who I, for some reason, didn't even focus down) had affected Dumuzid with rigid thinking, and three thieves were trying to backstab Ouranus - thankfully, his extremely low AC resulted in them missing:
One thief was taken down, the other two used their first set of invisibility potions. For some reason, I didn't realize how screwed I was at this point (remember that any backstab will likely result in a kill or chunking, thanks to insane difficulty double damage and our very low party hp - Cephalus is the only one with a chance to survive one) - of course, the SoD AI is smart enough to go after the one guy who can't defend himself: An archer started hitting Dumuzid, and the next backstab attempt against him (now already weakened) was successful - and we got our first chunking:
At this point, I didn't have any options to save Dumuzid (no invisibility spell in Ceres' spellbook, which might've maybe worked), so even if I would've woken up after the rigid thinking hit, he was propably doomed. I did get the second thief during this reveal, but the third one went after Oedipus - and managed to hit (this one was a bit less likely to happen, because Oedipus actually has very good AC - but the reasonable reaction after Dumuzid's death would've been to have everyone immediately drink an invisibility potion to avoid further deaths - which shows you that I was still not paying attention, just sleepwalking through this fight). In any case, Oedipus was of course killed by the backstab, and he was lucky not to get chunked:
The final thief didn't make it out alive after this kill, and the battle was over. Luckily, the flaming fist healer resurrected Oedipus before we made it back to the Gate.
Now, what are the consequences of Dumuzid's chunking? In all honesty, this is still kind of the best case scenario when it comes to chunking - we don't need three thieves, and Dumuzid doesn't bring much else to the table. The main problems right now are: a) Dumuzid was the only one of the three who had maxed open locks/find traps, so I hope that I'll be able to find/buy enough potions to boost Kaveh and Oedipus. b) as long as we're still in SoD, Dumuzid, as a reasonably good archer, would've been an important part of my damage and had the ability to use special ammo such as detonation/dispelling arrows. c) six party members are still over all stronger than five, and we can't replace anyone in these settings - so every loss matters quite a bit.
To make things worse, while questing in the big city, I somehow lost my full stack of dispelling arrows - most likely, Cephalus dropped it because some quest item was added into his full inventory, and I only noticed it once it was too late. This is pretty bad - dispelling arrows are at the core of my strategy for a couple of important battles. I still have a few with me, but now I will have to be super careful about using them.
In any case, our greatly diminished party started clearing the coast way crossing where my terrible play continued. When fighting some spiders, I failed to notice a web tangle by a gargantuan spider approaching Ceres, not putting on one of my two rings of freedom (something I usually never fail to do). This resulted in another death, with no one being able to save her. No chunking, thankfully, and at this point, Ouranus had his first 5th level spell in order to resurrect her:
At this point I decided to just stop playing. The rest of this update was played a few days later. I was able to pull myself together and avoid further big mistakes, though my confidence in this run and my motivation have both been greatly diminished. Here's how things went:
The bridge battle was won via five fireballs, and the vampire killed by traps and a few attacks:
The hidden room on the first ambush map is always tricky, because you start surrounded and can't prepare with summons. Plus, neo-otyughs are quite dangerous. I used wand summons and a buffed up Ceres (now that she has two fourth level spells, which means stoneskin + spirit armor, she is quite a good tank) to distract the opposing forces while the other party members started taking care of mustard jellies:
By re-using my summoning wand, some careful kiting and forcing enemies to switch targets I was actually able to get out of this fight without taking a single hit, which is kind of a good sign:
I made my way to the repository of undeath, once again using PfU and Cephalus to clear most of the area (two scrolls needed - now I have only one left, but there's only one more area with undead in the game anyway). For the bronze sentry, Ceres added her tanking power, and skeletons their offensive potential:
Taking down the Coldhearth Lich with the Secret Revealed was easy going from there:
We've now made it to the Troll Claw Woods.
Who's conspiring? Sarevork?
I know that guy - he likes pork
Let mockery be our gift
Jiggly-jiggly-jiggly-swift
Anyway, sorry for the cheap rhymes and thanks for spotting the typo.
Regards,
B.
Big black helm hunting me,
Biggy can't see wood for tree,
Sarevork, Sarevork,
Won't you quit dork,
Dorking around and look for me?
Old Sarevorp no brain big body,
Old Sarevorp can't find me,
Sarevorp, Sarevorp,
Down down, you drop,
You can't catch Boots of Spee-...
Or You can't catch what you can't see for the backstabbers
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032457/#Comment_1032457
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032927/#Comment_1032927
The latest hour saw the stage set for a confrontation with Sarevok:
- picked up the Helm & Cloak of Balduran
- cleared the Seven Suns
- used the stairs to break the opposition at the Iron Throne up into bite-sized chunks
- Slythe lost out in a melee contest and Krystin to elemental arrows
Dwarven defender L8, 118 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 373 kills
Previous updates:
Update 1: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1028542/#Comment_1028542
Update 2: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1029429/#Comment_1029429
Update 3: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1030921/#Comment_1030921
Update 4: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1031740/#Comment_1031740
Update 5: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1031786/#Comment_1031786
Update 6: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033031/#Comment_1033031
Most of the troll claw woods are easily doable with either skeletons + ranged attacks or firebombing. The only interesting battle can be the troll cave, as the enemies are spread out (can't kill everyone with fireballs right away) and there's no way to start with summons, since luring opponents out of areas isn't possible in SoD. I was able to burst some trolls to near death with opening fireballs, but a lot of kiting had to be done to avoid damage - at one point, I had to kite with three characters at once (possible thanks to Ceres' haste, but always tricky) - in the end, Ceres was able to catch most of the trolls and tank them with her defensive buffs:
The Forest of Wyrms outside areas were once again no trouble. For the spider cave, I had my rings of freedom at the ready (this time avoiding any mistakes), and an invisible Kaveh got rid of all the traps before I started to throw fireballs and hit the spiders. Astral phase spiders are a huge threat, but I was able to avoid getting hit by any of them. Before leaving, we also took down the rhino beetle:
For the dragon, we used the throwing dagger trick before clearing the bugbear caves. Luckily, these guys aren't smart enough to carefully choose targets with their otherwise deadly thieves - they just go for the closest opponent (skeletons, in this case). In the Temple of Bhaal, most cultists were simply fireballed to death. However, the two mages in the final group survived the process, so I simply ran away, waited out their buffs invisibly (dodging a detect invisible spell in the process) and returned again with another fireball:
For Ziatar, to avoid her breath weapon, I had Ceres use a protection from poison scroll, aiding the skeletons from afar - while the party stayed at a safe distance:
No trouble here - I didn't have everyone use the protection scroll at this point because I was scared of a dispel magic, but this never happened. The other ones did end up using their scrolls for the Neothelid, though - since I was going to fight a couple of dangerous battles soon, I also added heroism and oils of speed:
Seizing the moment, I rushed into Akanna's room. I was able to hit her with a wand of paralyzation charge right as she went invisible, and some wand of the heavens charges + magic missles helped my skeletons to take down the two aerial servants:
I quickly made it to Darkshelin, using Cephalus' beastmaster spells to get some more summoned fodder (aerial servants had killed most of my skeletons) - they served as distractions for me to throw in two sets of fireballs into the room:
The mind flayer survived, but Ceres (buffed with cc as well) is perfect for tanking such a foe, so he was quickly taken down. Now, I had to rest before taking on the shadow aspect, because I didn't dare challenge him without true sight. I entered with spellbuffs, skeletons at the front, and true sight dispelled the mislead clone:
The shadow aspect didn't even get a chance to renew his mislead - this is the best I've ever done in the insane version of this battle:
So now, we made it to Boaresky Bridge, first completing all of the sidequests without any trouble (with Cephalus being a beastmater, I decided to forge the dragon scale armor for the first time). Starting the battle, we invaded the enemy camp with the flaming fist - we started with some self-buffs, most importantly oils of speed, and threw some fireballs into the battle:
Everything was going great, we took down the Bhargest and most of the enemy forces without trouble. However, then, suddenly, from off-screen, one of the enemy mages hit us with a wand of fire charge, instantly killing Ceres. Luckily, Cephalus and Kaveh, the other two who got hit, were wearing their fire resistance rings:
This is kind of annoying - since we got hit from off screen, there was barely any way to prevent this death. However, it does seem kind of fair - shooting fireballs from off screen is something our own party does to our enemies constantly, so... the game is getting its revenge.
In any case, luckily, the main battle was almost over at this point - Khalid's group did rather well, and together, the remaining mages were taken down. Now, we had to fight the bridge battle. My last meatgrinder attempt ended here, thanks to the fire portal. While we were down to four, I was prepared to interrupt that mage - buffing up Cephalus' thac0 with some potions (he would use some of our precious dispelling arrows), and preparing The Victor as additional security. The initial assault worked - the mage was killed very quickly:
At this point, it was safe to retreat to our army, and we really had to - Ouranus could've died any second with some bad luck. With enough space to kite and some NPC help, we triumphed and made it to the Coalition Camp, resurrecting Ceres and doing the minor quests around there. Next time, we shall explore the surrounding areas.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032457/#Comment_1032457
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032927/#Comment_1032927
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033210/#Comment_1033210
The start of the next hour saw the merciless death of Sarevok's cronies by lightning (a particular advantage of doing that is to get all 8 exploding arrows from Angelo). Angelo isn't easy to hit like that and by the time he died Sarevok was already badly injured - I just went straight into melee to finish him off.
In the SoD prologue I bought some stuff from the Flaming Fist healer, before getting Porios to surrender. PfU allowed some easy XP from undead, before fireballs and melee accounted for the group guarding the final door. Arrows of dispelling and acid quickly prompted Korlasz to surrender - though she failed to get away anyway.
I didn't bother with much in the city, beyond picking up the Spectacles and Battle Tankard (I'd carried through about 60k worth of jewelry and scrolls to allow for shopping without killing any NPCs).
I typically go at the start of SoD to get the regeneration ioun stone. However, with natural regeneration, so many potions available and the very limited amount of work actually required in SoD, there's no need for that for a dwarven defender and I didn't bother this time. Instead rapid progress was made by:
- hiding behind the tent until Caelar came to parley at the bridge.
- running through Troll Claw Woods.
- using invisibility to get into the temple without fighting at the Forest of Wyrms.
- a potion of invulnerability and PfP soon saw off Ziatar and the Neothelid.
- on the way out a second dagger thrown at Morentherene proved fatal.
Dwarven defender L9, 131 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 437 kills
Next up was Nicros the Sorceror; Lawful Evil; traveling with Dorn, Viconia and Safana. The run was looking promising, until Silke fired off a double chromatic orb sequencer at Viconia. She was petrified and chunked, along with some of my most valuable loot. I recruited Tiax to replace her, which turned out to be ill-advised.
Nicros had Tiax summon his ghast to use as a target for Drain Life. (My evil characters often heal at the expense of summoned beasts.) Not only did that fail, but the ghast took offense at the abuse. It went straight for Nicros. The first hit paralyzed CHARNAME. There was no time to prevent the second. Never died that way before...
Rolling another random character, details TBA.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032457/#Comment_1032457
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032927/#Comment_1032927
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033210/#Comment_1033210
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033397/#Comment_1033397
- at Boareskyr Bridge I wimped out of attacking Vichand (even though it's reasonably safe for a fighter to attack him if you use a potion of firebreath) and just intimidated him into giving the scroll. I killed a Greater Feyr in order to buy yet more unneeded potions before surrendering the fort. The mage on the bridge had no real chance after being hit with an initial dispelling arrow.
- the Spectacles pulled a genie vendor onto the Prime Material Plane to sell me a couple of nice items
- ran through Dead Man's Pass on the way to rescue Skie.
- at the Underground River, beat up the cyclops
- back at the Coalition Camp I wasn't allowed to surrender to Caelar, so decided to fight instead. Exploding arrows did most of the damage to the invading forces.
- after finally catching up with Caelar I recruited her, but as always left her uncontrolled in the fight. Using the dragon shield, Twinkle and Golden Girdle, I think Belhifet needed a critical to hit (definitely at least 19). He had a clear preference to attack Caelar so I couldn't protect her entirely, but a few restorations kept her going until Big B was cut down to size.
Dwarven defender L10, 129 HPs, 535 kills
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032457/#Comment_1032457
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032927/#Comment_1032927
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033210/#Comment_1033210
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033397/#Comment_1033397
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033645/#Comment_1033645
The first hour's work in SoA saw:
- the dungeon totally cleared (getting up to level 11 in the process).
- bought a bit of reputation before going to restore the circus.
- checked in with Gaelan Bayle.
- oversaw a transfer of control at the Copper Coronet.
- used the Horn to reduce saving throws against a pirate mage (also got to level 12 there).
Dwarven defender L12, 135 HPs, 139 kills (+535 in BG1)
Thaal (female dwarf priest of Lathander, Gate70); Shane (male halfling swashbuckler, Grond0)
It's been a couple of weeks since Thaal and Shane were about. They are standing outside Watchers Keep and have the ammo belt plus Crimson Dart, but also a pair of slippers. Thaal also has Raise Dead memorised so perhaps Shane had died inside. Regardless, we returned and handed over the slippers before moving on.
At the Docks we witnessed the murder of Mook and fought Lassal off. Then we killed traitors and Gracen (Gravy) for Aran Linvail and agreed to do a job for Mae'Var. The second slaver ambush took place followed by Shane getting stuck into a Rune Assassin (by this, Shane was actually stuck and could not move). Needless to say the Rune Assassin got the upper hand here while Thaal was still trying to kill off the two ghasts. With Shane dead, it was fortunate for Thaal that his last act was to throw up the Berserk Warrior.
Thaal used charges from a Wand of the Heavens to kill off the Rune Assassin before the Berserk Warrior was killed, and another two charges to finish off a second Rune Assassin that had her into low hit points. Then she raised Shane.
Neera's cutscene was next, followed by another bandit ambush. Shane moved away to hide while an already-injured Thaal (had travelled with 47/90hp) took a couple of hits. A third hit failed to stop her casting Silence but the enemy mage managed to cast a Lightning Bolt as the Silence travelled. The bolt ricocheted around a few times but the first strike had finished Thaal off and brought the run to a ignominious end .
Arctica (elf fighter/mage, Grond0); Suer (elf sorcerer, Gate70)
After the shocking end to our previous run we rolled up a new pairing - this time the dice returning another arcane selection.
It didn't take long to get some XP on the board, thanks to Shoal.
There was a safe trip to the FAI to get the Ring of Wizardry for Suer, but on the way back trouble struck in the form of a group of bandits. Arctica took a safety first strategy, by running immediately and letting the bandits focus on Suer. That meant that by the time Arctica released a sleep spell from a safe(ish) spot, Suer was already about to collapse from one too many arrows in the gut.
Beregost temple was happy to put Suer back together and her first level spell picks were soon being made use of - PfP to neutralize basilisk gazes and blind to prevent them switching to melee. All went well until having a go at Mutamin. His mirrors parried enough magic missiles to let him cast horror at Suer and an interfering gnoll then made it harder for Artica to finish off Mutamin by bow. By the time that was done both Arctica and Suer had been tagged with an acid arrow. That seemed unlikely to have fatal consequences - 3 lots of 2d4 damage would only average 15 and Suer had 20 HPs - but she died anyway
Back at the temple, Arctica tried to get the priest to accept the same 200 gold that was charged the previous day, but he was having none of it and wanted triple rate. Arctica sold a bit of equipment and tried going back to the temple - only for the game to crash. We called a halt there (though I did later raise Suer using the autosave and saved the game properly to make it less likely I would lose the save).
Arctica, fighter 3 / mage 3, 26 HPs, 33 kills
Suer, sorcerer 4, 20 HPs, 3 kills, 2 deaths
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1001507/#Comment_1001507
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1001516/#Comment_1001516
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1001649/#Comment_1001649
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1002257/#Comment_1002257
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1002376/#Comment_1002376
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1002631/#Comment_1002631
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1002724/#Comment_1002724
Since the last report I did some months ago I've had a few more attempts at this challenge (as a reminder the aim is not only to do a no-reload - a potential problem as I've never completed the game under any rules - but to use only undead creatures in my army and never lose any creatures in combat):
- a 283rd attempt failed again in the Secret Underground where I lost patience when the chasing beholder stack refused to lose lock in a position where I could safely loot the shrubs.
- 284th saw some early carelessness when I got caught dodging a stack before having acquired any army.
- 285th had been a very clean run. Eventually though I had in mind some wolves were going to attack the ancient vampires and absent-mindedly moved the cursed ghosts into range as well - the latter were attacked instead, gained extra ghosts from their retaliation to go out of control and then one-shotted the ancient vampires.
This 286th attempt is being done in between making progress with my dwarven defender to help me avoid the temptation to spend more than an hour a day on that. I've made a few little mistakes, but been lucky that none of those have proved fatal so far. The gods were smiling in the Secret Underground where I only got chased 4 times round the cave before the beholder lost lock. In the fight for the Pendant of Iron Will I was concerned when at first glance there were only evil gremlins (making it virtually impossible to win the fight without losing any creatures), but there was fortunately one good gremlin on the board (to produce summons that my ghosts could use to regenerate their losses).
I used the hypnosis scroll from the Pendant to take temporary control of enemies in the remaining battles in Arlania and then sacrificed those enemies to get additional vampires and ancient vampires - gradually pushing them up to their maximum controllable numbers (based on my amount of leadership) - that was the point I reached before making a fatal mistake in my last posted run.
With rage still high from the last of the battles to increase vampire numbers, I attacked Tiberius - he's one of the hero-led stacks that are dotted about to make things more difficult. Much of his army is undead and can't be life-drained to regenerate vampires, but by leaving the living stacks until Tiberius is out of magic and missile users there's plenty of life left to restore my army.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032457/#Comment_1032457
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032927/#Comment_1032927
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033210/#Comment_1033210
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033397/#Comment_1033397
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033645/#Comment_1033645
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033891/#Comment_1033891
Another hour saw a bit of further progress:
- picked up an amulet for Mae'Var, but Rayic Gethras was left for a moment.
- at the Bridge District, some Rune Assassins were taken out for a reputation gain.
firelightning.Dwarven defender L13, 138 HPs, 200 kills (+535 in BG1)
At Spellhold things initially went to plan, but as usual there was a lich in Spellhold and it was ready to cause some trouble. It took revenge on my cheap trick of throwing a spell in before closing the door when it was first spotted by... hiding behind the door. It was rather disconcerting when no amount of detect illusions or other spells could locate the cowering fiend... and it was only after chopping up its cohort of Greater Mummies and Skeleton Warriors that we finally discovered where all those spells had been coming from.
Irenicus was even more troublesome. I never remember to buff before running into the crazies, and things began to go south when the Fallen Planetar showed up. It chopped up Verr and then Faren, and while they were being raised Wanev decided to call upon an Arcanaloth... which naturally targeted us as Irenicus was off murdering other crazies and our summons. Then when Korgan attempted to take care of this fresh difficulty Wanev interpreted this as an attack and proceeded to disintegrate him! From there we were forced to employ some hit and run ranged tactics to deal with the remaining threats, before Irenicus finally fell. I was strongly tempted to replace Korgan with Tiax, and even went to the extent of looking up some old 2nd ed precedents on whether a PC could get raised under these circumstances. (I've got chunking off this time, but that's more because most chunkings are caused by backstabs rather than destruction of a corpse.) In the end I just rolled a die on it, and Korgan's number came up so he'll stay on as a member of the team. Though expect more bad luck for him as Lyran has him wearing Doomplate (IR item. Bad luck for him, doom on all enemies nearby!).
Following that we proceeded on through the Sahaugin city to the Underdark, and paused. I've lost a few runs here, and will try to minimise the number of risks that we take where the rewards don't seem commensurate. Here are a few screenies of the Irenicus battle and the Cowls.