Knud, human transmuter, true neutral: Part 1 - Introduction
It's time to give this challenge another shot. I considered various specialist mages for my run and transmuter came out as the most appealing choice. However, I had to ask myself three questions:
1. Will I miss abjuration spells? Of course. Big time. 2. Do I expect to fail? Absolutely. Most likely because of No. 1. 3. Why do it at all? Because there'll be loads of fun to have (and hopefully share)!
So what are we waiting for?! Let's memorize some Color Sprays and hit the Coast!
Mods: SCS v31
A transmuter would be particularly awesome in Baldur's Gate 2 if you had Spell Revisions installed, because in Spell Revisions Flesh to Stone has a saving throw penalty of -4, which would be -6 if Knud cast it. That would be enough to petrify even Throne of Bhaal enemies some of the time.
Illasera is buffed by Ascension, but her mage friend easily falls to Imoen's level 21+ snares, the fighters collapse under pressure from our own fighters, and while Illasera runs away under the Ethereal spell and tries to wait out our buffs by hiding at a distance, we eventually track her down. She kills Imoen in short order because thieves are squishy, but Illasera doesn't have great defenses, either.
I decide to bring Sarevok into the party, since we could use someone who can wield Soul Reaver, which I consider to be even more powerful than Carsomyr in ToB: the THAC0 penalties are crippling against the biggest threats of ToB, which are basically all fighters, while dispelling buffs are more useful against the lesser threats of ToB, the mages.
I consider dual-classing Sarevok, but honestly, it's not worth it. Hardiness is good enough to cover Sarevok's defenses; investing in mage levels to get PFMW and such is not worth the extremely long downtime. As for dual-classing to thief... well, thief defenses are even weaker and Use Any Item doesn't buy us much when we already have other characters using Carsomyr and the Staff of the Magi, and when Sarevok can already wield Soul Reaver.
In the first Pocket Plane trial, I let our fighters do most of the work, and carefully time our shorter-lasting buffs, like Mass Invisibility, so we activate them right before Irenicus, Bodhi, and the Sarevok clone arrive. Since it takes us a moment to remove Irenicus' illusions, we don't have time to break through his Stoneskins via nonmagical weapons, and I fail to have Mazzy use Power Attack. The net result is a Time Stop from Irenicus, who fails to make much use of it before his Time Stop ends and he finds himself suddenly short on Stoneskins.
Bodhi and Sarevok hit hard, but even fighters have trouble making all of their saves vs. death at a -4 penalty against our Power Attack strikes.
I look up the dialog options for the Sarevok redemption path so he doesn't betray us at the Throne of Bhaal.
Gromnir's goons are abnormally high-level, but they don't have the numbers to contest with our fighters and their mages use PFMW instead of Absolute Immunity, allowing us to nail them with Power Attack. Even Karun the Black and the other mage in the throne room use PFMW, and Mazzy can easily capitalize on that.
The enemy fighters deal a lot of damage very fast, and establishing an advantage requires us to act even faster. We bring down a couple key enemies, but when I see that Lashar'ra is using Flesh to Stone spells, I have Mazzy divert some of her arrows to pinning her down.
It's a good idea to spread around Power Attack strikes in some occasions. But Mazzy fails to re-stun Karun the Black before her Power Attack runs out, and Karun gets Time Stop off the ground. He also fails to do much of anything with it, and soon Mazzy shoots him down. Keldorn and Sarevok approach death over the course of the fight, but by having them run around and drink potions when necessary, we keep them on their feet so they can help us bring down Gromnir.
Nalia learns Summon Planetar, and once we kill a few Fire Giants in the temple, Mazzy finally gets Smite, which, unlike Power Attack, offers no saving throw for the stun effect and also guarantees critical hits for the first round. We have the damage output to dispatch the giants and such with fewer rests, and while the Fire Trolls are unfortunately bugged to be invincible (as they often are), I can get rid of them using CTRL-Q.
The Fire Lich disrupts his own spells via Incendiary Cloud. It hardly matters--now that Mazzy has Smite, even an enemy Fallen Planetar wouldn't be a big problem. Mages generally dominate SoA, but ToB is more of a fighter's game due to better enemy saves, AC, resistances, HP, and immunities. If enemy mages appeared in groups, then things would be very different, but even when fighters approach mages in terms of overall power, the mages tend to fight alone, just like high-level mages in SoA.
Brimstone gives us grief. All the giants deal a lot of damage, and even with Hardiness, Keldorn gets crushed. Even Mazzy nearly dies before her Lay on Hands spell bails her out. Some running around and Heal spells from Nalia's planetar keep our fighters intact, though Frisky Bits has to save Sarevok with an Invisibility spell when he gets stunned. Frisky Bits' mage buffs let them stand up against the enemies, even Brimstone.
Somehow, the Fire Giants see through Sarevok's invisibility and kill him, but without Brimstone to hassle us, Frisky Bits can tank the remaining enemies while Mazzy uses her bow.
Then another inexplicable crash sends us back to the previous area. I create a custom sword so I don't have to spend another 20 minutes dealing with the same fight.
Not all the fights in ToB are necessarily dangerous from a no-reload perspective (I mean, we always have the Rod of Resurrection on our fighters if we really get in trouble), but almost all of them require buffing, and the maintenance can take up a lot of time.
Sunray, Restoration, and Breach get us past the Master Wraith. Keldorn's Dispel Magic, which now casts at more than level 30, debuffs both the Skeleton Cleric and Skeleton Mage, allowing us to smash the latter with melee weapons and the former with missile weapons (after we remove its Physical Mirror with Breach), since the cleric is positioned beyond a barrier that keeps him out of reach of single-handed melee weapons.
Nyalee summons a clone of Frisky Bits, who is immune to all of Mazzy's attacks due to her innate immunity to +1 and nonmagical weapons (courtesy of the Hell trials) and PFMW spell. However, Frisky Bits' clone isn't a major offensive threat, and Nyalee herself is extremely vulnerable: she does not buff with Shield of the Archons (not that that would be a big obstacle, honestly), and can be struck down simply by hitting her with Breach and swarming her.
In the past, I've seen her shapeshift into a bugged Earth Elemental Form with 100% physical damage resistance, but she doesn't do so this time. It takes some time to kill the Frisky Bits clone due to its mage buffs, but otherwise it can't do much to us.
At the Siege Camp, Frisky Bits hits Yaga-Shura with a Wand of Lightning charge while Imoen summons Shambling Mounds via the staff from Suldanessellar. We don't have to hold the fort for long before Yaga-Shura joins us at the west end of the map. An enemy mage wastes our time with a Time Stop spell, but his timing comes too early to ruin our strategy: a Harm spell cast by our untouchable tank Frisky Bits, safely outside the fray to avoid disruption, followed by Critical Strike to guarantee a hit on Yaga-Shura and reduce him to 1 HP. His regeneration can't save him; our Planetar has a Magic Missile spell with a casting time of a single frame.
Frisky Bits learns Smite and Mazzy learns Hardiness. We now have a full suite of options for intense situations: 40% damage resistance for all of our fighters, a Planetar to cast Heal spells, guaranteed stuns and hits via Smite, and, of course, a virtually invincible Fighter/Mage/Cleric. We completely stomp the Oasis fight despite arriving without buffs, and sell off over 190,000 gold in spare loot at Amkethran.
As always, I will spend tens of thousands of gold on resources that we will never actually use.
We get waylaid by a mod-introduced ambush. I don't know how tough they can be; the only spellcaster arrived without buffs, and he was not hard to disrupt.
Outside Sendai's lair, Meteor Swarm from Nalia's Planetar torches the drow, and PFMW pins down the mages, as always.
Sarevok's last redemption dialog triggers, and then I receive bad news: by turning Chaotic Good, he can no longer use Soul Reaver. It's still in his weapon slot, but the next time I level him up, he'll be forced to unequip it. That's a pretty big setback; Soul Reaver was going to be really useful against critters like Abazigal and the Ravager.
Keldorn's Dispel Magic lands a hit on Odamaron, but it doesn't reach the two apprentices in the back, and the other lich gets Time Stop off the ground. It puts a few demons on the map, but Odamaron is still very vulnerable when Time Stop ends.
Unfortunately, that was just Odamaron's clone, and the real one remains invisible and untouchable. Frisky Bits takes down the vampire with the Runehammer, but the lich apprentice retains its defenses. Nalia's planetar applies 50% spell failure to both liches via Holy Word, and Odamaron loses a spell even though we can't yet hurt him.
Odamaron blasts us with damage spells during Time Stop, but ultimately, he runs out of PFMW spells, and Frisky Bits is there to capitalize on it.
Mazzy gains a level and finally achieves grandmastery in katanas, giving her another 0.5 APR with Celestial Fury.
Imoen can use Soul Reaver with Use Any Item, but her THAC0 and her defenses will both be terrible. I try to summon Dorn via the Fate Spirit so he can use Soul Reaver, but apparently EET (or maybe just normal EE; I don't know) prevents you from summoning party members that never actually joined your party.
Instead, I summon Haer'dalis, who did briefly join our party. Fortunately, his XP gets upgraded to 2.5 million, putting us far closer to getting Use Any Item. He won't have THAC0 or APR as good as an evil fighter, but unlike Imoen, he'll be able to engage in melee without putting himself in horrible danger, thanks to PFMW. We drop off Imoen, since dropping Sarevok would be a bigger loss for us.
Ogremoch dispelled Frisky Bits' defenses when I tried to tank him without PFMW, but otherwise Ogremoch was little trouble. His incessant Stoneskin spells don't mean as much when you have 4 fighters in the party.
We take down the spider Lashar'ra and Frisky Bits finally hits cleric level 14, learning Hardiness and memorizing Greater Restoration just to save charges on the Rod of Resurrection (I decided not to recharge wands in this run).
Diaytha proves ineffectual. The vampire fell to the Runehammer and both Diaytha and the Hive Mother lost all of their buffs to Keldorn's Dispel Magic. With lots of attacks disrupting their spells, they were helpless to defend themselves.
The mind flayer lair apparently is pretty safe even for fighters. Fighters might not be able to survive much INT drain, but they strike so fast that mind flayers--who don't seem any tougher in ToB than they were in SoA--simply don't have an opportunity to make many attack rolls.
We enter Sendai's lair and focus fire on the southeast mage. Once again, an enemy mage with PFMW falls to nonmagical ammunition.
Nalia's clone doesn't provide much offensive power (Horrid Wilting isn't going to do much against drow with high MR), but it does alleviate a lot of pressure by summoning a Planetar to cast Heal on our fighters and throwing out a Teleport Field to scatter the drow grunts, who have extremely high damage output in Ascension. Meanwhile, Haer'dalis hassles the northwest spellcaster. His THAC0 isn't great, but the Answerer implies AC penalties that make it increasingly easy for him to land hits.
Frisky Bits takes damage from one of the drow grunts, an alarming sign that they've lost their Stoneskins. Running away to cast PFMW buys them some time to restore their Stoneskins.
Nameless mages join the fight, but Keldorn's Dispel Magic renders them vulnerable. More Sendai statues come to life, but when our fighters converge on a single target, that statue can't handle the pressure for long.
Several statues fall in quick succession. We refresh our SI: Abjuration spells and so forth in anticipation of the final phase, which proves underwhelming: Sendai's Fallen Deva gets stunned and quickly put down, and Sendai gets nothing from her Improved Alacrity spell because Frisky Bits is immune to Implosion. Her Stoneskins don't last for long.
Most of Sendai's Enclave was cleared with the help of hasted kiting or some skeletons and a deva. For Ogremoch and most of Diaytha's group, luring our foes into spike traps was a winning strategy:
The hive mother refused to follow us, so a well-protected Kaveh and his simulacrum assisted our summons with GWWs:
Cephalus won the duel with a single GWW, upgrading his crossbow shortly after that. The mind flayers were no trouble, as they are easily kiteable. Time to face Sendai - her first clone was taken down right away, and after using fighter HLAs to deal with the incoming drow we sent a deva after mage-Sendai while preparing traps for the next drow spawn (due to good positioning, our party was often considered to be out of combat during this battle):
Oedipus had three deva summons prepared and also got some additional skeletons to help us out. Incoming drow were taken down with traps, true sight or dispelling arrows (I still had a lot of these from SoA, so why not use them now?) plus additional ranged attacks. Near the end of the battle, Cephalus added a simulacrum of his own to assist our DPS:
The real Sendai wasted her implosion on a summon and lost her initial buffs thanks to a dispelling arrow:
I thought I had her when she was at near death and hit with a smite:
However, she instantly healed to full, but another set of GWWs provided Cephalus with victory:
Draconis was up next. He had actually ended my most promising run of the original meatgrinder challenge about 10 years ago (back then, it was bg2 only and with 1 official NPC as the sixth party member, so it was much easier). My plan was the same as with my previous solo F/M/T: Take down his human form and lure his dragon form into a bunch of spike traps. However, this strategy isn't exactly foolproof: Draconis tends to summon invisible stalkers, and these could trigger the traps and ruin the plan. To prevent this, it's ideal to place the traps as close to Draconis as possible. However, while attempting to do this, I actually got TOO close this time and triggered the encounter - without active buffs, I had no choice but to run back. I decided to lay down spike traps anyway to at least take down the human form instantly as soon as I hit the edge of the map:
Next, I travelled to Amkethran to reset Draconis (he will still spot the party upon return, but the usually won't be waiting right at the edge of the map - it will take a few seconds for him to get there, and he usually just starts to summon allies first). Upon my return to the area, I entered the pocket plane right away in order to prepare my buffs, including full acid immunity for everyone. Thinking of the best alternative strategy, I decided that I couldn't risk Draconis dispelling my buffs and getting in a breath weapon attack on any unpotected party member (and I couldn't give everyone item-based immunity - there's just not that many acid protection items in the game). Since I would always be in combat now, traps wouldn't be an option either, so I decided to burn one of my valuable time stop scrolls. These are supposed to be used for the Throne (to kill the fallen solar), but I would ideally only need two for that, and there's always the limited wish timestop as well. Kaveh's timestop + improved haste (we have many items granting this effect) with Scarlet Ninja-to + Belm provided him with 10 APR for the first round. For the second round, I switched to Crom Faeyr + GWW to deal even more damage:
Yep, our fighter/thief did indeed have the required damage output:
We never got our buffs dispelled (side note: I have never used this many potion buffs in ToB before), so we used these to clear most of Abazigal's Lair in one go. Cephalus, with the Cloak of Mirroring and the Hell-Trial immunity to normal summons, was able to take down the seeker eyes by himself (their summons use normal weapons, which is why that part is relevant). We got to upgrade our golem manual one last time and prepared for Abazigal, adding potions of absorption. Our strategy was similiar to the one intended for Draconis: Lure him into a bunch of spike traps once he enters dragon form. This one is a bit easier to pull off, though: He doesn't add additional summons, so all that has to be done is taking out all of his salamanders before he turns into a dragon. This was easily done with ranged weapons and kiting - Abazigal's human form is only fast enough to be a threat if his GWWs are active, and he doesn't have a ton of these. More difficult for this party: Actually taking down Abazigal's human form. Usually, this is super easy, but not so much here, thanks to our lack of defenses against physical damage - he is immune to missle damage, and look what he does to us in melee combat if we get too close:
That's 94 damage with one hit - enough to kill Kaveh if he would've been unbuffed (but the constitution belt and a heroism potion are helping out here). Going into melee combat is required, but super dangerous. Abazigal destroys any summons with one or two hits, and he destroyed Kaveh's simmy as well (our safest option for high melee damage). However, I did realize that Abazigal's two-handed sword can't compete with Cephalus' quarterstaff in terms of speed factor, so I was able to do hit and run with my Bhaalspawn using max movement speed, careful control and a never-ending stream of item-based summons (mostly shambling mounds, thanks to UAI and Staff of the Woodlands):
Upon turning into a dragon, Abazigal instantly fired off a dispel magic, which went after Kaveh. I made sure it wouldn't hit anyone else while retreating, and once it hit, I countered the most dangerous of Abazigal's abilities right away: His breath weapon with another potion of absorption and his dragon fear by equipping the Dragonslayer sword. With that, Kaveh was able to lure Abazigal to his death in the form of 7 spike traps:
Back in Amkethran, we bought all the spellscrolls we could ever need before meeting Saemon and taking down Balthazar's guards with some item-based summons and a little bit of patience to get rid of mage defenses:
I engaged Balthazar with a deva + Kaveh simmy for assistance, taking down his monks first, while the summon was distracting the main guy. He was able to take it down (with a strange bug in the combat log, claiming that it was a Cephalus-simmy that died, which is certainly not what happened), but at this point, he was isolated and already wounded:
Only one GWW from Kaveh + Cephalus and a bunch of energy blades from Oedipus were required to take down the final one of The Five - he wasn't even able to get into melee combat:
This just goes to show how unimportant min-maxing is when it comes to endgame damage output in this game. We're using pretty terrible weapons and our items are 90% defense-only, we're down to three party members, but with the right potions and some HLAs, almost everything will still fall within seconds.
The fourth pocket plane challenge is easy (we use gargoyle boots, true sight and traps for extra protection), though the Ravager could be incredibly dangerous - but I have by now realized that any non-Bhaalspawn party members can just walk into the challenge rooms without starting the encounter, so Oedipus and Kaveh simply prepare seven spike traps. Now, I know from my previous F/M/T run that the Ravager will actually survive this, but he will be near death. We add damage with energy blades, MMMs (from a scroll, as Kaveh doesn't have any +4 projectiles for the ranged weapons he's proficient with) and the firetooth crossbow without ammo:
We are able to kite the bone blades and take zero hits - the Ravager, even in his state, does manage to survive for a while, but not forever:
Only the Throne remains. We have gotten past the scariest encounters in the game for this group. I have a relatively foolproof strategy in mind for Mel. If I don't make any major mistakes, this could actually work out, despite all of the chunkings!
More difficult for this party: Actually taking down Abazigal's human form. Usually, this is super easy, but not so much here, thanks to our lack of defenses against physical damage - he is immune to missle damage
Abby's human form is a bit odd. I agree that when you first try shooting missiles at him the text says he's immune to them, but if you keep plinking away that immunity wears off - I usually use missile damage on him.
Good luck at the Throne - though I don't think you will need it .
Having no internet for three days really makes you appreciate how much you use it. Last update was back in late November, so I might as well post this now so I can start fresh when I decide to pick this playthrough back up.
Watcher's Keep's dragon on Level 5 is slain. The party has to come assist Chromatic Demon because the dragon keeps throwing up Stoneskins and healing itself to full.
The other two tests are easy. Spaz was on Devour Magic duty during the orc assault since they would always cast PfMW. He and Gaspar level up from completing the three tests. Spaz learns Binding Blast, which shares it's saving throw penalty rate with Utterdark Blast, so it's a save vs. spell at -7 or be stunned.
Bruss levels up yet again from the Eternal Warrior challenge and gains a half attack per round.
From the globe challenge, Krieg, Garos, and Rufus all level up, earning their first HLAs. Krieg gets regeneration of 1 HP/sec, Garos gets Storm of Vengeance, and Rufus gets UAI along with the 7th level spells Black Ray of Destruction and Power Word, Stun. - Black Ray of Destruction: As Ruby Ray of Reversal, but shuts off the target's mage+priest spellcasting ability for 5 rounds. This is not a spell failure effect, but instead disables it outright, similar to fighter/mages wearing armor they can't cast in. This bypasses magic resistance. - Power Word, Stun: As per the normal spell but bypasses magic resistance.
Now that Rufus can use normal scrolls, it's time to use the Deck. Using the appropriate Spell Immunity scrolls, we get the following draws:
Unfortunately, Rufus gets nothing from the Jester draw as he was immune to evocation spells to avoid Ruin and Euryale. So the Deck was a total flop and we're out of the respective specific school immunity scrolls. Doing more of the globe challenges, we accidentally let loose the Elder Orb, Hive Mother, and Death Tyrant. Gaspar dies to a death ray, but everyone else survives intact.
We use the rez rod on him and finish the globe challenge, deciding not to attack the liches. We insert the last key and Spaz, Rufus, and Gaspar level up. Spaz gets UAI to use scrolls and trades armor with Rufus, gaining the Robe of Vecna in exchange for the Shadow Dragon armor. Rufus gets Time Trap, and Gaspar gets Psionic Lock. Rufus' Nightblade kit likely doesn't use Rogue Rebalancing's thief HLA table because Shadow Magic was installed after RR. Curses.
We take on the Rilmani group because they're the weakest of all the guardians. The Aurumach is taken out first because he seems to be under permanent aura cleansing and has a casting speed boost. Once he's down, the rest follow quite easily.
We're not dumb enough to try to challenge the demonic amazons or Azamantes and his flaming skulls, so we call it quits for the Keep for now and have Cromwell forge a bunch of things: Ixil's Spike +6, White Dragon Scale, Thieves' Hood, and Celestial Fury +5. Spaz uses the Limited Wish scroll and we do the gong quest for some more extra XP, but I think we've wrung Amn dry for now. It's onto Spellhold for us.
When Krieg gets his Bhaal powers taken away, Bruss levels up as a result, learning Dragon Fist and the ability to ascend to Super Saiyan 2.
- SUPER SAIYAN 2: The Super Saiyan's already spiky hair is forced further upward and their aura becomes more jagged, less flame-like, and pulsates at a higher frequency with occasional crackles of electricity throughout. This transformation provides +3 STR/CON, +4 THAC0/AC/damage, +2 saves, +5 movement rate, +5% critical chance, and 20% damage resistance. Super Saiyan 2 takes no special effort to maintain once acquired, draining -1 CON/5 turns. Power up time: 4
Krieg levels up from the beholder that guards the tome that gives the Ring of Free Action. He learns Deathblow, which causes any creature that he strikes with a critical hit to save vs. death at -4 or die instantly. He puts this to use against a lich, smashing right through its PfMW! Critical hit effects bypassing weapon immunity are fixed by v2.5, but I think that this is the coolest thing ever and that it should stay.
As of now, I've made it past the Builder's head statue. Why don't we take a look at our dudes' character sheets and inventory? This is after we cast long-duration buffs.
Krieg (his extra +37 damage does not display on the character sheet/inventory so I added it in)
Knud, human transmuter, true neutral: Part 1 - Introduction
It's time to give this challenge another shot. I considered various specialist mages for my run and transmuter came out as the most appealing choice. However, I had to ask myself three questions:
1. Will I miss abjuration spells? Of course. Big time. 2. Do I expect to fail? Absolutely. Most likely because of No. 1. 3. Why do it at all? Because there'll be loads of fun to have (and hopefully share)!
So what are we waiting for?! Let's memorize some Color Sprays and hit the Coast!
Mods: SCS v31
A transmuter would be particularly awesome in Baldur's Gate 2 if you had Spell Revisions installed, because in Spell Revisions Flesh to Stone has a saving throw penalty of -4, which would be -6 if Knud cast it. That would be enough to petrify even Throne of Bhaal enemies some of the time.
Indeed. I was so unused to this occuring to party members that in a recent ToB battle I spent awhile trying to cast remove paralysis / free action etc. on a 'held' party member who I thought had been caught in some webs until I realised that they were in fact petrified!
@Grond0 Abazigal's human form uses hardiness (he has at least 2 of these), so maybe what you've been experiencing is hardiness running out after a while, making him vulnerable to missle damage again? In that case, he propably just has a very high resistance against missle damage, turned into a full immunity by hardiness. Good to know in either case - seems like with a bit patience ranged attacks would work out.
The Meatgrinder Challenge #5 - Update 16 - Final Update
We entered the Throne with a truly ungodly amount of buffs. Oedipus and Kaveh made full use of their UAI to get the entire range of useful mage buffs going, and defensive potions for any possible kind of emergency were activated. I even added enchanted weapon of Kaveh so Belm would be able to damage Melissan. As with my FMT, we would only have to fight Mel once - having enough spike traps to take care of the additional 3 of her forms (4 spike traps are enough for each one). We also have a ton of simulacrum spellscrolls, so additional traps for the pools are an option. For this one Mel battle, we do not only have an incredible amount of buffs, but Kaveh and Oedipus are safe from getting dispeled (scrolls of SI:A and Spell Shield). Our main strategy is smite, which should stun Mel - the plan is for Cephalus to use his smite first, and if Mel is still alive after it wears off, for Kaveh to step in with his. Meanwhile, GWWs and energy blades are used for damage. However, I managed to pause the game at the Throne before Melissan started her dialogue. This did give me the opportunity to place 2 spike traps right away, greatly increasing my initial burst of damage:
Cephalus landed his smite hit before our foe was able to do anything. She would not recover from this:
For the first pool guardians, we summoned a deva and a few skeletons. The party was still fully buffed, so our damage output was great (and I had no reason not to use Cephalus' many GWWs):
Four traps took care of Melissan's next form. We still had our buffs, which included immunity to cold damage (for Melissan's attacks, originally) - which was useful for the second pool. I also used one of my many simulacrum scrolls to summon a Kaveh simmy, in order to kill trolls safely with Crom Faeyr without getting the actual Kaveh into a dangerous position:
Once again, 4 traps took care of Mel's third phase. Time for the guardians of the third pool - in essence, my final battle. My plan here was to use a wisdom potion and limited wish scroll with Kaveh, wish for timestop and go in with improved haste, Scarlet Ninja-to and Belm for 10 APR, taking down the fallen solar, renewing timestop from my remaining 4 (!) timestop scrolls if needed. This worked out great during my previous F/M/T run. However, something unexpected happened this time around: I had read online that I would need +3 weapons to hit the fallen solar, so I used another enchanted weapon scroll to buff up Belm. However, when Kaveh went in, it turned out that the fallen solar (and the mariliths) actually were immune to his damage! So, would I need +4 weapons for these? In any case, switching to Crom Faeyr was pointless - thanks to the spell, it would now also count as +3. No way to kill the fallen solar as long as the enchanted weapon spell was active. So I took care of the alu fiend and the succubus and retreated, using another timestop scroll. Instead, I had Kaveh (and later, Oedipus), place spike traps close to the third pool, knowing that the fallen solar would follow me (It has a better AI than most enemies in the game). Luckily, it was faster than the Mariliths and triggered the traps:
Next, I went about renewing my oils of speed and equipping +4/+5 ranged weapons (+4 bullets for Oedipus, no ammo-firetooth for Cephalus and another MMM scroll for Kaveh) - I just had to kite the Mariliths for a while, which was quite easy to do:
Now, I only had to set up even more traps (still had a lot left thanks to simmy scrolls) and wait for victory:
Finally, the Meatgrinder Challenge is completed! It has, in essence, taken me about 10 years (with many pauses) to do this. "Only" five attempts in the modern era, but that is still quite a lot, considering how long these games are, especially when playing full-party completionist runs. Here are some final stats for our remaining 3 party members:
It might seem strange, but this was actually harder for me than the LoB run and the SCS/Asension run. While there were some specific battles in both of these runs (such as the Shadow Aspect and Belhifet in LoB, and the final battle in Ascension) that were far more difficult than anything I had to face in the meatgrinder challenge, there are basically no easy battles in meatgrinder mode - constant high concentration has to be maintained, because almost any opponent is capable of killing you in one or two hits. There's also a higher amount of RNG involved, and far more defensive items are needed. Fighting mages and thieves, were getting hit at all often results in a chunking, can be very frustrating, which is why summons and traps are often the most viable choices. If the situation doesn't allow for these to be used, things get really difficult. Once I had smite to control the battlefield, that one was very helpful - in other cases, tons of buffs, very careful positioning and swapping around key defensive items all the time were required. Playing that way can be very exhausting.
I will be taking a break from playing for a while, propably at least a month, maybe more. Not sure what I might do then - maybe the new SCS version will be out of beta, and I might try my hand at the various new settings (without ascension) with some classes that haven't made it into the hall yet. Of course, I will still be active in the thread. Good luck to everyone else!
Oh, and can we get @Grond0 's successful dwarven defender run into the Hall of Heroes? That would be greatly appreciated!
Having had scribed essential L1 to L3 spells into his book, Knud was ready to grind the basilisks. With Korax and Mr. Rabbit being both immune to petrification, it was about keeping safe distance while the two pounded on paralyzed enemies (including Mutamin himself).
We also got lucky with the drops and acquired an early Web scroll (it could have been Blur, which is unavailable until Cloakwood Mines, but it's still nice to have).
Enjoying the extra experience levels gained from the basilisks, Knud moves on to deal with:
Meilum (who failed his save against Hold Person);
Sendai and her crew (Skull Trap for the archers + Hold Person for Sendai);
Caldo and Krumm (Blindness + Chill Touch).
And the fastest dart thrower in the world? Knud warmed him up with a Skull Trap and, uttering a badass one-liner along the lines "Stick around!", pierced his belly with a dart. How fitting.
By the time we had enough gold to afford the goodies from Ulgoth's Beard, including Greenstone Amulet, Cloak of Displacement and L4 scrolls (II, Malison, Emotion). Knud used Potions of Genius from FAI to scribe the new spells, together with Web and Ghost Armor (from Ankegh cave), and proceeded to Nashkel Mines.
Taking care of Greywolf got Knud to level 7, granting him access to L4 spells. In Mulahey's cave, Knud buffed with Ghost Armor, Vampiric Touch (cast on the lonely kobold near the entrance), Polymorph: Self, Strength, Mirror Image, II and Greenstone Amulet. He approached the half-orc and opened with Web (to close the choke point), followed by Darts of Stunning.
Seeing that Mulahey made his save vs. spell, Knud waited for his aura to clear, morphed into spider, and led Mulahey right into the running Web. Held and poisoned, our foe was done.
Back in Nashkel, Knud tried his jelly form against Nimbul. It was a lengthy battle - Nimbul could not harm jelly Knud (in addition to being magic resistant, the jelly form is immune to normal weapons) and at the same time we're unable to effectively peel his MIs and stoneskin.
Knud resorted to a controlled Wand of Fire charge to finish the exchange.
Well done @Enuhal - good to see your grinding rewarded .
Thanks for the information about Abazigal - hardiness wearing off does sound like the right explanation for immunity to missiles disappearing over time. As for recording my dwarven defender, I hadn't really worried about that given I'm keeping my own record of those 'long-life' runs elsewhere. However, if it helps with providing a more complete picture here for those interested in 'filling in the gaps' the basic information would be:
@Enuhal: Congratulations! I'm glad to hear you've finally found success after so much work. Could you post an entry so I can add it to the Hall of Heroes? I've just added @Grond0's.
I've been away from the thread for a long time, so are there any other entries for the Hall of Heroes that I haven't added yet? Before @Grond0's, the last one was Arinja II by @Enuhal.
@lroumen I keep an up-to-date list with this information. It doesn't include dual-classes, because the number of possible combinations (with specific levels of dual-classing) would simply be too high:
Classes and kits still missing from the combined Hall of Heroes:
Ranger Stalker Undead Hunter Cleric Priest of Helm Priest of Talos Priest of Tempus Priest of Tyr Shapeshifter Avenger All Specialist Mages (except Wild Mage and Enchanter) Thief Bounty Hunter Shadow Dancer Bard Dark Moon Monk Shaman Fighter/Druid (has been done as a dual, but not as a multi) Cleric/Ranger
Dear @Enuhal, you're the man! Congrats on yet another odds beating performance!! I'll catch up with your recent updates.
@Borco, nice start of an interesting run. I like Transmuters a lot, even if I haven't been very successful with them... @Wise_Grimwald, nice to see you enjoying SoD.
I had Annick die a very unnecessary death, as I was playing with someone talking to me. I really felt stupid because I'd been having fun with her.
It caused me to consider taking a break, but I decided to tinker with my install and it gave me new motivation. Followers of this thread know my usual mod setup. This time I installed the SCS v32 Beta, which represents quite a departure from previous versions. Among other things it introduces Icewind Dale spells, changes some existing spells, and ties SCS settings to the game's difficulty settings, as can be seen here:
I went with a full install, including stuff like slower rep gains, changing non-breakable +1 weapons for breakable fine weapons, higher amounts of gold needed in BG2 for a spell-cating license and by Galean Bayle, removal of unrealistically placed helpful items, equipment gone in Spellhold etc. Typical modifications that don't directly affect battles, and which I usually don't install. As you can see in the above screenshot, I went with Insane Difficulty, but I didn't activate the extra damage option in the gameplay menu. Finally, to mix things up even more, I also installed Item Randomisation (with a 5%chance of non-randomisation of items). And I must say, the game feels a lot fresher now.
I had the (manual!) roll of my life
Although I normally play with unadjusted rolls, I was curious enough to check out the strength percentile score, and guess what...
Long story short, here is hammer and sling-wielding
Amahoro, LG Cleric/Ranger:
There were some peculiarities in Candlekeep: she started with 4.5k XP, which I removed in EEKeeper, and she seemed to initiate attacks with the off-hand. I switched to sword and board, and later occasionally back to dual-wielding and everything looked fine.
When I started no-reloading I used to solo a lot, but lately I've found more enjoyment in playing with a party. To make things a bit harder for me I decided to gather a party as soon as possible. Imoen (Swashbuckler), Xzar and Monty all joined, and the halfling applied for a permanent position with an amazing backstab on Tarnesh:
Is that a glitch? I think 30 damage from a double damage backstab by unbuffed Monty is rather exorbitant, no? In any case, I decided to just play on, at least until some really game-breaking bug pops up, Gods forbid.
Jaheira and Khalid (Fighter/Mage as per tweaks anthology) completed the six-member party. They were quite thorough so early on, taking on Karlat, whom I usually shun, for example. A Command by Amahoro sealed his fate, while Neira was interrupted with missiles, and finished off with Imoen's wand and the few magic scrolls we had so far collected (Burning Hands, MM, LMD). Greywolf, too, succmbed to a Command, followed by a barrage of missiles.
He didn't drop anything noteworthy.
For the sake of role-playing, the party entered the Nashkel Mines, but left them when Jaheira got hit by an arrow. The party had to become more experienced first.
Xzar and Monty left, and Minsc (Berserker) came on board. The party then traveled west, through the Cloudpeaks to the gnoll stronghold. Sendai and Vax and Zal were shunned, but Krumm and Caldo (Sleep), Ludrug, and Ingot were all taken on. At the stronghold, Minsc, clad in +1 chainmail did the melee work, while the other contributed with missiles. Dynaheir was rescued and recruited, and the six traveled to the southern coast, where Charleston Nib's diggers slew Jaheira. They were tougher than expected...
Rather than lifting back to Nashkel with Brage, we went north to meet Shoal, hoping she would raise Jaheira. After death-kissing Minsc, she did indeed raise both Minsc and Jaheira, but Icewind Dale-style Dimension Door (this is CDTweaks, not SCS) made Droth appear super fast! The plan of leaving the ogre mage for later, with two restored companions thanks to Shoal didn't really work out... The dialogue triggered and Droth made optimal use of our low levels, putting Minsc, Dynaheir, and Amahoro to Sleep right while Amahoro Commanded him. Thankfully SCS makes enemies focus on the not disabled party members, so Khalid, Jaheira (1 HP), and Imoen did their best to keep Droth busy. Basically this meant Khalid and Jaheira trying to interrupt Droth with missiles, and Imoen with the wand of magic missiles.
Droth then charmed Imoen, injured Khalid with a Melf's Acid Arrow, and finished Jaheira (who hadn't healed yet, choosing a Sunscorch in hopes of interrupting over 9 HPs that wouldn't allow her to survive any damage spell anyway). Khalid fought bravely but he had only a single healing potion, and that was not enough, so he fell. He timed his fall perfectly though, just as Imoen's Charm wore off. She occupied Droth long enough with her wand and arrows,
for the other survivors to wake up. Together they overcame their foe, with Dynaheir finishing him with an Aganazzar's Scorcher from scroll, despite the presence of a pestering dread wolf. Droth dropped the Gift of Peace.
Phewww, that was intense!
Shoal was spared, Brage brought to Nalin, and the ankheg area cleared thanks to Amahoro's Commands (which always work on ankhegs). At the Thunerhammer Smithy three suits of ankheg plate were commissioned. Tenya was returned her bowl, Bjornin avenged, and Drizzt aided (I couldn't let the gnolls kill him). Bassilus took another of Amahoro's Commands, and the single round was just enough to finish him. He dropped Ashideena, a second non-randomised item. Melicamp didn't survive Thlantyr's spell, but helping out Hulrik against some xvarts did push reputation to 20. (At 12, there had been two donations, to help speed up rep gains, because I'm playing with the severest slowdown of reputation gains, 1/4 the normal speed.)
Black Alaric's cave held no less than two stat tomes: bodily health and quickness of action!
In the High Hedge area I ran into another minor peculiarity as a pack of Flinds somehow dealt crushing damage with their two-handeed swords.
An exploration of Ulcaster school yielded a third stat tome, the manual of gainful exercise. So in chapter 2, at level 3/3, Amahoro had all three permanent physical stat boosts in the pocket. That's the randomness of Item Randomiser for you...
the halfling applied for a permanent position with an amazing backstab on Tarnesh:
Is that a glitch? I think 30 damage from a double damage backstab by unbuffed Monty is rather exorbitant, no?
It doesn't seem a lot for a critical hit - I think Monty could manage that against anyone, but Tarnesh may not have had a melee weapon equipped (in that case damage would be less than average).
I've got sad news everyone. By trying to get the most of my currently limited spare time, I've fallen into the trap of overplaying ahead of the actual coverage once again. It's a bad habit and, unfortunately, Knud the transmuter is no more.
At first, I was feeling dedicated to complete his journals, but with the failure being so definitive (and at the same time so distant), I decided to give up on the idea. I'll note that he fell in SoA at level 14 in the Shadow Temple. His death was caused by my incorrect assumption that on-hit ability drain of Shadows shall not circumvent jelly form's immunity to their weapons. Knud shifted into jelly in order to tackle a lone Shadow Fiend and his on-hit paralysis, however, he was soon joined by five spawned Shadows. With lousy AC and aura clouded from Wand of Fire blast, jelly Knud became an easy meal.
Despite such anti-climatic turn of events at the end, I enjoyed this transmuter run a lot. Up to this stage in SoA, I did not miss abjuration school that much, although SI: Abjuration would certainly be welcome to tackle dispels. Most enemy spellcasters were handled with II, magic resistant jelly form and/or negative save v. spells (which was not difficult to maintain). PW: Silence proved to be an effective opener in mage fights as well, despite the fact that many arcane casters were able to counter this with Vocalize. It may also be relevant to mention that, in my experience, Polymorph: Self is not subject to Remove Magic (and therefore the risk of having your spider or jelly form dispelled in the middle of a Web field was non-existent). I cannot confirm this with absolute certainty, but many a time I've seen Knud completely dispelled with the exception of the Polymorph.
I'll also try to update the Polymorph: Self summary thread on the basis on my findings. Most importantly, and again subject to further testing, it seems that in BG2EE, unlike in BGEE, it is not possible to equip special forms with conjured magical weapons (such as the various "touch" spells or Phantom Blade) via sequencers - trying to do this simply results in shifting back to human form with the appropriate weapon equipped.
Condolences, @Borco. That's a rough way to lose a character.
Those Shadows' weapons actually depend on game version--one of the updates (or perhaps a mod) changed their natural attacks to finally strike as magical weapons (+1), where previously the item was always flagged as nonmagical. Protection from Normal Weapons used to let mages tank the Shadows without worrying about stat drain, and druids could wipe out the entire dungeon with Conjure Fire Elemental. I think Shadow Fiends had the same weakness.
@semiticgod That's actually the case with my install - Shadows and Shadows Fiends strike with non-magical weapons. So I suppose it must be a mod introduced change. Either way, their attacks did bypass the jelly form's immunity (not sure if it's coded in the same way as PfNW for instance). I'm running SCSv31 (beta).
I've been thinking for a while now I'd like to have another go at the party poverty run I tried before in an SCS installation, but have been putting that off in case the SCS v32 beta gets fully released. Instead, I thought I would try again with the Arcane Army in a LoB SCS installation. Their capacity to disable opponents is high, so their potential to go deep into a run is good. However, in LoB they are extremely vulnerable so great caution is needed - not least because any chunkings will count as the end of the run for me. To try and get over my natural lack of caution and make better progress at this, I'll be limiting sessions to an hour a day.
At level 1 the Army have insufficient spell damage capability to kill even the weakest enemy. They also need criticals to hit most enemies, even after the AC adjustment from being blinded, so using just their own physical attacks are not a realistic option either. Their early strategies thus rely on a combination of: 1) disabling opponents with blind. Quite a few opponents have SCS scripts making them run around when blinded and that makes attacking difficult, but for those that stay still and can be hit by missile weapons blind lasts long enough to normally be fatal for a single enemy. 2) using Algernon's cloak to convert an enemy into a friend and tank other opponents. 3) using charm person to convert an enemy in the same way - allowing plenty of time to then blind other enemies or run away before the charm expires. I've mentioned before the bug in v2.5 LoB that means base saving throws are 5 higher than they should be. That combines with the Infinity Engine behavior that any save with a base saving throw of 20+ is automatically failed, irrespective of the actual die roll, so that the weakest enemies will never make a save. Something like a xvart will therefore always fail against charm person, irrespective of the fact that has an adjustment to the die roll of +8 (LoB gives a standard +5 to everything and the spell itself has a +3 modifier). 4) using the pseudo-dragon familiar to tank opponents. In LoB most familiars have 44 HPs (calculated as 2x original HPs +20, rather than the 3x original +80 given to enemies). Familiars benefit in full though from the -11 to AC, making them hard to hit by weaker opponents despite the LoB +5 to THAC0. Familiars also only suffer standard damage, not the LoB double damage applied to party members. The combination of that with regeneration of 1 HP/round means that the familiar can tank weaker opponents fairly reliably if you're careful.
In the first hour they stocked up with slings and bullets in Candlekeep, but didn't do any fighting there. I don't allow recruitment of NPCs, but Imoen, Xzar and Montaron have useful equipment - so were all shot down after Gorion's ambush. Then it was on to the coast where Shoal was blinded - she wanders around given a chance, but is hopeless in melee so could be pinned in place by the familiar while sling shots rained in.
In Beregost they shot Neera for her gem bag and Algernon for his cloak. Then they headed south to the Lake area to see if they could lose more reputation. They activated just a single gnoll to attack Drizzt, but I made a mistake by also attacking a local hobgoblin at the same time. Even though Drizzt wasn't in sight his script seemed to be partly turned on by that and he defended himself against the attacking gnoll. The same happened with the next couple of gnolls activated, but the fourth managed to attack unopposed. Knowing that would be a long combat, I decided to cheat and pause my stopwatch, while I minimised the game and did other things. Checking back in an hour or so I was disappointed to find that natural lightning had killed Drizzt, so I missed out on the possibility of some easy XP there and had to settle for picking up his equipment.
Still in the mood to lose more reputation, the Army went north. They charmed an ogre on the way in order to get a girdle to help a bit with the possibility of missile attacks and also picked up the ring of wizardry from the FAI to provide a bit more spellpower. Some fishermen provided a bowl to return to Tenya and the nearby ankheg was blinded while focusing on the familiar.
Arriving at Ulgoth's Beard, Dushai was charmed and pulled away from the villagers to be killed for her ring.
Back at the FAI, the last 10 minutes of the session were spent killing some hobgoblins. A ring recovered from them will begin a program of reputation restoration next time.
Anomandra, halfling Priest of Talos, chaotic neutral: Part 1 - Introduction
According to the updated Hall of Heroes, it would seem that single class clerics do not get enough love around here. I do have a soft spot for pure divine casters myself and therefore, without making any bold claims for success, I would like to enter a Priest of Talos.
Mods: SCSv31 Difficulty: Core
By way of introduction, her name is Anomandra, she's a halfling and she's hoping to become a respected avatar of destruction.
Her hobbies are [imagine Borat voice here]: stones...
stealth...
frying humanoids with electricity...
and baking sleeping spiders with fire.
Very nice - high five! We find more.
Anyway, we've just defeated Mutamin with Korax and our skeletons.
Anomandra is currently sitting at level 6, waiting to gain her first L4 spells soon. With their easy access to disablers (Command, Hold Person, Silence), summons (skeletons), direct damage (Holy Smite) and tons of buffs, mid-level clerics do indeed shine at this stage of BG 1. And that sling of hers really hurts.
At the FAI, Joia got her ring back. The gate guards were charmed (they have no script, so won't break off attacking) and killed Tarnesh - any character can spot him using care, but the familiar is safest as it won't trigger his conversation.
Jaheira was charmed and pulled outside where she could be killed for her invisibility potion.
In Beregost, Mr Colquetle and Firebead offered reputation upgrades. Joia was charmed and helped kill the spiders before being finished off with magic missiles (in SCS her sequencer means she's deadly as an enemy, so it's necessary to ensure she can be killed very rapidly before she can go hostile and respond).
South of Beregost, a charmed ogrillon helped kill its companion for Mirianne and also deal with some hobgoblins to get Zhurlong's boots (he's a wimp and can safely be killed after returning those).
Making sure to travel at safe times of day, they went to find Brage and conduct him back to Nashkel - the XP from that finally getting them a level.
Before taking that though they went to talk to Oublek before I forgot - pushing reputation up to 10 in order to get CLW.
At the Carnival, Vitiare is another wimp who tries to run away so is an easy victim - you just need to make sure you turn him hostile before he pickpockets you.
Travelling south of Nashkel is too dangerous at the moment, so the Army spent a while pulling individual xvarts away from Arabelle and blinding those before shooting them down. A bit of carelessness during that though resulted in the first injury and that should have been the first death. Destiny was shooting at a blinded xvart while apparently too close to it and it turned away from the familiar and struck her before I could respond. The text showed her taking 9 of her 10 HPs as damage, but the damage was not doubled as it should have been in LoB. The only explanation I can think of for that is that L1 protection was still applying, even though she was at level 2.
There was more carelessness at Beregost temple when I tried to get the XP for the first of the sirines. Wearing that down against some wolves I must have missed some damage and was only just about to check its exact XP status (using ctrl-M) when it died to a critical.
In a fit of pique I spent a few minutes killing the wolves responsible, before going to do the job properly with the next sirine.
That used up the remaining time in the session, so the other 2 sirines in the temple will have to wait for tomorrow.
The remaining sirines at Beregost temple were killed without further alarms before the Army headed to the basilisk area. One of the advantages of the pseudo-dragon familiar is that it is immune to petrification and could therefore help act as scout while Korax went round the map paralyzing enemies and that soon got them a 3rd level.
With the separated basilisks all dead Korax then helped out against Mutamin and his special pets.
In LoB Korax doesn't stay charmed long enough to deal with Kirian as well as all the basilisks, so was aggressively pensioned off before the others went to find her. Lindin was charmed and helped kill Baerin, but some random gnolls got in the way as they went to look for Peter. That chase then activated more gnolls and bears and made any thought of going after Peter impractical. Instead, Lindin was worn down and then attacked while the familiar had the tricky job of trying to distract lots of followers - who were scripted to prefer attacking party members. I was pleased to eventually finish off Lindin without anyone dying there.
Even after leaving the map, resting and returning, there were still 7 angry gnolls waiting for us. In SCS they will track you down from anywhere on the map once they've first had a sight of you, so running from them was not possible and I took the time to deal with them using charm and blindness. There were also some hostile bears still around, but they have a wandering script and don't track you down in the same way, so could be avoided without having to kill them. Finally ready to proceed, the Army moved in towards Peter. He resisted a cloak charm, but was tagged by charm person. That doesn't last long, so I quickly ran him away from Kirian to a corner of the map and blinded him before attacking. The familiar was able to move in and out to waste all his spells, but the Army don't yet have much spell damage capability and stopping Peter from running round while blinded was difficult (and blinding was essential to avoid him successfully using his holy smite spell) - particularly when a couple of criticals in a row took the familiar to near death. However, the job was eventually done.
The hour had come up during that battle and I saved it there.
Oof, LoB with all arcane sounds like it'd take so long...
Restarted my poverty run several times; my best attempt ended in the Iron Throne, and since then I've gotten a character Basilisk'd two times and simply lost interest due to too many mistakes at least three times. I'm on a different computer, so I rerolled a new group, but all the same ideas: Shapeshifter into Fighter, Priest of Helm, Shaman Bhaalspawn, two sorcerers, and a Bounty Hunter.
We've cleared the spiders, Marl, and the Basilisks, and we're heading towards Basillus. From there, after turning in the holy symbol for the 5k gold (I have a clause allowing myself to purchase resurrections until I can cast it myself, but only with given gold from quests) I'll attempt to clear the 4 Sirenes and Keldath, which... normally results in a death as I get hit by one of the arrows. We'll see if I do it any better this time around.
IMO the longer that a run takes the better. It means that you are really having to battle. My recent run has takenseveral weeks and I'm not out of SoD yet. It's been a great run though. (Dozens of new areas due to mods)
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Frisky Bits the Fighter/Mage/Cleric
Part 12: Throne of BhaalIllasera is buffed by Ascension, but her mage friend easily falls to Imoen's level 21+ snares, the fighters collapse under pressure from our own fighters, and while Illasera runs away under the Ethereal spell and tries to wait out our buffs by hiding at a distance, we eventually track her down. She kills Imoen in short order because thieves are squishy, but Illasera doesn't have great defenses, either.
I decide to bring Sarevok into the party, since we could use someone who can wield Soul Reaver, which I consider to be even more powerful than Carsomyr in ToB: the THAC0 penalties are crippling against the biggest threats of ToB, which are basically all fighters, while dispelling buffs are more useful against the lesser threats of ToB, the mages.
I consider dual-classing Sarevok, but honestly, it's not worth it. Hardiness is good enough to cover Sarevok's defenses; investing in mage levels to get PFMW and such is not worth the extremely long downtime. As for dual-classing to thief... well, thief defenses are even weaker and Use Any Item doesn't buy us much when we already have other characters using Carsomyr and the Staff of the Magi, and when Sarevok can already wield Soul Reaver.
In the first Pocket Plane trial, I let our fighters do most of the work, and carefully time our shorter-lasting buffs, like Mass Invisibility, so we activate them right before Irenicus, Bodhi, and the Sarevok clone arrive. Since it takes us a moment to remove Irenicus' illusions, we don't have time to break through his Stoneskins via nonmagical weapons, and I fail to have Mazzy use Power Attack. The net result is a Time Stop from Irenicus, who fails to make much use of it before his Time Stop ends and he finds himself suddenly short on Stoneskins.
Bodhi and Sarevok hit hard, but even fighters have trouble making all of their saves vs. death at a -4 penalty against our Power Attack strikes.
I look up the dialog options for the Sarevok redemption path so he doesn't betray us at the Throne of Bhaal.
Gromnir's goons are abnormally high-level, but they don't have the numbers to contest with our fighters and their mages use PFMW instead of Absolute Immunity, allowing us to nail them with Power Attack. Even Karun the Black and the other mage in the throne room use PFMW, and Mazzy can easily capitalize on that.
The enemy fighters deal a lot of damage very fast, and establishing an advantage requires us to act even faster. We bring down a couple key enemies, but when I see that Lashar'ra is using Flesh to Stone spells, I have Mazzy divert some of her arrows to pinning her down.
It's a good idea to spread around Power Attack strikes in some occasions. But Mazzy fails to re-stun Karun the Black before her Power Attack runs out, and Karun gets Time Stop off the ground. He also fails to do much of anything with it, and soon Mazzy shoots him down. Keldorn and Sarevok approach death over the course of the fight, but by having them run around and drink potions when necessary, we keep them on their feet so they can help us bring down Gromnir.
Nalia learns Summon Planetar, and once we kill a few Fire Giants in the temple, Mazzy finally gets Smite, which, unlike Power Attack, offers no saving throw for the stun effect and also guarantees critical hits for the first round. We have the damage output to dispatch the giants and such with fewer rests, and while the Fire Trolls are unfortunately bugged to be invincible (as they often are), I can get rid of them using CTRL-Q.
The Fire Lich disrupts his own spells via Incendiary Cloud. It hardly matters--now that Mazzy has Smite, even an enemy Fallen Planetar wouldn't be a big problem. Mages generally dominate SoA, but ToB is more of a fighter's game due to better enemy saves, AC, resistances, HP, and immunities. If enemy mages appeared in groups, then things would be very different, but even when fighters approach mages in terms of overall power, the mages tend to fight alone, just like high-level mages in SoA.
Brimstone gives us grief. All the giants deal a lot of damage, and even with Hardiness, Keldorn gets crushed. Even Mazzy nearly dies before her Lay on Hands spell bails her out. Some running around and Heal spells from Nalia's planetar keep our fighters intact, though Frisky Bits has to save Sarevok with an Invisibility spell when he gets stunned. Frisky Bits' mage buffs let them stand up against the enemies, even Brimstone.
Somehow, the Fire Giants see through Sarevok's invisibility and kill him, but without Brimstone to hassle us, Frisky Bits can tank the remaining enemies while Mazzy uses her bow.
Then another inexplicable crash sends us back to the previous area. I create a custom sword so I don't have to spend another 20 minutes dealing with the same fight.
Not all the fights in ToB are necessarily dangerous from a no-reload perspective (I mean, we always have the Rod of Resurrection on our fighters if we really get in trouble), but almost all of them require buffing, and the maintenance can take up a lot of time.
Sunray, Restoration, and Breach get us past the Master Wraith. Keldorn's Dispel Magic, which now casts at more than level 30, debuffs both the Skeleton Cleric and Skeleton Mage, allowing us to smash the latter with melee weapons and the former with missile weapons (after we remove its Physical Mirror with Breach), since the cleric is positioned beyond a barrier that keeps him out of reach of single-handed melee weapons.
Nyalee summons a clone of Frisky Bits, who is immune to all of Mazzy's attacks due to her innate immunity to +1 and nonmagical weapons (courtesy of the Hell trials) and PFMW spell. However, Frisky Bits' clone isn't a major offensive threat, and Nyalee herself is extremely vulnerable: she does not buff with Shield of the Archons (not that that would be a big obstacle, honestly), and can be struck down simply by hitting her with Breach and swarming her.
In the past, I've seen her shapeshift into a bugged Earth Elemental Form with 100% physical damage resistance, but she doesn't do so this time. It takes some time to kill the Frisky Bits clone due to its mage buffs, but otherwise it can't do much to us.
At the Siege Camp, Frisky Bits hits Yaga-Shura with a Wand of Lightning charge while Imoen summons Shambling Mounds via the staff from Suldanessellar. We don't have to hold the fort for long before Yaga-Shura joins us at the west end of the map. An enemy mage wastes our time with a Time Stop spell, but his timing comes too early to ruin our strategy: a Harm spell cast by our untouchable tank Frisky Bits, safely outside the fray to avoid disruption, followed by Critical Strike to guarantee a hit on Yaga-Shura and reduce him to 1 HP. His regeneration can't save him; our Planetar has a Magic Missile spell with a casting time of a single frame.
Frisky Bits learns Smite and Mazzy learns Hardiness. We now have a full suite of options for intense situations: 40% damage resistance for all of our fighters, a Planetar to cast Heal spells, guaranteed stuns and hits via Smite, and, of course, a virtually invincible Fighter/Mage/Cleric. We completely stomp the Oasis fight despite arriving without buffs, and sell off over 190,000 gold in spare loot at Amkethran.
As always, I will spend tens of thousands of gold on resources that we will never actually use.
Frisky Bits the Fighter/Mage/Cleric
Part 13: Throne of BhaalWe get waylaid by a mod-introduced ambush. I don't know how tough they can be; the only spellcaster arrived without buffs, and he was not hard to disrupt.
Outside Sendai's lair, Meteor Swarm from Nalia's Planetar torches the drow, and PFMW pins down the mages, as always.
Sarevok's last redemption dialog triggers, and then I receive bad news: by turning Chaotic Good, he can no longer use Soul Reaver. It's still in his weapon slot, but the next time I level him up, he'll be forced to unequip it. That's a pretty big setback; Soul Reaver was going to be really useful against critters like Abazigal and the Ravager.
Keldorn's Dispel Magic lands a hit on Odamaron, but it doesn't reach the two apprentices in the back, and the other lich gets Time Stop off the ground. It puts a few demons on the map, but Odamaron is still very vulnerable when Time Stop ends.
Unfortunately, that was just Odamaron's clone, and the real one remains invisible and untouchable. Frisky Bits takes down the vampire with the Runehammer, but the lich apprentice retains its defenses. Nalia's planetar applies 50% spell failure to both liches via Holy Word, and Odamaron loses a spell even though we can't yet hurt him.
Odamaron blasts us with damage spells during Time Stop, but ultimately, he runs out of PFMW spells, and Frisky Bits is there to capitalize on it.
Mazzy gains a level and finally achieves grandmastery in katanas, giving her another 0.5 APR with Celestial Fury.
Imoen can use Soul Reaver with Use Any Item, but her THAC0 and her defenses will both be terrible. I try to summon Dorn via the Fate Spirit so he can use Soul Reaver, but apparently EET (or maybe just normal EE; I don't know) prevents you from summoning party members that never actually joined your party.
Instead, I summon Haer'dalis, who did briefly join our party. Fortunately, his XP gets upgraded to 2.5 million, putting us far closer to getting Use Any Item. He won't have THAC0 or APR as good as an evil fighter, but unlike Imoen, he'll be able to engage in melee without putting himself in horrible danger, thanks to PFMW. We drop off Imoen, since dropping Sarevok would be a bigger loss for us.
Ogremoch dispelled Frisky Bits' defenses when I tried to tank him without PFMW, but otherwise Ogremoch was little trouble. His incessant Stoneskin spells don't mean as much when you have 4 fighters in the party.
We take down the spider Lashar'ra and Frisky Bits finally hits cleric level 14, learning Hardiness and memorizing Greater Restoration just to save charges on the Rod of Resurrection (I decided not to recharge wands in this run).
Diaytha proves ineffectual. The vampire fell to the Runehammer and both Diaytha and the Hive Mother lost all of their buffs to Keldorn's Dispel Magic. With lots of attacks disrupting their spells, they were helpless to defend themselves.
The mind flayer lair apparently is pretty safe even for fighters. Fighters might not be able to survive much INT drain, but they strike so fast that mind flayers--who don't seem any tougher in ToB than they were in SoA--simply don't have an opportunity to make many attack rolls.
We enter Sendai's lair and focus fire on the southeast mage. Once again, an enemy mage with PFMW falls to nonmagical ammunition.
Nalia's clone doesn't provide much offensive power (Horrid Wilting isn't going to do much against drow with high MR), but it does alleviate a lot of pressure by summoning a Planetar to cast Heal on our fighters and throwing out a Teleport Field to scatter the drow grunts, who have extremely high damage output in Ascension. Meanwhile, Haer'dalis hassles the northwest spellcaster. His THAC0 isn't great, but the Answerer implies AC penalties that make it increasingly easy for him to land hits.
Frisky Bits takes damage from one of the drow grunts, an alarming sign that they've lost their Stoneskins. Running away to cast PFMW buys them some time to restore their Stoneskins.
Nameless mages join the fight, but Keldorn's Dispel Magic renders them vulnerable. More Sendai statues come to life, but when our fighters converge on a single target, that statue can't handle the pressure for long.
Several statues fall in quick succession. We refresh our SI: Abjuration spells and so forth in anticipation of the final phase, which proves underwhelming: Sendai's Fallen Deva gets stunned and quickly put down, and Sendai gets nothing from her Improved Alacrity spell because Frisky Bits is immune to Implosion. Her Stoneskins don't last for long.
Done! Next up, Abazigal's lair.
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
Update 7: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033340/#Comment_1033340
Update 8: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1034874/#Comment_1034874
Update 9: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1035114/#Comment_1035114
Update 10: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1035699/#Comment_1035699
Update 11: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1035983/#Comment_1035983
Update 12: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1038285/#Comment_1038285
Update 13: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1038293/#Comment_1038293
Update 14: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1040102/#Comment_1040102
Most of Sendai's Enclave was cleared with the help of hasted kiting or some skeletons and a deva. For Ogremoch and most of Diaytha's group, luring our foes into spike traps was a winning strategy:
The hive mother refused to follow us, so a well-protected Kaveh and his simulacrum assisted our summons with GWWs:
Cephalus won the duel with a single GWW, upgrading his crossbow shortly after that. The mind flayers were no trouble, as they are easily kiteable. Time to face Sendai - her first clone was taken down right away, and after using fighter HLAs to deal with the incoming drow we sent a deva after mage-Sendai while preparing traps for the next drow spawn (due to good positioning, our party was often considered to be out of combat during this battle):
Oedipus had three deva summons prepared and also got some additional skeletons to help us out. Incoming drow were taken down with traps, true sight or dispelling arrows (I still had a lot of these from SoA, so why not use them now?) plus additional ranged attacks. Near the end of the battle, Cephalus added a simulacrum of his own to assist our DPS:
The real Sendai wasted her implosion on a summon and lost her initial buffs thanks to a dispelling arrow:
I thought I had her when she was at near death and hit with a smite:
However, she instantly healed to full, but another set of GWWs provided Cephalus with victory:
Draconis was up next. He had actually ended my most promising run of the original meatgrinder challenge about 10 years ago (back then, it was bg2 only and with 1 official NPC as the sixth party member, so it was much easier). My plan was the same as with my previous solo F/M/T: Take down his human form and lure his dragon form into a bunch of spike traps. However, this strategy isn't exactly foolproof: Draconis tends to summon invisible stalkers, and these could trigger the traps and ruin the plan. To prevent this, it's ideal to place the traps as close to Draconis as possible. However, while attempting to do this, I actually got TOO close this time and triggered the encounter - without active buffs, I had no choice but to run back. I decided to lay down spike traps anyway to at least take down the human form instantly as soon as I hit the edge of the map:
Next, I travelled to Amkethran to reset Draconis (he will still spot the party upon return, but the usually won't be waiting right at the edge of the map - it will take a few seconds for him to get there, and he usually just starts to summon allies first). Upon my return to the area, I entered the pocket plane right away in order to prepare my buffs, including full acid immunity for everyone. Thinking of the best alternative strategy, I decided that I couldn't risk Draconis dispelling my buffs and getting in a breath weapon attack on any unpotected party member (and I couldn't give everyone item-based immunity - there's just not that many acid protection items in the game). Since I would always be in combat now, traps wouldn't be an option either, so I decided to burn one of my valuable time stop scrolls. These are supposed to be used for the Throne (to kill the fallen solar), but I would ideally only need two for that, and there's always the limited wish timestop as well.
Kaveh's timestop + improved haste (we have many items granting this effect) with Scarlet Ninja-to + Belm provided him with 10 APR for the first round. For the second round, I switched to Crom Faeyr + GWW to deal even more damage:
Yep, our fighter/thief did indeed have the required damage output:
We never got our buffs dispelled (side note: I have never used this many potion buffs in ToB before), so we used these to clear most of Abazigal's Lair in one go. Cephalus, with the Cloak of Mirroring and the Hell-Trial immunity to normal summons, was able to take down the seeker eyes by himself (their summons use normal weapons, which is why that part is relevant). We got to upgrade our golem manual one last time and prepared for Abazigal, adding potions of absorption. Our strategy was similiar to the one intended for Draconis: Lure him into a bunch of spike traps once he enters dragon form. This one is a bit easier to pull off, though: He doesn't add additional summons, so all that has to be done is taking out all of his salamanders before he turns into a dragon. This was easily done with ranged weapons and kiting - Abazigal's human form is only fast enough to be a threat if his GWWs are active, and he doesn't have a ton of these.
More difficult for this party: Actually taking down Abazigal's human form. Usually, this is super easy, but not so much here, thanks to our lack of defenses against physical damage - he is immune to missle damage, and look what he does to us in melee combat if we get too close:
That's 94 damage with one hit - enough to kill Kaveh if he would've been unbuffed (but the constitution belt and a heroism potion are helping out here). Going into melee combat is required, but super dangerous. Abazigal destroys any summons with one or two hits, and he destroyed Kaveh's simmy as well (our safest option for high melee damage). However, I did realize that Abazigal's two-handed sword can't compete with Cephalus' quarterstaff in terms of speed factor, so I was able to do hit and run with my Bhaalspawn using max movement speed, careful control and a never-ending stream of item-based summons (mostly shambling mounds, thanks to UAI and Staff of the Woodlands):
Upon turning into a dragon, Abazigal instantly fired off a dispel magic, which went after Kaveh. I made sure it wouldn't hit anyone else while retreating, and once it hit, I countered the most dangerous of Abazigal's abilities right away: His breath weapon with another potion of absorption and his dragon fear by equipping the Dragonslayer sword. With that, Kaveh was able to lure Abazigal to his death in the form of 7 spike traps:
Back in Amkethran, we bought all the spellscrolls we could ever need before meeting Saemon and taking down Balthazar's guards with some item-based summons and a little bit of patience to get rid of mage defenses:
I engaged Balthazar with a deva + Kaveh simmy for assistance, taking down his monks first, while the summon was distracting the main guy. He was able to take it down (with a strange bug in the combat log, claiming that it was a Cephalus-simmy that died, which is certainly not what happened), but at this point, he was isolated and already wounded:
Only one GWW from Kaveh + Cephalus and a bunch of energy blades from Oedipus were required to take down the final one of The Five - he wasn't even able to get into melee combat:
This just goes to show how unimportant min-maxing is when it comes to endgame damage output in this game. We're using pretty terrible weapons and our items are 90% defense-only, we're down to three party members, but with the right potions and some HLAs, almost everything will still fall within seconds.
The fourth pocket plane challenge is easy (we use gargoyle boots, true sight and traps for extra protection), though the Ravager could be incredibly dangerous - but I have by now realized that any non-Bhaalspawn party members can just walk into the challenge rooms without starting the encounter, so Oedipus and Kaveh simply prepare seven spike traps. Now, I know from my previous F/M/T run that the Ravager will actually survive this, but he will be near death. We add damage with energy blades, MMMs (from a scroll, as Kaveh doesn't have any +4 projectiles for the ranged weapons he's proficient with) and the firetooth crossbow without ammo:
We are able to kite the bone blades and take zero hits - the Ravager, even in his state, does manage to survive for a while, but not forever:
Only the Throne remains. We have gotten past the scariest encounters in the game for this group. I have a relatively foolproof strategy in mind for Mel. If I don't make any major mistakes, this could actually work out, despite all of the chunkings!
Good luck at the Throne - though I don't think you will need it
Flashburn's Rejects
BG1: Prologue, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6SoD: 1, 2
SoA: 1, 2, 3, 4
Having no internet for three days really makes you appreciate how much you use it. Last update was back in late November, so I might as well post this now so I can start fresh when I decide to pick this playthrough back up.
Watcher's Keep's dragon on Level 5 is slain. The party has to come assist Chromatic Demon because the dragon keeps throwing up Stoneskins and healing itself to full.
The other two tests are easy. Spaz was on Devour Magic duty during the orc assault since they would always cast PfMW. He and Gaspar level up from completing the three tests. Spaz learns Binding Blast, which shares it's saving throw penalty rate with Utterdark Blast, so it's a save vs. spell at -7 or be stunned.
Bruss levels up yet again from the Eternal Warrior challenge and gains a half attack per round.
From the globe challenge, Krieg, Garos, and Rufus all level up, earning their first HLAs. Krieg gets regeneration of 1 HP/sec, Garos gets Storm of Vengeance, and Rufus gets UAI along with the 7th level spells Black Ray of Destruction and Power Word, Stun.
- Black Ray of Destruction: As Ruby Ray of Reversal, but shuts off the target's mage+priest spellcasting ability for 5 rounds. This is not a spell failure effect, but instead disables it outright, similar to fighter/mages wearing armor they can't cast in. This bypasses magic resistance.
- Power Word, Stun: As per the normal spell but bypasses magic resistance.
Now that Rufus can use normal scrolls, it's time to use the Deck. Using the appropriate Spell Immunity scrolls, we get the following draws:
Unfortunately, Rufus gets nothing from the Jester draw as he was immune to evocation spells to avoid Ruin and Euryale. So the Deck was a total flop and we're out of the respective specific school immunity scrolls. Doing more of the globe challenges, we accidentally let loose the Elder Orb, Hive Mother, and Death Tyrant. Gaspar dies to a death ray, but everyone else survives intact.
We use the rez rod on him and finish the globe challenge, deciding not to attack the liches. We insert the last key and Spaz, Rufus, and Gaspar level up. Spaz gets UAI to use scrolls and trades armor with Rufus, gaining the Robe of Vecna in exchange for the Shadow Dragon armor. Rufus gets Time Trap, and Gaspar gets Psionic Lock. Rufus' Nightblade kit likely doesn't use Rogue Rebalancing's thief HLA table because Shadow Magic was installed after RR. Curses.
We take on the Rilmani group because they're the weakest of all the guardians. The Aurumach is taken out first because he seems to be under permanent aura cleansing and has a casting speed boost. Once he's down, the rest follow quite easily.
We're not dumb enough to try to challenge the demonic amazons or Azamantes and his flaming skulls, so we call it quits for the Keep for now and have Cromwell forge a bunch of things: Ixil's Spike +6, White Dragon Scale, Thieves' Hood, and Celestial Fury +5. Spaz uses the Limited Wish scroll and we do the gong quest for some more extra XP, but I think we've wrung Amn dry for now. It's onto Spellhold for us.
When Krieg gets his Bhaal powers taken away, Bruss levels up as a result, learning Dragon Fist and the ability to ascend to Super Saiyan 2.
Krieg levels up from the beholder that guards the tome that gives the Ring of Free Action. He learns Deathblow, which causes any creature that he strikes with a critical hit to save vs. death at -4 or die instantly. He puts this to use against a lich, smashing right through its PfMW! Critical hit effects bypassing weapon immunity are fixed by v2.5, but I think that this is the coolest thing ever and that it should stay.
As of now, I've made it past the Builder's head statue. Why don't we take a look at our dudes' character sheets and inventory? This is after we cast long-duration buffs.
Krieg
(his extra +37 damage does not display on the character sheet/inventory so I added it in)
Bruss (while SSJ2 is active)
Garos
Spaz IV
Rufus
Gaspar
The Meatgrinder Challenge #5 - Update 16 - Final Update
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
Update 7: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1033340/#Comment_1033340
Update 8: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1034874/#Comment_1034874
Update 9: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1035114/#Comment_1035114
Update 10: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1035699/#Comment_1035699
Update 11: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1035983/#Comment_1035983
Update 12: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1038285/#Comment_1038285
Update 13: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1038293/#Comment_1038293
Update 14: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1040102/#Comment_1040102
Update 15: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1040558/#Comment_1040558
We entered the Throne with a truly ungodly amount of buffs. Oedipus and Kaveh made full use of their UAI to get the entire range of useful mage buffs going, and defensive potions for any possible kind of emergency were activated. I even added enchanted weapon of Kaveh so Belm would be able to damage Melissan.
As with my FMT, we would only have to fight Mel once - having enough spike traps to take care of the additional 3 of her forms (4 spike traps are enough for each one). We also have a ton of simulacrum spellscrolls, so additional traps for the pools are an option. For this one Mel battle, we do not only have an incredible amount of buffs, but Kaveh and Oedipus are safe from getting dispeled (scrolls of SI:A and Spell Shield). Our main strategy is smite, which should stun Mel - the plan is for Cephalus to use his smite first, and if Mel is still alive after it wears off, for Kaveh to step in with his. Meanwhile, GWWs and energy blades are used for damage.
However, I managed to pause the game at the Throne before Melissan started her dialogue. This did give me the opportunity to place 2 spike traps right away, greatly increasing my initial burst of damage:
Cephalus landed his smite hit before our foe was able to do anything. She would not recover from this:
For the first pool guardians, we summoned a deva and a few skeletons. The party was still fully buffed, so our damage output was great (and I had no reason not to use Cephalus' many GWWs):
Four traps took care of Melissan's next form. We still had our buffs, which included immunity to cold damage (for Melissan's attacks, originally) - which was useful for the second pool. I also used one of my many simulacrum scrolls to summon a Kaveh simmy, in order to kill trolls safely with Crom Faeyr without getting the actual Kaveh into a dangerous position:
Once again, 4 traps took care of Mel's third phase. Time for the guardians of the third pool - in essence, my final battle. My plan here was to use a wisdom potion and limited wish scroll with Kaveh, wish for timestop and go in with improved haste, Scarlet Ninja-to and Belm for 10 APR, taking down the fallen solar, renewing timestop from my remaining 4 (!) timestop scrolls if needed. This worked out great during my previous F/M/T run. However, something unexpected happened this time around:
I had read online that I would need +3 weapons to hit the fallen solar, so I used another enchanted weapon scroll to buff up Belm. However, when Kaveh went in, it turned out that the fallen solar (and the mariliths) actually were immune to his damage! So, would I need +4 weapons for these? In any case, switching to Crom Faeyr was pointless - thanks to the spell, it would now also count as +3. No way to kill the fallen solar as long as the enchanted weapon spell was active. So I took care of the alu fiend and the succubus and retreated, using another timestop scroll. Instead, I had Kaveh (and later, Oedipus), place spike traps close to the third pool, knowing that the fallen solar would follow me (It has a better AI than most enemies in the game). Luckily, it was faster than the Mariliths and triggered the traps:
Next, I went about renewing my oils of speed and equipping +4/+5 ranged weapons (+4 bullets for Oedipus, no ammo-firetooth for Cephalus and another MMM scroll for Kaveh) - I just had to kite the Mariliths for a while, which was quite easy to do:
Now, I only had to set up even more traps (still had a lot left thanks to simmy scrolls) and wait for victory:
Finally, the Meatgrinder Challenge is completed! It has, in essence, taken me about 10 years (with many pauses) to do this. "Only" five attempts in the modern era, but that is still quite a lot, considering how long these games are, especially when playing full-party completionist runs.
Here are some final stats for our remaining 3 party members:
It might seem strange, but this was actually harder for me than the LoB run and the SCS/Asension run. While there were some specific battles in both of these runs (such as the Shadow Aspect and Belhifet in LoB, and the final battle in Ascension) that were far more difficult than anything I had to face in the meatgrinder challenge, there are basically no easy battles in meatgrinder mode - constant high concentration has to be maintained, because almost any opponent is capable of killing you in one or two hits. There's also a higher amount of RNG involved, and far more defensive items are needed. Fighting mages and thieves, were getting hit at all often results in a chunking, can be very frustrating, which is why summons and traps are often the most viable choices. If the situation doesn't allow for these to be used, things get really difficult. Once I had smite to control the battlefield, that one was very helpful - in other cases, tons of buffs, very careful positioning and swapping around key defensive items all the time were required. Playing that way can be very exhausting.
I will be taking a break from playing for a while, propably at least a month, maybe more. Not sure what I might do then - maybe the new SCS version will be out of beta, and I might try my hand at the various new settings (without ascension) with some classes that haven't made it into the hall yet. Of course, I will still be active in the thread. Good luck to everyone else!
Oh, and can we get @Grond0 's successful dwarven defender run into the Hall of Heroes? That would be greatly appreciated!
Previous posts: 1
We also got lucky with the drops and acquired an early Web scroll (it could have been Blur, which is unavailable until Cloakwood Mines, but it's still nice to have).
Enjoying the extra experience levels gained from the basilisks, Knud moves on to deal with:
- Meilum (who failed his save against Hold Person);
- Sendai and her crew (Skull Trap for the archers + Hold Person for Sendai);
- Caldo and Krumm (Blindness + Chill Touch).
And the fastest dart thrower in the world? Knud warmed him up with a Skull Trap and, uttering a badass one-liner along the lines "Stick around!", pierced his belly with a dart. How fitting.By the time we had enough gold to afford the goodies from Ulgoth's Beard, including Greenstone Amulet, Cloak of Displacement and L4 scrolls (II, Malison, Emotion). Knud used Potions of Genius from FAI to scribe the new spells, together with Web and Ghost Armor (from Ankegh cave), and proceeded to Nashkel Mines.
Taking care of Greywolf got Knud to level 7, granting him access to L4 spells. In Mulahey's cave, Knud buffed with Ghost Armor, Vampiric Touch (cast on the lonely kobold near the entrance), Polymorph: Self, Strength, Mirror Image, II and Greenstone Amulet. He approached the half-orc and opened with Web (to close the choke point), followed by Darts of Stunning.
Seeing that Mulahey made his save vs. spell, Knud waited for his aura to clear, morphed into spider, and led Mulahey right into the running Web. Held and poisoned, our foe was done.
Back in Nashkel, Knud tried his jelly form against Nimbul. It was a lengthy battle - Nimbul could not harm jelly Knud (in addition to being magic resistant, the jelly form is immune to normal weapons) and at the same time we're unable to effectively peel his MIs and stoneskin.
Knud resorted to a controlled Wand of Fire charge to finish the exchange.
We're off to the bandit camp next.
Regards,
B.
Thanks for the information about Abazigal - hardiness wearing off does sound like the right explanation for immunity to missiles disappearing over time. As for recording my dwarven defender, I hadn't really worried about that given I'm keeping my own record of those 'long-life' runs elsewhere. However, if it helps with providing a more complete picture here for those interested in 'filling in the gaps' the basic information would be:
Grond0, the Dwarven Defender: @Grond0
Notable mods: none
Difficulty: core rules
Special: solo run
Start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1032364/#Comment_1032364 (December 2018)
Finish: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1036908/#Comment_1036908 (December 2018)
I've been away from the thread for a long time, so are there any other entries for the Hall of Heroes that I haven't added yet? Before @Grond0's, the last one was Arinja II by @Enuhal.
Here's the info for the Hall of Heroes:
Cephalus, the Beastmaster: @Enuhal
Notable mods: None
Difficulty: Insane
Special: Fully randomized party
Start: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1028046/#Comment_1028046 (November 2018)
Finish: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1040636/#Comment_1040636 (January 2019)
Classes and kits still missing from the combined Hall of Heroes:
Ranger
Stalker
Undead Hunter
Cleric
Priest of Helm
Priest of Talos
Priest of Tempus
Priest of Tyr
Shapeshifter
Avenger
All Specialist Mages (except Wild Mage and Enchanter)
Thief
Bounty Hunter
Shadow Dancer
Bard
Dark Moon Monk
Shaman
Fighter/Druid (has been done as a dual, but not as a multi)
Cleric/Ranger
@Borco, nice start of an interesting run. I like Transmuters a lot, even if I haven't been very successful with them...
@Wise_Grimwald, nice to see you enjoying SoD.
I had Annick die a very unnecessary death, as I was playing with someone talking to me. I really felt stupid because I'd been having fun with her.
It caused me to consider taking a break, but I decided to tinker with my install and it gave me new motivation. Followers of this thread know my usual mod setup. This time I installed the SCS v32 Beta, which represents quite a departure from previous versions. Among other things it introduces Icewind Dale spells, changes some existing spells, and ties SCS settings to the game's difficulty settings, as can be seen here:
I had the (manual!) roll of my life
Long story short, here is hammer and sling-wielding
Amahoro, LG Cleric/Ranger:
There were some peculiarities in Candlekeep: she started with 4.5k XP, which I removed in EEKeeper, and she seemed to initiate attacks with the off-hand. I switched to sword and board, and later occasionally back to dual-wielding and everything looked fine.
When I started no-reloading I used to solo a lot, but lately I've found more enjoyment in playing with a party. To make things a bit harder for me I decided to gather a party as soon as possible.
Imoen (Swashbuckler), Xzar and Monty all joined, and the halfling applied for a permanent position with an amazing backstab on Tarnesh:
Jaheira and Khalid (Fighter/Mage as per tweaks anthology) completed the six-member party. They were quite thorough so early on, taking on Karlat, whom I usually shun, for example. A Command by Amahoro sealed his fate, while Neira was interrupted with missiles, and finished off with Imoen's wand and the few magic scrolls we had so far collected (Burning Hands, MM, LMD). Greywolf, too, succmbed to a Command, followed by a barrage of missiles.
For the sake of role-playing, the party entered the Nashkel Mines, but left them when Jaheira got hit by an arrow. The party had to become more experienced first.
Xzar and Monty left, and Minsc (Berserker) came on board. The party then traveled west, through the Cloudpeaks to the gnoll stronghold. Sendai and Vax and Zal were shunned, but Krumm and Caldo (Sleep), Ludrug, and Ingot were all taken on. At the stronghold, Minsc, clad in +1 chainmail did the melee work, while the other contributed with missiles. Dynaheir was rescued and recruited, and the six traveled to the southern coast, where Charleston Nib's diggers slew Jaheira. They were tougher than expected...
Rather than lifting back to Nashkel with Brage, we went north to meet Shoal, hoping she would raise Jaheira. After death-kissing Minsc, she did indeed raise both Minsc and Jaheira, but Icewind Dale-style Dimension Door (this is CDTweaks, not SCS) made Droth appear super fast! The plan of leaving the ogre mage for later, with two restored companions thanks to Shoal didn't really work out... The dialogue triggered and Droth made optimal use of our low levels, putting Minsc, Dynaheir, and Amahoro to Sleep right while Amahoro Commanded him. Thankfully SCS makes enemies focus on the not disabled party members, so Khalid, Jaheira (1 HP), and Imoen did their best to keep Droth busy. Basically this meant Khalid and Jaheira trying to interrupt Droth with missiles, and Imoen with the wand of magic missiles.
Shoal was spared, Brage brought to Nalin, and the ankheg area cleared thanks to Amahoro's Commands (which always work on ankhegs). At the Thunerhammer Smithy three suits of ankheg plate were commissioned.
Tenya was returned her bowl, Bjornin avenged, and Drizzt aided (I couldn't let the gnolls kill him). Bassilus took another of Amahoro's Commands, and the single round was just enough to finish him. He dropped Ashideena, a second non-randomised item. Melicamp didn't survive Thlantyr's spell, but helping out Hulrik against some xvarts did push reputation to 20. (At 12, there had been two donations, to help speed up rep gains, because I'm playing with the severest slowdown of reputation gains, 1/4 the normal speed.)
Black Alaric's cave held no less than two stat tomes: bodily health and quickness of action!
In the High Hedge area I ran into another minor peculiarity as a pack of Flinds somehow dealt crushing damage with their two-handeed swords.
An exploration of Ulcaster school yielded a third stat tome, the manual of gainful exercise. So in chapter 2, at level 3/3, Amahoro had all three permanent physical stat boosts in the pocket. That's the randomness of Item Randomiser for you...
To be continued
At first, I was feeling dedicated to complete his journals, but with the failure being so definitive (and at the same time so distant), I decided to give up on the idea. I'll note that he fell in SoA at level 14 in the Shadow Temple. His death was caused by my incorrect assumption that on-hit ability drain of Shadows shall not circumvent jelly form's immunity to their weapons. Knud shifted into jelly in order to tackle a lone Shadow Fiend and his on-hit paralysis, however, he was soon joined by five spawned Shadows. With lousy AC and aura clouded from Wand of Fire blast, jelly Knud became an easy meal.
Despite such anti-climatic turn of events at the end, I enjoyed this transmuter run a lot. Up to this stage in SoA, I did not miss abjuration school that much, although SI: Abjuration would certainly be welcome to tackle dispels. Most enemy spellcasters were handled with II, magic resistant jelly form and/or negative save v. spells (which was not difficult to maintain). PW: Silence proved to be an effective opener in mage fights as well, despite the fact that many arcane casters were able to counter this with Vocalize. It may also be relevant to mention that, in my experience, Polymorph: Self is not subject to Remove Magic (and therefore the risk of having your spider or jelly form dispelled in the middle of a Web field was non-existent). I cannot confirm this with absolute certainty, but many a time I've seen Knud completely dispelled with the exception of the Polymorph.
I'll also try to update the Polymorph: Self summary thread on the basis on my findings. Most importantly, and again subject to further testing, it seems that in BG2EE, unlike in BGEE, it is not possible to equip special forms with conjured magical weapons (such as the various "touch" spells or Phantom Blade) via sequencers - trying to do this simply results in shifting back to human form with the appropriate weapon equipped.
Regards,
B.
Those Shadows' weapons actually depend on game version--one of the updates (or perhaps a mod) changed their natural attacks to finally strike as magical weapons (+1), where previously the item was always flagged as nonmagical. Protection from Normal Weapons used to let mages tank the Shadows without worrying about stat drain, and druids could wipe out the entire dungeon with Conjure Fire Elemental. I think Shadow Fiends had the same weakness.
Anyway, I'll follow up on this in the lounge.
We should try to make that list a lot smaller.
I've been thinking for a while now I'd like to have another go at the party poverty run I tried before in an SCS installation, but have been putting that off in case the SCS v32 beta gets fully released. Instead, I thought I would try again with the Arcane Army in a LoB SCS installation. Their capacity to disable opponents is high, so their potential to go deep into a run is good. However, in LoB they are extremely vulnerable so great caution is needed - not least because any chunkings will count as the end of the run for me. To try and get over my natural lack of caution and make better progress at this, I'll be limiting sessions to an hour a day.
At level 1 the Army have insufficient spell damage capability to kill even the weakest enemy. They also need criticals to hit most enemies, even after the AC adjustment from being blinded, so using just their own physical attacks are not a realistic option either. Their early strategies thus rely on a combination of:
1) disabling opponents with blind. Quite a few opponents have SCS scripts making them run around when blinded and that makes attacking difficult, but for those that stay still and can be hit by missile weapons blind lasts long enough to normally be fatal for a single enemy.
2) using Algernon's cloak to convert an enemy into a friend and tank other opponents.
3) using charm person to convert an enemy in the same way - allowing plenty of time to then blind other enemies or run away before the charm expires. I've mentioned before the bug in v2.5 LoB that means base saving throws are 5 higher than they should be. That combines with the Infinity Engine behavior that any save with a base saving throw of 20+ is automatically failed, irrespective of the actual die roll, so that the weakest enemies will never make a save. Something like a xvart will therefore always fail against charm person, irrespective of the fact that has an adjustment to the die roll of +8 (LoB gives a standard +5 to everything and the spell itself has a +3 modifier).
4) using the pseudo-dragon familiar to tank opponents. In LoB most familiars have 44 HPs (calculated as 2x original HPs +20, rather than the 3x original +80 given to enemies). Familiars benefit in full though from the -11 to AC, making them hard to hit by weaker opponents despite the LoB +5 to THAC0. Familiars also only suffer standard damage, not the LoB double damage applied to party members. The combination of that with regeneration of 1 HP/round means that the familiar can tank weaker opponents fairly reliably if you're careful.
In the first hour they stocked up with slings and bullets in Candlekeep, but didn't do any fighting there. I don't allow recruitment of NPCs, but Imoen, Xzar and Montaron have useful equipment - so were all shot down after Gorion's ambush. Then it was on to the coast where Shoal was blinded - she wanders around given a chance, but is hopeless in melee so could be pinned in place by the familiar while sling shots rained in.
In Beregost they shot Neera for her gem bag and Algernon for his cloak. Then they headed south to the Lake area to see if they could lose more reputation. They activated just a single gnoll to attack Drizzt, but I made a mistake by also attacking a local hobgoblin at the same time. Even though Drizzt wasn't in sight his script seemed to be partly turned on by that and he defended himself against the attacking gnoll. The same happened with the next couple of gnolls activated, but the fourth managed to attack unopposed. Knowing that would be a long combat, I decided to cheat and pause my stopwatch, while I minimised the game and did other things. Checking back in an hour or so I was disappointed to find that natural lightning had killed Drizzt, so I missed out on the possibility of some easy XP there and had to settle for picking up his equipment.
Still in the mood to lose more reputation, the Army went north. They charmed an ogre on the way in order to get a girdle to help a bit with the possibility of missile attacks and also picked up the ring of wizardry from the FAI to provide a bit more spellpower. Some fishermen provided a bowl to return to Tenya and the nearby ankheg was blinded while focusing on the familiar.
Back at the FAI, the last 10 minutes of the session were spent killing some hobgoblins. A ring recovered from them will begin a program of reputation restoration next time.
Dazzler (Dragon Disciple) - L1, 8 HPs, 3 kills, 0 deaths
Enya (Enchanter) - L1, 6 HPs, 2 kills, 0 deaths
Mazy (Pure-class) - L1, 6 HPs, 1 kill, 0 deaths
Iluse (Illusionist - PC) - L1, 28 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 3 kills
Succour (Sorcerer) - L1, 6 HPs, 4 kills, 0 deaths
Destiny (Diviner) - L1, 6 HPs, 4 kills, 0 deaths
According to the updated Hall of Heroes, it would seem that single class clerics do not get enough love around here. I do have a soft spot for pure divine casters myself and therefore, without making any bold claims for success, I would like to enter a Priest of Talos.
Mods: SCSv31
Difficulty: Core
Her hobbies are [imagine Borat voice here]: stones...
stealth...
frying humanoids with electricity...
and baking sleeping spiders with fire.
Very nice - high five! We find more.
Anyway, we've just defeated Mutamin with Korax and our skeletons.
Anomandra is currently sitting at level 6, waiting to gain her first L4 spells soon. With their easy access to disablers (Command, Hold Person, Silence), summons (skeletons), direct damage (Holy Smite) and tons of buffs, mid-level clerics do indeed shine at this stage of BG 1. And that sling of hers really hurts.
Regards,
B.
Previous updates:
At the FAI, Joia got her ring back. The gate guards were charmed (they have no script, so won't break off attacking) and killed Tarnesh - any character can spot him using care, but the familiar is safest as it won't trigger his conversation.
In Beregost, Mr Colquetle and Firebead offered reputation upgrades. Joia was charmed and helped kill the spiders before being finished off with magic missiles (in SCS her sequencer means she's deadly as an enemy, so it's necessary to ensure she can be killed very rapidly before she can go hostile and respond).
Making sure to travel at safe times of day, they went to find Brage and conduct him back to Nashkel - the XP from that finally getting them a level.
At the Carnival, Vitiare is another wimp who tries to run away so is an easy victim - you just need to make sure you turn him hostile before he pickpockets you.
Travelling south of Nashkel is too dangerous at the moment, so the Army spent a while pulling individual xvarts away from Arabelle and blinding those before shooting them down. A bit of carelessness during that though resulted in the first injury and that should have been the first death. Destiny was shooting at a blinded xvart while apparently too close to it and it turned away from the familiar and struck her before I could respond. The text showed her taking 9 of her 10 HPs as damage, but the damage was not doubled as it should have been in LoB. The only explanation I can think of for that is that L1 protection was still applying, even though she was at level 2.
There was more carelessness at Beregost temple when I tried to get the XP for the first of the sirines. Wearing that down against some wolves I must have missed some damage and was only just about to check its exact XP status (using ctrl-M) when it died to a critical.
Dazzler (Dragon Disciple) - L2, 15 HPs, 6 kills, 0 deaths
Enya (Enchanter) - L2, 11 HPs, 5 kills, 0 deaths
Mazy (Pure-class) - L2, 12 HPs, 5 kill, 0 deaths
Iluse (Illusionist - PC) - L2, 32 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 7 kills
Succour (Sorcerer) - L2, 12 HPs, 7 kills, 0 deaths
Destiny (Diviner) - L2, 10 HPs, 6 kills, 0 deaths
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1041025/#Comment_1041025
The remaining sirines at Beregost temple were killed without further alarms before the Army headed to the basilisk area. One of the advantages of the pseudo-dragon familiar is that it is immune to petrification and could therefore help act as scout while Korax went round the map paralyzing enemies and that soon got them a 3rd level.
In LoB Korax doesn't stay charmed long enough to deal with Kirian as well as all the basilisks, so was aggressively pensioned off before the others went to find her. Lindin was charmed and helped kill Baerin, but some random gnolls got in the way as they went to look for Peter. That chase then activated more gnolls and bears and made any thought of going after Peter impractical. Instead, Lindin was worn down and then attacked while the familiar had the tricky job of trying to distract lots of followers - who were scripted to prefer attacking party members. I was pleased to eventually finish off Lindin without anyone dying there.
Even after leaving the map, resting and returning, there were still 7 angry gnolls waiting for us. In SCS they will track you down from anywhere on the map once they've first had a sight of you, so running from them was not possible and I took the time to deal with them using charm and blindness. There were also some hostile bears still around, but they have a wandering script and don't track you down in the same way, so could be avoided without having to kill them. Finally ready to proceed, the Army moved in towards Peter. He resisted a cloak charm, but was tagged by charm person. That doesn't last long, so I quickly ran him away from Kirian to a corner of the map and blinded him before attacking. The familiar was able to move in and out to waste all his spells, but the Army don't yet have much spell damage capability and stopping Peter from running round while blinded was difficult (and blinding was essential to avoid him successfully using his holy smite spell) - particularly when a couple of criticals in a row took the familiar to near death. However, the job was eventually done.
Dazzler (Dragon Disciple) - L3, 22 HPs, 8 kills, 0 deaths
Enya (Enchanter) - L3, 17 HPs, 6 kills, 0 deaths
Mazy (Pure-class) - L3, 17 HPs, 5 kills, 0 deaths
Iluse (Illusionist - PC) - L3, 36 HPs (incl. 22 from familiar), 10 kills
Succour (Sorcerer) - L3, 17 HPs, 11 kills, 0 deaths
Destiny (Diviner) - L3, 15 HPs, 9 kills, 0 deaths
Restarted my poverty run several times; my best attempt ended in the Iron Throne, and since then I've gotten a character Basilisk'd two times and simply lost interest due to too many mistakes at least three times. I'm on a different computer, so I rerolled a new group, but all the same ideas: Shapeshifter into Fighter, Priest of Helm, Shaman Bhaalspawn, two sorcerers, and a Bounty Hunter.
We've cleared the spiders, Marl, and the Basilisks, and we're heading towards Basillus. From there, after turning in the holy symbol for the 5k gold (I have a clause allowing myself to purchase resurrections until I can cast it myself, but only with given gold from quests) I'll attempt to clear the 4 Sirenes and Keldath, which... normally results in a death as I get hit by one of the arrows. We'll see if I do it any better this time around.