@CharlestonianTemplar rather than abandon your game I suggest you try @Blind_Visionary's suggestion of travelling there by console. Assuming you have an updated version of the EE you no longer need to use console commands to do that, instead you can: - open up the console by pressing ctrl-space together (see this thread if you need more detail) - you'll see in the top left hand corner a list of all the area locations in the game. Scroll down to AR2100 and click on it and then click travel. Hope it works for you.Thank you. That worked!
Gosh, I hadn't imagined I would be so long in getting up my first post here, but free time, etc., you know...
Anyway, let's begin the saga (hopefully of a decent length!). I'm pleased to introduce Kestrel, a half-elf Bard.
Cloistered within the high walls of Candlekeep, Kestrel had led a sheltered life, picking up skills and knowledge from the unlikeliest of places. Her natural singing voice was noticed by Winthrop, and she easily followed his rough tutelage with the lute, and soon was the sought-after performer for the albeit rare late-night events at the Candlekeep Inn. The shuffling of arthritic feet and croaking choruses of the monks was the only real reward for her efforts, sadly, but she enjoyed taking the stage.
Her only real childhood friend was another half-elf girl, Imoen. Together they played hide'n'seek in the keep grounds (Imoen usually won), teased the Oghmatic monks (Kestrel's tongue was the sharper), and learned basic combat skills from the guards (Imoen's eye with the bow rivaled Fuller's with his crossbow, but she preferred a short blade to the usual guards' long sword; Kestrel was less interested in fighting). Imoen even took an interest in the arcane arts, although it may have had something to do with avoiding washing-up; Kestrel devoted herself to her music lessons.
Their idyllic life was disrupted one evening,shortly after Kestrel's 17th birthday, by the arrival of a foreigner at the Keep, a young, druidic spirit-animal summoner. With the basest knowledge of Common he pointed at himself and rasped "Zyx", presumably implying his name, and proffered a large, crudely leather-bound collection of notes, handwritten in some obscure script, to the Gatewarden, before roughly pronouncing two syllables: "Kez trell?". The Warden, although deeply suspicious of the man's background and the injuries he had clearly recently suffered, had to follow the Keep's code and admit him.
Inside the walls he quickly sought out the girl, and growing agitated, he brokenly explained "Me come---help", gesturing nervously at Kestrel.
"You want... to help me? But I don't need any help," she explained, laughing perplexedly.
He nodded fervently, but she could get no more clarity out of his words. Winthrop offered the stranger a single night's lodging, as was customary to all book-bringers, but when she saw the innkeeper the following morning he said the bed was untouched; a candle had been burning all night in a window of one of the library studies, and Kestrel was left wondering.
But she couldn't ponder for long, because that morning Gorion, her foster-father, tutor, and the wisest and most trusted person of her life, came to her in a state of nervousness she had never seen before. Trembling slightly, and more tight-lipped than a clam, he thrust gold in her hands and instructed her to equip herself from Winthrop's supplies and meet her on the library steps.
Zyx found her in the inn's common room, and, a stranger though he was, his newly calm demeanour and open face led Kestrel to believe his good intentions, whatever they were. With Gorion's money she equipped them both.
Together they did a last sweep of the outer grounds to look for Imoen, and although they failed in that, she felt compelled to help those kind, caring occupants of the Keep with some simple chores. On her way Jondalar offered her a quick spar against his staff, and to her great surprise proceeded to give her a resounding whack on the side of the head!
With the aid of one of Zyx's spirit companions they fought off their new assailant, as well as some mysterious would-be assassins. Her ears still ringing from the blow, Kestrel was able to convince a morose, arm-less knight to take his fiancee as his squire [some quest mod], and was also left perplexed just what the priest of Oghma had been up to before she entered the healers' house.
At last she was ready to leave. All three stumbling out into the twilight, Gorion hastily imparted advice for the possibility they be separated---impossible, she thought. But her trust in his solidity and permanence in her life was to be dispelled. In the night, they were ambushed, and Gorion fought and fell bravely as Kestrel and Zyx ran for their lives from a terrifying, looming figure in twisted armour and whose voice injected dread into her soul. The horror of the night was only deepened by the dread-knight's words: "Hand over your ward."
It was Kestrel the villain had sought, and Gorion gave his life to save hers.
As daylight crept over the pallid landscape, Zyx hugged her by the shoulder wordlessly. They began to move forward, but realised some minutes later they were being followed, albeit by someone versed in stealth. The druid readied his club and Kestrel nocked an arrow, and they turned as one, to discover the last person she'd expected: Imoen!
Her warm jokes and stalwart friendship reaffirmed Kestrel's desire to live. Over Gorion's newly dug grave she swore with her two friends to avenge his death, but moreover, to make a pact to keep each other safe from harm.
Somehow they made their way back to Candlekeep, but those solid stony walls which had once been so comforting now represented the impassable barrier to her old life, and the Gatewarden, for all his kindness, was bound by his code not to allow them entrance. Perhaps there was some deeper meaning to this ban. Nevertheless out of his deep kindness he gave them willingly what aid he could, in the form of 100 gold coins: the equivalent of many lifetime's-worth of savings, and a priceless gift to the travelers at their wits' end.
Suddenly Imoen piped up. "I know where we could go! Let's go n' see Gorion's friend in the High Hedge, that ol' crusty mage, what's his name? Lanthyr? Thantyr? Maybe he can help us!"
Kestrel, remembering her foster-father's words, knew that they would find help at the Friendly Arm Inn, but High Hedge was close, and the wizard was rumoured to have a wealth of magic items in his keep. Maybe he could spare some help; he had been kindly enough to Imoen that occasion she had visited at Gorion's side. On their way Imoen's sharp eyes picked out a gleam from a lucky sunbeam leaking through some tree boughs. Perhaps they could pawn this gem for more aid.
Narrowly avoiding their first accident at the claws of a pair of cave bears, they broke the breast of a hill to see the haughty, intimidating tower still a few miles away. They immediately realised they had stumbled into the place of contemplation of a forest elf.
When it became clear he was a hunter of bandits and other wrong-doers, the travellers were only too happy for him to join them, and he soon proved his worth to their team as he lodged arrows in the skulls of several animated skeletons that attacked them soon after.
The group stumbled deep into the valley and continued through the dense thickets in what they thought was the right direction, no longer having a view of the tower. The dusk deepened. Eventually Imoen exclaimed:
"I've just about had enough of this: I've already got two scars on my face from my accident with Hull, I don't wanna get any more from these darn branches!"
To their great surprise a voice answered out of the night!
"Help! *cluck* Save me!"
They whirled around to its direction and found a snarling wolf bearing down on them rapidly. After the party barely managed to fend it off, the owner of the voice presented itself.
One lengthy conversation and several puns later---
Kivan took over guiding the group, and brought them at last to High Hedge. Sadly for the poor rooster the poultry magics of the wizard Thalantyr failed to beak the fowl curse [sorry!], and the Antichickenator spell lived up to its name.
Thalantyr was able to offer them help, as they predicted, but the man's heart was too cold and his mind too closed; the aid had a price in gold. Still, he did make one recommendation of a magical scroll to Kestrel. Still young and lacking the experience to learn and cast her own spells, she was nonetheless able to read the conjuration; the few lessons she had picked up from listening into Imoen practising paid off.
They also picked up a couple more scrolls, of Sleep and Blindness, to aid them in the fights to come. Both girls were able to copy Sleep into their books, and Imoen prepared it for the following day. Gorion's advice lingering in her ear, Kestrel took the party back north, and they camped near the Candlekeep Coastway.
Kestrel was awoken in the hour before sunrise by Kivan, who whispered to her that he could hear low voices on the wind. They quietly broke camp and proceeded, finding an unusual pair of travelers loitering on a corner of the road. They hastily stopped their muttering when the party announced their presence. The group agreed to let the strangers join, since they had witnessed grave dangers in the last days and there was a safety in numbers. Still, Imoen confided in Kestrel's ear:
"These two look like scoundrels if ever I saw some! We oughta be careful with 'em at our sides. Especially the short one. The tall one seems delusional, but the halfling looks like he actually enjoys the killing he obviously knows well."
They were kind enough to provide some potions in aid, although the crazed-looking human made it clear he held the party in his debt for the act.
The party proceeded north-east, in the direction that Kivan claimed the Friendly Arm Inn lay. A mysterious stranger dressed in red robes and hat offered equally mysterious guidance, although his mischievous eyes revealed a sly cunning, and his knowledge of the girls' identities belied more than he let on. Further along the way, Imoen's sharp eyes spied another trinket, but while she was distracted winkling it out from the rocky crack that had hosted it, the party was ambushed by a pair of dread Worgs. Kestrel raised her companions' morale with her bright and melodious voice, whilst Zyx summoned his Spirit Wolf to defend against the horrid Wolf-kin, then set about ensnaring the beasts in Entangling roots and branches. As the party was further distracted, they were horrified to hear a horde of screeching, yelling creatures descend on them from their flank, and only through Kivan and Zyx stepping forward to defend the weaker members were all the enemies eventually dispatched. The battle for the Ring of the Rock was won.
The team proceeded to the Friendly Arm with little further disruption (although they hot-tailed it away from a bandit ambush!), and upon entering the mighty building's grounds, they were invited into a little house by a brusque lady. She charged them with finding her Flamedance Ring somewhere outside the Inn. Excited by the idea of their quest, they took a widdershins path around the Inn walls, where Imoen's eyes brought fortune for a third time: another mysterious Ring.
They brought the Ring back to the lady, but she simply shook her head: "No, that's not it." Imoen couldn't believe their luck. She had given the first Ring to Kestrel, as she had a feeling it would keep her safe, so Kestrel insisted that this new Ring go to Imoen; to her great surprise she realised it meant she could cast more spells. "Look who's laughin' now, huh?", she chortled cheekily.
They decided to pause their questing for the time being, as Kestrel felt she really ought to find the two friends of Gorion. As they passed through the Inn's grounds, a passerby halted Kestrel.
Something very odd was definitely afoot. Montaron begrudgingly agreed to snoop ahead, and reported that an impatient and haughty-looking man seemed to be waiting for someone on the steps. Kestrel's hunch paid off when she got Monty to sneak up behind the stranger, since as soon as the rest of the party turned the corner to face him, he singled her out and proceeded to launch an attack.
Montaron's poisoned dagger made short work of him, and Imoen reeled into Kestrel in shock as the halfling twisted the dagger in his neck.
"Yea, I gots somethin' for ye too, mage."
Kivan looked as if there was something he wished to say. Zyx remained his ever-silent self, and simply shook his head. The only undisturbed demeanour was Xzar, who laughed:
"Good catch, Montaron! Oh, but you do make life interesting."
The team passed into the (relative) safety of the Friendly Arm, and over a round of frothy mugs breathed a sigh of relief: it felt good to sit by a roaring fire, even on a splintery bench surrounded by strangers. Kestrel smiled at her companions. Maybe things might turn out OK, after all...
Probably a little contentious is my re-writing of some of the characters. Well....that's just the game I want to play. I could have made an entirely multiplayer party to achieve the same goal. But then, no banters. And we all know it's all about the epic bants. Anyway, all stats were legitimately rolled (and I normally go a lot more power-gamey, so I'm pleased at my min-maxing restraint, except with Imoen, whose heritage to me means she ought to be pretty god-like).
Notable mods:
Easy Tutu (yes, I play non EE, so sue me)
ToBEx (minor gameplay tweaks/improvements)
Baldur's Gate Quests and Encounters
BG1 NPC Project
1PP
Divine Remix (basically everything except the sphere system, i.e., lots of kits)
Sword and Fist (kits which I haven't actually used...)
Rogue Rebalancing (in particular Bard spell progression and Thief kit revisions)
SCS (essentially all tactical encounters/upgrades, except casters only prebuff when created in my sight; reduced Inquisitor dispel to 1.5 x level)
BG2 Tweaks (notably True Grandmastery [no effect till SoA], added Bags of Holding, Gems/Potions need identification, NWN-style HP on level-up, Max HP for all other creatures)
IWDification (only for the IWD Bardsong)
ATweaks (lots of improved Undead/Demons/Mephits/Fey/Elementals, also Revised Bhaalpowers)
Wizard Slayer Revisions
Level 1 NPCs (to edit the NPCs how I like 'em)
TB#Tweaks (Everybody gets APR from proficiency, only warriors from level)
TutuGUI (Stone is nicer than...dunno what that stuff is in BG2!)
@Blackraven : "he [Irenicus] uses a Chain Contingency to trigger most of his defenses, despite my insane difficulty setting. I would have expected even short buffs to trigger as "cast previously". "
That's intentional. In-story, Irenicus is surprised, so he doesn't have a chance to buff. (It's controlled by stratagems/mage/override/bg2/boolean.2da if you want to tweak it yourself - just delete the 'ppireni2 DoNotPrebuff' line.)
@DavidW, thank you for clarifying. Irenicus' current behavior does indeed make sense from a story-perspective, and personally I prefer a degree of realism over extreme difficulty settings at the cost of realism.
Thank you also for SCS, and for updating and fine-tuning it. You're making a lot of people happy with it
BTW did you also see the Spell Turning triggering and expiring a split second later (at least according to the action log)? Could it be something isn't working there?
With Sarevok converted to Chaotic Good, we don't have to worry about him joining Melissan. We do need to worry about Abazigal, however, since I don't plan on using Protection from Magic scrolls on him or Sendai to shut down their spellcasting. To prevent Abazigal from butchering someone during Time Stop, we have to cut through his Stoneskins in less than a single round, since he has a +2 bonus to casting time and casts Time Stop with a casting time of 7 instead of 9.
We have all of our fighters nail him with nonmagical ammunition. With Improved Haste on everyone, our fighters have 25 attacks per round total.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Haer'dalis loses his buffs to an arrow from Illasera (I failed to buff him with PFMW on the opening round), but otherwise we're in decent shape. We switch gears to attack Sendai instead of Abazigal and quickly break through her Stoneskins as well.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Sendai is now stunned, but we don't want to finish her off without making at least a little progress against the rest of the Five. Illasera and Abazigal are applying a lot of pressure against Haer'dalis, and Mazzy's Arrow of Dispelling fails to remove Illasera's buffs--apparently she is immune to +1 weapons, possibly due to her ethereal form.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
At some point, the game crashes, and we're forced to start over. We proceed the same as before, except Haer'dalis remembers to cast PFMW this time.
We try to land Smite on Abazigal, but he appears to be immune to stun, despite a dialog box line saying he got stunned. Instead, we stun Illasera, though not before she removed Sarevok's dispellable buffs with an arrow. Sarevok gets too close to Abazigal and suffers heavy damage very quickly, but fortunately our planetar was on hand to fix him up.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Since Illasera isn't very hard to kill and Abazigal is very dangerous, we want to bring down Abazigal early and then put down Illasera to knock down Melissan after she arrives. In the end, I underestimate Sendai's defenses and Frisky Bits ends up killing her, prompting Melissan's early arrival.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Abazigal cuts Sarevok down to 19 HP out of 180 total, but another Heal spell bails him out, and our warriors put down Abazigal, successfully knocking down Melissan.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Illasera is our next target, but she goes invisible before we can gang up on her, and Keldorn's True Seeing fails to reveal her. The good news is that Frisky Bits has just slain Sendai's Fallen Deva and is ready to activate a very dangerous Spell Trigger.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Magic resistance can easily block a Harm spell, and almost every enemy at the Throne has innate magic resistance. But Yaga-Shura has precisely zero MR, and he comes with no PFMW spells!
I get a worrisome message in the dialog box saying that Frisky Bits' PFMW is about to run out, but then I remember that a new PFMW came with our Spell Trigger. That means we don't have to choose between Critical Strike to kill Yaga-Shura or PFMW to avoid dying during a Time Stop from Melissan.
Illasera remains invisible, and only our planetar can try to hit her, so we pull back our fighters to the south so they can put down Gromnir. Nalia hits Melissan with Pierce Shield to remove her Spell Trap and drop her MR a little, and Frisky Bits finally activates Critical Strike to make sure we get a guaranteed hit with Harm. Yaga-Shura falls!
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Frisky Bits joins the party down south, where Keldorn spears Gromnir and takes down the last enemy fighter. Notice that Melissan isn't taking the typical 100 magic damage from this death.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Since Nalia removed Melissan's Spell Trap with Pierce Shield, Haer'dalis is free to take down Melissan's Absolute Immunity spell with a Breach spell from the Wand of Spell Striking. Suddenly, Melissan is vulnerable. Mazzy switches to the Darts +5 from the Cloak of Stars and lands a few hits with Smite. For some reason, there's no message in the dialog box indicating she got stunned, though she's still disabled due to the unconsciousness effect from the Feedback spell when Gromnir died.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
That Greater Malison spell came from Balthazar; I wouldn't have attempted Greater Malison until Melissan's MR was at zero. For some reason, Melissan appears to have at least 90% physical damage resistance. Our attacks do barely any damage.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
I thought her physical damage resistance was supposed to be lower if Balthazar was either dead or on the party's side.
At any rate, Melissan is still on her back, and Illasera reappears, so we hurry over and stomp Melissan's last ally.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Assuming that Melissan's damage resistances are high because she's still unconscious, I give her a moment to wake up. Once she's back on her feet, we nail her with a new Smite spell (with 4 fighters in the party, we have plenty of castings). The stun is successful and the message is displayed correctly, but Melissan still has much higher damage resistances than she's supposed to.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Melissan recovers and delivers a dialog line that I thought was supposed to only happen in vanilla, instantly healing herself. Is this normal Ascension behavior?
[spoiler][/spoiler]
It doesn't matter. Nalia by now has reduced Melissan's MR to zero, and when Nalia finally lands a Wand of Paralyzation on her, Melissan is doomed.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
After dealing a massive, massive amount of damage, the battle is finally over.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
We choose mortality over godhood, as always, and the saga is over.
Does anyone know what the intended Ascension behavior is for Melissan regarding healing herself? I was under the impression that her Heal spells weren't supposed to be accompanied by dialog; I thought that was only a vanilla thing, related to her pre-Ascension behavior of entering the energy pillar to heal herself.
I ask because I think my solo LoB run involved some weird behavior in which Melissan healed herself, which I dismissed as a bug, and though my memory might be inaccurate, it might be the case that my Archer/Mage would have fallen at the Throne--or at least had to use another Called Shot in order to succeed--due to the Better Stat Drain mod, which only would have brought Melissan to 1 HP once due to how the mod was designed.
I guess it's academic, though, since the Better Stat Drain mod was intended to imitate instant death effects accurately, and failing to kill a target who otherwise would have died would itself constitute a bug.
@semiticgod In my version of Ascension, Melissan will deliver the
mortality dialogue after the Five are all dead, then she'll heal
herself, and either gate in a ton of demons or cast Time Stop.
Ascension's
final boss fight is just a crapshoot that works correctly maybe half
the time. One time in my install, she faced the throne's energy pillar
and complained about how she needed more power and just waved her arm
around, doing nothing. In my run with the Rejects, she even cloned
herself and brought back Sarevok for the fourth time: a behavior that
I've never seen before, ever.
That's good news for my run, then. The heal I was thinking of in my solo LoB run didn't coincide with the death of the Five, and looking back, it came with a clearly vanilla dialog line.
SoD's intro dungeon is cleared the pacifist way with invisibility. The sorcerers have to be quick on their feet as I had foregone the use of PfU, so Bone Bats could alert their undead buddies. Korlasz is made to surrender by using the Ring of Energy from Yin and a Wand of Shadowblast from Yang. It would've been smarter to have them swap roles since non-Shadow-Weave-users take 1d10 magical damage from attempting to use a Shadow Weave wand. The dwarven digsite is cleared by liberal use of Wands of Fire and PfU scrolls. The Coldhearth lich strangely did not fire it's usual prebuffs and instead just opted to use Stoneskin twice as it awaited death, so The Secret Revealed turned out to be unnecessary. The fight at the Coast Way bridge is won by a Night Terrors + Dread Silence minor sequencer, followed by Greater Malison, Shadow Binding, and wands of fire. A group of trolls at the Troll Claw Woods were nice enough to donate their XP to level up the sorcerers to 12, earning their first 6th level spells. The sorcerers must travel at night or Yin's Night Terrors spell will be reduced to an improved Horror.
Spells gained: Shatter Weave, Contingency; Mislead -Shatter Weave: Secret Word. Deals 10d4 magical damage to mages and bards. For two rounds: target's MR is set to 0% and it suffers 50% spell failure. -Contingency: All Shadow Weave users learn Contingency automatically when they learn to cast 6th level spells.
The sorcerers are also forced to fight Morentherene because the spells that constantly update Yin's mental-stat-based bonuses apparently wake up the dragon. Protection from Poison scrolls are applied beforehand. Sigil of Misfortune from Yin and a Night Terrors from a summoned Devil Shade send the dragon packing. To add further insult to injury, the dragon is transformed into a squirrel with Polymorph Other from Yang, then blown up with wands of fire. The cultists in the temple of Cyric are dealt with by Night Terrors, as usual. Ziatar's mages put up a good fight and remind me not to get too comfortable with the strength of shadow magic. Ziatar herself is blinded and so rendered harmless. The Neothelid's initial few rounds are handled by 2 wraiths and a devil shade. Night Terrors removes the threat of its Mordy Swords and the devil shade gets the last hit on it. Darskhelin's group is paralyzed by a Web+Grease minor sequencer that Yang has been saving for a while. Night Terrors, Greater Malison, and Shadow Binding take care of the rest and also the archer who happens to save against both Web and Grease. I think about taking on the Shadow Aspect. If I can kill or dispel its Mislead clone, it's an easy win, right? Couldn't be more wrong. It spams Mislead and will eventually summon Shadowed Souls if you take too long to kill it. The aspect itself is no danger to Yin as long as Shadeskin and Dark Mirage hold up, but the Shadowed Souls have me concerned with their irritating life drain spell. Expunge Magic works, but only briefly, as the Aspect just uses another Mislead. Greater Malison and Shadow Binding eventually paralyze it by targeting Shadow Binding close by the real Aspect. We kill the rogue Shadowed Soul and then kill the Aspect's mislead clone. Yang successfully transforms the Aspect into a squirrel and then stabs it. The Greater Feyr is killed for 13k XP and the spellstone scroll is retrieved with good reaction timing to take it before Vichand can interrupt with dialogue. Yin dispels the spellstone and consumes the dark energy inside it for bonus HP. I decide to do the siege of Bridgefort since I don't want these guys showing up at the fight at Dragonspear. Night Terrors eliminates the grunts, but the mages are more troublesome since Expunge Magic, like Dispel/Remove Magic will not take down Minor Globes. Spell Thrust and Detect Invisibility is needed several times before the mages can finally be taken out. Shatter Magic is only mildly helpful since it can't directly target improved invisible enemies. Summoned wraiths and devil shades aren't as helpful as usual since there's so many enemies to fight. More shades are summoned against the mage at the bridge. Expunge Magic and physical attacks put an end to her and her fire elemental. SoD's sidequest hell is halfway completed when we enter the cave with the blind albino wyrmlings. I buffed with the Greenstone Amulet to prevent their unresistable tail constriction ability, but they are vulnerable to Night Terrors. The Spectacles reveal someone else in the cave. The Shadow Chimera is killed with Sigil of Misfortune + Polymorph Other. Our new friend Kaladan Za'al offers Yin his cloak and a wand of Shadow Binding, and we'll also get his help in the siege of Dragonspear! This cloak is fantastic. Now I don't have to worry about the day/night cycle for the rest of SoD! If I was playing EET, I know I'd keep this til the end of the playthrough. Anyway, the reward for killing Strunk and some nearby crusader patrols gives the sorcerers level 13.
Spells gained:
Fireshield (Shadow), Unmask, Protection from Weave-forged Weapons; Dimension Door, Spell Shield, Protection from Magic Weapons. -Fireshield (Shadow) (lv.4): Blue Fireshield that does half magic damage and half cold. Striking the shield causes a cumulative -1 THAC0 penalty for 6 rounds. -Unmask (lv.5): Oracle, but dispels all illusions as True Sight. -Protection from Weave-forged Weapons (lv.6): As PfMW. Will be abbreviated as PfWfW.
Just a bit more to go. I doubt Belhifet will survive the sorcerers, especially not with magic that ignores magic resistance.
Yin - Shadow Disciple 13 Yang - Dragon Disciple 13
@semiticgod, another overwhelmingly impressive ending. You show off the fundamental necessity of planning, which allows you to deal with essentially any adverse outcome thrown at you. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."
Any reflections on the run, and on the F/M/C? Maybe I missed the earlier post, but why did you choose Bioware NPCs this time? Was it that your Bhaalspawn was so OP that they could carry the team's lack of powergaming optimisation?
Coremage the human mage (level 10)/level 13 berserker (inactive) - Micro-update
Traveling with: Minsc, Keldorn, Jaheira, Imoen, Anomen
So the party worked on clearing the 2nd level of Spellhold. I tried a new strategy - have Minsc go berserk against the nearby Yuan-tis - this did not work well, and Minsc only survived because Anomen used RoR heal on Minsc twice. Won't try that again.
We then beat up on some trolls. Time for the trapped paintings. Keldorn tripped them after being protected by death ward and protection from fire.
Time to use these paintings to open doors and deal with some enemies. The first enemy, an illithid proved pretty dangerous - it ignored the skeleton warriors and instead decided sucking out Keldorn's brains was more fun. Anomen used his RoR to bring back Keldy once again. After being brought back to life, and being redirected to the party, Keldorn remarked, "I am ready to serve my friend, including giving my life if need be.". Was amusing since he just got finished doing that.
Fortunately the rest of the level was much smoother. Against the minotaurs, Imoen's AI thought fireballing the party and the minotaurs was a good idea. Coremage disagreed with her logic.
Finally it was time to deal with Bodhi. Coremage stole the Amulet of Power from Keldorn, and faced her - he did fine. Some nearby Minotaurs were easily mopped up. After using the horns to make it to the next level, Coremage made level 10. He decided to memorize spell immunity (so he can protect himself from Lonk's horrid wilting).
One last order of business on this level, finish off the gauth and a few more minotaurs. Keldorn did the honors with the help of daystar and shield of balduran.
We also made it past the kobolds, spore colony and successfully did the riddles of the undead spectres. We had a last batch of trolls to dispatch and the overseer said we were free to go. We saved our session here.
The rest of the Underground River area is cleared, although Night Terrors proves to ineffective against Dark Treants, Shambling Mounds, and (hama)dryads. The sorcerers buff up to fight Kherriun and use two fireballs from wands of fire to break the ghost jar. The blasts kill two of the necromancer's lackeys.
Wraiths, a Devil Shade, and Halatathlaer kill Kherriun and the rest of the necromancers. Zhadroth is freed and has the Secret Revealed used against him. I was surprised when he managed to successfully cast a single-target spell on Yin, though whatever it was, he saved against it. It seems that the Secret Revealed merely causes Miscast Magic (80% spell failure), not 100% failure.
Armed with Zhadroth's sequencer robe, both sorcerers take turns using it to prepare for the siege of Dragonspear. Yin loads Sigil of Misfortune+Night Terrors+Dread Silence into it, while Yang loads Greater Malison+Web+Grease. Yin and Yang enter the basement of Dragonspear while invisible. On the way to free Daeros, the food is poisoned but I forget to poison the water on the way out since it spawns a water mephit. The sorcerers have to withstand a few rounds of close-quarters combat to be let out of the basement until Hephernaan finally notices them.
Back at the Coalition Camp, our new friend Kaladan Za'al turns the Shadow Gem we found in the albino wyrmling lair into a Shadow Phylactery amulet.
It's a nice amulet, but I prefer to wear the Shadovar Amulet that Kryn Darkflame gave me for a +2 casting speed bonus. Yin can save against casting shadow magic of levels 1-3 without fear anyway. Time for the Coalition Camp siege. Yin uses his Spell Sequencer, but given how it killed everyone except Yarok, just casting Night Terrors by itself would've been more efficient.
The fight against the mages is a bit dicey since anti-magic spells are flung everywhere. Expunge Magic removes most of the mages' buffs but they're quick to reapply them. All but one of the mages are immune to the Death Spell part of Night Terrors. Since it's daytime, I don't want to summon my shades to help since they'll be weakened. Spamming wands of fire after their buffs are mostly destroyed sees them off. One casting of Night Terrors eliminates all but three of the crusader fighters and priests.
One of the priests who was panicked wanders into view of Andrus, triggering the battle with the named goons almost immediately. This hasn't happened to me before. When I see them charging down the path, I have Yang release his Spell Sequencer. It's very effective at rooting them to the spot. Yin adds in Dread Silence, preventing the opposition from casting any spells to counter.
Sigil of Misfortune debuffs them further, absolutely preventing them from getting any closer to Andrus and the barrels. Ranged attacks and wands of fire kill off the named baddies.
The siege is successful, so the sorcerers spend 16 hours refilling their Spell Sequencers with the robe. Time for the siege of Dragonspear. Expunge Magic kills off any buffs the main force has and then they get caught with a Sequencer of Greater Malison+Web+Grease. A fireball launched by some crusader mage is nullified by Protection from Fire.
A Sequencer of Sigil of Misfortune+Night Terrors+Dread Silence kills off the footsoldier grunts and debuffs the survivors.
A Breaching Dark or two is needed for the rest of the mages, then we start moving up the path closest to the castle when Ashatiel finally challenges Yin to a fight. He accepts. Shatter Weave destroys her Minor Globe and disrupts her spellcasting for two rounds.
Sigil of Misfortune and a scorcher charge from the wand of fire are used to wear down her HP. She tries Mirror Image but Yin reacts with Unmask. Stoneskin and Minor Spell Turning are destroyed by Breaching Dark and another Shatter Weave. Out of options, Ashatiel resorts to Sanctuary to spam heals upon herself, but the wand of fire outdamages her heals.
I would like to add that while Kaladan Za'al appeared at the siege, he did absolutely nothing and simply stood outside the walls of Dragonspear the whole time. Down to Hell. Night Terrors reaps the souls of the devils for a delicious XP feast. I provoke Thrix to make him provide more easy XP and win.
The sorcerers rest at the base of the elevator and buff with long-term spells and potions. Shades are summoned on the ride upward to conserve spells. Once the final save triggers, they begin using short-term buff spells and potions. Caelar joins us against Belhifet and soaks up his initial Remove Magic.
With his aura now clouded, the sorcerers have a round to debuff Belhifet. Shatter Magic negates his 100% MR, so Yang uses a Greater Malison+Remove Fear+Blindness Sequencer. We can't risk Caelar getting caught in a Web or Grease.
The next round, Yin releases his Sequencer of Sigil of Misfortune+Night Terrors+Dread Silence. It kills off Belhifet's devils and debuffs the devil himself. Yang starts using a scroll of Greater Restoration on Caelar. Big B goes improved invisible the next round since he's immune to being silenced.
Yang then tries Detect Invisibility but Belhifet's MR somehow deflects it. I don't think it's supposed to be affected by MR. Yin can't use Shatter Magic again until Belhifet is visible, so he tries Shadow Binding targeted on Caelar. The AoE is not big enough to hit Belhifet. Yang uses another Greater Restoration scroll on her. Yin reaches into his pack and pulls out the Wand of Shadow Binding, then points it at Belhifet.
GG EZ, Belhifet.
The sorcerers have earned level 14 from this fight and gain their first 7th level spells, learning Possess + Spell Sequencer, and Project Image.
-Possess (lv.7): Save vs. spell at -7 or the caster takes over the target's body for 10 turns, which bypasses MR. Target's physical stats are set to 25 and the caster is frozen in place. Spell ends once duration is over, possessed target dies, or if the caster ends the spell manually. Ending the spell deals 5d10 nonlethal damage to the target and knocks it unconscious for 5 rounds.
-Spell Sequencer: Shadow Weave users automatically learn Spell Sequencer once they can cast 7th level spells.
Great power is just waiting to be grabbed in Amn!
Yin - Shadow Disciple 14
Yang - Dragon Disciple 14
@semiticgod, another overwhelmingly impressive ending. You show off the fundamental necessity of planning, which allows you to deal with essentially any adverse outcome thrown at you. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."
Any reflections on the run, and on the F/M/C? Maybe I missed the earlier post, but why did you choose Bioware NPCs this time? Was it that your Bhaalspawn was so OP that they could carry the team's lack of powergaming optimisation?
I didn't really learn much from this run. The idea was to play one game where I didn't rely on any exploits or glitches whatsoever, simply because I had never done such a run. I also refrained from "cheesy" stuff like using Protection from Magic scrolls on enemies or attacking mages before their pre-buffs activated, and, in keeping with that spirit, also refrained from creating more than one character, instead relying on NPCs. It was supposed to be a standard, by-the-books, "play by the rules" no-reload run.
Turns out that it's not much different from the other runs I've done. Both the basic principles and the technical strategy behind no-reload gameplay are the same whether or not you resort to exploits. Exploits make certain parts of the game easier, but unless you're using many different types of them, or you're using one of the more versatile exploits like the Shadowdancer trick or the Wand of Lightning trick, you still need to know how to handle ordinary gameplay so you can survive the encounters where a certain exploit won't help you.
My only reflection on the FMC is that it's really, really, really good for no-reload runs. With all of its defensive options, it's one of the harder-to-kill classes in the game, and there's not really any time or any situation where the FMC really struggles. It's up there with Cleric/Illusionists, Berserkers, Berserker/Mages, Shadowdancers, Shadowdancer/Mages, Fighter/Illusionists, Illusionist/Thieves, Barbarians, and Dwarven Defenders as the safest and sturdiest character builds. It's notable that I frequently put my FMC out at the front of the party, where normally my Charnames sit at the back where it's safe.
Otherwise, the main thing I learned is that there's really no reason not to cram a bunch of fighters into your party in ToB. Mages are nice, but mage HLAs don't actually scale that well, and Ascension bosses can easily survive a planetar. I think the ideal party for ToB, at least with SCS and Ascension, might have only one single- or dual-classed mage, one character with 9 cleric levels to cast Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, and Remove Fear, and the rest of the team would consist of fighter types.
Since no-reload gameplay is very dependent on items, I decided to try my hand at beating the game without them. But this is not a standard poverty run: instead of all items being forbidden unless they're player-created, only magical items will be forbidden, including player-created ones. This means that we can use nonmagical weapons and armor, and we can use mage scrolls to add spells to mage spellbooks (though we still can't cast from scrolls in combat), but we can't use summoned weapons or items.
As I mentioned before, I lost a previous attempt to Davaeorn when he instantly killed my main character with a Lightning Bolt. In that run, I relied heavily on the Reform Party trick to spam Spirit Animals and Special Snares from my Totemic Druid and Bounty Hunter, but in this run, I plan on working without glitches, mostly because the Reform Party trick is kind of cumbersome to use very frequently. This is my intended party:
Fighter/Illusionist (Charname)
Fighter/Illusionist
Cleric of Helm
Sorcerer
Skald
Archer
The Fighter/Illusionists are there for pure muscle, and the Sorcerer is there so we'll be able to use Wish-resting in ToB. What about the others?
Normally, I don't like single-classed clerics much, and since we can't use Seeking Sword due to our item restrictions, a Cleric of Helm doesn't sound like an ideal choice. But those True Seeing spells will be very important, because we don't have room for a thief who can use Detect Illusions or an Inquisitor to cast True Seeing instead. We'll want a single-classed cleric because we need Chaotic Commands to deal with Belhifet in SoD, and high-level healing spells could be very important in ToB, since we don't have the option of relying on potions.
What about the Skald? I picked the Skald kit for the damage bonuses, but the reason I have a bard at all is because I have the Better Enchanted Weapon mod, which lets Enchanted Weapon scale with level... but it only hits a +3 enchantment, which I need to hit Belhifet, at level 12, and only bards can reach level 12 in SoD unless I ignore the XP cap (I removed the cap, but I prefer to avoid leveling up beyond it until I make it to the next game). Without a bard, we can't even touch Belhifet... unless we rely on Melf's Acid Arrow, and based on my experience from my poverty run, I'm not sure we'll have enough castings to make sure we can take him down.
Why do I have the Better Enchanted Weapon mod in the first place? Well, that's where the Archer comes in. I'm going to need STR drain kills to deal with certain enemies in ToB like the Ravager, and only an Archer can give me that. But my Archer won't be able to touch either the Ravager or Melissan unless I have the Better Enchanted Weapon mod installed and have at least a level 16 Enchanted Weapon spell so her arrows can strike as +4 or better.
Why not pick a Totemic Druid or Shapeshifter instead of a cleric so I could have a stronger tank build with the Earth Elemental form in ToB? Why not add a Fighter/Mage/Cleric so I could use Harm, PFMW, and Critical Strike to land easier kills on the Ravager and such? Well, I'm extending the ban on magical items to shapeshifting critters and spells like Harm. They're not supposed to be "items," but that's how they're coded, so I'll go with this party and these restrictions.
Basically, I had to design the party to tackle a handful of bottlenecks that could otherwise cut a run like this short:
1. Davaeorn (we need lots of invisibility spells, plus Spell Thrust and Melf's Acid Arrow)
2. Sarevok (we need lots of Fireballs)
3. Belhifet (we need a level 12 Enchanted Weapon spell or LOTS of Melf's Acid Arrows plus Lower Resistance)
4. The Ravager (we need Harm+Critical Strike or a level 16 Enchanted Weapon and Called Shot STR drain)
5. Melissan (we need Wish rests so we don't run out of PFMW and such)
What about Potions of Genius? How are we going to scribe scrolls reliably? As it happens, I installed a tweak that removes scribing failure, so we only need Intelligence to increase the number of spells we can have in a spellbook at the same time.
To deal with early BG1 enemies, we'll want to get Baeloth, who will also prove instrumental in providing Melf's Acid Arrows and Fireballs for Davaeorn and Sarevok. Since our Archer isn't needed until SoD, we can park her in Beregost until we're ready for Sarevok, so Baeloth will be with us for most of BG1.
Baeloth does have an undroppable ring which is a magic item, but since the only real effects of the ring are negative (a -5 to hit and damage or something against genies), I'm tolerating it, which I wouldn't do for a beneficial item like Edwin's amulet. The ring says it gives Baeloth his extra spell picks, but that's not actually one of the ring's effects--he gets his extra spell picks from his .cre file.
We kick everyone out of the party and have our Charname, Frisky Bits (yes, I named another character Frisky Bits), cast Protection from Petrification and shoot down some basilisks until they're at 10,000 XP. But before we go get Baeloth, I retrieve the party and decide to tackle Mutamin with Korax's help. Mutamin knocks out our cleric with Sleep, but she's protected by Sanctuary and Mutamin fails a save against Korax's paralysis attack.
We don't need to worry about losing party members early on, as long as they're not petrified. Since this isn't a poverty run, we can still use gold to raise party members, and selling off every magical item we find will mean we'll always have more than enough gold for everything we can buy.
Anyway, here's our party once we got Baeloth:
We're stuck at 14 Intelligence for both Fighter/Illusionists and our Skald, which limits us to 7 spells per spell level (which is a bigger disadvantage than you'd think; situational spells can be very impactful in a run like this). The good news is that we have 18/90+ STR for both of our Fighter/Illusionists and also our Archer currently waiting for us in Beregost. It's a nice little bonus, since we have no way of increasing their STR any further aside from Frisky Bits' DUHM, which we'll lose in SoA.
Aside from our cleric and sorcerers, everyone in our party will always be using morningstars and longbows, because morningstars are crushing weapons and have the best base damage of any one-handed weapon besides katanas (which are rare in BG), at 2d4, or 5 on average.
Plus, the damage bonus from Chant is a luck bonus, so it applies to both d4 dice on morningstars, making it the superior weapon to a katana when Chant is active. Without magic items, we have to make all the optimizations we can.
Sounds like an interesting run @semiticgod - best of luck. When I started reading your post I thought your party selection seemed strange as I interpreted your restriction against player-created magical items as ruling out Enchanted Weapon. With that though, the archer makes perfect sense . I would have gone with a shaman rather than cleric of helm, for the increased spell flexibility and the potential for unlimited summons (and the latter might then have tempted me to reduce the arcane component of your party). However, I know I have a soft spot for shamans ...
@Grond0: Are you not working with the more recent EE updates? In the newer versions, Enchanted Weapon does not create new weapons anymore; it just makes existing weapons strike as +3 (or plus whatever, for the Better Enchanted Weapon mod).
@semiticgod, I like where you're going with Frisky Bits' latest incarnation. The Gnome F/I is my personal candidate for the godliest class, with epic saving throws and extra spells on top of the already godly F/M synergy. Very interesting play limitations (although I wouldn't personally have classed Harm as a magic weapon). I look forward to seeing things unfold.
Your analysis of the F/M/C agrees well with what I'd predicted (I planned to attempt my first no-reload with one!), although I was concerned about the relatively low HP: was it ever an issue?
And you're spot on about Fighters in ToB. Once you're there there's little that can compete with pure physical damage output, which is why some incredibly strong SoA candidates like the Ken/Berk -> Mage drop off in power in the sequel. It also opens the door to some cunning switched-role dual-classing: take a non-Fighter kit with useful/powerful low-level perks then dual to Fighter later on for the DPS.
@Grond0: Are you not working with the more recent EE updates? In the newer versions, Enchanted Weapon does not create new weapons anymore; it just makes existing weapons strike as +3 (or plus whatever, for the Better Enchanted Weapon mod).
@semiticgod it was just my initial misunderstanding of what you meant by player-created - I can see from the rest of your post you meant that enhancing an existing weapon doesn't count as being created.
Shamanic hordes (update 1)
Having commented on the omission of a shaman from your no magic items party, I wondered how a full party of shamans would do on that challenge . I had such a party that I'd briefly experimented with in a LoB run, so imported those into a new save and got going.
After leaving Candlekeep I couldn't resist shooting down Imoen, even though none of her equipment was wanted for this run. Then it was off to find Shoal. I decided to try and get some additional XP by bringing Ogre Droth out to play and Toke managed to resist the effects of Shoal's kiss. The shamans summoned a couple of spirits by dancing and then began a program of retreating to keep out of Droth's view, while letting him use spells on the spirits. That was working very nicely until it took them into view of an ogrillon. That wasn't part of the large ogre clan, but was near enough for them to react to its death and led to a complex chase situation - and an early death for Grinch when I wasn't quite careful enough about his movement. The remaining shamans finished the ogres, but then left to find a temple before returning.
Without the ogre clan to worry about, this time they were able to deplete Droth's spells and then wait for the inevitable criticals. The XP for completing Shoal's quest is poor compared to killing her and with SCS she has a nasty habit of disappearing immediately you talk to her to complete the quest - so she got a far quicker execution than Droth.
With no real need to worry about reputation in this run, Mad Arcand found a swift death as well.
In Beregost they tried a pre-emptive strike on Silke. Three of their slinghots got in before her stoneskin erupted, but only 1 hit. The other two that fired would have killed her, but their initiative was too slow to beat her buff. However, a second round of sling shots were followed by a lucky hit from a fox - disrupting an attempted improved invisibility and Silke didn't get another chance.
That left just Grinch short of the XP for a level, but some spiders, Karlat & Perdue and a little chore for Mirianne allowed everyone to level up just before I had to stop for work.
Chat - L2, 16 HPs, 11 kills, 0 deaths
Grinch - L2, 14 HPs, 9 kills, 1 death
Grunt - L2, 19 HPs, 7 kills, 0 deaths
Lorbag (PC) - L2, 17 HPs, 8 kills, 0 deaths
Pretty Boy - L2, 19 HPs, 4 kills, 0 deaths
Toke - L2, 16 HPs, 4 kills, 0 deaths
@Stromael: My FMC actually had pretty decent HP for much of the game. I don't know exactly how the game calculates HP for multi-classes, but Frisky Bits' HP was distinctly higher than most of our characters in BG1, only being lower than Yeslick's and eventually Baeloth's, if only by a few points. By the time we got to SoD and Frisky Bits only had average HP for the party, their numerous Mirror Image and Stoneskin spells made their HP generally irrelevant.
Kysus claimed a new victim: Aless is dead. She failed to buff with free action, thinking that Kysus probably didn't have Hold Person memorized. And she failed to stand far enough away from the mage to deploy a counter in the event that she was wrong. Result: paralyzation and death...
Next randomized character:
Human female diviner. Chaotic evil. Must dual to thief at some point during the run. Allowed a max of two companions.
Mods: SCS v32rc8. Some convenience tweaks and quests. BG1 NPC (although not allowing the ring of human influence - I forgot how big of an impact on the game bad reaction rolls can have!).
Ha, that didn't last very long. Ceryz the Diviner could not summon a familiar at the start of the game, because she could not access Conjuration spells... That meant her odds of surviving a hobgoblin archer ambush were questionable. Unfortunately, she became a pincushion rather quickly. (Tough class.)
Next up: Gilrach the Precocious
Male half-elf sorceror, chaotic good. Allowed 3 companions.
Unlike normal children, Gilrach developed intelligence and magical abilities at a very young age. He was barely 6 years old -- and starting to outwit Gorion during his lessons -- when assassins came for him at Candlekeep...
Let's hope he can get a Find Familiar scroll before running into any archers.
@Blind_Visionary I think a gibberling can hit for 12 points - certainly dangerous for level 1 characters. Best to be at range until you get a HP buffer.
4 Eliasias 1368: My journey continues. The Cloakwood Nest, as it is known in some circles, took a lot of patience & strategy. Infested with spiders & Ettercaps, supplemented with traps galore, trekking those woods was a bit nerve wracking & very tedious. By the time I had cleared the black, my retinue had defeated 26 spiders in four species & five Ettercaps in the nest area & a handful of others traveling back & forth between forays.
KEY EVENT: As I fully expected, the nest itself was a hairy (no pun intended – okay, yeah it was) experience. I’d had my followers mop up the spiders outside & around the nest before I had us enter. Once we were ready to go in I cast Bless, Drake cast Chant & we both cast Draw on Holy Might on ourselves.
Upon entering, I saw a hideous, fat blob of a creature who called her ‘pets’ to kill us. I tried to buy time by conversing with her, as I quickly assessed that there were likely way more spiders that we could defeat in the confines of the nest. I immediately called for a retrograde action, as I’d briefed them on earlier. We pulled out of the nest & toward the northwest, hoping to separate & eliminate any that we could. It was a long, hit & run operation. Minsc fell, likely to a Sword Spider. The rest of us had to pull out to the northwest without so much as destroying anything. We circled around & came back from the east, where we had originally entered the area. There we took down one of two Sword Spiders that had been in the nest. I had to pull them back again. It was very difficult without Minsc hammering away up front. We eventually took the other down, having swung back around to the northwest again. After that, it was still challenging, but easier. The Sword Spiders have deadly sharp mandibles but the others carry poison & can use their webbing to tangle up an opponent. It took me awhile, shifting back & forth on them to finally destroy the last of three Giant Spiders, four Huge Spiders & two Ettercaps that had also been in the nest. After that, I led us back to the nest, where we destroyed the hideous, talking blob & two more Ettercaps.
Ugh, Gilrach died in a gibberling ambush... extra hitpoints from his familiar regardless.
I've never lost a character to a gibberling before. Probably time to wrap it up for today
Wow. That's rough... but considering all the stupid ways my PCs have passed away - I still own the Hall of Shame.
I must be a contender in there with a few of my characters . In relation to gibberlings I had a max-level sorcerer with something like 62 HPs who was one-shotted by one of those (playing LoB and as usual trying to dodge past things with a sling equipped).
At the FAI Tarnesh was sent berserk by a single hit from a sling bullet, before being put out of his misery by a follow-up salvo.
Inside, Unshey was pleased to get his girdle back for once, while I had the luxury of not having to worry about keeping the pantaloons in inventory for the whole game.
Heading north, I was aware of the potential danger of bandits waiting in the ankheg area, but decided to ignore that . Chat did try and retreat after being hit once by them, but a critical hit already on the way still finished him off.
With money being virtually useless in this run though, the cost of being raised at the temple was a non-issue and the shamans were soon back to kill some fishermen for a bowl. In the ankheg nest they used summons to occupy the ankhegs while shooting them down. In principle that was pretty easy, but I was obviously not in careful mode at that point and didn't move Toke away quickly enough when an ankheg one-shotted a spirit.
After returning from the temple they finished off the nest and another ankheg outside. Returning Farmer Brun's son then allowed everyone to level up once more.
They killed a few more ankhegs, though lost the last one to Gerde, before going to find Tenya to hand over the bowl and get one more ankheg.
Heading south again they took a chance by attacking Bassilus. He has numerous spells and managed to disable one shaman with hold and effectively 2 more with domination (one directly and one tasked to run him round) - but summons were kept going and prevented Bassilus attacking physically and sling shots eventually wore through his healing capability.
At the Lighthouse area, they set summons up before activating the sirines and retreating - leaving the summons to absorb the poison arrows. One of the oddities of the SCS sirines is that they don't continue casting their charms once the target retreats out of sight - so once they're out of arrows they're easy meat. Typically I try and avoid them using arrows at all in order to sell them later, but in this run there was no point in that sort of hoarding and the sirines didn't last long.
The golems were tackled individually with summons. Although the horde was limited to 2 spirits at once, the fact that 6 of them were dancing allowed them to keep a pretty continuous stream of replacements going to nibble the golems away and they only had to do a major shift in position during combats on one occasion. That got Grinch exactly the XP needed for level 4 and everyone levelled up again.
After an indifferent first set, subsequent HP rolls have been good and everyone is now above the theoretical average.
While in the mood for golem hunting, the horde went to High Hedge and pulled the golem guards outside into a spirit ambush. That also reminded me there was another group of sirines and a first use of Writhing Fog dealt with those back in Shoal's area (they seemed to have different AI and didn't react to the Fog - that's very common in the unmodded game, though much less so with SCS).
From previous experience I knew trying to kill battle horrors or the Doomsayer with just the basic spirits was difficult and time-consuming. I tried out casting half a dozen entangles on top of the Doomsayer before adding a Writhing Fog, but it wasn't held even momentarily. However, combining Fogs with spirits kept the time required for killing down to a reasonable amount even for the Doomsayer.
The battle horrors had fewer HPs and no cold resistance and died pretty quickly while clearing the exterior at Durlag's.
Inside the Tower the ghasts were mainly dealt with by dragging them between levels into waiting spirits and bullets.
That worked well with the ones on lower floors, but I was aware that trying that with the top floor ones was dangerous in the confined location on the floor below - I went ahead with it anyway rather than using a single character to drag them down 2 floors though . Not surprisingly, problems ensued when 3 ghasts came down one set of stairs and 3 the other and the shamans couldn't deal with the pressure from the lot at once. They tried to run for it, but the pathfinding problems associated with moving in confined spaces meant they got precisely nowhere - and then Grinch got paralyzed. That looked like it was going to be his second death, but the horde performed well in the tight spaces and managed to kill the remaining 4 ghasts without casualties.
I had no defense against the basilisks on the roof, but did decide to take a risk by having a go at Riggilo. He survived an initial assault and used a potion to disappear - prompting the horde to go downstairs. They lured him down by virtue of one of them going up the other set of stairs to trigger him to chase the main group and Chat successfully evaded one backstab by moving at the right time. He got hit by a second, but survived and Riggilo appeared then to be out of invisibility potions.
With not too much XP now needed for another level, the horde descended belowground and risked the traps there. A wraith spider was defeated by summons and Fog on the way to find 3 greater dopplegangers. Their buffs were successfully triggered by summons, meaning the shamans had a pretty easy task of killing them once they had worn off. I belatedly realized after killing the second of those that everyone could take their 5th level.
With such limited elemental protection I decided not to risk exploring further in Durlag's and headed for the Cloud Peaks instead. After running Greywolf round the horde took Samuel back to the FAI - killing Hafiz on the way.
Charms got used a bit more frequently back in the Cloud Peaks, for instance in setting Zal and Vax against each other.
There wasn't a great deal of XP on offer there though, so they turned back and went to the Valley of the Tombs to find something more productive. The Revenant refused to come out of its tomb and they had no means to go invisible to encourage it to do that. Without any protection against its hold attack it seemed too risky to continue the attack on it, so they settled for the ghasts in another tomb. As yet they had no way to kill mustard jellies, so Narcillicus also got left for later.
Comments
Gosh, I hadn't imagined I would be so long in getting up my first post here, but free time, etc., you know...
Anyway, let's begin the saga (hopefully of a decent length!). I'm pleased to introduce Kestrel, a half-elf Bard.
Cloistered within the high walls of Candlekeep, Kestrel had led a sheltered life, picking up skills and knowledge from the unlikeliest of places. Her natural singing voice was noticed by Winthrop, and she easily followed his rough tutelage with the lute, and soon was the sought-after performer for the albeit rare late-night events at the Candlekeep Inn. The shuffling of arthritic feet and croaking choruses of the monks was the only real reward for her efforts, sadly, but she enjoyed taking the stage.
Her only real childhood friend was another half-elf girl, Imoen. Together they played hide'n'seek in the keep grounds (Imoen usually won), teased the Oghmatic monks (Kestrel's tongue was the sharper), and learned basic combat skills from the guards (Imoen's eye with the bow rivaled Fuller's with his crossbow, but she preferred a short blade to the usual guards' long sword; Kestrel was less interested in fighting). Imoen even took an interest in the arcane arts, although it may have had something to do with avoiding washing-up; Kestrel devoted herself to her music lessons.
Their idyllic life was disrupted one evening,shortly after Kestrel's 17th birthday, by the arrival of a foreigner at the Keep, a young, druidic spirit-animal summoner. With the basest knowledge of Common he pointed at himself and rasped "Zyx", presumably implying his name, and proffered a large, crudely leather-bound collection of notes, handwritten in some obscure script, to the Gatewarden, before roughly pronouncing two syllables: "Kez trell?". The Warden, although deeply suspicious of the man's background and the injuries he had clearly recently suffered, had to follow the Keep's code and admit him.
Inside the walls he quickly sought out the girl, and growing agitated, he brokenly explained "Me come---help", gesturing nervously at Kestrel.
"You want... to help me? But I don't need any help," she explained, laughing perplexedly.
He nodded fervently, but she could get no more clarity out of his words. Winthrop offered the stranger a single night's lodging, as was customary to all book-bringers, but when she saw the innkeeper the following morning he said the bed was untouched; a candle had been burning all night in a window of one of the library studies, and Kestrel was left wondering.
But she couldn't ponder for long, because that morning Gorion, her foster-father, tutor, and the wisest and most trusted person of her life, came to her in a state of nervousness she had never seen before. Trembling slightly, and more tight-lipped than a clam, he thrust gold in her hands and instructed her to equip herself from Winthrop's supplies and meet her on the library steps.
Zyx found her in the inn's common room, and, a stranger though he was, his newly calm demeanour and open face led Kestrel to believe his good intentions, whatever they were. With Gorion's money she equipped them both.
Together they did a last sweep of the outer grounds to look for Imoen, and although they failed in that, she felt compelled to help those kind, caring occupants of the Keep with some simple chores. On her way Jondalar offered her a quick spar against his staff, and to her great surprise proceeded to give her a resounding whack on the side of the head!
With the aid of one of Zyx's spirit companions they fought off their new assailant, as well as some mysterious would-be assassins. Her ears still ringing from the blow, Kestrel was able to convince a morose, arm-less knight to take his fiancee as his squire [some quest mod], and was also left perplexed just what the priest of Oghma had been up to before she entered the healers' house.
At last she was ready to leave. All three stumbling out into the twilight, Gorion hastily imparted advice for the possibility they be separated---impossible, she thought. But her trust in his solidity and permanence in her life was to be dispelled. In the night, they were ambushed, and Gorion fought and fell bravely as Kestrel and Zyx ran for their lives from a terrifying, looming figure in twisted armour and whose voice injected dread into her soul. The horror of the night was only deepened by the dread-knight's words: "Hand over your ward."
It was Kestrel the villain had sought, and Gorion gave his life to save hers.
As daylight crept over the pallid landscape, Zyx hugged her by the shoulder wordlessly. They began to move forward, but realised some minutes later they were being followed, albeit by someone versed in stealth. The druid readied his club and Kestrel nocked an arrow, and they turned as one, to discover the last person she'd expected: Imoen!
Her warm jokes and stalwart friendship reaffirmed Kestrel's desire to live. Over Gorion's newly dug grave she swore with her two friends to avenge his death, but moreover, to make a pact to keep each other safe from harm.
Somehow they made their way back to Candlekeep, but those solid stony walls which had once been so comforting now represented the impassable barrier to her old life, and the Gatewarden, for all his kindness, was bound by his code not to allow them entrance. Perhaps there was some deeper meaning to this ban. Nevertheless out of his deep kindness he gave them willingly what aid he could, in the form of 100 gold coins: the equivalent of many lifetime's-worth of savings, and a priceless gift to the travelers at their wits' end.
Suddenly Imoen piped up. "I know where we could go! Let's go n' see Gorion's friend in the High Hedge, that ol' crusty mage, what's his name? Lanthyr? Thantyr? Maybe he can help us!"
Kestrel, remembering her foster-father's words, knew that they would find help at the Friendly Arm Inn, but High Hedge was close, and the wizard was rumoured to have a wealth of magic items in his keep. Maybe he could spare some help; he had been kindly enough to Imoen that occasion she had visited at Gorion's side. On their way Imoen's sharp eyes picked out a gleam from a lucky sunbeam leaking through some tree boughs. Perhaps they could pawn this gem for more aid.
Narrowly avoiding their first accident at the claws of a pair of cave bears, they broke the breast of a hill to see the haughty, intimidating tower still a few miles away. They immediately realised they had stumbled into the place of contemplation of a forest elf.
When it became clear he was a hunter of bandits and other wrong-doers, the travellers were only too happy for him to join them, and he soon proved his worth to their team as he lodged arrows in the skulls of several animated skeletons that attacked them soon after.
The group stumbled deep into the valley and continued through the dense thickets in what they thought was the right direction, no longer having a view of the tower. The dusk deepened. Eventually Imoen exclaimed:
"I've just about had enough of this: I've already got two scars on my face from my accident with Hull, I don't wanna get any more from these darn branches!"
To their great surprise a voice answered out of the night!
"Help! *cluck* Save me!"
They whirled around to its direction and found a snarling wolf bearing down on them rapidly. After the party barely managed to fend it off, the owner of the voice presented itself.
One lengthy conversation and several puns later---
Kivan took over guiding the group, and brought them at last to High Hedge. Sadly for the poor rooster the poultry magics of the wizard Thalantyr failed to beak the fowl curse [sorry!], and the Antichickenator spell lived up to its name.
Thalantyr was able to offer them help, as they predicted, but the man's heart was too cold and his mind too closed; the aid had a price in gold. Still, he did make one recommendation of a magical scroll to Kestrel. Still young and lacking the experience to learn and cast her own spells, she was nonetheless able to read the conjuration; the few lessons she had picked up from listening into Imoen practising paid off.
They also picked up a couple more scrolls, of Sleep and Blindness, to aid them in the fights to come. Both girls were able to copy Sleep into their books, and Imoen prepared it for the following day. Gorion's advice lingering in her ear, Kestrel took the party back north, and they camped near the Candlekeep Coastway.
Kestrel was awoken in the hour before sunrise by Kivan, who whispered to her that he could hear low voices on the wind. They quietly broke camp and proceeded, finding an unusual pair of travelers loitering on a corner of the road. They hastily stopped their muttering when the party announced their presence. The group agreed to let the strangers join, since they had witnessed grave dangers in the last days and there was a safety in numbers. Still, Imoen confided in Kestrel's ear:
"These two look like scoundrels if ever I saw some! We oughta be careful with 'em at our sides. Especially the short one. The tall one seems delusional, but the halfling looks like he actually enjoys the killing he obviously knows well."
They were kind enough to provide some potions in aid, although the crazed-looking human made it clear he held the party in his debt for the act.
The party proceeded north-east, in the direction that Kivan claimed the Friendly Arm Inn lay. A mysterious stranger dressed in red robes and hat offered equally mysterious guidance, although his mischievous eyes revealed a sly cunning, and his knowledge of the girls' identities belied more than he let on. Further along the way, Imoen's sharp eyes spied another trinket, but while she was distracted winkling it out from the rocky crack that had hosted it, the party was ambushed by a pair of dread Worgs. Kestrel raised her companions' morale with her bright and melodious voice, whilst Zyx summoned his Spirit Wolf to defend against the horrid Wolf-kin, then set about ensnaring the beasts in Entangling roots and branches. As the party was further distracted, they were horrified to hear a horde of screeching, yelling creatures descend on them from their flank, and only through Kivan and Zyx stepping forward to defend the weaker members were all the enemies eventually dispatched. The battle for the Ring of the Rock was won.
The team proceeded to the Friendly Arm with little further disruption (although they hot-tailed it away from a bandit ambush!), and upon entering the mighty building's grounds, they were invited into a little house by a brusque lady. She charged them with finding her Flamedance Ring somewhere outside the Inn. Excited by the idea of their quest, they took a widdershins path around the Inn walls, where Imoen's eyes brought fortune for a third time: another mysterious Ring.
They brought the Ring back to the lady, but she simply shook her head: "No, that's not it." Imoen couldn't believe their luck. She had given the first Ring to Kestrel, as she had a feeling it would keep her safe, so Kestrel insisted that this new Ring go to Imoen; to her great surprise she realised it meant she could cast more spells. "Look who's laughin' now, huh?", she chortled cheekily.
They decided to pause their questing for the time being, as Kestrel felt she really ought to find the two friends of Gorion. As they passed through the Inn's grounds, a passerby halted Kestrel.
Something very odd was definitely afoot. Montaron begrudgingly agreed to snoop ahead, and reported that an impatient and haughty-looking man seemed to be waiting for someone on the steps. Kestrel's hunch paid off when she got Monty to sneak up behind the stranger, since as soon as the rest of the party turned the corner to face him, he singled her out and proceeded to launch an attack.
Montaron's poisoned dagger made short work of him, and Imoen reeled into Kestrel in shock as the halfling twisted the dagger in his neck.
"Yea, I gots somethin' for ye too, mage."
Kivan looked as if there was something he wished to say. Zyx remained his ever-silent self, and simply shook his head. The only undisturbed demeanour was Xzar, who laughed:
"Good catch, Montaron! Oh, but you do make life interesting."
The team passed into the (relative) safety of the Friendly Arm, and over a round of frothy mugs breathed a sigh of relief: it felt good to sit by a roaring fire, even on a splintery bench surrounded by strangers. Kestrel smiled at her companions. Maybe things might turn out OK, after all...
Party summary:
Zyx (Human Totemic Druid 2) Club & Darts / Spells: Entangle, Spirit Animal, CLW
Imoen (Half-elf F/M/T 1/1/1) Longbow & Shortsword / Spells: Sleep
Kivan (Elf Archer 2) Shortbow & 2H Sword / Abilities: Charm Animal
Montaron (Halfling Assassin 3) Shortsword & Throwing Dagger / Abilities: Poison Weapon, Thieving
Xzar (Human Necromancer 2) Throwing Dagger / Spells: Larloch's Minor Drain
Probably a little contentious is my re-writing of some of the characters. Well....that's just the game I want to play. I could have made an entirely multiplayer party to achieve the same goal. But then, no banters. And we all know it's all about the epic bants. Anyway, all stats were legitimately rolled (and I normally go a lot more power-gamey, so I'm pleased at my min-maxing restraint, except with Imoen, whose heritage to me means she ought to be pretty god-like).
Notable mods:
Easy Tutu (yes, I play non EE, so sue me)
ToBEx (minor gameplay tweaks/improvements)
Baldur's Gate Quests and Encounters
BG1 NPC Project
1PP
Divine Remix (basically everything except the sphere system, i.e., lots of kits)
Sword and Fist (kits which I haven't actually used...)
Rogue Rebalancing (in particular Bard spell progression and Thief kit revisions)
SCS (essentially all tactical encounters/upgrades, except casters only prebuff when created in my sight; reduced Inquisitor dispel to 1.5 x level)
BG2 Tweaks (notably True Grandmastery [no effect till SoA], added Bags of Holding, Gems/Potions need identification, NWN-style HP on level-up, Max HP for all other creatures)
IWDification (only for the IWD Bardsong)
ATweaks (lots of improved Undead/Demons/Mephits/Fey/Elementals, also Revised Bhaalpowers)
Wizard Slayer Revisions
Level 1 NPCs (to edit the NPCs how I like 'em)
TB#Tweaks (Everybody gets APR from proficiency, only warriors from level)
TutuGUI (Stone is nicer than...dunno what that stuff is in BG2!)
"he [Irenicus] uses a Chain Contingency to trigger most of his defenses, despite my insane difficulty setting. I would have expected even short buffs to trigger as "cast previously". "
That's intentional. In-story, Irenicus is surprised, so he doesn't have a chance to buff. (It's controlled by stratagems/mage/override/bg2/boolean.2da if you want to tweak it yourself - just delete the 'ppireni2 DoNotPrebuff' line.)
Thank you also for SCS, and for updating and fine-tuning it. You're making a lot of people happy with it
BTW did you also see the Spell Turning triggering and expiring a split second later (at least according to the action log)? Could it be something isn't working there?
Frisky Bits the Fighter/Mage/Cleric
In my version of Ascension, Melissan will deliver the mortality dialogue after the Five are all dead, then she'll heal herself, and either gate in a ton of demons or cast Time Stop.
Ascension's final boss fight is just a crapshoot that works correctly maybe half the time. One time in my install, she faced the throne's energy pillar and complained about how she needed more power and just waved her arm around, doing nothing. In my run with the Rejects, she even cloned herself and brought back Sarevok for the fourth time: a behavior that I've never seen before, ever.
A Tale of Two Sorcerers
BG1: 1, 2, 3, 4SoD's intro dungeon is cleared the pacifist way with invisibility. The sorcerers have to be quick on their feet as I had foregone the use of PfU, so Bone Bats could alert their undead buddies. Korlasz is made to surrender by using the Ring of Energy from Yin and a Wand of Shadowblast from Yang. It would've been smarter to have them swap roles since non-Shadow-Weave-users take 1d10 magical damage from attempting to use a Shadow Weave wand.
The dwarven digsite is cleared by liberal use of Wands of Fire and PfU scrolls. The Coldhearth lich strangely did not fire it's usual prebuffs and instead just opted to use Stoneskin twice as it awaited death, so The Secret Revealed turned out to be unnecessary. The fight at the Coast Way bridge is won by a Night Terrors + Dread Silence minor sequencer, followed by Greater Malison, Shadow Binding, and wands of fire.
A group of trolls at the Troll Claw Woods were nice enough to donate their XP to level up the sorcerers to 12, earning their first 6th level spells. The sorcerers must travel at night or Yin's Night Terrors spell will be reduced to an improved Horror.
-Shatter Weave: Secret Word. Deals 10d4 magical damage to mages and bards. For two rounds: target's MR is set to 0% and it suffers 50% spell failure.
-Contingency: All Shadow Weave users learn Contingency automatically when they learn to cast 6th level spells.
To add further insult to injury, the dragon is transformed into a squirrel with Polymorph Other from Yang, then blown up with wands of fire.
The cultists in the temple of Cyric are dealt with by Night Terrors, as usual. Ziatar's mages put up a good fight and remind me not to get too comfortable with the strength of shadow magic. Ziatar herself is blinded and so rendered harmless. The Neothelid's initial few rounds are handled by 2 wraiths and a devil shade. Night Terrors removes the threat of its Mordy Swords and the devil shade gets the last hit on it.
Darskhelin's group is paralyzed by a Web+Grease minor sequencer that Yang has been saving for a while. Night Terrors, Greater Malison, and Shadow Binding take care of the rest and also the archer who happens to save against both Web and Grease.
I think about taking on the Shadow Aspect. If I can kill or dispel its Mislead clone, it's an easy win, right? Couldn't be more wrong. It spams Mislead and will eventually summon Shadowed Souls if you take too long to kill it. The aspect itself is no danger to Yin as long as Shadeskin and Dark Mirage hold up, but the Shadowed Souls have me concerned with their irritating life drain spell. Expunge Magic works, but only briefly, as the Aspect just uses another Mislead. Greater Malison and Shadow Binding eventually paralyze it by targeting Shadow Binding close by the real Aspect.
We kill the rogue Shadowed Soul and then kill the Aspect's mislead clone. Yang successfully transforms the Aspect into a squirrel and then stabs it.
The Greater Feyr is killed for 13k XP and the spellstone scroll is retrieved with good reaction timing to take it before Vichand can interrupt with dialogue. Yin dispels the spellstone and consumes the dark energy inside it for bonus HP.
I decide to do the siege of Bridgefort since I don't want these guys showing up at the fight at Dragonspear. Night Terrors eliminates the grunts, but the mages are more troublesome since Expunge Magic, like Dispel/Remove Magic will not take down Minor Globes. Spell Thrust and Detect Invisibility is needed several times before the mages can finally be taken out. Shatter Magic is only mildly helpful since it can't directly target improved invisible enemies. Summoned wraiths and devil shades aren't as helpful as usual since there's so many enemies to fight.
More shades are summoned against the mage at the bridge. Expunge Magic and physical attacks put an end to her and her fire elemental.
SoD's sidequest hell is halfway completed when we enter the cave with the blind albino wyrmlings. I buffed with the Greenstone Amulet to prevent their unresistable tail constriction ability, but they are vulnerable to Night Terrors. The Spectacles reveal someone else in the cave.
The Shadow Chimera is killed with Sigil of Misfortune + Polymorph Other. Our new friend Kaladan Za'al offers Yin his cloak and a wand of Shadow Binding, and we'll also get his help in the siege of Dragonspear!
This cloak is fantastic. Now I don't have to worry about the day/night cycle for the rest of SoD! If I was playing EET, I know I'd keep this til the end of the playthrough. Anyway, the reward for killing Strunk and some nearby crusader patrols gives the sorcerers level 13.
-Fireshield (Shadow) (lv.4): Blue Fireshield that does half magic damage and half cold. Striking the shield causes a cumulative -1 THAC0 penalty for 6 rounds.
-Unmask (lv.5): Oracle, but dispels all illusions as True Sight.
-Protection from Weave-forged Weapons (lv.6): As PfMW. Will be abbreviated as PfWfW.
Yin - Shadow Disciple 13
Yang - Dragon Disciple 13
Any reflections on the run, and on the F/M/C? Maybe I missed the earlier post, but why did you choose Bioware NPCs this time? Was it that your Bhaalspawn was so OP that they could carry the team's lack of powergaming optimisation?
Traveling with: Minsc, Keldorn, Jaheira, Imoen, Anomen
So the party worked on clearing the 2nd level of Spellhold. I tried a new strategy - have Minsc go berserk against the nearby Yuan-tis - this did not work well, and Minsc only survived because Anomen used RoR heal on Minsc twice. Won't try that again.
We then beat up on some trolls. Time for the trapped paintings. Keldorn tripped them after being protected by death ward and protection from fire.
Time to use these paintings to open doors and deal with some enemies. The first enemy, an illithid proved pretty dangerous - it ignored the skeleton warriors and instead decided sucking out Keldorn's brains was more fun. Anomen used his RoR to bring back Keldy once again. After being brought back to life, and being redirected to the party, Keldorn remarked, "I am ready to serve my friend, including giving my life if need be.". Was amusing since he just got finished doing that.
Fortunately the rest of the level was much smoother. Against the minotaurs, Imoen's AI thought fireballing the party and the minotaurs was a good idea. Coremage disagreed with her logic.
Finally it was time to deal with Bodhi. Coremage stole the Amulet of Power from Keldorn, and faced her - he did fine. Some nearby Minotaurs were easily mopped up. After using the horns to make it to the next level, Coremage made level 10. He decided to memorize spell immunity (so he can protect himself from Lonk's horrid wilting).
One last order of business on this level, finish off the gauth and a few more minotaurs. Keldorn did the honors with the help of daystar and shield of balduran.
We also made it past the kobolds, spore colony and successfully did the riddles of the undead spectres. We had a last batch of trolls to dispatch and the overseer said we were free to go. We saved our session here.
BG1: 1, 2, 3, 4
SoD: 1
The rest of the Underground River area is cleared, although Night Terrors proves to ineffective against Dark Treants, Shambling Mounds, and (hama)dryads. The sorcerers buff up to fight Kherriun and use two fireballs from wands of fire to break the ghost jar. The blasts kill two of the necromancer's lackeys. Wraiths, a Devil Shade, and Halatathlaer kill Kherriun and the rest of the necromancers. Zhadroth is freed and has the Secret Revealed used against him. I was surprised when he managed to successfully cast a single-target spell on Yin, though whatever it was, he saved against it. It seems that the Secret Revealed merely causes Miscast Magic (80% spell failure), not 100% failure. Armed with Zhadroth's sequencer robe, both sorcerers take turns using it to prepare for the siege of Dragonspear. Yin loads Sigil of Misfortune+Night Terrors+Dread Silence into it, while Yang loads Greater Malison+Web+Grease. Yin and Yang enter the basement of Dragonspear while invisible. On the way to free Daeros, the food is poisoned but I forget to poison the water on the way out since it spawns a water mephit. The sorcerers have to withstand a few rounds of close-quarters combat to be let out of the basement until Hephernaan finally notices them.
Back at the Coalition Camp, our new friend Kaladan Za'al turns the Shadow Gem we found in the albino wyrmling lair into a Shadow Phylactery amulet. It's a nice amulet, but I prefer to wear the Shadovar Amulet that Kryn Darkflame gave me for a +2 casting speed bonus. Yin can save against casting shadow magic of levels 1-3 without fear anyway. Time for the Coalition Camp siege. Yin uses his Spell Sequencer, but given how it killed everyone except Yarok, just casting Night Terrors by itself would've been more efficient. The fight against the mages is a bit dicey since anti-magic spells are flung everywhere. Expunge Magic removes most of the mages' buffs but they're quick to reapply them. All but one of the mages are immune to the Death Spell part of Night Terrors. Since it's daytime, I don't want to summon my shades to help since they'll be weakened. Spamming wands of fire after their buffs are mostly destroyed sees them off. One casting of Night Terrors eliminates all but three of the crusader fighters and priests. One of the priests who was panicked wanders into view of Andrus, triggering the battle with the named goons almost immediately. This hasn't happened to me before. When I see them charging down the path, I have Yang release his Spell Sequencer. It's very effective at rooting them to the spot. Yin adds in Dread Silence, preventing the opposition from casting any spells to counter. Sigil of Misfortune debuffs them further, absolutely preventing them from getting any closer to Andrus and the barrels. Ranged attacks and wands of fire kill off the named baddies. The siege is successful, so the sorcerers spend 16 hours refilling their Spell Sequencers with the robe. Time for the siege of Dragonspear. Expunge Magic kills off any buffs the main force has and then they get caught with a Sequencer of Greater Malison+Web+Grease. A fireball launched by some crusader mage is nullified by Protection from Fire. A Sequencer of Sigil of Misfortune+Night Terrors+Dread Silence kills off the footsoldier grunts and debuffs the survivors. A Breaching Dark or two is needed for the rest of the mages, then we start moving up the path closest to the castle when Ashatiel finally challenges Yin to a fight. He accepts. Shatter Weave destroys her Minor Globe and disrupts her spellcasting for two rounds. Sigil of Misfortune and a scorcher charge from the wand of fire are used to wear down her HP. She tries Mirror Image but Yin reacts with Unmask. Stoneskin and Minor Spell Turning are destroyed by Breaching Dark and another Shatter Weave. Out of options, Ashatiel resorts to Sanctuary to spam heals upon herself, but the wand of fire outdamages her heals. I would like to add that while Kaladan Za'al appeared at the siege, he did absolutely nothing and simply stood outside the walls of Dragonspear the whole time. Down to Hell. Night Terrors reaps the souls of the devils for a delicious XP feast. I provoke Thrix to make him provide more easy XP and win. The sorcerers rest at the base of the elevator and buff with long-term spells and potions. Shades are summoned on the ride upward to conserve spells. Once the final save triggers, they begin using short-term buff spells and potions. Caelar joins us against Belhifet and soaks up his initial Remove Magic. With his aura now clouded, the sorcerers have a round to debuff Belhifet. Shatter Magic negates his 100% MR, so Yang uses a Greater Malison+Remove Fear+Blindness Sequencer. We can't risk Caelar getting caught in a Web or Grease. The next round, Yin releases his Sequencer of Sigil of Misfortune+Night Terrors+Dread Silence. It kills off Belhifet's devils and debuffs the devil himself. Yang starts using a scroll of Greater Restoration on Caelar. Big B goes improved invisible the next round since he's immune to being silenced. Yang then tries Detect Invisibility but Belhifet's MR somehow deflects it. I don't think it's supposed to be affected by MR. Yin can't use Shatter Magic again until Belhifet is visible, so he tries Shadow Binding targeted on Caelar. The AoE is not big enough to hit Belhifet. Yang uses another Greater Restoration scroll on her. Yin reaches into his pack and pulls out the Wand of Shadow Binding, then points it at Belhifet. GG EZ, Belhifet. The sorcerers have earned level 14 from this fight and gain their first 7th level spells, learning Possess + Spell Sequencer, and Project Image.
-Spell Sequencer: Shadow Weave users automatically learn Spell Sequencer once they can cast 7th level spells.
Yin - Shadow Disciple 14
Yang - Dragon Disciple 14
Turns out that it's not much different from the other runs I've done. Both the basic principles and the technical strategy behind no-reload gameplay are the same whether or not you resort to exploits. Exploits make certain parts of the game easier, but unless you're using many different types of them, or you're using one of the more versatile exploits like the Shadowdancer trick or the Wand of Lightning trick, you still need to know how to handle ordinary gameplay so you can survive the encounters where a certain exploit won't help you.
My only reflection on the FMC is that it's really, really, really good for no-reload runs. With all of its defensive options, it's one of the harder-to-kill classes in the game, and there's not really any time or any situation where the FMC really struggles. It's up there with Cleric/Illusionists, Berserkers, Berserker/Mages, Shadowdancers, Shadowdancer/Mages, Fighter/Illusionists, Illusionist/Thieves, Barbarians, and Dwarven Defenders as the safest and sturdiest character builds. It's notable that I frequently put my FMC out at the front of the party, where normally my Charnames sit at the back where it's safe.
Otherwise, the main thing I learned is that there's really no reason not to cram a bunch of fighters into your party in ToB. Mages are nice, but mage HLAs don't actually scale that well, and Ascension bosses can easily survive a planetar. I think the ideal party for ToB, at least with SCS and Ascension, might have only one single- or dual-classed mage, one character with 9 cleric levels to cast Chaotic Commands, Death Ward, and Remove Fear, and the rest of the team would consist of fighter types.
Part 1: Baldur's Gate
Since no-reload gameplay is very dependent on items, I decided to try my hand at beating the game without them. But this is not a standard poverty run: instead of all items being forbidden unless they're player-created, only magical items will be forbidden, including player-created ones. This means that we can use nonmagical weapons and armor, and we can use mage scrolls to add spells to mage spellbooks (though we still can't cast from scrolls in combat), but we can't use summoned weapons or items.
As I mentioned before, I lost a previous attempt to Davaeorn when he instantly killed my main character with a Lightning Bolt. In that run, I relied heavily on the Reform Party trick to spam Spirit Animals and Special Snares from my Totemic Druid and Bounty Hunter, but in this run, I plan on working without glitches, mostly because the Reform Party trick is kind of cumbersome to use very frequently. This is my intended party:
Fighter/Illusionist (Charname)
Fighter/Illusionist
Cleric of Helm
Sorcerer
Skald
Archer
The Fighter/Illusionists are there for pure muscle, and the Sorcerer is there so we'll be able to use Wish-resting in ToB. What about the others?
Normally, I don't like single-classed clerics much, and since we can't use Seeking Sword due to our item restrictions, a Cleric of Helm doesn't sound like an ideal choice. But those True Seeing spells will be very important, because we don't have room for a thief who can use Detect Illusions or an Inquisitor to cast True Seeing instead. We'll want a single-classed cleric because we need Chaotic Commands to deal with Belhifet in SoD, and high-level healing spells could be very important in ToB, since we don't have the option of relying on potions.
What about the Skald? I picked the Skald kit for the damage bonuses, but the reason I have a bard at all is because I have the Better Enchanted Weapon mod, which lets Enchanted Weapon scale with level... but it only hits a +3 enchantment, which I need to hit Belhifet, at level 12, and only bards can reach level 12 in SoD unless I ignore the XP cap (I removed the cap, but I prefer to avoid leveling up beyond it until I make it to the next game). Without a bard, we can't even touch Belhifet... unless we rely on Melf's Acid Arrow, and based on my experience from my poverty run, I'm not sure we'll have enough castings to make sure we can take him down.
Why do I have the Better Enchanted Weapon mod in the first place? Well, that's where the Archer comes in. I'm going to need STR drain kills to deal with certain enemies in ToB like the Ravager, and only an Archer can give me that. But my Archer won't be able to touch either the Ravager or Melissan unless I have the Better Enchanted Weapon mod installed and have at least a level 16 Enchanted Weapon spell so her arrows can strike as +4 or better.
Why not pick a Totemic Druid or Shapeshifter instead of a cleric so I could have a stronger tank build with the Earth Elemental form in ToB? Why not add a Fighter/Mage/Cleric so I could use Harm, PFMW, and Critical Strike to land easier kills on the Ravager and such? Well, I'm extending the ban on magical items to shapeshifting critters and spells like Harm. They're not supposed to be "items," but that's how they're coded, so I'll go with this party and these restrictions.
Basically, I had to design the party to tackle a handful of bottlenecks that could otherwise cut a run like this short:
1. Davaeorn (we need lots of invisibility spells, plus Spell Thrust and Melf's Acid Arrow)
2. Sarevok (we need lots of Fireballs)
3. Belhifet (we need a level 12 Enchanted Weapon spell or LOTS of Melf's Acid Arrows plus Lower Resistance)
4. The Ravager (we need Harm+Critical Strike or a level 16 Enchanted Weapon and Called Shot STR drain)
5. Melissan (we need Wish rests so we don't run out of PFMW and such)
What about Potions of Genius? How are we going to scribe scrolls reliably? As it happens, I installed a tweak that removes scribing failure, so we only need Intelligence to increase the number of spells we can have in a spellbook at the same time.
To deal with early BG1 enemies, we'll want to get Baeloth, who will also prove instrumental in providing Melf's Acid Arrows and Fireballs for Davaeorn and Sarevok. Since our Archer isn't needed until SoD, we can park her in Beregost until we're ready for Sarevok, so Baeloth will be with us for most of BG1.
Baeloth does have an undroppable ring which is a magic item, but since the only real effects of the ring are negative (a -5 to hit and damage or something against genies), I'm tolerating it, which I wouldn't do for a beneficial item like Edwin's amulet. The ring says it gives Baeloth his extra spell picks, but that's not actually one of the ring's effects--he gets his extra spell picks from his .cre file.
We kick everyone out of the party and have our Charname, Frisky Bits (yes, I named another character Frisky Bits), cast Protection from Petrification and shoot down some basilisks until they're at 10,000 XP. But before we go get Baeloth, I retrieve the party and decide to tackle Mutamin with Korax's help. Mutamin knocks out our cleric with Sleep, but she's protected by Sanctuary and Mutamin fails a save against Korax's paralysis attack. We don't need to worry about losing party members early on, as long as they're not petrified. Since this isn't a poverty run, we can still use gold to raise party members, and selling off every magical item we find will mean we'll always have more than enough gold for everything we can buy.
Anyway, here's our party once we got Baeloth:
Aside from our cleric and sorcerers, everyone in our party will always be using morningstars and longbows, because morningstars are crushing weapons and have the best base damage of any one-handed weapon besides katanas (which are rare in BG), at 2d4, or 5 on average.
Plus, the damage bonus from Chant is a luck bonus, so it applies to both d4 dice on morningstars, making it the superior weapon to a katana when Chant is active. Without magic items, we have to make all the optimizations we can.
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #60 // Weapon Animation Tweaks: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #110 // Icon Improvements: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Force All Dialogue to Pause Game: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #140 // Fix Boo's Squeak: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #160 // Make Magic Shields Glow (plainab/grogerson): v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #182 // Unique Containers -> Unique icons and names: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #190 // Use Character Colors Instead of Item Colors -> For all shields and helmets: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #200 // Remove Blur Effect from Items, e.g. Cloack of Displacement: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1010 // More Interjections: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1036 // Make Cloakwood Areas Available Before Completing the Bandit Camp -> All of Cloakwood Except the Mines: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Improved Multi-Player Kick-out Dialogues: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1075 // Send BioWare NPCs to an Inn (DavidW/Zed Nocear): v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1080 // Add Bags of Holding: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1090 // Exotic Item Pack: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1100 // Reveal City Maps When Entering Area: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1120 // Stores Sell Higher Stacks of Items: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1251 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Alora to Gullykin: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1252 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Eldoth to the Coast Way: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1253 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Quayle to the Nashkel Carnival: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1254 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Shar-Teel to North Nashkel Road: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1255 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Tiax to Beregost: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1256 // Move NPCs to Convenient Locations: Move Viconia to South Beregost Road: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Change Experience Point Cap -> Remove Experience Cap: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Wear Multiple Protection Items -> P&P Restrictions: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // Cast Spells from Scrolls (and Other Items) at Character Level: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2410 // Druids Use 3E Alignment Restrictions: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3030 // Easy Spell Learning -> 100% Learn Spells: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3050 // Remove fatigue from restoration spells: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited Ammo Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3090 // Increase Gem and Jewelry Stacking -> Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited Potion Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited Scroll Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3121 // Happy Patch (Party NPCs do not complain about reputation) -> NPCs Can Be Angry About Reputation but Never Leave (Salk): v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3125 // Neutral Characters Make Happy Comments at Mid-Range Reputation: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3191 // Disable Non-Hostile Rest Spawns: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3310 // Start New Games with Party AI Turned Off: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3320 // No Depreciation in Stores: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3330 // Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4025 // Allow NPC pairs to separate: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4050 // Change Jaheira to Neutral Good: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4170 // Ensure Shar-Teel doesn't die in the original challenge: v8
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1910 // Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2020 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2030 // Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2110 // Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at 1.5 x their level (not twice their level): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3030 // Re-introduce potions of extra-healing: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4000 // Faster Bears: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4010 // Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4020 // More realistic wolves and wild dogs: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5020 // Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6102 // Potions for NPCs -> Half the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6300 // Smarter sirines and dryads: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6310 // Slightly harder carrion crawlers: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6320 // Smarter basilisks: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7000 // Improved doppelgangers: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7010 // Tougher Black Talons and Iron Throne guards: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7020 // Improved deployment for parties of assassins: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7030 // Dark Side-based kobold upgrade: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7040 // Relocated bounty hunters: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7050 // Improved Ulcaster: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7060 // Improved Balduran's Isle: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7070 // Improved Durlag's Tower: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7080 // Improved Demon Cultists: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7090 // Improved Cloakwood Druids: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7100 // Improved Bassilus: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7110 // Improved Drasus party: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7130 // Improved Red Wizards: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7140 // Improved Undercity party: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7200 // Tougher chapter-two end battle: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7210 // Tougher chapter-three end battle: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7220 // Tougher chapter-four end battle: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7230 // Tougher chapter-five end battle: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7250 // Improved final battle: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #7900 // Improved minor encounters: v31
~BETTERENCHANTEDWEAPON/BETTERENCHANTEDWEAPON.TP2~ #0 #0 // Better Enchanted Weapon: 1.0
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #0 // Ascension: 1.7.2
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #103 // Restored Bhaalspawn Powers by David Gaider: 1.7.2
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #1 // Tougher Abazigal: 1.7.2
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #2 // Tougher Demogorgon ( Original Bioware Design ): 1.7.2
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #3 // Tougher Gromnir: 1.7.2
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #4 // Tougher Illasera: 1.7.2
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #5 // Tougher Yaga-Shura: 1.7.2
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #104 // Extended Epilogues for original Bioware NPCs by shawne: 1.7.2
~ASCENSION/ASCENSION.TP2~ #0 #105 // Extended Epilogues for additional Beamdog NPCs by shawne: 1.7.2
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #20 // Change Imoen's Avatar to Mage: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #60 // Weapon Animation Tweaks: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #110 // Icon Improvements: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #130 // Force All Dialogue to Pause Game: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #140 // Fix Boo's Squeak: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #160 // Make Magic Shields Glow (plainab/grogerson): v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #170 // Unique Icons: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #182 // Unique Containers -> Unique icons and names: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1010 // More Interjections: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1020 // Alter HP Triggers for NPC Wounded Dialogues: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1030 // Reveal Wilderness Areas Before Chapter Six: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1070 // Improved Multi-Player Kick-out Dialogues: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1080 // Add Bags of Holding: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1120 // Stores Sell Higher Stacks of Items: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1220 // Allow Cromwell to Upgrade Watcher's Keep Items: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1230 // Allow Cespenar to Use Cromwell Recipes: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Change Experience Point Cap -> Remove Experience Cap: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Expanded Dual-Class Options: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Wear Multiple Protection Items -> P&P Restrictions: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // Cast Spells from Scrolls (and Other Items) at Character Level: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2410 // Druids Use 3E Alignment Restrictions: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3030 // Easy Spell Learning -> 100% Learn Spells: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3040 // Make Bags of Holding Bottomless: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3050 // Remove fatigue from restoration spells: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3080 // Increase Ammo Stack Size -> Unlimited Ammo Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3090 // Increase Gem and Jewelry Stacking -> Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3100 // Increase Potion Stacking -> Unlimited Potion Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Increase Scroll Stacking -> Unlimited Scroll Stacking: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3121 // Happy Patch (Party NPCs do not complain about reputation) -> NPCs Can Be Angry About Reputation but Never Leave (Salk): v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3125 // Neutral Characters Make Happy Comments at Mid-Range Reputation: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3191 // Disable Non-Hostile Rest Spawns: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3310 // Start New Games with Party AI Turned Off: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3320 // No Depreciation in Stores: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3330 // Make party members less likely to die irreversibly: v8
~CDTWEAKS/SETUP-CDTWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #4050 // Change Jaheira to Neutral Good: v8
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1000 // Initialise mod (all other components require this): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #1910 // Protection from Normal Missiles also blocks Arrows of Fire/Cold/Acid and similar projectiles without pluses: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2000 // Allow Spellstrike to take down a Protection from Magic scroll: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2010 // More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2020 // Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2030 // Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2050 // Allow individual versions of Spell Immunity to be placed into Contingencies and Spell Triggers: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2070 // Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades only affect hostile creatures: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2080 // Cap damage done by Skull Trap at 12d6: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2090 // Make Power-Word: Blind single-target: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2100 // Make Minute Meteors into +2 weapons: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2110 // Reduce the power of Inquisitors' Dispel Magic -> Inquisitors dispel at 1.5 x their level (not twice their level): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2120 // Slightly weaken insect plague spells, and let fire shields block them: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2140 // Slightly increase the power of Mantle, Improved Mantle, and Absolute Immunity: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2150 // Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2160 // Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2170 // True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #2180 // Prevent Simulacra and Projected Images from using magical items: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #3110 // Change Carsomyr so that its Dispel on contact power grants a saving throw: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4010 // Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4030 // Improved shapeshifting: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4180 // Make Freedom scrolls available earlier: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4215 // Remove unrealistically helpful items from certain areas: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #4216 // Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from certain areas -> Only remove nonmagical ammo from random containers: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5020 // Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5030 // Remove animation from the Cloak of Mirroring (leave it for other spells and effects that use the same graphic): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #5900 // Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6000 // Smarter general AI: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6010 // Better calls for help: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6024 // Add high-level abilities (HLAs) to spellcasters -> All eligible spellcasters in Throne of Bhaal and Shadows of Amn get HLAs (very challenging and not really recommended!): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6030 // Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6040 // Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6102 // Potions for NPCs -> Half the potions dropped by slain enemies break and are lost: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6200 // Improved Spiders: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6500 // Improved golems: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6510 // Improved fiends -> Fiends have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6520 // Smarter genies -> Genies have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6530 // Smarter celestials -> Celestials have about 50 percent more hit points than normal: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6540 // Smarter dragons -> Dragons have a substantial hit point increase: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6551 // Smarter beholders -> Don't give beholder rays any chance of burning through spell protections; beholder antimagic blocks all spells, including harmful ones, for a round (simulates D&D rules): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6561 // Smarter mind flayers -> Illithids have enhanced damage resistance; Illithids can see through invisibility (matches Tactics mod): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6570 // Smarter githyanki: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6580 // Improved Vampires: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6590 // Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6800 // Smarter Illasera: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6810 // Smarter Gromnir: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6820 // Smarter Yaga-Shura: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6830 // Smarter Abazigal: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6840 // Give Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai SCS scripts and abilities: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #6850 // Give Ascension demons SCS scripts and abilities: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8000 // Make the starting dungeon slightly harder: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8010 // Improved Shade Lord: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8020 // Spellcasting Demiliches: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8041 // Increase difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings -> Significantly increased difficulty: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8050 // Improved Random Encounters: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8060 // Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Spirit trolls have the same powers as in the original game: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8070 // Improved Unseeing Eye: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8081 // Improved Bodhi (Tactics Remix) -> Original Tactics Improved Bodhi with SCSII scripting: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8100 // Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8110 // Improved Sahuagin: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8120 // Improved Beholder hive (adapted from Quest Pack): v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8130 // Prevent resting in the Illithid city: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8140 // Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8150 // Slightly Improved Watcher's Keep: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8160 // Improved Fire Giant temple: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8170 // Enhanced Sendai's Enclave: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8180 // Improved Abazigal's Lair: v31
~STRATAGEMS/SETUP-STRATAGEMS.TP2~ #0 #8190 // Improved Minor Encounters: v31
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #101 // Prevent skeletal and incorporeal undead from being affected by Illithids' Devour Brain attack: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #102 // Change Spiritual Hammer into a ranged force weapon: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #104 // PnP Color Spray: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #105 // PnP Dimension Door: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #110 // Magical arrows and bolts deal bonus damage equal to their enchantment level: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #115 // Allow Mages to scribe memorized spells onto scrolls -> Scrolls can be scribed everywhere: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #120 // Restore innate disease immunity to Paladins: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #125 // Rangers' Animal Empathy improves with experience: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #152 // PnP Fiends -> Mod-added fiends are also affected: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #155 // Further Revised Fiend Summoning: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #156 // Fiendish gating: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #160 // PnP Undead: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #180 // PnP Mephits: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #185 // PnP Fey creatures: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #186 // Revised Call Woodland Beings spell: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #190 // PnP Elementals: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #191 // Increase the Hit Dice of Elemental Princes: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #200 // Allow Breach to take down Stoneskin effects applied by items: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #201 // Instant casting for warrior innates: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #241 // Revised Bhaalpowers -> Only standardize the Bhaalpowers' casting time: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #218 // Regain Bhaalpowers in ToB: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #204 // Prevent Mislead clones from singing Bard songs: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #211 // Make Death Ward protect against Vorpal Hits: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #210 // Restore the Dispel Magic vulnerability to Nishruu and Hakeashars: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #213 // Expanded saving throw bonus tables for Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #216 // Bard songs break invisibility -> Only the Jester song breaks invisibility: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #301 // Change the appearance of Valygar's armor: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #302 // Change the appearance of the Robe of Vecna: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #310 // Distinctive creature coloring: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #315 // Distinctive creature soundsets: v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #500 // Slightly expanded storage capacity for containers -> Use the recommended storage capacity value (999): v4.53
~ATWEAKS/SETUP-ATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #999 // BG2-style icons for aTweaks content: v4.53
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #0 // Fix Sunfire power levels: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #2 // Shield of Reflection works on SCS Flame Arrows: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #3 // Fix Smarter Abazigal: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #4 // Fix Smarter Irenicus at the Throne: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #5 // Remove entourage from Ascension Fallen Solars: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #100 // Check for and fix incorrect spell animations: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #400 // Prevent silent prebuffs: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #201 // Add spell school notifications to the combat log -> All spells with a casting time greater than 1: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #300 // Add expiration notifications for buffs: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #600 // Add expiration notifications for item buffs: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #500 // Reveal all hidden doors: v2.5
~JIMFIX/SETUP-JIMFIX.TP2~ #0 #700 // Allow Spell Shield to block Wish Breach and Mordenkainen's Disjunction: v2.5
~BETTERENCHANTEDWEAPON/BETTERENCHANTEDWEAPON.TP2~ #0 #0 // Better Enchanted Weapon: 1.0
~LILARCOR_NPC/LILARCOR_NPC.TP2~ #0 #0 // Lilarcor NPC Mod: 1.0
~SHAPECHANGERKIT/SHAPECHANGERKIT.TP2~ #0 #0 // Shapechanger Kit: 1.0
Your analysis of the F/M/C agrees well with what I'd predicted (I planned to attempt my first no-reload with one!), although I was concerned about the relatively low HP: was it ever an issue?
And you're spot on about Fighters in ToB. Once you're there there's little that can compete with pure physical damage output, which is why some incredibly strong SoA candidates like the Ken/Berk -> Mage drop off in power in the sequel. It also opens the door to some cunning switched-role dual-classing: take a non-Fighter kit with useful/powerful low-level perks then dual to Fighter later on for the DPS.
@semiticgod it was just my initial misunderstanding of what you meant by player-created - I can see from the rest of your post you meant that enhancing an existing weapon doesn't count as being created.
Shamanic hordes (update 1)
Having commented on the omission of a shaman from your no magic items party, I wondered how a full party of shamans would do on that challenge . I had such a party that I'd briefly experimented with in a LoB run, so imported those into a new save and got going.
After leaving Candlekeep I couldn't resist shooting down Imoen, even though none of her equipment was wanted for this run. Then it was off to find Shoal. I decided to try and get some additional XP by bringing Ogre Droth out to play and Toke managed to resist the effects of Shoal's kiss. The shamans summoned a couple of spirits by dancing and then began a program of retreating to keep out of Droth's view, while letting him use spells on the spirits. That was working very nicely until it took them into view of an ogrillon. That wasn't part of the large ogre clan, but was near enough for them to react to its death and led to a complex chase situation - and an early death for Grinch when I wasn't quite careful enough about his movement. The remaining shamans finished the ogres, but then left to find a temple before returning. Without the ogre clan to worry about, this time they were able to deplete Droth's spells and then wait for the inevitable criticals. The XP for completing Shoal's quest is poor compared to killing her and with SCS she has a nasty habit of disappearing immediately you talk to her to complete the quest - so she got a far quicker execution than Droth. With no real need to worry about reputation in this run, Mad Arcand found a swift death as well.
In Beregost they tried a pre-emptive strike on Silke. Three of their slinghots got in before her stoneskin erupted, but only 1 hit. The other two that fired would have killed her, but their initiative was too slow to beat her buff. However, a second round of sling shots were followed by a lucky hit from a fox - disrupting an attempted improved invisibility and Silke didn't get another chance. That left just Grinch short of the XP for a level, but some spiders, Karlat & Perdue and a little chore for Mirianne allowed everyone to level up just before I had to stop for work. Chat - L2, 16 HPs, 11 kills, 0 deaths
Grinch - L2, 14 HPs, 9 kills, 1 death
Grunt - L2, 19 HPs, 7 kills, 0 deaths
Lorbag (PC) - L2, 17 HPs, 8 kills, 0 deaths
Pretty Boy - L2, 19 HPs, 4 kills, 0 deaths
Toke - L2, 16 HPs, 4 kills, 0 deaths
Next randomized character:
Human female diviner. Chaotic evil. Must dual to thief at some point during the run. Allowed a max of two companions.
Mods: SCS v32rc8. Some convenience tweaks and quests. BG1 NPC (although not allowing the ring of human influence - I forgot how big of an impact on the game bad reaction rolls can have!).
Ceryz begins her journey at Candlekeep:
Next up: Gilrach the Precocious
Male half-elf sorceror, chaotic good. Allowed 3 companions.
Unlike normal children, Gilrach developed intelligence and magical abilities at a very young age. He was barely 6 years old -- and starting to outwit Gorion during his lessons -- when assassins came for him at Candlekeep...
Let's hope he can get a Find Familiar scroll before running into any archers.
I've never lost a character to a gibberling before. Probably time to wrap it up for today
KEY EVENT: As I fully expected, the nest itself was a hairy (no pun intended – okay, yeah it was) experience. I’d had my followers mop up the spiders outside & around the nest before I had us enter. Once we were ready to go in I cast Bless, Drake cast Chant & we both cast Draw on Holy Might on ourselves.
Upon entering, I saw a hideous, fat blob of a creature who called her ‘pets’ to kill us. I tried to buy time by conversing with her, as I quickly assessed that there were likely way more spiders that we could defeat in the confines of the nest. I immediately called for a retrograde action, as I’d briefed them on earlier. We pulled out of the nest & toward the northwest, hoping to separate & eliminate any that we could. It was a long, hit & run operation. Minsc fell, likely to a Sword Spider. The rest of us had to pull out to the northwest without so much as destroying anything. We circled around & came back from the east, where we had originally entered the area. There we took down one of two Sword Spiders that had been in the nest. I had to pull them back again. It was very difficult without Minsc hammering away up front. We eventually took the other down, having swung back around to the northwest again. After that, it was still challenging, but easier. The Sword Spiders have deadly sharp mandibles but the others carry poison & can use their webbing to tangle up an opponent. It took me awhile, shifting back & forth on them to finally destroy the last of three Giant Spiders, four Huge Spiders & two Ettercaps that had also been in the nest. After that, I led us back to the nest, where we destroyed the hideous, talking blob & two more Ettercaps.
THAT IS A HIDEOUS CREATURE
Best Kill Competition:
• Khalid (Sword Spider, 1400 exp), Minsc (Sword Spider, 2000 exp), Imoen, (Taurgosz Khosann, exp 2000),
• Eldoth (Corsone) (1000 exp ea)
• Drake (Ettercap, 650 exp)
CASUALTIES: Minsc (Battle of the Spider Nest)
MONSTERS DEFEATED: Sword Spiders (3), Phase Spiders (4), Ettercaps (8), Giant Spiders (5), Huge Spiders (14), Cave Bear (High Hedge), Skeletons (11 – High Hedge), Ochre Jelly
NOTEWORTHY TREASURE: (Purse = 53gp) Armor & weapons: Spiders Bane +2, Gauntlets of Dexterity, Gems/jewelry: Potions: Scrolls: Wands: Misc & Artifacts:
CURRENT DISPOSITION: Resting, recuperating, recovering & resupplying @ Cloakwood Lodge
NEXT STEPS:
LEVEL UP: Khalid, Ranger (Archer)/4; Eldoth, Bard/5; Imoen, Thief (Adventurer)/5; Minsc, Fighter (Barbarian)/4; Silas, Cleric (Lorekeeper of Oghma)/5, Drake, Cleric (Holy Justice of Tyr)/5
PARTY MAKEUP: (Reputation: 6)
• Silas Cl/5(Lorekeeper of Oghma) (HP26) S/mail +1 & Boots/Grounding, M/star*, Gauntlet’s Wpns Exp & Rg of Energy; Spells: Animate Dead, Cure Disease, Draw/Holy Might, Flame Blade, H/Person, Silence/15, Slow Poison, Bless, Cmd (3), Doom, Prot/Evil, ;(Gnoll Veteran) (AI none)
• Khalid Rgr/4(Archer)(HP35) S/Leather w/L/bow*** & B/sword*; (Sword Spider)(AI: Ftr Ranged Atk)(3)
• Imoen Th/5 (Adventurer)(HP30) S/Leather +2 Clk/Non-det w/S/bow* (w/Bracers of Archery) & S/sword +1* & Wand of MMs, Skills: OL 65, FT 60, PP 35, MS 50, HS 45, DI 20, ST15; (Taurgosz Khosann) (Thf Rgd Atk)(4)
• Minsc Ftr/4 (Barbarian)(HP34) C/mail +1 & 2H/sword; S/ability: Bsk, Bar Rg; (Sword Spider)(AI: Ftr Def)
• Eldoth Bd/5 (HP24) Cloak +1 w/L/bow* & Scimitar*, Spells: MM, Armor, Blind; S/ability: Poison arrows; (Corsone)(AI:Wzd Agg)(6)
• Drake Cl/5 (Holy Justice of Tyr)(HP43) S/mail, M/shield +1, Warhammer +1* & Sling*; Spells: Holy Smite, Aid, Draw/Holy
Might, H/Person, Silence 15’, Armor/Faith, Bless, Cmd, Doom, Prot/Evil; S/ability: H/Person, Str/One; (Ettercap)(Cl Agg)(5)
MOD USED: BG NPC v23.3, BG NPC Music v6, Plane Touched Races _v0,0, Indira v12, Isra v2.3, Finch v4.0, Gavin v14, Drake, Sirene v2.5, Verr’sza v5.2, BG UB v16, Tweaks Anthology Beta 4, Song & Silence v9, Deities of Faerun, Rogue Rebalancing v491, Level 1 NPCs, SCS v31, aTweaks, Item Randomizer v7
Blue Font: New information;
Red Font: Monster encounters (first use)
(Best kill)(Current AI)(Chain of Command)
Wow. That's rough... but considering all the stupid ways my PCs have passed away - I still own the Hall of Shame.
I must be a contender in there with a few of my characters . In relation to gibberlings I had a max-level sorcerer with something like 62 HPs who was one-shotted by one of those (playing LoB and as usual trying to dodge past things with a sling equipped).
Previous updates
At the FAI Tarnesh was sent berserk by a single hit from a sling bullet, before being put out of his misery by a follow-up salvo. Inside, Unshey was pleased to get his girdle back for once, while I had the luxury of not having to worry about keeping the pantaloons in inventory for the whole game.
Heading north, I was aware of the potential danger of bandits waiting in the ankheg area, but decided to ignore that . Chat did try and retreat after being hit once by them, but a critical hit already on the way still finished him off. With money being virtually useless in this run though, the cost of being raised at the temple was a non-issue and the shamans were soon back to kill some fishermen for a bowl. In the ankheg nest they used summons to occupy the ankhegs while shooting them down. In principle that was pretty easy, but I was obviously not in careful mode at that point and didn't move Toke away quickly enough when an ankheg one-shotted a spirit. After returning from the temple they finished off the nest and another ankheg outside. Returning Farmer Brun's son then allowed everyone to level up once more. They killed a few more ankhegs, though lost the last one to Gerde, before going to find Tenya to hand over the bowl and get one more ankheg.
Heading south again they took a chance by attacking Bassilus. He has numerous spells and managed to disable one shaman with hold and effectively 2 more with domination (one directly and one tasked to run him round) - but summons were kept going and prevented Bassilus attacking physically and sling shots eventually wore through his healing capability. At the Lighthouse area, they set summons up before activating the sirines and retreating - leaving the summons to absorb the poison arrows. One of the oddities of the SCS sirines is that they don't continue casting their charms once the target retreats out of sight - so once they're out of arrows they're easy meat. Typically I try and avoid them using arrows at all in order to sell them later, but in this run there was no point in that sort of hoarding and the sirines didn't last long. The golems were tackled individually with summons. Although the horde was limited to 2 spirits at once, the fact that 6 of them were dancing allowed them to keep a pretty continuous stream of replacements going to nibble the golems away and they only had to do a major shift in position during combats on one occasion. That got Grinch exactly the XP needed for level 4 and everyone levelled up again. After an indifferent first set, subsequent HP rolls have been good and everyone is now above the theoretical average.
While in the mood for golem hunting, the horde went to High Hedge and pulled the golem guards outside into a spirit ambush. That also reminded me there was another group of sirines and a first use of Writhing Fog dealt with those back in Shoal's area (they seemed to have different AI and didn't react to the Fog - that's very common in the unmodded game, though much less so with SCS). From previous experience I knew trying to kill battle horrors or the Doomsayer with just the basic spirits was difficult and time-consuming. I tried out casting half a dozen entangles on top of the Doomsayer before adding a Writhing Fog, but it wasn't held even momentarily. However, combining Fogs with spirits kept the time required for killing down to a reasonable amount even for the Doomsayer. The battle horrors had fewer HPs and no cold resistance and died pretty quickly while clearing the exterior at Durlag's.
Inside the Tower the ghasts were mainly dealt with by dragging them between levels into waiting spirits and bullets. That worked well with the ones on lower floors, but I was aware that trying that with the top floor ones was dangerous in the confined location on the floor below - I went ahead with it anyway rather than using a single character to drag them down 2 floors though . Not surprisingly, problems ensued when 3 ghasts came down one set of stairs and 3 the other and the shamans couldn't deal with the pressure from the lot at once. They tried to run for it, but the pathfinding problems associated with moving in confined spaces meant they got precisely nowhere - and then Grinch got paralyzed. That looked like it was going to be his second death, but the horde performed well in the tight spaces and managed to kill the remaining 4 ghasts without casualties. I had no defense against the basilisks on the roof, but did decide to take a risk by having a go at Riggilo. He survived an initial assault and used a potion to disappear - prompting the horde to go downstairs. They lured him down by virtue of one of them going up the other set of stairs to trigger him to chase the main group and Chat successfully evaded one backstab by moving at the right time. He got hit by a second, but survived and Riggilo appeared then to be out of invisibility potions. With not too much XP now needed for another level, the horde descended belowground and risked the traps there. A wraith spider was defeated by summons and Fog on the way to find 3 greater dopplegangers. Their buffs were successfully triggered by summons, meaning the shamans had a pretty easy task of killing them once they had worn off. I belatedly realized after killing the second of those that everyone could take their 5th level.
With such limited elemental protection I decided not to risk exploring further in Durlag's and headed for the Cloud Peaks instead. After running Greywolf round the horde took Samuel back to the FAI - killing Hafiz on the way. Charms got used a bit more frequently back in the Cloud Peaks, for instance in setting Zal and Vax against each other. There wasn't a great deal of XP on offer there though, so they turned back and went to the Valley of the Tombs to find something more productive. The Revenant refused to come out of its tomb and they had no means to go invisible to encourage it to do that. Without any protection against its hold attack it seemed too risky to continue the attack on it, so they settled for the ghasts in another tomb. As yet they had no way to kill mustard jellies, so Narcillicus also got left for later.
Chat - L5, 42 HPs, 44 kills, 1 death
Grinch - L5, 41 HPs, 57 kills, 1 death
Grunt - L5, 42 HPs, 61 kills, 0 deaths
Lorbag (PC) - L5, 41 HPs, 47 kills, 0 deaths
Pretty Boy - L5, 44 HPs, 53 kills, 0 deaths
Toke - L5, 39 HPs, 53 kills, 1 death