We start out by heading upstairs and robbing the inn. Cuwaert gets angry and busts up some chests for us.
With Frisky Bits the cleric/illusionist and Falesia the cleric of Lathander on hand, we already have access to Command spells, which means we can land a guaranteed kill on Xzar and Montaron and steal their potions safely. We then proceed immediately to Shoal, and I eventually decide against getting Cuwaert killed by having him wrestle with her, instead opting to kite the nereid. Command also gets us past Tarnesh.
I hadn't originally planned on feeding Cuwaert's drinking problem, but while we're at the Friendly Arm Inn, I go ahead and buy him a few rounds, but eventually the barkeep refuses to serve us anymore on the grounds that Cuwaert can barely stand.
Our numerous Command spells make the ankheg area a breeze. Normally, we'd be at risk of losing a character to a bad roll, and since most of the party isn't min-maxed, our AC is pretty lousy overall.
Cuwaert's stat total isn't even legal; it's 58 when the minimum is 75. His only purpose thus far is to bump his STR to 19 with his rage ability and help us carry around ankheg shells.
Star, our Swashbuckler, fails to pickpocket Algernon and we end up killing him instead. We already see parallels between this run and @Grond0's--not surprising, since I learned most BG1 gameplay from @Grond0.
We sell off the Ring of Wizardry for 9,000 gold (it's an awesome ring, but that selling price makes it more valuable as gold fodder) and manage to scribe an Identify scroll with only 80% odds. We return to the ankheg area to pick up the shells we didn't get before, then stop by Beregost to kill the spiders now that we have a few more Command spells.
I still have the Korax bug in my install, but our Stalker, Fenvarien, has both stealth and 2 pips in longbows (he's an elf, so longswords and longbows are arguably the best choice due to the +1 THAC0), which means he can help Korax bring down the basilisks by shooting them after Korax has paralyzed them and moved out of our visual range. Mutamin fails a saving throw early on and goes down fast.
Mutamin is mostly designed to crush low-level characters who don't have Korax; his opening Sleep spell is useless against Korax and mid-level parties.
We head back to the Friendly Arm Inn to return some of Landrin's possessions, but while we're there, we accidentally talk to the noble with the Golden Pantaloons twice, and inadvertently hand them back. I'm not willing to lose access to the Golden Pantaloons and I don't trust Star to pickpocket them successfully, so I charm the noble and lead him all the way outside so a hobgoblin can kill him, sparing us the need to kill him directly and lose reputation.
Frisky Bits and Falesia both have level 2 spells now, which means we can paralyze the Flaming Fist guys south of Beregost and get some plate mail, though only Falesia can wear it, since our two warriors are a Barbarian and a Stalker.
We also have Silence 15' Radius, which means we can tackle Bassilus! We have a bit of a rough time dealing with some Dread Wolves and skeletons at the south end of the map, but Blindness and ranged attacks put down the wolves and our shaman, Sky, can cast lots of Cure Light Wounds spells.
Notice an enraged Cuwaert completely failing to kill a skeleton with his bare hands. Even a max damage critical hit won't let him finish off enemies when he's using nonlethal damage. Star the Swashbuckler has to finish off the skeleton with a dart!
Cuwaert nearly dies due to his horrible AC. Maybe I should just let him get killed and keep going without him.
On the bright side, his rage immunities will let him soak up mage spells, so we might use him as a decoy against some spellcasters. Otherwise he's just sucking up about 15% of the party's XP.
Frisky Bits and Falesia cast Silence 15' Radius on Bassilus and he fails his second save. As a cleric, Bassilus has no Vocalize spell to counter it. Eventually we land a Command spell and get some automatic hits, sparing us the need to use a Wand of Fire charge to kill him before the enemy skeletons and zombies take down a party member.
Cuwaert goes deep in the red once again when we tackle Geltik. A big crowd of hobgoblins joins the fight, so we bust our a Wand of Fire charge for safety's sake.
If you're wondering why Frisky Bits doesn't know Sleep and can't just knock out these basic enemies, they picked Find Familiar, Protection from Petrification, and Blindness as their level 1 spell picks. I find them most useful early on.
We donate some money to the temple to bump up our reputation, do some reputation-boosting side quests, kill Caldo and Krumm with Command, and stop by the gnoll fortress to get the Gauntlets of Dexterity to improve Cuwaert's AC (the guy has 5 base DEX) and nab the Charisma tome for Star, our Swashbuckler. Combined with the Nymph Cloak, Star now has 20 Charisma, and since we have 20 reputation as well, I go buy some Potions of Genius and scrolls for Frisky Bits, plus the Necklace of Missiles and Shield Amulet, to take advantage of the lower prices.
Here we are after our first session.
Falesia, our cleric of Lathander, has 20% of the game's kills by XP value, and Fenvarien, our Stalker, has 62% thanks to his skill with bows. Cuwaert hasn't landed a single kill.
Just curious, @semiticgod: did you choose CG for Frisky Bits to get the Fairy Dragon? Invis. 10' Radius is a life-saver for essentially the entire game, and that familiar gives you one casting a day from first level.
EDIT: Never mind, I see it got nerfed/corrected in EE.
The barbarian rage gives Cuwaert enough strength to have decent damage. The danger is only is getting the unarmed ac penalty. He should be able to use plenty of specialty potions to raise strength as well and therefore punch hard when needed.
Even a punched out foe just falls unconscious. Sure it takes 1 extra damage to kill but even that means the foe is our of the battle.
The fun is that he is about as useful as a familiar. But in the end, you can win with anything, right?
@Stromael: Chaotic Good just seemed right for Frisky Bits. The only alignments that feel right to me are NG, CG, CN, and LG. True Neutral is fine if I have to use it for a druid or whatever, but LN and the evil alignments just feel wrong, especially as the main character.
Fairy Dragons are definitely very special, though there are strong arguments to make for Lawful Evil and the Imp familiar with its Polymorph Self spell, the True Neutral rabbit for its stealth, and the Lawful Neutral ferret and to a lesser extent the Chaotic Neutral cat for their pickpocketing. The Quasit's Horror spell is also very nice, but I think the strongest from a powergaming perspective would just be the Imp. Aside from its innate immunity to fire, cold, and electricity damage, it has 13 THAC0 on top of its Polymorph Self spell, making it an excellent behind-the-lines attacker with the flind form's halberd or the spider attack. The mustard jelly form is already flat-out broken in BG1, since its immunity to normal weapons makes the imp invincible against the vast majority of enemies in the game.
Ragefast dies to a critical hit, amazingly enough, saving me a Greenstone Amulet charge. Doppelgangers nearly tear us apart in the Seven Suns, reminding me of Espellier's perilous AC, and while the Ogre Mage in the sewers manages to blind me, I can actually take advantage of the blindness to use Hide in Shadows right in front of the enemy.
The Carrion Crawlers follow me outside onto the streets, but the Ring of Free Action lets Espellier tank them and chop them up with Drizzt's scimitars. Before I go to Candlekeep, I stop by Mutamin's Garden to kill Kirian, but nearly lose her to a Lesser Basilisk (!) I somehow missed before feeding her to a gnoll to the south.
If she had gotten petrified, a Stone to Flesh scroll could have brought her back to life at a convenient 1 HP, but it might be possible that the basilisk would have attacked and shattered her while I ran away.
Ramazith falls to Arrows of Dispelling. His only spell, Chaos, was useless against the Greenstone Amulet.
I snatch the documents from the Iron Throne and proceed to Candlekeep. I bomb Rieltar with the Necklace of Missiles and kite the survivors. Notice that there is no "save vs. spell" message when Kestor hits Espellier with a dart.
Kestor opens with Darts of Stunning, but because we used the Greenstone Amulet, we were immune to an otherwise fatal stunning effect. Don't underestimate Kestor's darts; he's perfectly capable of ending the run with just a single one of those darts.
We finally get Draw Upon Holy Might in the crypts, and between Frostbrand, the Boots of Grounding, and the Ring of Free Action, we can loot the place without worrying too much about the traps.
Stealth and Algernon's Cloak lets me charm Prat's group and feed them to the spiders. The Phase Spiders, as always, deal massive damage on a failed save.
This took a long time, however. Prat's buddies made a lot of saving throws, and it's extremely difficult to rest and try again in this area because the odds of a rest ambush are so incredibly high. Rest ambushes do allow us to spawn Phase Spiders whenever we want, however, so we have plenty of spiders to attack Prat's charmed allies, and eventually Prat himself.
Again, normally Prat would deliver his dialog and go hostile once we broke invisibility (even if the charm was successful, I think), but stealth and running away let us get out of his field of vision before he can talk to us.
Back at Baldur's Gate, I bait one of the Shennara clones into backstabbing me, knowing that Espellier's deep HP pool and helmet will prevent us from dying to a single backstab. Once the first clone breaks invisibility, we can target him or her with Algernon's Cloak and then kill the other. The survivor has the honor of backstabbing Cythandria and then getting beaten to death by her goons.
We fail a save against Slow, but stealth keeps us safe, and the Slow effect actually makes our stealth last even longer, from 4 rounds to 8 rounds. Once the Slow effect wears off, we can use Arrows +1 to kite the golems to death.
Interestingly enough, Cythandria appears to fail several spells because we inadvertently escape her field of vision by walking behind the pillars. I don't know how much of an impact had, since Cythandria mostly uses evocation spells and we can run out of range of any Cone of Cold spells she uses, while Frostbrand and the Boots of Grounding would have helped us resist any Fireballs, Sunfires, or Lightning Bolts, but ultimately, Arrows of Dispelling make the question moot. Mages without defenses aren't going to cast many spells anyway.
These days, the Nymph Cloak is a charge item in my install, which means it's much easier to charm several guards in the Undercellars simultaneously. As always, Quenash eats Slythe's first backstab, earning us the Cloak of Balduran, but this time around, Kristin, rather than Slythe, is the first to strike the first guard we bring over. She breaks invisibility by charming our guard, opening her up to an Arrow of Dispelling.
I don't stick around to finish her off, since Slythe could be anywhere and I'd hate to fight both of them simultaneously. I find Slythe in the southwest when he breaks invisibility to kill a guard, letting us dispel his potion buffs.
I run away from him, still scared of his +3 shortsword, and end up letting another guard die to a backstab to reveal Slythe. But when Kristin shows up in the northwest, landing a PW: Sleep on another charmed guard, I decide to go dispel her new buffs. By the time I see Slythe attacking us in the dialog box, Kristin is vulnerable and wounded, which means we can switch to Drizzt's scimitars instead of finishing off Kristin with our bow, which would give Slythe THAC0 and damage bonuses if he tried to backstab us.
By the time Kristin falls, Slythe is out of Potions of Invisibility and has lost his buffs. We can easily chop him down in melee.
We recharge our necklaces and proceed to the Ducal Palace. We're almost done with BG1.
@semiticgod Glad to see Fenvarien doing well. Just a quick note: The character is not from World of Warcraft, but from the very extensive lore of the German Pen&Paper RPG "Das Schwarze Auge" (aka "The Dark Eye"), which is the system I play with my friends in real life. An unofficial portrait can be found here: https://de.wiki-aventurica.de/wiki/Fenvarien - he is the ancient king of the high elves (6042 years old right now), who have kind of removed themselves from reality. Their story is somewhat similiar to that of the Noldor in The Silmarillion.
The portrait I'm using for this forum is also a character from the same system, the (recently dead) King Efferdan I. Zornbold of Andergast.
Just a quick update on Corerage IV and Imoen - we have obtained the cloak of mirroring, killed the Prince, reported our success to the mad Shark King, are just about to enter the Underdark. We will do very little here, mostly the Demon Knights (for the +4 two-hand sword that an evil character can use), Beholder Lair just far enough to get the greenstone amulet (the item is extremely useful for engaging Baltaazar), be drow enough to buy drow goods, then kill Adalon and get the heck out of the Underdark.
Frisky Bits equips the RoE. Cuwaert has a few too many and almost comes to blows with a surly half-orc.
We try to loot a chest under sanctuary thinking we would be invisible, but it doesn't work that way.
On our travel south, we discover a wagon that has been raided and kill a few xvarts.
Cuwaer has a few too many drinks and picks a fight with Marl.
He rages but is knocked unconscious.
And then rage wears off...
Marl makes good progress through our party before he's taken down.
After the brawl, we head to the temple and revive Cuwaert. He's still inebriated.
I set several traps for Silke. They work as intended.
I rob the mansion.
We head to Durlag's Tower and purchase two potions of master thievery. I drink them, steal a +1 bastard sword from Thunderhammer (which covers the cost of the potions), and pickpocket Algernon.
Algernon's Cloak in hand, we head to the Temple to draw out sirines. I set several traps like I had done for Silke. They don't work as intended.
Not exactly a glamorous death. I'll start again soon. I may have Sky or Frisky Bits be Gorion's Ward in future plays, as they should be in safer positions. I may also play Cuwaert as a normal barbarian. I may...
You know, the Hall is starting to get long, and eventually the first post of this thread is going to hit a character limit. I could actually create a new thread, create two or three dummy posts to make room for new entries, and then merge the two threads. Basically, it would be the same as this thread, but the thread would belong to @System rather than @Ygramul and it would have some extra space at the start. What do you guys think?
This will lead to the thread losing its 6/10 progress to get to 1mln views, which will provide a unique forum badge for @Ygramul . Also, this way @Ygramul will lose all the reactions to the OP as soon as someone gives his post in the "merged" thread at least one reaction.
I advise to just edit the first 2 comments to this thread (both of them are by @Ygramul ) to continue the OP there.
As always, we use Algernon's Cloak to charm the pre-transformation Doppelganger Mage noble and send him to the southern room, then rest up to make sure he's no longer charmed (you can get a game-breaking bug if any of the nobles are still charmed when you trigger the fight) and have Ithtyl cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath. Once the fight starts, I nail the Doppelganger Shaman with an Arrow of Dispelling, then switch to melee the instant the Doppelganger Assassin targets Espellier. Ithtyl opens with Greater Malison and Slow, to great effect.
Note that I always have Ithtyl cast Mislead before the fight--she has terrible defenses and cannot cast Greater Malison if she casts Stoneskin first.
The nearby doppelgangers don't last long, leaving only the Doppelganger Mage and Greater Doppelganger I dropped off in the south room. As an Archer, Espellier has no trouble landing an Arrow of Dispelling on the mage. As if the doppelgangers couldn't get any more doomed, Ithtyl manages to land a Chaos spell on both of them.
I lure Belt down south before starting the next dialog, ensuring that he's far away from Sarevok when Sarevok goes hostile. We have Ithtyl tank Sarevok, but Sarevok doesn't fight for long before he gives up and flees.
I don't have as many resources as I want for SoD, so I go ahead and loot the Ulcaster ruins and kill Bassilus. Rather than deal with any major fights, I just use stealth and a Potion of Invisibility to get through the Ulcaster ruins and charm Bassilus so we can feed him to Geltik and company.
We also kill a wyvern for another lump of cash and burn most of our remaining gold on expendables, ensuring we enter SoD with plenty of resources.
I charm most of the Undercity party with Algernon's Cloak and lure them away from Rahvin over the course of several rest periods, then use the Nymph Cloak to make sure all of them are simultaneously charmed so we can bring them into the final fight. I use the typical solo strategy of luring Sarevok to the southeast corner, downing a Potion of Invisibility, and then waiting for Semaj, Tazok, and Diarmid to join him before tackling Angelo. Quick saves let me pinpoint Angelo's location.
Wudei is our least valuable charmed ally, so we bring her north to make Angelo break invisibility. He ends up dispelling her charm effect, to my surprise, but thankfully she's far from the other Undercity party members, ensuring they remained charmed in the southwest corner across the room from Sarevok.
Angelo wanders into that same corner and encounters Gorf, Carston, and Haseo, but fortunately, we have extremely accurate Arrows of Dispelling and can keep up the pressure and put him down before he can try to hit anyone with a confusion effect.
Notice that I keep Gorf, Carston, and Haseo from chasing Angelo once he runs out to the east, lest they enter Sarevok's field of vision and lure the other enemies into the fight.
I charm Wudei with the Nymph Cloak just for the hell of it (we have plenty of charges in the cloak, so why not?) and bomb Sarevok from afar. Dumb strategy, but it works.
You know, a Protection from Magic scroll, Protection from Undead scroll, and two Protection from Acid scrolls (and maybe a Protection from Poison scroll?) would actually make this entire fight entirely doable for a solo character without the need for the silly bombing strategy. All you'd have to do is remove Sarevok's haste, shoot down Diarmid quickly, and use an Oil of Speed to gradually kite the other enemies until Sarevok's remaining allies were undead and therefore blind to your presence. Maybe I'll try that in a future run.
Anyway, we nail Sarevok with an Arrow of Dispelling. In this install, finally, I can dispel his haste effect. In my previous installs, that effect was undispellable and really troublesome.
Gorf, Wudei, Haseo, and Carston keep Sarevok occupied while Espellier fires her arrows. Sarevok doesn't manage to kill all of our charmed allies, so we never have to resort to kiting him.
BG1 is over! We have lots of potions and special arrows, and are in an excellent position to tackle SoD in short order.
A high STR score lets us intimidate Porios, clearing the first level, and a Protection from Undead scroll lets us clear out the rest of the dungeon, though we have to switch to scimitars and tank the mercenaries before Korlasz, since kiting isn't really an option in such a tight space.
Note that there are 1-3 fear traps around here, so you'll want to use Greenstone Amulet charges to make sure you don't get spooked and wander into a fight while you're helpless.
Archers can use Arrows of Dispelling, so Korlasz is doomed.
We burn the last of our gold buying stuff from the Flaming Fist Healer (Greater Restoration scrolls are really strong in SoD) before heading to Baldur's Gate, where we can empty out the Bag of Holding at Sorcerous Sundries and buy more arrows and stuff. We snatch the Spectacles of Spectacle, but otherwise I don't do any of the side quests in the city.
In the first area, I don't bother with the menhirs; I don't know of any special loot and it takes a long time to complete it. I just grab the Identify mirror in the burned building and proceed to the undead dungeon, where I charm the dwarven clerics and feed them to the local enemies.
I keep them away from the wights, though, lest a level drain kill petrify them and shatter them, which can erroneously destroy their special amulets. Once I've collected all five amulets, I use a Protection from Undead scroll to plow through the next area and give the amulets to the lich so I can ask for help against the crusade.
The Dwarves of Dumathoin just aren't as sturdy as the lich's skeletons; the skeletons make better allies during the Coalition Camp invasion against the trolls and ogres in the first wave.
I use stealth to avoid the fight at the bridge and hide behind the tent. I side with the vampire and kill the vampire hunters, making sure to use a Greenstone Amulet charge to avoid a fatal Wand of Paralyzation hit from the mage. The Sunfire shield, along with the Sword of Troll Decapitation from the Bronze Sentry in the lich area, lets me tackle the trolls in the cave of the next area without having to resort to fire arrows (which would give the trolls +4 to hit and damage in melee).
We kill Morentherene with a nonmagical throwing dagger and sneak over to Ziatar. When I trigger a trap and realize that it's a disabler instead of a damage spell, I drink a Potion of Clarity in case it's a charm effect. Ziatar falls to Potions of Firebreath, which go right past her Sanctuary.
Since our saves vs. death and spell are hard to push below zero without spending valuable Potions of Invulnerability or Potions of Magic Shielding, I use a Chaotic Commands scroll to avoid getting charmed or stunned by the Neothelid, and stack on some melee buffs to help us chop up the Neothelid.
In the past, I've tried to strike the Neothelid from range, since melee is so dangerous with both the Neothelid and Magical Swords harassing you, but the Neothelid tends to recede underground if you don't stay within melee range. Note that the Neothelid uses a crushing attack and can be thwarted with the help of a Potion of Absorption.
We still have strong buffs active, so we proceed to Akanna without resting, chop her up, and shoot down Darskhelin once we lure him away from his allies.
Arrows of Dispelling bring down the mage and regular arrows take down the rest. We can now proceed to Bridgefort, where the first large-scale fight will begin.
Since our saves vs. death and spell are hard to push below zero without spending valuable Potions of Invulnerability or Potions of Magic Shielding, I use a Chaotic Commands scroll to avoid getting charmed or stunned by the Neothelid, and stack on some melee buffs to help us chop up the Neothelid.
It also has a non-magical hold ability, so you need to protect against that as well if you want to be safe (the Greenstone Amulet protects against all its abilities, though I tend to try and go the saving throw route).
With reputation down to 3 there seemed little option - it was time to reduce it further. The party therefore made their way to the Lake area and set a few gnolls on Drizzt. Once he was down to 15 HPs they activated the drow and helped him out by using sleep on his attackers - to make sure the gnolls didn't get the kill. Cuwaert acted as the main target and his rage nullified one charm attempt before he saved against a second. Another group of gnolls tried to interrupt, but were also put to sleep and shortly after that Drizzt ran out of HPs.
His armor provided a significant AC boost to Cuwaert - though still only to AC1. No-one can use Twinkle, but Icingedge makes a decent weapon for Waiver.
With reputation down to 2, they initially bypassed Brage on the way to the Lighthouse area. To keep the XP accumulation going they killed those things that crossed their path - with Frisky Bits as well as Waiver now knowing web, Sky did a fair amount of running round inside those as an easy way to make enemies vulnerable.
On arrival they made an early appointment to introduce Arkushule to the wonder of webs. I've noted on a number of occasions that she sometimes turns hostile when other enemies come into her range - which can greatly complicate fights - so dealing pro-actively with her makes sense.
Ardrouine then gave them their first positive movement in reputation.
Back at Brage's area, Ba'ruk was silenced from out of sight range. Deprived of his dialogue he just stood there while being mowed down.
Despite their poor reputation, Charleston Nib was swayed by Star's high charisma into asking for help. After sorting out his diggers, Sky used Writhing Fog for the first time and ran round inside that while Frisky Bits poured in magic missiles and Waiver contributed a few chromatic orbs - while Falesia got in on the act with a couple of holy smites and even a rare use of magical stone. The Doomsayer didn't last long against that assault.
Brage was then pulled out of talking range of Laryssa - meaning she will stay there and can be attacked later if desired. That pushed their reputation up to a safe 5 - 4 would be enough to stop new enemies spawning, but I've been caught out before going to Nashkel like that and finding all the soldiers going hostile.
In Nashkel Star stole another invisibility potion from the manor house, while Falesia decided it was time to go green with her armor. At the Carnival the main target was Zordral. Frisky Bits and Falesia sneaked into the tent using sanctuary, but were unsuccessful with 3 attempts at silence. A general attack followed, which failed to kill him, so everyone retreated and Star popped back in under stealth to guide the 2 skeletons into the attack. That caused Zordral to waste his best spells and after he was dragged out of the tent he was quickly finished off.
Resting in the area gave Sky LMD - that's unlikely to be used much, but neither would yet another CLW.
After a couple more reputation quests to bring that to 7, a few donations increased that by a further 3 - though a misclick cost me 100 more than the total intended price of 450. I then decided it was about time to visit High Hedge where spirits faced off against the flesh golems. Even these low level spirits are quite capable of killing golems, but would need someone else to act as target to run the golems round while they're being replenished. Doing that takes a little while though, so the process was speeded up by attacks from those party members with magical weapons.
Melicamp was then successfully restored and a potion bag purchased.
Back to the south the party confronted Bassilus. They didn't want to silence him ahead of time (preferring for him to kill his undead companions), but his opening spell was interrupted by a chromatic orb and he was then immediately silenced. He killed the first of two skeletons, but was then also blinded and shot down.
Neira was another to be silenced before the party headed into the Cloudpeaks. Their first victim there was Greywolf - he lost most of his HPs after being commanded.
Clearing the remainder of the area they came across their first winter wolves - as they rather stupidly do no melee damage, Cuwaert quickly put on Gorion's Belt and could punch them with impunity.
To the west Larry, Darryl and Darryl's got a lesson in why it's not a good idea to try and give autographs to lovers of real music
- the remainder of the area was cleared without trouble. The same applied further west still. There was the odd use of web or blind, but typically the enemies were kited using missiles - though a few cave bears prompted everyone to save a few pennies by switching to melee (as the cave bears never switch targets while the original remains in sight).
Arriving at the Gnoll Stronghold Cuwaert took the bracers of dexterity - taking him from AC1 to AC-4.
Star took the charisma tome to take his charisma (boosted by Algernon's cloak) to 20. Although I don't allow recruiting of NPCs, I was prepared to con Dynaheir into thinking I would take her on in order to get the XP bonus for that.
Further north, Laurel was saved from a gibberling horde,
while I risked advancing into a web in order to finish off a couple of ogre berserkers quickly.
Neville was blasted with lightning before the remainder of the area was cleared.
After an embarrassing attempt where I kill myself with my own traps, I start over. The setup is pretty much the same as last time. Cuwaert will still only be proficient in darts and weapon styles, but he will be wielding whatever weapon best suits the situation.
I pester Firebead until he graciously gives me 300 gold. Afterwards, Cuwaert, Waiver, and I head upstairs, picking the locks and looting the place, using a new technique to knock out the nobleman to steal from his cupboard.
We breeze through Candlekeep, doing all the quests, then talk to Gorion and move on. Imoen, Xzar, and Montaron are all killed and looted. We head south to High Hedge and then east to Beregost. This time I talk down Marl, and by now, everyone is ready for a nap. In the morning, we fail our pickpocket attempt against Algernon and have to kill him for his cloak. We pick up The Stupifier (which I didn't know was here, thanks Grond0) from The Burning Wizard and the steal wand and potions from the mansion. Neera is killed on the way out of town for her gem bag. We head north to the Friendly Arm Inn, pausing to get the Ring of Princes and the girdles from the ogre. Tarnesh is Commanded and promptly killed.
Learning from the others, we head north from the FAI to hunt ankhegs using Command. We have a strong start, which promptly goes downhill. We don't do enough damage to kill them in one command, and I don't have good timing landing the second one. Cuwaert and Waiver are killed. We resurrect them. Star levels up and is brought to 16HP, lessening the chance of an instant death in combat. Cuwaert is killed. We resurrect him. Cuwaert and Frisky Bits are killed. We resurrect them.
I feel a bit lucky, as if Star (Charname) had been targeted, no doubt the run would be over. Star also hits level 3, and forgetting about the manual of dexterity, I raise Set Traps to 100. We take all the ankheg shells back to Beregost to sell at the Thunderhammer Smithy, bring our gold total to just under 8,000. I donate at the Temple to raise rep slightly. (I raise it back to 8 any time it drops, as 6->7->8 is only 300g->150g, and killing an innocent at 8 is only a 2 point drop)
We head back to the Coast Way with our new found trapping ability, with the goal of trapping a wily wizard. En route, Frisky Bits dies to a gibberling ambush. After heading back to resurrect her, we return. Elminster falls for our trap, and it works. Since we're on a killing spree, we head to Ulgoth's Beard, charm Dushai (only around 4 tries this time), and relieve her of her ring.
With a few points of reputation still needed, the session started by going to find Greywolf. I expected spells to help take him down, but he resisted everything Grame could throw at him and he eventually had to resort to cutting him down with a Seeking Sword after Wedimus was forced to retreat despite having taken several potions.
After a couple of easy tasks reputation hit the limit and a bit of shopping followed. That included a green PfP scroll, which was soon being put to use in the basilisk area. Wedimus used his immunity to fear to attack Mutamin even before finishing off the final basilisk.
Kirian and Peter were both silenced, which suggested a straight attack would be successful - and it was.
Some more quick XP was on offer at the Lighthouse, where skeletons helped out against the sirines.
Wedimus and Grame continued straight on into the cave and tried dealing with the golems using straight melee. That proved good enough, with Grame again resorting to Seeking Sword against the last golem.
I thought that the Doomsayer should be possible with the help of skeletons and a bit of buffing, but we failed to get many high attack rolls there and it was still in good health after the skeletons were dead and Wedimus running. Rather than give up though, Grame circled round leading the Doomsayer into sight of Brage. He went berserk and attacked and a couple of hits took the Doomsayer to near death - at which point Grame dragged it away and used a couple of MM from his wand to finish it off.
Brage then calmed down and agreed to be returned to Nashkel. Unfortunately, Wedimus had a full inventory at the time and dropped Brage's sword and something else during the transition. Despite going back immediately those items had evaporated, but the sense of frustration was soon taken out on Laryssa.
We decided it was time to hit the Nashkel Mines and quickly made our way through to find Mulahey.
He wasn't interested in talking though and was just cut down where he stood. Outside the mine the amazon clerics were also struck dumb and were doomed even before finding themselves stuck in place.
We didn't rest before going on to Nimbul, so there was no silence for him. However, a well-timed command set him up for a killing stroke from Wedimus to prevent Rasaad stealing the kill.
The final action then saw Tranzig beaten up to open up the Bandit Camp for the next session.
We head south of Beregost. While scouting, we see a Flaming Fist group hassling travelers. We set up traps on the road and lure them in.
Before going much further and while reputation is still low, I want to try killing Drizzt. I usually just let him die and grab his stuff, but I decide to test out traps. While setting traps and resting, we're constantly interrupted. Blind takes care of the two ogre berserkers.
I set the traps, and we trigger Drizzt. After triggering the conversation, gnolls spawn elsewhere, and some of the trigger my traps. Cuwaert throws a dart at Drizzt to make him hostile, breaks vision, and re-set the traps.
Cuwaert goes to find Drizzt, rages through the first charm, but gets caught by the second. Fortunately, he's out in the middle of nowhere. After he comes back to, I have to search the map to find Drizzt, triggering many gnoll groups. I finally find Drizzt, and he kills most of the gnolls chasing me. Finally by himself (except for a ghast chasing us), he's lead to the traps.
Which don't kill him.
I think about leaving but decide to try kiting him around my party with Cuwaert while everyone else attempts to roll 20s. While we're getting in position, we trigger a group of war dogs. Cuwaert gets slightly to far away trying to lead off the last war dog, and Drizzt changes focus. Frisky Bits takes a hit but survives, and I'm eventually able to get him back on Cuwaert. Some time later, we kill Drizzt. Star takes his scimitar (we sell the other), and Cuwaerts gets the chainmail.
We raise reputation to 11 at the Temple. I draw out the sirines one at a time and lay traps around them. It's tedious as I'm getting a lot of spawns, so we change tactics on the third one. I'm going to charm her, waste her spells, and then we'll just attack her to death. I charm her and decide to waste her dire charms on the last remaining sirine. I remember this working on other runs, but the remaining sirine and Kelddath go hostile. We try to escape, but Cuwaert is held, and Frisky Bits takes a flame strike that removes them from the game. I take a flamestrike the next round.
We forge the Dragonscale Armor, giving us a nice boost to our AC, and proceed to the Voidstone quest thingy. We can't talk our way past the guard due to our poor CHA (or maybe I picked the wrong dialog option; I don't know), but unlike in our Shadowdancer run, we have the damage output to kill the guard before he turns the camp hostile, allowing us to tackle Bridgefort on our own terms.
Our excellent missile damage output lets us crush the first wave at the entrance to the camp. Up north, things look stickier, since the Flaming Fist folks aren't leading the charge (maybe I didn't give them enough time to advance on the enemy). I head up and use Arrows of Dispelling and Potions of Firebreath to get through the mages' defenses. I make a point of running around to drag the Potion of Firebreath projectiles over the enemies. 6d10 damage twice over 2 rounds is enough to roast SoD-grade critters.
At the bridge itself, we land a hit before the mage's prebuffs fire, disrupting a spell, but Arrows of Dispelling make the situation hopeless for her anyway.
Here we are when we arrive at the Coalition Camp. Notice that Espellier is past the XP cap--I disabled the XP cap, but unlike my previous runs, I'm actually allowing Espellier to level past them. We had an extra level in BG1 (which meant Grandmastery in longbows!) and should also be one level over the normal limit by the end of SoD. Nothing game-changing, but it smooths things out slightly.
I empty our Bag of Holding for Nazramu and break 100,000 gold, which I burn on a bunch of potions and scrolls and stuff.
I buff up Espellier thoroughly to deal with the Greater Otyugh in the cave in Dead Man's Pass, then stop by the Underground Tunnels to shoot down the cyclops. The run nearly comes to an end, though, when some spiders sneak up on us and throw a Web Tangle at Espellier. Fortunately, I saw the spell coming and equipped the Ring of Free Action before it struck.
Before I go any further, I stop by Dragonspear Castle and trick the Crusaders into kill Corinth so we can nab Corinth's Bow.
We shoot down Ferrusk and plant the acorn, but down a Potion of Invisibility to avoid fighting anything else in his room. We don't need the XP; I just wanted to help the druids.
Now we have to kill Strunk so we don't have to deal with hostile water elementals at Dragonspear Castle. He hits us with Slow after we nail him with an Arrow of Dispelling, but we don't have to escape with a potion since we land a lucky critical hit that finishes him off early.
No need to fight anyone else around here, so once we plant the Barrel of Bwoosh, we go poison the supplies and break invisibility just long enough for Hephernaan to speak with us and unlock the elevator.
We slip away under invisibility and head back to the Coalition Camp. Turns out all three waves can wiped out in seconds with Arrows of Detonation, if you land hits before the mages' pre-buffs fire. We don't even need Arrows of Dispelling for the mages; they die before we have to dispel them.
Oh, and the bosses of the Coalition Camp invasion, the fourth wave? Yeah, they can't handle Arrows of Detonation, either.
Oh, and the entire army in the freaking siege of Dragonspear Castle? Yeah. Arrows of Detonation.
Ashatiel requires Potions of Firebreath, but the fight is even simpler; we don't need to worry about our buffs. Although we still drink Potions of Cold Resistance to block the Wand of Frost charges that never end up coming.
We play it safe with the demons, burning Potions of Clarity and other buffs and healing potions to make sure we're in good condition. We go all-out for Belhifet, but as it happens...
...spamming Greater Restoration scrolls on Caelar keep her alive more than long enough for her to do much of the heavy lifting. We could have let her kill Belhifet all by herself and we still wouldn't have even come close to running out of Greater Restoration scrolls.
Done! I make sure to take the Golden Pantaloons out of the Bag of Holding so they'll transfer to BG2. Now we've gotten the hardest part of the saga for an Archer out of the way. We'll have some building and resource gathering to do in BG2 before we get HLAs, and we'll have some tough fights in ToB until we get the Scorcher Ammunition (including that awful quadruple dragon ambush), but otherwise we should be able to stomp everything with little trouble. Shadows of Amn has always been the most familiar game to me.
But I'm going to have to stick to a solid plan and make sure we have rescue options on hand. Archers can sneak around stuff and stay pretty safe in BG1, when Arrows of Dispelling can wreck any mage, but mages are extremely dangerous in BG2, when weapon immunity spells will block Arrows of Dispelling, the Greenstone Amulet isn't available until Chapter 6, and an elven Archer, unlike any halfling, dwarf, or gnome, is gonna have pretty crummy saving throws. Any spell could end the game if we don't keep a close eye on our saving throws.
Here we go again. Briefly: Imoen, Xzar, Montaron, Antipode, diamond. High Hedge (avoiding Elminster). Beregost, Marl, Algernon's Cloak, Firebead, Stupifier, Neera, Mansion.
We head to the Temple to try a new strategy. I will charm a sirine, waste its spells, and then have Sky's spirits tank while we attack safely from afar.
The first one goes off without a hitch, although the sirine does go invisible (foreshadowing. SCS?). Frisky Bits lands a blind on the second one, and that one goes easily. The third sirine lands all three dire charms, first on Cuwaert, then Sky, then Star.
The start of the session saw a clearance program in the Copper Coronet sewers. That was nearing completion when a crash required it to be done again - and it duly was. Yertone would have been happy to retreat after acquiring Lilarcor, but the others persuaded him to take the lead in assaulting the slavers - and that proved not too difficult.
After selling the loot Gaelan Bayle received his pay-off and there was a trip to the Docks to pick up the goodies from Aran Linvail. While there Officer Dirth performed his mission in lifedeath to upgrade the armor of some lucky recipient and Mae'Var offered a new series of tasks.
The pirates also received short shrift with an archer firing at their mage who was de-mirrored by inquisitor true sight.
A quick trip to Watcher's Keep secured the potion bag. There were no vampiric wraiths on duty, so the top level was also looted, though the statues were all left untouched.
Then it was on to Trademeet, giving Suna Seni a warm welcome on the way.
The only real problem in the session occurred there when attacking the genies, though that only became apparent in retrospect. The sequence of events was as follows:
- Yertone asks if Tabetha can cast PfPs and is told yes, after a rest.
- Following a rest Tabetha protects Yertone, but not Gery as she knows he can stealth into the tent to avoid any danger.
- Gery, however, believes he's protected and doesn't bother with stealth, laughing at the genie as it foolishly tries to petrify him.
- Tabetha gently points out that only those famous elven saving throws prevented Gery's smile from becoming a permanent feature ...
At the Grove the Troll Mound was easy enough with Yertone as usual doing the main tanking. He did struggle though when a troll outside the Mound got up close and personal by climbing on top of him. Gery and Tabetha couldn't target the troll, but the golem had no such problem and quickly knocked it unconscious before acting as an aiming point for Tabetha's scorcher to finish it off.
Kyland Lind and his cronies produced a call lightning and some insects, but that wasn't enough to damage anyone severely and after the remaining enemies were cleared Cernd was given a late breakfast.
Back in Trademeet the tomb was emptied of undead, but Tiris will have to wait to get help until we've been to the Bridge District to solve the skinner quest.
Archer - L9, 104 HPs, 56 kills (+315 in BG1)
Inquisitor - L9, 128 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 49 kills (+191 in BG1), 0 deaths
Illusionist/thief - L9/9, 47 HPs, 15 kills (+66 in BG1), 1 death
@jessejmc: Nope. To waste their spells, you have to do it while they're still charmed. So, charm one of the sirines, order it to cast Dire Charm on one of your characters, let it begin casting the spell, and then order to walk a couple steps away before it finishes casting the spell. The sirine will lose the spell and therefore can't cast it later when you attack it and turn it hostile. You can empty out any character's spellbook this way, as long as you have control over them. It's a good way to make sure charmed mages are helpless when you finally turn on them.
Corerage IV the solo berserker -Update 10
Chunked: Imoen
So Imoen and Corerage IV defeat the demon threatening the gnome village. Enrage and GWW was more than enough.
We handled the drow parties well.
We entered Beholder lair, mostly to get the greenstone amulet. We skipped the Illithid lair. We also cleared the Kua-Toa lair, including demon knights - the two-hand sword we picked up will get a lot of use.
We talked to Adalon, mostly so we could buy a few things from the Drow merchants. We then talked to the drow to get the quest for Phaere (without doing it), so we can get the +4 halberd. Problem? I couldn't find it in the loot! Finally I carefully read the +4 description - it petrifies ogres! Doh! Oh well.
So instead we go to Adalon, give 100% protection from cold to Corerage IV and Imoen and Corerage IV being the battle. Problem? Imoen gets chunked! Sorry Imoen...Corerage IV does avenge Imoen and kills Adalon.
Then Corerage IV gets out of Underdark pronto. He then reports to Elhan and bid Drizzt adieu. Corerage IV gets the flesh armor quest. He then deals with Bodhi once and for all. Bodhi took a couple of GWWs before she gave up, although she took lethal damage ages ago.
Time for some dragon hunting...Thaxxy was first target. While Corerage IV did have some summon help they weren't too useful, but GWW of his sling was enough to finish off Thaxxy.
Firkraag was next. Garren's daughter was has been captured all this time...oops...but Corerage IV presses in. Since he is using 2-hand weapons all the way (or his sling), he passed on Samia's quest. Conster wasn't too hard, as the book of inifinite spells is set to true seeing, which was very effective against Conster.
Time for Firkraag - 100% fire resistance, enrage, hardiness, Ilbratha, with a few summon distractions. Firkraag unwisely attacked the summons instead of prioritizing defense - this meant two GWWs was enough to finish him off.
Time to get our last items forged by Cromwell, bought our last items from Waukeen's Promenade, and reported to Elhan - will clear Suldanesslessar next session.
I know I'm throwing out a lot of different runs at once, but I have a new run to share. @kjeron recently discovered that the fatigue timer resets whenever you load the game, which means you can travel for days at a time without getting fatigued, as long as you save and load the game before you suffer a penalty. Now, the Reform Party trick already lets you instantly cure party members of fatigue, but it's not something you could do for Charname. Now, though, I have a way of preventing even my main character from getting fatigued.
This means that I can finally try a restless run without having to deal with Charname complaining about being tired the whole adventure!
I create a party designed to operate without resting: a bard, a Skald, a Dwarven Defender, an Archer, a Wizard Slayer, and a Shadowdancer. I gave them sleep-themed names, too: NarcolepSkald, Drowsy Defender, Wizard Snoozer, InsomniArcher, and Sleepy Dancer. I do really well for a long time and even manage to kill Drizzt by kiting him!
But apparently that causes my Archer to fall, and rather than do everything all over to get a functioning Archer again, I decide to play with only one player-created character, and use regular NPCs to fill out the rest of the party. Our Charname this time is Bardy McBardface, the bard!
I am quite pleased with the name and the portrait.
We successfully pickpocket Algernon, saving us some reputation loss, clear out Mutamin's Garden with Korax's help, kite Shoal, and sell off the Ring of Wizardry. Unfortunately, with no access to stealth, I have immense trouble getting to Thalantyr, because I have no way of avoiding the random spawns outside (I don't know what routes are truly safe). I find myself kiting multiple enemies at once and even resorting to using the Wand of Missiles when Bardy McBardface's THAC0 proves insufficient.
In the end, we're forced to flee the area, since we can't beat the enemies without an absurd amount of kiting. It takes 100 gold to get a Cure Serious Wounds spell at a temple and heal 17 HP. Cure Light Wounds is 50 gold for 8 HP, so it's basically the same cost.
We go back, but the enemies are still there. I have to recruit Kivan just to get my foot in the door; I can't clear out these enemies on my own.
I hadn't planned on recruiting Kivan, since Coran is a much better archer and also has some other nice abilities, but I needed someone to kill those gnolls.
Anyway, I recruit Kagain, who is going to be our primary tank for all of BG1. Personally, I've never been impressed with Kagain's 20 Constitution, since his regeneration is extremely slow and it's nothing you can't get just by resting. But in a restless run, his regeneration is a huge game-changer. We can heal him for free just by traveling from one area to the next! In a run with no healing spells, free healing will save us a lot of money. It doesn't hurt that Kagain is a decent fighter in his own right.
Khalid and Jaheira are also important party members, so we have to take down Tarnesh to reach them. I recruit Xzar and Montaron to kill Tarnesh, and Monty easily slays both Tarnesh and Xzar (Xzar would be dead weight in a restless run).
Khalid is a big deal because he can achieve High Mastery in longswords right after we recruit him, and unlike Shar-teel, he's not as grating and also has superior Constitution. It's worth pointing out that while there are lots of STR-boosting potions, there are far fewer ways to improve DEX and especially CON.
Since Jaheira isn't quite as useful as Khalid and we have other options on the table, I leave Jaheira at the inn and also ditch Monty, since we don't really need a thief just yet. I take Khalid and Kagain ankheg hunting. We don't have the Wand of Sleep or anything like that; we can just rely on Kagain's regeneration to win these fights cost-free.
Basically, this run is going to involve recruiting a bunch of fighters and having Bardy McBardface use wands and scrolls to support them. Dorn is next on our list, but, to my amazement, he actually dies during his own quest ambush.
That's... a pretty nasty setback. Regardless, we still have other NPCs to recruit, and since we gained so much XP at the start of the game, all of them will start with 32,000 XP.
Here we are shortly into the game. Notice that Kagain is using Bruel's Retort as a melee weapon--I heard that was a very cheap way to get a +1 weapon in BG1.
Next, we recruit Minsc. He can't put more than two pips in any weapon, but he does have very nice base STR, which will give him a nice boost over Kagain and Khalid for ordinary fights. For bigger ones, though, STR potions will switch the advantage to our fighters.
We slay Caldo and Krumm for the reputation boost, give Drienne her dead cat back, and snatch the Gauntlets of Dexterity and CHA tome on the way to saving Dynaheir. I ditch Dynaheir in the Belching Dragon Tavern (single-classed mages are largely useless in this run) and head back to the Friendly Arm Inn to get Jaheira back.
Why Jaheira? Well, she's not exactly an optimal character compared to Shar-teel, but she does have the ability to use Wands of the Heavens and Wands of Fear, which could be very nice later on. And since Dorn is dead, we kinda need someone to fill the gap.
Now that our reputation and CHA are both at 20, we buy a suit of full plate for Kagain and pass the ankheg plate on to Jaheira. Our next character is Coran, but we need to kill a wyvern to keep him in the party, so we have to explore the Cloakwood a little before we recruit him (you can access every area but the mines at the start of the game in my install).
We get into trouble in the spider area, though, when I miscalculate the range of a Web trap and end up getting several people snared. Jaheira dies to poison damage, but Bardy McBardface is fortunately at the back of the line, safely behind Minsc, giving us some time before we get eaten.
Kagain and Khalid fortunately escaped the web, which lets us shoot down the spiders before they can gobble up Minsc.
Not wanting to burn any more money on healing or resurrections, I bring Kivan back into the party just so he can trigger the Web traps under stealth, which gives him a decent chance of escaping them before his invisibility wears off.
This allows us to clear the way to Centeol's hive safely. For some reason I fail to have Bardy McBardface equip Gorion's belt to block Centeol's Wand of Frost, but our Wand of Fire does enough damage that we can roast her before she can freeze us. We now have Spider's Bane!
Also, now we have a clear path to the wyvern area, which means we don't have to worry about losing a character, traveling back to town, dragging out Coran's quest timer, and then having him leave the party because we spent too much time running around. We kick out Kivan, grab Coran, and proceed directly to the wyvern cave. With this many fighters in the party, and with Kagain's deeply subzero AC, we have little trouble tackling wyverns.
Coran is now ours to keep! I don't find him interesting as a character, personally, but we really could use a good archer (Arrows of Dispelling are really important for late-game BG1) and having a thief on hand will save us a lot of money considering how many potions we'd have to drink to walk over traps ourselves.
Thank you for the many excellent contributions over the past four years.
As suggested by @semiticgod@JuliusBorisov and others I have "vacated" my first two follow-up posts on page 1 (right after the original post). I thereby invite the thread leaders and moderators to edit them as they see fit for maintaining the Hall of Fame. (The original post had run out of space.)
Thank you for being such an amazing and dedicated community.
I can't wait to add my own name one day when I successfully finish a BG trilogy no-reload run of my own...
@jessejmc: Nope. To waste their spells, you have to do it while they're still charmed. So, charm one of the sirines, order it to cast Dire Charm on one of your characters, let it begin casting the spell, and then order to walk a couple steps away before it finishes casting the spell. The sirine will lose the spell and therefore can't cast it later when you attack it and turn it hostile. You can empty out any character's spellbook this way, as long as you have control over them. It's a good way to make sure charmed mages are helpless when you finally turn on them.
I'm pretty sure I did that on the previous run, but there may have been some user error. I did a few tests of new runs and didn't have any issues, but when I finally created the full party again, I had something similar happen. As you can see in the screenshots, the sirine has cast her greater invisibility on Star, and the rest of her spells have been used, greying out the spell button. After I initiate combat, she still goes invisible. She doesn't charm everyone this time, and I kill her easily when she comes back, but she shouldn't have had her invisibility.
@jessejmc: Looks like the script is to blame. Some spellcaster scripts cast spells whether the creature in question actually has them memorized or not; others check the spellcaster's spellbook to see if it's memorized before casting it (I think it's the HasSpell function or something like that). Apparently these sirines' scripts did not perform that check, and therefore were able to cast the spell even after you expended it. Beholders, notably, cast spells without actually having them memorized anywhere.
There's not really a consistent way to know if emptying a critter's spellbook will truly prevent it from casting spells or not. SCS spellcasters, at least the mages and clerics and druids if not the monsters and supernatural critters, should be limited by the contents of their spellbook, but other critters might or might not. Only experimentation or studying their scripts could make it clear.
At any rate, you're doing it right; it's just that that method doesn't work with those particular critters in your install.
The method does work in relation to charm. It also works in relation to improved invisibility. However, in SCS there is a chance that the sirines can use invisibility by script rather than casting - you may notice for instance that when you first go into Beregost temple one or more of them are not visible. Sometimes that results in one of them going invisible instantly when you attack it (not by casting the improved invisibility spell).
@jessejmc if you want to save the arrows (and I like to do that) then it's safest if you wear the sirine down a bit before attacking it (do that by getting it targeted by an enemy like a wild dog and constantly moving it to prevent it going invisible). Once it's low on HPs you can easily kill it before it goes hostile. With a stronger melee party that sort of preparation wouldn't be necessary - you could just surround it and hack it down even if it managed to charm or feeblemind someone first.
Incidentally, you're right about the impact of line of sight. When playing solo I sometimes take advantage of the fact that the SCS sirines (unlike their vanilla colleagues) break off their dire charm spell if you go out of their sight range.
Comments
Part 2: Baldur's Gate
We start out by heading upstairs and robbing the inn. Cuwaert gets angry and busts up some chests for us.
Our numerous Command spells make the ankheg area a breeze. Normally, we'd be at risk of losing a character to a bad roll, and since most of the party isn't min-maxed, our AC is pretty lousy overall.
Star, our Swashbuckler, fails to pickpocket Algernon and we end up killing him instead. We already see parallels between this run and @Grond0's--not surprising, since I learned most BG1 gameplay from @Grond0.
We sell off the Ring of Wizardry for 9,000 gold (it's an awesome ring, but that selling price makes it more valuable as gold fodder) and manage to scribe an Identify scroll with only 80% odds. We return to the ankheg area to pick up the shells we didn't get before, then stop by Beregost to kill the spiders now that we have a few more Command spells.
We head back to the Friendly Arm Inn to return some of Landrin's possessions, but while we're there, we accidentally talk to the noble with the Golden Pantaloons twice, and inadvertently hand them back. I'm not willing to lose access to the Golden Pantaloons and I don't trust Star to pickpocket them successfully, so I charm the noble and lead him all the way outside so a hobgoblin can kill him, sparing us the need to kill him directly and lose reputation.
Cuwaert nearly dies due to his horrible AC. Maybe I should just let him get killed and keep going without him.
Frisky Bits and Falesia cast Silence 15' Radius on Bassilus and he fails his second save. As a cleric, Bassilus has no Vocalize spell to counter it. Eventually we land a Command spell and get some automatic hits, sparing us the need to use a Wand of Fire charge to kill him before the enemy skeletons and zombies take down a party member.
We donate some money to the temple to bump up our reputation, do some reputation-boosting side quests, kill Caldo and Krumm with Command, and stop by the gnoll fortress to get the Gauntlets of Dexterity to improve Cuwaert's AC (the guy has 5 base DEX) and nab the Charisma tome for Star, our Swashbuckler. Combined with the Nymph Cloak, Star now has 20 Charisma, and since we have 20 reputation as well, I go buy some Potions of Genius and scrolls for Frisky Bits, plus the Necklace of Missiles and Shield Amulet, to take advantage of the lower prices.
Here we are after our first session.
EDIT: Never mind, I see it got nerfed/corrected in EE.
Even a punched out foe just falls unconscious. Sure it takes 1 extra damage to kill but even that means the foe is our of the battle.
The fun is that he is about as useful as a familiar. But in the end, you can win with anything, right?
Fairy Dragons are definitely very special, though there are strong arguments to make for Lawful Evil and the Imp familiar with its Polymorph Self spell, the True Neutral rabbit for its stealth, and the Lawful Neutral ferret and to a lesser extent the Chaotic Neutral cat for their pickpocketing. The Quasit's Horror spell is also very nice, but I think the strongest from a powergaming perspective would just be the Imp. Aside from its innate immunity to fire, cold, and electricity damage, it has 13 THAC0 on top of its Polymorph Self spell, making it an excellent behind-the-lines attacker with the flind form's halberd or the spider attack. The mustard jelly form is already flat-out broken in BG1, since its immunity to normal weapons makes the imp invincible against the vast majority of enemies in the game.
Part 3: Baldur's Gate
Ragefast dies to a critical hit, amazingly enough, saving me a Greenstone Amulet charge. Doppelgangers nearly tear us apart in the Seven Suns, reminding me of Espellier's perilous AC, and while the Ogre Mage in the sewers manages to blind me, I can actually take advantage of the blindness to use Hide in Shadows right in front of the enemy.
Ramazith falls to Arrows of Dispelling. His only spell, Chaos, was useless against the Greenstone Amulet.
We finally get Draw Upon Holy Might in the crypts, and between Frostbrand, the Boots of Grounding, and the Ring of Free Action, we can loot the place without worrying too much about the traps.
Stealth and Algernon's Cloak lets me charm Prat's group and feed them to the spiders. The Phase Spiders, as always, deal massive damage on a failed save.
Back at Baldur's Gate, I bait one of the Shennara clones into backstabbing me, knowing that Espellier's deep HP pool and helmet will prevent us from dying to a single backstab. Once the first clone breaks invisibility, we can target him or her with Algernon's Cloak and then kill the other. The survivor has the honor of backstabbing Cythandria and then getting beaten to death by her goons.
https://de.wiki-aventurica.de/wiki/Fenvarien - he is the ancient king of the high elves (6042 years old right now), who have kind of removed themselves from reality. Their story is somewhat similiar to that of the Noldor in The Silmarillion.
The portrait I'm using for this forum is also a character from the same system, the (recently dead) King Efferdan I. Zornbold of Andergast.
Previous updates:
Frisky Bits equips the RoE. Cuwaert has a few too many and almost comes to blows with a surly half-orc.
This will lead to the thread losing its 6/10 progress to get to 1mln views, which will provide a unique forum badge for @Ygramul . Also, this way @Ygramul will lose all the reactions to the OP as soon as someone gives his post in the "merged" thread at least one reaction.
I advise to just edit the first 2 comments to this thread (both of them are by @Ygramul ) to continue the OP there.
Part 4: Baldur's Gate
As always, we use Algernon's Cloak to charm the pre-transformation Doppelganger Mage noble and send him to the southern room, then rest up to make sure he's no longer charmed (you can get a game-breaking bug if any of the nobles are still charmed when you trigger the fight) and have Ithtyl cast Invisibility on Liia Jannath. Once the fight starts, I nail the Doppelganger Shaman with an Arrow of Dispelling, then switch to melee the instant the Doppelganger Assassin targets Espellier. Ithtyl opens with Greater Malison and Slow, to great effect.
The nearby doppelgangers don't last long, leaving only the Doppelganger Mage and Greater Doppelganger I dropped off in the south room. As an Archer, Espellier has no trouble landing an Arrow of Dispelling on the mage. As if the doppelgangers couldn't get any more doomed, Ithtyl manages to land a Chaos spell on both of them.
I don't have as many resources as I want for SoD, so I go ahead and loot the Ulcaster ruins and kill Bassilus. Rather than deal with any major fights, I just use stealth and a Potion of Invisibility to get through the Ulcaster ruins and charm Bassilus so we can feed him to Geltik and company.
I charm most of the Undercity party with Algernon's Cloak and lure them away from Rahvin over the course of several rest periods, then use the Nymph Cloak to make sure all of them are simultaneously charmed so we can bring them into the final fight. I use the typical solo strategy of luring Sarevok to the southeast corner, downing a Potion of Invisibility, and then waiting for Semaj, Tazok, and Diarmid to join him before tackling Angelo. Quick saves let me pinpoint Angelo's location.
I charm Wudei with the Nymph Cloak just for the hell of it (we have plenty of charges in the cloak, so why not?) and bomb Sarevok from afar. Dumb strategy, but it works.
Anyway, we nail Sarevok with an Arrow of Dispelling. In this install, finally, I can dispel his haste effect. In my previous installs, that effect was undispellable and really troublesome.
Part 5: Siege of Dragonspear
A high STR score lets us intimidate Porios, clearing the first level, and a Protection from Undead scroll lets us clear out the rest of the dungeon, though we have to switch to scimitars and tank the mercenaries before Korlasz, since kiting isn't really an option in such a tight space.
Archers can use Arrows of Dispelling, so Korlasz is doomed.
In the first area, I don't bother with the menhirs; I don't know of any special loot and it takes a long time to complete it. I just grab the Identify mirror in the burned building and proceed to the undead dungeon, where I charm the dwarven clerics and feed them to the local enemies.
I use stealth to avoid the fight at the bridge and hide behind the tent. I side with the vampire and kill the vampire hunters, making sure to use a Greenstone Amulet charge to avoid a fatal Wand of Paralyzation hit from the mage. The Sunfire shield, along with the Sword of Troll Decapitation from the Bronze Sentry in the lich area, lets me tackle the trolls in the cave of the next area without having to resort to fire arrows (which would give the trolls +4 to hit and damage in melee).
We still have strong buffs active, so we proceed to Akanna without resting, chop her up, and shoot down Darskhelin once we lure him away from his allies.
It also has a non-magical hold ability, so you need to protect against that as well if you want to be safe (the Greenstone Amulet protects against all its abilities, though I tend to try and go the saving throw route).
Previous updates
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1055886/#Comment_1055886
With reputation down to 3 there seemed little option - it was time to reduce it further. The party therefore made their way to the Lake area and set a few gnolls on Drizzt. Once he was down to 15 HPs they activated the drow and helped him out by using sleep on his attackers - to make sure the gnolls didn't get the kill. Cuwaert acted as the main target and his rage nullified one charm attempt before he saved against a second. Another group of gnolls tried to interrupt, but were also put to sleep and shortly after that Drizzt ran out of HPs.
With reputation down to 2, they initially bypassed Brage on the way to the Lighthouse area. To keep the XP accumulation going they killed those things that crossed their path - with Frisky Bits as well as Waiver now knowing web, Sky did a fair amount of running round inside those as an easy way to make enemies vulnerable.
Back at Brage's area, Ba'ruk was silenced from out of sight range. Deprived of his dialogue he just stood there while being mowed down.
In Nashkel Star stole another invisibility potion from the manor house, while Falesia decided it was time to go green with her armor. At the Carnival the main target was Zordral. Frisky Bits and Falesia sneaked into the tent using sanctuary, but were unsuccessful with 3 attempts at silence. A general attack followed, which failed to kill him, so everyone retreated and Star popped back in under stealth to guide the 2 skeletons into the attack. That caused Zordral to waste his best spells and after he was dragged out of the tent he was quickly finished off.
After a couple more reputation quests to bring that to 7, a few donations increased that by a further 3 - though a misclick cost me 100 more than the total intended price of 450. I then decided it was about time to visit High Hedge where spirits faced off against the flesh golems. Even these low level spirits are quite capable of killing golems, but would need someone else to act as target to run the golems round while they're being replenished. Doing that takes a little while though, so the process was speeded up by attacks from those party members with magical weapons.
Back to the south the party confronted Bassilus. They didn't want to silence him ahead of time (preferring for him to kill his undead companions), but his opening spell was interrupted by a chromatic orb and he was then immediately silenced. He killed the first of two skeletons, but was then also blinded and shot down.
Neira was another to be silenced before the party headed into the Cloudpeaks. Their first victim there was Greywolf - he lost most of his HPs after being commanded.
Arriving at the Gnoll Stronghold Cuwaert took the bracers of dexterity - taking him from AC1 to AC-4.
Sky, shaman L5, 40 HPs, 93 kills
Cuwaert, barbarian, L5, 43 HPs, 28 kills, 0 deaths
Star, swashbuckler, L6, 41 HPs, 95 kills, 0 deaths
Frisky Bits, cleric/illusionist, L4/4, 27 HPs, 52 kills, 1 death
Waiver, avenger, L6, 35 HPs, 68 kills, 0 deaths
Falesia, priest of Lathander, L5, 34 HPs, 69 kills, 0 deaths
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056015/#Comment_1056015
After an embarrassing attempt where I kill myself with my own traps, I start over. The setup is pretty much the same as last time. Cuwaert will still only be proficient in darts and weapon styles, but he will be wielding whatever weapon best suits the situation.
I pester Firebead until he graciously gives me 300 gold. Afterwards, Cuwaert, Waiver, and I head upstairs, picking the locks and looting the place, using a new technique to knock out the nobleman to steal from his cupboard.
I feel a bit lucky, as if Star (Charname) had been targeted, no doubt the run would be over. Star also hits level 3, and forgetting about the manual of dexterity, I raise Set Traps to 100. We take all the ankheg shells back to Beregost to sell at the Thunderhammer Smithy, bring our gold total to just under 8,000. I donate at the Temple to raise rep slightly. (I raise it back to 8 any time it drops, as 6->7->8 is only 300g->150g, and killing an innocent at 8 is only a 2 point drop)
Star, swashbuckler L4, 26HPs, 12 kills
Cuwaert, barbarian L3, 32HPs, 9 kills, 3 deaths
Falesia, PoL, L4, 29HPs, 10 kills, 0 deaths
Waiver, avenger, L3, 22HPs, 10 kills, 1 deaths
Frisky Bits, C/I, L3/2, 18HPs, 10 kills, 1 deaths
Sky, shaman, L3, 21HPs, 8 kills, 0 deaths
Grame (male elf priest of Helm, Grond0); Wedimus (male human cavalier, Gate70)
Previous updates
With a few points of reputation still needed, the session started by going to find Greywolf. I expected spells to help take him down, but he resisted everything Grame could throw at him and he eventually had to resort to cutting him down with a Seeking Sword after Wedimus was forced to retreat despite having taken several potions.
After a couple of easy tasks reputation hit the limit and a bit of shopping followed. That included a green PfP scroll, which was soon being put to use in the basilisk area. Wedimus used his immunity to fear to attack Mutamin even before finishing off the final basilisk.
Some more quick XP was on offer at the Lighthouse, where skeletons helped out against the sirines.
I thought that the Doomsayer should be possible with the help of skeletons and a bit of buffing, but we failed to get many high attack rolls there and it was still in good health after the skeletons were dead and Wedimus running. Rather than give up though, Grame circled round leading the Doomsayer into sight of Brage. He went berserk and attacked and a couple of hits took the Doomsayer to near death - at which point Grame dragged it away and used a couple of MM from his wand to finish it off.
We decided it was time to hit the Nashkel Mines and quickly made our way through to find Mulahey.
We didn't rest before going on to Nimbul, so there was no silence for him. However, a well-timed command set him up for a killing stroke from Wedimus to prevent Rasaad stealing the kill.
Grame, priest of Helm L6, 47 HPs, 62 kills
Wedimus, cavalier 6, 67 HPs, 118 kills, 0 deaths
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056015/#Comment_1056015
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056217/#Comment_1056217
We head south of Beregost. While scouting, we see a Flaming Fist group hassling travelers. We set up traps on the road and lure them in.
I set the traps, and we trigger Drizzt. After triggering the conversation, gnolls spawn elsewhere, and some of the trigger my traps. Cuwaert throws a dart at Drizzt to make him hostile, breaks vision, and re-set the traps.
Part 6: Siege of Dragonspear
We forge the Dragonscale Armor, giving us a nice boost to our AC, and proceed to the Voidstone quest thingy. We can't talk our way past the guard due to our poor CHA (or maybe I picked the wrong dialog option; I don't know), but unlike in our Shadowdancer run, we have the damage output to kill the guard before he turns the camp hostile, allowing us to tackle Bridgefort on our own terms.
Our excellent missile damage output lets us crush the first wave at the entrance to the camp. Up north, things look stickier, since the Flaming Fist folks aren't leading the charge (maybe I didn't give them enough time to advance on the enemy). I head up and use Arrows of Dispelling and Potions of Firebreath to get through the mages' defenses. I make a point of running around to drag the Potion of Firebreath projectiles over the enemies. 6d10 damage twice over 2 rounds is enough to roast SoD-grade critters.
I buff up Espellier thoroughly to deal with the Greater Otyugh in the cave in Dead Man's Pass, then stop by the Underground Tunnels to shoot down the cyclops. The run nearly comes to an end, though, when some spiders sneak up on us and throw a Web Tangle at Espellier. Fortunately, I saw the spell coming and equipped the Ring of Free Action before it struck.
Done! I make sure to take the Golden Pantaloons out of the Bag of Holding so they'll transfer to BG2. Now we've gotten the hardest part of the saga for an Archer out of the way. We'll have some building and resource gathering to do in BG2 before we get HLAs, and we'll have some tough fights in ToB until we get the Scorcher Ammunition (including that awful quadruple dragon ambush), but otherwise we should be able to stomp everything with little trouble. Shadows of Amn has always been the most familiar game to me.
But I'm going to have to stick to a solid plan and make sure we have rescue options on hand. Archers can sneak around stuff and stay pretty safe in BG1, when Arrows of Dispelling can wreck any mage, but mages are extremely dangerous in BG2, when weapon immunity spells will block Arrows of Dispelling, the Greenstone Amulet isn't available until Chapter 6, and an elven Archer, unlike any halfling, dwarf, or gnome, is gonna have pretty crummy saving throws. Any spell could end the game if we don't keep a close eye on our saving throws.
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056015/#Comment_1056015
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056217/#Comment_1056217
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1056244/#Comment_1056244
Here we go again. Briefly: Imoen, Xzar, Montaron, Antipode, diamond. High Hedge (avoiding Elminster). Beregost, Marl, Algernon's Cloak, Firebead, Stupifier, Neera, Mansion.
We head to the Temple to try a new strategy. I will charm a sirine, waste its spells, and then have Sky's spirits tank while we attack safely from afar.
Gery - half-elf archer (Grond0)
Yertone - human inquisitor (Corey_Russell)
Tabetha - gnome illusionist / thief (Gate70)
Previous updates:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1047141/#Comment_1047141
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1050824/#Comment_1050824
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1052228/#Comment_1052228
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/1053408/#Comment_1053408
The start of the session saw a clearance program in the Copper Coronet sewers. That was nearing completion when a crash required it to be done again - and it duly was. Yertone would have been happy to retreat after acquiring Lilarcor, but the others persuaded him to take the lead in assaulting the slavers - and that proved not too difficult.
After selling the loot Gaelan Bayle received his pay-off and there was a trip to the Docks to pick up the goodies from Aran Linvail. While there Officer Dirth performed his mission in lifedeath to upgrade the armor of some lucky recipient and Mae'Var offered a new series of tasks.
A quick trip to Watcher's Keep secured the potion bag. There were no vampiric wraiths on duty, so the top level was also looted, though the statues were all left untouched.
Then it was on to Trademeet, giving Suna Seni a warm welcome on the way.
- Yertone asks if Tabetha can cast PfPs and is told yes, after a rest.
- Following a rest Tabetha protects Yertone, but not Gery as she knows he can stealth into the tent to avoid any danger.
- Gery, however, believes he's protected and doesn't bother with stealth, laughing at the genie as it foolishly tries to petrify him.
- Tabetha gently points out that only those famous elven saving throws prevented Gery's smile from becoming a permanent feature ...
At the Grove the Troll Mound was easy enough with Yertone as usual doing the main tanking. He did struggle though when a troll outside the Mound got up close and personal by climbing on top of him. Gery and Tabetha couldn't target the troll, but the golem had no such problem and quickly knocked it unconscious before acting as an aiming point for Tabetha's scorcher to finish it off.
Back in Trademeet the tomb was emptied of undead, but Tiris will have to wait to get help until we've been to the Bridge District to solve the skinner quest.
Archer - L9, 104 HPs, 56 kills (+315 in BG1)
Inquisitor - L9, 128 HPs (incl. 5 from Helm), 49 kills (+191 in BG1), 0 deaths
Illusionist/thief - L9/9, 47 HPs, 15 kills (+66 in BG1), 1 death
Is that through breaking line of sight? I was hoping to force them into melee with spirits to preserve the arrows.
Chunked: Imoen
So Imoen and Corerage IV defeat the demon threatening the gnome village. Enrage and GWW was more than enough.
We handled the drow parties well.
We entered Beholder lair, mostly to get the greenstone amulet. We skipped the Illithid lair. We also cleared the Kua-Toa lair, including demon knights - the two-hand sword we picked up will get a lot of use.
We talked to Adalon, mostly so we could buy a few things from the Drow merchants. We then talked to the drow to get the quest for Phaere (without doing it), so we can get the +4 halberd. Problem? I couldn't find it in the loot! Finally I carefully read the +4 description - it petrifies ogres! Doh! Oh well.
So instead we go to Adalon, give 100% protection from cold to Corerage IV and Imoen and Corerage IV being the battle. Problem? Imoen gets chunked! Sorry Imoen...Corerage IV does avenge Imoen and kills Adalon.
Then Corerage IV gets out of Underdark pronto. He then reports to Elhan and bid Drizzt adieu. Corerage IV gets the flesh armor quest. He then deals with Bodhi once and for all. Bodhi took a couple of GWWs before she gave up, although she took lethal damage ages ago.
Time for some dragon hunting...Thaxxy was first target. While Corerage IV did have some summon help they weren't too useful, but GWW of his sling was enough to finish off Thaxxy.
Firkraag was next. Garren's daughter was has been captured all this time...oops...but Corerage IV presses in. Since he is using 2-hand weapons all the way (or his sling), he passed on Samia's quest. Conster wasn't too hard, as the book of inifinite spells is set to true seeing, which was very effective against Conster.
Time for Firkraag - 100% fire resistance, enrage, hardiness, Ilbratha, with a few summon distractions. Firkraag unwisely attacked the summons instead of prioritizing defense - this meant two GWWs was enough to finish him off.
Time to get our last items forged by Cromwell, bought our last items from Waukeen's Promenade, and reported to Elhan - will clear Suldanesslessar next session.
Part 1: Baldur's Gate
I know I'm throwing out a lot of different runs at once, but I have a new run to share. @kjeron recently discovered that the fatigue timer resets whenever you load the game, which means you can travel for days at a time without getting fatigued, as long as you save and load the game before you suffer a penalty. Now, the Reform Party trick already lets you instantly cure party members of fatigue, but it's not something you could do for Charname. Now, though, I have a way of preventing even my main character from getting fatigued.
This means that I can finally try a restless run without having to deal with Charname complaining about being tired the whole adventure!
I create a party designed to operate without resting: a bard, a Skald, a Dwarven Defender, an Archer, a Wizard Slayer, and a Shadowdancer. I gave them sleep-themed names, too: NarcolepSkald, Drowsy Defender, Wizard Snoozer, InsomniArcher, and Sleepy Dancer. I do really well for a long time and even manage to kill Drizzt by kiting him!
But apparently that causes my Archer to fall, and rather than do everything all over to get a functioning Archer again, I decide to play with only one player-created character, and use regular NPCs to fill out the rest of the party. Our Charname this time is Bardy McBardface, the bard!
We successfully pickpocket Algernon, saving us some reputation loss, clear out Mutamin's Garden with Korax's help, kite Shoal, and sell off the Ring of Wizardry. Unfortunately, with no access to stealth, I have immense trouble getting to Thalantyr, because I have no way of avoiding the random spawns outside (I don't know what routes are truly safe). I find myself kiting multiple enemies at once and even resorting to using the Wand of Missiles when Bardy McBardface's THAC0 proves insufficient.
We go back, but the enemies are still there. I have to recruit Kivan just to get my foot in the door; I can't clear out these enemies on my own.
Anyway, I recruit Kagain, who is going to be our primary tank for all of BG1. Personally, I've never been impressed with Kagain's 20 Constitution, since his regeneration is extremely slow and it's nothing you can't get just by resting. But in a restless run, his regeneration is a huge game-changer. We can heal him for free just by traveling from one area to the next! In a run with no healing spells, free healing will save us a lot of money. It doesn't hurt that Kagain is a decent fighter in his own right.
Khalid and Jaheira are also important party members, so we have to take down Tarnesh to reach them. I recruit Xzar and Montaron to kill Tarnesh, and Monty easily slays both Tarnesh and Xzar (Xzar would be dead weight in a restless run).
Since Jaheira isn't quite as useful as Khalid and we have other options on the table, I leave Jaheira at the inn and also ditch Monty, since we don't really need a thief just yet. I take Khalid and Kagain ankheg hunting. We don't have the Wand of Sleep or anything like that; we can just rely on Kagain's regeneration to win these fights cost-free.
Here we are shortly into the game. Notice that Kagain is using Bruel's Retort as a melee weapon--I heard that was a very cheap way to get a +1 weapon in BG1.
We slay Caldo and Krumm for the reputation boost, give Drienne her dead cat back, and snatch the Gauntlets of Dexterity and CHA tome on the way to saving Dynaheir. I ditch Dynaheir in the Belching Dragon Tavern (single-classed mages are largely useless in this run) and head back to the Friendly Arm Inn to get Jaheira back.
Why Jaheira? Well, she's not exactly an optimal character compared to Shar-teel, but she does have the ability to use Wands of the Heavens and Wands of Fear, which could be very nice later on. And since Dorn is dead, we kinda need someone to fill the gap.
Now that our reputation and CHA are both at 20, we buy a suit of full plate for Kagain and pass the ankheg plate on to Jaheira. Our next character is Coran, but we need to kill a wyvern to keep him in the party, so we have to explore the Cloakwood a little before we recruit him (you can access every area but the mines at the start of the game in my install).
We get into trouble in the spider area, though, when I miscalculate the range of a Web trap and end up getting several people snared. Jaheira dies to poison damage, but Bardy McBardface is fortunately at the back of the line, safely behind Minsc, giving us some time before we get eaten.
It's time to tackle the Nashkel mines.
A very sensible advice.
I shall do that and inform the thread that some real estate is available for the hall of fame.
Thank you.
Thank you for the many excellent contributions over the past four years.
As suggested by @semiticgod @JuliusBorisov and others I have "vacated" my first two follow-up posts on page 1 (right after the original post). I thereby invite the thread leaders and moderators to edit them as they see fit for maintaining the Hall of Fame. (The original post had run out of space.)
Thank you for being such an amazing and dedicated community.
I can't wait to add my own name one day when I successfully finish a BG trilogy no-reload run of my own...
One day...
*sigh*
I'm pretty sure I did that on the previous run, but there may have been some user error. I did a few tests of new runs and didn't have any issues, but when I finally created the full party again, I had something similar happen. As you can see in the screenshots, the sirine has cast her greater invisibility on Star, and the rest of her spells have been used, greying out the spell button. After I initiate combat, she still goes invisible. She doesn't charm everyone this time, and I kill her easily when she comes back, but she shouldn't have had her invisibility.
[/spoiler
There's not really a consistent way to know if emptying a critter's spellbook will truly prevent it from casting spells or not. SCS spellcasters, at least the mages and clerics and druids if not the monsters and supernatural critters, should be limited by the contents of their spellbook, but other critters might or might not. Only experimentation or studying their scripts could make it clear.
At any rate, you're doing it right; it's just that that method doesn't work with those particular critters in your install.
@jessejmc if you want to save the arrows (and I like to do that) then it's safest if you wear the sirine down a bit before attacking it (do that by getting it targeted by an enemy like a wild dog and constantly moving it to prevent it going invisible). Once it's low on HPs you can easily kill it before it goes hostile. With a stronger melee party that sort of preparation wouldn't be necessary - you could just surround it and hack it down even if it managed to charm or feeblemind someone first.
Incidentally, you're right about the impact of line of sight. When playing solo I sometimes take advantage of the fact that the SCS sirines (unlike their vanilla colleagues) break off their dire charm spell if you go out of their sight range.